Chapter Text
Tim is good at galas.
No, scratch that—Tim is great at galas. He’s been attending them ever since the age of three, when his parents first stuffed him into his little Gymboree tuxedo and gave him a stern lecture about ‘sitting quietly’ and ‘speaking when spoken to.’ He knows all the rules: what to wear, how to stand, when to smile, what to say, what not to say. He knows how to come across as polite and intelligent and charming, and on absolutely any other day, he would be rocking this.
“Timothy.”
He startles at the sound of his mother’s voice. She’s standing behind him, her dangly earrings brushing against his suit collar as she leans in close to hiss reprovingly in his ear. “Stop. Yawning.”
“Sorry,” Tim whispers, even as his body chooses that moment to betray him. He attempts to let the yawn out subtly by keeping his mouth closed and flaring his nostrils, but Janet still glares at him. “Sorry,” he says again, sheepish. “I’ll stop. I swear.”
“You’d better. You’re–”
Both she and Tim turn their heads and paste back on their best Gala Smiles™ to warmly greet the mayor’s wife as she approaches. There’s a brief conversation in which Tim gets his cheeks pinched and is told how big he’s getting (“Twelve years old already, Timothy? My goodness, how time flies!”). Then she and Janet chat about the upcoming town council meeting for a few minutes while Tim just stands there, a practiced smile serenely plastered on his face while he internally re-examines his life choices.
Okay, so in hindsight, he probably shouldn’t have gone out last night.
Really, if he’s being honest with himself, he shouldn’t be going out any night. Downtown Gotham is a sketchy place for an unaccompanied minor in even the broadest of daylight; it’s downright treacherous after dark. But Tim’s long-since accepted the risks of his nighttime escapades.
It’s worth it for a chance to see the Bats in action.
Sneaking out hadn’t been the problem. He perfected the art of silently unlocking his bedroom window and shimmying down the trellis years ago, and even when his parents are home, it’s not like they ever bother to check in on him during the night. There are a few security cameras scattered across the Drake property grounds, but they’re all easily avoided if you know where to walk, and Tim could do it in his sleep.
The bus driver didn’t so much as blink at Tim when he’d taken the 148 into the city, and he’d kept his head down as he walked the two blocks to a nearby apartment complex where he knew a specific dumpster was positioned near enough to the fire escape to allow him access to the roof. It had been a 7-E-Delta night—or at least that’s what Tim refers to it as. The Bats have twelve distinct patrolling routes, each of them with five alternating starting times and six different points of entry which they rotate through in a complicated pattern every few weeks to keep the Rogues on their toes. Tim wrote an algorithm to crack their system when he was ten, but he’s always been a bit obsessive like that whenever there’s a puzzle to solve.
(It’s the same reason his parents refuse to watch Criminal Minds episodes with him anymore.)
The evening hadn’t been particularly eventful. Tim kept to the shadows like always, moving silently from one fire escape to another and utilizing his camera’s high-resolution lenses to stay safely removed from the action. He’d snapped pictures of Batman and Robin perching on rooftops, swinging from grapple lines, and supporting an up-and-coming local business by purchasing several rather overpriced falafel wraps.
All of that had been totally fine.
The trouble had come at around one a.m, just as Tim was getting ready to pack up his camera and call it a night so that he could make the last bus back to Bristol. That’s when a few sketchy characters stumbling out of a nearby bar just so happened to commandeer the exact alleyway that Tim was perched above to have an all-out brawl, which quickly escalated from fists, to smashed liquor bottles, to switchblades.
Then, when some certain caped vigilantes swooped in to break it up, one of the drunks pulled a gun and things got really interesting.
The good news is that Tim both managed to avoid getting shot and to take some epically close-range photos of Batman and Robin kicking ass.
...Which was almost awesome enough to make up for the twelve mile hike back to Bristol after he missed his bus.
It was 5:45 in the morning by the time he finally hauled himself back up the trellis and in through the window—just in time to crash into bed before his alarm went off for school at 6:30.
(Oh well. You win some, you lose some.)
The moment the mayor’s wife bids her farewell and moves on to greet the next little cluster of attendees, Janet turns back to Tim.
“You are making a scene,” she continues in a low voice, as if they hadn’t been interrupted at all. “Elaina McBurry said she caught you nodding off during Mr. Wayne’s opening address. She even asked me if you were ill.”
Janet sounds so appalled by the idea that she might bring her son out in public while at anything less than his best that Tim nearly snorts aloud at the irony. Just last month he’d emailed his parents during their dig in Tibet to request they call him out of school for a fever and sore throat, and they’d advised him to ‘try and push through.’
(It was strep. He found out two days later when Mrs. Mac had to come pick him up from the nurse’s office after he’d fainted during a biology lab.)
“I’m just tired,” Tim says truthfully. It’s going on hour five of the annual Martha Wayne Foundation Charity Ball and it’s taking every ounce of self-control for him to keep his eyelids open.
It wouldn’t be so bad if only Tim had been able to snag his usual after-school power nap, but his parents have an early flight to Honduras tomorrow morning, so they needed his help prepping the equipment and hauling out suitcases. Before Tim knew it, it was time to start getting dressed for the gala.
But it’s fine. Really. He can do this. Sure, he also hadn’t really slept much two nights ago (insomnia), and had gotten to bed kind of late three nights ago (history paper deadline), but he’s fine. He’ll be fine.
“How much longer do you think it’ll be?” he asks quietly.
“Well that entirely depends on when your father is able to close his deal with the Drummonds,” his mother replies, glancing over to where Jack is chatting amicably with a small group of businessmen across the ballroom. Her irritation seems to shift along with her gaze, from her son to her husband. “I told him to just make his offer hours ago, but he insists he’s ‘playing the long game’ over there. Last time I checked in, they were scheduling a golf outing...”
So, another hour at least. Great. Not like it’s approaching midnight and Tim’s running on less than an hour of sleep or anything.
“For goodness sake, Timothy!” Janet says when he attempts another one-nostril yawn. His mother’s eyes dart around the room. “People are starting to stare.”
Tim barely suppresses the urge to roll his eyes. No one—honestly no one —is looking at them right now, but he knows from experience that pointing out that fact will only make his mother more annoyed with him.
(It’s kind of funny, really. Under any other circumstance, Tim would kill for this much attention from his parents.)
“Go to the restroom and splash some water on your face,” she orders, giving him a little nudge toward the door. “Then ask the waitstaff for something with caffeine. I don’t want to see you back in public until you can control yourself.”
“Yes, ma’am.” Tim nods immediately, but Janet’s already turned away and plastered back on her Gala Smile™ to greet a woman wearing more pearls than an oyster bed.
The sounds of the party grow muffled in the background as Tim slips out of the ballroom and into the hall. He has no actual intention of splashing water on his face—it’ll ruin the concealer he’s wearing to hide the frankly horrendous dark circles under his eyes—but he’s not about to turn down his mother’s explicit permission to take a break.
There are two guest powder rooms just off the reception hall. Tim tries the doors, but finds both of them locked. Sighing, he leans his back up against the wall, arms crossed over his chest, and waits.
A few seconds later, his head drops to his chest and he jerks it back up with an involuntary snort.
God. He’s so tired he could cry.
He won’t, that’s stupid. He’s not a toddler. Not that his parents would have ever let him cry at a formal event as a toddler either—he’d have been shipped back to the nanny so fast he’d have whiplash.
Huh. He wonders how Ms. Sophie is doing these days. She was always his favorite of the rotating cast of childcare workers his parents hired over the years, so it had been a real shame when she’d gotten engaged and moved to Montana. If he closes his eyes, he can still smell that lily of the valley perfume she always wore...
Tim feels his head drop and jerks it up again, blinking. Focus, Tim. He taps his cheeks a few times, trying fruitlessly to wake himself up.
Maybe he should just walk home? It’s only about a mile from Wayne Manor to the Drake Estate—child’s play compared to his trek back from the city last night. He can shoot his parents a text once he’s on his way home so they know not to look for him. They’ll no doubt be pissed at him for abandoning the party, but hey, they’re pissed at him anyway and at least this way he’ll get some sleep out of it.
Leaving through the main entrance is out of the question; there are far too many guests milling about there and he’ll certainly be noticed. But Tim’s spent... well, kind of an embarrassing amount of time staring at (and daydreaming about, and discreetly photographing the exterior of) Wayne Manor over the years, so he knows that there’s a sunny library toward the southeast corner of the building with massive windows and sliding glass doors that lead right out to the grounds.
If Tim can just get there, he’s golden.
His mind made up, Tim takes a breath and pushes himself away from the wall, moving quietly but determinedly down the corridor. He passes by an elegant parlor with ten or so guests sitting around chatting, and then an industrial-sized kitchen buzzing with catering staff, but no one pays the twelve-year-old any mind. He slips past them easily, but halts when he turns a corner to find a velvet rope blocking off the next hall.
End of the public wing, his groggy brain supplies. And if Tim were any more awake at the moment, he might have thought twice about ducking under the rope and continuing on into the private wing of Bruce Wayne’s mansion. But as it is, there’s only one thought on Timothy Drake’s mind, and that is that if he succeeds in this mission, it ends with him crashing into his glorious, wonderful, soft, inviting bed and that alone is enough to spur him onward.
He walks by another sitting room—much cozier looking than the public one—then past a few impressive suits of armor, and then suddenly, he sees it: a spacious, bookcase-lined room with floor to ceiling windows and a sliding glass door that will be Tim’s ticket home.
A tired grin spreads across his face as he steps inside.
...Right before he sees the night sky light up with a flash of lightning, followed a split-second later by the crack of thunder.
Shit.
It’s pouring rain outside.
Tim’s parents might be willing to overlook him dipping out of the gala early, but there is no way in hell they’re going to overlook him ruining an eight hundred dollar tuxedo and brand new Oxforda after he jogs a mile across the muddy grounds.
“Noooo...” Tim lets out a groan, balling his hands up and pressing them against his eyes in frustration. That’s it. He’s going to be stuck here until his dad closes that stupid deal. He really could cry.
The combination of Tim’s exhaustion and his current theatrics are starting to make his head rush, so he sinks down, for just a moment, into a nearby armchair. It’s plush and overstuffed and envelops him instantly. Why don’t they have chairs like this at his house? Most of the furniture at the Drakes’ home is stiff and uncomfortable, better suited for show than actual use.
But this chair? This chair is heavenly.
He’ll just stay for a minute or two, rest his eyes and catch his breath before making his way back to the ballroom. Maybe if he asks really nicely, one of the waiters will give him an espresso. Though, ugh, he’s so overtired that just the thought of drinking something that bitter right now makes him want to puke.
It’s fine though. Tim will be fine. Just after he rests for a minute...
“Whoa! Who the fuck are you?”
Tim wakes with a start, his eyes snapping open at the exclamation to reveal sunlight streaming in through the massive windows of the Wayne family library. In front of him stands a teenage boy dressed in an oversized red hoodie and Wonder Woman pajama pants. He looks at least as surprised to see Tim as Tim is to see him.
Holy shit, that’s Jason Todd, Tim’s mind supplies. That’s Robin.
“Uhh...” Tim’s brain is short-circuiting. He twists around in his seat and scrubs quickly at the little puddle of drool he’d left on the armchair. God, this is embarrassing.
“Hey B?” Jason calls over his shoulder, eyes still locked on Tim. “Is there something you wanna tell me?”
“Like what, Jaybird?” And just like that, Bruce Wayne, wearing a plaid robe and honest-to-god fuzzy slippers, appears in the doorway. There’s a rolled-up newspaper tucked under his arm and a steaming mug in his hand with the words ‘World’s Best Cat-sitter’ scrawled across the front. He blinks at Tim.
Tim blinks back.
“I see.” Bruce clears his throat, then turns his head over his shoulder. “Hey Alfred?” he calls calmly down the hall. “Were you aware we’d acquired another child?”
“No, Master Bruce, but I shall set out another plate post-haste,” a prim British voice replies from what sounds like a room or two away.
“Thank you, Alfred.”
“My pleasure, sir.”
Finally, Tim finds his tongue. “Oh my goodness, I’m so sorry, Mr. Wayne,” he blurts out, scrambling up from the armchair to his feet. “I was here for the gala and I just– I– I got a bit lost looking for the bathroom and I wandered in here! I only meant to sit down for a minute but I must’ve fallen asleep! I’m so sorry, I’ll leave right now!”
“Hey, hey calm down, dude,” Jason says with a little laugh, holding his hands up in front of his chest in a non-threatening gesture. “You’re fine, no one’s mad at you. You just surprised me, that’s all. I came in here to grab my book, and lo and behold, I find out B went ahead and replaced me with the newer model while I was sleeping.”
“Jason,” Bruce chides, giving him a stern look. “Don’t even joke about that.”
Jason snorts. “What? He’s got black hair and blue eyes and– ow!” he yelps when Bruce reaches over and flicks him right in the center of his forehead. He rubs the spot with a scowl. “Rude,” he mutters, which only makes Bruce smirk.
Turning back to Tim, Bruce switches the mug to his left hand so that he can extend his right. “I don’t believe we had the pleasure of meeting last night. Bruce Wayne,” he offers, as if it were even possible for Tim not to know that.
“Timothy Drake,” Tim replies in a daze, shaking the hand on reflex more than anything. It’s somehow both warmer and rougher than he’d expected. “Uh, but I just go by Tim. I live next door,” he adds hastily.
“Wait, the Drakes?” Jason interrupts, brow furrowed. “Didn’t your parents leave super late last night? With that Drummond guy?”
“And how would you know that, Jay?” Bruce asks, looking at his son in amusement. “You told me you had a stomachache and went up to bed as soon as dinner was over.”
Jason snorts humorously. “I just didn’t want to hear any more of your boring speeches, old man. I keep telling you, you need better material.” He jerks a thumb sideways at Tim. “Even Timmy here was nodding off during your welcome address.”
“No I wasn’t!” Tim feels his cheeks flush. If his mother had been ready to rip him a new one over nosy old Mrs. McBurry catching him, he doesn’t even want to imagine what she’d say now. “I thought your speech was really interesting, Mr. Wayne,” he says quickly. “Especially the parts about, uh, charity, and giving back to the community, and uh...”
Bruce chuckles, making a placating gesture with his free hand. “It’s alright, Tim. I’ll admit, it wasn’t my best.”
“You should let me and Dick write the next one for you,” Jason offers. “I’m sure we can spice things up.”
“Thanks, but I’d kind of like to keep my position on the board of directors,” Bruce says in a deadpan.
Jason clutches his chest, letting out a little gasp of mock offense. “You wound me, B.”
Bruce takes a sip of his coffee, his expression impassive. “You’ll get over it.”
“Um–” Tim side-steps awkwardly around the coffee table. “I think I’d best be getting home now. I’m so sorry again for the trouble.”
Jason’s eyes widen. “Oh shoot, that’s right. Your parents are probably worried sick.” He pulls his phone out of his hoodie pocket. “Here, you can call them if you want.”
At the mention of his parents, cold dread pools in Tim’s stomach. Worried sick he highly doubts, but livid? Now, livid is a definite possibility.
“Oh, no thank you, I have my own,” Tim declines, reaching into his jacket’s interior pocket. His phone has been on silent all night, so he mentally braces himself as he pulls it out for the barrage of furious missed texts and calls he’s sure to have from–
Oh.
Apart from a couple of mobile game notifications and the clock displaying ‘10:37 a.m,’ Tim’s lock screen is completely empty.
So. They didn’t even notice they’d left without him.
Which... Which is fine! Tim is fine. Sure, his parents might’ve sorta, kinda, accidentally forgotten about him, but that’s just because they’re not used to dragging a kid around all the time. It’s an easy mistake to make! And it’s not like it’s a long walk back home or anything. Heck, it’s actually better for Tim this way because it means his parents are probably still sleeping off last night’s indulgences, so if he’s lucky, he might even be able to scale back up the trellis and in through his window before they wake up to realize–
Bruce clears his throat. “Uh, forgive me if I’m mistaken, Tim,” he begins carefully, “but I spoke with your father last night at the gala, and I believe he mentioned something about an early morning flight to Honduras...?”
Tim freezes, his thumb still hovering over the phone screen.
He blinks. No. There’s no way they–
It’s one thing to have forgot they brought him to a party, but there’s no way they would have up and left for Honduras without even–
“Uh... Tim?” Jason says slowly. “Are you supposed to be on a plane right now?”
That’s enough to snap Tim out of it. “What? Oh, no, I’m not,” he says quickly, shaking his head to clear it. “It’s just a business trip. The plan was always for me to stay home. It’s just that I thought...”
He trails off, watching Bruce and Jason’s concerned faces.
Focus, Tim.
He shakes his head again, forcing out a small laugh. “I think there was just a minor miscommunication about how I was getting home last night, that’s all,” he finishes, flashing his best Gala Smile™ for good measure.
Jason’s frown only grows deeper, but Bruce returns the smile—warm and relaxed, if a little shallow. It’s the same smile Tim’s seen him give during press interviews.
“Of course. I didn’t mean to imply anything to the contrary,” he says easily. “Can I ask who’s looking after you while they’re away?”
“Our housekeeper, Mrs. McIlvaine,” Tim answers smoothly. This part at least, he’s had plenty of practice explaining over the years. “She’ll be over later this afternoon.”
(What Tim doesn’t mention is that Mrs. Mac is just dropping off groceries and tidying up a bit before heading back home, and that he won’t see her again until Tuesday. But what the Waynes don’t know can’t hurt them.)
Bruce hums thoughtfully. “Well in that case, we’d be happy to have you join us for breakfast while you wait for her,” he invites. “I believe Alfred has been preparing quite the spread.”
“Indeed, sir.” As if on cue, an older gentleman in a suit and waistcoat appears in the doorway, causing Tim to startle for the second time that morning. “Our menu this morning consists of spinach and feta quiche, sliced fruit, and fresh-baked cinnamon rolls.” He bows slightly to Tim. “Alfred Pennyworth, at your service. We’d be delighted to have you, Master Drake.”
“That’s really kind of you, but I would hate to impose...” Tim’s face heats up as he realizes he’s definitely already done that with his impromptu sleepover. “Or, impose any more, I mean,” he amends guiltily.
That earns him a snort of laughter from Jason. “You’re not imposing. At least not any more than Dick does when he swings by every other weekend to guzzle orange juice straight from the carton and fuck up my GTA save files on the PS4 while he does his laundry.”
“Language, Jay,” Bruce grunts while Alfred gives the boy a stern look. The latter seems to be a far more effective form of chastisement, as it causes Jason to shrink back.
“Sorry. But really, you should stay,” he continues to Tim. “Alfie’s cinnamon rolls are like crack, and when we’re finished you can help me ruin some of Dick’s save files.”
Tim hesitates. Breakfast does sound nice—much nicer than whatever box of stale cereal he’s likely to find in the pantry at home. And, if he’s in this deep already, it might be more polite to accept at this point than to refuse...
In the end, it’s his stomach that decides for him, letting out a truly obnoxious-sounding growl.
“I guess the matter is settled then,” Bruce chuckles, leading a very red-faced Tim into the dining room.
The food is every bit as delicious as promised. Tim declines Jason’s offer to borrow some comfier clothes (“You actually slept wearing that? Longest I’ve lasted in a tux was like, four hours, and I was ready to murder someone by the end”/ “Language, Jay...”/ “What? I was!”), but he does remove his jacket and tie, which helps him feel a bit less overdressed for the occasion.
Then again, he fits in just fine with Alfred.
“So how old are you now, Tim?” Bruce asks as Alfred serves up the quiche. “You go to Gotham Academy, correct?”
“Yeah, I’ve been there since kindergarten,” Tim replies, nodding his thanks to the butler as he deposits a piece of quiche onto Tim’s plate. “And I’m twelve years old.”
“So, you’re in, what, sixth grade? Seventh?” Jason pipes up over a mouthful of cinnamon roll.
Tim glances down at his plate, feeling his cheeks burn. He hates explaining this, no matter how much his parents try to convince him it will give him an edge one day on his college applications and future job prospects. “Ninth, actually,” he corrects. “I, um, tested out of second and fifth.”
Jason gives a low whistle. “Damn...” he mutters, earning a warning look from Alfred.
“That’s very impressive,” Bruce says, looking thoughtful. “I wasn’t aware that Gotham Academy allowed students to skip grades.”
They don’t, normally. In fact, all of the counselors had advised against it—something about potential long term negative impacts on peer social relations, or whatever. But when your parents have a hand in the pocket of half the members of the school board, it seems anything is possible.
“They... made a bit of an exception,” Tim evades. “Plus, I’m actually almost thirteen.”
(Well, in four months, that is.)
“That’s cool,” Jason says, stabbing a grape on the end of his fork tine. “I’ll be sixteen this summer.” He grins and glances over at Bruce. “You’re gonna let me drive the Jag when I get my license, right B?”
“You’ll drive whatever has the highest safety rating,” Bruce answers automatically. “Which I’ve actually been researching extensively, and have determined...”
Jason rolls his eyes and mouths a very exasperated here we go again at Tim and Alfred as Bruce launches into a long-winded explanation of the various high end mid-size sedans on the market and their respective safety ratings. At some point, Jason starts flapping his lips and opening and closing his hand in a puppet motion whenever Bruce is looking away, and Tim has to keep taking bites of his quiche to hide his grin.
(Bruce keeps such a straight face that Tim might think he was unaware of his son’s mocking, if not for the fond little twinkle in the corner of his eye.)
“So what kind of stuff do you like to do?” Jason asks him once Bruce has finished his little spiel about the cars.
You mean besides stalking you guys most nights? Tim’s mind supplies helpfully.
“I like photography,” is what he actually says. “Urban shots, mostly. And I skateboard sometimes.” He pauses, then adds, “And I’m kind of into coding.”
“Coding, huh?” Bruce looks genuinely interested. “What type of coding?”
“Well,” Tim begins, trying to ignore the fluttering sensation in his stomach because holy shit Batman is asking him about his hobbies. “I started out teaching myself Java and Python, but then I kinda just... branched out? I like to design my own apps and stuff. It’s all pretty intuitive.”
Jason snorts, breathing out a quiet, “sure it is” and Tim instantly kicks himself. He’s really got to work on not sounding like a stuck-up little prick. Most of his classmates have already labeled him one, on account of him being a full head shorter than them while also taking Honors Bio.
“That’s cool though,” Jason throws in when Tim goes quiet. “I’m not that great at computer stuff. I’ve always liked the humanities better. But Bruce and Dick are always trying to get me into it, so I know the basics. It’s awesome that you like it, though.”
Something in Tim’s gut untwists at Jason’s casual remark. Maybe he hasn’t totally fucked this up yet.
From there, the conversation shifts to Jason describing the D&D campaign he’s running with the school’s drama club during their off-season. Tim’s never played before—as that’s the kind of activity that would require having multiple friends at once—but it honestly sounds fascinating. He’s so invested in the explanation that he almost doesn’t notice when his phone starts to buzz.
Mom, the caller ID reads. Tim gulps.
“Excuse me just a moment please, I really need to take this,” Tim apologizes, getting to his feet. “It’s my parents.”
“Absolutely, go right ahead,” Bruce agrees with a nod, and Tim slips back into the hall they entered through.
Once out of the room, he takes a deep breath, then accepts the call. “Hi Mom.”
“Timothy!” Janet exclaims, sounding about as flustered as he’s ever heard her. “Oh my goodness, we just landed at San Pedro. Please tell me you made it home.”
Tim winces. “I’m... actually still at the Waynes?”
“You’re what?” Her pitch goes up at least an octave.
“They invited me to stay for breakfast,” Tim explains quickly. “They were really insistent. I didn’t want to be rude.”
“Well you’d better not be being rude! Your father and I have been trying to get a partnership with Wayne Enterprises ever since they first branched out into textiles back in ‘09. I swear to all things holy, Timothy, you’d better not mess this up for us...”
Tim rolls his eyes. After all, he’s not the one who forgot his twelve-year-son at the neighbor’s gala and jetted off to Central America before even realizing his mistake, but sure, he’ll try to keep it together.
“I won’t, Mom,” he promises. “I’ve been on my best behavior, just like you taught me.”
That seems to mollify her. She sighs, but it sounds more tired than exasperated this time. “Well, please see that you continue to do so.” There’s a pause, then, in a gentler tone she adds, “We really are glad to hear you’re alright, Tim. We realized just after take-off, and spent the entire flight fretting.”
(That admission shouldn’t make Tim feel as warm as it does.)
“I’m perfectly fine,” he assures her. “The Waynes have been really nice to me.”
“I’m happy to hear that,” Janet says, and she sounds as though she truly means it. “Please give Mr. Wayne our apologies for the inconvenience, as well as our sincerest thanks for his hospitality.”
“I will.”
“Alright. Well your father has just gotten the last of our luggage from the carousel, so we’ll be on our way to the hotel now,” she says. “Be sure to remember your manners. We’ll chat soon, alright? Bye for now.”
“Bye Mom, love y–”
The line cuts out.
Tim closes his eyes and allows himself two full breaths. Then he plasters on a smile and heads back into the dining room.
Chapter 2: By Convenience
Summary:
Tim gets hurt at school. You'll never guess who comes to his aid :D
Notes:
(See the end of the chapter for notes.)
Chapter Text
Every school has that one asshole who takes gym class too seriously, and at Gotham Academy, he goes by the name of Derrick Goldstein.
Derrick Goldstein is fueled on a diet of protein powder, blue Powerade, and school cafeteria burritos. He’s captain of the football team, the lacrosse team, the swim team, and the lesser-known table tennis club. He’s seventeen years old, six-foot-one, 225 pounds, and the owner of a thriving TikTok account where he routinely challenges buff-looking dudes on the street to absurd physical competitions in exchange for Olive Garden gift cards (which Tim’s pretty sure he’s been swiping from his dad, the local branch’s general manager).
He’s also the reason Tim’s currently flat on his back on the gymnasium floor, blinking back stars and cursing the day he asked his counselor to sign him up for ‘Athletic P.E.’ rather than sticking with ‘Freshmen Boys’ as his vision blurs and ankle pulses in time with his heartbeat.
“My bad,” Derrick says, offering Tim a hand up. Or two. Or three. He’s having a hard time focusing his eyes at the moment, but he supposes that’s what you get when you’re body-checked halfway across the floor hockey court by the school’s resident tank.
It takes two tries for Tim to grasp Derrick’s hand, and then the older boy pulls him to his feet so quickly that the momentum nearly sends Tim toppling forward. His head rushes and white hot pain shoots through his right ankle when he puts his weight on it, a strangled little yelp slipping out before he can bite it back.
“You alright, Drake?” Coach Miller calls from the sidelines.
“Hnngh...” Tim groans, eyes shut tight against the sudden wave of dizziness and nausea. Derrick’s grip is about the only thing keeping him from crumpling to the ground.
He hears Miller mutter a curse, then, "Todd!"
Tim's eyes snap open again as the coach hollers across the field toward a group of boys on the opposite sidelines, motioning one of them closer. Jason, looking startled for only a moment, chucks his hoodie at someone and jogs over.
"What's up, Coach?" His eyes dart between the older man and Tim—who is breathing very, very carefully to keep from puking on Derrick Goldstein’s Nikes.
"Help Drake get to the nurse."
The coach doesn't wait for a response before he’s turning away again with a shout of "Hey don’t climb on that!" to some kids on the far court. He’s gone before Tim knows what hit him.
(No, that’s not true. Derrick Goldstein hit him.)
Jason hurries over and grabs Tim’s elbow to steady him. “Alright. I’ll take it from here, man,” he tells Derrick, who grunts gratefully before releasing Tim and heading back to the game.
The second the other boy is gone, Jason turns to Tim. “What’s up, Timmy? Almost didn’t recognize you without the penguin suit. Are you usually with the B group for Athletic?”
Tim nods dizzily. “Mm,” he hums in affirmation. “Kinda wish I still was.”
Jason huffs out a short laugh. “Yeah. Derrick has some self-control issues. And a general douchebag issue, but we try not to say it to his face."
Tim snorts at that, but it quickly turns into a hiss of pain when he tries to take a step forward.
“Wait, hang on.” Jason readjusts his grip, leaning forward slightly to sling Tim’s arm around his shoulders. “Don’t try to put weight on your foot,” he advises, straightening up again and wrapping his arm behind Tim’s waist for support. “Just lean on me, okay? I got you.”
Tim nods again, teeth gritted. That sounds like a much better idea; it’s taking most of his focus just to keep upright at the moment.
They make it three tiny hops forward before Tim overbalances, swaying into Jason’s side, which earns him a frown. “Are you dizzy?” Jason asks in concern. “You didn’t hit your head or anything, right?”
Oh yeah, Tim definitely hit his head. He’d smacked the back of his skull straight into the hardwood when he fell. No, scratch that, when he was launched off Derrick Goldstien’s stupid massive pecs. But with both his parents and Mrs. Mac out of town until Sunday, he really doesn’t want this situation to escalate any further.
“Nah, I’m fine,” he lies, even as black spots dance across his field of vision. “Ankle’s just kind of distracting me...”
“Oof, yeah, been there,” Jason says as they continue making their way off the field. "Hopefully it's not broken or anything. Might've just hyperextended it…"
And that's how their walk to the nurse goes: with Jason rambling on about the differences between a break, sprain, and fracture in a level of detail that can only be spoken of from experience.
(Which, Tim supposes, would make a lot of sense, given his... hobbies.)
The nurse winces in sympathy when they finally come limping into the office, Jason depositing Tim down onto a vinyl-covered cot. “Well this certainly doesn’t look good,” she remarks, already grabbing an ice pack from the freezer.
“Floor hockey day,” Jason says by way of explanation, and the nurse gives a little hum of understanding as she writes him a pass back to class. He takes it, accepting Tim’s mumble of thanks with a smile and a little salute that he tosses over his shoulder as he heads out again.
“Alright, sweetie.” The nurse pulls a chair up to the edge of the cot and takes a seat. “Let’s see what we have here.”
She checks over Tim’s foot carefully, prodding at parts of it and asking him questions about what happened and where it hurts and which ways he can and can’t bend it. Tim grits his teeth and cooperates as best he can, aside from omitting the minor detail about how his ankle is only causing half of his pain at the moment.
(Speaking of that, he’d never realized how bright the school’s fluorescent lighting was before, but wow is that definitely not helping with the building headache.)
When her little exam is complete, the nurse sits back with a sigh. “Well, I don’t see any obvious fractures, but it’s definitely starting to swell already, so you should really stay off of it for at least the rest of the day. Probably go see a doctor as well, just to make sure. I’m going to go ahead and wrap your ankle now, and then you can start icing it while I give your emergency contact a call, okay?”
Tim nods and murmurs his thanks. It’s a lost cause of course, with his parents in Greece and Mrs. Mac in Arizona for her son’s wedding, but the nurse certainly doesn’t need to know that.
And anyway, it’s fine. This isn’t the first time Tim’s found himself stranded somewhere without a ride home. He just needs to make it to the end of the school day when they legally can’t keep him any longer, and luckily, Tim’s got a whole contingency plan in place for this.
As it’s currently third period, that means all he has to do is:
1) Play dumb while the nurse separately attempts to get a hold of both of his parents—who, unbeknownst to her, are using their international SIM cards at the moment. This should buy Tim a class period or so while she waits for a call back.
2) Suggest the nurse try his third contact, Mrs. Mac, who just so happens to be one of the few individuals left on this planet who exclusively owns a landline phone.
3) Act surprised when Mrs. Mac doesn’t pick up (which she won’t, on account of her being in Arizona).
4) Claim that his dad just texted him. He’s in a meeting, he says, but should be here soon. This should bring Tim up to sixth period or so.
5) Blame traffic when no one has shown up by seventh.
6) During eighth, explain that, ha ha, just his luck, isn’t it, his dad got a flat tire on the way and is now waiting for roadside assistance.
7) Wait until a few seconds after the final bell to announce that Jack just pulled into the pick-up lane. As it’s now after hours, this should eliminate the need for an in-person sign-out.
8) Hobble himself far enough off of the school grounds that he can call a cab and Tim is home free.
Or, at least he will be home free, if he can manage to avoid any suspicions of a head injury. And it’s vital that he does so, because the liability issues wrapped up in that might just earn him an ambulance ride to Gotham General once the school admin realizes that no one is coming for him.
(And Tim would really like to avoid that.)
Steps 1-4 of Tim’s plan go off without a hitch. He stretches out on the cot and ices his ankle—twenty minutes on, twenty minutes off—with his eyes closed in an attempt to ease the pounding in his skull. He can’t bring himself to look at his phone screen for more than a few seconds at a time, so he entertains himself by idly piecing together whatever bits of conversations he overhears from passing students in the hall and imagining it’s all one coherent narrative. He thinks he dozes off a few times, but it’s hard to tell.
The trouble comes around the end of fifth period, when the nurse suddenly decides that poor little Timmy could do with some lunch, so she sends another student down to the cafeteria to bring him back a tray. Gotham Academy’s fish sticks are a bit nauseating on a good day, and this is definitely not a good day.
But Tim is determined, dammit, so he manages a few bites of the applesauce and corn that come with it, then waits until the nurse takes a bathroom break to chuck the rest of his food into the trash can.
(The bright side is that between the headache and building nausea, Tim’s barely noticing his ankle anymore.)
By the time Tim makes it to step six of his plan, the nurse is eyeing him suspiciously enough that for a brief moment he worries she’s going to ask to see the text messages. But it seems luck is on his side because just then a sophomore girl comes stumbling in, her nose gushing blood (another unfortunate victim of floor hockey day) and effectively diverts the nurse’s attention.
She’s still mopping blood off the girl’s shirt when the bell rings to signal the end of the school day, which is good for Tim because it means she barely notices when he starts gathering his stuff to leave. He’s sitting on the edge of the cot, taking a few breaths and working up the nerve to actually pull himself to his feet when a familiar voice from the hall interrupts his thoughts.
“Tim? You’re still here?”
Tim snaps his head up, which is a definite mistake as the sudden movement causes his vision to blur. He has to blink twice before he can make out Jason’s head poking into the office.
Jason frowns. “Dude, gym was third period. I figured you went home hours ago.”
“Ah, yeah... I was having a little trouble getting a ride,” Tim admits. From across the room, the nurse glances back at him, her brow furrowed like she’s about to say something, so he immediately implements step seven. “My dad just texted though. He’s waiting for me in the pick-up lane now.”
Jason’s expression instantly relaxes into a relieved smile, which makes Tim feel a twinge of guilt for the lie. “Oh, cool. I’ll help you outside then,” he offers, stepping into the nurse’s office.
“You don’t have to do that, I can manage myself,” Tim says quickly, already pushing himself up on his good foot. His head swims at the movement, but he thinks he does a decent job of not showing it.
Jason snorts. “I’m literally on my way out and you can barely put weight on that foot. You’d honestly rather hop yourself through the Friday after-school traffic than let me give you a hand?”
Okay, he does have a point there. The chance of Tim being able to make it out through his classmates’ mad rush to the doors in his current state without incident is slim to none, and if Tim waits here much longer, the nurse might just decide to walk him out herself.
“Well, I guess if it’s not too much trouble...”
“Definitely not,” Jason assures with a short laugh. He grabs Tim’s backpack—which the nurse asked the janitor to retrieve from the locker room earlier—and slings it on over his own before guiding Tim’s arm around his neck again. “Hobble at will.”
Thanks to the couple of minutes that have passed now since the final bell, the traffic in the halls has thinned out enough that they can make it outside without getting jostled, but all the noise of the exiting students’ chatter is still enough to ramp the pain level in Tim’s head up a few notches. He ends up closing his eyes through most of the journey, trusting Jason to keep him from crashing into anyone. If Jason notices, he doesn’t say anything about it.
“Alright, which one is your dad’s car?” Jason asks once they’re standing outside in the agonizingly bright sun.
“Oh, I think he’s toward the back of the line somewhere,” Tim says, gesturing vaguely at the queue of waiting cars. “But I’m good, I can take it from here. Thanks for the help.”
“What do you take me for, a half-assed escort?” Jason laughs. “Nah, we can just start walking down there and you let me know when you see him, okay?”
Tim groans internally. Damn Jason and his helpfulness. He’s going to have to come clean.
“Look, um, the thing is...” he begins, “he might not... actually be here?”
Jason stops walking, turning his head to look at Tim. “What do you mean?”
Tim winces. “He’s kind of... in Greece at the moment? Uh, with my mom. Until Sunday.”
Jason blinks at him. “Sooo… who’s picking you up then?”
“A cab?” Tim’s voice squeaks up in pitch on the last word and he mentally curses puberty for always cropping up at the worst times. He clears his throat, then adds quickly, “I just need to get off campus first. If I make it down to the corner of Fletcher and 32nd, that should be far enough.”
“Yeah, well that’s not happening.”
“What?” Tim’s confused. “No, that should be far enough. I’ve gotten a cab from there before.”
Jason rolls his eyes. “No, I meant you taking a cab home to an empty house when you’re injured,” he says slowly, emphasizing each point. “That’s what’s not happening.”
“What? No, I’ll be fine,” Tim tries to protest, but Jason has his phone out of his pocket and pressed against his ear already. He holds up one finger, looking startlingly like Tim’s mother for a second, and Tim finds himself shushing on reflex.
“Hey, Alfie,” Jason says into the phone. “Yeah, I’m outside already, I see you.” He waves at the line of cars. “Listen, you remember Tim, right? From that gala back in April? Yeah. Okay, so...”
A few minutes later, a sleek black town car pulls up to the front of the pick-up lane. Jason ushers Tim into the backseat, then dumps their backpacks in the trunk and climbs in the other side, phone in hand.
“Good afternoon, Master Tim,” Alfred greets, using the rearview mirror to make eye contact with him. “It’s lovely to see you again, though I wish it were under better circumstances.”
Tim feels his cheeks flush. “It’s good to see you again too, Mr. Pennyworth,” he says. “Thanks so much for the ride.”
Alfred smiles warmly. “My pleasure, dear boy.” He pulls the car back out of the pick-up lane. “And please, call me Alfred.”
“It’s not just a ride,” Jason says without looking up. He’s hunched over his phone, texting rapidly. “I already told Bruce what happened. He says you’re welcome to stay with us until your parents get back from their trip.”
Tim’s insides twist at the thought—or maybe it’s just the fact that they’re beginning to pick up speed now. “Oh, there’s no need for that, really, I’d hate to impose,” he protests weakly. “I’ll be just fine on my–”
“Hey Timmy?” Jason looks up for a brief second, thumbs still tapping the screen. “Just shut up and take the help, alright?”
“Master Jason,” Alfred says sharply, making Tim’s head ring.
Jason looks genuinely startled, then glances down sheepishly at his lap. “Sorry,” he mumbles.
“I believe what Master Jason intended to say,” Alfred goes on, “was that you are of no imposition at all. In fact to the contrary, it would ease our minds considerably to know you are being suitably looked after in your current state.”
Tim hums a bit. He might have attempted another protest, but the motion of the car really isn’t doing his stomach any favors, so it seems wiser to keep his mouth closed as much as possible. “Okay,” he mumbles. “Thank you, then.”
He can hear the smile in Alfred’s voice. “Of course, lad.”
“Dick’s staying over this weekend too,” Jason adds. “I don’t know if you’ve met him yet, but he’s 21 and he lives over in Bludhaven.” He grins. “He can be kind of a pain in the butt sometimes, but he’s our pain in the butt, you know?”
In the rearview mirror, Tim sees Alfred’s lips twitch, but it seems to be more in amusement than scolding this time.
Jason then launches into some kind of story about the last time Dick lived up to this reputation involving a piece of raw salmon and a microwave, but Tim isn’t really listening. The longer they drive, the more he’s struggling to keep down the few bites he’d managed of lunch, his head pounding incessantly. It’s taking all of his effort to keep his expression neutral as he nods along to Jason’s story.
By the time they turn onto the access road leading up to Wayne Manor, Tim honestly can’t remember the last time he felt this awful.
Jason’s phone dings and he glances down at it. “Dick says he can’t find any crutches.”
“That seems rather unlikely,” Alfred replies dryly, “given that we had no less than six pairs last time I took inventory downstairs.”
“That’s what I told him,” Jason says, tapping at the phone again, “but he says B must’ve reorganized down there because they’re all gone now.”
“And he’s tried the main supply closet?”
“Yup.”
“And the alternate supply closet?”
“Yup.”
“And the storage room, near the southwest entry?”
More tapping. Jason snorts. “He says he gave up already. He’s just gonna come out and piggyback Tim inside.”
If Tim had any brain cells to spare, he might have used them to dwell on the fact that Nightwing just suggested he simply piggyback Tim into Batman’s house. But as it is, he just keeps his head turned toward the window and eyes closed, breathing carefully through his mouth.
“We should first check if our guest is comfortable with that arrangement,” Alfred reminds gently. “And if not, I am quite certain I can locate a pair if he wishes to wait in the car for a few minutes.”
“I don’t mind,” Tim mumbles, still not opening his eyes. At this point, he really doesn’t care one iota how he gets out of this car, so long as he gets out as soon as possible.
There’s one more turn and then the car is rolling to a stop. Before Tim has the chance to prepare himself with a few measured breaths, his door is suddenly popping open.
“Hey there, I’m Dick. You must be Tim,” greets the cheery voice, and Tim wishes he could force his eyes open to properly take in the moment he first meets Nightwing, but that seems like a very bad idea right now. “Jason’s told me a lot about you.”
“Hmph,” Tim says intelligently, his lips pressed tightly together, fingers fumbling to unbuckle himself.
“Hey, you alright?” He can hear Dick’s smile fade from his voice. “You kinda look like you might–”
Vomit surges up Tim’s throat. He releases the seatbelt and leans out of the car just in time to puke on Dick Grayson’s shoes.
“Oh,” is all Dick says.
“Oh shit! Are you okay?” Jason exclaims, and he can hear both driver’s side doors popping open, followed by two sets of footsteps hurrying around the vehicle.
Tears are filling Tim’s eyes now. “‘M sorry, ‘m so sorry,” he all but sobs, and then he’s pressing his fist against his mouth to try to contain the next gag.
“It’s alright, lad, just let it out,” Alfred advises from somewhere in front of him now, so Tim does, this time hitting the driveway. Dick has moved back and to the side a few steps, out of the line of fire, but he’s still maintaining a supportive grip on Tim’s shoulder to keep him from tumbling forward.
Dick makes a sympathetic noise in his throat. “Did you get carsick?” he asks gently.
“No, I don’t– I–” Tim tries to shake his head, but it only amps up the pain until another choked sob slips out. “It's my head,” he admits in a whimper.
There’s a low, urgent-sounding conversation between Jason and Alfred in the background, from which all Tim can make out clearly is Jason’s hiss of, "I asked! He said he didn’t!" and then Alfred is suddenly next to him, his hand on Tim’s shoulder.
“Master Tim, this is very important. I need you to answer me honestly.” Alfred’s tone is calm, but firm, leaving no room for nonsense. “Did you hit your head when you fell today?”
There’s no hiding it at this point. “Yes,” Tim whispers tightly, and to his horror, a tear slips down his cheek.
Things are a bit of a blur after that. Tim is vaguely aware of more voices going back and forth, and then one set of footsteps is sprinting away and up to the house while someone else’s fingers run over Tim’s skull. He hisses involuntarily when they brush over the lump on the back of his head. Alfred mutters an apology, and Dick gives a few whispered reassurances, but the fingers continue to probe at him all the same.
Less than a minute later he hears the Manor’s front door opening, and then there are two sets of footsteps racing back towards him.
“Tim.” It’s Bruce’s voice now, low and serious, right in front of Tim’s face. “I need you to open your eyes, bud.”
Tim forces himself to obey and is rewarded by blinding pain when a penlight shines back into his eyes. He gasps sharply, and squeezes his eyes shut again.
“I know, I’m sorry, I just had to check.” Bruce is down on one knee right next to the puddle of vomit on the driveway, eye-level with Tim. “We think you might have a concussion. We’re going to take you to the ER.”
“B–Back in... the car?” Tim chokes out, lips trembling. More tears are sliding down his cheeks, partly from the pain, and partly from the idea of vomiting in Bruce Wayne’s car, which he’s about five hundred percent sure he will be doing if they transport him anywhere right now.
“Yes, but it’s not far, I promise,” Bruce says quietly. “We’ll be there in ten minutes.”
“But I might... in your car, I’m gonna–” Tim can’t quite make himself say it.
“I brought a bucket,” Jason pipes up. He climbs back in through the rear driver’s side door and scoots across the backseat until he’s next to Tim, a plastic bowl in his hands. “It’s all good, dude.”
“And even if you miss, it’s not a problem,” Bruce assures as he stands up and moves around to the driver’s seat. Dick, who is somehow already wearing new shoes, hops into the front passenger side. “Cars can be cleaned.”
“And this one in particular has been many a time,” Alfred says with a small, almost fond sigh as he rebuckles Tim.
Once everyone is loaded in, Alfred says something about holding down the fort and trying to get in contact with the Drakes. Then he wishes them all the best of luck and closes the door.
And they’re off.
Tim only throws up once during the ride to Gotham General—which he could’ve sworn was farther than ten minutes away, and yet somehow they make it there in a cool nine.
The good news is that he gets it all in the bucket.
The bad news is that his hands are shaking so badly that Jason has to hold the bucket for him, looking away and nearly gagging himself a time or two in sympathy.
(Yeah, that’s right. Robin had to hold Tim’s puke bucket. It’s safe to say this is the worst day of Tim’s life.)
By the time they arrive, Tim’s feeling too awful to give even a hint of protest when Bruce scoops him up and carries him inside.
The waiting room is not particularly crowded, but Tim’s still surprised when he’s taken back almost immediately. Whether it’s because his head injury is really that worrisome, or because there just so happens to be a wing of this particular hospital with Thomas Wayne’s name on it, Tim doesn’t know, but he’s grateful to be lying down on something solid nonetheless.
A whole bunch of questions, a physical exam, a couple neurological checks, a CT scan, and an x-ray later, Tim is diagnosed with a mild concussion and a sprained ankle. He’s prescribed over-the-counter pain medicine and a children’s strength motion sickness drug that should help with the nausea, given a brace for his ankle, and advised to get lots of rest.
(So, all in all, a pointless trip.)
“I’m so sorry for all the trouble,” Tim mumbles a few hours later as Bruce signs off on the last of the ER discharge papers.
“Trouble?” Bruce glances up from the clipboard, giving him a strange look. “We’re just relieved that you’re okay, Tim. You gave us quite a scare.”
Tim hangs his head. “I’m sorry. It was just the car ride. I was okay before that, it just made me feel sick, and then…” He takes a breath. “But I should’ve just controlled it better. I’m sorry.”
“Tim.” Jason, who has been playing some kind of game on his phone with Dick through most of the visit, is now staring at Tim like he’s gone mad. “Are you seriously apologizing for throwing up?”
“...Yes?” Goodness knows he’s said it to his parents before. His mother still occasionally brings up that time he ruined her new Armani dress when he was eight. It was the same night that they first learned Tim was allergic to shrimp, although the parts about his lips swelling up and him breaking out in hives don’t seem to have cemented themselves into her memory as much as the vomiting did. She never mentions those bits.
“Especially to you,” he adds, shifting his gaze guiltily to Dick. “I can’t believe I puked on Dick Grayson.”
Dick bursts out laughing, but Jason just shrugs.
“I mean, who hasn’t?” he says casually. “I know I have. He’s very pukable.”
“Yeah and Jay puked chili dogs,” Dick says with an exaggerated shudder. “I promise, whatever you had for breakfast didn’t even come close to that.”
Tim frowns, readjusting the ice pack he’s holding to the lump on his head. “Why did you puke chili dogs on him?”
“They were having a chili dog eating contest,” Bruce answers for them. He passes the completed paperwork back to the nurse, nodding his thanks. “Following a bit of... parkour.” He sighs heavily. “For the record, I was against it.”
“I won,” Dick says brightly, then grimaces and adds, “though I may have also lost.”
“Oh he definitely lost,” Jason quips, grinning. He leans into Tim’s ear and whispers, “Dick doesn’t know this, but I was totally aiming for him.”
Tim just nods slowly, wondering when exactly he's going to wake up from this ridiculous dream he seems to be having.
Thanks to the Dramamine, the drive home is significantly less eventful. Tim still holds the (now clean) bucket on his lap just in case, but he’s so drowsy from the medication and headache and overall day he’s had that he’s nearly asleep by the time they make it back to the Manor.
“Alright, wanna try this again?” Dick asks as he hops out of the car and opens Tim’s door. “Piggyback round two?”
Jason scoffs. “Or if you’d rather not tempt fate, Alfie texted that he actually found seven pairs of crutches downstairs.”
“Seven?” Dick wrinkles his brow. “Why do we even own that many?”
Bruce starts ticking them off on his fingers. “Auxiliary, forearm, gutter, extra tall...”
“Ohh yeah I forgot about that time with Kori...”
“–And a couple pairs of back-ups,” Bruce finishes.
“We do a lot of sports,” Jason says with a shrug, as though that explains everything. “Anyway, you can take your pick. They’re all adjustable, except for the giant ones. That was like, a special order.”
“Oh. Um...” Tim blinks, feeling rather overwhelmed. It’s nice that they’re giving him so many choices, but he’s not exactly firing on all cylinders at the moment. He really just wants to get inside and sit down.
“How about I just carry you for now?” Dick offers gently when Tim doesn’t reply. “And then we can sort out all the crutch stuff tomorrow?”
Tim exhales gratefully. “Yeah. Yeah, that would be good. Thanks.”
While Jason grabs their backpacks from the trunk, Dick crouches down in front of the seat so that Tim can climb on. The ride is surprisingly smooth for its speed, even when they have to go up the front steps.
“Ah, Master Tim,” Alfred greets them at the door with a warm smile as Bruce pulls the car around to the garage. “I have a guest room on the lower level ready for you. I’ve also prepared chicken soup and fresh rolls for dinner. Would you prefer to eat in your bedroom, or at the table with the family?”
Great, more choices. Honestly, Tim would much prefer the quiet of the bedroom, but it seems a little rude to go hide away when he’s a guest in someone else’s home.
Then again, he probably won’t be a very good conversationalist tonight, so maybe it would be more polite to just accept the offer rather than risk saying something stupid in his current groggy state. He closes his eyes briefly and can practically see Janet’s judging gaze as he weighs the options.
“Let’s just go to your room,” Jason suggests. “It’s quieter and you look like you’re falling asleep anyway. I’ll stay and hang out with you while you eat.”
“Okay,” Tim says, forcing a little smile. Hanging out with Jason will still require some brain power, but certainly less than being around the whole family, so it seems like a decent compromise. “Uh, thanks.”
“‘Course."
Dick carries him inside, and then down the hall and over to the east wing of the Manor. They pass by a few different rooms—a den, a study, another bedroom—before arriving at a cozy, neutrally-decorated guest room furnished with a double bed, antique writing desk, and a large oak dresser.
“Bathroom’s right through here,” Dick says, pointing to an adjoining room. “Do you need to use it now? I can drop you off there.”
“No, I’m fine,” Tim mumbles.
“Alright, cool. I’m gonna show you a trick then,” Dick announces, moving over to the desk. He sets Tim down carefully in the leather desk chair, and then using his foot, he presses a lever on the chair’s base which unlocks the wheels. “See?” He grins, rolling Tim sideways a bit. “Makeshift wheelchair. Just use your good foot to steer, and you can roll yourself wherever you need to go.”
“Almost like you’ve done this before...” Tim mutters wryly, then internally kicks himself. Dick’s acrobatic past may be common knowledge, but otherwise as far as Tim’s supposed to know, the Waynes are just another wealthy family from Bristol, if perhaps a little eccentric.
Luckily, Jason just snorts. “Oh yeah, Dick’s a total klutz. He’s the reason we own half those crutches.”
“Uh, excuse me, I seem to remember you being the last one on crutches,” Dick retorts. “After that crap-tacular attempt at a back handspring layout.”
“That one was your fault. You said you were spotting me.”
“I was halfway across the room, dumbass! You have to check where your spotter is before you leap. I’m not Wally.”
Tim spends the next few minutes while Dick and Jason continue bickering trying to figure out just who this Wally guy might be—a meta with flight powers, perhaps? Superman? Could Superman’s name really be something as dumb as Wally?
Then again, Nightwing’s name is literally Dick, so anything is possible...
(Unfortunately, all the thinking makes his headache worse, so he gives it up rather quickly.)
Just as Dick is leaving the room, Alfred enters with a tray containing two bowls of chicken soup, two glasses of water, a stack of crackers, and a couple bread rolls, as well as Tim’s next dose of painkillers.
“Now, as far as this evening in concerned,” Alfred addresses Tim as he sets the tray down on the desk, Jason pulling up an extra chair for himself, “I am quite certain we can locate suitable clothing and toiletry items for you here, but is there anything specific you’ll be needing from home? Daily medication, or a comfort item, perhaps? Any pets that need to be fed or cared for?”
Tim barely suppresses a snort at the idea that his parents would allow him to still have a ‘comfort item’ at this age, much less a pet. “No, I don’t need anything from home, thank you.”
“Alright then,” Alfred says kindly. “Enjoy your dinner, young sirs.” And with that, he steps out.
The soup is nice, if a little bland. Jason’s bowl seems to have some extra additions—beans and more noodles and maybe a bit of cream—whereas Tim’s is mostly broth, which is good because that’s about all his stomach is up for at the moment. He knows it’s silly and probably just the concussion messing with his emotions, but seeing the two bowls there side-by-side, physical evidence of Alfred’s thoughtfulness, kind of makes Tim want to cry.
(He doesn’t, of course. That’s ridiculous.)
At first, Tim tries to make a bit of polite conversation the way he knows he’s supposed to, complimenting the food and asking Jason about his day and his classes and so on. Jason answers each question with mild amusement, but when Tim’s vision starts to blur from the headache to the point that he keeps rubbing at his eyes, the older boy puts a stop to it.
“You know we don’t have to talk, right?” Jason says. Then before Tim can take offense, he holds up a hand. “I mean, don’t get me wrong, if you want to talk, we totally can. But if you’d rather just have the quiet, I don’t mind.”
“Oh,” Tim says, confused. “But… I thought you wanted to hang out?”
“This is hanging out,” Jason says with a little laugh. “We’re both here and we’re chilling. I know how concussions are. I was always expecting you to go full zombie mode on me.”
“Oh.”
And somehow, it isn’t awkward at all as they both finish off their bowls of soup in relative silence.
Bruce stops in a little while later, just as Jason is gathering up the empty dishes to take out to the kitchen.
“Hey, Tim,” he greets softly, crouching down until he’s eye level with the boy. “I have some fresh ice packs, a pair of Jason’s old pajamas, and a toothbrush you can use.”
“It’s my old toothbrush, too,” Jason quips, and Bruce just rolls his eyes and flicks his son’s arm.
“The toothbrush is new,” he says flatly.
“Thanks,” Tim says, accepting the small stack of items that Bruce hands him.
“Alfred hasn’t had any luck getting a hold of your parents through the numbers we had on file for them,” Bruce goes on. “Is there maybe an international number they’re using at the moment?”
“Oh, um, yeah but I can just call them tomorrow,” Tim says. It’s already nearly eight o’clock here. He’s not sure what that is in Greek time, but he’s pretty sure it’s late. “They’re probably asleep.”
Bruce’s brow furrows. “Tim, you were just in the hospital,” he points out gently. “I was able to sign off on your care by telling the staff that I was your neighbor and a family friend, but I’m sure your parents would like to know what’s going on as soon as possible.”
Tim isn’t so sure of that. After all, basically nothing even happened at the hospital. Sure, there were some tests and scans and stuff, but it’s not like they discovered there was bleeding in his brain or that he had to have surgery or anything like that. Hell, his ankle isn’t even broken. A little bump on the head and a sore foot hardly seems like a reason to wake his parents at... two a.m.? Three a.m.?
He frowns and pulls out his phone, intending to open the time zone converter app he usually uses, but the brightness of the screen only sends fresh daggers of pain through his skull. He squeezes his eyes shut, sucking in a sharp breath through his teeth.
“Ooh, yeah, don’t look at that,” Jason advises, reaching out and flipping Tim’s phone over for him. “Screens are like, the last thing you want right now, trust me.”
“Just wanted to look up the time difference between here and Athens...” Tim mumbles.
“It’s seven hours,” Bruce supplies helpfully, and Tim wonders whether he’d just looked that up himself, or if Batman is simply the type to have the whole time zone map memorized. Probably the latter.
“So it’s...” God, his head hurts. He’s in advanced math for goodness sake. Simple arithmetic should not be this challenging. “...three a.m.?”
Bruce hums affirmatively. “But, like I said before–”
“Can’t I just email them?” Tim interrupts, in too much pain to care about politeness at the moment. “They’ll probably see that sooner anyway.”
Something suspiciously like concern flashes across Bruce’s features, but then it’s gone again, shifting fluidly into that interview smile of his. “Sure, bud. We can email them for now if you think that’s best. But I’ll go ahead and send it for you, okay?”
Tim would protest, except that emailing would involve more staring at screens which he’s just determined is Very Bad Indeed.
“Okay,” he agrees. “Thank you.”
“Of course.” Bruce stands back up. “Now, would you like some help getting to the bathroom so you can change and get ready for bed?”
“No thanks,” Tim says, unlocking the wheels on his chair again with a weak little grin. “I can just roll there.”
Bruce breathes out a small laugh. “Ah. Dick’s preferred method.”
Jason scoffs. “No, that’s Dick’s lazy method,” he corrects. “His preferred method for foot injuries is to walk on his hands like the little show-off he is until he inevitably smacks into something and gets hurt even worse.”
“One time!” Dick’s voice hollers from somewhere down the hall. “That was one time, Jason…”
(Honestly, what even is Tim’s life right now?)
Between the drugs, the headache, and the overall exhaustion, Tim sleeps surprisingly well through the night. Jason ends up bunking with him, playing the role of ‘concussion monitor’—which thankfully does not involve waking Tim up to bombard him with questions every few hours as he fears, and is more about just having someone in the room to notice and go get help in case Tim’s condition should worsen. He sleeps sprawled out on some kind of luxury three-foot-tall air mattress that Bruce apparently once brought along on a camping trip.
(The only reason Tim doesn’t feel guilty about the arrangement is due to how ridiculously comfortable Jason makes it look.)
Saturday is a little hazy, but not horrible. Tim spends a lot of it napping, icing his head and ankle, taking painkillers whenever Bruce or Alfred instruct him to, and nibbling on whatever bland foods he can get down. He hasn’t thrown up since the car ride yesterday, but he doesn’t really want to risk it, especially once he agrees to make the trek from the hardwood-floored guest room out to the carpeted den after lunch.
Sometime in the early afternoon, Dick and Jason get the bright idea to demonstrate the pros and cons of each of the various styles of crutches by creating an obstacle course in the den with furniture and random objects to maneuver through while Tim observes from the couch. It’s all quite amusing, until Jason gets a bit too cocky and his crutch slips on the cover of one of the magazines they’d scattered around the room. He trips over a shoe rack, narrowly avoiding his forehead smacking into the edge of the coffee table by about three centimeters.
(Alfred promptly bans that activity after that.)
Tim carefully tries out a few options and determines he likes the crutches that wrap around his forearms the best, which he uses whenever the rolling chair isn’t practical.
It’s not until two p.m. that Tim’s parents finally reply to Bruce’s email. Tim knows this because Bruce tells him immediately when they do so, having previously mentioned their lack of reply several times throughout the morning.
Tim doesn’t find his parents’ behavior strange at all. It’s the last day of their dig, and the email clearly stated that Tim was just fine, so honestly, what’s the big deal? But Bruce and Alfred seem to think otherwise.
Anyway, Jack and Janet are very appreciative in their response, apologizing for the inconvenience, thanking the Waynes sincerely for looking after their son, and assuring Bruce that they’d be happy to reimburse him for any and all expenses incurred—exactly as Tim expected them to.
They don’t call, which again, Tim is not surprised by. It’s a busy day, since they have to pack up the dig site, and he’ll be seeing them tomorrow anyway, but Dick and Jason keep shooting him these weird pitying looks whenever they think he isn’t looking.
Tim doesn’t want to deal with it anymore, so he just takes another nap.
Jason re-enters the blissfully quiet den just as Tim is finishing up his dinner of leftover soup that evening. The others all ate at the table, but Bruce and Alfred made a point of emphasizing that no one would be offended if Tim would rather eat in here, so he’d taken them up on it.
“Okay, so we were all talking out there and we’ve got a couple options for tonight’s entertainment,” Jason begins. “Wanna hear them?”
“...Sure?” Tim wasn’t really expecting entertainment; there definitely wasn’t any last night. Then again, he was significantly more dead-to-the-world last night than he is now, and he’s probably slept more hours than he’s been awake today, so having something else to do before bed might actually be nice.
Jason smiles. “Cool. So option one, if you’re still not feeling good, you’re of course welcome to just stay in here and nap or whatever, with or without company. We all get that head injuries suck, so no one will take it personally, I promise.”
Tim nods slightly.
“Or, if you’re tired of doing that, option two is we could do a movie–”
Tim winces at the thought.
Jason holds up a hand. “–and, I know what you’re thinking, but it actually could work. See, a couple years ago, Dick got poked in the eye with a– …stick. Don’t ask how, long story,” he adds quickly before Tim can say a word, “and he had to get surgery on it and wear an eye patch for a while, so it fucked up his depth perception, which was super annoying. But he still wanted to watch movies because he’s not a big reader, so Bruce looked into it and figured out that some DVDs have an optional audio description track on them.”
Tim’s brain is still processing things at about half speed, so it takes him a few seconds to catch up once Jason pauses his rambling. “They have a... wait, what?” he asks, blinking.
“It’s like a narrator,” Jason explains, “except they’re just narrating the parts of the movie that you’d normally be watching. So for example, in Lion King, for that whole ‘Circle of Life’ thing, you still hear the song and the movie’s sound effects and whatever, but there’s an added audio layer with this lady voicing over stuff, telling you when the baboon holds Simba up, and how the animals are bowing down, and all that. It’s supposed to be for blind or visually impaired people, but it’s like the subtitles—you can just turn it on and off, so anyone can use it.”
“Hm,” Tim says. “That’s pretty cool.” He’d always just kind of assumed blind people didn’t watch movies, but now he feels a little ignorant for that.
“So we could try that,” Jason offers. “Only thing is, it’s kind of hard to get used to watching TV with your eyes closed. Dick ended up having to wear a blindfold whenever he did it because otherwise he kept peeking and would wind up with a headache anyway.”
“Uh-huh,” Tim says, a little warily. He’s not too keen on the idea of being blindfolded in someone else’s home—and can’t even imagine what his mother would say about it—but he also doesn’t really want to be tempted to peek at the screen and end up puking Alfred’s soup on the sofa.
(It’s such a nice sofa, after all.)
“Or, the third option is I could read for a while,” Jason offers with a little shrug.
Tim furrows his brow. “Wait, like... out loud?”
Jason rolls his eyes. “No, to myself, in my bedroom,” he deadpans. “Yes of course out loud.”
Tim can’t even remember the last time someone read aloud to him outside of a classroom setting. He was already reading on his own pretty well by age four or five—something Jack and Janet loved to boast about to their friends at parties—so his parents told the nannies to back off as much as possible except when Tim needed help sounding out the occasional word. He was supposed to be practicing independence, after all.
Tim’s still not quite wrapping his head around the concept. “But... wouldn’t you be bored doing that?”
“Why would I be bored?” Jason laughs. “I fricken’ love reading. Plus, I get to do voices and stuff, and I’ve got a killer Australian accent I’ve been working on, should the need arise.”
Tim hums, considering this. “What would you read?”
Jason shrugs again. “Whatever you want. I know you’ve seen the library already”—Tim feels his cheeks burn at the reminder of his previous visit—“so you know we’ve got a ton of options. It’ll probably be best if you pick something you’ve already read though, so it’s easier to follow along.”
Jason starts rattling off various book options—everything from Agatha Christie, to Douglas Adams, to Suzanne Collins. Tim nods along, mostly just letting the words wash over him. He’s not the biggest fiction reader these days (he’d probably peaked in that regard back in elementary school, before he’d skipped enough grades that his academics and other hobbies were taking up all his time), but he knows a few of the books that Jason lists off.
“Uh, we can try ‘The Book Thief,’” Tim interrupts Jason’s rambling, his brain latching onto one of the titles he remembers back from when his teachers still did in-class readings. “That’s the one where Death is the narrator, right?”
“Yep,” Jason says. “I love that book. So does Bruce, but he’s emo like that. If you want, we can move out to the family room? It’s got more couches and it’s closer to the snacks. I think Alfie’s gonna bake some snickerdoodles…”
And so that’s how they end up spending their Saturday evening, with Tim curled up on the chaise section of the Wayne family sofa, drifting in and out of the story as Jason’s steady voice reads in the background. Bruce sits in a recliner, tapping at his tablet as he listens, while Dick stretches out on the floor doing some kind of ridiculous flexibility routine that just shouldn’t be human. Alfred joins them after a while, depositing a tray of cookies onto the coffee table before settling down into a cushioned rocking chair to knit.
Somehow, in spite of Tim’s brain feeling like overcooked oatmeal, it’s the best night he’s had in a long time.
Of course, all good things must come to an end, and that end occurs at 2:30 Sunday afternoon, when Jack Drake’s BMW pulls into the circle out front of the Manor.
“Thank you again so much, Mr. Wayne,” Janet gushes, her hand on Tim’s shoulder as she steers him towards the door. “We really appreciate your hospitality.”
“Yes, we hope our boy hasn’t given you too much trouble!” Jack chuckles jovially, taking Tim’s backpack from Alfred with a nod of thanks.
“None at all,” Bruce assures, his own business smile firmly in place. “We were happy to help and it’s been a pleasure having Tim stay with us. He’s welcome back anytime.”
While Jason and Dick help Tim hobble out to the car on his borrowed crutches, Jack spends a few minutes chatting with Bruce about some kind of business venture he’s just certain Wayne Enterprises would be the perfect partner for. Meanwhile, Alfred hands Janet several extra ice packs, a ziplock bag of over the counter medications (complete with a dosing schedule), and a detailed list he’d typed up that morning with general concussion tips and specific notes about Tim’s care. She accepts them all graciously, promising to look them over at home.
“You should come over again sometime,” Jason says as he helps Tim climb into the backseat. “You know, when we’ve actually planned it and you’re not like, a gala stowaway or injured and stranded somewhere.”
Tim winces. “Yeah, I really need to stop doing that.”
“Nah, it’s cool. We’re pretty used to rolling with the punches here,” Jason says, and Tim has to hold back a snort because how the heck have these guys not been found out yet? “But if you hand me your phone, I can give you my number so we can text?”
“Sure,” Tim agrees, passing the phone over with a small but genuine smile. “That’d be great.”
While Jason types in the contact info, Dick gives him a little wave. “It was really nice to meet you, Tim.”
“Doubt it,” Tim mutters, his face flushing as he recalls that particular introduction.
Dick laughs. “Okay, fine. The initial meeting left a little to be desired," he allows. “But good news is, it was all uphill from there!”
Tim can only wince.
“I put Dick’s number in too,” Jason says, handing back the phone. “And Bruce’s and Alfred’s. Collect ‘em all.”
Dick snorts. “Alfred is definitely going to try and send you a Farmville invite. I swear, he’s the only person on earth still playing it.”
“Oh, wow, thanks,” Tim says, feeling a bit dazed from the fact that his phone now contains the numbers for Batman, Robin, Nightwing, and Alfred Pennyworth—the nicest man alive.
(Maybe he’s the one who’s secretly Superman. With enough make-up, anything is possible…)
Eventually, Jack seems to accept that he’s not about to close another deal today. He thanks Bruce once again and bids him farewell before he and Janet both slide into the car.
“So, how are you feeling, sport?” Jack asks as he pulls the car around the circle and back toward the access road, Janet still smiling and waving at the Waynes through the window.
“Okay.” Tim shrugs. “It doesn’t hurt as bad today. The meds help a lot.”
“Speaking of that, why is there Dramamine in here?” Janet frowns, having dropped her act enough now that they’re out of eyesight to actually examine the bag Alfred gave her. “I’ve never seen you get carsick.”
“It’s for the concussion,” Tim explains. “Helps with the nausea.”
“Oh.” Janet wrinkles her nose up a bit. She’s never been great with vomit. “I see.”
“You’re not going to get sick now, are you?” Jack asks warily. “Because I just got this car detailed...”
Tim huffs out an amused little breath. “I’ll be fine, Dad.”
Sure enough, they make it the mile back to the Drake Estate without incident. Tim hobbles himself inside while Jack grabs his backpack for him, jokingly grumbling the whole time about how it must be full of bricks.
Inside, the usual sea of suitcases and boxes of specialized equipment are scattered about the entryway and front room. Tim has to hop carefully with his crutches to avoid tripping on anything.
“I guess we’ll have to unpack on our own this time,” Janet mutters to her husband as Tim makes his way to the nearest chair.
Tim winces guiltily. Over the years, the Drakes have worked loading and unloading down to a science. Tim usually helps his dad lug suitcases and boxes up and down the stairs while Janet takes inventory of each new artifact or antique acquired, documenting their handwritten field notes and the items’ new locations down on an Excel spreadsheet. “Sorry,” he says, nodding to his ankle. “Don’t think I’ll be much help right now.”
“Perhaps you could do your mother’s job,” Jack suggests. “You could probably run a spreadsheet, eh, son?”
Tim hesitates. Of course he can run a spreadsheet; he’d designed his first one himself at the age of six to catalog his various Lego and K’nex sets, complete with autofill formulas and everything. It’s just that it’ll require a lot of staring at a screen.
But then again, it’s not like the screen will be moving or making noise like the TV would so... maybe it’ll be okay? And his dad is looking at him so hopefully...
Janet sets the bag of medication down on the credenza, tossing the instruction sheet Alfred gave her on top of the stack of mail that Mrs. Mac’s been collecting for them without so much as a glance. “Could you, Timothy?” she asks with a sigh. “We’re both exhausted and it’ll get us through this mess faster, especially if I have to be lugging things up and down the stairs with my bad knee...”
So Tim swallows down his protests, plastering on a slightly subdued version of his Gala Smile™. “Sure, yeah, I can run the spreadsheet,” he agrees. “No problem.”
Janet smiles—a genuine, grateful smile—and Jack beams at him. “That’s my boy!” he says, clapping Tim on the shoulder. “Don’t know what we’d do without you.”
Two hours later, when the bags are all unpacked and Tim’s curled up alone on the edge of his bed in a ball of pain, his eyes squeezed shut and head hanging over the trash can while he tries his best not to lose the four tabs of ibuprofen he just choked down, he hates how he still thinks it was worth it just to hear their praise.
Notes:
I originally estimated this chapter would be like 3k and it ended up more like 9k, which is how this whole fic has been going to be honest lmao
Chapter 3: By Invitation
Summary:
Birthday fluff + a sprinkling of hurt/comfort because I just can't help myself
Notes:
(See the end of the chapter for notes.)
Chapter Text
After the worst of Tim’s concussion symptoms have subsided, Jason starts inviting him over to the Manor once or twice a week to hang out after school. They do their homework together, and play video games, or read, or watch TV, and if it happens to be one of the nights Tim’s parents are out of town, Alfred or Bruce usually insist he stay for dinner. Tim accepts the offer about half of the time, always being careful to make sure he’s out of their hair before nightfall.
As it’s not very practical to scale fire escapes and leap between rooftops with a bum foot, Tim’s injuries force him to take a bit of a break from his nighttime photography sessions. But he’s back at it again within the month, for better or for worse.
It’s kind of funny, really. Tim’s known the Bats’ secret identities for nearly four years now, but it wasn’t until he started getting to know the Waynes that he realized just how much of their personalities bleed through when they’re in the capes, as well as the ways in which they actively work to cover that up.
For example:
Nightwing and Dick Grayson both break into the exact same shit-eating grin after making a bad pun, but they have different iced coffee orders at the local Java Hut.
Robin frequently spouts off nineteenth century literature quotes to the perps he takes down, while Jason Todd prefers to make impassioned rants about the stupid choices made by the fictional characters in whatever book he’s reading.
Batman is well-known for his hyper-vigilance in the field, whereas last week Bruce Wayne’s two silently-giggling sons managed to tie his shoelaces together while he was napping in a La-Z-Boy.
Agent A keeps a cool head over the comms in any emergency situation, and yet when Jason’s pet mouse—Holden Clawfield—escaped its cage a few days ago, Alfred Pennyworth stood on the countertop shouting something along the lines of ‘If that bloody rodent comes within two meters of my trouser leg, I am not above getting out the broom!’ until he was captured again.
All in all, Tim’s learning a lot.
By the time summer rolls around, Tim’s been roped into joining the Wayne family D&D campaign. He’s still a little fuzzy on the rules, but Jason advised him to play a druid for his first character, so he usually just turns himself into a bear at the first sign of trouble. It’s been working quite well so far.
“–And as my bonus action, I cast prestidigitation,” Dick announces for what must be the eighth time that evening. He’s playing some kind of overly-complicated wizard character which requires six pages of convoluted backstory and spell notes and yet he just keeps casting the same simple cantrip over and over. “To season the leftover stew.”
Tim giggles, while Jason, the DM, rolls his eyes. “We are literally in the middle of battling a Fire Giant, and you want to use your action on that?"
“Yup!” Dick beams.
Jason heaves out a sigh. “Fine. Go on then.”
Picking up the wooden prop wand he’s insisted on bringing to every session (though Jason assures Tim is not in any way required for the game), Dick makes an elaborate wrist flicking motion with it. “The stew now tastes like the Fire Giant’s nana’s beef goulash,” he declares.
From across the table, Alfred—the party’s bard—breaks into a knowing smirk. “And I would now like to use my previously deferred action to invite the Fire Giant to lay down his flaming boulders and join us in some stew.”
Jason gives the butler a very unamused look. “Roll for persuasion.”
Alfred rolls his emerald-colored twenty-sided die. “Eighteen,” he declares primly. “Plus my modifiers gives me a twenty-four.”
“Alright, that’s it!” Jason flips the tri-fold laminated screen in front of him in exasperation. “You two can’t keep ruining every combat scene by persuading the bad guys out of fighting!”
“But it’s so effective,” Dick argues, while Tim—who is still playing a bear and is therefore unable to contribute to the game dialogue—continues to giggle.
“Non-violent conflict resolution is a vital skill in life,” Alfred says with a sage nod. “One we should all try to emulate more often,” he adds, side-eying Bruce.
“You know, I’m actually with Jason on this one,” Bruce, the barbarian, grumbles. “I’d like to finally get to use my Blood Spear one of these days...”
They don’t make it very far through their quest that evening, but despite Jason’s increasingly dramatic rants, Tim gets the impression that no one really minds at all.
“So what are you doing for your birthday?” Jason asks one afternoon in July as he and Tim are sprawled out on the family room sectional sofa, deep in the midst of wrecking not Dick’s, but Bruce’s GTA save file this time. Apparently he’d eaten the last of Jason’s favorite ice cream last night and this is the boy’s form of payback.
(As Tim is quickly learning, Jason is petty as shit.)
“Oh, nothing really,” Tim says, watching intently as Jason blows through a fence and into a field with his stolen pick-up truck, nearly offing a deer. Tim’s parents filed a permit for an archeological expedition in Egypt, and if they get approved, they’ll be staying through the end of August. “Mrs. Mac usually makes me a carrot cake.”
“Huh.” Jason wrinkles his nose up. “You like carrot cake?”
Tim shrugs. “I mean, cake is cake. It’s not my favorite, but I think I thanked her a bit too enthusiastically for it once because she makes it for me every year now. I’m kind of in too deep to say anything at this point.”
Jason snorts and shakes his head slowly, eyes still fixed on the screen. “Only you, Timmy...”
“Only me?” Tim echoes, his eyebrow raised. “So I guess you’ve finally told Alfred how much you hate his paste-waffles then?”
Jason rolls his eyes. “No, but that’s like his one anomaly, so–”
“And I guess Dick’s told him about the ‘bland-ass cucumber sandwiches’?” Tim challenges, making finger quotes around the term.
“The guy’s British, okay? Cut him some slack,” Jason defends, which only makes Tim’s smirk grow. “It’s not his fault that they colonized half the world for spices and only learned how to use like six of them.”
Jason’s truck catches air going over a hill. It flips end to end, then barrel rolls another twenty yards or so before he zooms off again like nothing happened.
“He does make really good cinnamon rolls,” Tim says after a moment, feeling a bit guilty for his slander.
“He makes good everything,” Jason corrects as he swerves the truck back onto the main road. “Except for waffles and–”
He cuts himself off as the door to the den suddenly opens.
(Speak of the Devil...)
“Hey Alfie,” Jason says, without missing a beat. “What’s up?” Tim, who is biting the inside of his cheek to keep from laughing at the butler’s impeccable timing, can only nod in greeting.
“Hm. I figured you two might be getting a bit peckish,” Alfred comments dryly, moving over to the coffee table with a tray in hand. “Seeing as you’ve been playing that dreadful game for hours now.” He casts a judging look at the TV.
“It’s fun, though,” Jason points out, and Alfred only ‘hmphs.’
He sets the tray down in front of them, and Tim and Jason exchange a grim smile. “Thank you, Alfred,” they recite in unison.
Alfred’s lips twitch upwards almost imperceptibly. “My pleasure, boys,” he says with a little nod.
Jason waits until Alfred has shut the door to the den behind him again and they can hear his footsteps retreating down the hall before letting out a dramatic groan.
Tim’s lips spread into a smug grin. “So anyway, wanna come over next week for carrot cake?”
“Shut up, Tim,” Jason grumbles as he reaches across the table for a cucumber sandwich.
It turns out, the Drakes don’t get their permit approved for Egypt, which puts them in a rather bad mood.
Tim does his best to stay out of their way. It’s not like he’s scared of them or anything—his parents have always been more passive-aggressive than outright aggressive—but the shorter their tempers are, the more nit-picky things they tend to say to him, and that’s reason enough for Tim to keep to his room as much as possible.
They do, however, get approved for a dig in the neighboring country of Bialyia a few days later, which they’d only applied for on a longshot due to the country’s recent civil unrest. The embassy is being a bit tricky, so they aren’t quite sure how long they’ll be staying this time, but they set up the usual system with Mrs. Mac for twice-weekly grocery delivery and cleaning services before jetting off on their next adventure.
July nineteenth falls on a Wednesday this year, so in addition to her usual grocery haul, Mrs. Mac shows up Tuesday morning with a frosted carrot cake, a tub of store-brand Neapolitan, and a pack of birthday candles. She serves up cake and ice cream to both Tim and herself, and then proceeds to babble on for a few hours about how old Tim’s getting and how much he reminds her of her own son at that age. Apparently, Matthew McIlvaine had gotten a lawn mower for his thirteenth birthday and started up his own little landscaping business with a few of the neighbor kids. It was all going quite well until they decided to pool their earnings into buying an old ATV, which they promptly took out for a joyride at a nearby gravel yard and flipped the damn thing in some kind of near-death accident.
(It’s why Matthew only has nine toes now.)
Tim nods along to her rambling, occasionally inserting a polite little ‘hm’ or an ‘oh wow that’s crazy’ as appropriate. It’s not that he doesn’t like chatting with her, it’s just that with Mrs. Mac, it’s less ‘chatting’ and more the equivalent of listening to a long-winded live podcast that goes on for hours at a time and can’t be paused.
She’s just launching into her next tale of Matthew’s failed business ventures—this one involving illicit hamster breeding—when the doorbell rings.
Thank god.
“Excuse me just a moment,” Tim says, slipping out of his seat and making a beeline for the door.
He’s got his fingers crossed for an Amazon delivery. Any given year, there’s about a fifty-fifty chance his parents will remember to send him a gift. He’s been hinting at a particular new high-resolution camera lens for a while now.
(And by ‘hinting,’ Tim means providing the direct link to the lens in an email to his father with the subject line ‘This is what I would like for my birthday please.’)
But when Tim opens the door, he’s not met by a cardboard box.
“‘Sup birthday boy?” Dick greets cheerily.
Tim just stares.
“You don’t have company, do you?” Jason is standing beside his brother on the porch, side-eying the rusty Honda Civic parked in the driveway. “Guess we should’ve called…”
“That’s just Mrs. Mac,” Tim explains, still thoroughly confused as to why they’re here. Jason may be off school for the summer, but Dick’s got a regular job teaching youth classes at a gymnastics studio in Bludhaven, so why on earth is he here at three p.m. on a Tuesday?
“Oh, nice.” Dick grins. “Do we get some cake then?”
“Uh–”
“Dick’s a weirdo,” Jason murmurs as he steps in, glancing behind Tim to make sure Mrs. Mac is out of earshot. “He actually likes carrot cake. Even the kind with raisins.”
“Of course I like raisins. Raisins are great,” Dick quips as he follows the other boy inside. “Little pop of sweetness. Nature’s candy, all that jazz.”
“Right…” Tim’s feeling kind of dazed. He shakes his head to clear it. “Um, sorry—did we have plans?”
“Jason!” Dick groans. “Did you seriously forget to invite him to his own party?”
“Of course I invited him!” Jason retorts, then he frowns. “Wait, didn’t I?”
Tim shakes his head. “I think I’d remember that.” Especially considering it’d be the first birthday party Tim’s been invited to since he skipped fifth grade and alienated that whole class of kids.
“Huh.” There’s a pause. Then Jason shrugs. “Well, I had a whole conversation about it with you in my head then. Head-Tim agreed.”
Dick heaves out an exasperated sigh. “Tim,” he addresses pointedly, “would you like to come and sleepover tonight for your birthday? You’re allowed to say no, even if Jason’s head has already RSVP’d.”
Tim huffs out a short laugh. “Yeah, sure, I’ll come over.”
“Knew it,” Jason quips smugly, and Dick flicks his arm. It makes Tim grin. “So, you wanna go throw some stuff in a bag, or…?”
Tim glances back over his shoulder. “Yeah. Uh, the only thing is…” He lowers his voice to a whisper. “Mrs. Mac was kinda in the middle of telling me this story, uh, which has been going on since like, noon, so...”
Jason snorts humorously. “So this is a hostage situation?”
Tim winces. “She means well, it’s just–”
“Timothy?” As if on cue, Mrs. Mac pops her head out from the kitchen. “Do you have guests, dear?”
Dick leans in close to Tim’s ear. “Go pack, I got this,” he whispers, and before Tim can say a word, he’s striding confidently towards the kitchen. “Mrs. McIlvaine, I presume?” he asks as he approaches.
Mrs. Mac does a double take. “Why, yes. And you are?”
“Richard Grayson-Wayne,” he greets warmly in what Tim immediately recognizes as a Gala Smile™, his right hand already extended to clasp hers. “It’s so lovely to meet you. Tim’s been absolutely raving about this carrot cake of yours...”
He shoots a wink back over his shoulder, and before Tim knows what’s happening, Jason’s pulling him away upstairs to pack.
Somehow, through the power of social graces Tim can’t quite wrap his mind around, Dick has them out of there in ten minutes flat. What’s even more amazing is that Mrs. Mac doesn’t seem the least bit offended by this. To the contrary, she’s so charmed by Dick (who, as it turns out, also reminds her of Matthew) that she writes his birthday down in her little dog-eared planner with the promise of bringing him a carrot cake too.
“She seems nice,” Dick remarks as they all pile into his car. He’s moving a little more gingerly than normal, Tim notes. He’s not sure what that’s about. “Chatty, but nice.”
“Yeah. She is,” Tim agrees. Ever since his nannies started getting phased out, Mrs. Mac has been the closest thing he’s had to a consistent adult presence in his life. Apart from the rare occasions when she’s out of town, she’s here twice a week, every week, without fail. She might be an old busybody and chat his ear off sometimes, but Tim can’t help but hold a certain fondness for her. After all, she seems to genuinely want to interact with him.
(It’s more than he can say for certain people in his life.)
After arriving back at the Manor, the boys spend most of the afternoon engrossed in a Mario Kart tournament. Bruce even joins in for a while, and he ends up being weirdly good at the game, though Tim supposes that shouldn’t have come as a surprise considering some of the insane maneuvers he’s seen the Batmobile pull.
For dinner, Alfred makes maple glazed pork roast and twice baked potatoes. He honestly is a very good cook—at least when he’s not feeling particularly sentimental towards his homeland. No one really knows why his waffles are such a flop.
…Tim does have a theory, however, which is entirely based on a single nostalgic look he observed on Bruce’s face upon being passed a plate of said-waffles a few weeks ago, followed by an almost inaudible murmur of ‘just like Mom’s...’
(Tim’s beginning to wonder if, for all her virtues, Martha Wayne perhaps wasn’t much of a chef.)
Anyway, the food is delicious. When everyone’s had their fill, Alfred slips out to the kitchen and returns with a cake. It’s lemon poppyseed, Tim’s actual favorite cake flavor, and something he’s positive he’s only mentioned to Jason once.
The only issue is that between dinner and his afternoon with Mrs. Mac, Tim has no clue where he’s supposed to put it.
Luckily he doesn’t have to stress for too long, because Jason takes one look at the cake and slumps back in his chair with a little moan. “Alfie, I love you,” he declares solemnly, “but if I eat one more bite right now, I’m gonna hurl.”
“Language, Jay,” Bruce grunts from across the table.
“How is that language?” he challenges. “It’s a bodily function!”
“And this is a dinner table.”
Dick huffs out a laugh. “I’m with Jason on this one. I think it’s just a fact.” He looks over at Tim. “Is it cool if we do the cake later? Like, maybe after a movie?”
Tim smiles gratefully. “Yeah, that’d be good.” Then, feeling a twinge of guilt, he glances over at Alfred. “Um, if that’s alright with you?”
He’s fully expecting to hear the butler’s polite reassurance of ‘of course, Master Tim’ or ‘that’s perfectly fine, sir,’ so he’s thrown completely off-guard when instead, Alfred heaves out a rather dramatic sigh. “Well, far be it from me to inadvertently induce vomiting,” he says dryly. “Lord knows I’d be the one cleaning it.”
Tim is taken aback for a second, but then Bruce of all people lets out a snort, which triggers both Jason and Dick to burst into laughter. Alfred shoots him a wink, and Tim feels his lips spreading into a grin.
He could get used to this.
Tim is assigned the role of choosing the movie. It’s supposed to be a birthday perk—or at least that’s how Dick and Jason sell it to him. In reality, it’s just super anxiety-inducing, even when they all insist they’ll be fine with whatever he wants.
In the end, Bruce seems to pick up on Tim’s distress and intervenes, suggesting the boys give him three acceptable choices to pick from.
Tim decides on Knives Out, primarily because he’s already seen it and therefore doesn’t have to worry about it sucking, but also because he wants to see the others’ reactions to it. Bruce admits he’s already had the ending spoiled for him (by someone called ‘Hal’, whom he’d proceeded to grumble about for the next few minutes, much to his sons’ amusement), but the film is new to the others, which is perfect for Tim’s purposes.
It turns out Dick is a big movie talker, which entertains Tim and exasperates Jason to no end. He provides a running commentary of his predictions throughout the whole first half-hour of the film, accusing no less than four individuals of the murder, then coming up with an absolutely absurd theory involving some kind of off-screen disgruntled reader-turned-assassin. To Tim’s surprise, it’s Alfred who indulges him, dryly suggesting even more off-the-wall additions to Dick’s conspiracies. This goes on until Jason, who has requested that Dick ‘just shut up and watch the movie’ several times already, jabs an elbow into his brother’s side at his next remark.
And that’s when it all goes to hell.
A horrible pained noise somewhere between a gasp and a choked-off grunt bursts forth from Dick’s lips. He stifles it almost instantly, but everyone is already staring at him. Bruce and Alfred’s gazes are sharp and worried while Jason’s eyes are wide with horror.
I’m sorry, he mouths at Dick, looking far guiltier than the situation should call for.
And suddenly, Dick’s presence here mid-week, his careful movements, the little limp Tim observed from him on his way to the family room... it’s all starting to make sense.
Tim glances over at Bruce, and the man quickly flicks his gaze back to the TV like nothing happened. “You boys alright over there?” he asks, his tone as casual as if he’s commenting on the weather.
“Yeah, fine.” Dick’s eyes are watering, but he still manages to huff out a short laugh. “Someone just has pointy-ass elbows…” He gives Jason’s shoulder a half-hearted shove for good measure.
(Perhaps most tellingly, no one reminds Dick to watch his language.)
Lowering his gaze, Tim can see a nickel-sized red stain on the left side of Dick’s t-shirt that he’s pretty sure wasn’t there a minute ago. Dick seems to notice this at the same moment Tim does, because in one fluid motion, he’s suddenly shifting his arm to cover the spot and pushing himself up to standing. “I think I’m gonna make us some popcorn,” he announces.
“I’ll assist,” Alfred says, already out of his seat. “I’d rather like to avoid setting off the smoke alarms tonight.”
“Yeah, that’s probably for the best, Al,” Bruce chuckles tightly, grabbing the remote to pause the movie. “Dick can burn anything. Right, Jay?”
His face is perfectly neutral, but there’s something like an order in his eyes. Tim’s seen that look plenty of times, but never from Bruce. Only from Batman.
“Yeah,” Jason says distractedly, still staring at his brother with an almost haunted look to his eyes.
Dick clears his throat, quick to pick up the slack. “Hey, I’ve been getting better,” he quips, flashing them all a weak imitation of his usual cheeky grin. “I hardly ever burn pop-tarts anymore.”
“...Only because you started eating them raw,” Jason mutters.
It’s subtle enough that a few months ago, Tim might not have noticed, but after all the time he’s spent with the Waynes recently he can’t help but feel it. Their banter is just a little stiffer, the timing off by a fraction of a second. Clearly, they’re all working together to cover for Dick, but given that every single one of them seems to be in on it, Tim isn’t sure who exactly they would be–
Oh. Duh.
Sometimes he forgets he isn’t supposed to know.
Luckily though, Tim is really good at galas. And while this particular social interaction may not technically be a gala, the same rules are at play. There’s a give and a take when it comes to the peddling of bullshit, and if you want those around you to feel at ease selling theirs, you have to give a little back.
So Tim? Tim grins. He grins until his eyes scrunch up, and he laughs like it’s the funniest thing Jason’s ever said, and in return he watches as all four faces surrounding him visibly relax.
He’s got this.
Alfred and Dick return fifteen minutes later with steaming bowls of popcorn in hand. A dark hoodie now covers Dick’s white t-shirt, which despite the fact that it’s an eighty-five-degree day in July, absolutely no one comments on. Bruce resumes the movie, and Dick launches right back into his running commentary, doubling down on his disgruntled off-screen assassin theory until Jason’s annoyance level is right back up to where it was before the intermission.
In fact, Dick does such a convincing job of acting Completely and Totally Fine™ that by the time the end credits are rolling, Tim’s pretty much forgotten about the earlier incident.
In the kitchen, Alfred serves up cake and ice cream while they all debate the merits of the film’s actual ending. Tim ends up eating two whole pieces, a feat even he is not entirely sure how he manages, given how generous Alfred’s slices are, but it’s just so good.
(And, if Tim is being honest with himself, it’s possible that he’s stalling a bit. He just really doesn’t want this night to end.)
Eventually though, the conversation winds down and Alfred and Bruce stand up to start clearing off the table.
“Oh shoot!” Jason jumps up from his seat. “We never gave you your present! Hang on, lemme grab it,” he says, already halfway out of the room.
“Present?” Tim says, feeling a bit overwhelmed. This whole evening has been his gift; he definitely wasn’t expecting anything more.
Cupping a hand over his mouth, Dick leans in to stage-whisper into Tim’s ear. “Don’t worry, we made sure Bruce didn’t go crazy.”
Bruce raises an eyebrow at his son. “When have I ever ‘gone crazy’?”
“Oh I dunno, maybe Jason’s first Christmas?” Dick counters in the tone of duh, and Bruce visibly winces.
Tim actually knows this story already. Jason told it to him offhandedly a while back when they’d somehow gotten on the topic of gift-giving fails. Apparently, Bruce had tracked down first edition copies of twelve of Jason’s favorite novels and gifted them to the boy a mere three months after taking him in. He’d been hoping that the grand gesture would help Jason feel more secure of his place in the family.
It backfired spectacularly however when Jason burst into tears upon glimpsing the price on the order form (which had accidentally gotten tucked in between two pages) and then proceeded to have a panic attack so bad that Alfred had to stand outside his locked bedroom door for two hours talking him down. Bruce ended up reselling the books to a private collector three days later and donating the proceeds to one of Gotham’s more reputable homeless shelters.
These days he just buys Jason normal hardcovers.
Jason jogs back into the room, a small box tied with ribbon in his hands. “Happy birthday!” he says as he tosses it over.
Tim has to fumble to catch it. He unwraps it carefully, and inside finds a little velvet pouch containing a full set of D&D dice. They’re gorgeous—the resin a vibrant red, bleeding into black and flecked with shimmering gold, with hand painted numbers on top in an ornate script.
“We figured you should have your own set,” Jason says with a shrug. “Since you’re in the campaign now and all.”
Tim nods, staring at the glittering dice in his hand. He knows, objectively, that this isn’t a big deal or anything. He’s looked up custom dice sets online before and the vast majority sell for under fifty dollars, so it’s hardly the most expensive gift he’s ever received. Heck, Tim was only six when his dad installed a 55-inch flat screen TV in his bedroom because Jack was, quote,
“tired of hearing those damn anime shows all the time.” But something about the idea that the Waynes got him a gift specifically to make the time he spends with them more enjoyable is making his throat feel strangely tight.
“Do you like them?” Bruce asks after a moment, and Tim suddenly realizes he has yet to say a word. “Because if you’d rather exchange them for a different style or color, we can definitely–”
“No, no! They’re perfect,” Tim says earnestly. “Thank you so much.”
It’s official. This is the best birthday he’s ever had.
They all troop off to bed around midnight, with Tim occupying the same guest room as last time. Jason sleeps upstairs in his own room, which Tim is perfectly fine with. As lovely as the whole day has been, it’s also quite a bit more social interaction than Tim is used to (not to mention, he’s having some minor regrets about that second piece of cake), so he’d much rather just sleep alone.
Except Tim doesn’t sleep.
He tries to, don’t get him wrong. He lies in bed for an hour or two, his stomach making all kinds of unhappy noises at him while his mind is stuck on how utterly absurd it is that he’s sleeping over at Batman’s house. Sure, it might be his third time doing so, but Tim was too out of it on the other occasions to truly appreciate the experience, so they didn’t really count in his book. Now that Tim is fully lucid, however, he’s finding the whole concept honestly surreal.
One thing that Tim doesn’t know is whether or not the Batcave is actually connected to Wayne Manor. The blueprints—which he’d pulled from the county clerk’s office back when he was nine—don’t mention an underground level, but that doesn’t necessarily rule it out. After all, there’s no shortage of black market contractors in Gotham; how else would the Rogues build their elaborate death traps? Bruce Wayne could surely find someone to dig him out a basement on the down-low, right?
Then again, the Cave doesn’t have to be connected to the Manor—it could be a different location entirely. Maybe the “Cave” isn’t even literal. It could be like a code word for a safehouse, or maybe some kind of secret passage out of the city. He’s never actually seen where the Batmobile zooms off to after a patrol, but that’s mainly because he’s always on foot. Maybe in a few years when he gets his license, he’ll be able to actually follow it out of Gotham…
Ugh. Tim groans and rolls over yet again to try to find a better position for his stomach. Technically speaking, that second piece was really his third if he counts the carrot cake—which he probably should, because Mrs. Mac isn’t really one to skimp on portion size. And then there was the ice cream, and dinner, and that massive bowl of Distraction Popcorn that he’d felt obligated to help the others eat, so... yeah.
Ugh.
Tim’s an idiot.
Janet would certainly think so. In fact, she’d all but told him that one Halloween night, refusing to give her son any sympathy for his overindulgence. "You’ve made your bed, now lie in it, Timothy," she’d told the seven-year-old tiredly when he’d tiptoed into her bedroom to complain about not feeling well.
Tim didn’t know that was a phrase back then. He thought she was just literally telling him to go back to his own bed, which he had. And then he’d promptly puked in it.
Thankfully, Ms. Sophie was still his live-in nanny at the time, and even though she was technically off the clock, she’d heard Tim crying in his bedroom and gotten up to sort him out anyway. She was nice like that.
Tim doesn’t think he’s going to throw up now, but he could definitely use some water. He’s visited the Manor enough times that he’s pretty sure he can find his way to the kitchen in the dark, and with everyone else up on the second floor, he should have no problem getting there and back without disturbing anyone.
Deciding sleep is a lost cause without it, Tim slips out of bed and creeps his way silently down the dark corridors and into the kitchen. He fills a glass with water at the sink, then sips at it slowly as he wanders over to look out the glass door leading to the gardens.
It’s a muggy summer night, peaceful aside from the chirping cicadas and croaking frogs, so it’s easy for Tim to lose himself as he stands there gazing out. The sunflowers are easy enough to identify, as well as the tomato plants and bell peppers which are supported by wire cages. He thinks he sees orchids, and possibly hydrangeas? Tim’s not much of a flower expert, but Mrs. Mac loves to garden, so he’s picked up some over the years.
Janet has kind of a green thumb too, which is a bit paradoxical given how rarely she's in the country. But her succulents are always thriving and she was actually the one who’d nursed their dying backyard pear tree back to life that summer when she’d broken her leg and couldn’t travel with Jack to Taiwan as planned.
Tim still thinks about that summer occasionally, and how he’d probably seen more of his mother during those eight weeks than he had the previous few years combined. There was one particular day when she taught him how to make sun tea in a mason jar, and they’d sat outside on the porch sipping it together, Janet’s cast propped up on a footstool that Tim had dragged out for her. She’d told him how the Turkish tea bags they’d used reminded her of a time on one of their trips when Jack locked the keys in their rental car. The town’s locksmith was a few hours out, so they sat outside at a coffee shop in Istanbul drinking spiced tea and watching the tourists pass by on the streets until–
“...Calm down, B, I’m fine.”
Knocked right out of his reverie, Tim instinctively ducks down behind the L-shaped kitchen island as the sound of Dick’s muttering voice approaches.
“I’ll calm down once we’ve changed that dressing again,” he hears Bruce retort, his voice equally low. “Alfred said it was showing signs of infection earlier.”
“No, he said it looked a little red,” Dick corrects irritably as he enters the kitchen. “Which it would be, after Jason’s pointy-ass elbow popped two stitches.”
“Language,” Bruce grunts.
“It’s a descriptor," Dick grumbles. "His elbows are pointy-ass. That’s just what they are.”
“Hn.”
A chair scoots across the floor over at the breakfast nook, and someone sits down on it heavily. Then a light comes on—not the main overhead, but the small lamp directly over the table. It illuminates only the far end of the kitchen, leaving the island that Tim is crouched behind still in the shadows.
There are more sounds. A box unlatching. Paper-wrapped objects rustling against each other. The snap of latex gloves. A hiss of pain.
“Ow, you’re pulling on the–” There’s a beat. “Oh.”
“Dick,” Bruce sighs, hard and exasperated.
“Okay but in my defense, it honestly didn’t look that bad before! It was just a little red, I swear.”
“So what you’re telling me is that it’s getting worse,” Bruce says flatly. “And this is somehow supposed to be reassuring.”
“I’m just saying the oozing is new, that’s all.”
Tim grimaces. He’s kind of glad he has no line of sight at the moment. The mental images are doing nothing to help his already-queasy state.
“Did Alfred start you on antibiotics yet?”
“No, he just cleaned it and re-stitched it.”
“Hn. Then I’m starting you on amoxicillin.”
“Aw c’mon, can’t we just wait and see if it clears up on its own? You know those pills always mess up my stomach...”
“Do you know what else will mess up your stomach?”
“...Cheesecake?”
“Sepsis.”
Dick huffs out a short laugh. “You’re so dramatic. It’s only been infected for a few hours, tops. I highly doubt I’m going into septic shock tonight.”
Bruce grunts. “Not on my watch, you’re not.” There are more rustling sounds. “Put this under your tongue.”
“B,” he groans. “I don’t have a fever.”
There’s a beat of silence that Tim would bet his entire trust fund contains a glare, because suddenly Dick is muttering, “Fine, alright, alright...”
“Two minutes. No talking.”
“I swear, you use the old fashioned kind just to shut us up.”
“Correct. Two minutes.”
The only sounds for the next few minutes are a few tiny hisses, the crinkle of gauze wrappers, and the tearing of tape. Tim keeps his breaths as still as possible, feeling more intrusive in this moment than he has in all his years of silent stalking.
He’s used to seeing the Bats in action, and gradually, he’s also becoming used to seeing the Waynes relaxed at home. But this? This is something different—a strange hybrid of the two. This is Batman and Nightwing dressing an injury, but it’s also Bruce and Dick exasperating the hell out of each other at two o’clock in the morning, and it’s somehow more real than anything Tim’s seen from either of them up until now.
“Time,” Bruce says quietly. He hums. “99.7. That’s a fever.”
Tim can almost hear Dick’s eye-roll. “No it’s not. It doesn’t count till it’s over a hundred.”
“You’ve always run cold. Your average base temperature is four-tenths of a degree below normal. That puts you at 100.1, which is a low grade fever.”
“I hope you know it’s creepy that you just know that off the top of your head.”
“Thank you.”
The chair scoots again and Tim’s heart drops for a second as he hears footsteps on the tile, but thankfully they’re moving away from him. A cabinet on the other side of the kitchen creaks open, and then the faucet flips on and a glass is filled. There’s the rattle of a pill bottle and then the footsteps move back to the table.
“Amoxicillin,” Bruce says. “Ten days, one pill in the morning, one at night. Don’t skip any. And I want you to stay at the Manor at least until that fever is gone.”
Dick huffs again. “You mean the fever I don’t have?” There’s another silent beat, then a much quieter, “Okay, fine. Thanks.”
Bruce sighs, but it’s not exasperated this time. Just tired. “And next time something like this happens, will you please come home right away?”
“You want me to come over every time I get hurt on patrol?” Dick asks with a hint of amusement. “That much mileage isn’t good for the environment.”
Bruce replies seriously. “For a black eye? No. But for a bullet wound? Yes.”
Dick’s tone softens a bit. “It was just a graze.”
“Yeah.” Another sigh. “This time.”
They’re both quiet for a bit before Bruce clears his throat. “Honestly, Dick, if you wanted to come home for the black eye too, we wouldn’t say no.”
Dick laughs—a real, genuine laugh. “Is this a subtle jab at my makeup skills?”
Silence.
“I know,” Dick says softly. “I’m sorry.”
More silence.
“I love you too, Dad.”
Eventually, Tim makes it back to his room.
It’s actually kind of a close call because just as Bruce and Dick finish packing up the first aid supplies, Tim’s stomach lets out a particularly loud growl and the poor boy sees all thirteen years of his life flash before his eyes.
Miraculously, however, the noise is timed perfectly with the sound of a chair scooting heavily across the tile, which then prompts Bruce to grumble something about Dick leaving marks on Alfred’s floor, and then Dick to retort something about how Bruce literally just told him not to lift anything more than ten pounds until the stitches are out and so how else was he supposed to move a solid oak chair, followed by Bruce pointing out he could have just stood up first and then scooted it in, and the two of them continue on like that all the way out of the kitchen.
That’s when Tim finally exhales again.
At breakfast the next morning, Dick is looking... Well, let’s just say he’s given up trying to pull off the Perfectly Fine act. He shows up ten minutes late, dressed in a hoodie and sweatpants with flushed cheeks and a slight sheen to his forehead. Tim’s pretty sure he’s running hotter than 99.7 now.
Over his stack of french toast, Jason frowns at him. “Are you sick?” he asks, eliciting only a vague grunt from Dick as he slumps heavily into his seat.
“He’s just a little under the weather,” Bruce answers for him without taking his eyes off the newspaper he’s been skimming. “We’re taking care of it.”
Jason gives his brother a wary look. “You’re not contagious, are you?”
“I don’t know,” Dick says in a faux-sweet tone as Alfred sets a little dish of yogurt down in front of him. “Why don’t you scoot closer and we’ll find out?”
“Boys,” Bruce warns, still not looking up from the paper.
That’s another thing Tim is learning about the Waynes: none of them are morning people. Even Alfred is more fun after sundown.
With a sheepish half-smile, Dick turns to look at Tim. “I’m not actually contagious, I promise,” he assures. “I think I just have an ear infection or something.”
(Yeah, or something is right.)
Playing along, Tim gives him a sympathetic wince. “I’m sorry, those are the worst. Hope you feel better.”
Dick’s smile softens a bit. “Thanks, Tim.” Then he turns to Jason, flicking his arm. “See? That’s what you’re supposed to say, you little twerp. Take note.”
Jason makes a rather rude gesture under the table, and Tim has to bite the inside of his cheek to keep from giggling.
Despite the Manor’s subdued atmosphere, the morning is still pretty enjoyable. Tim and Jason migrate to the den after breakfast to play more Mario Kart, and Dick sprawls out on one of the couches to watch for a while. He tosses out the occasional bit of unsolicited advice, mostly related to Tim’s use of power ups, until he ends up dozing off under the throw blanket.
“So what do you wanna do today?” Jason asks as they mash buttons, Dick snoring softly in the background.
Tim shrugs. “I mean, this is fine.” It’s all he’d be doing on any other birthday, and usually with far less company.
“It’s your first day as a teenager. You gotta dream bigger, Timmy.” He hurls a shell at Luigi, sending him spinning off the edge of the track. “We could go somewhere, like the aquarium, or to play paintball, or... hell, I dunno, we could mini golf?”
“I hate mini golf. It’s just as boring as regular golf, but you don’t even get to do the big swings and drive the cart.”
“Yeah but on the plus side, they don’t make you wear dumb-looking clothes to play,” Jason points out, narrowly dodging the banana peel that Tim shoots behind him. “But fine, rich boy, no mini golf. Uh... laser tag?”
Tim chews thoughtfully on his lower lip, glancing over at the other couch where Dick is lying on his back with his eyes closed. He’s sure that the Waynes would find a way to make it work if he asked, but it seems unnecessarily complicated to suggest anything too strenuous at the moment. “We could just do another movie?”
Jason huffs. “Alright, but let’s not wake Sir Talks-A-Lot this time so we can actually hear the thing.”
“M’ awake, you lil’ shit…” Dick murmurs into the cushioned armrest, and Jason chucks a pillow at his head.
As they finish up their race circuit, Jason and Tim toss various movie ideas back and forth while Dick offers up the occasional garbled suggestion. They manage to rule the possibilities down to either Jurassic World or Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter. Jason is pushing hard for the latter—on account of Tim being the one who hasn’t seen it this time—when Tim’s phone starts buzzing against his leg.
He pulls it out, frowning when he sees a text from his mother:
We just got home. Where are you?
Jason pauses the game when he notices Tim staring at the screen. “What is it?” he asks curiously.
“It’s my mom,” Tim murmurs in confusion. “She says they’re home.”
Now Jason is frowning too. “Wait, did you know they were coming home today?”
Tim shakes his head. It’s only been four days since his parents left; they’ve never come back so soon from a dig. He quickly taps a message back:
I’m at the Waynes. Is everything okay?
Three dots flicker on the screen, followed by the response:
Come home and see for yourself.
Tim’s stomach twists anxiously at the words. That could mean anything. But if it was something bad, she would have just told him, right? His mother’s not really one to beat around the bush.
Jason leans over to peer at the phone screen, and then snorts a bit. “Well that’s ominous.”
“What’s goin’ on?” Dick mumbles without opening his eyes.
“I guess we’re gonna have to watch Honest Abe ice the Cullens another day,” Jason says with a sigh. “Tim’s parents are home early.”
“Mm, that’s nice,” Dick hums sleepily. “Surprise party?”
(Tim nearly bursts out laughing. That would certainly be the day.)
Jason groans dramatically. “Well, if it was, you just fucking ruined it. Nice going, Richard.”
“Sorry…”
Spoiler alert: it’s not a surprise party.
In fact, it’s about as far removed from a party as Tim can imagine. Both of his parents are in rather foul moods, and once Tim hears their spiel, he can’t really blame them for it.
According to his parents, the Bialiyan government not only waited until they were attempting to make their way through customs to decide that actually, no, just kidding, you don’t have clearance after all, but when presented with the written permits, proceeded to hold Jack and Janet in custody for thirty-six hours on the suspicion of forged documents.
At some point, tempers got a little heated and Jack ended up pinned to the ground by a security guard. To make matters worse, during the struggle he managed to twist his back in such a way that he pinched a nerve and could barely move at the moment, so the fourteen hour flight back had been a doozy.
(The Drake family attorney is already on the case.)
Naturally, Tim is on unpacking duty now, running suitcases up and down the stairs while Janet takes call after call with Drake Industries PR reps, trying to figure out how to keep this whole little debacle out of the press. Meanwhile, Jack reclines in one of the living room’s easy chairs, grumpily giving Tim instructions on where to put things as he alternates between heating and icing his back, and complaining that the Tylenol-Codeine Janet is giving him now doesn’t work nearly as well as whatever that Bialyian doctor at the clinic prescribed.
Janet argues back that she has no earthly idea what that drug was, and that she’d flushed the rest of the bottle down the airplane toilet when he’d started talking about how he could ‘see music’ and ‘smell colors’ and had informed her that a particular mosquito was, quote, ‘looking at him funny.’
Since his parents barely even left the terminal, it doesn’t take too long for Tim to finish unpacking—even if he has to do it all by himself in between listening to his dad’s rants. When he troops back downstairs for the last time, he finds his mother in the living room, curiously peering into the little pouch of dice he’d set on the coffee table.
“What are these, Timothy?” she asks, brow furrowed.
“Oh, they’re just special dice for a game I play,” Tim explains with a shrug. He’s attempted to explain the concept of a tabletop RPG to his parents once before, but they’d looked so bored after only a few minutes that he quickly learned it’s better to just sum things up. “The Waynes gave them to me for my birthday.”
Janet’s eyes widen ever so slightly. She sets the pouch back down, immediately pulling out her phone and opening the calendar app.
“Your birthday?” Now Jack is frowning too. “But that’s not until the twenty-ninth.”
Tim just barely suppresses an eye-roll. “My birthday is on the nineteenth, Dad.”
“No,” Jack says, shaking his head adamantly. “No, I distinctly remember you being born on the twenty-ninth because I said to the office, ‘Good thing this isn’t February or he’d be a Leap Baby,’ and then Marge, my secretary at the time, she told me that she was a leap baby, and even though she was retiring in a few years, technically speaking she wasn’t even old enough for her driver’s license. Well, naturally we weren’t going to let Marge live that one down, so the next year everyone at the office chipped in to get her a cake that said ‘Sweet Sixteen’ and–”
“It was the nineteenth, Jack,” Janet interrupts the story, a little exasperatedly. “He was due on the twenty-ninth, but he came ten days early, just before our insurance changed over, remember?” She sighs. “It was such a hassle trying to get the hospital bills covered after the fact...”
“Ohh yes, that’s right,” Jack recalls. “I was on hold with Blue Cross Blue Shield for three hours before I got an actual human on the line.”
Janet huffs out a bitter laugh. “I just remember my water breaking in the middle of the chip aisle at the Bristol Target. To this day, I haven’t been back. I have to drive out to the one in Burnside whenever they have a sale…”
(As Jack and Janet continue to reminisce, Tim tries really, really hard not to take it personally that his parents seem to have clearer memories of the inconvenient logistics surrounding his birth than they do of their son entering the world.)
Finally, Jack turns to him with a little chuckle. “Ah well, happy birthday anyway, champ! How does it feel to be fourteen?”
I wouldn’t know, seeing as I’m thirteen, is what Tim wants to say. But the sass isn’t worth risking the fragile improvement to his parents’ moods that catching them off-guard seems to have given him, so he just shrugs.
His dad chuckles again. “That’s alright, you’ll grow into it.”
“How about we order Chinese for dinner to celebrate?” Janet suggests, turning to face Tim now. “You like the eggrolls from Palace Wok best, right?
Tim hates all eggrolls, from any restaurant. He actually isn’t too big on Chinese food in general—it got kind of tainted for him after he threw it up a couple years ago when his parents forgot to specify “no shrimp” in the fried rice—and he’s mentioned this to them each of the last three times they’ve ordered it. But he knows his mother loves it and she’s trying, dammit, so he just pastes on his best Gala Smile™.
“Sure Mom,” he says. “That’d be great.”
Her relieved smile tells him he made the right choice.
Notes:
Fun fact: I spent over an hour researching which hamster traits are dominant and which are recessive so that Mrs. Mac could have a throwaway line about the stud hamster from her son's illegal business. Then I ultimately decided the line was stupid and cut it. This is writing in a nutshell 🙃
Chapter 4: By Necessity
Summary:
In which Tim gets sick, but honestly, that's the least of his worries.
Notes:
(See the end of the chapter for notes.)
Chapter Text
So.
Tim is sick.
But not like, sick sick. He’s not throwing-up sick, or can’t-get-out-of-bed sick, or feverishly-hallucinating-Miss-Sophie-carding-her-fingers-through-his-hair-and-humming-Blackbird-by-The-Beatles-only-to-realize-it’s-just-the-alarm-he-set-on-his-phone-going-off-to-remind-him-it’s-time-for-more-Tylenol sick.
…That last one may or may not have happened when he had strep throat back in March.
But the important thing is that it’s not happening right now. Right now, Tim is just the normal, average, functional-if-slightly-miserable kind of sick, with a sore throat and a stuffed up nose and a sinus headache that’s more distracting than it is debilitating.
So in other words, he’s basically fine.
It’s a chilly Monday in October, the first day back at school following a three day weekend for parent teacher conferences. The weather outside is gray and overcast, adding an extra layer to Tim’s general misery.
He’s late getting up this morning (which is ironic considering the fact that he barely even slept last night), so it takes until his backup, backup alarm goes off before he manages to work up the willpower to drag himself out of bed and start getting ready for school. He dresses in his Gotham Academy blazer and khakis, stuffs his feet into some shoes, and trudges down the stairs, pausing briefly on the landing to sneeze three times in quick succession, which makes his stuffed head pound.
Breakfast isn’t really happening. He’s not nauseous or anything, but his appetite is non-existent and he can’t think of anything he wants to eat that won’t irritate his throat, so he just fills one of Jack’s spare travel mugs with tea to take with him on the city bus. It would have been a good idea, except that he screws the lid on incorrectly and thereby ends up spilling most of it down the front of his coat when he goes to take a sip.
(Not even eight a.m. yet and he’s off to a great start.)
The school day passes in the usual haze of ringing bells, roll calls, worksheets, and lectures. Tim keeps on functioning: trudging from one class to another, chipping away at whatever work his teachers assign, speaking when spoken to. By the time lunch rolls around, he’s rubbed his nose raw on the scratchy one-ply toilet paper from the boys’ bathroom (and seriously, with the cost of tuition around here, one-ply should be a crime). He’s just started half-heartedly picking at his breaded chicken sandwich when someone plops down a tray and slides into the seat across from him.
“Well you sure look like shit,” a cheery voice greets, and Tim glances up tiredly to see–
…A very beat-up Jason Todd?
Tim blinks at his friend. Jason’s whole left arm is encased in a bright red cast, stretching from his hand all the way up and over the bend in his elbow. His lip is split and one eye is puffy (though the skin is still suspiciously uniform in color—Tim suspects makeup), with a short row of stitches just under his eyebrow. When Jason grins, Tim’s pretty sure he sees a chipped tooth.
He blinks again. “You’re one to talk.”
“Ah, yeah...” Jason gestures nonchalantly at his injuries. “I was hanging out with Dick and a few of his friends over the weekend. Believe it or not, this is all from a pick-up football game that got wayyy out of hand…”
Tim absolutely does not believe it. What he does believe, however, is that this is related to the news report he read yesterday of the Titans taking down a kingpin in Star City's illegal drug trade late Saturday night. Multiple sources report that both Nightwing and Robin were spotted amongst the team’s usual members. It also explains why Jason is still smiling about it—which, honestly, is giving Tim secondhand stress because oh my god, stop it, doesn’t that hurt your face?? Of the relatively few Titans missions that ever become public enough to make the news, this one has easily been the team’s biggest win of the year.
“But seriously,” Jason says, his smile fading slightly into a look of mild concern, “you look wiped. You sick or something?”
Tim shrugs. “It’s just a cold.” He sniffles to prove his point.
Jason wrinkles his nose up. “Gross. Are your parents home at least to make you chicken soup?”
They’re not, of course. They’re in... Norway? Sweden? One of the Scandinavian ones. It’s just a business trip this time, not a dig. Drake Industries is trying to work out a better deal with an international shipping company, so they’ve gone to negotiate with some of the higher ups in— Denmark! That’s where they are.
Tim suddenly realizes Jason is still expecting an answer, so he evades.
“Mrs. Mac is coming over this afternoon,” he says with another shrug. “She’ll make me something.”
It’s not a lie. She’ll take one look at Tim, tisk her tongue, and bustle on into the kitchen to whip up some oxtail soup and soda bread while simultaneously talking his ear off about the essential oil multi-level marketing business her daughter-in-law roped her into joining a few months ago. She’s been surprisingly successful with it so far, to the point that Tim wonders how many of her friends and family members are buying the products just to shut her up.
(If so, he can’t blame them. It’s the reason his bedroom now smells vaguely of eucalyptus.)
“But she just stops by, right?” Jason clarifies, stealing a tater tot off Tim’s tray and popping it into his mouth. “She doesn’t actually stay with you?”
His tone is casual, but there’s a slight shift in his features as he moves seamlessly from ‘friendly banter’ to ‘subtly gathering information.’ It’s a very Robin move.
Well, Tim’s going to have to nip that one right in the bud.
“No, thank god.” He forces out a croaky little laugh. “I like her—I do. She’s just a bit much, you know? She’s got like twelve all natural cures for everything, and most of them involve eating raw garlic cloves or drinking cod liver oil straight.”
Okay, Tim’s exaggerating a little now. Mrs. Mac is more the type to babble on for thirty minutes about the various pseudoscience remedies discussed at last week’s Penny Poker Club meeting than she is to actually force any of them on him. Professional boundaries and all.
But Jason takes the bait, and that’s all that matters.
“Eugh. Say no more, dude,” he says with an exaggerated shudder. “Alfred had a cod liver oil phase back in the day. Supposed to help with malnutrition or whatever?” He grimaces. “I straight up told him I’d rather be short.”
They chat through the rest of the lunch period (“B said I could stay home today, but we’re doing a socratic seminar for ‘The Crucible’ in English, and bro, I live for that shit” / “What, witch burning?” / “No, the chance to tell fucking Junior Class President Zachary Feldmore that his patriarchal opinions are shit”) and the company distracts Tim from his sore throat enough that he gets down most of the remaining tater tots and a few bites of the chicken, which he has to admit does help his overall energy level.
When there are three minutes left before the bell, Tim and Jason both stand up to gather their backpacks and return their trays.
“Well, if you need anything, you’ve got our numbers,” Jason says casually as they join the mass of students in participating in the daily ritual of crowding the cafeteria doors while the lunch monitors holler ‘Stop crowding the doors!’ at them. “I’d say we could drive you home, except Alfred’s picking me up early today for an appointment.”
Tim snorts a bit. “Dentist?” he guesses before he can remember to pump the brakes.
Jason looks startled. “How did you know that?”
With a sheepish smile, Tim gestures at the other boy’s mouth. “Saw your tooth,” he admits. “Must have been some football game.”
Jason relaxes, huffing out a laugh. “Oh you don’t know the half of it, Timmers...”
Yeah, that’s true, Tim supposes to himself as the bell rings. But I’m pretty sure I know more than you’d think…
The pressure in Tim’s sinuses ramps up again soon after lunch, and the rest of the school day passes in... well, not quite a haze, but more of a mush, where he’s definitely present for every moment, but they all sort of blend together into something Tim can only describe as... blergh.
By the time Tim gets home from school, he’s at least three hundred percent more exhausted than usual. He kicks off his shoes by the door and dumps his backpack before trudging into the kitchen. There he finds a note on the counter in Mrs. Mac’s signature looped cursive scrawl.
It takes a good minute for Tim to get his brain and eyes to work together long enough to decipher the words. Apparently the weather forecast is calling for thunderstorms that evening, with the potential of turning into freezing rain if the temperature continues to drop, so she’d stopped by that morning to stock the fridge and tidy up the place instead of after school like she’d planned.
Understandable, Tim supposes. It’s a good thirty minute drive from her little duplex in Burnside out here to Bristol, and she’s definitely getting up there in years. It makes total sense that she wouldn’t want to risk getting stranded somewhere for a grocery run. It just means Tim will be eating ramen noodle soup tonight instead of oxtail, but that’s fine too. He’s not very hungry anyway.
With no reason to bother looking presentable anymore, Tim trudges up to his room to change out of his uniform into track pants and a hoodie. It takes so much out of him that by the time he’s done, he’s sorely tempted to lie down for a while on his extremely inviting looking bed, but he’s got a test for world history tomorrow, which is one of his worst subjects, so he really should study. Especially since Jack is a major history buff and therefore seems to take any less than stellar grades Tim gets in that class as a personal offense.
(Which is kind of ironic considering Jack is never around when Tim needs help in the class, but whatever.)
Dragging himself back down to the kitchen, Tim pours a glass of orange juice and takes it with him into the living room. He gets out his backpack and laptop and sets up shop on the couch with the TV tuned to some kind of house flipping show on the Home & Garden network. His mother always complains when she finds him studying with the TV on, but it honestly helps him focus to have the background noise, and it has the added benefit of making the house feel less empty.
Win-win, in Tim’s book.
He pulls up his study guide and history notes to start quizzing himself on the information, but it isn’t long before all the names and dates are blurring together before his eyes.
His phone chimes with a message from Jason. He opens it to find a selfie of the boy sitting in the passenger seat of Alfred’s town car. Jason is shooting him a finger gun and grinning to show off his newly capped tooth.
Tim grins, then types: Tired of playing Dracula?
Never, Jason shoots back. Just couldn’t pull off the accent
The three dots appear to signal Jason is typing. Then three more messages appear in quick succession:
Alfie says to let you know he’s prepared a whole soft foods smorgasbord to celebrate my return to the mortal plane
(You know, soup, mashed potatoes, pudding, etc)
We can swing by and pick you up on the way home if you wanna join?
For a brief second, Tim’s tempted to accept; a bowl of Alfred’s homemade soup sounds heavenly right about now. But then he remembers how gross and snivelly he is at the moment, and how awful he’d feel if he gave Jason his cold on top of everything else. Just the thought of sneezing with facial stitches makes Tim wince in sympathy.
Tim types back: Thanks but I’m pretty tired. Think I’m gonna take a nap
No worries, Jason replies. Feel better man
Sighing, Tim locks the screen and sets the phone down. He hadn’t actually been planning on sleeping until he’d typed the message, but now it doesn’t seem like a half bad idea. It’s barely 4:30 in the afternoon, but the sun is already obscured by the dark clouds rolling in, and Tim is so exhausted that he’s hardly comprehending his notes anyway.
He sets aside his laptop. It’s alerting him to low power, but the charger is all the way up in his room. Whatever, he’ll get it later.
Tugging the decorative throw blanket down off the back of the couch, Tim wraps it around himself and curls up against the sofa’s armrest. Rain is starting to come down outside now and Tim can hear thunder rumbling in the distance. It isn’t long before the sounds of the storm mix together with the low hum of the TV and Tim drifts off in the light of the glowing screen.
The next thing Tim knows, he’s jolting awake to a resounding CRASH.
He jerks upright on the sofa, disoriented to find the living room completely dark now, apart from a few flashes of lightning from the storm raging outside.
...Or, at least the storm that should be outside. But as Tim fumbles for his phone on the coffee table and flips the flashlight on, he realizes that it’s also partially inside now too. Where the massive picture window on the room’s south wall used to be, a thirty-foot branch from the Drakes’ oak tree is lodged in its place.
“Shit...” Tim breathes out, staring at the smashed window and massive tree limb with both horror and awe. His mother’s ornate rug is covered in bits of shattered glass and the Chesterfield sofa below the window is quickly becoming soaked as gusts of wind bring the freezing rain pelting inside.
This is... this is bad. This is disaster bad. This is break-out-the-international-phone-numbers bad. This is Tim’s-parents-are-going-to-flip-their-shit bad. This is–
"Do you think you can handle being the man of the house for us, sport?"
Somewhere in the back of Tim’s head, he can still hear Jack’s question. Ms. Clemmings—Tim’s frankly terrible nanny at the time who had hated children, smoked like a chimney, and enjoyed nothing more than criticizing little Timmy for just about everything he did—fell and broke her hip two days before his parents’ long anticipated trip to Seoul, leaving them in a bind. Rather than dragging Tim along with them for eight days of business negotiations, or canceling what promised to be a very lucrative deal for Drake Industries, Jack and Janet were entertaining for the first time the idea of letting Tim stay home alone.
At nine years old, Tim had been eager to prove himself, and even more eager to avoid getting saddled with another Ms. Clemmings anytime soon. He’d dove head first into his new role, memorizing the city bus schedule to get himself to and from school, keeping up with his homework, fixing his own simple meals, and keeping Drake Manor so spotless that even his parents couldn’t find a single thing to complain about.
"Well done, sport,” Jack had told him upon their return, clapping his son on the back jovially. “Looks like you handled everything just fine."
That was four years ago now. Tim’s filled the role of man of the house countless times since then, and he likes to think he’s gotten pretty good at it. Thanks to the power of YouTube tutorials, he's figured out how to unclog a shower drain, how to relight a water heater, and how to reset a circuit breaker. He is resourceful and responsible and mature, and if he could handle everything up until now, then he can handle this too.
He’s going to be fine. He just needs a plan. He needs–
Another gust of wind blows through the gaping hole in the wall, this time strong enough that it takes several of the priceless artifacts on a nearby floating shelf along with it. They crash to the ground, shattering on impact, and that’s enough to kick Tim’s lagging brain back into action.
Damage control, he decides as he jumps to his feet, lurching towards the window. Step one is damage control.
For the next thirty minutes, Tim races back and forth across the living room, hopping over branches and shards of broken glass to evacuate as many of his parents’ prized possessions as he can manage. Most of the pieces he’s never handled before in his life. It’s been strictly drilled into his head since childhood that "these are for looking at and not for touching, Timothy."
(The irony of the situation doesn’t escape him.)
With each trip, Tim racks his brain, desperately trying to come up with a plan. He’s seen enough hurricane segments on the Weather Channel to know that the window should be boarded up, but where on earth does one get a board from? That’s not something his parents just have lying around. He’s going to have to buy one from somewhere. The hardware store, maybe? Is that even still open? Between the power outage and Tim’s totally disorienting afternoon nap, he doesn’t have the faintest idea what time it is.
Then there’s the fact that even if he had a board, he still couldn’t do anything until the tree was out of the way. And there’s no way Tim’s going to be able to move a tree himself. At least not without a chainsaw, and even he has to admit that seems a little out of his league. So that means he needs to call someone.
Okay, but who?
Mrs. Mac?
Even if Mrs. Mac could get over here in the storm, unless she’s secretly a super strength meta, he can’t imagine a seventy-something-year-old lady is going to be of much help. She might know who to call, though… The city, perhaps? But it's not like they could send someone out here anytime soon.
He should probably get a tarp or something to block off the window in the meantime. But do the Drakes even own a tarp? Where would they keep that? The garage? The attic? The shed?
Tim’s starting to feel a little lightheaded. There’s gotta be some kind of internet forum for this, right? Like a ‘help a tree just smashed through my window and everything is getting ruined and also where does a thirteen-year-old procure a chainsaw’ subreddit or something? Maybe he should just sit down and pull out his phone and start googling what to do if–
His phone is dead.
Tim blinks stupidly at the black screen, his brain spinning in place like the rainbow wait cursor on a hung Macbook. He must have left the flashlight on while it was in his pocket, which was an extremely stupid thing to do considering the power is out.
He runs a hand shakily through his hair. If his phone is dead, he needs to charge it. But he can’t charge it if the power is out. So he first needs to get the power back on, which means he needs to call the power company–
…which he can’t do if his phone is dead.
Hot, frustrated tears spring to Tim’s eyes. This is too much. It’s all too much.
He steps out into the hallway and leans his back against the wall, sinking down to the floor with his knees pulled up to his chest. He doesn’t know how to deal with this—he can’t deal with this. But that doesn’t matter, because he has to deal with it.
He doesn’t have a choice.
For one full minute, Tim just sits there, letting the tears slide down his cheeks unhindered. His head is pulsing and his clothes are soaked through and he’s sweaty and shivering at the same time and he longs more than anything to just ignore this whole mess and curl up in his bed and deal with it all tomorrow.
And then his minute is up.
With a deep, shuddery inhale, Tim sits up straight and scrubs the tears away with his sleeve because he is the man of the house, goddammit, and the man of the house isn’t going to sit blubbering on the floor about a silly little tree branch.
He needs a phone, and he knows where he can find one.
He’s going to fix this.
Thanks to the storm, which is rapidly shifting to freezing rain and sleet as the temperature drops further, the mile long walk to Wayne Manor takes a full thirty minutes. Tim spends the first five or so trying to formulate a plan of action for once the power is back on, but he’s cold and his head is aching and his thoughts are jumbled, so he gives up before too long and just focuses his energy on not slipping on the ice.
At somewhere around the half-mile mark, Tim starts to second guess his decision to come. The Waynes already seem wary of Tim’s living situation; what if they take this as proof that he can’t actually handle living on his own? What if they end up confronting his parents about it and they get in trouble?
Or worse, what if Tim ends up with another Ms. Clemmings?
He can’t let that happen—not now. Not when he’s already used to the freedom of staying home alone and making his own choices. Tim is just going to have to make it clear to the Waynes that he’s handling this. He’s here to borrow some electricity and make a few calls, that’s all. He doesn’t need help; he needs an outlet. A literal, three pronged, electrical outlet.
This is just the modern day equivalent of borrowing a cup of sugar.
That’s what he tells himself as makes his way up the Manor’s icy front steps. He can do this. He’s allowed to do this. He’s not being a baby. He’s being resourceful. He’s handling this.
Tim takes a deep breath and presses the doorbell.
There are muffled footsteps and a holler of “I got it Alfie!” and then before Tim gets the chance to change his mind, the door swings open to reveal an utterly dumbfounded looking Jason.
“Tim?” He cranes his neck to look beyond him out the door as if searching for something. “Holy shit, did you walk here?” he demands. “Why didn’t you call?”
Tim huffs out a bitter little laugh at the irony, and he can see it there in the frosty air. “Well, that’s kind of the problem actually,” he starts to explain. “I’m here to–”
Jason isn’t listening. “Oh my god, you fucking walked here…” he mutters, pinching the bridge of his nose in a very Bruce-like gesture. Then he whips his head back up. “B!” he turns to shout over his shoulder. “B, it’s Tim! He walked here!”
“Oh, no it’s no big deal, I’m okay,” Tim says quickly as Jason grabs his arm and pulls him into the foyer, shutting the door behind them. “We don’t have to bother everyone, I just need–”
“Tim?” There’s the sound of hurried footsteps, and then Bruce comes jogging into view, his face painted with concern. “Are you alright? What happened, bud? Why didn’t you call?”
Okay, so this is way more attention than Tim was expecting and it’s frankly a little overwhelming. He takes a deep breath to steady himself.
Just stick to the facts, Tim.
“My power’s out,” he admits, and Bruce immediately winces, “so I need to call the company, but my phone is dead, so–”
Jason holds up a hand. “Wait, hang on, lemme get this straight. You’re home alone, your power went out, and your phone died?”
“Right but that’s not the point, I just need to–”
“Oh good heavens.” Alfred suddenly materializes, drawing in a sharp breath at the sight of his young guest. “I’ll fetch some dry clothes right away,” he announces, already turning on his heel.
“Oh no, please don’t bother!” Tim calls after him. “I can’t stay long anyway, I just really need to plug in my phone so I can call the power company.”
“Tim.” Bruce’s concerned expression deepens. He drops down onto one knee to look Tim in the eyes. “You’re soaking wet and you’re shaking, bud. We can call ComEd for you in a few minutes. Let’s just start by getting you into dry clothes and warmed up before we–”
“No, you don’t understand.” Tim’s pitch is increasing right along with his frustration level because no one is listening to him. “I can’t stay, okay? I need to get back home because a branch fell and it smashed through a window so there’s broken glass everywhere and my parents’ stuff is getting ruined and–”
“Timmy!” Jason balks in disbelief. “What kind of unholy deity did you piss off in a past life to–”
“Jay,” Bruce grounds out, shooting his son a look that makes his mouth snap shut. Then he turns back to Tim, eyes sharp and worried. “Are you hurt anywhere?” he asks seriously.
“What?” Tim’s feeling completely overwhelmed now. “No, I-I’m fine. I just need to charge my phone so I can call the city or– or someone else to come out.” He sucks in a breath. “But I can do it myself, okay? I… I can do it.”
Bruce opens his mouth like he’s going to say something, but Tim doesn’t let him.
“I’m handling it.” The words come out choked thanks to Tim’s tightening throat. “I can handle it, really, just let me… h…handle–”
“Tim,” Bruce tries again, softer.
Tears start spilling down Tim’s cheeks and his breath hitches. He shakes his head, scrubbing them away roughly with his palms. “Sorry, I’m not hurt, I don’t know why I’m cr...crying, I...”
“...Master Tim?” The voice, though gentle, startles Tim. He looks up to see that Alfred has returned already, several fluffy towels folded neatly in his arms. His brow is furrowed with concern, but his eyes hold nothing but kindness. “May I?”
Tim isn’t sure what Alfred is asking permission for, but he nods anyway. It’s impossible not to trust the man.
Passing the stack of towels off to Jason, Alfred unbuttons the cuff of his right sleeve. He slides the material up just enough to expose his forearm, and then, before Tim even registers what’s happening, he’s pressing the inside of his wrist gently against the boy’s forehead.
“Mm,” Alfred hums after a brief moment, giving him a sad sort of smile. “This is why, my dear boy.”
It takes a few seconds for Tim’s lagging brain to connect the answer to his previous question. “Oh,” he says when it clicks. And then just like that, Tim covers his face with his hands and completely falls apart. “I… I don’t think I can h...handle this,” he sobs.
“That’s quite alright, lad,” Alfred says kindly as he pulls Tim’s dripping wet frame into a surprisingly solid hug. “You’re not alone. You needn’t anymore.”
101.1.
That’s what Tim’s fever is at, once Alfred ushers him into the bathroom and produces an actual thermometer to check. It’s hardly anything to get worked up about, Tim thinks, but Jason makes a little wince of sympathy when the number is reported.
“It’s just a cold,” Tim mutters. He’s sitting on top of the closed toilet lid, hunched forward with his elbows resting on his knees so he can support his aching head with his hands. His little bout of crying has only increased the pressure in his head, and he’s wondering dully at what point it will just explode.
“Based on your symptoms, I believe it’s more likely to be a sinus infection,” Alfred corrects gently, and yeah, okay, that tracks.
“Oof,” Jason says. “Those always suck.”
Tim makes a small, non-committal noise in his throat. “Had worse.”
“That is of little consolation, I’m afraid,” Alfred says with a sigh.
Tim hums tiredly. He’s been so hyped up on adrenaline for the last hour that he hadn’t even noticed how exhausted he was, but as soon as he finally accepted that the Waynes were taking over his disaster mitigation duties, he’d basically crashed.
Right now, Bruce is over at Drake Manor doing... Tim doesn’t even know what. But he’d seen him take a bunch of tarps and plywood with him, and he’d had a very determined expression on his face, so Tim figures he’s got some kind of plan. Jason offered to go with him, but Bruce turned him down on account of his arm, leaving the teenager hovering awkwardly in the bathroom doorway.
The friendly concern is nice and all, but between Tim’s pounding headache and all the humiliating sobbing he just did, an audience is about the last thing in the world he wants.
As if reading his mind, Alfred clears his throat. “I do believe a fire in the family room hearth is in order,” he says casually as he reaches around Tim to flip on the shower. “Do you feel up to starting one, Master Jason, or would your injuries preclude you?”
Jason’s eyebrows raise. “Is that a challenge?”
“It’s merely an inquiry, sir,” Alfred replies in his most innocent tone. He hangs a particularly plush bath towel on the heated rack. “Master Dick has always been quite adept at accomplishing tasks one-handed when injured, but if it proves too difficult, it’s no matter. I shall be out momentarily.”
Jason looks utterly offended. “If Dick can do it, I can do it,” he declares, already out of the room.
“Though under no circumstances are you to use your teeth to hold the match,” Alfred calls after him, and Tim can hear Jason’s annoyed groan of ‘I know, I know’ float back down the hall.
Under his breath, Alfred adds, “One would think that would be implied, but experience has shown it’s best to spell these things out.”
Tim huffs out a little laugh. “Dick?” he guesses.
Alfred shakes his head, sighing in a way that seems to age him at least a decade. “A young Master Bruce, I’m afraid,” he admits. “It was several months until he regrew that eyebrow…”
By the time Tim shuffles into the family room, freshly showered and dressed in a pair of borrowed pajamas, not only has Jason managed to start a fire, but he’s still in possession of both his eyebrows and seems awfully smug about it.
“You look better,” Jason remarks, grabbing a couple of fuzzy blankets from a wicker basket near the fireplace. “Less icicle, more human. Always good.”
Yeah, you should know, Tim thinks with a snort as he makes his way to the couch, recalling a few months prior when he’d witnessed Robin falling victim to Mr. Freeze’s ice gun on a weeknight patrol. Batman had been able to counteract the effects with some kind of chemical spray a few minutes later, but the whole incident had brought an abrupt end to the evening. Tim watched him wrap a very pissed-off Robin tightly in his cape before forcing him back into the Batmobile.
(To be fair, Jason’s repeated arguments that he was one hundred percent totally fine, lemme at him would have likely been more effective had his teeth not been chattering so hard that Tim could plainly hear them from his hiding spot behind a nearby dumpster.)
“Bruce is still over at your place,” Jason goes on, knocking Tim back to the present moment. “He says you kinda downplayed this ‘branch’ thing”—he makes finger quotes in the air—“and it’s really more like your entire tree that’s down.”
Tim shrugs half-heartedly, sitting down on the sofa. “I mean, it’s not a very big tree.”
“Sure, Timmy.” Rolling his eyes, Jason chucks a blanket his way. “Anyway, the tarps aren’t gonna cut it, so he’s waiting on a buddy with a chainsaw.”
Tim blinks.
Batman has a buddy with a chainsaw??
Picking up on Tim’s surprise, Jason snorts. “I know, right? Hard to believe B has friends,” he deadpans. “Anyway, he’ll be back as soon as he can, and in the meantime, you’re just supposed to chill out and warm up and watch mindless reality TV because he’s totally got this covered, okay?”
Tim’s feeling about the furthest thing from ‘chilled out’ at the moment, but he does warm up and he does watch some mindless TV as he eats the soup Alfred brings him. Jason starts them out with Ice Road Truckers , then ends up changing the channel to Kitchen Nightmares once he decides the former is a little too on the nose for tonight. Tim curls up under a blanket and tries not to dwell on how guilty he feels about the massive inconvenience he’s being.
It’s just after seven p.m. now, and while Robin no doubt had the night off to recover, Batman still goes out solo sometimes. What if he’d been planning to patrol tonight, and now is stuck on branch clearing duty instead? Does that mean Tim is indirectly responsible for all the crimes that will go unhindered tonight? All because he couldn’t figure out a solution that didn’t involve bothering literal superheroes over his own stupid problems?
When the soup is gone, Alfred clears the dishes away. He returns a few minutes later with a little medicine cup full of berry-flavored NyQuil—or knockout juice, as Tim grew up knowing it as.
…It’s possible that he spent a fair amount of his early childhood zonked out on the stuff whenever his nannies’ days off happened to coincide with Jack and Janet’s important business calls.
The good news is, the medicine works just as well as it always has.
Tim’s out in twenty minutes flat.
“...Hey bud?”
For the second time that night, Tim finds himself jolting awake with a gasp. Bruce is kneeling in front of the couch, holding his hands in front of himself in a non-threatening gesture.
“Sorry, I didn’t mean to startle you,” he whispers. “I just wanted to make sure that you and Jason got to bed okay. I’d let you sleep here, but I don’t want you to get sore necks.”
“Oh, no it’s fine,” Tim mumbles, sitting up. Over on the other end of the sofa, Jason is fast asleep, his breaths rising and falling in a steady rhythm while Gordon Ramsey verbally berates a restaurant owner on the TV for serving week-old tuna steaks. “What time is it? Late?”
Bruce’s lips twitch into a small smile. “It’s not even ten. I think Jason’s just exhausted from the weekend still. School today was a bit of a push for him.”
Tim hums a bit. That makes sense. Tim would be pretty wiped too after taking down a bunch of drug lords.
“My friend Clark and I moved the branch and boarded up the window, and the power’s back on now, so everything’s taken care of at your place,” he goes on. “We also cleaned up the glass and took some pictures for your parents’ insurance claims. I emailed them over a few minutes ago.”
Tim lowers his gaze guiltily. “I’m sorry you had to deal with all that,” he mutters, picking at a piece of fuzz on his blanket. “I could’ve at least picked up the glass before I came over.“
(And been the one to email Jack and Janet. They have the tendency to shoot the messenger upon receiving bad news, and Tim really doesn’t want Bruce in the middle of that, especially not after going out of his way to be so helpful.)
Bruce’s brow furrows. “What? No, Tim, you did more than enough, okay?” he assures. “Something like this would be overwhelming for most adults to deal with, let alone a thirteen-year-old.”
Okay, now that’s a bit offensive. Tim’s been taking care of himself just fine for years. He frowns. “I’m not some helpless kid, it’s just that the power was out,” he argues. “If you’d have just let me charge my phone, I would’ve figured everything out eventually. I always do.”
“You’re definitely not helpless,” Bruce is quick to agree. “You’re a very responsible and resourceful person.” He sighs. “But Tim... you are still a kid. There’s no reason you should have had to deal with this all on your own.”
Well, that’s a bunch of bull. Obviously someone had to deal with it, and seeing as Tim was the only one home, then that someone had to be him. It’s hardly rocket science. But Tim’s head is throbbing and he’s too tired to argue properly right now, so he just huffs out a little breath of air instead.
Bruce’s expression softens. “We can talk more about it in the morning. For now, let’s just get you boys off to bed.”
That sounds like a plan Tim can get behind. He’s so freaking tired. School tomorrow is going to be a struggle, he can already tell.
Bruce helps lever Tim to his feet, holding on for an extra moment once he’s upright as if making sure Tim won’t topple one way or the other. Once he’s satisfied, he moves over to Jason and shakes his shoulder gently.
“Jay,” he whispers. “Time to go to sleep, chum.”
“‘S what ‘m doin'...” Jason mumbles, swatting his hand away without even opening his eyes. “Go ‘way, old man.”
“In your real bed,” Bruce clarifies.
Tim watches in vague amusement as the sixteen-year-old rolls over, burying his face further into the sofa pillow. “Bed’s a social construct,” he murmurs sleepily.
“Actually, bed is a top of the line memory foam mattress.”
“‘Course you’d say that, Mr. McOnePercent...”
Tim giggles at that, but Bruce just sighs. “Jason, if you need me to carry you, I will. But know that that means no school tomorrow, since it obviously took too much out of you today.”
“Oh heck no.” Jason bolts upright, wadding up his blanket and chucking it across the room into the wicker basket as he gets to his feet. “Tomorrow’s day two of the socratic, and Zachary Feldmore is going down.”
Rather than his usual guest room on the first floor, Bruce guides Tim upstairs to the spare room across from Jason’s in the family corridor. His reasoning is that it’ll be more convenient to have Tim near them just in case he wakes up feeling worse and needs more medicine or something during the night.
(Which is absurd of course because Tim’s not five and he can take care of himself, but whatever. At least the mattress is really comfortable.)
“Tissues and water are right here on the nightstand,” Bruce says as Tim crawls up into bed. There are at least seven pillows, so he has to burrow in a bit. “And there’s an extra blanket by the foot of the bed if you get cold. Do you need anything else?”
Tim’s about to say no thank you on reflex before he remembers there is actually something he needs. “Um, did you happen to grab my school uniform from home by any chance?”
Even if Jason had a spare he could borrow, it would be too big on Tim, so there’s really no point. Gotham Academy is nothing if not strict on dress code. He once saw a girl get sent home for wearing the wrong socks.
At Bruce’s furrowed brow, Tim quickly adds, “It’s totally fine if you didn’t! It’s my fault I didn’t think to ask before. I’ll just have to set my alarm a little earlier so I can run home and grab it in the morning, no big deal.”
Bruce sighs softly. “Tim, you’re not going to school tomorrow,” he says. “You’re sick, and you’ve had a pretty rough night on top of that.”
Now it’s Tim’s turn to frown in confusion. “What? But I have to go.” He doesn’t even feel that bad. He’d felt worse back in March with the strep, and that certainly hadn’t stopped him from attending school.
(Well, until he wasn’t conscious anymore. But he’d attended all the way up until that!)
“You have a fever,” Bruce points out.
Tim flaps a hand dismissively. “It’s not even a high one. It’ll probably be gone by the morning.”
(And if it isn’t, that’s what Tylenol is for. This is hardly Tim’s first rodeo.)
“It might be,” Bruce allows, “but even if it is, the fact that you have a fever now means you can’t go to school for at least twenty-four hours since you might still be contagious.”
Tim actually snorts out loud at that. “That’s just a myth.”
“...A myth?” Bruce quirks an eyebrow.
“Yeah,” Tim says, recalling what Janet told him time and time again growing up. “It’s just something the school tells parents so they don’t end up with a bunch of whiny kids clogging up the nurse’s office. But I know better than to do that, so it’s fine.”
"Because you’re a big boy now, isn’t that right, Timothy?" Janet had reminded her little third-grader as she’d ushered him out of the shower and into his school clothes. Tim had woken up in a puddle of sweat that morning, his fever finally having broken after two solid days of flu. "You’re going back to school today, and I’m going to close that deal with Ren Corp at eleven, and then I’ll get us both ice cream on the way home to celebrate, hm? Doesn’t that sound nice?"
And Tim had been a big boy. He’d made it through the entire school day and managed to eat half his ice cream cone before nodding off into the rest, getting melted chocolate all over his dry clean only blazer. His mother hadn’t even been too upset about it. She’d just sighed and ordered him a new one.
“Would you like to see the school policy?” Bruce asks, holding out his phone.
Frowning, Tim takes the phone to see that Bruce has pulled up a PDF of Gotham Academy's student handbook from their website. He scrolls down past the paragraphs on uniform requirements and appropriate student conduct all the way to a section marked ‘Health and Wellness.’
Huh. Well would you look at that. It’s right there in the rules. Right after ‘all medications, whether prescription or over the counter, may ONLY be distributed by the nurse on duty.’
Well that’s ridiculous, Tim thinks, recalling the 200-count bottle of ibuprofen Jack had bought him this year as part of his standard school supplies. Next thing they’re going to say is he isn’t allowed to puke in the bathroom and then come back to class.
(Oh shit. That’s the next line.)
Tim closes out of the tab. “But I’ve got a history test tomorrow,” he says as he passes the phone back to Bruce. “And I bombed my last one, so I really need to do well on it.”
Okay, technically he’d gotten a 79 on the last test, but according to Jack Missed-His-Calling-as-an-Eccentric-Community-College-History-Professor Drake, that’s basically a fail.
“As long as your absence is excused, your teacher has to let you make up the test,” Bruce assures him. “That’s also school policy.” At Tim’s skeptical look, he adds, “We can even get you a doctor’s note if it’d make you more comfortable.”
A doctor’s note? For a glorified head cold? Heck no. The ER visit was mortifying enough—there is no way he’s going to make Bruce Freaking Wayne take time out of his day to drag Tim to a doctor so he can get a note to excuse his sniffles.
“No, that’s fine. I don’t need a note,” Tim says quickly. He can’t even remember the last time he went to the doctor. Would he still go to a pediatrician, or is that more of a twelve-and-under thing, like ordering off a kid’s menu? Tim sure doesn’t know.
Bruce nods. “Alright, we’ll see how you’re feeling in the morning. I’m sure our family doctor could get you in if needed. But either way, can we at least agree that you’ll be staying home from school?”
It’s spoken like a question, but Tim’s been around adults enough to know that it isn’t one. Not really. It’s more of a very politely worded order. And Tim knows better than to argue with orders, no matter how nice they sound.
“Okay,” Tim murmurs at his lap. “If you think that’s best.”
He’s not sure why that response only makes Bruce sigh deeper. “I do, bud. I really do.”
So that’s that.
It’s a little after five a.m. when Tim’s phone starts ringing. He doesn’t even have to look at the caller ID to know who it will be. He just sits up against the headboard, takes a deep breath, and accepts the call.
“Hi Mom,” he whispers.
“Timothy.” Janet’s voice is so chillingly calm that for a moment, Tim isn’t sure which way this is going to go. “Do you know why your father and I shell out a hundred and ninety-five dollars a month to maintain our international phone plans on top of our domestic plans?”
(Ah. It’s going that way.)
“Um… in case there’s an emergency?” he mumbles.
“Correct,” she confirms. Her tone is so icy it could give Victor Fries a run for his money. “And do you know what thousands of dollars worth of property damage, not to mention the loss of dozens of irreplaceable, priceless artifacts counts as?”
He winces. “An emergency?”
“One would think so, wouldn’t they,” Janet says flatly. “So why, pray tell, are we paying a hundred and ninety-five dollars a month to find out about this emergency via an email from Bruce Wayne and not a phone call from our own son?”
“I just thought…” Tim swallows hard. It makes his throat ache. “I mean, it was really late for you guys when it happened, and I was handling it, so–”
“Handling it? You thought you were handling it?” Janet’s volume is getting progressively louder. “We’ve seen the photos Mr. Wayne sent. Do you have any idea how many of one of a kind historical pieces are now hopelessly water damaged? And how many of those could have probably been saved with just a bit of guidance?”
Okay, this isn’t fair. They weren’t here. “I was trying to save what I could, I swear. It was just all happening really fast and I’m kind of sick so it was hard to think, and–”
“Then you should have called us,” Janet cuts him off sharply. “We could have helped you to prioritize. Helped you triage. Told you how to properly dry out some of those first editions before the ink bled into the pages! We might have saved your father’s Chesterfield sofa—do you know how much it’s going to cost to reupholster that by the way?”
“I–”
“No, you must not have, because it doesn’t look like you even attempted to salvage it before running off to the neighbors! Timothy, you saved a thirty-five dollar vase and left an eighteenth-century handcrafted Indian tapestry hanging on the wall! If you had just bothered to call us, we could have–”
“But I couldn’t call!” Tim interrupts, thoroughly frustrated now. “My phone was dead and the power was out! That’s why I left, I had to–”
“Timothy,” she snaps. “We have a landline!"
Oh fuck.
That’s right.
The Drakes do have a landline. It’s hanging right on the kitchen wall, rotary dial and spiral cord and all.
Tim’s an utter moron.
“I… I forgot,” he whispers in horror. “We never use it. I didn’t think...”
Janet is speaking away from the phone now, her tone exasperated. “He says he forgot we own a telephone.”
Tim can just make out his dad’s sarcastic mutter of, “Good to know we’re paying thirty thousand dollars a year for that elite private education...”
The words might as well be a punch in the gut. What do his parents even want from him? They tell him to be independent and to use his resources and not to bother them when they’re busy, but then when he tries to do precisely that, they make him feel stupid for not asking for help. How the hell is Tim supposed to know when something is big enough for them to care or not when they’re constantly changing the rules on him?
The conversation then shifts to logistics, with his parents going back and forth with each other about booking flights home and contacting restoration experts and filing insurance claims and so on. Tim stays on the line the whole time, but he zones out after a while, curling back up on his side under the covers. It doesn’t matter really; they’re not talking to him anymore.
He’s not sure they ever really were.
Notes:
The NyQuil bit was taken directly from my friend's experience growing up, except her parents only did it for long car rides. They'd pile all the kids in the backseat, then give them each a shot of "traveling juice" before taking off. They'd sleep through the ride with minimal squabbling and wake up at their destination.
She just thought everyone did this with their kids. It wasn't until she was in college and got a cold and decided to try NyQuil for the first time that she realized what “traveling juice” was all along 😬
---
EDIT: I've gotten quite a few comments wondering how the Drakes' landline phone could have worked during a power outage, so I just wanted to take a second to address that!
According to How Stuff Works, it takes very little power to complete a phone call (only about 6-12 volts at about 30 milliamps). Depending on your phone service provider, it's quite common for them to have backup generators which can supply enough power through the underground copper telephone wires—separate from the main power line—to complete a call, provided that the telephone is a corded device. Wireless devices will not work without power (or, if they use a rechargeable battery, at least will not work for very long).
Now I certainly can't speak for every phone company, but this was true of the one that serviced my family growing up, so hopefully that shows it's at least plausible that the Drakes' phone could have worked during a power outage? So in this one instance, Janet does actually have a point and isn't just being a bitch (though arguments could certainly be made about how the heck she expects Tim to carry out her instructions while tethered via a 10 foot spiral cord to the kitchen wall)
EDIT #2 (because this line will truly be the death of me) : Okay, apparently all of the above information WAS true, up until the last decade or so when the majority of phone providers switched over to VoIP. This means you have to have an internet connection in order to place a landline call, which you can't have without power to the router, so modern landlines are useless in a power outage. Janet still believes what she believes from her own childhood experiences. Whether she's right and Tim could have used the hardwired phone, or whether Gotham has modernized their landline technology yet is up for interpretation. I could definitely see the city opting out, since their power grid goes down like every other week with the latest rogue attack lmao
Chapter 5: By Insistence
Summary:
Tim puts his blood, sweat, and tears into making his parents’ return special. Literally.
Notes:
[content warning: somewhat graphic description of injury/blood]
Chapter Text
On the fourth Monday of November, Tim’s parents inform him that they’ll be coming home for Thanksgiving.
Well, technically the email states that they’re coming home because their business negotiations in Düsseldorf just so happen to be wrapping up on Wednesday evening, and they’ve booked a flight back that should put them in Gotham by Thursday afternoon, but Tim will take what he can get. It’ll be the first time his parents have been in town for this particular holiday since he was in fourth grade, and unless their schedule changes—which, granted, is always a possibility—it looks like they’ll be staying all the way through Hanukkah.
Now, Tim’s not naive. He knows that regardless of what the calendar says, his parents will be too jet-lagged and exhausted from their travels to have any sort of celebration on their minds, but that doesn’t mean they wouldn’t still appreciate a nice dinner if it were already prepared for them. So that’s Tim’s plan: give Mrs. Mac a grocery list, watch a few recipe tutorials, and crank out a modest holiday feast just in time for his parents’ arrival.
Or, that is Tim’s plan, anyway, until he mentions it to Jason during lunch on Wednesday (if it can even be called lunch when it occurs at 9:16 in the morning due to their weird pre-holiday half day schedule).
“Huh. Well that sounds... ambitious,” Jason remarks, mulling this information over as he unwraps a granola bar. “Don’t take this the wrong way, but have you ever cooked before?”
Tim stares at his friend, incredulous. What kind of question is that? Tim’s been fixing his own meals and snacks since before he could even see over the countertops.
“I don’t mean, like, making yourself a sandwich or pasta or whatever. I know you do that all the time,” Jason quickly clarifies. “I mean, have you ever cooked an entire holiday dinner before? With a turkey and side dishes and dessert and all that?”
Tim crosses his arms, a little defensively. While it’s true that he typically subsists on cereal, Mrs. Mac’s reheated leftovers, and assorted snack foods, it’s not like he can’t cook. It’s more like why bother when he could just slap some peanut butter on a few graham crackers or scarf down a handful of salami straight out of the deli bag and call it a day?
“I know how to follow a recipe,” he argues, because he does. Kind of. Sort of. If chemistry labs count. “I’m sure I can figure it out.”
“Mmhmm…” Jason nods slowly. The corners of his lips are twitching upwards like he’s trying not to say something.
Daring him to continue, Tim attempts to imitate one of Alfred’s signature looks. It must not be very effective because Jason just laughs.
“Okay, Martha Stewart.” He takes a bite of his granola bar, ignoring Tim’s glare. “Well, if you decide you don’t wanna fly solo, we could always just do the cooking together at the Manor after school.” Shrugging nonchalantly, he adds, “Who knows, it could even be fun.”
Well, that certainly sounds tempting—both for the company and the extra set of hands—but Tim would hate to be in the way, especially the day before a major holiday. “Wouldn’t Alfred mind if we’re using his kitchen?”
Jason scoffs. “Alfie? Nah, he’s not even home. He’s in New York for the weekend.” At Tim’s baffled expression, he explains, “He always takes one holiday off a year to visit this old army buddy of his. He’s a butler too, funnily enough—works at an estate up in Loudonville. They’re both super British, so god knows why they picked Thanksgiving of all days, but Dick and I think it’s so they can just get drunk and eat chips and not worry about cooking for once.” He shrugs. “B was just gonna order Chinese.”
Tim sticks a straw in his milk carton, nodding slowly as he takes this information in. It’s kind of hard to imagine a pair of prim and posh British butlers kicking it back with glasses of whisky, swapping war stories, and avoiding American holidays.
(Then he remembers the few glimpses he’s gotten of Alfred’s more relaxed side on D&D nights and it all makes a little more sense.)
“Anyway, he left this morning, but Dick’s in town for the weekend,” Jason goes on. “We could probably rope him into helping too.”
Tim raises a skeptical eyebrow. “So now we want Dick cooking?” Does that mean the whole ‘burning pop-tarts’ bit from Tim’s birthday was made up on the fly?
(Because if so, the Waynes should really consider careers in improv if the vigilante life doesn’t work out.)
Jason doesn’t miss a beat. “Well I mean, he’s no Alfred,” he covers smoothly, “but he’s no Bruce either, thank god.” With a scoff, he says, “B’s been banned from the kitchen ever since the Chicken Parm-o-nella Incident of 2018.”
Tim chokes on the milk he’d just sipped.
Jason stares off into the distance, a haunted look to his eyes. “Do you know how many bathrooms Wayne Manor has in total?”
“Uhh–”
“Fourteen,” he whispers hollowly. “Trust me, Timmy. We found them all.”
To Tim’s relief, Jason turns out to be a pretty competent chef. His skills have been honed through many cozy afternoons spent cooking with Alfred, and he’s nothing if not efficient. Within two hours of school letting out, he’s raided both Drake and Wayne Manor for groceries, commandeered Alfred’s kitchen, drawn up a detailed menu and plan of attack on a massive dry erase board, and put both Dick and Tim to work.
The only thing he hasn’t quite mastered is Alfred’s calm demeanor.
“No, get the big pan!” Jason groans across the kitchen. He’s standing over the sink, slathering butter by the handful into the raw turkey’s skin. “This bird is like, eighteen pounds. How the heck is he gonna fit in that?”
“We’ll just tuck his legs in!” Dick calls back over the deafening clang of metal pans as he rifles through the storage racks. “We need to save the big one for the green bean casserole!”
“Okay, for the last time”—Jason jams an entire onion down the turkey’s crevice, making Tim shudder—“we are not serving the Drakes that mushy-ass casserole! That thing is an abomination and I don’t know why Alfred still lets you make it.”
“Excuse me?” Dick balks, one hand clutched dramatically to his heart. “This is blatant disrespect of a time honored holiday classic.”
“The fried onions literally come out of a can.”
“Which is part of the aesthetic!”
Tim can’t help but wince as he works his way through the little pile of carrots and celery Jason has assigned him to chop. As much as he usually enjoys listening to the two boys squabble, their volume level has him a little on edge today.
According to Dick, who’d filled Tim and Jason in on the drive home from school, Bruce has been holed up in his study since late that morning on an emergency video conference call with Wayne Enterprises board of directors. Some shady business practices from one of their more high-profile partners came to light last night, and the Board is in a time crunch trying to come to a decision on whether or not to cut their dealings with the firm before the holiday weekend. While Bruce readily agreed to Tim coming over that afternoon to cook, he’s also politely requested that the boys try not to disturb him until the call is finished.
Jason and Dick both seem pretty chill about the situation and are more or less going about their day as usual, which Tim finds honestly baffling. If there’s one thing he’s learned over the years about adults who are in important, stressful, time-sensitive business situations, it’s that it’s best to make as little noise as possible and to stay far, far out of their way—ideally not even be in the house at all, which Tim has suggested multiple times since Dick first filled them in.
Jason, however, was insistent that they do the cooking here rather than at Tim’s place, because, quote, “Your folks don’t seem the type to own a turkey baster, and no one likes a dry bird, Timmy.”
So here they are.
“You saved the giblets, right?” Dick hollers. He’s digging through the pantry for stale bread to use in the stuffing, tossing bags of chips and pretzels aside as he does so. “Because those make the best gravy.”
Jason scoffs. “Okay literally why do you have the taste of an 87-year-old pensioner?” he demands. “Is this some kind of circus hobo thing?”
“Hey, I have the taste of quality!” Dick retorts, loud enough that it makes Tim cringe. Any minute now he’s expecting Bruce to come storming out of his office to banish them all from the Manor, which is making it awfully hard to focus on the vegetables he’s supposed to be prepping.
Then, just as he thinks things can’t possibly get any worse, Jason pulls an honest to god Cuisinart out of the cabinet and Tim watches his life flash before his eyes.
“Uh, maybe we should wait on that?” he suggests nervously as Jason dumps a bag of frozen cranberries into the machine. They cascade down, rattling against the hard plastic of the food processor’s bowl like marbles on stone. “You know, just until Bruce is off the phone?”
Jason waves his hand dismissively. “Nah, it’s fine,” he says, twisting the lid in place. “His office is pretty much sound proof.”
Pretty much? Pretty much?! Is Jason seriously about to bet Tim’s standing in Bruce Wayne’s good graces on ‘pretty much’??
Evidently so. He presses the on button.
(Tim’s convinced an air raid would be quieter.)
“Jason!” Dick barks over the cacophony of pulverizing berries, and Tim spins around just in time to see a mountain of white foam rising up over the edge of the bubbling pot on the stove. Dick quickly lowers the heat. “Your potatoes are boiling over!”
“So check if they’re done, dumbass!” Jason shouts back, dumping a few handfuls of orange wedges into the food processor with the cranberries. “I’m busy!”
Muttering something under his breath, Dick pulls out a fork and stabs it into the pot. Then he frowns and stabs it again. And again. “I can’t tell!”
“What do you mean you can’t tell? Either the fork goes through or it doesn’t!”
“Guys…” Tim whines quietly, his chopping speed increasing right along with his heart rate. He shoots a worried glance over his shoulder toward the room’s entrance. Maybe if he can catch sight of Bruce first, he can get the others to quiet down before he comes storming in and all hell breaks loose.
Dick stabs another chunk of potato. “I mean, I can make it go through, but–”
“Dickie, I swear to god–”
Tim is still craning his neck to see over his shoulder when the knife comes down.
Hard.
It takes a second for the pain to register, but he can feel the change in resistance instantly as the blade slices through a new target.
That was definitely not a carrot.
The pain hits a split second later. Tim drops the knife down onto the cutting board with a clatter, pulling his hand up instinctively against his chest. Blood is already streaming from the deep slice he’s just made at the base of his thumb.
Across the room, Dick’s eyes go wide. “Jay,” he orders, sharp and serious, with absolutely none of the playful tone he’d had a few seconds ago.
It’s his Nightwing voice.
The effect on Jason is instantaneous. He stops the machine and whirls around. “What’s wro– Oh.” He blinks at the blood flowing down Tim’s arm in rivulets. “Shit.”
“I-It’s not that bad,” Tim stammers, even while his thumb screams otherwise. Jason is already reaching into a drawer and grabbing one of the thick linen napkins from Alfred’s stack. He chucks it across the room at Dick, who catches it without so much as a glance. “Jus– Just a cut.”
In three strides, Dick closes the distance between himself and Tim. “Can I see it?” he asks calmly.
Hesitantly, Tim extends his hand. Blood is dripping everywhere—the cutting board, the counter, the floor. Dizzily, he thinks about how someone’s gonna have to clean that up. But then Dick takes his hand and presses the folded cloth firmly against the wound and Tim is gasping, all of his thoughts suddenly replaced by blinding pain.
“I’m sorry, I know it hurts,” Dick murmurs, not letting up at all as Tim clenches his teeth, eyes shut tightly against the pain. “I just need to put pressure on it to stop the bleeding. Then I’m going to let go again for just a second so we can see what we’re dealing with, okay?”
Tim nods tightly. “‘Kay,” he gasps out.
Just as he said, Dick waits a few moments, then releases the pressure and draws the cloth back. Fresh blood rushes to the surface—at kind of an alarming rate, Tim thinks with a little shudder—but just before it can obscure the wound completely, he catches a glimpse of something silvery-white deep at the center of the cut and nearly gags on the spot.
Jason, who is peering over Tim’s shoulder, seems to have seen it too. “Fuck,” he whispers. “Is that…?”
Dick doesn’t answer—just quickly reapplies pressure, causing Tim to hiss. “It’s okay, you’re alright,” he soothes, squeezing Tim’s thumb tightly as he guides him over to the breakfast nook. Tim feels weirdly detached, like he’s floating more than walking the short distance to the table. “Here, we’re gonna just sit down and rest your elbow so we can keep your hand up above your heart, okay? Good, just like that,” Dick praises, far more calmly than this much blood should warrant. He glances over at his brother. “Jay, can you–?”
“Yep, I’ll get Bruce,” Jason agrees, already turning on his heel.
That’s enough to snap Tim out of it. “No wait, don’t!” he gasps, sharply enough that it causes Jason to freeze mid-step. There was literally one rule for this afternoon, and Tim is not about to break it for some stupid accident. “We don’t need to get him, it’s not that bad!”
Dick’s eyes dart sideways over to Jason and the two boys exchange a bewildered expression.
Glancing back to Tim, Dick clears his throat. “Okay, uh, Tim?” he says carefully. “I don’t want to alarm you or anything, but this cut is pretty deep.”
Jason scoffs. “Yeah, like that’s definitely gonna need stitches.”
Well no shit, but why do they need to bother Bruce for that? Tim once witnessed Nightwing give Batman an emergency blood transfusion in the parking lot of a ShopRite while they waited for Agent A to arrive—literally hooked the man straight up to his own vein! Stitches? Stitches are nothing.
“Can’t you just do them?” he pleads.
The room goes still.
“...Can’t I do what?” Dick asks carefully, while Jason just stares.
Oh crap. That’s right. Nightwing did that. Dick Grayson, on the other hand, is a twenty-one-year-old college student with a part-time job teaching children’s aerial arts and gymnastics classes in the next town over. There’s literally no reason he should have intimate knowledge of emergency medical procedures.
“I-I mean, I know you can’t do stitches,” Tim quickly backtracks, both boys still eying him warily. “But we can wrap it up with gauze and stuff! Or– Or we could use superglue! Doctors use superglue sometimes and it works just like stitches, I’ve seen it. You’ve gotta have superglue somewhere, right?”
Dick sighs. “Tim...”
“Or you could just drive me to a walk-in clinic or whatever! There are ones downtown where you don’t even have to have insurance or anything and they’ll still take you, so it’s fine, we can just do it ourselves,” Tim rambles. He pulls in a shaky breath. “Just… please. We can handle it, really. We don’t need to bother Bruce, okay?”
“Bother him?” Jason’s looking at Tim like he’s grown two heads. “You do realize you just cut yourself to the bone, right?”
“Jay,” Dick warns under his breath.
“What? I’m just trying to give him all the facts here!”
“Yeah, well I’m trying to keep him from going into shock,” Dick mutters. He squeezes Tim’s thumb a little tighter, and Tim can’t bite back the whimper this time. “Just go get B, okay?”
No no no, this can’t be happening! Wild-eyed, Tim grabs Jason’s arm in a vice grip. “Please don’t,” he begs, trying and failing to keep the whine out of his voice. “He said not to bother him. He’s on a really important call!”
Jason huffs out an exasperated breath. “Yeah well he meant don’t barge in and try to start a Nerf war with him, alright? Not that you’re supposed to silently bleed out in his kitchen!”
“But he said–”
“Look, I’d love to discuss this further, but maybe when you’re not fucking dying, okay Tim?”
And with that, Jason shakes him off and sprints out of the room while Tim’s eyes spill over with tears.
Tim doesn’t bleed out, unfortunately.
It turns out Jason was just being dramatic and it’s not even possible to bleed out from a finger injury (unless he was on blood thinners or had a rare bleeding disorder or something), because there just aren’t any major enough arteries or veins located there. Dick spends the next minute or two calmly reassuring him of this fact—no doubt misinterpreting Tim's hysterics for fear—right up until a very concerned Bruce comes jogging into the kitchen, an army grade first aid kit tucked under his arm.
Six minutes, nine gauze pads, and almost an entire roll of surgical tape later, Tim is being ushered into Bruce’s car for his second trip to Gotham General this year.
(At least he doesn’t throw up on the way this time. Small mercies.)
Dick and Jason stay home. It’s partly because there’s a half-cooked turkey in the oven that they’re not sure what else to do with, and partly because Tim straight up asks them to. He isn’t sure why Bruce hasn’t gone off on him yet for interrupting his call, but he knows it’s coming. At least this way he might be able to keep the others out of the line of fire.
Except that Bruce doesn’t go off on him.
Not on the drive to the hospital, not while they check in at the front desk, not during triage, and not at any point during the entire first hour they spend sitting in the waiting room (which is significantly more crowded this time, probably due to the holiday). In fact, other than a few concerned questions about Tim’s pain level and whether or not the bandages are holding up, Bruce seems content to just sit there quietly, giving Tim the occasional tightlipped smile or reassuring shoulder squeeze as they wait.
Tim finds it honestly unnerving. Why won’t he just get it over with already? His parents never make him wait this long for a lecture.
At about the ninety minute mark, a nurse calls a young mother and her sobbing toddler back into an exam room, and Bruce leans over to whisper in Tim’s ear.
“I think we might have done too good a job of stopping the bleeding,” he says with a hint of amusement. “It seems to have bumped you down the priority list. Looks like we’ll be here for a while.”
The knot of guilt twisting in Tim’s stomach tightens. It’s already after four o’clock; at this rate, there’s no way they’re going to make it back home before the end of the business day.
Sighing, Tim lowers his gaze to his lap. “I can write the Board letters if you want,” he offers quietly.
Bruce quirks an eyebrow. “Letters?”
“Apology letters,” Tim clarifies. “For interrupting your meeting.”
“For interrupting my...?” Sudden understanding dawns on Bruce’s features and then he looks almost physically pained. “Oh bud, no. Is that why you’re being so quiet? Do you think I’m mad at you?”
Well, duh.
(Tim says nothing.)
Bruce sighs deeply. “Tim, I’m not mad at you for getting hurt,” he says. “Not at all. Accidents happen, okay? I’m just very glad I was working from home today so that I was available to help.”
(Available? Since when has ‘working from home’ ever meant someone was available?)
“But… you were on a call,” Tim points out, utterly confused. How is Tim the only one who keeps remembering that fact? “It was really important and people were counting on you to make decisions because you’re their boss and stuff. But I made a whole scene and ruined everything and now…” He trails off, his throat growing tighter with every word.
“Now what, bud?” Bruce prompts gently.
Tim finishes in a whisper, “Now you’re stuck here with me.”
“No.” The pained look on Bruce’s face intensifies, concern and kindness is etched into every winkle of his brow. “I’m not stuck anywhere. I’m exactly where I need to be, making sure you’re okay.” He gives Tim’s knee a squeeze. “That’s the most important thing I could be doing right now.”
The words are spoken so sincerely that it makes Tim’s chest ache and his eyes start to sting. Still, he knows better than to believe them.
“But it’s unprofessional,” he murmurs, gazing morosely down at the thick pad of bandages wrapped around his thumb. “To let some stupid kid get in the way of an entire company.”
A flash of something dark crosses Bruce’s face and Tim winces, instantly regretting his words. Great job, Tim. You basically just accused the CEO of one of the richest companies in Gotham of being an incompetent business leader.
But instead of snapping at him, Bruce just closes his eyes and takes a deep breath, like he’s counting to ten or something, and his face relaxes back to neutral. “Is that something your parents told you?” he asks quietly.
Tim just shrugs.
“Hm,” Bruce says. He’s silent for a long moment, then, “Well that’s bullshit, Tim.”
Tim looks up, startled.
“The ability to prioritize what’s truly important in any given situation is one of the most professional qualities there is,” Bruce says firmly. “And family emergencies will always come first.”
Whether it’s the stress or the pain, Tim doesn’t know, but his internal filter just keeps failing him today. “Yeah, well…” He finds himself huffing out a bitter little laugh. “That’s not really been my experience.”
Tim shouldn’t have said it, but of course now that he has, Bruce can’t just let it go. He raises an eyebrow, deceptively casual. “What has been your experience, Tim?”
("I don’t care what you do, Timothy, just do it quietly," his mother’s annoyed voice echoes somewhere in the back of his mind.)
Tim tugs idly at one of the stray threads of the gauze. “I mean, I’m just not supposed to bother them, you know?”
Bruce hums thoughtfully. A nurse with a tablet comes out and calls back another patient—an older man who’s been sitting hunched over and clutching an emesis basin to his chest since well before they arrived. His wife helps him up and they both shuffle on back.
Once it’s quiet again, Bruce asks calmly, “Do they get angry when you bother them?”
Tim frowns; they’re approaching dangerous territory now and the last thing he needs is Bruce getting the wrong idea. “I wouldn’t say angry, exactly. More like, irritated I guess.”
Irritated. That’s a good word for it. It’s not like his parents ever hit him or anything—hell, they barely even yell at him. Most of the time they just get annoyed and huffy and send him outside or off to his room for a while. The worst he gets are the occasional cutting remarks, but what parent doesn’t lose their temper on occasion? They’re certainly not abusive. That’s absurd.
And anyway, he almost prefers it when they do yell. At least it means they’re still talking to him.
“What kinds of things do they do when they’re irritated?” Bruce asks, and okay, Tim is getting to the end of his patience now.
“I don’t know, normal things,” he huffs. Sick of playing twenty questions, he decides to just cut to the chase. “Look, they don’t hurt me or anything if that’s what you’re getting at, okay?”
He’s never even been spanked before—at least not by his parents. There was this one nanny Tim vaguely remembers from when he was little who used to swat him on the behind for misbehaving, but when his parents found out about it, they’d fired her right on the spot.
"What makes you think you have the right to lay a hand on my son in my own home?" Jack had snarled at her. She’d opened her mouth to explain, but he’d been too angry to let her speak. He’d just pointed at the door. "Consider yourself dismissed. We’ll send your last check in the mail!"
To this day, it’s probably the angriest Tim’s ever seen his father, and though he remembers feeling scared and upset at the time, now when Tim looks back on that particular memory, all he feels is warm.
Two days later, Ms. Sophie was hired. It’s the last time he can recall his parents truly fighting for him.
“You know,” Bruce says gently, “there are an awful lot of ways to hurt someone.”
Tim forces a shrug. “Yeah I know,” he says. “But they don’t.”
They’d have to be around for that.
Bruce purses his lips. He looks like he’s choosing his next words very carefully. “Sometimes… it’s less about what a person does, and more about what they don't do.”
A lump settles in Tim’s throat and nope, nuh-uh, no siree Bob, not happening, he is not going to be thinking about this right now. Not sitting in some crowded waiting room with eight layers of gauze wrapped around his thumb on Thanksgiving Eve next to Bruce Freaking Wayne.
Not when his parents are finally coming home for once.
“Look, can–” Balling his non-injured fist up, Tim presses it against his eye socket. “Can we just talk about something else? Please?”
Concern flickers across Bruce’s face, but then he just smiles that sad smile of his. “Of course, bud,” he says softly, shifting back around in his seat again as he gives Tim’s arm another squeeze. “Why don’t you tell me about some of the apps you’ve been working on lately?”
And for the next several hours, they do just that.
It’s nearly eight p.m. by the time Tim’s thumb is stitched back into place and he and Bruce make it back to the Manor, and by that time the kitchen resembles a war zone.
Punk pop music is blasting from the speakers; nearly every horizontal surface is piled with dirty pots, pans, bowls, cutting boards, and cooking utensils; the cabinet doors are all hanging open; the floor is coated in a mixture of flour, spilled gravy, and breadcrumbs; and some kind of orange goop that Tim can only pray is pie filling is steadily dripping down from the ceiling onto the stovetop.
In the middle of it all, Dick and Jason are standing over the kitchen island, scooping mashed potatoes into a rectangular pyrex container.
“Oh no, you didn’t have to finish cooking for me!” Tim gasps in horror as he takes in the sight. About a dozen similar containers are stacked on the countertop, each one filled with the various fruits of their labor, and it makes him feel suddenly woozy. “That’s not what I meant when I said you should stay home!”
Dick chuckles. “Relax, Timmy. We know that’s not what you meant. We just wanted to help out and everything was already started anyway.”
“Yeah, besides you guys were gone for like, five hours,” Jason retorts, topping the mashed potato container off with a lid and adding it to the growing tower. “What else were we gonna do?”
“...Clean up, perhaps,” Bruce mutters under his breath.
“Hey, we cleaned the biohazards!” Dick says, much too cheerfully. Jerking his head sideways, he indicates the only two clear areas in the room—the breakfast nook table, and Tim’s former chopping station. The white plastic cutting board is slightly discolored now and there’s a strong scent of bleach in the air.
“Hn.” Bruce nods, his lips twitching upwards like he’s trying not to smile and only mostly succeeding. He looks almost proud. “That you did.”
Fresh guilt twists in Tim’s stomach. He starts rolling up his sleeves. “I can clean the rest up myself,” he offers quickly. “You guys just go sit down, I got it.”
Jason snorts, sliding the now empty potato pot over to the growing mountain of dirty dishes. “Tim, you lost like a pint of blood this afternoon and you’re basically wearing an oven mitt made of gauze. If anyone should be sitting down right now, it’s you.”
“Yeah, plus Alfred’s rule is whoever doesn’t cook has to help with the clean up,” Dick throws in. Abandoning his station, he moves over to place a hand on Tim’s shoulder to steer him towards the family room. “So since the three of us all cooked...”
Grinning, Jason dumps the remaining empty pyrex containers into Bruce’s arms, giving him two quick pats on the back as he heads out. “Have fun, old man!”
Tim ends up spending the night at the Manor.
He feels awfully guilty about it, especially considering it’s a well known fact that Gotham’s crime rate usually surges in the days surrounding any major holiday, but the Waynes are insistent that he not stay home alone while freshly injured. Tim tries to argue that it wasn’t even that big of a deal and he’s perfectly fine now, but Jason isn’t having it.
(“You were just at the ER, Timmy. What do you think the E stands for? Elephants? Eggo waffles? Edward Scissorhands?” / “Jay, that’s enough” / “What? I’m not wrong!”)
Resigning himself to stay, Tim tries to make up for it by declining the Waynes’ offer of a movie after dinner by claiming he has a bad headache and going straight up to bed. His hope is that Batman & Co. will use the opportunity afforded to slip out and patrol once they think he’s asleep.
Unfortunately, Tim’s plan backfires as it just seems to make Bruce worried about him. Not only does he not go out that night, but he frowns a lot and makes Tim rate his pain on a scale and drink a bunch of fluids and take an ice pack up to bed with him. Later, while Tim is pretending to be asleep, he even pokes his head in the doorway to check on him.
Twice.
(What is Tim, an infant??)
Granted… it is kind of nice to have someone actually seem to care about him. Especially since the headache isn’t a total lie—crying always has that effect on Tim. It’s one of the many reasons he tries to do it as rarely as possible.
Or, at least he used to rarely cry. This past half a year or so has been… unprecedented, to say the least. Kind of ever since he met the Waynes, actually…
Huh.
(He tries not to think too hard about that one.)
The next morning, Bruce checks Tim’s stitches and changes his dressing while the boys eat cereal and watch the Macy’s parade on Alfred’s little kitchen TV set. The Waynes spend the entire time debating whether the parade is a fun and harmless holiday tradition, or just a weird American flex of corporate greed and consumerism. Bruce argues the former, Jason the latter, and Dick keeps flip-flopping between sides like the freaking acrobat he is.
It’s actually kind of weird how much the Waynes seem to enjoy arguing with each other about random crap. Even weirder how they seem to genuinely consider each other’s points and occasionally even change their positions.
(Couldn’t be the Drakes, that’s for sure.)
Anyway, according to the airline app that Tim keeps checking, his parents’ flight gets in a little before three that afternoon, meaning Jack and Janet should make it home sometime between four-thirty and five. At Tim’s request, Bruce drops him off at home around noon so that he has plenty of time to get ready for them, and also to ensure that the Waynes have plenty of opportunity to assume their alter egos. Tim doesn’t think he could bear the guilt if he prevented them from going out for two consecutive patrols.
“You can call us if you need anything, okay?” Bruce says as the car rolls to a stop at the end of the Drakes’ driveway. He shifts gears to park. “Especially if you run into any trouble with those stitches. We’d be more than happy to help.”
“Yeah I know,” Tim assures, as if he hasn’t just decided that he’d rather see his entire thumb fall off than inconvenience the Waynes one more time this weekend. He opens the car door and hops out, gathering the straps of the tote bag full of Thanksgiving leftovers Dick and Jason packed him in his good hand.
“I sent your parents an email last night regarding the follow up appointment to get your stitches removed,” Bruce continues. “So far they haven’t replied, but–”
“I’ll make sure they see it when they get home, thank you so much.”
Oh my god, just leave already, I'm fine.
“Alright,” Bruce says with a sigh. “Well, I’ll let you head inside then.” Tim starts to close the door, but Bruce stops it with his hand, looking him right in the eyes. “Just… text us when your parents get in, alright? So we don’t worry?”
Okay what is with all this coddling? Tim’s really going to have to figure out how to fix this whole ‘damsel in distress’ thing he’s had going on for the past couple months. It’s really hurting his image.
(Besides, he knows for a fact that Bruce has already downloaded the very same flight app Tim’s been checking all day; he saw it on his home screen earlier.)
Whatever. Experience has taught Tim that agreement is the fastest way to get adults off his case.
“Sure,” he says, Gala Smile™ and all. “I’ll be sure to let you know.”
He shuts the door before he can see Bruce’s expression change.
At half-past four, Tim fires up the oven to start reheating the food.
Soon Drake Manor is filled with the aroma of roast turkey, stuffing, mashed potatoes, sweet potatoes, gravy, and about five other sides—including something mushy and grayish-green in color that process of elimination dictates must be Dick’s casserole.
Tim snorts out a laugh. He might just keep that one in the fridge for later.
Five o’clock comes and goes with no sign of Tim’s parents, but that’s not too unusual. The traffic must be bad, that’s all.
He lowers the oven by a few degrees and shoots them both a quick text saying he’s looking forward to seeing them soon.
At six he sends a follow-up text, just checking in. The airline app says they landed on time, but maybe they stopped somewhere on the way home. No biggie, they can’t be much longer.
He passes the time while he waits for a reply by making little aluminum foil hats for the dishes to keep them warm.
When there’s still no reply by seven, Tim tries calling his mother’s phone. It goes straight to voicemail, so he repeats the process with his dad and gets the same result.
Hm. Maybe he should reheat the food again…
At seven-thirty, Tim smacks a palm to his forehead. Of course! God, he’s so stupid. They just must have forgotten to change their SIM cards back to the US ones.
Shaking his head in relief, Tim shoots off another text, this time to their international numbers.
It fails to deliver.
(He's starting to get a stomachache.)
By nine p.m, Tim has transformed the kitchen into his war room.
After hacking into the airport’s security system to ensure that yes, his parents really did land in New Jersey and made it successfully through customs, he started taking matters into his own hands. He’s already printed up several maps plotting out his parents’ most likely routes home from the airport, and is currently in the process of calling each of the hospitals in the area to confirm whether or not anyone matching either of their descriptions has been admitted, simultaneously using his police scanner app to listen anxiously for any news of vehicular incidents on the freeways.
He’s so lost in his work that he jumps when his phone buzzes with a message from Bruce:
Everything okay with your folks? We haven’t gotten a text from you yet.
Despite the holiday, Tim knows for a fact that the Bats are out patrolling tonight. He heard a couple of the officers on the police scanner mention a 2-1-20 at a crime scene downtown—the GCPD’s code for vigilante-related assistance.
He takes a deep breath. It’s fine. Gotham needs Bruce more than he does.
Opening up the flight app, Tim takes a quick screenshot of the screen confirming their arrival time of 2:55 p.m. He forwards the photo to Bruce along with a series of Thanksgiving food emojis, a smiley face, and a thumbs up.
Glad to hear it, Bruce shoots back a few seconds later. Hope you’re all having a wonderful evening.
You too!! Tim replies, and slides his phone back into his pocket.
Then he lurches for the kitchen sink and vomits down the drain.
At 10:39 p.m. Tim is sitting at the dining room table in a daze, half-heartedly nibbling on a bread roll to settle his stomach. He’s been listening to the scanner for hours now, having already called every hospital within a fifty mile radius, all with no word of his parents.
When his phone finally lights up with the familiar name, he fumbles it right off the table in his mad rush to accept the call.
“Dad? Are you guys alright?” Tim blurts the second has the phone to his ear.
“Well hello to you too, son,” Jack chuckles in that very specific wry voice of his that’s typically reserved for company. Unlike Tim, he doesn’t sound the least bit distressed. “Your mother and I were just discussing your schooling. Remind me again, are you taking AP economics this semester, or next?”
“Uh…” Tim blinks a few times, his brain short-circuiting at the bewildering question. “I think… I’m taking it junior year?”
“Yes yes, junior year, of course.” He can practically see his dad’s dismissive hand wave through the phone. “But is it the fall semester, or the spring? See, we’re trying to determine if Charles Albrecht is in your class or not. You remember little Charlie, don’t you?”
“Yeah… I remember him,” Tim says slowly as he tries to wrap his head around how exactly the sixteen-year-old son of the CEO of one of the largest tech conglomerates in New Jersey factors into this. “But I’m only a sophomore this year, so… neither.”
“You are?” Jack sounds surprised. And maybe a bit disappointed. “Hm. Well, how are your grades looking? Perhaps we can talk your counselor into letting you take it a little early…”
(Okay literally what is happening right now???)
“Anyhow,” Jack barrels right along, “we’ve been chatting with Theodore and Marleen, and they mentioned plans to host a study group for Charles and a select group of his Econ classmates next term. Your mother and I think it could be a fantastic networking opportunity for you, which is why we immediately suggested that–”
“Wait sorry, go back just a sec,” Tim interrupts, too baffled by this entire call to let his dad ramble on any further. “You’re… at the Albrechts’ right now?”
“Well of course we are!” Jack chuckles. “But you knew that, it was all in your mother’s email. That’s why we booked the early flight we did, so we could make it back in time to attend their Thanksgiving banquet.”
Tim’s glad he’s sitting down because he’s feeling kind of woozy all of a sudden. Switching his phone over to speaker mode, he pulls up the email and skims through it quickly just to make sure he hasn’t become suddenly illiterate.
“It just says you’re flying back to Gotham on Thursday,” Tim reads off. “It doesn’t say anything about going to a banquet.”
“No? I could’ve sworn we put it in…” Jack murmurs, more to himself than Tim. He chuckles again. “Ah well, things are winding down now anyway. We’ll be home in an hour or two.” He hums thoughtfully, as though just recalling something. “Although, Erik Langley has been tossing the idea of nightcaps around…”
Staring at the sea of cold foil wrapped dishes in front of him, Tim decides he’s had just about enough of this stupid holiday.
Chapter 6: +1: By Choice
Summary:
Tim's parents are actually home for once.
Let's see if that helps.
Notes:
[Content warning: graphic descriptions of blood, injury, wounds, and serious illness. Like, this is probably the whumpiest thing I've ever written, y'all. Please proceed with caution.]
Chapter Text
In hindsight, it’s kind of impressive that Tim made it as long as he did.
Getting mugged at knifepoint is practically a rite of passage for Gothamites, and considering the fact that he’s been stalking literal vigilantes down some of the most crime ridden parts of the city several times a week since he turned nine, it was really only a matter of time before some low life cornered Tim on his way back to the bus stop, a steel blade pressed up against his windpipe.
The irony of the situation is that Tim was willing to give it all up without a fuss—cash, bus pass, debit card, phone… even his camera. The only thing that he attempted to keep was the SD card.
But of course, the mugger noticed him discreetly ejecting it. His lips curled up into a sneer.
(“Whatcha got on there, kid? Somethin’ dirty?”)
Well, Tim certainly wasn’t about to hand over several hundred candid shots of Batman, Robin, and Nightwing kicking ass to the same scumbag who just took his phone (and the three albums worth of photos he’d taken with the Waynes contained within).
So instead, Tim asked himself a quick WWJTD: What Would Jason Todd Do?
Then Tim kneed that sucker right in the groin.
(“Gaaahhh fucking dammit you little piece of shit!”)
And, to Tim’s surprise, it actually worked. He was able to take advantage of the mugger’s momentary distraction to wrench his camera and phone back, break the mugger’s hold, and book it back down the alley, not slowing once all the way back to the bus stop.
As a bonus, he also won a free knife!
…Which is firmly wedged in his back, just above his right shoulder blade.
(He’s starting to understand all that body armor his heroes wear now...)
Tim makes it home.
The details of how exactly this happens are a little fuzzy. One moment he’s sitting on a bus stop bench in a daze, the handle of a switchblade sticking out of his back, and the next he’s standing on the grounds of Drake Manor, gazing up the trellis at his bedroom window with absolutely no memory how he got from point A to point B.
(He’s always heard that shock can be one hell of a drug, but… wow. They ain’t lying.)
Despite how oddly little his shoulder hurts at the moment (and from what Tim knows of shock, he’s pretty sure that isn’t a good sign), he figures scaling two stories with a knife in his back isn’t the best plan, so he wanders around to the back door instead. With his parents actually in town for once, he normally wouldn’t risk coming in this way, but they’d left around nine that evening to get drinks with some of their… shall we say, less reputable business contacts over in Somerset, and Tim knows how these things go. He’d be shocked to see them back before three a.m.
Gauze, he thinks idly as he moves through the first floor of the mansion towards the stairs. He’s gonna need a lot of gauze.
Actually, that’s a good question: do the Drakes even own gauze? If so, Tim’s not sure where. He’s got a box of assorted Pokémon themed band-aids in his bathroom cabinet upstairs, but something tells him that’s not going to cut it this time.
A vague memory surfaces in the back of Tim’s mind—a small red pouch with a white cross on top that Ms. Sophie used to pull out whenever he scraped his knees playing outside. Were those her supplies, he wonders as he mounts the grand staircase, or do they still have that somewhere? In a closet, maybe? Or the master bathroom?
“...Timothy?”
He freezes mid-step, just one stair below the top landing. His mother is standing in the doorway of her bedroom in a dressing gown, her arms crossed over her chest.
(Fuck, that’s right. He’d lost some time earlier, hadn’t he? Probably should’ve factored that in…)
“Were you outside just now?” she asks, sounding more puzzled than angry.
“Uhh…” Tim’s suddenly very, very glad he’s wearing all black at the moment. The knife’s handle is still sticking out of the back of his coat. He can feel the blood soaking through the shirt underneath.
“We thought you’d gone to bed,” she says. Now that Tim’s focusing a little more, he can hear Jack’s quiet snores issuing from the bedroom. “Your father and I got home not too long ago…”
Something about her is off. Her voice has a floaty, almost dreamlike quality to it, and there’s a faraway look in her eyes, as if she’s gazing beyond Tim instead of at him.
Ambien, he realizes belatedly. His mother always has a hard time winding down after negotiations like these, so she usually takes Ambien to help her sleep. It’s especially effective when there’s been a few glasses of wine involved.
Janet is high as a kite right now.
Her brow furrows slightly as her gaze falls to the camera strapped around Tim’s neck. “Were you taking pictures?”
“Y-Yeah,” Tim stammers, stepping up onto the landing. “I couldn't sleep so I was just taking some pictures in the backyard. Of the sky and stuff.” He gives a nervous little chuckle. “That night vision lens you got me, you know...”
Janet is still looking at him with that mildly curious expression, and Tim’s heart rate starts to pick up.
Please, please don’t ask to see them, he silently begs the universe. You’ve never cared before. Don’t start now!
It seems luck is on his side for once. “Hm,” she says, her face relaxing into a faint smile. “That sounds nice.”
“Yeah, it was,” Tim agrees, careful to keep his back to his mother as he shuffles sideways down the hall. Ironically, the shock of bumping into her seems to have overridden the other shock he’s been experiencing; he’s really feeling that knife now. “Anyway, it worked. I’m pretty tired, so I think I’ll just head back to bed now…”
Janet hums lightly as Tim reaches his bedroom door. He extends his hand to turn the knob, then freezes. It’s completely covered in blood.
(Oh well. He’s had a good run, anyway.)
Wincing, Tim holds his breath, waiting for the other shoe to drop.
It doesn’t.
“Goodnight, dear…” Janet murmurs dreamily. And with that, she slips back into her bedroom, the door behind her closing with a soft click.
Okay, so, Google is worthless.
That’s what Tim decides after stumbling into the bathroom with his laptop and spending a couple minutes frantically scouring the internet on an incognito tab with the keywords: ‘stabbed shoulder what to do knife still in’
Call 911, the articles say.
Seek professional help, they all advise.
DO NOT attempt to remove the foreign object under ANY circumstance, they warn aggressively in all caps.
Completely. Utterly. Worthless.
His trusted friend YouTube has a decent looking tutorial at least, but it’s thirteen minutes long and Tim’s ears are ringing too loudly to hear much of what the guy is saying. He fast forwards through the beginning until he hits an unskippable ad for skin care products, then slams the laptop lid shut in a fit of frustration.
Guess he’s doing this the old fashioned way.
Taking a deep breath, Tim reaches up, grasps the knife firmly by the handle, and yanks it straight out.
Tim’s vision goes white.
Holy.
Fucking.
Shitballs.
(He’s kind of starting to miss being in shock.)
Once he’s finally managed to stop gasping in sharp lungfuls of air and blink back the tears from his eyes, Tim resumes the task at hand. Removing his coat is easy enough, but taking off the shirt underneath is a whole ordeal. Blood has already started to coagulate around the edges of the wound, adhering the fabric to his skin. He has to peel it off, barely managing to stifle his cries of pain as blood streams down his back, pooling in the waistband of his jeans and dripping down the inside of his pant legs.
At least it’s only ‘streaming’ and not ‘gushing’ or ‘spurting,’ he thinks dizzily. That probably means he’s not dying, right?
Right?
(Admittedly, Tim’s not much of an expert. This is, after all, his first time getting stabbed.)
By the time he’s worked himself free of his clothes, his head is swimming and everything is starting to look a little dark around the edges. He lowers himself down shakily to sit on the floor. He knows he needs to find something to put pressure on the wound, but there’s nothing around to–
Never mind. That’ll do.
Tim tugs his damp bath towel down from the rack and wads it up into a ball. After setting it on the ground, he lies down with his shoulder directly on top. The pressure sends a fresh jolt of pain through his back, and he has to clench his teeth hard to keep quiet, but it fades fairly quickly back into that sort of buzzing numbness.
He wishes the floor wasn’t so cold against his bare back because it’s making him shiver. Or maybe that’s just the shock again—what does Tim know? It’s fine though, he won’t stay down here long. Just until he stops feeling so dizzy and can figure out what to do about this.
The bright lights above the mirror are making Tim’s eyes hurt, so he lets them drift shut, just for a moment.
That’s all he needs. Just a moment.
Then he’ll handle this.
The next thing Tim knows, sunlight is streaming in through the little half-window over the toilet, the battery powered alarm clock on the sink counter reading 11:02 a.m.
He blinks. Then blinks again. Then one more time, just for good measure.
Did… Did that seriously just happen? Did Tim actually pass out on the bathroom floor for eight hours straight, half naked, shivering, and covered in his own blood?
All evidence, particularly the formerly yellow towel that’s now adhered to his shoulder in tacky dried blood, is pointing to yes.
(Well, shit. Who needs sleeping pills when you can just get stabbed?)
The good news is, at eleven a.m., the house is well and truly empty. Both Jack and Janet are attending a meeting at the Gotham office of Drake Industries today, so Tim has no trouble getting to the master bathroom undetected. It takes a bit of searching through the cabinets, but he eventually locates a bottle of rubbing alcohol and an unopened box containing twelve individually wrapped gauze pads. They’re smaller than he’d hoped for, but hey, better than nothing.
Heading back to his own bathroom, he deposits his bounty on the counter, then steps into the shower to try and see if he can lose this whole ‘actor in a student-produced slasher film’ vibe he’s got going on. His shoulder is bleeding freely again by the time he’s done, but not nearly as much as last night, so he’s not too worried.
(God does it hurt, though.)
After wrapping his lower half in a towel, Tim pops a couple ibuprofen for the pain and uncaps the rubbing alcohol. Then he takes a deep breath, lifts the bottle up behind his head, and pours.
In the spirit of the holiday season, Tim takes the next few moments to count his blessings:
1) He’s thankful that no one is home to hear him scream.
2) He’s thankful he doesn’t pass out again—and, honestly, it’s a near thing. His vision keeps fading in and out and his ears are roaring.
3) He’s thankful that he didn’t eat much last night, because the blinding pain brings about a wave of nausea and he’s very nearly reacquainted with Mrs. Mac’s shepherd’s pie. He already suffered through it the first time; he’d hate to have to do it again.
4) He’s thankful there isn’t much alcohol left in the bottle because it means he gets to stop soon without feeling like a wuss.
He couldn’t find anything resembling medical tape in his parents’ cabinets, but Tim’s pretty good at improvising. He slaps two gauze pads onto the bleeding wound, reinforcing them with a thick wad of folded paper towels, then duct tapes the whole thing firmly in place like the little MacGyver he is.
There. Got that sorted.
For the next two days, Tim wears his darkest clothing (having learned a thing or two from Dick’s mistakes) and does his best to stay out of his parents’ way. Even with Tim currently off school for winter break, it’s not a very difficult task. His parents both keep pretty packed schedules, and it’s not like they ever willingly seek him out. Still, there are a few close calls.
For example, when Tim walks past the laundry room Thursday afternoon to find his mother holding up his blood-stained towel (which he’d definitely meant to put in the trash can and not his hamper, whoops).
“What happened here?” She’s pinching the corner of the towel with her fingertips, nose wrinkled in both curiosity and disgust.
“Oh, I just, uh…” Tim shifts his weight, subconsciously angling his back away from her as if she’s capable of seeing through his thick sweatshirt to the wound below. “Nosebleed.”
It’s a pretty weak lie. First of all, there’s way too much blood for that, and second, Tim has never had a nosebleed in his life.
Thankfully, it seems as though his mother hasn’t been paying too much attention to Tim’s medical history over the years because she just sighs. “Well, next time, kindly use something disposable to mop it up rather than six hundred thread count premium Turkish cotton.”
Tim does his best to look sheepish. “Sorry,” he mutters at his feet.
“Here, take this,” Janet says, tossing the soiled towel over to him. A jolt of pain shoots through Tim’s shoulder as he instinctively moves his right hand to grab it, and he grimaces as he feels the wound tear itself open again.
(There goes that dressing.)
“Throw it out in the outside trash can,” his mother says briskly. “I don’t want it stinking up the house, alright?”
“Got it,” Tim agrees, then hurries away to do her bidding before the bandages soak through again.
There’s another close call the following day. Tim is kneeling once more on the floor of his parents’ bathroom, digging under the sink for anything remotely resembling bandage materials. At the rate he keeps reopening this wound, he’s already burned through ten of his twelve gauze pads and he’s really stretching those last two.
This is probably why vigilantes learn how to do stitches, he thinks bitterly, shoving aside his mother’s bath bomb collection and a few cans of shaving cream as he searches. Granted, even if he knew how to stitch himself up, the position of this particular wound would prevent him from doing so anyway.
…Which would be why they also have partners, his brain grumbles at him.
He finds some ace bandage rolls in a plastic bag, but he’s not sure how to make that work for a wound like this. He could switch to pure paper towels, but they disintegrate so quickly when they get soaked, and he really doesn’t want to pick little paper fibers out of an open wound. Maybe he could just tape a washcloth back there or something? He’s kind of running out of options here…
As he riffles through the vanity drawers, Tim’s hand closes around the handle of his mother’s curling iron and the caution tag on its cord catches his eye. Evidently on its highest setting, this particular model can reach temperatures of up to 400 degrees fahrenheit.
Now there’s an idea…
“What are you looking for, champ?”
At the sound of his dad’s voice, Tim shoves the curling iron back into the drawer. “Uh… shampoo!” he says quickly, grabbing the nearest bottle from under the sink. “Just ran out of shampoo and wanted to shower.”
Jack gazes judgingly at the sleek black bottle in his hand. “Well, could you borrow your mother’s instead? You know I get that stuff prescription for my dandruff.”
“Oh, yeah, sure,” Tim agrees with a nervous chuckle. “No problem.”
From the shower, Jack plucks up a bottle of something covered in flowers and labeled in French. He smirks, holding it out to Tim. “Not the manliest scent, but it should tide you over until Mrs. Mac brings the groceries tomorrow.”
Tim gives him a grateful smile. “Thanks.” Stuffing the last of the items back into the vanity, he reaches up to the counter to pull himself up. The movement sends more fiery jolts of pain through his shoulder and he can’t help but suck in a sharp breath as he gets to his feet.
His dad raises an eyebrow. “Alright there?”
“Yeah,” Tim says tightly, feeling his eyes start to water. He blinks them clear again. “I was just working out earlier. Arm day, you know...” He forces a wet little laugh.
(Tim will not be joining the Wayne Family Improv Troupe any time soon, that’s for certain.)
But Jack chuckles anyway. “Getting those gains in, eh? What are you benching these days?”
Tim has no fucking clue what a thirteen-year-old boy is supposed to bench press. Outside of his P.E. class, he usually sticks to martial arts videos.
“Like… a hundred…?” he tries. At Jack’s frown, Tim quickly adds, “–and fifty! A hundred and fifty.”
(Just please, please don’t ask for a demonstration right now. Tim will literally die.)
Jack looks vaguely disappointed. “Hm. I was benching two hundred in high school,” he remarks, then pauses, seeming to chew this over. “But, I suppose I was quite a bit taller, too…” He nods after a moment, seemingly mollified. “Alright, well, keep it up and you’ll get those ladies in no time!”
He gives his son an encouraging clap on the back on his way out.
(It’s all Tim can do to keep from fainting.)
It’s Friday night when Tim starts to suspect that something is wrong.
Despite the ibuprofen he’s been popping like Skittles, the pain in his shoulder has only intensified. It’s warm and swollen to the point that he can’t bear touching anywhere around the wound.
But the worst part?
It just. Keeps. Re-opening.
Now, Tim’s not stupid. He’s well aware that these are all probable signs of infection, which is why he’s dealing with it. He found an old tube of Neosporin in the back of a drawer somewhere that he’s started applying liberally with every bandage change. Which, admittedly, he might not be doing as frequently as the articles say he’s supposed to, but it’s a hassle, okay?
First of all, there’s the lack of bandages. He was really testing the bounds of that twelfth square of gauze before a YouTube ad for Kotex products combined with a sudden stroke of genius sent him rifling through his parents’ bathroom drawers once more.
(Thank goodness Janet’s not a tampon person.)
There are sixteen pads left in Janet’s stash. He risks snagging five of them, then hurries back to his own bathroom, hoodie pocket bulging and a darkly ironic thought about coming of age somewhere in the back of his mind.
To Tim’s relief, the pads work pretty well as a dressing substitute. He’ll still definitely have to ration if he doesn’t want uncomfortable questions, but they’re thick enough that he should be able to eke out a few more days until he can get the damn thing to close.
Second, there’s the issue of the wound’s location. It’s directly on the back of his shoulder, meaning that the only way he can see it is by looking in the mirror. Which wouldn’t be a big deal or anything, except for the fact that…
Well, he just really doesn’t want to see it.
It’s stupid. Tim knows it’s stupid. He knows he’s supposed to look at it—to check it for weeping and yellow pus and red streaks and all the other nasty things the internet warns him about. But yet, some silly little voice in the back of Tim’s head keeps telling him that so long as he just doesn’t look, there’s still a chance that this isn’t really happening.
(Schrödinger's infection, if you will.)
Because—and this is the third thing now—it can’t be happening. It simply cannot. Because if it is, it means that Tim needs a doctor, and he can’t go to a doctor because they’re going to ask what happened and contact his parents and maybe even the police and it’s going to be a whole thing and nobody fucking needs that, least of all Jack and Janet.
Because they’re finally home for once. They’re home and they’re being decent to him, and eating dinner with him, and it’s winter break, and despite their jam packed calendars, they even remembered to light the menorah with him five nights out of eight. They’re here, dammit, and Tim is not about to make them wish they weren’t.
So he just deals with it. He rinses the wound off with warm water and covers it in expired antibiotic ointment and duct tapes maxi pads to the top and prays it’ll just sort itself out. Because it has to.
It has to.
Except it doesn’t.
By Saturday, Tim feels like hot garbage. He’s exhausted, he’s chilled, he’s achy, his stomach is off, and his shoulder is on fucking fire.
He’s also supposed to attend the GCPD’s annual winter ball that evening.
(Because, fuck Tim’s life, honestly.)
“Can’t I please stay home, just this once?” Tim begs as his mother hands over the dry cleaning bag containing his freshly pressed tux. “I’ll go to the next one, I promise.”
Janet sighs, hard and exasperated. “Timothy, it’s the biggest event of the season. Drake Industries stock has only just recovered from that whole Bialyian border fiasco over the summer. It’s imperative that our family display a united front tonight to reassert our commitment to local law enforcement and wholesome family values.”
(He’s just going to suspend the irony of that for a minute.)
“I know, but I’m really not feeling well,” he says truthfully. He’d woken up that morning sweaty and nauseous, his shoulder screaming at him with every movement. “I think I might be coming down with something…”
Janet’s gaze narrows. “You think you’re coming down with something,” she repeats skeptically. “And yet, I’ve not heard a single cough, sneeze, or sniffle out of you all day.”
“Well, it’s not a cold, exactly,” Tim argues, letting his good arm wrap around his middle. “It’s more like, you know…”
(A gaping, infected stab wound in his back that refuses to close no matter what he does.)
“...a stomach thing,” he finishes lamely.
“A stomach thing.” Janet is fixing him with that very particular look of hers that makes him feel like a bug under a microscope. “Have you thrown up?”
“Well, no,” he admits. “But–”
“Are you having diarrhea?”
He grimaces. “No, but–”
She cuts him off with a sigh. “Timothy, your father and I negotiated our largest company merger to date while I was in the throes of Dengue fever after that botched trip to Thailand back in ‘07. I gave a three hour presentation to two separate boards of directors with a fever of 103.8 degrees. I was hallucinating my late mother sitting in the corner of the boardroom for the entire second half of the meeting, and do you know what?” She pauses a beat. “Not a single person suspected it.”
Crossing her arms, she looks him straight in the eyes. “Now, for the sake of the very company that puts food on our table, are you honestly telling me that you can’t push through for one night because your tummy hurts?”
A lump settles in Tim’s throat. His eyes start to sting. It’s true what he told Bruce that day in November; his parents have never once hit him.
They don’t have to.
Swallowing hard, Tim takes a steadying breath. Focus, he reminds himself. Remember your audience. Speak their language.
“I’m just concerned that I won’t be able to put my best foot forward tonight,” he begins carefully. He’s searching his mother’s face for tells, gauging her reaction to each word. “With so many notable names on the guest list, the last thing I want to do is let anyone down.”
It’s subtle, but it’s there—the shift in his mother’s features, the little flicker of something like uncertainty as she weighs his words. Tim plays his trump card:
“I’d hate to risk becoming a liability rather than an asset.”
And that’s how Tim finds himself seated on the edge of his parents’ bathtub five minutes later, the thermometer reading 100 degrees on the dot.
Janet looks unimpressed.
“Well that’s not even clinically significant, is it,” she dismisses, sliding the thermometer back into its case. “Probably more to do with all those layers you’re wearing than anything else…”
She casts a judging gaze at the thick black sweatshirt Tim’s been living in for the past few days. A little more casual than his usual style, but it’s really good at hiding blood stains.
“I took some ibuprofen earlier,” Tim admits, quickly growing desperate enough to avoid this evening that he’s willing to risk a little more of his mother’s scrutiny. “That’s probably why it’s not any higher.”
(It must be that; he sure as heck feels shittier than a measly 100 degrees would account for.)
Janet, however, just nods approvingly. “Good. Bring some more with you in case those wear off.” She replaces the thermometer and closes the medicine cabinet. “Now go get changed. We leave in thirty minutes.”
The gala is, in a word, hell.
Now, Tim knew it would be hell of course. He’d thoroughly anticipated how the stuffy clothing would hug tightly to his back, pressing right up against his inflamed skin; how his fever would leave him sweaty and miserable, cycling from cold, to hot, to cold again; how the smells of the fancy hor d'oeuvres would turn his stomach; how the camera flashes and boisterous laughter of the guests would drill into his aching head; how he’d be roped into one conversation after another, pasting on smiles and nodding politely to whatever meaningless socialite gossip is hot tonight.
He’d been prepared for all of that.
But somehow, Tim had forgotten about the handshakes. The dozens of times that he’s forced to extend his screaming right arm, clasp someone’s hand firmly in his own, and pump it up and down, his Gala Smile™ pasted on so tightly that it’s making his face twitch.
(Better than crying, at least.)
Tim’s not entirely sure what it is that catches up with him in the end—the pain, the fever, or simply the fact that he’s taken far too many pills on a far too empty stomach—but he barely makes it two hours into the gala before the single piece of toast he’s eaten today starts threatening to make a reappearance. He does his best to will it back down, breathing carefully through his slightly open mouth and sipping ginger ale from a champagne flute as he follows his parents around from one mind-numbing conversation to the next. But when the back of his jaw starts to tingle, Tim knows it’s game over. He interrupts Mrs. Bennet’s recount of her family’s recent trip to an Italian villa with a murmured apology before speed walking to the nearest men’s room.
Once inside, he barely manages to shut the stall door behind him before dropping to his knees and retching into the toilet. Tim’s not sure which burns the most: his stomach, his throat, or his shoulder.
(Just kidding. It’s definitely the shoulder.)
There isn’t much in him to bring up, but that certainly doesn’t stop his body from trying. Tim’s still retching miserably when he hears the outer door to the bathroom creak open.
Great, he thinks bitterly, because an audience is exactly what Tim needs right now. If he’s lucky, they’ll just turn around and find another bathroom. Amongst the social elite, pretending not to notice another’s public humiliation is by far the most merciful course of action.
But of course, Tim’s never been particularly lucky.
There’s a moment’s hesitation before he hears a quiet knock against the door of the stall. “Um, sir?” the stupid Good Samaritan asks. “Are you alright in there? Can I get you some water or something?”
Wait, hold on. Tim knows that voice.
“...J-Jason?” he croaks.
“Wait, Tim?” The other boy sounds at least as surprised as Tim is. “Shit, is that you? I didn’t even know you were gonna be here tonight. Are you sick?”
Tim opens his mouth to respond, but all that comes out is another retch.
“Right, okay, stupid question. Fuck…” Jason sighs. Tim can practically see him running his hand through his hair as he thinks. “Just wait here, alright? I’ll be right back.”
(Well it’s not like Tim can go anywhere else.)
He’s just getting his breath back from his second round of heaving when the bathroom door opens again.
“Hey, I’m back,” Jason announces, briskly closing the distance between himself and the stall. “Can you open the door? I brought you some water and a certified legal adult.”
“Huh?” Tim reaches up, fingers fumbling for the latch. The stall door swings open to reveal not only Jason, but Bruce Wayne, dressed to the nines.
(Someone, please, just kill Tim now.)
“Hey Tim,” Bruce greets softly. He’s got that same sympathetic half-smile on his face that Dick wears sometimes. Tim wonders idly who taught it to whom. “Jason says you’re not feeling too hot.”
“Technically I said he was blowing chunks,” Jason quips, receiving an unamused look from his father. Reaching towards Tim, he holds out a fluted glass filled with water.
Tim takes it carefully, praying he won’t drop it. That’d be just what he needs to add to this evening’s growing list of social sins: property damage.
“So, what’s the deal?” Jason asks as Tim takes a cautious sip. “Are you sick-sick, or is this more of a ‘don’t try the escargot’ kind of thing?”
Tim’s stomach rolls. He shoves the glass back into Jason’s hand before pressing his fist against his lips, barely suppressing a gag.
Bruce sighs—that particular, exasperated one that only his children are capable of bringing out of him. “Thank you, Jay, I’ll take it from here,” he says flatly. “Why don’t you go see if you can track down the Drakes?”
Jason’s nose wrinkles up in obvious displeasure. “Do I have to?”
“Yes.” Bruce gives him a significant look. “Tell them Tim’s not feeling very well and he needs to go home. Wait for us in the lobby.”
“Fine,” Jason huffs, turning to leave.
“And I want you to use those exact words,” Bruce calls after him. “Nothing less, nothing more.”
“Alright, alright…”
Once the door shuts behind him again, Bruce tugs the front of his trousers up slightly, allowing him enough room to squat down to Tim’s level. “What’s going on, bud?” he asks gently.
Tim swallows hard. “Sorry, Jason didn’t have to get you, I’m fine now,” he mumbles, thoroughly embarrassed. “I think it was just something I ate.”
(Yeah, like a dozen tabs of ibuprofen.)
“Are you sure?” Bruce’s brow furrows in concern. He presses a cool hand to Tim’s forehead, causing him to shiver at the contact. “You feel a little warm…” And sweaty, Tim knows, though Bruce is kind enough not to mention it. “Does anything hurt?”
Tim hesitates. Everything fucking hurts. He’s miserable enough at this point that there’s a part of him that’s tempted to come clean—to tell Bruce what happened and just let the adults handle this for once. But there would be so many questions, and Tim won’t be able to answer them. Not tonight. Not in a public bathroom at the biggest event of the season.
Not when the last thing in the world his parents need from him is a scene.
He shakes his head, forcing a sheepish smile. “I’m okay. I think I just needed to get something out of my system. I feel a lot better now.”
Bruce doesn’t look very convinced, but he nods anyway and takes Tim’s good arm to help him to his feet. The movement, though gentle, jostles Tim’s back and he has to bite the inside of his cheek to keep his expression neutral.
He must not do a very good job of it because Bruce goes instantly still. “What hurts, Tim.”
It’s less of a question and more of a command. He clearly isn’t buying ‘nothing’ so Tim opts for a technically accurate though incomplete version of the truth.
He sighs. “Just, like, everything.” At Bruce’s creased forehead, he huffs out a bleak little laugh. “Like, my whole body kinda aches, you know?”
(But particularly, the duct-taped stab wound.)
Bruce’s worried expression softens into more of a sympathetic grimace. “That doesn’t sound much like food poisoning,” he says gently, and given that whole Parm-o-nella business Jason graphically recounted for him a couple weeks ago, Tim supposes a Wayne should know. “I think you might have the flu.”
Tim bites his lower lip. “Yeah, maybe,” he says after a moment.
The lie burns in his chest.
Leaving the stall, Tim shuffles over to sinks and cleans up the best he can. He looks about as bad as he feels, but at least he managed to avoid getting anything on his clothes. He washes his face and straightens his tie before following Bruce back out to the lobby.
Jason is waiting there with Tim’s parents. None of them seem particularly pleased with their current company. The second Jack and Janet see him, they immediately converge on their son.
“What happened?” his mother demands.
Jack seems flustered, no doubt from being pulled away from whatever business deal he’d been in the midst of orchestrating. “Yes, what’s this about you needing to leave all of a sudden?”
“I, um…” Tim can’t quite meet his parents’ gaze. “I’m sick. I threw up,” he admits. “I’m really sorry.”
Janet’s nose twitches, like she’s trying very hard not to grimace. “Where?” she asks sharply.
Jason’s brow furrows, but the bluntness of the question doesn’t faze Tim in the slightest. “In the bathroom,” he’s quick to reassure her. “I didn’t make a mess or anything, I swear. And I’m pretty sure the Waynes were the only ones who noticed me.”
Jack raises an eyebrow. “Think there’ll be an encore?”
Tim’s cheeks are burning. He shakes his head, and both his parents nod.
“Well, not ideal, but it certainly could be worse…” Janet murmurs to her husband. Then, turning to Bruce, she fixes him with a proper Gala Smile™. “Thank you very much for alerting us to the situation, Mr. Wayne,” she says smoothly. “We’ll see to it that Timothy is looked after.”
“Of course, Janet,” Bruce says, matching her silky tone. “My son and I would be happy to retrieve your belongings from the cloakroom for you while you help Tim outside. I’m sure the fresh air will do him good.”
“Oh, that’s terribly kind of you, but we’re quite alright,” she declines, her words dripping with artificial sweetness. “Come along, dear,” she addresses Tim, taking his elbow and nudging him back in the direction of the banquet hall. “We’ll ask one of the waiters to bring you some crackers.”
“Wait, what?” Jason blurts. Bruce shoots his son a warning look, which he completely ignores. “You’re not taking him home?”
“Well, we certainly will when the evening is over,” Jack says with a chuckle, as though leaving his son at a gala were a preposterous idea and not something he’d literally been guilty of eight months prior. “But the night's still young—why, we haven’t even made it to the charity auction yet!”
Tim’s heart sinks. Of course his parents would want to stay for the auction. Not only were the two of them planning to bid on several items, but they’d also personally donated a few pieces from their own collection and would be eager to see how much they fetched.
(For charity, of course. Certainly not because of the generous interviews the press always conducted with benefactors afterwards.)
Jason’s face twists into a scowl, but Bruce is quick to intervene, placing a firm hand on the boy’s shoulder. “Now Jack,” he addresses Tim’s father in his most diplomatic tone, “while I certainly admire your commitment to philanthropy, the auction doesn’t even begin for another hour and a half. Surely no one here would fault you for prioritizing a family member’s health over a bit of public charity.”
Both of Tim’s parents hesitate just a second too long. Janet’s fingers wrap a little tighter around his elbow.
“Well he seems perfectly fine now,” Jack retorts, clearly ruffled by the direction this conversation is taking. “Aren’t you, champ?” He locks eyes with Tim.
“Uh huh…” Tim really just wants to sit down. All this arguing is making his stomach hurt again.
“See?” Jack says with a little chuckle. “Nothing to worry about.”
That’s apparently the last straw for Jason. “Oh my god, what is wrong with you people?” he exclaims. “Your kid was literally just puking his guts up!”
“Shhh.” Janet’s eyes dart around the room, obviously checking for any turned heads. “We are in public, young man,” she says sternly, keeping her voice low. “Kindly watch your language.”
“It’s a bodily function!”
“Jay…” Bruce pinches the bridge of his nose. “Would you please just let me handle this?”
“No!” Jason snaps, turning on Bruce now while Tim’s stomach twists uncomfortably. “Because I have been letting you handle this since fucking April, and what have you done about it? Not a damn thing!”
Bruce looks pained. “This is not the place to discuss–”
“Well where is that place then, B? ‘Cus let’s fucking go there then!”
Heads are turning all around the lobby now. Tim tries to pull away, but Janet’s grip on his elbow only tightens. “...Mom?” he whispers. “I really don’t feel–”
“Hush, Timothy,” she snaps under her breath at the same moment that his father turns on Bruce.
“Discuss what?” Jack demands hotly. “What precisely is your boy trying to insinuate here?”
Bruce holds up a placating hand. “Now, Jack, let’s all just take a deep breath and–”
“I am insinuating,” Jason spits out, getting right up in Jack’s face, “that you treat your own child like dirt!”
“Excuse me?” Janet whips her head around, while Jack just splutters, open-mouthed.
“No, you know what? Worse than dirt! Because at least you’d probably notice dirt, and you’d give enough of a shit about the dirt that you’d hire someone to take care of it!”
Pretty much the entire room is staring at them now. Jack looks as angry as he had that day he’d fired Tim’s nanny. “How dare you speak to us like that!”
Tim’s stomach lurches. He twists his arm, desperately trying to escape his mother’s grip. “Mom–”
“Quiet, Timothy,” she snaps.
And that’s when Tim loses it.
All.
Over.
Janet’s.
Dress.
(The silver lining is that his parents take him straight home after that.)
If the gala was hell, then the car ride home is purgatory.
For twenty-five minutes, Tim is trapped in a moving vehicle—sick, humiliated, hurting, and miserable—just waiting for his parents to go off on him.
Except they never get around to it. They’re far too hung up on Jason Todd.
“–that uncultured, belligerent, trust-fund stealing little punk of a–”
“–to imply that we are providing anything less than the very highest quality of–”
“–why, simply on education alone, we’ve spent upwards of–”
“–and with everything we’ve given back to this community over the years–”
“–the amount of negative publicity that this will generate is frankly–”
“–lies! Not an ounce of truth to what he–”
Tim just sits there, silent tears slipping down his cheeks. He doesn’t even know who he’s most upset with: Jason for picking a fight in public, Bruce for not stopping him, his parents for escalating things, or himself for getting into this whole mess in the first place.
By the time the car rolls to a stop in the Drakes’ garage, his parents are so caught up in their rant that they don’t even seem to notice Tim getting out. He makes it all the way up to his bedroom without so much as a word from either of them.
Which is fine of course. It’s not like he wants them to yell at him or launch into a lecture on proper decorum in public—that would be horrible. Nor does he want to look at the vomit stains on his mother’s dress a second longer than he absolutely has to. Honestly, as humiliating as the whole thing was, Tim should be grateful to Jason that his outburst has him playing scapegoat tonight because it means Tim’s off the hook.
It’s just that–
No. It’s stupid. He knows it’s stupid. He’s thirteen, not three. His parents trust him, that’s all it is. They know he’s capable of sorting himself out.
It’s just that–
They didn’t even ask Tim if he was okay.
He doesn’t know why he cares. The question would be superfluous anyway; anyone with eyes could see he wasn’t. He’d needed to leave, and his parents had gotten him out. Problem solved, case closed.
But–
But the Waynes had asked anyway. They were all, ‘holy shit, are you okay’ and ‘just breathe for a second, bud’ and ‘I’m so sorry, dude’ and ‘let me get your coats’ and about twelve other things that had felt really overwhelming in the moment, but in hindsight were actually kind of sweet. Even the staff who’d hurried over to clean up briefly inquired about Tim’s wellbeing. Nosy old Mrs. McBurry popped by to check on them. Hell, a pair of reporters from the Daily Planet had winced in sympathy and handed Tim a water bottle and a stack of napkins on his way out the door.
Meanwhile, Janet had been focused on her dress, and Jack was busy trying to avoid the paparazzi. They’d ushered Tim out to the car as quickly as possible and as a result they just–
Never asked.
Again, Tim isn’t sure why he cares. It’s not like he would have told them the truth if they had—how could he have? If anything, this just makes his job easier. His parents can assume Tim’s caught some kind of bug, Tim can handle things himself, and nobody has to find out about the gaping hole in his back.
It’s perfect. Really, Tim lucked out.
…So why does it still make his chest ache?
When Tim wakes up, he immediately knows he’s sick -sick.
He’s lying in his bed in a puddle of sweat, pain radiating from his shoulder all the way down his arm and across his back. He’d meant to change the pad last night, but his mother had gone in to take a shower before he had the chance to swipe any more supplies from her bathroom and he must’ve fallen asleep waiting.
He should really get up now. Take a shower and put on more Neosporin. Hopefully it’ll have stopped bleeding by today, and if not, whatever. He’ll just ruin a shirt.
The clock on his nightstand reads 8:12 a.m.
He blinks once, and it says 10:09.
Frowning, Tim starts untangling himself from the damp sheets. It seems to take only a moment, yet by the time he’s free, the clock reads 10:45.
He shakes his head slowly to clear it. He really needs to get up and shower. After all, the grandfather clock downstairs is already chiming noon.
Wait, noon?
There’s a knock at his bedroom door. “Timothy it’s two o’clock,” his mother calls in exasperation. “I know you’re sick, but you’ve got to get up sometime.”
Tim rubs his forehead tiredly. Nothing is making sense. “I’m up,” he croaks back.
Her footsteps have barely finished retreating before there’s another knock, louder this time. “It’s after three, champ!” Jack hollers from outside the door. “You’re wasting your entire day!”
“I’m up,” Tim insists, getting dizzily to his feet.
At 3:29, he limps to the bathroom and flips on the shower, sitting down on the toilet to wait for the water to warm up.
At 5:04 p.m, he gives up on the shower, turning the still-cold water off again.
He uses the bathroom briefly, then emerges at 6:10 p.m. There’s a mug of over-steeped tea and a packet of crackers on his nightstand beside a yellow post-it note in Janet’s handwriting:
Heading to the airport now. Flight leaves at 9:00. Feel better, dear.
Tim smiles weakly as he crawls back into bed. That’s nice. He can’t remember the last time his mother made him tea.
Tim opens his eyes and he’s on fire.
He’s burning up from the inside out, skin prickling, sheets licking him like flames, shoulder throbbing in time with his heartbeat. But that’s not the worst part.
The worst part is that someone is crying.
It’s a heartbreaking sound: mostly whimpers, interspersed with choked sobs. He’s not sure where it’s coming from—he can’t quite bear to lift his head and look—but whoever it is, they sound close. Someone should help them.
Why isn’t anyone helping them?
“H-Hello?” Tim forces out, surprised to hear his own breath hitching. His pillow is wet. Why is his pillow wet when everything else feels so dry? “Who’s… th-there?”
But the whimpers only continue.
They sound so pathetic, so utterly miserable. Tim should help them. He should get up, get them water or something. God, water sounds amazing right now. He’s so thirsty. But his muscles are screaming and he’s burning and the person just keeps crying.
Why won’t they stop crying?
“...M-Mom?” he calls out, then listens for her footsteps. He tries again, louder. “Mom.”
She doesn’t come.
“D–D-Dad?” The crying just gets louder and louder. The person is really starting to annoy him now. He wants to snap at them—to tell them to shut up so he can make his parents hear him, but that seems mean. They sound so sad already.
“...Mom?” Tim sobs. “Dad…?”
His face is wet like his pillow and everything else is so, so dry. He licks his cracked lips and tastes blood.
The crying is what lulls him back to sleep.
“...Blackbird singing in the dead of night…”
Gentle fingers card through Tim’s hair as Ms. Sophie’s sweet soprano voice fills the room.
“...Take these broken wings and learn to fly…”
Bruce Wayne is a moron.
Now, don’t get Jason wrong—he loves the guy, he really does. He’s kind, and caring, and strong, and committed, and fiercely protective of those he loves. He’s easily miles above Willis or any of the other pathetic father figures Jason’s had in his life up until now.
It’s just that, sometimes, he’s also a fucking moron.
“Look at this! Just look at this!” Jason slams his phone down on Bruce’s desk, using his thumb to scroll through his text thread with Tim, the last seven messages of which have all gone unanswered. “Two days! The gala was two days ago and he hasn’t replied to me once since!”
“He’s sick, Jay,” Bruce says for the fourth time. “He’s got the flu.”
Jason rolls his eyes. “If he’s sick enough that he can’t take three seconds to reply to the freaking hilarious and historically accurate meme I sent him, then we should be checking in on him anyway.”
Bruce leans forward and squints at the phone screen. “Why is our sixteenth president chasing Robert Pattinson through the woods with an ax?”
Jason throws his hands up in exasperation. “Because he’s a vampire hunter, B! Stop nodding off during movie night for once and you’d know that!”
At his father’s quizzical look, Jason huffs out in exasperation. “Look, the point is that Tim would laugh, okay? He would send me a ‘lol’ or an ‘lmao’ or a couple of those stupid skull and crossbones emojis. What he would not do is leave me hanging for forty-eight hours straight, especially after I followed up with a ‘u good bro?’! Everyone knows you don’t just leave someone hanging on a ‘u good bro?’!”
“Jason,” Bruce sighs. “I hear you. I really do. And if he were home alone right now, I would absolutely agree to a welfare check. But the fact of the matter is, his parents are with him this time.”
Jason scowls. “His parents are assholes who don’t give a single shit about him!”
Closing his eyes, Bruce blows out a carefully measured breath.
“I understand that that’s how you feel about them,” he begins. Jason scoffs, about to launch in again, but Bruce doesn’t let him, “And, after that stunt you pulled the other night, so do a couple hundred of Gotham’s wealthiest and most powerful citizens–”
“Good,” Jason spits out, seething. Those fuckwads posing as parents deserve all the negative publicity they can get.
“...Which is likely also why Tim isn’t returning your messages at the moment,” Bruce concludes.
Jason blinks at him. “Wait, what?”
Bruce sighs again. He seems to have aged at least five years in those two days since that gala.
“Jay, lad,” he begins gently, “I know that you did what you did with the very best of intentions. You had reason to believe that someone you cared about was being mistreated, and you weren’t going to sit by and let that happen. And I admire that about you, son, I really do.”
(Jason knows a ‘but’ is coming.)
“But in doing so, you also yelled at Tim’s parents in front of an entire gala full of people. And I know you think that they deserved that,” he adds quickly before Jason can butt in to say exactly that, “and maybe they did. But do you know who definitely didn’t deserve that?”
Realization hits Jason like a Mack truck.
“Oh fuck,” he breathes out, eyes wide with horror. “Tim.”
Bruce looks up at him, eyes full of hurt. “I wasn’t going to let his parents keep him there all night, Jay—I hope you know me better than that. One way or another, we were going to get Tim home. But the goal was to do it without attracting a few hundred people’s attention to him right before what was probably the most embarrassing moment of his life.” He runs a hand over his face tiredly. “That is why I wanted you to let me handle it.”
As quickly as the anger had come over him, Jason can feel it all running back out now. He sinks down into one of the cushioned office chairs, utterly dismayed.
“I didn’t even think of that,” he admits in a whisper.
He really should’ve. This is Tim they’re talking about, after all. Tim, whose entire life goal seems to be summed up in ‘don’t bother anyone’ and ‘don’t make a scene.’ Jason had been so focused on the fact that no one was taking Tim’s feelings or wellbeing into account that he’d–
...accidentally done the exact same thing.
(Maybe Bruce isn’t the only moron in the room.)
Getting up from his seat, Bruce walks around the desk and places a hand on his son’s shoulder. “I know, Jay. And I’m sure he’ll come around. He probably just needs some space right now.”
“Yeah,” Jason sighs. “You’re probably right…”
Six hours later, Jason’s climbing the trellis outside Tim’s bedroom window.
It’s a stupid idea. He realizes that before he’s even halfway up. If Tim doesn’t want to talk to him, then he doesn’t want to talk to him. Jason should be like, ‘respecting boundaries’ or whatever Dinah calls it—not skipping patrol, trekking a mile across the grounds, and shimmying up two stories to pop into his sick neighbor’s bedroom window and force an apology on him.
But Jason’s never been particularly good at boundaries.
Also, the more he considers Bruce’s words, the more he’s starting to second guess them. Not the part about how he shouldn’t have cussed the Drakes out in public, thereby putting the spotlight on a sick kid two seconds before he ralphed everywhere. Jason has to admit he’d fucked up there.
But the part about Tim holding a grudge because of it and pulling that whole silent treatment shit? Now that’s the part that doesn’t really track.
Granted, Jason would certainly pull that shit if he were mad at someone—in fact, he’s done it many times. So has Dick. Hell, even Bruce will passive-aggressively express his displeasure by reverting to a series of nonverbal grunts instead of words.
But Tim??
That boy is so fucking attention-starved that he regularly gossips with a seventy-two-year-old lady about which of their neighbors has the scraggliest rose bushes. The idea of him willingly choosing to cut off communication with someone just to make a point about how upset he is—
Well, Jason’s not saying it’s impossible or anything, but it certainly does seem… fishy.
Ergo, up the trellis he climbs.
Pulling himself up the last few feet, Jason reaches eye-level with the window. There isn’t much light in the room, but he can make out a lump on the bed in a tangle of sheets that he assumes must be Tim. The lower half keeps shifting around—small, restless movements, like he’s trying to kick his covers off but doesn’t quite have the energy to finish the job.
Feverish, Jason mentally catalogs. Definitely feverish.
There’s a trash can beside the bed, and a mug of something on the nightstand—tea, judging from the string wrapped around the handle which he can just make out in the moonlight. Point for the Drakes, he supposes.
Jason sighs. Maybe Bruce was right after all. The kid is clearly sick. He should just give Tim space and make it up to him once he’s feeling better.
But then Jason’s gaze falls on a yellow post-it note on the nightstand right below the window, and the glowing numbers on Tim’s alarm clock provide just enough light for Jason to make out the words:
Heading to the airport now. Flight leaves at 9:00. Feel better, dear.
“Oh like fuck they are…” Jason growls.
(Looks like this stalker mission just turned into a B&E.)
“...Tim. Tim…”
Someone is standing in Tim’s bedroom. His vision is too hazy to make out their features, but he can see their general shape in front of him. Tim doesn’t think they’re the same person who’s been crying for hours—their tone is all different. Sharp and urgent rather than pathetic and scared.
“...Tim!”
They’re saying other things, too. Some of them sound like questions, some like reassurances, some almost like orders, but it’s too hard to focus on the actual words while Tim’s on fire.
He can feel the crunchy sheets untangling from his legs, followed by a cool hand against his cheek, and suddenly Tim doesn’t even care who this person is, they’re his new favorite.
“...get you… water. Where are… parents?”
The blessedly cool hand removes itself from his face, and someone lets out a whine.
“Shh… it’s okay...right back…”
There are footsteps walking away, and then the distant sound of his bathroom faucet flipping on. Just as quickly as the person left, they’re back again, but this time the hand reaches for Tim’s shoulder as if to sit him up.
Someone screams.
“Fuck, sorry! What’s that on your–?”
Fingers brush against the dressing, and another blood-curdling wail echoes throughout the room, choked off into a sob.
“Sorry… really sorry, but I need to…”
Tim hears someone sobbing now.
“Almost got it, just need to see–”
They cut themselves off sharply, and the putrid scent of rot hits Tim’s nose.
“Holy fuck.”
And just like that, the person’s voice changes. Not entirely, but just enough that Tim recognizes it when it drops into something deeper, clearer, sharper.
“...Ambulance… 1006 Mountain Drive, Bristol… Thirteen-year-old male… Infected wound… Right shoulder… Respiration rapid… Pulse thready…”
That’s the moment when Tim realizes who’s standing in his bedroom.
“Robin,” he sobs with relief. “You’re… You’re Robin.”
There’s a short little huff of air as fingers reach up to card through his hair. “Fuck yeah I am, dude.”
(That’s the last thing Tim is aware of for quite a while.)
For three full days, no one can get a hold of Jack and Janet Drake—and not for lack of trying. Flight records and government permits indicate they’re on a dig in a remote area of Markovia, cut off from all cell service, internet signal, and most other forms of communication.
They’ve also made absolutely no arrangements for their knowingly ill thirteen-year-old son.
Tim wakes up in an ICU bed at Gotham General as a ward of the State of New Jersey.
A light knocking pulls Tim from his thoughts. He turns his head to see Bruce standing in the doorway of the private room he was transferred to earlier that morning—before social services spent a good hour talking to him—looking almost as exhausted as Tim feels.
"Hey, bud," he says softly. "Mind if I come in?"
Tim doesn't have it in him to speak, so he just nods. It makes his feverish head pound even harder. Some of it must show in his expression because Bruce frowns as he carries a chair over to the side of the bed.
"You're in pain."
"I'm fine," Tim croaks. He clears his throat and adds, "I was handling it."
“You were,” Bruce says quietly, not even pretending to misunderstand him. “But you shouldn’t have had to.”
Tim says nothing to that.
Bruce sighs. Between all the IVs, cannulas, and catheters, Tim’s got at least half a dozen tubes running into and out of him, so it takes a second for Bruce to find a free part of his arm to squeeze.
“My lawyers are just finishing up the last of the paperwork now. The doctors say you’re responding well to the antibiotics. It’ll probably be a couple more days before we can get you discharged, but the boys and I are really looking forward to bringing you home. Alfred too.”
Tim picks at a piece of fuzz on his blanket. “I still don’t get it,” he murmurs, because he doesn’t. No matter how many people have explained it to him, he still doesn’t understand. “The caseworker said they finally got a hold of my parents. They’re getting the next flight back. So why are you still…”
He trails off, eyes prickling.
“...Filing for emergency custody of you?” Bruce finishes for him.
Tim nods.
“Because your parents are under investigation for criminal levels of child neglect. Specifically, child abandonment.” Bruce’s tone is factual, but not at all unkind. “The State is removing you from their custody until a full investigation can take place.”
Tim knows that already. He’s been hearing those words from doctors, nurses, and social service workers ever since he woke up, but he still can’t quite wrap his head around them.
“But they didn’t abandon me,” he argues weakly. “They just went on a trip, like they always do. They left me a note. They’ll be back.”
They always come back.
“Tim, sweetheart…” Bruce sighs deeply. “They left you home alone with an infected stab wound for over four days without so much as a phone call to check in. You were in septic shock when Jason found you. You very nearly died.”
“But that’s my fault,” Tim says, his eyes filling with tears. “They didn’t even know I was hurt. I never told them. So it’s my fault, not theirs.”
Bruce shakes his head firmly. “None of this is your fault.”
“But it is!” Tim protests, a little frantically. “I’m the idiot who went out and got hurt, and I’m the one who didn’t tell anyone. So why are they the ones getting in trouble now? They didn’t hurt me. They didn’t do anything!”
“That’s the problem, bud.” Bruce looks physically pained. “They didn’t do anything.”
“Of course they didn’t!” Tim blurts in frustration. “Why w-would they? They’ve never–”
Tim’s choking out sobs now, tears streaming down his cheeks. Bruce plucks a few tissues from the box on the side table and moves from his chair to perch on the edge of Tim’s bed.
“They never do anything,” Tim cries. “They never… they never…”
“I know,” Bruce reassures softly, his hand hovering over Tim’s like he’s not quite sure if it will hurt him to take it. Tim doesn’t care. He latches on like a lifeline.
“They were home,” Tim whines, unable to stop the words now that they’ve started coming. “They were home and they still… They still didn’t–”
“I know,” Bruce repeats, just as soft. “And I’m so sorry, Tim. They should’ve noticed. They should have cared.”
“I tried,” he sobs. “I tried so hard. I didn’t– didn’t bother them and I didn’t embarrass them and I followed all the rules and they still… they still–”
“I know,” Bruce says for a third time, barely a whisper. He’s squeezing Tim’s hand nearly as hard as Tim’s squeezing his. “You’re a good kid, Tim. You deserve so much more.”
They sit like that for a long while, Tim’s sobs eventually fading into quiet hiccups while Bruce holds on tightly, the pad of his thumb stroking over Tim’s wrist. By the time Tim’s all cried out, his eyes aren’t the only misty ones in the room.
Finally, Bruce clears his throat. “I’m going to go see about getting you more painkillers now,” he whispers.
Tim feels the loss of contact as his hand is released, and it takes every ounce of self control not to whine like a baby. He closes his eyes and leans back against the pillows.
Sensing Tim’s reluctance, Bruce hesitates for another moment. “It’s going to be okay, sweetheart. We’re going to get you through this. You don’t have to do it all on your own anymore.”
The words ache in Tim’s chest.
“…Promise?” he whispers.
“I promise,” Bruce says, so firmly that Tim almost starts to believe him.
Tim ends up spending four more days in the hospital.
It’s not as boring as he’d expected it to be. As soon as the emergency foster placement paperwork goes through and Tim is officially placed in the Waynes’ custody, his hospital room turns into a revolving door of visitors. Alfred filters in and out, popping between the hospital and the Manor to get things ready for him, while the boys bring in armloads of books, video games, and movies.
Even Mrs. Mac stops by.
“–And that was the last time I ever let my Matthew do a mud run,” she concludes the frankly horrifying story of her family’s personal experience with septicemia way back in ‘96. “Or at least not until that toe stump of his healed—what a nightmare! And the entire time that boy was laid up, who do you suppose was taking care of those blasted hamsters? Because it wasn’t my Mattie, I’ll tell you that much…”
(Bruce ends up politely cutting her off after an hour or so, claiming that Tim needs his rest. Tim could’ve honestly kissed him.)
Finally, the doctors decide that Tim’s ready to be discharged.
“I still think we should’ve taken him home like two days ago,” Jason grumbles as they all make their way up the Manor’s front steps.
“He was still on the IV drugs then,” Dick points out.
Jason snorts as Alfred opens the front door to greet them. “You say this like our basement isn’t full of them…”
“Boys,” Bruce grunts, helping Tim over the threshold. “You know the rules. Wait until we’re inside to discuss our… extracurriculars.”
Jason rolls his eyes. “Oh yeah, ‘cus there’s just hordes of people on our private property listening in,” he huffs as he follows Tim inside.
“Yeah, besides, Jason already blew our cover,” Dick quips. He turns to Tim, grinning. “It was his football game excuse, wasn’t it? I told him it was stupid.”
Jason scowls. “No, it was the stitches you popped on his birthday.”
“I think you mean you popped.”
Tim can feel his cheeks flush—and not from the lingering fever. “Um… neither. I actually figured it out when I was nine.”
“Wait, nine?” Dick balks at him.
Tim winces as Alfred helps him out of his coat. “I saw Robin do a quadruple somersault on the news. Connected it to the Flying Graysons.”
“Ha!” Jason whirls around, face triumphant. “So it was you! Pay up, Dickface,” he demands, hand outstretched.
Recovering from his shock, Dick sighs and pulls out his wallet. He slaps a fifty dollar bill in Jason’s open palm. “Still think your football game excuse was flimsy as hell…” he grumbles.
Bruce fixes his children with a very unamused look. “Did you two seriously bet on who blew our cover.”
Alfred clears his throat. “I must admit, I had a hundred on it being you, sir.”
As the rest of the Waynes all dissolve into bickering, Tim can’t help but smile a little.
It’s good to finally be home.
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