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“Something’s wrong with Tim.”
Steph’s whispering. She thinks he’s asleep, situated on the couch in Cass’s tight hold. His eyes have been closed since the movie started, his breathing even. The credits stopped rolling twenty minutes ago. Cass hasn’t shifted, so Tim hasn’t gotten up.
Duke’s gone to bed. Dick and Damian and Bruce have taken off for patrol; Barbara’s gone home to play Oracle. Cass and Tim have the night off– probably why Cass has made no move to let go of him– but Steph and Jason should be gone by now. He doesn’t know why they’re still in the manor’s main living room, talking about him like he’s not there.
Because Steph’s talking to Jason, for sure. She has a specific voice reserved for each of them. Her voice for Cass, the only other person in the room she could be talking to, is soft and tinged with adoration. Her voice for Jason says I know what you are and I am the same, something colder but still gentle. It’s that voice she’s using right now.
“How is that my problem?” Jason grunts. His voices are not reserved for specific people, but for situations. He means to sound unaffected right now, oblivious to how family issues impact his life. But there’s a hint of something else seeping through, something like worry.
Tim is not a fool. He knows better than to hope a little bit of worry will morph into love. Cass’s arms tighten around him. She probably knows he’s awake, but she doesn’t say anything. He feels a gentle press against the top of his head that might be her lips.
“Jason,” Steph says. Tim can practically hear her glare. “He may have forgiven you for all the times you tried to kill him, but I haven’t. You owe him.”
He’s not sure how to feel about that. Knows Steph’s protective streak runs bone-deep, but didn’t think she still blamed Jason for something that happened half a decade ago. It’s not about the incident at the Tower, not about the scar on Tim’s neck. This is about something else. This is about Tim crashing into her apartment last week and finally having the breakdown that’s been building for months. This is about Dick and Jason flaunting their relationship any time they’re around him, even if it’s not what they mean to be doing. This is about the fact that Tim is desperately, devastatingly in love with two people who already have each other.
This is not Jason’s fault. But Steph is looking for someone to blame. Tim should put a stop to this before it goes any further. Cass must sense the minute shift in his muscles, because she tightens her grip again. She wants him to listen. She and Steph are probably co-conspirators on this.
Tim told them– he told them that it doesn’t matter. That Dick and Jason have each other and they’re happy, and that’s the only thing he cares about. He told them not to say anything, not to do anything, and here they are anyway.
But Cass doesn’t want to let go, and Tim doesn’t really want to get up, either. So he relaxes into her grip and waits for Jason’s response.
“What is it that you think is wrong?” Jason asks after a moment. His tone is a little less gruff, a little more resigned. The unspoken question: what could I possibly do to help?
“I don’t know,” Steph says, and Tim can hear the truth in her voice. “He’s sad, Jason. I just… didn’t want to be the only one that noticed.”
He doesn’t want any of them to notice. He can handle his own problems. He can handle his own heart. He can feel his walls slowly building back up, brick by brick. If they start prying, the wall will come up faster. Defense mechanisms, or whatever, but if he says he’s fine then maybe he will be. His family is finally reaching something akin to happiness. He cannot be the one to destroy that.
Steph and Jason’s voices begin to fade out with their footsteps. They’re going somewhere else. Cass loosens her hold and he could leave now, if he wanted to, but they both know he won’t. He keeps his eyes closed and his head resting on her neck and he murmurs,
“I don’t know how to stop loving them,” because that’s the issue, isn’t it, that he loves Dick and he loves Jason and he cannot have either of them, would never dare to think he could. It’s dragging him down. It’s relentless.
“You don’t have to,” Cass whispers back, her lips ghosting along his hairline. She brushes his bangs out of his face and keeps running her hand through his hair, and she doesn’t say anything else, but maybe she doesn’t have to.
He notices a shift after that. Jason must talk to Dick, who probably talks to Barbara and Damian. Damian likely tells Duke and Bruce, and Bruce goes to Alfred, and suddenly everyone in the family is walking on eggshells around him. Like one wrong move could set him off. Like they know his kind of sadness is the kind that works its way down into every cell of your body, like they know it’s killing him.
He’s on patrol one night when Damian lands next to him. He glances over at his little brother, not so little anymore. Damian doesn’t say anything. They swing through the streets together, leap across rooftops in unison, and after twenty minutes of silence Tim turns to ask Damian what’s going on and he finds that his brother is already gone.
Dick invites him over for dinner. Tim politely declines, says he’s got too much work to do. He tries to push away the mental image of Dick’s disappointed face because he knows Dick loves him, just not in the way that Tim needs.
He thinks, maybe, that no one loves him in the way that he needs. That maybe if he learns to accept that, learns to accept that no one will ever love him enough to break through the bone-deep sadness that resides within him, it’ll get better. Maybe the sadness won’t be so all-consuming if he accepts that it’ll always be there with him.
Joker’s on the streets. Joker’s on the streets and Tim’s played this game before, he knows the rules, he knows how to win. Bruce tells him to lay low, so he lays low. They’ll get him back in Arkham by the end of the week and Tim can go back to patrolling like normal, but right now, he should go somewhere they wouldn’t expect to find him.
The others are confused when he tells them he’s going to Metropolis for a bit. Except Steph and Cass, because Steph and Cass know. But the others– they don’t. It was before Damian, back when Dick was in Bludhaven all the time and it was just Tim and Bruce in Gotham, trying to make things work, trying to keep each other together. Steph knows because she was there, Cass knows because he told her. But no one else knows, not after Tim begged Bruce to keep it a secret. It’s the one promise Bruce has never broken.
“What do you mean, Metropolis?” Jason asks.
“Right now?” Dick adds, voice doubtful. “We kind of need all hands on deck right now–”
“Business,” Bruce says gruffly, because Tim’s fingers are itching at his sides and there’s a laugh bubbling up in his throat and he thinks if they keep questioning him he’s going to break. “I was supposed to go, but I believe my absence right now would be noticed more than Red Robin’s.”
He says it firmly. No room for discussion. Steph reaches out and takes Tim’s hand, massages it open, and he can feel the sticky blood from where his nails were digging into his palms. She keeps the hand close to her side, so no one else can see it.
He’s not sure if any of them are buying what Bruce is saying, but they let him go without complaint. He spends a week in Metropolis in a nice hotel room and conducts business with Lex Luthor and a few other major companies based in the city. Kon comes to stay with him the second day he’s there, because Kon knows, of course Kon knows, and Tim tells him everything about Dick and Jason, too.
“You’re not taking care of yourself,” Kon observes, his tone carefully neutral.
“I’m trying to,” Tim responds. Kon hums something that’s not quite agreement or disagreement. Treading on careful ground, like Tim’s family, except Kon has always been willing to call Tim out on his bullshit.
“You’re using it as an excuse,” he says. “Your love for them. You’re using it as an excuse to pull away. You’re not supposed to be doing that, Tim, you’re supposed to be leaning on the people that care about you.”
Tim wishes, often and violently, that he could have fallen in love with Kon instead. He’s voiced this to Kon many times before. He voices it again now. Kon laughs.
“My love is intense like yours, Tim,” he says, “But not in the way that you need.”
Not in the way that can reach down his throat and pull his sadness out of him. Not in the way that can pump his lungs and keep his blood flowing. Kon loves him something fierce, just like he loves Kon like a tidal wave, but they’re just not compatible like that.
By the end of a week, Joker’s not back in Arkham, and Tim’s run out of excuses for staying in Metropolis. Kon offers to fly him back, but Kon’s been away from his own business for too long, anyways. Tim takes an Uber because he can’t stand the idea of being in the air right now, and the second the car passes Gotham city limits he knows something is wrong.
He shouldn’t have come back. He should have had Kon take him. He should have let Bruce send the private jet, he should have found a reason to stay in Metropolis for another night. The car gives a soft shudder and the driver glances in the rearview mirror, confused, and Tim feels the explosion before he hears it. The back end of the car soars through the air and Tim squeezes his eyes shut and prays they let the driver live.
He doesn’t pass out. He’s better than that. When the car settles, upside-down, he unbuckles his seatbelt and drops to the ground. The driver is unconscious, but breathing. The windows are smashed and Tim’s able to crawl out without much difficulty. There’s a handful of masked goons with guns waiting for him.
He could fight. But there are street cameras and he’s in civvies and he’s Tim Drake-Wayne, not Red Robin, and he doesn’t know which part of him these goons are here for but he thinks he could guess. He puts his hands behind his head and sinks down onto his knees without them telling him to.
They gag and blindfold him but don’t bother restraining him further. Shove him in a car and there’s a barrel of a gun against his neck as they drive through the city. He doesn’t bother trying to remember the path. Something is settling in his gut, some kind of weary resignation. He’s not fourteen anymore, but God does he feel like it right now.
He can hear the bay when they pull him out of the car. Can feel the sway of a pier beneath his feet, a sloped bridge when they drag him up onto a boat. It’s big, but he can still feel the rhythm of the waves pounding against the hull. Down a set of stairs and things darken, shoved forward onto his knees. He keeps his hands at his sides, fingers digging into his palms, and the blindfold and gag are removed gently. Gently.
“Hello, son,” Joker says with a smile that looks unnatural on him. The smile is kind, almost. Tim’s never seen that smile on Joker before except when he was playing nice. He’s almost afraid, but his mind is already shutting down. Detaching itself from the situation, from his body. The pain will come soon enough and he is letting his mind float away, as if that could help whatever’s going to happen next.
“I’m not your son,” he says, and there’s a bite of anger in his voice, but he still just feels tired. He almost wants to provoke the clown, let the electricity buzz against his temples and the crowbar break against his skin, let the Joker kill him, but he can’t. He’s got people who care about him, who would be sad if he died. He can’t let them down. He’s so tired.
“Oh, Junior,” and there’s a humming in the air that isn’t quite electric. Tim’s not sure what it is, but he doesn’t dare turn around to look. “You will be soon enough.”
Joker raises a hand, caresses Tim’s face. Tim does not lean into it; he lets the fragile grasp he has on his mind go, lets it float away like a balloon, makes a wish like a little kid. Please don’t let them find my bloody body. No more dead birds.
He comes to and he’s strapped down to a table. He can feel sweat making lines in the paint on his face. There’s blood coming from somewhere and pooling underneath him. Joker tells him to laugh and he feels pain like nothing ever before, except he has felt it before, and he laughs. He laughs because this is ridiculous, isn’t it, that this is happening twice. That Joker knows who he is, knows who Bruce is, and no one else does. This is a secret just for them. He lets his mind go again.
He’s standing up in a purple suit that’s ripped and bloody. Joker tells him to laugh and he laughs. Joker tells him to scream and he screams. Joker puts him in a chair and tells him to look at the little red light and he does, and his eyes are drooping but he holds his head up and he’s not sure what’s going on, and then Joker says speak.
“What am I supposed to say?” he asks, brow furrowing. If he gets it wrong Joker will probably hit him again. If he gets it right maybe he’ll get a break. Not that he really cares. He doesn’t know how long it’s been, but he’s gotten good at sending his mind somewhere else. Somewhere it doesn’t hurt. Joker doesn’t answer him. He keeps looking at the little red light and he realizes it’s a camera and he realizes he’s Tim.
Oh. He’s not going somewhere else, when his mind leaves him. He’s just… sleeping. Letting Junior take over. Junior’s probably tired, right now. Or maybe Joker doesn’t want Junior, Joker wants Tim. Wants Tim to say something to his family. He tilts his head. Looks down at the hands in his lap that he’s not sure belong to him. Tilts his head the other way and looks back up at the camera. His brow hasn’t unfurrowed. He feels confused. Disjointed. Sad.
I’ll protect you, a little voice in the back of his mind says. Let me protect you.
Tim’s not sure he wants that, though. He likes being in control. But right now it’s better if he isn’t, he thinks. Junior knows how to handle his dad better than Tim does. Tim isn’t related to the Joker, but Junior is. Junior knows how to keep them safe.
Okay, Tim thinks, and his mind takes off again.
Comes to with a gun in his hand. He’s frowning. He doesn’t like guns. His whole body hurts. The purple suit jacket is gone, his dress shirt is half unbuttoned, and his mouth feels like some kind of indescribable pain. Just one side, though. He can’t taste anything but blood.
He’s standing up. He blinks a few times, but keeps the gun raised. It’s pointed at Joker. Joker, hands raised, a look of alarm on his face. The ground is moving. They’re still on the ship. He looks to the side and sees Nightwing and Red Hood and Batman, all watching him with varying degrees of horror. He’s confused. He’s tired. He doesn’t know who he is right now.
Shoot him, Junior says in the back of his head. Timmy, shoot him. Or let me. Let me take over, let me kill him. Either way we have to kill him.
He knows Junior is right, and he’s Tim again, and something in his head clicks back into place. Junior is still talking, but it’s hard to hear over Dick’s panicked voice, Jason’s threats. They’re all tied down. Why are they tied down? How did they get here? What–
“Junior,” Joker says, his voice almost a snarl. Trying to stay calm, stay pleasant. “Is this the kind of show we want to give our guests?”
Tim looks down. He’s covered in blood. It hurts so bad he can barely feel it.
“Junior’s not here right now,” Tim says quietly. “But I don’t think it would matter.”
His finger hovers on the trigger. Joker is trembling. Something in the back of his head that might be Jason tells him to shoot. Something that might be Batman tells him not to.
“Let me talk to my son,” Joker says. “Let me talk to my boy. Where’s my good boy, huh?”
Tim flinches. He doesn’t– he’s not–
“Junior wants to kill you,” Tim says, because why doesn’t Joker understand that? “He doesn’t think you’re a very good father.”
“That’s not funny,” Joker snarls. He makes a move like he’s going to step forward. Tim’s finger dances along the trigger, and the clown freezes.
“But you’re Junior’s father,” Tim decides. “Not mine. And mine wouldn’t want me to kill you.”
He can practically hear Bruce’s sigh of relief. They’re all silent right now. Nothing in this world exists except for Tim and the clown in front of him.
He shoots Joker in the left knee.
“That’s for Harley,” he says, over Joker’s howl of pain.
He shoots Joker in the right knee.
“That’s for Jason,” he says, and Joker is screaming now and Dick is calling Tim’s name and Tim can’t make out anything other than Junior’s voice, one for me one for me one for me.
He shoots Joker in the right shoulder.
“That’s for Junior,” he says, and the boy in the back of his mind is crowing with triumph and joy.
He shoots Joker in the left shoulder.
“That’s for me,” he says, barely more than a whisper. Joker’s on the ground now, writhing in pain. Tim clicks the safety on and drops the gun, and turns to the people he loves. The pain is starting to fade into focus the longer he’s in his body. Let me, Junior whispers. I’ll keep us safe.
“We are safe,” Tim replies, and he’s confused and tired and he hurts something incredible.
No we’re not, Junior says, and Tim finds himself looking at Dick and Jason, Dick and Jason who are leaning toward each other even as they’re calling out for Tim. He doesn’t know why Junior has deemed them unsafe, but he doesn’t have time to deal with that right now.
“One sec,” Tim says. “Let me get Bruce first.”
Fine, Junior says, and Tim goes to undo Bruce’s restraints. Tim thinks the second he’s free Batman will be flying for Joker, making sure he’s down, calling GCPD and EMTs and whatever, but instead of any of that Bruce just wraps Tim in his arms and holds him so so close.
“Are you okay?” he murmurs, loud enough only Tim can hear him.
“No,” Tim whispers back. “I think I’m gonna go away again, Dad.”
“Okay,” Bruce says, his voice a deep rumble. “That’s okay. We’ll take care of you, and Junior, too.”
“Okay,” Tim agrees, and Junior says yes he’s safe, he’ll keep us safe, I’ll keep us safe, we’ll be okay with Bruce your Dad good Dad and then something that might be agony washes over him and he can’t really remember anything after that.
This time when he comes back someone is screaming. It’s not him– that’s the second thing he notices, after registering the screaming. He’s waking up softly, like from a peaceful slumber with no bad dreams. There’s a hand on his arm, not keeping him down, just reminding him he’s there. He’s in a bed and someone is screaming, angry screaming, and he opens his eyes to see–
Lights. Bright. Cass’s hand on his arm. She smiles gently at him when she sees he’s awake. Damian is standing at her side, turned away, blocking Tim’s view of the screaming match that’s currently raging. Duke’s at his other side, watching whatever Damian’s looking at with apprehension. Steph is sitting on the foot of the bed, headphones firmly over her ears, not paying attention. She smiles gently at him when she sees he’s awake.
“–the fuck didn’t you tell me –”
“–you had no right keeping that a secret, no right–”
“–we could have been there for him–”
Not safe, Junior warns. Tim almost agrees, but he’s clearly in the Cave and he’s surrounded by people he loves, so why wouldn’t he be safe. We need to keep them safe, Timmy.
Tim agrees. He loves them. He needs to keep them safe. He reaches out and tugs on Damian’s sleeve. Damian turns away from the screaming match with a jerk and looks at Tim with wide eyes. Tim furrows his brow, tries to convey an unspoken question.
“Hey, Tim,” Duke says, the movement catching his attention. “How are you feeling?”
Tim’s not sure he can speak yet. He doesn’t know whose voice will come out of his mouth. He tugs on Damian’s sleeve again, tries to pull him closer. If he’s closer Tim and Junior can keep him safe. Damian steps in, and Tim finally sees that it’s Dick and Jason facing off against Bruce. Dick’s red in the face, Jason’s fuming, Bruce looks… calm. A bit pinched. They keep screaming and Tim tells Junior it’s fine, no one’s going to hurt him.
They are, Junior says, and Tim tries to ignore it but there must be something on his face, some kind of hurt expression, because Damian growls and turns away and joins the screaming match. Or rather, ends it entirely.
“Will you shut the fuck up!” Damian roars, and all three older men go quiet. Damian doesn’t swear often, these days, and he yells even less. His voice goes dangerously low once he has everyone’s attention. “You are bothering Drake. If you are going to continue to scream, please do so elsewhere. Preferably where we don’t have to listen to you.”
“Tim,” Dick says, and his voice is full of something that might be relief and might be grief and Jason is taking deep breaths, heaving, and the two of them are standing so close together, leaning toward each other like they always are because they’re in love, they’re Dick-and-Jason and there’s no separating them, and Junior says no no no when they both draw closer, each taking that first step in unison.
Cass’s hand is still on his arm. He’s still gripping Damian’s sleeve. They both must feel the way he tenses up even though he doesn’t mean to, and he’s realizing now why Junior thinks they’re not safe. Why Junior thinks Dick-and-Jason are not safe. Because Junior is meant to protect Tim, to keep him from hurting, and that means keeping his bone-deep sadness from overwhelming him, too. That means when Tim’s heart aches at the sight of Dick-and-Jason, Junior takes it as a warning. Danger; you will be hurt. Junior does not differentiate from the pain Tim wants and the pain he doesn’t.
But he can’t– he can’t unpack that all right now, not when he’s starting to register the bandages covering his body and the pull of stitches along his left cheek, inside his mouth and outside it, and he knows the Joker cut a smile onto half his face. Only half. He only got as far as half.
Later, Tim thinks, he’ll try and figure out what happened. Right now he aches something desperate, and Junior is banging on the inside of his skull, telling him to get out or to at least let Junior take over. It all happens in a split second, only long enough for Dick-and-Jason to take another step forward, and Damian places himself firmly in front of Tim.
“I told you,” he says, “You are bothering Drake. Please go elsewhere.”
“Dami–” Dick starts, taking another step, and Tim doesn’t flinch back this time but he knows Cass senses his apprehension anyways. She levels a glare at them and Jason tugs on Dick’s sleeve, trying to get his attention, and Tim’s heart lurches at the soft look Dick shoots him before turning back to Damian with a kind of fury and Junior is yelling and–
And he’s out of bed, legs giving out under him. Duke catches him before he can fall but he’s still trying to scramble into a defensive position, reaching for anything that could be considered a weapon, danger danger danger and he doesn’t know if he’s still Tim because Junior is yelling so loud and so many people are talking, saying his name, trying to get his attention. He wants to rip his hair out and pull at his stitches and bandages and he wants to scream and he wants to laugh, but he can’t let it bubble up from his throat like bile so he twists out of Duke’s grip, finds his footing, and grabs the IV pole next to the bed and holds it like a bo.
“Don’t come closer,” he says, and his voice isn’t quite his own, and he doesn’t know who he’s talking to but his eyes are on Dick-and-Jason, who are both looking at him with expressions that he can’t decipher. He can always decipher their expressions, and that’s how he knows he’s Junior. Junior but not all the way, because Tim is still thinking and still registering what’s going on. He could take control back if he wanted to but he’s tired and he hurts and–
“Tim,” Dick says.
“No,” he snarls, fingers tightening. Everyone is staring at him, everyone is staring, Bruce is looking at him like he’s coming to a realization. Steph’s headphones are finally around her neck and she takes a few steps in, despite the warning hisses several people give her. She’s not looking at him like a wounded puppy.
“Hey,” she says, and her voice is not the voice she uses for Tim, it’s the voice she used to use for Junior. “Why don’t you put the pole down, huh? No one here’s gonna hurt you, bud.”
Bud. She always called Junior bud. Slowly, tentatively, he lowers the pole. She knows who he is. She knows how to help. He juts his chin toward Dick-and-Jason. He can’t find the words for the question he wants to ask.
“They’re not gonna hurt you,” Steph says soothingly. She manages to pry the IV pole from his grip and hands it to Duke, gets Junior-Tim-Junior back in the bed, legs hanging off the end. He’s half twisted away, ready to run. Steph keeps herself between him and Dick-and-Jason.
“They’re not gonna hurt me,” Junior-Tim-Junior agrees, his voice quiet, meant only for her to hear. “They’re gonna hurt Timmy.”
Something like devastation crosses Steph’s face. Everyone is still staring. He doesn’t know if they heard what he said.
“Bud,” Steph says. “What do you need? Do you want everyone to leave you alone?”
He shakes his head quickly. He can’t– he needs to see them. Needs eyes on Duke and Damian, so they can’t get hurt. Needs Steph and Cass here, because they’re good, they’re safe. Needs Bruce– needs Bruce– Bruce always knows what to do–
“Bruce?” he asks, voice croaking. Bruce is there in an instant and Tim feels nothing but relief, and some part of Junior calms down, lets Tim slip between the cracks.
“Junior,” Bruce says, his voice familiar and calm and safe. He’s kneeling in front of Tim-Junior-Tim and not touching, just waiting. “I promise you I won’t let anyone hurt you, or Tim.”
“Okay,” Tim-Junior-Tim says.
“Do you feel safe enough to let Tim through?” Bruce asks, and he nods, and he nods, and Junior’s voice fades back to the back of his mind, quieter now but still telling him to be on alert. Bruce is here, Cass and Steph are here, but so are Dick-and-Jason, watching him. Tim settles back into his bones and his sadness and his hurt come with him and he tries not to crumple.
It’s clear Bruce and Steph, both still close enough to see his eyes, realize when he’s fully Tim again. Steph squeezes his hand and presses a kiss to the side of his head, and Bruce smiles in that way he only does when he really means it.
“Are you okay?” Bruce asks, and Tim shakes his head. “Okay. What can we do to help?”
He’s not treading on eggshells, not exactly, but he’s still being cautious. Like he thinks Tim will break. Maybe he will. Maybe he already has.
He glances around. They’re all still waiting, watching him. He looks back to Bruce.
“Did you tell them?” he asks, and Bruce purses his lips, but nods. Tim nods back, takes a few deep breaths. “All of it?”
Bruce hesitates this time. Then nods again. Tim takes another deep breath in, then out.
“Okay,” he says. “Um. One sec. Please. Don’t go anywhere.”
“I won’t,” Bruce promises, and Tim keeps holding Steph’s hand, and Cass’s hand has settled on his back. Damian is perched on the edge of the bed and Duke is just behind Bruce and Dick-and-Jason haven’t moved.
Tim closes his eyes. He learned how to do this last time. Years and years ago, the first time Joker Junior ever made an appearance. Alfred and Bruce taught him to communicate with that part of himself in the back of his mind, that part that’s a little bit separate but still the same. He goes to a dark place and evens out his breathing and steadies his heartbeat and he says, only in his head, Junior?
Here, Junior says, and Tim sees nothing but darkness but knows that other part of him is there.
We’re scared, Tim says, and he can feel Junior’s agreement. And we’re hurting. And they know who you are, now. So it’s okay. They’re safe and they’re not gonna hurt us.
They’re always hurting you, Junior counters. They’re hurting you, they’re not safe–
I love them, Tim says firmly, like maybe Junior hadn’t quite realized that. Junior isn’t used to adoration, to protection, to this bone-deep feeling of devastating love. They’re not hurting me in a way I don’t want.
He feels Junior’s understanding, almost like a hum in his veins. He takes another few deep breaths in silence. Things are starting to come back into focus, now, like his mind isn’t floating anymore and he’s really in his body.
Thank you, he offers. For protecting us. For keeping us safe. For bearing the pain. But I can take it from here.
Are you sure?
He’s not, and he knows it, and Junior knows it. But he has to try, and he conveys that as hard as he can.
You can go back to sleep, now, he says. You kept us safe. Now let me help us heal.
Okay, Junior says. I’ll be here if you need me.
I know, Tim agrees, and some part of the back of his mind goes quiet. He takes another deep breath and opens his eyes and they’re all still watching him, but they’re watching Tim, not Junior. He can’t hear the warning bells in the back of his mind. He can still feel the sadness in his bones.
He looks at Bruce first. Bruce’s eyes are asking a question, and he nods in response. Bruce lets out a deep breath and nods back.
“How long was I gone?” Tim asks.
“Two weeks,” Bruce answers immediately. Steph stiffens next to him. Cass’s fingers dig into his back, a little bit.
“How long have I been here?”
“Less than a day,” Bruce says. “Long enough for us to treat your injuries.”
Tim nods a few times. “How bad?” he asks, because he’s still settling back into his body, not quite fully there yet.
“You should be up and moving in a couple of weeks,” Bruce says. “Cuts and bruises that should heal quickly. No broken bones. And–”
“And my face,” Tim says, and Bruce nods. Tim nods, too. It’s not nearly as bad as it could be. “At least he kidnapped me as Tim Drake-Wayne. I won’t have to cover up the scar.”
Steph– beautiful, wonderful Steph– bursts into laughter. Not Joker’s laughter– something familiar, melodic, and Tim grins at her. It pulls on his stitches a little bit.
“Okay,” he says. “I’m gonna go back to bed. Someone bring me my laptop, I gotta catch up on work.”
“You absolutely do not,” Bruce growls, but Duke winks at him, and Tim knows the computer will be delivered within the hour. He pointedly does not look at Dick or Jason as he gets settled in the bed. Steph takes her spot at the foot of the bed again. Cass settles at his side. He makes eye contact with Damian before his youngest brother can disappear.
“Thank you,” he says, with as much feeling as he can muster. Damian nods, face expressionless, but Tim can see the lingering traces of concern in his eyes. Concern, regret, something that might be pride. Tim tries to smile, and then lets his head hit the pillow and he’s out like a light.
This time he wakes up and he feels refreshed. He feels better, almost. That sadness is still in his bones, but his cell phone is on the table next to his bed and the lights are dim. He’s got a flurry of texts to parse through, most of them from Kon and Cassie and Bart, all of them concerned. The most recent ones confirm that they know he’s safe, they’ll be visiting as soon as they can convince Bruce to let them into Gotham.
He puts his phone down and he realizes that the dim lighting has disguised the people sitting to the side of his bed. It’s not Cass anymore, it’s Dick and Jason, both of them asleep. Dick is folded forward, his arms crossed on the bed near Tim’s waist and head resting, like he was watching Tim sleep. Jason’s head is on Dick’s back, one hand dangling, like he’d been holding Tim’s hand before he passed out in the chair.
Tim doesn’t know how to feel about it. He has stopped hoping to receive the kind of love he gives. Something in his heart clicks into place, something that might not have been there before, and he reaches out for Dick’s shoulder. Stops before he can touch it. The movement is enough to jostle him awake, though, which is enough to jostle Jason awake, and then they’re both blinking sleep out of their eyes and staring at him.
He doesn’t know what to say. Dick’s gripping Jason’s arm with both hands. Jason, closer to Tim’s head, reaches out as if he’s going to brush some of the hair out of Tim’s face. His hand hovers six inches away, like he’s not sure if he’s allowed to touch.
“What made you– what made Junior think we were gonna hurt you?” Jason asks, his voice rough with sleep but still something gentle. Dick elbows him, hard. Jason shoots him a glare, and they start a silent conversation, and Tim’s heart does a funny little jump when he realizes he knows what they’re saying to each other.
“How much did Bruce tell you?” he asks, instead of answering.
“All of it,” Dick says after a moment of silent deliberation. He looks at Tim and doesn’t break eye contact. “Steph filled in the gaps. Why– Tim. You were fourteen. You held onto it all this time, why didn’t you–”
“I didn’t want anyone to know,” Tim shrugs. “Junior’s quiet, most of the time. He’s quiet right now. He doesn’t understand different kinds of hurt. His job is to protect me.”
“Different kinds of hurt,” Jason repeats, like he’s finally got the last piece of a long-incomplete puzzle. “We hurt you?”
“Yeah,” Tim says, and his voice is barely more than a whisper. Dick makes a wounded noise. Jason’s hand finally drops. “Not– um.” He feels the sudden, sharp prick of tears in his eyes and looks up, blinks a few times. “Sorry,” he says, staring at the ceiling of the Cave. “Sorry.” He takes a deep, shuddering breath and looks back down at them. His gaze darts from Dick to Jason back to Dick back to Jason. “Steph was right. A couple months ago. Something’s wrong with me. I’m tired and I’m sad and I love you. That’s not what’s wrong with me. The loving you part. The loving you part is right, it’s the best thing I’ve ever done.”
“Tim–” Dick starts, and Tim cuts him off with a glance.
“Seeing you together hurts me,” he says, before either of them can protest, bulldozes on with some kind of confession of grief and longing. “Because I want to be part of it. I love– I have this chasm full of love and I don’t think anyone will ever love me in a way that matches it, let alone you, because you have each other. So it hurts me, but it’s a good kind of hurt because I’m happy for you, and I love you so fucking much that sometimes I think it’s going to kill me, and Junior thought that pain was the same as the kind of pain the Joker causes. So he tried to keep me safe. But I know I’m safe with you guys.”
He sniffs, once. The tears are mostly gone. Dick and Jason are both staring at them and he knows what their expressions are saying because he always knows what their expressions are saying, and there’s a kind of mixture of devastation and anguish and most of all, there’s hope. And the last missing piece of the puzzle of Tim’s heart is revealed when Jason lifts his hand again and lets himself touch, lets himself brush Tim’s hair behind his ear. Tim leans into it and Jason’s lip is trembling.
“Baby bird,” he says, like it’s a prayer, like it’s a revelation, like it’s everything he’s ever wanted. “We love you too. You have to know we love you too.”
“We’ve got that chasm same as you,” Dick agrees, when Tim is quiet for too long. “We just… we didn’t think you felt the same. We thought your chasm was something else.”
“It’s not,” Tim says, and he tries not to laugh, because this is ridiculous, this whole situation is ridiculous, this– “I have this sadness that I don’t know how to get rid of.”
“Let us help you,” Dick says.
“I’m kind of fucked up.”
“So are we,” Jason says, and his hand is still resting on the side of Tim’s face, holding it gently, gently.
“I don’t know how to love right,” Tim says, voicing that little fear that’s always been in the back of his mind. Dick takes a shaky breath.
“Neither do I,” Jason says, like he’s confessing some big secret. “I don’t think Dickie does, either. But we’ll figure it out together.”
“I like the sound of that,” Tim nods, and Dick breaks into the most beautiful grin Tim has ever seen, and he’s pulling Tim into their grasp, so that the three of them can rest there on the edge of the bed, holding each other in a way that says they’re not going to let go.
“It won’t be easy,” Tim says, locked in their embrace.
“When have we ever done easy?” Dick asks, and Tim laughs, bright and clear and something entirely his own, and Jason brushes his lips along the top of Tim’s head and Dick finds his hand and holds it with the promise of every tomorrow to come.
Tim thinks, maybe, this bone-deep sadness might lift a little bit. Thinks maybe the voice in the back of his head will stay quiet. Thinks maybe the desperate, devastated part of him that loves so so deeply will finally be filled, that maybe he’s safe, maybe he’s not hurt, maybe he’s loved.