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He knows he shouldn't. He knows it's a gross invasion of privacy, that Tim will never forgive him if – when – he finds out, that their already tenuous relationship will get even worse. He knows. He knows.
But Dick has never been particularly known for his restraint and he is a detective. He was raised by Batman himself. He is as nosy as they come and is equipped with many, maaany flimsy excuses to justify himself to his own damn self as well as anybody else who might ask. He knows it doesn't change anything and that nothing he has to say for himself will stand up in front of Tim later on but… there's nothing he can do about it.
So, it goes like this: Tim goes missing for a few days, which isn't unusual for him now that he's operating more or less on his own. What is unusual is that no one knows anything – not the Bats, not Babs, not the Titans. Especially not Tim's remaining three ‘core four’. Nowadays, no one from the former Young Justice so much as sneezes without the others knowing about it – Tim going MIA without letting them know is out of the question.
Dick breaks into Tim's place – and no, it doesn't hurt that the first time he visits his little brother's new house is when he breaks into it after said brother went missing, why do you ask – to look for clues and grabs Tim's laptop while he's at it in the hopes that the boy might have left some notes or other clues on it that could tell them what he was working on recently and if it might have anything to do with his disappearance.
Babs breaks into the laptop easily enough, because Timmy is smart as fuck and more than capable with computers but he is no Oracle, and it doesn't take long for her to piece everything together and find out what happened. Of course, it's all thanks to Tim's habit of meticulously logging everything he does on a case and every observation he makes during the investigation, as well as jotting down his thoughts and next planned steps that allows Babs to solve the mystery so quickly. Dick never thought he'd be so happy that Tim is even more of a freak about cases than Bruce is.
They find Tim tortured to within an inch of his life by a weapons smuggler with her hands in a lot of pies – drug and human trafficking making the list occasionally too – who wasn't too happy about Red Robin's interference in her business. Jason fucks her up so badly Damian has to pull him away from her only so the older boy doesn't kill her with his fists.
But they get their brother back and they stash him in the Cave's med bay until he's stable enough to be moved to the Manor proper and Dick feels like he could probably cry from relief. He feels like he can breathe properly for the first time since they noticed Tim went missing.
Tim, however, apparently lives to give Dick Grayson grey hairs in particular.
Tim doesn't have a spleen. Tim was tortured quite extensively. Have you guessed it yet?
He gets a nasty infection. Then another. Then another. They almost lose him once because his heart nearly gives out on him.
Dick cannot breathe very easily after that. Not when his brother is hanging on by threads that Fate keeps trying to snip early. And when Dick can't sit still, because Tim has yet to wake up lucid even once and his condition isn't getting better because for every step forward his health takes three and a half back, Dick has to find something to do so he won't go crazy and drive everyone else around him insane right alongside him. His idea? Solve some cases for Timmy.
Dick knows how pissy Tim gets when he is out of commission and can't finish his on-going cases. Hates it even more when trails go completely cold in the time it takes him to recover and he either has to start all over again or abandon the case altogether because he has nothing else to go off of. So Dick decides to be a good brother and put all of his restless energy into something helpful for the source of his worries. So he opens the laptop, now unlocked thanks to Babs. And he starts hunting for info. And maybe he snoops a bit, because Dick Grayson, as previously established, is nosy and curious and utterly shameless about it.
Because, here's the deal, okay? He is not stupid. And he is not blind. He knows he and Tim haven't been all that close since the boy got back from his Eurotrip to save Bruce. Tim has moved on with his life seemingly without Dick and it hurts and he is bitter about it and he wants to know more about his little brother and what he's been up to in the past year, okay?! Sue him.
So he goes snooping into files and folders that are definitely not case related. Most of them are password protected. After trying to crack it exactly once – and it, of course, doesn't work – Dick moves on because he may be a terrible busybody and kind of desperate here, but he can take a hint sometimes. But not all of them are locked behind passwords. He finds a folder full of pictures of Tim's friends – dozens of photos of civilian friends Dick vaguely remembers seeing when Tim was younger, still in high-school, and what feels like hundreds of pictures of the original Young Justice team in its entirety, then slowly the number dwindling until only Tim, Bart, Cassie and Conner show up, only to be joined by various Titans members in different configurations as well as a singular, full house shot full of beaming teenagers and young adults. Dick traces Tim's smiling eyes and adorable dimples in every photo, wondering when the last time he saw even a hint of either was. He can't recall.
He finds a lot of things. Saved screenshots, notes about WE meetings, reminders to attend dinners with the Titans or to get presents for someone's birthday, journal entries about Tim's day to day mundanity that Dick finds hilarious simply because Tim's dry tone and sarcasm drip from every word written and he can just imagine the sound of his voice and the way his tongue curls around his vowels when ranting to Dick about things. It's proof of an entire life, built away from Dick, and it hurts to know that it's been kept so separate from him ever since Tim got back.
He is getting ready to click out of the opened windows and actually start doing what he came here to do. Really, he is. But then his eyes catch on something he never expected to see. His own name.
A video. A thumbnail with Tim's stressed face in it, hair greasy and eyes bloodshot. And a title.
Dick_is_a_dickface_but_what_else_is_new.mp4
He'd like to say that he thought about it long and hard. That the mouse shook in his hand and the cursor hovered over the thumbnail for ages before he made up his mind to double click it and maximise the window when the video started playing. He really, really would. But that is not what happened.
What happened is that Dick saw the thumbnail and name combination, felt his heart leap in his chest, and he had the video open and playing before he could even think about it. And yes, in the back of his head, he was aware that he shouldn't do it, but the thought was so brief it's like it wasn't even there.
Maybe he should've thought about it. Maybe Dick should have learned, for once in his life, to mind his business. He knows what they say about eavesdroppers. This is basically that but like, ten times worse.
Maybe if he'd minded his own damn business, his heart wouldn't be ripped in two right now. He wouldn't know what it's like to realise that he is the biggest asshole on the planet, that he is a terrible, self-centered, selfish brother who no one should have ever entrusted with younger brothers to look after, and that it's a wonder Tim even deigns to look at him anymore.
Dick stares, heart in his throat, unable to breathe, feeling tears tracking down his cheeks silently, while the Tim of a few weeks or months ago pours his heart out to a silent audience in the absence of the brother he should've probably been yelling the words at all along.
“I know you aren't a mind reader,” Tim is saying, and his face is half draped in shadows from a slowly sinking sun outside his window, but even like this, Dick can see the bags under his eyes and the pallor of his skin. He's more than tired or stressed. His brother is struggling. And Dick didn't even know. “I know communication goes both ways and I can't expect people to know what I want if I don't talk about it. I fucking know! But… was it so bad of me to want you to miss me and do something about it without me having to reach out or prod you? I just wanted you to pick up the phone and call me! Text me to check in, to send a funny meme, to ask when I'm free so we can see a movie together. But all you ever talk to me about is covering shifts for you when Damian is sick or asking me about cases! Dick, am I just a coworker to you? Is that what our relationship has been reduced to?”
Dick wants to scream his denial. Wants to grab Tim by the shoulders and yell that no, of course Tim is more than a coworker! He's his brother! His baby bird! But he bites his lip hard enough to feel it start stinging and keeps watching, because this Tim can’t hear his protests and the present Tim is in the Cave hooked up to enough machines struggling to keep him stable to qualify as a Transformer. None of his denials can reach the one who really needs them.
“I know I'm not the only one who had a bad time when Bruce was gone. You were grieving too. And the weight of Batman on your shoulders wasn't light, neither was the responsibility of taking care of Damian. You were struggling. But fuck, Dick… do you think I had it any easier? How many people had I lost by that point? How much grief was I buckling under? And all I wanted was my brother! I didn't need you to coddle me, didn't need you to treat me like glass or set aside your hurt to soothe mine! I just needed you to lean on me while I leaned on you. I wanted us to hold each other while we cried and fell apart and then picked each other back up again. Instead, you let Damian take the suit that was still mine without bothering to talk about it beforehand and acted all exasperated, tired adult when I dared to have feelings about it. Scolded me for punching Damian but never said a word when he insulted me and mocked me.”
And he did, didn't he? Dick thought he was just keeping the peace, trying not to make Damian feel attacked and rejected, trusting Tim to know that Dami's words were horseshit and meant nothing except a hurt boy's insecurities spilling over. He forgot that Tim's a hurt boy too. That he has insecurities too. That sometimes, when someone does nothing, they're only allowing the bad to continue. That inaction can look a whole lot like endorsement under the right light. God, Dick fucked up so badly.
And he knows it. He knew it then too. But, fuck… he didn't know how to fix it and he convinced himself that, since Tim never brought any of it up after he came home, it must mean that he forgave Dick. That he got over it. That they're okay now.
But they aren't, are they? When's the last time they hung out together, just the two of them, no masks in sight? What's the last text Dick sent Tim that had nothing to do with night-time work or Damian or, hell, anyone but them? He didn't even wish Tim a happy birthday personally, just added a plus one reaction to Cass's message in the Batfam group chat because he was running late to pick Damian up from school and promised himself he'd draft a message later. He never got round to it.
“You think I care that you thought I was crazy enough to warrant professional help from a therapist in Metropolis? Dick, I thought I was crazy at times!” Tim continues, unaware of a now-horrified Dick's spiraling thoughts and startling realisations. Tim laughs and it's not a happy sound. Self-deprecation oozes from it and it makes Dick flinch. His little brother should have never learned the pain that causes such a sound. “I doubted myself so often while I was gone. The only reason I kept going was because I thought I literally had nothing else going for me, so if I was chasing ghosts it might as well be Bruce's!” Tears are forming in Tim's eyes and Dick wants so badly to wipe them away even as he knows that he lost that right a long time ago.
“No, Dick, I don't give a flying fuck that you questioned how well I was holding up mentally after dealing with so much grief in such a short amount of time. What I care about is that you didn't bother to bring that up until I was about to leave. That you only used that as proof that I shouldn't go off on my own, since clearly I was off my rocker. I care that you couldn't even pretend to believe me, for my sake. You couldn't let yourself hope? Couldn't let that hope in your head because you knew it would destroy you if it turned out to be false? Fine. Understandable. But I had that hope, that belief. And you know that once I get something in my head, I can't stop until I've proven myself right or wrong, whichever it is. I'm a detective, Dick. I pursue every lead, no matter how unlikely, until I reach a conclusion. You know that. What harm could it have been to indulge me? To support me, keep an eye on me, ask someone from the League to go with me? And then, if I really was just as crazy with grief as you believed, when I inevitably found no proof of Bruce being alive, what could it have hurt to just be there for me and let me heal?!”
Dick bows over the laptop in his lap as he lets out a keening sob. Tim's voice had gotten steadily louder and angrier, more desperate, during that last section, and he is now a wild thing full of heartbreak and betrayal as he looks at the camera with bloodshot eyes, his hair in disarray and a palm striking against his chest forcefully. Dick hiccups and clenches his fists, nails biting into the skin of his palms and probably drawing blood.
On the screen, Tim is heaving. He takes a deep breath, sniffs, wipes his eyes, then continues in a more controlled, quieter voice. “You don't get it. You refuse to get it. I don't hate you for taking Robin away – I feel betrayed that I wasn't worth having a discussion with, I'm heartbroken that you let Damian have it so easily when I had to bleed and tear myself apart to earn it, Damian, who showed no trait even resembling Robin, who I truly believed would just tarnish the name if he had it, who did nothing but attack me and insult me since he got here, who made no effort whatsoever to at least be civil. I don't hate you because you wanted to get me therapy – I'm disgusted that you used that against me instead of bringing it up before I had one foot out of Gotham, and I'm hurt that you left me all alone after I did and only bothered to call when you needed my help.
“I could have died out there, I almost did a few times, and you wouldn't have known.” Dick whines. No no no, not his baby brother. Not another one. No, he couldn't take it. All his fault, all his stupid fucking fault, just like always. “Not for a long time. And it doesn't matter if I was right or wrong, it only should have mattered that I was your brother and you cared about me. None of your actions made me feel like you cared, Dick. It made me feel discarded. Used up and thrown away. Punished for daring to go against your word and given the silent treatment until I got my act together.”
Once upon a time, Dick hated the Drakes. He knew they weren't terrible parents, at least not by the average parent's standard – they hired people to look after Tim when they were gone, stayed in Gotham for as long as they could stand, for their son's sake, until the itch to travel and indulge in their passion was too strong to bear, made sure he was safe and fed and schooled, that he wanted for nothing and had nothing to complain about. But they were absent, even when they were home – Tim told him that once. They loved Tim and he loved them, but they weren't perfect. And Dick thought they should be. That Tim was owed that– no, that Tim deserved nothing less. He thought Tim was the best kid parents could ask for, gremlin tendencies included, and that they didn't deserve to have him as a son.
And now, Dick realises that as soon as he was in charge of Tim, he turned right back around and did the exact same thing. He proved himself to be just another adult in a long list of them who let Tim down when he needed them most.
What right does he have to hate Tim's parents?
What right does he have not to hate himself?
“I love you. I love you so much it hurts. It would be easier if I didn't, would hurt less when, for every drop of love I have for you, I get drowned in a wave of hatred and betrayal and resentment that takes over everything.
“And I know you love me too. At least, I believe that you believe that. But your love hurts. It didn't use to, but somewhere along the way I grew up into someone Dick Grayson couldn't handle and Damian showed up and he just became the more desirable pet project for you to focus your love and attention on. Your love is not enough. Maybe it never was. I was just too starved for affection and too blinded by hero worship to realise it. I truly hope Damian never has to feel what I've felt. I hope his eyes never lose that sparkle when he sees you. I hope he never lives to see the day when Dick Grayson lets him down.” There is so much wrong with what Dick hears. So many things that should have never been uttered by any brother of his. And yet, there it is. His ultimate failure. Tim's wet eyes, stormy with so many warring emotions, will probably haunt Dick for the rest of his days.
Tim's lips twist into a sad, sardonic smile as he keeps going. “I hope he's a better little brother than I ever was. I don't know, maybe it was just me being faulty. I never knew how to talk to kids my age and I always fucked relationships up by wanting too much, being too much. So maybe it's just me.” ‘No, it isn't you,’ Dick wants to say. ‘It's me, it's all me. My fuck ups, my failures, my inability to show the people I love how much they matter and actually keep them in my life!’ But his protests would be useless and so they remain unsaid still, even as he keeps on crying while his little brother brings down a hammer on his shattered heart again and again.
“That's fine. I don't want an apology, it wouldn't mean anything now anyway. I'm selfish and unrealistic like that – I always want people to do things because they want to, not because I asked. Because I always have to think ten steps ahead and figure out what people need (maybe because of my parents but I'm not here to psychoanalyse my childhood) but somehow, when it's me, no one can be bothered.
“Fuck. I don't even know where I'm going with this anymore. Just… I'm tired. I don't want to feel like this anymore. Maybe yelling at you through a screen will help, what do I know? I just want to close my eyes for once and not have this conversation playing in my head on loop until I give up on trying to sleep and chug another energy drink to keep me going. I hope I've finally gotten it out of my system. Maybe one day I'll even tell you some of these things.” Tim snorts, looking resigned. “Yeah right.” And then the video ends.
Dick looks at the screen and grief churns in his gut as he takes in his brother's frozen features through his curtain of tears. Without the heartbreaking words squirming in his ears, Dick can properly look at his brother and really take him in. Tim… Tim looks bad. Tired, exhausted to the bone. His dark circles are worse than usual and there's a lifelessness in his eyes that Dick can't remember seeing before, not like this. It looks… permanent. Like nothing could ever, will ever make it go away. Like there's no happiness in this world that can ever erase the loss and horror and grief those eyes have seen, that will ever make anything worth it anymore. And he looks so small, curled up in his chair as he is. When did Dick stop seeing how young Tim is? He's eighteen now but that's still a kid. A teenager, full of hormones and doubts and questions and ridiculous thoughts that tell him he knows better with none of the experience to back any of it up. He's a kid who needs people, who needs to cry sometimes and break down and ask how to use the washing machine. Does Tim know how to cook? Who feeds him? Who's been patching him up after patrols? Is anyone ever there waiting for him when he gets home, or does he always come back to an empty apartment and no food in the fridge?
Why is Dick only asking himself these things now? Why has he never thought that in the weeks and months of this past year, during all the times he sat down for dinner at the Manor because he promised Damian to stay the night?
Dick feels like a terrible brother. Months since Tim's been home and only now is he wondering these things. When the fuck did he forget that Tim was a kid? When did he become the sort of person who does this?
He manages to wipe his eyes enough to see the world around him without a blurry filter. The window of the video player gets closed, the laptop lid shut gently before he pushes the devices away and gets to his feet. Dick's legs are wobbling when he walks to the attached bathroom but he stumbles towards it as if in a dream, propping himself up against the sink and staring at his reflection in the mirror.
The urge to smash it into bits and pieces is strong. He wants to spit at the man reflected. Wants to bite and claw and punch the man until he feels half the pain Tim must have been enduring since Dick fucked up so badly. He hates himself.
Dick washes his face quickly, scrubbing harshly at the skin until he leaves faint nail marks behind, then dries himself up and turns around without looking in the mirror again. He feels like a wet towel rung dry – no will, no energy, no emotions left. Just emptiness with a tinge of self-hatred. His phone chimes with a text from Bruce, telling the group chat that Tim is awake again and finally lucid, that his fever has gone down and he can have visitors if anyone is in the Manor and available.
Dick is probably the last person Tim wants to see right now. He has no right to force himself on the boy after everything he's put him through. But Dick is so, so selfish and he needs to see his brother right now, needs to know for sure that he's alive and safe. That he can live to hate Dick another day.
🎪 OG Boy Wonder : omw everyone wait yo turn
He relocks his phone without bothering to read any of the replies, stuffing it in the back pocket of his jeans, then takes the stairs four at a time as he hurries down to the Cave.
The med bay is humming with technology – the Bat kind and the life saving kind alike – when he skids around the corner and towards the only occupied bed. Bruce is fiddling with a button on the heart monitor while Alfred is placing a full pitcher of water on Tim’s bedside table. Dick barely registers any of it, his entire focus taken by the sight of Tim’s blue eyes peeking at the world around him from behind fluttering lashes and his moving mouth, curled into a familiar cocky grin as he no doubt makes fun of Bruce for daring to be worried about his son’s health.
Dick knows the attempt at defusing a situation well enough. It never works.
“Ah, Master Dick. Good of you to join us. I was just telling Master Bruce that his shower really shouldn't be postponed any longer and it seems you've provided me with the perfect argument in my favour,” Alfred speaks up, interrupting Tim’s attempts at placating Bruce, who’s definitely in fretting mode.
Dick side eyes the greasy hair and the overgrown stubble and can't help but agree with Alfred's assessment.
“I’m sure Tim’s nose still works so maybe don't change that with your stink and just go shower. I won't let him keel over and die while you're gone.”
“I resent the implication that I need a babysitter,” Tim mutters in a weak voice that fools no one.
“You were about to lift yourself out of bed when I entered the med bay, Master Tim.”
“I needed to pee!”
“Which is why you have a catheter.”
“You know I hate those things, Alfred.”
“Be that as it may, you are in no condition to get up and walk around. Your stubbornness and lack of care for your own health are precisely the reason why you have been deemed in need of babysitters,” Alfred retorts, not budging an inch in the face of a whining Bat. “Now stop straining your neck by trying to lift it and lie back down on your pillow. I will be back with a light meal shortly. Master Bruce – shower. Upstairs. Now.”
Bruce gives in, as everyone knew he would, and follows Alfred out of the Cave after smoothing Tim's hair away from his face one last time and throwing a forlorn look over his shoulder that everyone pretends they didn't see. Tim flops back on his pillow and huffs.
Dick approaches the bed on unsure legs and stops next to Tim's torso, where an empty chair awaits. It's a wonder Bruce hasn't tried to glue himself to it.
“May I sit?”
Tim's eyes – still tired, and hazy with what must be an incredible cocktail of drugs – slide open slowly to regard Dick like he's a weird specimen of mollusk but he nods his approval.
“Thank you,” he says quietly.
Now that he's here and the urgency to see his brother has faded, he doesn't know what to say or what to do with himself. He sits down and his hands rest in his lap, fidgeting with nothing to do and nowhere to go. His eyes flit around, from the oxygen tank next to Tim's bed – not in use at the moment – to the heart monitor beeping much more quietly now, lingering on the IV bag hanging above Tim's bed and pumping a fresh batch of fluids into him. But like clockwork, they inevitably fall right back on Tim: his bandaged, splinted fingers, his bruised and lacerated collarbones peaking from above the hospital gown Leslie put him in, the ugly rope burn marks around his throat that tell an even uglier story that Dick finds Jason justified in nearly beating that woman to death over, the black eye and the split lip and the sliced cheek.
Their eyes meet.
And somehow… Tim knows.
“You watched the video, didn't you?”
Dick's inhale stutters in his chest. He doesn't know what to say so he remains frozen. Video-Tim's words echo in his brain, “I always want people to do things because they want to, not because I asked,” and he doesn't know what the right thing to say even is. Tim knowing won't change the facts – that Dick didn't even realise how bad things were until Tim told him, against his knowledge.
“I should have deleted it after I filmed it,” Tim continues when Dick says nothing. His voice is thready and it's clear he's exhausted and not in any shape to have this conversation right now, but Dick can do nothing but stare at him like a deer in the headlights. “Dunno why I kept it. Maybe part of me secretly hoped for you to find it and watch it and finally regret hurting me. Mom always complained about my attention seeking behaviour, so I guess she was right after all.”
“Tim, no-”
“Ah, it's fine,” Tim interrupts, flopping a bandaged hand in his direction. “If I really wanted it hidden, I would have deleted it or encrypted it. Or just not given it such an obvious name. Can't blame you for being curious.”
Guilt curdles like milk in Dick's chest and settles in his stomach like a stone.
Tim flops his head sideways in Dick's direction to better look at him and the smile on his face is the same sad and self-deprecating thing he saw in that video what feels like a lifetime ago.
“Be honest. How long would it have taken you to clock me if you hadn't seen it?”
“I…” Dick doesn't know. He hates that he doesn't know. But he is just as stubborn as the rest of them and can stick his head in the sand when he fucks up so far down that it comes popping out on the other side of the Earth and he forgets he even buried it to begin with. If he never knew for sure how badly he fucked up, he could lie to himself that he was still a good brother. He could lie and pretend that everything was fine, that Tim was okay, that it was perfectly normal for a boy to grow up and stop spending time with his older brother as much as he used to and that it didn't hurt that he saw Jason more often than he did Tim – and Jason was the one who wanted them all dead at some point not that long ago.
“Yeah. Thought so,” Tim concludes in the stifling quiet of the Cave, resigned. He closes his eyes and breathes deeply, shakily, and Dick hurts. He hurts so badly he thinks he might be bleeding from it and he wishes he would, he does, he does, because bleedings he can stop, wounds he can patch up, but this hurt is the kind without a cure, the kind that aches and burns and flares up when you least expect it.
“I'm sorry,” Dick says and knows that it is not enough. But he says it because that's all he has.
“I know you are.” And the thing is, Dick knows Tim does. It still doesn't change anything. “But I needed you to be sorry a year ago. Hell, even a month ago. I needed you to rotate things over in your brain like a microwave and be sorry all on your own and then come back to me and apologise because you thought I deserved it.”
“I know. You… you said. In the video.”
“I don't know what to do now, Dick. Because this is not enough for me. And I think I deserve better. Damian apologised. All on his own. Marched his little assassin ass to my place, knocked on the door, and gave me a five minute speech that boiled down to ‘sorry I tried to kill you, that was not cool, my bad, won't do it again, here's a drawing of your friends, now get fucked’. I framed it. It's in my bedroom, right across the bed so I can see it first thing in the morning.”
And yeah, that sounds like Damian. God, he's grown so much. Dick still can't believe how far that kid has come, how different he is from the murdery child he was when they first met.
Dick didn't know Damian apologised. The kid never said anything. He thought his and Tim's interactions improved simply because Damian finally saw no reason to keep antagonising Tim any longer and Tim decided to leave things be for the sake of maintaining the peace. Once again, Dick realises how blinded he is by his own shortcomings and how bad of a brother that makes him.
“ Jason apologised,” Tim continues and it seems like he's on a roll. “ Jason. Wrote me a letter and everything, proper Darcy-like. I framed that too, only because he always gets a scowl on his face every time he crashes on my couch and sees it on the mantel, and I enjoy seeing him struggle between the urge to bitch about it and the knowledge that he can't say shit about what I chose to do with his apology. It's great.” There's a fond grin on his face as he speaks and Dick aches with the love he has for this boy, heart heavy under the combined weight of happiness and grief at the sight. He's glad Tim and Jason are getting along now, but his greedy, selfish soul is green with envy at the thought that he might have been replaced in Tim's heart as a big brother. It is, however, nothing less than he deserves, for making Tim feel like he was replaced himself.
“Are you really that prideful that you couldn't bring yourself to say sorry even once, Dick? Or was I simply not worth the effort?”
“Tim… no, of course not,” Dick protests weakly, desperate but unable to find the right words that can justify any of this.
“Then why? Did you not think I deserved an apology? Or was it that you still thought you were justified? That you did nothing wrong? That I was taking things too personally and blowing them out of proportion? It's okay, I've heard it all before. You can be honest.”
“I… I don't know. I don't know, Tim,” Dick admits and lowers his eyes to his lap because he can't take the open, gentle, sincerely curious look on Tim's face. “I hated the idea that I hurt you. And you never said anything so I thought we were okay, that you knew I was sorry without me having to say it and that you forgave me, and so I never had to examine myself too closely and admit that I fucked up.”
“And me never sticking around more than necessary, never coming to the Manor, never partnering up with Nightwing unless forced by circumstances – none of that clued you in?”
Dick shrugs, feeling like a little kid scolded by his mother or Alfred all over again.
“I'm really good at lying to myself.”
Tim sighs and the sound seems to be coming from somewhere very deep inside. Dick peeks at him almost fearfully.
“I don't know what to do,” Tim says, echoing himself from a few minutes ago. “I want to forgive you. I want my brother back. But I can't. I know I can't. I shouldn't.”
“And that's fine,” Dick interjects and ignores the way his heart spasms in his chest with grief and fear at losing a brother who's still alive, ignores the voice screeching in his head to shut his mouth. He's been selfish long enough. He doesn't get to guilt or manipulate Tim into forgiving him just to feel better about himself. “You never have to forgive me. You can hate me if that's how you feel. Just… don't take yourself away from me completely. I can't lose you too.”
Fuck. There are tears in his eyes, streaming down his cheeks, pooling on the tip of his nose and dripping down on his hands like a leaky faucet. He scrubs at his face harshly but the breath trembles in his lungs and he's hiccuping before he knows it.
“I'm so, so sorry,” Dick cries, sobbing. “Please don't leave me, Timmy. Not you too. I'll be better, I promise. Whatever you want, whatever you need, just… stay. I need you. I miss you. I love you.”
Dick's curled up in the chair now, turned into a ball like he's trying to protect himself from a blow, but he knows that nothing he does could ever shield him from the damage Tim could inflict by uttering a simple no. Nothing could prevent him from shattering into millions of pieces right there on the Cave floor.
There is nothing he wouldn't do to keep Tim in his life. He needs his little brother, needs him like air. He couldn't take it if he lost him – his last connection to his parents, that horrible night so long ago linking them so thoroughly in ways the two little boys never knew or could've guessed. The boy who gave him a reason to believe again when all he knew was the pain of losing Jason and the conviction that he'd failed him in an unforgivable way. The little brother who filled the gaping wound left by Jason but who didn't stop there and instead made it a home of his own, teaching Dick new things about being a brother every day they spent together. The boy who believed in Dick when he himself could not, who made him feel like he could move mountains and rearrange the stars as long as he had Tim's star-struck eyes glued to him the entire time.
Dick loves Tim so much. Not more or less than his other brothers, but in a way that he can't explain. If Jason and Damian are Dick's heart, then Timmy is the lungs – without him, he couldn't possibly breathe right for even a second. He's been wearing an oxygen mask this entire time and he didn't even know it. If Tim rejects him now, he fears he'll finally suffocate.
A touch on his arm startles Dick. He uncurls from his protective stance slowly and looks up to find fingers, wrapped in splints and bandages, hovering next to him, trembling in the air. Dick gently takes them in his hands and holds them, never putting pressure, and directs his questioning gaze towards Tim.
“Can't exactly hug you,” he replies, like it's nothing. There's an uncomfortable look on his face and Dick, who didn't even realise he was startled out of crying, wants to start all over again because he feels like shit. He's making this about him and it should be about Tim. “Hey, it's okay. I… I don't hate you, okay? And I won't leave you. But I think I need some time to think and find out what I want and what I'm comfortable with. I don't trust you anymore, Dick. Not with myself. But if you can show me that I can, in time, well… I don't know. We can see then. Do you think you can do that?”
Dick is nodding before Tim's words are even fully out of his mouth.
“Yes, yes, of course I can. I can give you time. Space. Anything.”
Tim smiles at him. It doesn't look as painful now, but there's still a lot of heaviness churning behind his eyes.
“Okay. That's good. And please stop thinking bad things about yourself. I can see it in your eyes. I love you, doofus. Even when I shouldn't. It doesn't help me if you hate yourself on my behalf. It just hurts me more.”
Dick chuckles sadly as he removes one of the hands cradling Tim's fingers to wipe at his wet eyes.
“That's a tall order.” But Tim looks at him steadily, looking more serious and grounded than someone on as many drugs as he currently is should look, and Dick slumps his shoulders in defeat. “But I guess I owe you to try.”
Tim hums as his fingers twitch in Dick's grasp.
“You do. And if this is the only way I can finally get you to see a therapist then I'm going to utilise it without remorse.”
Dick scrunches his nose.
“Since when are you an advocate for therapy?”
“Since I let myself be thrown out of a window with no real plan to stop my fall and I realised that maybe I wasn't doing as well as I previously thought,” Tim answers steadily, eyes pinning Dick in place, and he can feel himself paling as the meaning of those words sinks in. Wayne Tower. Ra's. “How did you know I'd be there, Red?”//”You'll always catch me, Wing.”
“You didn't know,” he whispers in realisation.
Tim snorts. “‘Course I didn't. How could I? You weren't supposed to be anywhere near the Tower when I fell.”
“But…” Dick stammers, panicking, as images of Tim, dead on the ground, a heap of smashed meat and broken bones, flash before his eyes and take him back to a circus tent 14 years ago. “Superboy… you could have called Superboy. Or told Wonder Girl to come get you. Or…”
Tim looks at him, sad and gentle, and says, “I didn't see the point. My mission was finished. My goal accomplished. And with my last actions, everything that Bruce held dear safe and sound. I didn't see myself as being part of that. So I closed my eyes and let myself fall.”
Dick doesn't have any more tears in him but he lowers Tim's hand to the bed and moves his own fingers upwards toward Tim's wrist, unblemished, and grips it as tight as he dares and clings to the little brother he never knew he came so close to losing so many times over.
“I'm doing better now,” Tim soothes but it does little to calm the swirling dark hurricane of thoughts in Dick's head. “And you saved me. Don't beat yourself up.”
He doesn't think there is a reality out there in which he doesn't beat himself up over this, but he nods his head because he doesn't want to upset Tim further. His little brother's eyes are drooping, anyway, so it's clearly time for him to get some rest. They've had enough emotional conversations for now and Tim isn't up for more.
“Get some sleep, Timmy. I'll tell Alfred to bring you food later, after you wake up.”
Tim hums, sleepy and not all there anymore.
“Will you… be there? When I wake up?” he slurs.
Dick swallows and it feels like he's trying to push a boulder down his throat.
“Yeah, yeah, I'll be right here. Don't you worry. Just get some rest, baby bird.”
“M'kay. Missed… ya callin’ me tha’...” and he trails off, falling asleep mid-word, hand going slack where Dick is gripping it and breath going slow and even in his chest. Dick blinks back the returning tears that make themselves known and exhales heavily.
“Sweet dreams, baby bird. I'll watch over you now,” he whispers hoarsely then bows his head down to rest on their clasped hands, careful of Tim's injuries. Nothing will make him move from this spot now. Not hunger, not thirst, not even Alfred. He made a promise and he intends to keep it. Dick will watch over Tim now for all the times in the past year and a half that he wasn't there to do it, and he will show Tim that he cares and that he can earn his trust back. No matter what. The alternative is too terrible to consider.