Chapter Text
Tim’s alarm clock had been unplugged for months now. He had figured out long ago that there was no point; the routine morning screaming matches filtering through the thin walls managed to do the job just fine.
“I’m not going!”
“God, can you go one fucking day without being difficult? Get dressed, please. I’ll make pancakes.”
“This is ridiculous. You never make Drake go! He practically skips every other day and you don't say a word to him!”
Tim sighed, lifting himself out of bed and using the wall for support as he stumbled toward his closet. He dug out a sweatshirt and a pair of shorts from one of the boxes he never bothered to unpack and pulled them on, eternally grateful that he no longer needed help getting dressed.
“You know that Tim has a medical excuse.”
“Tt, right. It's all an act. He’s been out of the hospital for what, a year now?”
“You seem to have an unclear perspective of how much recovery time is needed after getting shot in the head.”
Tim grabbed his forearm crutches from where they leaned against the wall near his bed, walking shakily across the hall and nudging open the door to Dick and Damian’s bedroom.
“Look, Damian, I told you that if you came with me this was how it was gonna be. If you don't like it then feel free to go back and live with—”
Tim cleared his throat. “I have a history test today, I can't be late,” he said flatly. They both turned to look at him, Damian standing on top of the bed with his arms crossed and Dick still under the covers on his side, leaning casually against the headboard.
“Tim!” Dick said with a warm smile, hopping out of bed and pulling the closest t-shirt on the floor over his head. “Good morning, how are you feeling?”
“I’m fine,” Tim said with a shrug. In truth, his head hurt like a bitch, but he couldn't remember the last time it hadn't. At least it wasn't one of the migraines that were so bad they practically immobilized him. “Did I hear pancakes?”
If either of them were embarrassed by the fact that Tim had been listening to their conversation, they didn't show it. “Yeah, I'll whip some up right now. Damian, get dressed.” And with that, Dick headed to the kitchen, leaving Tim alone with a glowering Damian.
They stared at each other silently for several beats. “When are you going to get the hell out of our lives?” Damian eventually asked from between clenched teeth.
“I would, but I wouldn't want to miss school,” Tim said without missing a beat. “Attendance is very important to me.”
Damian actually growled, and Tim took that as a sign to follow Dick into the kitchen before Damian attacked him. He got the impression that the younger boy had to restrain himself from doing so almost constantly, and after having seen him hold his own against Dick in a physical altercation several times, he wasn't looking forward to the day Damian finally snapped.
Dick was attempting to brush his teeth and flip pancakes at the same time, and Tim smiled fondly at his efforts. Dick really did try his hardest to take care of them and make their tiny two-bedroom apartment feel like a home, and Tim was forever indebted to him. After all, as far as he could recall, this was the only home he had ever had.
Dick and Damian were his brothers, apparently. Despite the fact that they obviously all had different ethnicities and last names. Dick tended to avoid Tim’s questions when he asked about it, and he had learned it was better just not to ask.
If he had any memory whatsoever of the time before he had woken up in the hospital a little over a year ago, he would probably know. But he didn't.
“Ere oo oh,” Dick muttered from around his toothbrush, handing Tim an oversized mug of coffee. He leaned over and spit into to sink. “Two or three pancakes?”
“Two is fine,” Tim said, clambering onto a stool at the counter. Dick turned around, and Tim eyed the marks on the back of his neck with a raised eyebrow. “Late night?”
Dick stared at him in confusion for a moment, before his face transformed into an embarrassed grin as he reached back to touch the love bites. “Uh, yeah, I got in around three,” he muttered, layering Tim’s pancakes with whipped cream. “I was, um, just…”
“You don't have to explain,” Tim quickly cut him off. “I just hope you're getting enough sleep.” Dick smiled softly at him, dipping his finger in the whipped cream and touching it to Tim’s nose before setting the plate in front of him.
“Don't worry about me, kiddo,” he said reassuringly. Tim did, anyway.
They were interrupted by Damian loudly clearing his throat from the doorway. He was glaring between them heavily, like he always did whenever Dick gave Tim any attention.
Dick smiled at him. “Hey. You want two or three pancakes?” he asked. Damian plopped onto the stool furthest away from Tim, pulling his hood over his head.
“I don't want any,” he muttered. Dick’s smile wavered, and Tim felt a fresh wave of resentment toward Damian.
“They're really good, Dick, thanks,” Tim said sincerely. Damian glared at him.
Dick’s face lit up again. “No pr—”
“What are those?!”
Damian was suddenly standing with his hands slammed on the counter, glaring daggers at the back of Dick’s head. Tim groaned.
“I thought you were working late last night,” Damian said loudly, his hands clenching into fists. “I didn't realize your job involved people biting your neck.”
“Damian, I—”
“Clearly you're not making any profit from such activities,” Damian interrupted sharply. “Otherwise we would’ve had more to eat than leftover Chinese food for dinner for the last three nights.”
All of the color drained from Dick’s face. Tim got out of his chair, his blood pounding in his ears as he turned to Damian. “Don't talk to him like that,” he said through clenched teeth.
“You stay out of it!” Damian snapped, grabbing a plate off of the counter and hurling it at Tim.
Tim’s reflexes kicked in immediately, and he grabbed one of his crutches leaning against the counter and swung at the plate, shattering it before it managed to make contact with him. He froze, his body thrumming with excitement and confusion as to why that action had felt so familiar.
“Damian, that's enough!” Dick said, running a shaky hand through his hair. “I’m sorry, okay? I’m really… I’m trying my best. I’m sorry.”
Damian took a deep breath. “Was it Todd?” he asked, calmly this time. Dick choked.
“That’s enough,” he said again, frantically. “Come on, we have to leave if you're gonna make it to school on time.”
Surprisingly, Damian complied without much argument, stepping over the broken ceramic as he stomped out of the apartment. Tim and Dick followed more slowly, Tim willing his legs to work correctly as he supported most of his weight with his crutches. Their apartment building wasn't nice enough to have an elevator, so Tim had to go down the stairs on Dick’s back, much to his humiliation. He was just glad he wasn't in the wheelchair anymore.
Damian was already in the front seat of the car when they got there. Dick’s car was surprisingly nice considering their financial situation; he had told Tim once that it had been a gift from their dad, Bruce, but he hadn't elaborated much beyond that. Like with most things.
Dick chatted away the whole car ride, seemingly not caring whether or not either of them responded. Tim often admired how good the eldest was at brushing off their disputes and carrying on as if nothing had happened. Tim admired everything about Dick. He deserved so much better than a life of struggling to support a brain-damaged cripple and a psychotic brat that didn't appreciate him at all.
Damian got dropped off first. “Have a great day, baby bat,” Dick said warmly. Damian grimaced, climbing out and standing in front of the open door awkwardly.
“...You too,” he finally said, before slamming the door and running off toward the elementary school. Dick smirked.
“He’s sorry,” he said, glancing at Tim in the mirror. He sighed. “You okay, Timmy?”
Tim blinked. “What? Yeah,” he said. “Dick, I… I hope you know how much I appreciate. Everything.” Dick smiled.
“You don't have to do that,” Dick replied softly. “My feelings aren't hurt. He was pissed that he didn't have my full attention and tried to hit me where it hurt so that he’d get it. You know what they say about little boys and sharing.”
Tim nodded, scratching the back of his neck. “Well. It’s true.”
“I know,” Dick replied. They pulled up to the high school, and Dick turned around and ruffled his hair. “Good luck on your test. You'll do great.”
In reality, Tim was going to fail his test. He’d barely been at school for the last few months, and when he actually did show up he had a bad habit of sleeping through his classes. But he wasn't about to tell Dick that.
Tim hated school as much as Damian did, if not more. He had started attending after six months of lying in bed trying to recover the ability to perform basic functions like speaking and moving, and the transition was rough. Not to mention the fact that his social skills had been almost nonexistent at the time due to his complete retroactive memory loss, so friends weren't really something he had a plentiful supply of.
There were some things that made it bearable, though. One of them was the look on Dick’s face when he got a good grade on a test or an essay. Another was Vanessa.
Vanessa was his only friend, and she had been so ever since the first day he had rolled into the school on his wheelchair, terrified and confused. She was bizarre, to say the least. Her blonde hair constantly looked like it had been electrically charged, and her eyes were wide and ever-moving behind the thick rims of her glasses. She always had a bright orange binder under her arm, and Tim knew that it was filled with pictures she had taken of the object of her obsessive affection: the Batman.
“I go to Gotham whenever I have a free weekend,” she had told him once. “He’s incredible to watch in action, Tim. You have to go with me some time. Oh, look at this one!” She pointed to one of the photos excitedly, and Tim squinted at the smaller, more colorfully dressed boy flying beside Batman across the Gotham skyline. “That’s Robin. This is an older picture, he hasn't been around for a while. He disappeared around the same time as Nightwing and Red Robin, actually.”
The picture had been taken from far away and was barely visible. Tim still couldn’t explain why, when he'd seen it, his heart had begun to race frantically in his chest.
Regardless, he enjoyed listening to Vanessa’s endless passionate rants about the Batman. It made him feel peaceful, somehow.
“I’m a bit worried about him.” It was lunch time. Tim had possibly scraped a C on his history test and forced his eyes to stay open for two periods afterwards, so the day had been pretty successful so far. Vanessa passed him her fries, wordlessly pitying the single slice of leftover pizza Dick had packed him for lunch. As much as Tim hated Damian for pointing it out, their food situation was getting pretty dire. The pancakes that morning had been a rare luxury. “He’s gotten pretty violent lately. It all started a while ago, when he nearly killed Red Hood… Not that he would go through with it, of course! But, still, he almost did. He goes further now than he ever used to, and frankly, it’s concerning.”
Tim hummed in response, chewing on his pizza thoughtfully. “Maybe he's just fed up. Honestly, I’m surprised that he's gone this long without killing anyone. Especially the really dangerous criminals that the world would be better off without, like that Joker guy…” Vanessa was looking at him like he’d just spat in her food. He shrugged.
“How could you even say something like that?!” she snapped. “Batman is strong enough to resist that temptation. He would never stoop so low as to kill. That's what makes him who he is Tim!”
Tim swallowed. “Sorry.”
She continued to rant about the importance of Batman’s moral code even as the bell rang and they headed to their next classes. Tim nodded and threw in an offhanded comment when appropriate, simultaneously focusing on weaving his way through the throng of students exiting the cafeteria. He hated how much he had to struggle to do something as simple as walking, but he told himself that it could be worse. It had been worse.
It was hard to remember that, though, when suddenly his crutch was pulled away from his left arm and he was falling to his knees on the linoleum floor with a painful crack.
“Walk much, Drake?” an annoyingly familiar voice taunted him, and Tim grit his teeth as he used his remaining crutch to lift himself into a standing position. Vanessa ran to grab his left crutch from where it had been kicked several feet in front of them. Tim turned to the offender, not at all surprised to see Bud Tanner, one of the seemingly endless supply of assholes that liked to fuck with him just because they could, sneering at him.
Tim was used to this, unfortunately. “My feet work just fine, thanks for asking. How about yours?” Tim asked flatly. He swiftly lifted up his crutch and jammed it onto the other boy’s foot, his expression unchanging as Bud howled in pain and shoved Tim to the ground once again.
“You little shit! Try that again and I’ll make sure the next bullet you take to the head gets the job done.”
Vanessa was between them in a flash, pointing Tim’s fallen crutch at Bud like a weapon. “Leave him alone,” she hissed, her high-pitched, lispy voice surprisingly unintimidating. Bud scoffed.
“So now you're hiding behind little girls?” he said. “Didn't realize they shot your stones off, too.”
Vanessa prodded his chest with the crutch. “You don't know who you're messing with,” she said. “Don't you know that before the accident, Tim was a superhero? That's where he got all the scars from! Duh! He could totally kick your ass if he wanted to!”
Tim felt his face heat up and he brought up a hand to cover it with a groan. He knew she meant well, but Vanessa’s attempts to help had a tendency of making things much worse.
Bud’s expression turned from hostile to amused in an instant, and he burst into loud, condescending laughter. “Oh, wow, my bad,” he snorted. “I’d better leave you alone before your best friend Batman comes along.”
“Yeah, you'd better run!” Vanessa said smugly as Bud walked away, making sure to step on Tim’s fingers as he did so. Vanessa helped Tim off the ground and returned his crutches to him, smiling brightly. “He certainly won't be messing with you anymore.” Tim tried his best to return the smile. He really just wanted to go home and go back to sleep. He briefly considered going to the nurse and faking a migraine, but then Dick would have to leave work to come pick him up, and he didn't want to inconvenience him more than he already did.
“Definitely,” Tim agreed, wobbling slightly as they walked out of the now-empty cafeteria. “Thanks, Vanessa.”
His day was mostly uneventful after that; a blur of trying his best to catch up on his work despite the fact that attempting to concentrate only made his head pound. He was completely exhausted by the end of the day. By the time he made his way out to the pick-up lot to see Damian waiting for him, he didn't even have the energy to be mad at him anymore.
“Get the hell off of me!” Damian yelled in outrage when Tim leaned against the smaller boy tiredly. Damian got out of class half an hour before Tim did, and he took that time to walk over to the high school every day so that Dick could pick them up at the same place. “...What happened to your legs?”
Tim looked down at his knees, sighing as he saw that they had begun to turn purple with fresh bruises as a result of the incident earlier. “I fell,” he said with a shrug. Damian stared at him.
“You fell?” he asked judgmentally, as if he couldn't even imagine someone stooping so low as to accidentally lose their balance.
“Yup,” Tim said, trying to sound as dismissive as possible. “I miscounted the number of steps and I tripped. It happens sometimes.”
Damian scowled. “It didn't used to,” he said bitterly. He crossed his arms and looked away. “It shouldn't. Not to… someone like you.”
It drove Tim crazy that he had no idea what that meant, but he didn't press the issue. “I don't know if you’ve noticed, but things are different now,” he said, gesturing to his crutches. “Walking isn't exactly my speciality these days, you see.”
Damian frowned and looked as if he was about to respond, but they were suddenly interrupted by Dick’s car pulling up in front of them. Tim submissively headed for the backseat, having given up on that fight long ago. “Hey guys, how was school?” Dick asked brightly. Neither of them replied for a beat.
“Drake fell,” Damian finally replied, and Tim glared at him. Dick looked at Tim in the rearview mirror, his face full of concern.
“What? Are you okay?” he asked, and Tim felt himself flush. “What happened?”
“I'm fine. Nothing happened,” Tim said quickly, covering his knees with his backpack. Dick continued to look at him, but when it was clear that Tim wasn't going to elaborate, he took the hint and turned his attention to Damian.
“Well, okay. How about you, Damian? You never talk to me about school,” Dick continued, nudging the youngest playfully with his elbow. “Any cute girls caught your eye?”
Damian grimaced deeply. “Don't be ridiculous.”
“Or guys,” Dick quickly corrected himself. “Either is totally cool. Or both.”
Damian was slowly curling in on himself, and something told Tim that this line of conversation wasn't going to end well. “You would think so,” Damian muttered, his voice low. “Considering you'll have intercourse with anything that moves.”
Tim flinched and turned to look out the window, fully intending to make himself as scarce as possible. Not before he saw Dick’s face turn a flaming red, however.
The car was silent for what felt like an eternity.
Finally, just when Tim thought the awkwardness would kill him, Dick cleared his throat. “You know, Damian, I've been thinking a lot about what happened this morning,” he said, his tone much less light and friendly than it had been before. “And I've come to the conclusion that, quite frankly, my personal life is none of your goddamn business.”
Damian snarled. “Grayson—”
“I'm not done,” Dick interrupted sharply. “You are twelve years old, and I'm an adult. I shouldn't have to explain myself to you, or feel guilty just because you can't get a grip on your jealousy. From now on, my sex life is a completely off-limits topic, do you understand?”
Damian didn't respond, but Tim could basically feel the fury rolling off him in waves. They were nearly home by the time the youngest finally spoke up. “I'm not jealous,” he muttered.
“Whatever,” Dick sighed, pulling up to their apartment building and smiling warmly once again. “Anyway, I'll be home later tonight. If you guys want you can come down to the bar for dinner, or there's still pizza in the fridge.”
They clambered out of the car, Tim struggling with his crutches and Damian lingering near the passenger side door even after he'd closed it. He was fidgeting, and Dick seemed to notice, because he opened the window and waited for Damian to speak. Damian exhaled sharply.
“Come home after work,” he said, the words rushing out quickly. “Please.”
Dick sighed and smiled softly. “I will, Damian. I promise.”
And with that, he sped off down the road, Tim and Damian watching until the car was no longer visible in the distance.
Tim glanced at Damian. “You should give him a break,” he suggested. “He needs more human interaction than just the two of us, you know.” Damian grit his teeth and turned to stalk into the building. Tim followed, more slowly.
“No, he doesn't,” Damian snapped. “He doesn't need anyone but me. And he especially doesn't need you.” Tim brushed it off as a lost cause.
When they reached the staircase, Damian reluctantly allowed Tim to throw an arm around his shoulder and use him for support as they began the miserable climb to their floor. There had been plenty of instances when Damian had been angry enough at Tim that he couldn't be bothered to help him, and those occasions usually resulted in Tim struggling for well over half an hour on four flights of stairs. He was grateful that wasn't the case today. His headache was getting worse, and he honestly might have just sat at the foot of the stairs until Dick came home.
“Do your homework,” Tim instructed when they crossed the threshold into their apartment, because Dick would've appreciated the effort. Damian just laughed dryly.
“I’ll do mine when you do yours,” he retorted. Tim allowed himself to collapse onto the couch, slinging his arm over his eyes.
Tim tapped his head. “Can't. Migraine,” he muttered.
“Of course.”
In all honestly, Tim didn't really blame the younger boy for his contempt. He hated how pathetic he was as much as Damian did.
Tim passed out almost immediately, ignoring the voice in the back of his mind that told him he was going to severely regret falling asleep without taking his prescriptions. He found himself thrown into the same dream he had almost every night: he was standing in a cold, dark alley with a faceless figure, a gun held inches from his head. The gun went off, and Tim woke up with a splitting headache so bad that he momentarily thought he'd actually gotten shot again.
“Drake! Drake!” Damian yelled, and Tim couldn't imagine that getting stabbed in the ear would be any less painful. “Get up. We are going to Grayson’s bar for dinner.”
Tim just groaned in response, curling into a ball and burying his face into the back of the couch. He was afraid that he would throw up if he tried to speak. Damian didn't move.
“...Tt. You didn't take your medication, did you?” he asked exasperatedly. Tim groaned again, trying to shut out the pulsating behind his eyes. Damian muttered something and walked away.
Tim tried to even out his breathing. He knew that he needed to get up and take his pills or it would just keep getting worse, but he didn't think he would even be able to make it off the couch, let alone walk all the way to the bathroom. His limbs were actually locking up from the pain.
Of all of the negative repercussions of getting shot in the head, this was probably Tim’s least favorite. And that included losing eighteen entire years of his life.
Just when he thought he was going to have to give up and allow himself to pass out again, leaving the imminent unbearable pain upon waking up as a problem to deal with at a later time, he heard Damian’s footsteps come back into the room. “Sit up,” the younger boy demanded, and when Tim was unable to comply, Damian cursed under his breath and grabbed Tim’s arm to pull him into a sitting position. It was by sheer force of will that Tim managed to keep down the bile that rose as a result of the movement.
Damian held Tim up as he forcibly jammed the pills into his mouth, and then tilted a glass of water to his lips as Tim attempted to swallow it all down. By the time it was all done with, he was nearly delirious. Damian lowered Tim back onto the pillow, and Tim allowed his eyes to flutter closed, content with the fact that the next time he woke up he would feel better instead of worse.
When he did wake up again, several hours later, it was to fingers combing through his sweaty hair. He blinked his eyes open, relieved to find that the pain had mostly subsided. Dick was looking down at him in concern.
“Tim? Are you okay?” he asked. Tim shifted, realizing he was lying with his head in Dick’s lap. He glanced at the wall clock.
“...Shouldn't you still be at work?” he mumbled in lieu of a response, sitting up slowly.
“Damian came down to the bar and told me you weren't doing well,” Dick said casually. “So I took the rest of the night off.”
Tim groaned, rubbing at his eyes. “Dick, you didn't have to do that,” he said, feeling the familiar shame creep up on him. “I’m fine now. Honestly.” Dick shrugged.
“I got someone to pick up my shift, don't worry about it,” he said, brushing Tim off. “Are you hungry? We brought you back some takeout.” He handed Tim a styrofoam box from the coffee table, and Tim opened it to find it full of an assortment of bar food. He was starving, actually.
He glanced up from his burger to see Damian sitting on the far arm of the couch, glaring at him like he’d committed some sort of irredeemable sin, as usual. “Um,” Tim said. “Thanks. For earlier.” Damian’s eye twitched rapidly.
“Don't make an idiotic mistake like that again,” the younger hissed threateningly. “Grayson and I aren't here to be your live-in nurses.”
“Damian—”
“No, he's right,” Tim said, cutting off Dick’s imminent scolding. “You… you already have two jobs to worry about, and you shouldn't have to worry about me on top of that. I’m… Dick, I’m so sorry.” And he meant it. He didn't know how to explain in words how much it killed him.
Dick sighed, running his fingers through Tim’s overgrown hair again. “You need to stop with that,” he said seriously. “Look, Tim, I know it seems like we’re struggling, but I promise that everything's going to be okay. Working on electrical lines and bartending is nothing compared to what I used to do, trust me.”
Tim hugged his knees to his chest and rested his chin on them. “Yeah, okay,” he said, trying not to let the weight of his guilt and uselessness consume him. Dick gave his hair one last ruffle before standing up.
“Alright, kiddos, it's bedtime,” he said, lifting Damian up and throwing him over his shoulder, much to the younger’s protest. Tim reached for his crutches and pulled himself off the couch, following the other two down the hallway and pushing open the door to the room opposite theirs. “Sleep tight, Timbo.”
Tim set aside his crutches, pulling off his shorts and digging around in his sweatshirt pockets to make sure he hadn't left anything behind before he threw it into the ever-growing pile of dirty clothes. He paused when his fingers brushed over what felt like a small slip of paper.
He furrowed his eyebrows, pulling out the folded sheet and observing it with interest. It looked like it had been unevenly torn from a ruled notepad, and it was soft around the edges, like it had been sitting in Tim’s pocket for quite some time. The thought made his heart speed up with anticipation. He unfolded the note carefully, a wave of excitement washing over him that he couldn’t quite explain.
There was an address on it, scribbled messily in what he recognized as his own handwriting. 9826 Overbrook Dr., Apt. 207, West Gotham.
And underneath it, the only hint as to what the address might lead to, was just a single letter.
J.