Chapter Text
No one expected the Rogue to have magic. No one expected her to go down without a fight.
That’s why no one thought to ask Tim if everything was alright when the robed woman allowed herself to be captured, claiming that they would see (they’d all see), and why no one noticed the faint glowing in her eyes as she looked at Tim. No one noticed there was anything amiss.
In fact, at first, Tim didn’t even notice.
Since Bruce had come back from being lost in time, there had been tension with the rest of the Bats, and Tim was still learning how to navigate it – how to push down his feelings of betrayal and hurt that lingered from losing everything – so it wasn’t abnormal for Tim to slip away silently after a mission. On nights where the hurt was especially fresh, which that night happened to be, he would quietly duck away and fill out his reports when the Cave was empty. He didn’t need to make his issues everyone else’s problems, so he didn’t.
There wasn’t anything in particular that had set Tim off that night, but he’d looked at Nightwing and Robin’s closeness and easy relationship and Batman had ignored something he’d said, and… Truly, nothing happened. Nothing of note, anyway. He was being a child about it. He knew that. It wasn’t anyone’s fault really but his own for everything that he’d gone through as Red Robin searching for Bruce. Tim couldn’t hold it against them for not believing him, and he could see the logic in giving Robin to Damian, and it wasn’t Bruce’s fault for being ‘dead’. No one made him go off alone in his trauma, and he didn’t regret his choice to go.
So when the hurt had stung in his chest, Tim had slipped away as quickly and quietly as he could to work on his own.
Tim was used to being on his own.
That’s why it wasn’t until Tim was alone in his room in the early hours of the morning doing research on a competitor of WE (he couldn’t sleep) that he noticed something was amiss.
He went to mutter a curse under his breath, and his lips wouldn’t open.
A hint of panic clutched his chest, and he tried to open them again.
This time, his lips responded.
Strange.
He felt his eyes squinting in suspicion.
Tim tried to curse again, and this time, his lips were once again sewn shut.
Well, it was clearly some form of magic, Tim thought, remembering the woman’s words from earlier. He walked over to the standing mirror in the corner of his room and opened his mouth again. There was some minor relief when his mouth opened wide. Then, he tried to say, ‘ahhh’, and his lips snapped shut of their own accord before any sound could escape.
It was a strange feeling, not being able to control his own mouth. As soon as he moved to talk, it was like he was a marionette getting its strings yanked. The rest of him seemed to be responding naturally though. Whatever magic it was clearly had some link to verbalizing. He wondered if it would allow him to make any other noise. The only way to know was to test it out.
Tim tried to hum, and his vocal chords constricted. He felt like he was choking on nothing, as if some force was squeezing his trachea from the inside out and wrenching his throat closed.
No sound came out, and now, Tim was starting to legitimately panic.
Okay, so he’d been cursed, rationalized Tim. That’s no big deal. Curses happened. Most of the time, they went away with time. If he went to sleep, it would probably be gone by morning and there would be no reason to alert the rest of the Bats. They would make him do a million tests, and they would all be sleeping by now anyways. No one wanted to be woken up to run blood tests at four in the morning, and Tim didn’t particularly want blood tests run on him anyways.
Ultimately, Tim resigned himself to calling it a night. He shut his laptop and tucked himself into bed. He threatened his anxiety to behave, willing his pulse and breathing to slow. There was nothing he could do about the curse right now, so he just needed to ignore the problem until it went away.
Tim was good at ignoring problems. Denial was one of his most loyal companions.
Unfortunately, sleep was not.
***
The next morning (afternoon really) when Tim finally forced his eyes open to brave the day, he went to let out a groan. The groan clamped tight on his throat, and suddenly, Tim was more than awake. No groan meant the curse was still there. Once again, he tried to curse, and his lips refused to open.
Tim forced a deep, calming, steadying breath.
He would not panic. Nodding to himself, Tim insisted again in his head that he would not panic. Panic would get him nowhere. He needed to think rationally and remain calm. There were worse things than minor curses, and, so long as he didn’t try to sneak verbalizations out, there didn’t seem to be any pain. The curse hadn’t progressed in any noticeable way since the evening, so it was probably stable. Worse things had happened, and he was positive that worse things would happen again.
Feeling more steady, Tim rolled out of bed, shrugged on some clean clothes, and made his way downstairs.
Tim had long since missed breakfast, but there was usually something quick to grab in the kitchen.
At first he thought the kitchen was empty, but then, he noticed in the corner behind a newspaper was Bruce. There were dark circles under his eyes, and he was slumped over, eyes deep in the newspaper. He didn’t look up.
That was fine.
It was better not to panic his adopted-father figure/mentor with the curse until he knew more.
Tim efficiently put together a bowl of cereal and boiled water for some tea in the electric kettle. He’d been trying to cut down on his caffeine intake, and it was too early for energy drinks. Still, the Earl Gray he steeped soothed a little bit of the panic he still had in his chest with its comforting smell.
When he finished his breakfast and tidied up his dishes, a tiny voice in the back of his head was a little hurt that Bruce didn’t say anything to him the whole time they were in the room together. But maybe he hadn’t noticed Tim’s presence.
Tim shut the washing machine with more force than necessary. Bruce didn’t look up.
Tim swallowed his hurt and walked himself to the Cave. He was being stupid. Bruce was just tired, and it’s not like Tim had actually tried to really get his attention. He could have clapped or tapped the paper or written a note.
Silence was fine. Lots of people found comfort in silence, and they’d spent lots of hours in companionable silence before. There was no reason for Bruce to have acknowledged him in that moment.
Tim tried to stop himself from forming parallels to life in his parents’ house when they’d come home from a trip, and he’d hope with desperate optimism for them to pay attention to him without him having to hunt them out. Children were meant to be seen and not heard.
Tim rolled his eyes at his own dramatics – he was making something out of nothing.
The familiar walk down into the Batcave made Tim feel like he had more control already. That was where the information was, and that was where he would figure out how to get control of his own body back. He probably should have gotten Bruce to run the tests, but he was maybe a bit too hopeful that it would be unnecessary. Maybe he wouldn’t even need to ever tell anyone that he’d been cursed, and he could just move on with his life.
The first thing that he did when he settled into the comfortable leather chair at the Batcomputer was pull up the file on last night’s Rogue.
Her name was Ingrid Harding, and she was a Gotham local. She was 32 years old, and she worked as a clerk at the bank. There were some gaps in her work history that could have been suspicious, but truly, nothing stood out about her. Average build, bi-racial, middle class, day job, single. She wore contacts. She lived alone in a third floor walk up apartment. Nothing really of note. The picture on file showed a woman with a pleasant face, light brown skin, and coily hair pulled into an up-do. There was nothing in her file about magic or magical ancestry – nothing that might suggest she could curse someone to be silent.
Yet, as Tim thought back to her final moments outside the cop car, her final words and her knowing smirk, he was absolutely positive that it was her. She was the cause. There was absolutely no question in his mind.
With an easy click and a few key strokes, Tim updated Ingrid Harding’s file to note her potential magical ability, noting her ability to silence her enemies. If any of the other Bats looked into her, they would see his comments, but there wouldn’t be an alert that he’d made the changes or anything. It wasn’t necessarily withholding information since they could all see his findings if they became relevant, but it did feel a little deceptive not to say anything.
Except.
Here was the thing.
Lately, Tim had felt… not necessarily invisible, but… not seen.
Since leaving Gotham on his own, Tim had been through a lot, and there was a lot that his family didn’t know about his time away. They hadn’t asked. He hadn’t told, but… they hadn’t asked.
There was a part of him that didn’t want to ask for help – didn’t want them to know that he’d been injured; there was a quieter part of him that wanted them to help – wanted them to notice that he needed help. They hadn’t really noticed much lately. They hadn’t looked close enough. It wasn’t like Tim wanted them to look close, but… he wanted them to want to look close. He wanted them to care enough to notice.
So maybe he wouldn’t say anything. Maybe. Or maybe he would.
The point was moot though because for all he knew, the curse would be lifted within the hour. Or maybe it was a twentyfour hour thing. Like the flu. Or a stomach bug. Although with his compromised immune system, it did take longer to overcome illnesses. But magic wasn’t an illness, so it would probably be fine.
Tim logged off the Batcomputer and moved over to the medical bay. He didn’t particularly like needles, but it was almost second nature to sterilize an area on the crook of his arm and poke himself for a blood draw. He took a few samples and tried not to feel squeamish about it. He labelled each with a sample number and taped a cotton compress to the tiny red spot to stop the bleeding.
While Bruce was the one that handled complex blood analysis with his medical training and Leslie who consulted on more challenging problems, the modified Wayne tech in the Cave could do a fair amount of the routine tests that they needed to perform automatically. For starters, it could test for Joker venom, a few of Ivy’s toxins, and, while it couldn’t give much specifics on the cause or effects, it could pick up traces of magic in someone’s blood.
There was absolutely no surprise from Tim when an unknown magic signal showed up in his bloodwork (there was also a note about a high white blood cell and platelet count, but those were simply indicative of his missing spleen, so he could safely ignore them). Unknown magic. The curse.
Tim was cursed. He took a sigh. For more specifics, he would need to either consult Bruce or consult a magic user like Zatanna. Tim pursed his lips and considered his options.
It didn’t take much consideration. The spell would probably fade in a day or so. He could deal with it by himself and things would go back to normal.
Maybe Tim would just let it run its course.
Maybe.