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“Dick?” Tim hears his own voice, small and cracking in his numbing chest, bobbing in his throat with uneven waves. The series of quiet breath-hitches and nearly-sobs fall apart like a wound, the apartment going as eerily quiet as it is dark and empty.
Tim takes a step forward. Another. And another. He feels weightless, like a void in the space, where light doesn’t touch; like a ghost hung in the air; like another faceless background character acting as an indistinguishable footnote to a heartbreak.
Eyes—glassy and filled to almost glow—are trained on something clutched in his hands; thin, glistening tracks crawl down his face, slipping down with a soft, plit-plat, plit, plit-plat, and the accompaniment of silent, laboured breaths echoing. It echoes; each hitch and each tremor echoes into the empty space; building and building and building until the pressure bursts into a cacophony of a booming orchestra, strumming and beating and digging into his skin.
The orchestra ceases like a deafening condemnation as he stops just out of reach. He stares at the canvas tightly clutched in Dick’s grip, barely hidden by the protective curl of his body. Tim feels nausea coil to life deep in his chest, as he watches a small drop of light roll slowly down to a gentle, plit, against the canvas, and trains his gaze to the next one.
('...ba-dum, ba-dum, ba-dum,' the drum of his heart starts to thump in the distance; slow, patient and waiting, it thumps in time with each plitter of tear.)
“I was eight,” Dick starts, voice hollow and eyes distant, skin-crawling and hair-standing. Tim looks at him—really looks, and tries to find what isn’t there; he tries to find worlds that only exist through the reflections of light caught in Dick’s eyes, but the worlds that Dick gazes upon are worlds that Tim has no privy to—and that gut wrenching realisation nearly topples him off his feet.
“I was eight,” Dick’s voice drags Tim back into the present, drags him through the fog of his own head. (Ba-dum, ba-dum, ba-dum—)
“I’d been Robin for a while, even then,” Dick’s words are slow and sluggish, mirroring each tear crawling down his cheeks; slow and sluggish as though he has to test each vowel spilling off his tongue to make sure they're really there; slow and sluggish and scared to break the silence coating this fragile space. “But that was my first failure in saving a pair of civilians.”
(Tim doesn’t dare move, doesn’t dare breathe. Tim knows. Tim knows. He knows, he knows, he knows. Tim sees, and he can’t stop.)
“When I was sixteen, I went back and asked myself, ‘could I have done anything differently? Could I have saved them if I knew? Did I have any chance?’ No. The answer was always no.” Dick blinks, and Tim blinks with him, and Dick is looking at Tim, and Tim can’t look away— Dick’s stare is piercing, with how it sets straight at Tim; his eyes are wide and brows are furrowed together (desperate) with his lips barely trembling and mouth slightly parted (guilty). “But, you know, last year I asked myself; could I have saved them now?”
(—ba-dum, ba-dum, BA—)
“Yeah, I can,” Dick’s shoulders start to shake as he squeezes his eyes shut and his words begin to break with each hitch of his breath. “I can. So why— why couldn’t I save him? I can catch them now, but I can’t catch Damian? What kind of— what kind of sick joke is this? What’s the fucking point if I can’t save anyone I love when it matters?”
(Tim swallows, feeling a lump in his throat as built up tears finally spill over Dick’s cheeks, and Tim selfishly wants to cry, and, “—DUM, BA -DUM, BA -DUM,“ the beat in his chest hammers down at his lungs.)
“Dick,” Tim chokes around his words, uncaring when the sting becomes too much—when it blurs his sight and sends a roll of warmth tickling his skin—Tim chokes around his words, lungs burning and heart hurting; “Dick, don’t do this to yourself. Don’t—”
“I was his safety net. I was supposed to protect him. I was supposed to keep him safe. He isn’t supposed to— why did I— no one should have to bury their kid.”
Tim averts his eyes for a moment (--BA -DUM, BA -DUM, BA—) while his fists clench by his side; the crushing weight on his chest hammers down into his ribs, stunning him. He falls speechless, relieved and guilty because of that relief with the dawning realisation and pieces snapping together.
(—DUM, BA -DUM—)
“I wasn’t— I didn’t like him, at all, from the start, y’know? But— but he was a good kid, after all. And that—what happened to him—it wasn’t your fault.” Tim finally forces himself to say, looking back at Dick, putting as much desperation in his eyes and earnestness in his words as he could manage; “None of it is your fault. Damian wouldn’t have wanted you to blame yourself like this, and your parents would hate it if they knew. And Jason...Jason doesn’t blame you—no one blames you. So… So please, Dick. You can’t— because if you— then—“
Tim can’t bring himself to continue, can’t bring himself to continue choking out the words around his tightening throat, and wobbling lips. Dick jolts in surprise, eyes widening up at him for a moment. Then, his face falls, whole body crumbling, and Tim feels his knees buckle under him as his arms instinctively catch his older brother.
(— BADUMBADUMBADUM —)
Like a brittle storm, Dick breaks. Tim barely registers the scream over the pounding of his ears; can’t feel the clawing grips twisting his shirt tight, with the pressure of his own desperate, strained grasping; can’t tell the wetness of tears between the ones running down his cheeks and the ones soaking through his shoulder.
(…ba -dum, ba -dum, ba -dum.)
And beneath them—beneath the sunlight stealing agonisingly slow steps through the kitchen and seeping into the living room where they’ve collapsed—beneath the sorrow-filled space tearing through time—
—Damian screams with them.