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Tim doesn't remember taking out his phone at all.
One minute he's stiff-limbed and scrunched up like a dead spider. The next, his phone's in his hand— somehow, he doesn't recall picking it up —and he's trailing a (blood-flecked) thumb through his contacts sluggishly. Not just his thumb, he thinks, white face lit up by the phone's faint glow. Blood everywhere, blood everywhere.
Somewhere, the rational part of his brain tries to catalog what's going on, but the sticky, emotional part started screaming fifteen minutes ago and hasn't stopped. Sharp and high, the panicked wails of a terrified child, even if Tim hasn't made a single audible sound for the aforementioned fifteen minutes.
Or maybe it's been—
Has it been fifteen minutes?
Maybe he has been screaming. He's not sure. He can't hear very well. It's probably because if he could hear, he'd hear the drip of blood.
His black-smudged eyes trail away from his phone, idly, until the body of his father fuzzily enters his range of vision again. He stares blankly at it for a long, stretching, moment, lifts the heel of his palm to wipe away tear smudges, and he... he thinks he smears blood over his face instead. The shock overwhelms the nausea like a weighted blanket, keeping everything else down, keeping everything else quiet. The screaming in the back of his head is gone, too, or at least dulled to a long, anguished hum.
I've got you, his brain says. They check out together.
"I need to..." Tim starts, and his voice is too loud in the dark silence. He stops talking and tries to swallow around a tongue too heavy, too big for his mouth. Yes, he needs to. He needs to do a lot. He needs to— did he check for a pulse? He must have. He needs to call Bruce. He needs to throw the papers on the desk into the fireplace and set them ablaze. He needs to—
He needs to—
A shape starts to form in his head, blurry at first, but the attributes sharpen into a visage outlined in black and blue as he tries to hold onto the picture and not let it slip out of his grip.
Dick, he thinks dully, trying to unfold himself. He's still half-crouched under his dad's—
Under Jack's desk—
Maybe Dick will hate me, Tim thinks. It makes sense. Killing someone generally tends to leave a bitter, black-edged burn rippling through the brilliant Robin reputation, but. But Dick forgave Jason.
Could he forgive patricide?
(Not that Tim thinks he deserves forgiveness. Maybe he's inclined to call Dick so Dick can arrest him and put him somewhere where he can't hurt anyone else. That's okay, too.)
His phone starts to ring— not the ring of a call, but the ring of a dial. Oh. He's called someone, and his phone is attempting to connect. The sound is all Tim has to latch onto, in the eerie, smothering silence that smells of blood and rust and burning. Trying to take a breath scrapes at his throat and lungs, so he stops. Breathing, that is. As long as he can, until his vision starts to go spotty-black and blurry, because it hurts, it hurts to— to exist, and—
“Replacement.”
Tim goes even stiller than before, gaze locked on Jack’s prone, silent form sprawled out on the floor. He sluggishly pulls the phone back to look at the number, and the number on the screen wobbles off-kilter until his eyesight adjusts.
It’s kind of funny, he thinks hazily, by which he means it's not funny at all. Of course he would accidentally kill his dad and then mistakenly call Jason, of all people.
When Tim can't seem to find the words to speak, Jason blows out a long-suffering sigh that whistles slightly. Post-Lazarus, Jason's patience understandably nosedived, a negative correlation with his sharply heightened temper. He's far more trigger happy in several senses of the word, and Tim's probably already pissed him off thirty-seven different ways by just breathing a little wrong over the phone.
Not like it matters so much; Jason usually has some kind of bone to pick with him, regardless.
"Replacement," Jason repeats, irritated and low and obviously trying hard not to verbally bite Tim's head off. Their relationship is still, for lack of better terms, strained at best; Jason doesn't go out of his way to extend a hand to Tim, but he doesn't verbally tear into him unprompted, either. On good days, Tim is kid; on bad days, he's relegated back to Replacement, Pretender, or some similarly-themed variant. It's clear it's not a good day for Jason, just judging by said nickname. "This better not be a butt-dial. I'm in the middle of—"
"It's." The breath Tim never took builds up to an unbearable pressure and punches out of him, shaky and sharp. He tries to keep it as steady as he can (anything more, and he's going to cry, big, ugly, horrible, wailing sobs, and he might never stop crying). The tremble in his voice is a crack, not a fracture; he manages to keep his voice together. Tim could've tricked anyone into believing his dead dad wasn't lying about four feet away from his left shoe.
He could've tricked anyone. But he doesn't trick Jason.
Jason's tellingly silent for a moment, as if he's non-verbally talking himself down, and Tim dimly hears a soft thump that sounds like Jason sitting down. "... Do you want to run that by me again, kid?"
Kid, Tim realizes abruptly. Not Replacement.
"I was gonna..." he says blankly, words stretching slow and long. He feels like he's speaking through syrup. He feels like he's moving through syrup. His body isn't responding to the rest of him, and when it does, he's slow on the uptake, a prisoner to his own pace. "I'm sorry, I didn't mean to—"
"Slow down, Tim." Jason says, but Tim doesn't know what Jason's talking about, because Tim isn't going fast, he isn't speaking quickly at all, he isn't even saying anything—
"Tim," Jason says again, and Tim falls silent, or at least thinks he does. This time, he falls silent, because Jason's voice hitches ever so slightly when he says Tim's name. "I think you're in shock, because you're babbling. Can you take a deep breath for me?"
The sound that Tim makes this time pitches high toward hysteria. He latches onto the directive and tries to breathe, but the phone shifts weird against his blood-lubricated hand and slips right out. When it hits the ground, the sound rattles in Tim's skull and bounces around like an echo. He stares down at the phone vacantly, where it lies amidst broken glass, just a centimeter away from one of Janet's favorite throw pillows (linen? no— silk, Persian).
Pick it up, he tells himself, urgency gripping and clawing at him with sharp-nailed fingers. His damn hand won't work. He tries for a fingertip, but it just twitches stubbornly before going still. He's also suddenly aware that he's breathing too much, now, sharp, jagged-edged little puffs of air that grip spiky-wrong at the inside of his throat.
Jason's yelling, he realizes dimly.
"Where did you go? What was that sound?" He's saying, so loudly that Tim can hear him off-speaker, tinny and disjointed and maybe a little bit wild. "Tim, what the fuck. Get back on the phone."
This gets through the haze. If he doesn't pick up, Jason will— well, maybe he won't worry, but he'll think Tim's worse off than he is, or— or injured, and Tim isn't worse off, his dad is. Well, worse off is maybe a laughable understatement for— for.
He can't let Jason think he's the victim. He's not. He's— There's blood on his hands, there's—
A body near the desk, there's—
"Whose body." Jason isn't yelling anymore, but the low volume of his voice is terrifying in a completely different way. How can he even hear Jason? The phone had been...
Oh. Tim's holding the phone again, but he isn't sure how that happened.
"My dad," Tim says. Jason makes a sound like his mouth is full of glass, and Tim sluggishly backtracks when a nerve in his brain finally connects and makes an important realization. "N- Not Bruce, s-sorry," he clarifies. His mouth still feels swollen, and a frost-like chill climbs up along his neck and over his cheeks. Cold, from the shock, he thinks. That's what Jason had said. It's odd, though, because Tim doesn't feel shocked, he feels— well, he feels. He feels a lot of things, important emotions, like—
Like—
Jason's talking. Tim isn't sure how long he's been talking, though. "I'm enroute to your place.” Did he tell Jason where he was? He must’ve …. “I've called Nightwing. Do not hang up, Tim. Is the threat still there?"
"The threat?" Tim echoes numbly, sputtering out a laugh. It's too sharp, too loud, and it fills the space completely wrong. Jason's silent like a grave is silent.
Not that his grave was silent, Tim thinks morbidly, and tenses at his own thoughts. He doesn't even know what he's...
"Tim." Jason says sharply. It's not sharp enough to hide whatever's underneath, and Tim's been around long enough to know that what's underneath is fear. "The threat. Is it still there?"
"Well, yeah," Tim says with a smile-that-isn't-exactly-a-smile, because it feels like he should probably make a joke about this. He isn't entirely sure why, because there is a body. Right there. Not just any body, either. His dad.
But somehow, the ridiculousness of it, it—
The corner of the coffee table presses into the back of his neck, hard enough to draw blood, but he can't seem to straighten his limbs out enough to crawl out from underneath. The pain barely registers, and then it's gone, swept away under a warm, heavy blanket that numbs it all to nothing. He can't remember why he wedged himself here, into this little pocket to begin with. He isn't sure why his knees are tucked so far under his chin that he's starting to understand what a pretzel feels like, or why the meat of his palms is plastered with his own nail marks, or why his wrist hurts, this dull, aching, wrong pain. "I di—"
He chokes.
"Tim," Jason repeats. He's been doing that a lot. It's the most he's ever said Tim's name, actually, which would've been funny or even sort of interesting if Tim wasn't literally in some version of hell right now.
"Because I did it," Tim says plainly, because it feels like that should be obvious (didn't everyone believe Tim was capable of it, anyhow?), and the slightest uptick in Jason's breath is the only indication that he hears Tim. But someone hears Tim. Someone hears Tim. Someone hears Tim.
"I think I sh—"
He stops. Tries again. "I think I should—"
Oh. Now he's crying, and suddenly he's crying so hard he can't breathe, like the first one nudged the fragile floodgate open. Everything condenses into a pit of dense, sludgy nobadwrong in his chest, expanding and pushing and poisoning his blood black and mephitic. His cries careen off into high, explosive wails. He regrets not breathing more earlier, because now he can't, he can't seem to grasp at the fleeing air as it rushes out of his lungs-
Hands burn against his upper arms, searing, and he's suddenly sure they're branding fingerprints into his skin. His dad—?
"No!" he screams, (hecan'tsee!), and surprisingly, the hands retreat. Immediately, Tim knows it isn't Jack. He burbles out another pathetic sound, his chest shuddering hard enough to collapse from the inside, and even though his eyes are open all he sees is darkness.
Once. Scarecrow had locked him into a sensory deprivation tank. It had been the two most excruciating hours of Tim's life. He had handled it as well as he'd handled everything else— not dealing with it, of course. He'd come back, pumped himself with enough scalding coffee to feel something, and taken a boiling shower to top it off. He'd bypassed the Manor. Dick had been there that night; he would've figured it out immediately, and Tim hadn't been in any state to be read.
This kind of feels like that. He can't see. Feel. Hear. Taste. Smell—
No. That's not true. He does hear something, he does, he—
Humming.
Humming?
Tim sways in place for a moment, his cries tapering off into soft, hitching breaths as he tries to make room for air again. The humming, it's— it's soft, unobtrusive. Familiar. It threads through the labyrinth, bright gold in the darkness, and Tim grasps at it. The film clears, the darkness unraveling enough for him to be able to make out shapes again— no, one shape, a blur that starts to slowly resolve itself into a familiar, broad-shouldered frame.
Jason stops humming when Tim finally, unsteadily, manages to focus on him.
"Hey, Tim," Jason says, very softly. He's sort of crouched on the balls of his feet, hands lifted slightly as though in surrender, and the look on his face is completely indeterminable to Tim. Tim can only imagine how he looks— wild-eyed, tear-streaked, blood smeared over his cheeks and and palms. He sets his hand down to try to crawl out from under the desk, but a searing pain burns along his wrist and screams up along his arm. He cries out, yanking his arm back, and Jason catches his upper body before he can slam into the floor.
Helpless, a voice in the back of his head snips, all teeth and claws and shame.
"Okay," Jason says, in a tone of voice Tim wouldn't have expected him to take. It's almost too gentle, where he expects rough edges and scathing wryness. Somehow, this is worse; if Jason feels like he has to be gentle, Tim must be doing so well. "Let's get you out of there, okay? I think your wrist is broken, Tim."
Broken? Why would it be—
Like a snap, sharp and bright, a shard of memory. Jack shoving him back, Tim falling wrong— it's hilarious, actually. All the Robin training in the world hadn't saved Tim from falling wrong when his dad had shoved him.
His dad had shoved him. What else?
How had he ended up dead?
Under Jason's guidance, he's putty, malleable and unresistant. He doesn't register being moved around, readjusted. He's not sure when Jason's jacket ends up tossed around his shoulders. He knows Jason's checking him for injuries, but he's not sure why Jason cares so much about Tim's injuries when he killed a man. Is this supposed to be some sort of congratulatory procedure? Congratulations, you killed a man, now we're friends—
But no, because Jason only kills the worst of the worst, he thinks. You, on the other hand—
Jason's voice is a low hum in the back of his mind, a thought that Tim can't unravel from the rest. He's speaking on the phone— to Dick, his subconscious supplies somehow. There's a way Jason speaks to Dick, like he always wants to say something more, but doesn't, so they exchange surface-level platitudes with years of buried tension simmering underneath.
"...In and out of shock..." he hears. Makes sense. For now, Tim welcomes the shock, honestly; it makes everything blissfully quiet, like a safehouse he can lock himself into. He doesn't care that his wrist doesn't hurt anymore, because it doesn't. Jason keeps trying to pull him back, though, and Tim knows Jason hates him, he knows, but can't he just let him— can't he let—
"I don't hate you, Tim."
It's jarring. He doesn't know what he's saying out loud. He'd thought his mouth was closed.
The sound Jason makes is too pinched to be a proper laugh. He's sat next to Tim (how much time since the phone call? How much time did Tim just lose?), against the back of the couch, legs sprawled out in front of him and arms loose at his sides. He looks tired. He looks overwhelmed, in a way Tim's never seen him.
"You've been talking the whole time," Jason says. "Not all of it understandable. Which I guess you should be glad about, since you were muttering about Dickhead and me." He studies Tim for a moment, and Tim lets himself perceive some of the world again— just a little bit. Just the edges. Jason, for now. He can't think past Jason, past their little bubble, and he doesn't want to. That would mean the smell of blood again, the drip-drip-drip as it patters against the wood floor. Nice hardwood, too.
(Blood-soaked wood, awful for reselling.)
"Do you..." Jason takes a deep breath, nudges Tim slightly. Tim isn't sure when Jason had rested his arm against Tim's own, but once he feels the weight against his skin, it remains warm and faint like a dying fireplace. Tim anchors himself to the feeling, and the tremble of his fingers subsides slightly, even if the way Jason sits next to him is awkward, unwieldy, as though he's forgotten a little bit how to comfort a person. Tim's eyes sting. "... Want to tell me what happened?"
Tim stares at him, processing, long enough for Jason to go slightly unfocused, for his outline to go staticky and unsteady. Speaking... It's so much, it's too much. It makes him tired, so unbelievably tired; he's hit the stage where all he wants to is draw Jason's jacket over his head and go quiet forever. Instead, he tilts his head to glance reflexively toward the desk, or… Where he thinks it is, at least, because the world is still dark and fuzzy and wobbly outside of Jason.
Jason tilts his head in the same direction, astute despite Tim's silence. "The desk?" he asks cautiously. Tim lets gravity jerk his head into a nod demurely. "Okay," Jason says. "Is it okay if I leave you here, Tim, just for a second?"
Tim doesn't say anything, but his chest suddenly crushes inward like a trash compactor. His eyelids shutter thrice, snap-snap-snap. There must be something devastated on his face because Jason tenses, his jaw tightening.
"I will be," Jason says through clenched teeth, "right back. I won't leave you here, Tim."
Tim nods again, jerky and stilted, but Jason doesn't move.
The corner of Jason's mouth twitches, almost as if he's going to smile but thinks better of it. "Gotta let go of me, kid."
Tim lets his gaze drop to his white-knuckled hand. Oh— he’s clutching Jason's shirt. He has to work to pry his hand open and release Jason, and Jason unfurls to his feet. He brushes a hand against the top of Tim's head as he passes, and Tim doesn't move, not an inch, as he tracks Jason's path to the desk.
Silence for a few, stretching moments as Jason rummages through the papers on the desk.
Then, a low "What the fuck?"
It— It sparks something. Tim's heartbeat picks up, drumming a thready, unsteady pulse in his ears. That's what he'd said. That's what he'd said, he'd said "What the fuck, Dad?" to Jack, when Jack had— when he'd admitted—
"He was going to sell Robin." Tim says. It's the first proper thing he's registered himself saying. As he says it, the last of the blurriness bleeds away, leaving the world ringing in sharp clarity. Tim slams back into himself like a train colliding into a car on the tracks, and with clarity comes panic, an awful, searing sort of panic that threatens to black-hole everything in Tim's body. "O-Oh g-god," he says, lurching up. His stomach lurches with him, bile burning the inside of his throat as he curls over the carpet and tries to hold on for dear life. He hurts like he's being thrown around by the sea, like he's being yanked in every direction by the wind, like—
“He was going to sell Robin. Sell me,” he says. When the pain subsides, he’s drifting. “B's identity, too. I panicked, I said I wa— I was going to go to B, I.” Now he knows why he’s hunched over, because when he tries to straighten out his back, his whole body comes alight with pain. Nausea rolls in his stomach. “He pushed me. I fell.” He says, like he’s giving a mission report. Quick, sharp, concise. “Wrist broke. He started hitting me with the. The.” He looks around blearily, bright agony consuming him whole. Jason’s breathing so hard Tim’s afraid he’s going to have a conniption. He’s never seen Jason so angry, not even when he’d come to the Tower. He’s never seen this white-faced picture of green-eyed fury.
His eyes land on the iron poker on the floor.
“That.” Tim says, and he tastes blood. Jason’s unblinking gaze snaps from Tim’s hand to the metal tool. “The fireplace poker. He was hitting me. He was hitting me and hitting me and hitting me and.” Tim’s breath hitches, his voice cracks, he might be crying again. He jackknifes, and pain lights beacons all along his ribs and stomach and back. He feels like one long, aching bruise. He might be one for all he knows.
“He said he just needed a body. I didn’t have to be awake for him to hand me over. I grabbed his ankle. I was blind, I was hurting, I couldn’t see and I was hurting and I grabbed at his ankle and he stumbled and he fell, he fell, and he hit his, he hit his,” he babbles, and the words keep coming, they trip and run over each other like a river, and Tim feels his consciousness start to peel away from his body again, separating like oil and water, doesn’t feel anything at all until Jason crouches down to his knees in front of Tim and fully presses into Tim's space.
“You didn’t do anything wrong, Tim,” Jason’s saying right above his ear, glove pressed tight against the nape of Tim’s neck. Tim gurgles, hyperventilating out sounds that aren’t exactly sobs, aren’t exactly gasps. A wound’s festered in the pit of his chest for years now, gaping and bleeding raw, and with this, any shred of hope that Tim had left that his father loved him in any capacity burns away into smoke. He scrabbles bloody fingers all over Jason’s shoulders, hair, grabbing at him, desperate, holding on for dear life and howling out cries that rattle his chest and shake his bones. Sharp pain streaks up and down his arm from his wrist, but it pales, it pales in comparison to his grief. “It’s okay, Tim, it’s okay,” Jason keeps saying, lying to him, because it’s not okay. It’ll never be okay again.
“He was going to,” Tim sobs. “And I killed him, I killed him and now he’s, he’s.” He hiccups, suddenly acutely aware that Jason’s hushing at him. He’s holding him close, creating some sort of soft cocoon between his arms and the jacket around Tim’s shoulders, and as Tim’s breaths hitch quietly, he realizes Jason’s saying something.
“I'll say I did it.”
Tim blinks, tears still welling over and spilling down his face, and then he pulls back, staring blankly at Jason.
He doesn’t understand.
Jason stares back, unflinching.
“Huh?” Is all Tim’s able to say. What? What?
“Listen to me very carefully, Tim,” Jason says, and even though his tone is cold and sharp and matter of fact, the hands he’s resting against Tim’s shoulders are warm. When had he taken his gloves off? Tim thinks vaguely. “I found out what your dad was going to do. I dealt with him. Tim?”
Tim’s gaze starts to drift. He wants to check out again. He’s at the front desk, and he wants to check out.
“Tim. Look at me,” Jason says, his words a little blurry, smeared soft at the edges. Tim hums, trying to refocus. His brain says, I checked us out earlier. We can do it again. Trust me.
I need to...
He shuffles slightly, effortfully pulling his gaze from some point to the left of Jason to Jason’s face.
"Jason," he says finally, his heart shuddering out beats so loud that Tim can hardly hear over them. "What are you talking about?"
"If anyone asks you." Jason's voice is steady. "I'm the one who did this."
To say Tim's not firing on all cylinders is a tremendous understatement. He's hardly firing on one cylinder. Realization comes less like the crash of a wave and more like a tide creeping carefully along a sandbar. When it settles, it's devastating nonetheless.
"Jason," Tim says numbly, "are you out of your goddamn mind?"
Jason cocks one shoulder up into a shrug, holstering the gun that Tim hadn't even realized he'd unholstered to begin with. "It's been said. Look, Tim, it's pretty straightforward to me. You're a minor- the legal whatever from this is going to be hell on you."
"So you want me to just blame you?" Tim's voice rises, and judging by the way Jason tenses, the thread of hysteria isn't as subtle as Tim would've liked to believe. "Just because you've murdered people? I have to take responsibility. I have to..." He sits up slightly, flinches when every joint protests; he can already tell he's going to be black and blue all over in a day or so. "I have to turn mys— I have to—"
"Martyr bullshit," Jason says offhandedly, as if he isn't trying to fucking martyr himself. Tim almost can't believe this is happening. They aren't friends, after all; Jason barely just hit tolerance levels with Tim. Tim's on the same level as hazelnut creamer and ranch, basically. He isn't sure why that comes to mind, or why he remembers that about Jason. It's just something he's always done, really— remember. "You're a fucking kid. Your dad was about to sell you."
"I'm sorry," Nightwing says from the direction of the window, careful and cold. "What?"
Ah. Tim swallows, glancing back at Jason before letting his gaze swivel to the carpet. Dick lowers himself down onto the wood below the window, quiet, quiet. Though he'd normally offer a smile, there's nothing warm about the shadows along the planes of Dick's face today, in the tightness in his jaw. He doesn't just look cold— he looks like an agent of the night, of the grave. Like Batman.
Even Jason sits stock-still, tense, as if he's worried that anything he says will be the match that sparks the gunpowder tension in the room and blows them all to smithereens.
Dick isn't frightening. Until he is.
Dick catalogs Tim for a moment, crouching beside him and tilting his head from side to side to get a look at him. He doesn't check the body, not yet; instead, he checks for a concussion by flashing his phone's flashlight into Tim's eyes, and Tim blinks, unwilling to interrupt when Dick looks as pissed as he does. Once Dick's finished his examination and propped Tim's wrist up onto a pillow, he speaks.
"You're not in trouble, Tim." Tim doesn't believe him, but he nods anyway. "From the beginning," Dick says calmly, even though the too-relaxed pose suggests he's not quite as calm as he would like them to believe. "What happened?"
Tim relays it again— this time, slower. He's sliding back into some sort of stunned calculation, he realizes, because there's something more clinical and reserved about the way he outlines the night's events once more. It's easy when the world starts to narrow in again, just a bubble of Tim, Jason, Dick. Nothing outside of that can hurt him— reach him. Nothing, nothing, nothing—
His eyes drift open. When had they closed?
Dick's expression is grim. "Shock," he murmurs to Jason, who feigns irritation but doesn't fully succeed at hiding the pinch between his brows. Even though he'd welcomed it earlier, Tim's really fucking tired of being shocked now. He's not shocked. He knows exactly what's happening, there's nothing shocking about— about any of it. His dad is dead. Tim killed him.
He lists slightly, trying to make sense of his surroundings again.
"What, what h—" he tries to say, but it all sticks together and comes out like a knotted blur of words. He tries again, focusing on Dick's hand against his elbow. He stares at it silently, at the starkness of the black glove against his almost-white arm, and then drags his gaze back up to Dick's face. "I don't think I can do it," is all he's able to admit all of a sudden, and even though it's not exactly fully comprehensible, Dick nods like he understands.
"Okay. It's alright, Timmy," Dick says, and Tim finds himself folded carefully into Dick's arms with little resistance. "I'll talk to Jason, okay?" Tim nods despite his reservations, because that's all he can do. He listens to Dick's unsteady, jacked-up heartbeat, hop-skipping every fourth beat, and grasps at the carpet with his good hand to let the silky threads slide between his fingers soothingly. Jason might lie, he thinks, but the words won't come; they stay stagnant and listless in his throat, instead. He tries not to swallow them and choke. Jason might lie and say it was him.
"He was going to fucking sell him," Jason hisses after a moment of silence, vitriol burning lurid, vivid in his tone. Tim flinches, but his body doesn't actually register and respond until well after Jason's finished speaking. "I don't care about the semantics. Selling his identity is as good as selling the kid." Jason shudders, and next to his head, Tim can feel more than see his forearms pull taut. "You don't know the shit I hear, Dick, out— out there. Him being a kid doesn't deter nearly enough of those fucking assholes. It gets some of them excited. They don't just want to kill Robin, they want to hurt him, torture him, ra—"
"Wing," Dick hushes him quickly, even though Tim knows very well what Jason had been about to say. Fear curls into a knot in his stomach, sick and knotted, the terror almost crippling the longer he ruminates about what his dad almost led him to. He's shaking so badly that the dark spots over his vision keep flitting back and forth like a game of pong, threatening to engulf everything.
"...Anyway," Jason continues, softly. "It was just self-defense. It was— Tim grabbed his dad's leg to stop him from," Jason pauses. When he continues, his voice is careful and cold, thin like the ice over a lake. Cracking, in danger of falling apart completely. "Stop him from hitting him with the fireplace poker."
Dick hums, but it's strained, and one of his hands rests against the small of Tim's back as if he's reassuring himself of Tim's presence. "Then he fell."
"Then he fell," Jason confirms. "Cracked his head against the corner of the coffee table, I think." He goes silent again, then adds, "I think I'm going to— No. I am going to. I'm going to say I did it. Fuck it. Fuck this."
"Jason," Tim slurs. He turns his head slightly to look at him, but Jason just stares back staunchly. There's nothing remotely wavering in his expression.
"Jason," Dick echoes, his tone inscrutable.
"Oh, what, you're telling me this is the death that's going to suddenly make me a worse person? Fuck that. I'm going to torch those fucking papers, throw his body in the river, and tell everyone he was getting too close to Robin. Everyone knows the Robins are off-limits in Crime Alley, anyway. Nobody'll think twice. What're they going to do, arrest me?"
Dick breathes in, long and deep, like he's trying to summon the last dregs of his dwindling patience. "I'm not going to let you do that, Jason."
"I was gonna call Dick to arrest me," Tim mumbles, words somewhat lost against Dick's shoulder. "I did it, I need to— to—"
There's a moment of silence again, before they keep talking as if he didn't say anything at all. Tim feels like he's in the Twilight Zone. His dead father is four feet away from him, and Jason and Dick are talking about how they're going to make it as if Tim had nothing to do with it. Even though he's a killer. He's the killer. He should've— he needs to—
"Okay. Well that's not happening," Dick says airily. "But why do you have to martyr yourself?"
Every one of us is exactly the same, Tim thinks despairingly.
"What the hell are you talking about? I'm a crime lord! I kill a man a day!" Jason hisses between his teeth. "Shit, if I'd have figured out, I would've fucking killed him anyway. This makes my job easier."
"I could just as easily make it go away," Dick argues. "And I'm the oldest, so—"
"Oh, not that bullshit again—"
What the fuck is happening, Tim thinks.
"Did you check for a pulse?" Dick asks, all of a sudden.
Silence.
"Jason?"
"Tim, I th..." Jason starts, but stops. Something cold and uneasy takes root in Tim's stomach, spreading fingers of ice through his midsection, and he curls his hand tight against Dick's bicep.
"You didn't check to see if he was dead?" Dick says after a moment of wordless sputtering, his tone strangled. "Fuck me, is he alive now? Is he alive?"
Tim feels himself being shuffled from Dick to Jason, and Jason's still a little awkward about it, but he tersely pats Tim's upper back anyway. Tim just sits there in the position he was left in, mind reeling, stomach still lurching, and then he happens to look up just in time to see Dick's face shutter into complete blankness from where he's hunched over Jack.
"He— He has a pulse. Barely, but—"
Tim makes some sort of mangled sound that sounds sharp-wrong to his own ears, and doesn't feel any relief. And then he's terrified at himself, furious at himself, for not feeling relief. Jason feels cold under Tim's arms, cold and still, like a statue made of bone and steel.
"Well. Here's my chance to make the lie into the truth," Jason says, a snarl in his voice as he draws his gun. Tim moves the fastest he's moved all night, his fingers extending slightly to press against Jason's wrist.
"Don't," he says. His eyes feel too big for his face when he turns them on Jason, who inhales sharply. "I c— I don't— Please don't. I." His fingers fall away, and his eyes roll back slightly as the world dissolves into a rush of color around him. It's all too much, all of a sudden— knowing his father isn't dead— knowing Jason might still kill him— knowing his dad knows what Tim did—
And the papers. Still clutched in Jason's hand. Still proof, that his dad-who-is-not-dead could wake up and could do this again. Tim has little doubts about it. Even still, he can't— He doesn't want Jason in the middle of it, nor does he want Dick anywhere near it, either. He wants to flash back to a moment where it's him, alone, handling this by himself. He wants to try again. He wants to—
"Tough shit," Jason says, responding to the words he hadn't realized he'd said aloud. Tim blinks. His gaze drifts from Jason to Dick, who appears to be dressing his father's wound. "This fucking family."
"I'm an idiot," Tim says, and his voice doesn't crack, it doesn't, but it comes close. It comes very— very close. "I-It's the first thing. The first check. I have to." He struggles, tries to get to his feet, but Jason's firm hand planted on his shoulder keeps him down.
"That's your fucking abuser, Tim." Jason says darkly. "I'm not gonna let him anywhere near you. Let Dickface do what he needs to do."
He can't come near me even if he wants to, Tim thinks. It's an absurd thought. Equally absurd is the fact that Jason's arguably done physically much worse to Tim, and yet, Tim still feels disinclined to move much closer to his father.
"Also, you were in shock, and in pain," Dick calls over. "So stop blaming yourself."
They end up calling the ambulance, against Jason's advice.
Tim doesn't recall much of it, because he's bundled up first in a normal blanket, and then a shock blanket later on. Dick and Jason do most of the talking. Self-defense and head trauma and shock and minor and very liberally, "Bruce fucking Wayne" getting tossed around, in that exact intonation. Tim doesn't recall much of that, either, only bits and pieces of what he's pretty sure is some pretty impressive bullshit that skates by on the skin of Nightwing's careful cajoling.
Actually, everything more or less kind of blurs past, until hours and hours pass and he's surprised to find himself not in jail, but tucked in the familiar couch in Bruce's office. This time, he thinks, he's in trouble. It doesn't matter if there are snickerdoodles and a mug of cooling hot chocolate on the table in front of him, as though Alfred had kept swapping the mugs out so it would stay warm. It doesn't matter if Tim's been bundled into three blankets and carefully wrapped in bandages. It doesn't matter. So he didn't kill his dad; he almost killed his dad. He's still, as far as he's concerned, the worst son to ever exist. Maybe if he hadn't been so secretive— maybe if he'd been more deserving of affection— more perfect? Not that he's perfect at all, but—
"Whoa, Tim, slow down."
Fuck. I'm talking again.
There's a tired, warm chuckle, but the owner of the voice is still just out of sight. Even still, just by the presence, Tim knows it's Bruce.
"Really, you're muttering more than speaking, so I didn't hear anything incriminating." Bruce's frame eases into his field as he enters his office with his own mug, the skin at the corners of his eyes crinkled with relief. Tim blinks at him lethargically, knowing he's lying for Tim's sake. "Your dad is...recovering at the hospital." Bruce hesitates. He's a master of hiding his expression, and he's taught all of them the same; the only problem is, Tim's gotten just as good as noticing expressions, thanks to that. Bruce's smile doesn't waver, and his posture remains relaxed, but Tim notices the way his eyes tighten at the corners. He notices the way Bruce stands a little taller, as if trying to intimidate a threat that isn't in his immediate presence.
"I ..." He tries, and he's frustrated when he can't immediately articulate what he wants to say. It's hard. His wrist is encased in a Robin-red cast, but he isn't actually sure when that happened. He'd forgotten what it was like to lose time like this, but he's unpleasantly reminded that it's as frustrating as always.
"Hey, hey. No need to say anything if it'll overwhelm you." Bruce says, taking a seat next to Tim but leaving a decent distance between them. "You'll have plenty of time once you're feeling better, bud." He gestures at the couch sheepishly. "Sorry about this, by the way. You... Didn't want to be in a bed, and you were getting quite anxious. You seemed to resonate with the couch in my office, for some reason."
He'd wanted to be in a safe office, Tim realizes numbly. An office where the desk had pictures of Dick and Jason and even one of Tim's that Tim had allowed Bruce to sneak in. A coffee table frequently bearing snacks and mugs with various hot drinks, prepared painstakingly by Alfred on the hour if necessary. A fireplace where the tools gathered dust from disuse.
Bruce hums, and now, when his smile flickers at the corners, Tim realizes he looks tired, pensive. His heart sinks.
"Do you want me to tell you what happened, Tim?" Bruce asks gently. "Or would you like to tell me what happened on your end? Talk about it a little?"
"Can you call Jason and Dick," Tim says quietly, after a moment of thought. Bruce pulls back slightly, steady, analytical gaze flickering over Tim cautiously, and Tim effortfully schools his expression into something blank.
"Okay, bud. Sure," Bruce says, and stands up. "They're in the kitchen. I'll be gone for just a minute."
By the time the others gather in Bruce's office, Tim's managed to untangle himself from two of the blankets. It hadn't been easy, given his injuries; he aches all over, and his back's already promised to give him hell just judging by how much it'd hurt to peel each blanket off. He's sort of sweating from the endeavor, honestly. The remaining blanket still around his shoulders is thin and covered in bluebirds, and something in his brain goes quiet and sated when he looks at the birds.
Jason looks trapped. Dick's going for the same maneuver as Tim— expression neutral, with only the smallest twitch of relief at the corner of his mouth. It's clear Dick wants to give him a hug, but if he does, Tim will shamble apart, and he needs to say his part before he does.
"Thanks," he says hoarsely, after a second, looking up from his tangled fingers. "And I'm sorry. I meant to call Dick, Jason."
"Figured," Jason says flatly, but even though his form is rigid with tension, he doesn't seem pissed so much as somewhat resigned.
"I-I should've checked," Tim says hollowly. "I didn't— I don't know why, it's... All of our training, and I just... I froze. I was calling Dick to—" he pauses. "Honestly, I think I wanted Dick to take me to jail. I still kind of think I deserve to be punished, somehow. I shouldn't just..." His voice rises a little, pulling high and thin. "I shouldn't get away with it. I shouldn't get away with what I've done. I don't want you guys to cover for me. I should— I have to—"
"Deep breaths, Tim." Bruce rumbles, just beside his shoulder, careful. "It's going to be—"
"It's not," Tim says, turning wild eyes onto him, and Bruce falls silent. "It'll never be okay. He was going to cover for me and, and just take the blame," he says, pointing at Jason. Jason mutters something that sounds suspiciously like "so fucking what."
"And I don't even know what he was going to do. Make it go away, I guess?" Tim says, swinging the accusatory finger from Jason to Dick. Dick's expression doesn't change; there isn't a shred of regret there, and Tim knows he isn't going to find any no matter how hard he looks. "I don't deserve to get away with it."
"Tim," Bruce says, catching his wrist. When Tim turns, there's a look in Bruce's eyes like he's already dreading what he's about to ask. "What on earth are you talking about? Get away with what?"
"With murder," Tim whispers, and the word cracks out between his teeth and shatters into fragments. "I almost killed my dad. How can you all— How can you all even look at me?" He presses back into the couch, curling the blanket tight around himself as if it'll shield him from the outside world, from their gazes. "I don't deserve to be covered for," he says, half into his knees, half into the blanket, thumb stroking over the wing of one of the fuzzy bluebirds. "I deserve— I have to atone for it. Somehow. I need to."
When he finally falls silent, the clock is all he can hear for a few moments. The ticks pull and stretch slower than usual, Tim thinks. Or maybe that's just him.
"I can't deal with this," Jason says, the first to break the silence. Dick turns slightly, expression sharp, and Jason shakes his head. "No. It's fucking stupid. I'm not— I'm not doing that bullshit." He points at Bruce. "Fucking deal with this." Even before Bruce speaks, Jason plows on. "Look, kid, if nearly killing your old man means atonement, you're gonna be stuck atoning with me forever. For the record, I'm pretty sure Dickface also tried to kill him, once."
Bruce blinks, and the deeply contemplative expression on his face melts away into one of slight exasperation and careful longing. Tim knows why; Jason had said old man. It tends to short-circuit Bruce, a little, even if the context is less than encouraging. "Tim," he says after a moment, very gently, more gently than Tim deserves. "Why do you feel this way?"
"I'm more powerful now," Tim says quietly. "It's different. He's not part of this— our life. I'm stronger than he is. I just never did anything to indicate that I could do anything to him. I should've known, when I—"
"When he was beating you?" Bruce asks, just as quietly. "While you were still reeling, in shock from him having broken the news that he was going to be selling your— and my —identities?"
"You trained me better." Tim hisses, defensive against his own recklessness. "I forgot everything in the moment. I should've kept my cool. I should've—"
"Tim," Bruce says. "First and foremost, you're a child." There's a new expression on his face now, and Tim doesn't want to place it. He doesn't want to place it because he knows it's sadness, a sort of weary sadness that runs so deep and thorough that Bruce could never exist without carving out a place for it. "And he's your father. The circumstances weren't in your favor. You suffered a great betrayal at the hands of your father, and you're a child."
"Murder is defined," Dick says, "as a premeditated killing." Tim's gaze snaps to him, and he shrugs. "You didn't murder anyone, Tim. You didn't premeditate anything. You grabbed your dad's leg to keep him from hitting you, and he fell. Self-defense. Open and shut." He straightens, then, and something terrifying unfurls in the depths of his eyes, like the sails of a ship billowing wild and uncontrolled. "Now, what I'm inclined to do-"
"Dick," Bruce says, and Dick's shoulders slowly lower and roll back. He steps back, tilting his head away from Tim, and Tim glances down to be greeted by gooseflesh prickling over his arms. "Nobody is killing anyone."
Jason grumbles something derogatory. He's summarily ignored.
Hollowed out and hurting, Tim just sits there for a moment. He's not so much inclined to cry anymore; he's already parched from his last crying spell, and he's not sure he even has tears left to cry. He wants, more than anything, to scream. He wants to break everything breakable in his sight. He wants to curl his fingers in Jack's collar and rattle him until his bones clatter together and shout in his face until his throat goes hoarse. Why? Why did you do this? Was I not enough as a son? How easy was it to sell me? How much-
How much.
Tim lowers the blanket entirely. "How much was I worth," he says hoarsely. "How much was he going to sell me for?"
Bruce actually flinches. Not strikingly, but enough that he reels backward at least an inch. It's clear he hadn't been expecting the question, or at least had been hoping Tim wouldn't be inclined to ask. Behind him, Jason stiffens, and something stricken and tense flashes fleetingly over Dick's face.
"It's bad, isn't it." Tim continues plainly. "I can tell."
"Your life isn't worth a number, Tim," Bruce says through his teeth. "You—"
"How much."
"1.5 million." It's Jason who says it, and he looks surprised that he did. When Bruce gives him a grim, purse-lipped look, he scoffs. "Kid deserves to know what a jackass his dad is. And an idiot, too. He got fucking swindled. Shit, I know a guy who was saying he would've paid 10 million for someone to just get him Robin's cape—"
"Did you know," Tim says idly, staring at a point up on the ceiling. His eyes are starting to water, even though he'd thought he had no tears left to cry. Go figure. "Did you know my parents found a vase from the Qing Dynasty worth 1.8 million dollars during one of their digs?"
Nobody says anything.
"And he reminded me of it all the time," Tim continues. "Any time I got too close to the display pedestal. Don't get too close to the vase, Tim, it's worth 1.8 million dollars."
The world blurs. He can't tell the ceiling lights apart. They're starting to condense into one bright ceiling light as tears trickle out of the corners of his eye and run the length of his cheeks.
He laughs. Because it's absurd. Because all he can do is laugh, because if he doesn't laugh, he'll—
"I am worth less to my dad than that fucking vase."
He sort of laughs the words, really, and then he keeps laughing. Huge, gulping laughter that bubbles unbidden out of his chest, except as he's realizing, there's a quite thin line between laughing and crying, and at some point he crosses the line without even realizing. He burrows himself tightly into the bluebird patterned blanket, wraps it around himself as tightly as he can, and presses his head against the arm of the couch to smother himself. Bruce, Dick, and Jason let him, and he's glad for it, because he needs this.
Still. It hurts.
It fucking hurts so much more than he'd expected, but then, he's always known. He knew when they didn't show up to birthdays, he knew when they left him for days— months, almost a year, once, he knew when they forgot his age. Really, this shouldn't have been a shock, merely one more piece of definitive proof to add to the ever-growing collection, but somehow—somehow, knowing that this could've been it for Tim, knowing his son could've died and still not bothering to value him any more than a piece of pottery, it builds everything up to some sort of terrible crescendo, and Tim has to face the music to make it out the other side.
And face it he does, even though it feels like an apple corer taking chunks out of his chest.
He braves the anguish and claws himself free, and when he comes free from under the rubble, a new, steaming mug of hot chocolate is waiting for him. The snickerdoodles are still warm, like they'd been swapped out this time, too. Tim reaches out carefully, presses his fingers against the mug and lets the warmth slip into his fingertips.
It's just Bruce left, at his desk. When he sees that Tim's sitting up again, he lowers his reading glasses and smiles a little.
"Hey, bud." He says, standing up from the desk and crossing the room.
Tim hums. It's late, now; the lights are lit to half-dim in the office, and he can see the pale of the moon at the edge of the window, half out of sight.
"I don't think I'll ever be able to cry again," he says hoarsely, after a beat. Bruce sighs, folding his arms as he examines the plate of cookies.
"You always think," he says.
Actually, Tim is starving. He reaches out to pick up a cookie with his good hand, and once he's shoveled one into his mouth, he can't help but shovel four more. He's never tasted these cookies before; they're not Alfred's snickerdoodles, that's for sure, but delicious nonetheless. More cinnamon than what Alfred normally uses, and something else that almost makes them spicy. Chili powder?
"You should have one too," Tim says around his mouthful of four cookies. "I can tell you want one."
"Astute as always," Bruce remarks lightly, but he does reach down to pick up a cookie. "Jason refuses to make them for me anymore, so I don't get to eat them very often, unless I'm being sneaky about it. Don't tell him I took one."
Ah, Tim thinks. He doesn't know how to process the look on Bruce's face as he takes a bite, so he switches topics to something he can finally process. "My dad..."
"Right," Bruce says. He sits down at the edge of the table. He's always been the largest and most imposing person Tim's ever known, but sitting there on the coffee table, slightly hunched over, he doesn't seem nearly so foreboding. "Tim, first and foremost, I want you to know that Jason and Dick were right. Not about their respective notions on how to rectify the situation," he quickly adds, scowling momentarily as if recalling a conversation Tim hadn't been present for, "but in the sense that you didn't actually do anything wrong. Even if you don't believe anything else, Tim, please believe that."
Tim doesn't know how to, yet. But faced with the open sincerity in Bruce's tone and expression, he resolves to at least try.
"Secondly, I ... I want to thank you, Tim, for your dedication to protect our identities. I'm ..." His eyes flick down to the bone-white edge of bandage underneath the hem of Tim's rumpled shirt. "I'm aware you were in a great deal of distress, and even still, you did what you could do prevent your dad from exposing us. For future reference, it's... Okay. We have ways of mitigating the fallout of someone learning of our identities."
Tim looks down. "I'm sorry," he says. "I panicked, I thought I should— He's my dad, my responsibility, so—"
"He isn't your responsibility, Tim," Bruce says, and when he does, something actually does click. It's a puzzle piece that feels twisted out of place, too large, too warped, but it awkwardly wedges itself into place and won't be ignored. "You're his responsibility. You're his son."
Tim blinks, trailing his thumb over a bluebird. There are crumbs on the blanket. "I— I don't think I've," he says, and the words choke out into almost nothing before he can get them all out.
"I know," Bruce says, deceptively lightly, but Tim thinks that if he were anyone but himself he would've been afraid at the look on Bruce's face. "I've been looking over your parents' financial and travel records going back for quite a long time. You've been doing things on your own for a long time, haven't you?"
Shame swells, sharp and sticky like a burr, in the base of Tim's throat; he can't help but imagine his mother's voice, the way she'd say now look what you've done, Tim, look what you've gone and done. It wasn't good enough. "I'm sorry," he says quietly.
"That's the problem." Bruce reaches out, and Tim finds himself leaning forward slightly as Bruce rests a broad hand over his shoulder. It's grounding, somehow, and the weight is warm and steady. He doesn't feel so much like he's falling anymore. "You shouldn't be sorry. You haven't done anything wrong. Your father hasn't been fulfilling the role of a parent for a long time." Bruce lets his palm curl up to rest against the side of Tim's face, and Tim tilts slightly into it, not daring to look away from his hands. He's surprised by how nice it feels just to have someone, an adult, sit beside him, and just. Be. "And if you'll let me, bud, I'd like to properly try to make up for where he's severely lacked."
Tim blinks, brow furrowing as he tilts his head up slightly to meet Bruce's gaze. "Really?"
"Really, Tim." Bruce says kindly. "For a lot of reasons. Most importantly, because I care about you, but also because I think Dick might make another attempt on my life if I don't."
Reflexively, Tim feels his mouth tilt up. Bruce catches it, and smiles himself.
"We're going to look out for you, Tim," Bruce says, and at the look on his face, Tim battles the urge to clamber over and crawl close. "To the best of my ability, I will protect you. I want you to live here full-time, if you're okay with that. You're welcome to see your dad when he fully recovers, but it will be with protection and supervision so that he can't harm or take advantage of you. I'm going to take care of everything now, okay?"
Tim doesn't trust himself to speak, so he nods. He's still hurting, in ways he might never fully heal from, and he's positive he'll be waking up in a cold sweat for months to come, haunted by the image of his bleeding father. He won't be able to look at a fireplace poker for weeks without getting chills. Sometimes, he'll remember he had a price tag, but Jason will scoff and mutter, "Yeah, but Jack was about to give up fucking Batman's identity for 1.5 million, too, so he's the real moron here. That's practically pocket change for B."
Sometimes he'll be consumed by a longing so fierce and consuming, a longing to rewind back to when he still believed that Jack and Janet made sense, that he had a place, that he wasn't forgotten. But then Dick will become so unbelievably obnoxious on Tim's birthday, so over the top with fanfare and sugar, and Tim will hide his giddiness behind a swathe of wrapping paper and act like seeing a birthday cake is no big deal, even though it is. It is.
And at night, when sleep evades him, he'll overhear Bruce admitting to Alfred that he bought every single streaming service he could find, because Tim blew through crime procedurals like a maniac and Bruce wanted him to have options.
And accepting that everything's different won't be easy.
But it'll definitely be easier.