Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

Tim narrowed his eyes at Dick, shoving his phone into the pocket of his sleep-pants and crossing his arms over his chest.

“I’m not too amicable about this subject.” Tim says, a sharp edge to his voice, as his eyes move to look behind them at the video and not yet opened text file on the big screen.

“This is—it's serious Tim!” Jason barks, standing from the chair as he takes a few steps closer to his younger brother.

Tim’s fingers tighten in the fabric of his shirt. 
“Does it look like I’m making light of this shit?” Tim replies, his voice hasn't reached the same volume as Jason, but there was enough venom there to make up for it. 
Jason’s brows knit together. “No! Look— we just want know if you’re okay, how the fuck did all this happen and we’ve never been told?” Jason takes a step back, as his voice comes to more of a quiet, seeming to realize how aggressive he had come in at first.

Tim sighs, looking down as he seems to mull something over. “I get you might feel better about talking about the Joker and what he did to you… but I don’t . It’s a chapter of my life I don’t like to revisit.” He settles on, eyes flicking up to Jason’s face, then Damian, then Dick.

“Can we ask Gordon, then?” Damian asks, Tim guesses he means Babs and not Jim. 

“Dont. She’s had enough pain surrounding Joker and his shitty goons.” Tim replies, trying hard to ignore the image in his head of Barbara bleeding on the floor.

There was an itch that sometimes came back whenever Tim thought of the Joker, like his skin began to buzz with that old electricity all over again, he refrained from scratching at his neck and arms. 
He understood his brother's desire to know; to be aware of Tim’s pain and how to avoid triggering him. He really did. But he hadn’t been prepared for all of this, and the right words seemed to be lost to him.

“Can we ask Bruce?” Dick asked next, Tim now noted he and Damian had come closer like Jason— he didn’t feel crowded, surprisingly. There was a sense of comfort; of care that he appreciated despite the still simmering anger at the breach of privacy, and the very unneeded blast from the fucking-hell past.

“I think B might actually react worse than I.” A melancholy chuckle to his words, as Tim recalls the months of waking up Bruce with screams and manic laughs from his frequent nightmares. 
How his adoptive father had to fight Tim to the ground, as the boy had tried to cut open his own face and forearms with the broken piece of a mirror that he smashed in (his right palm bearing a gangly scar to this day, where he had clenched the broken mirror-piece like a lifeline. 
He remembered the man’s distraught face as Tim had screamed at Bruce to kill him. Screamed that he wanted his ‘real daddy’ back. Screamed that Bruce was an awful person.

Tim hadn’t meant it, of course. The manic episodes and his unhealthy trauma responses had made his spew the worst he could, just for the sake of trying to hurt Bruce. 
Back then, he had hoped if he pressed the bat hard enough, he might snap and hurt Tim. If he hurt Tim, maybe the pain inside the child would lessen. The Joker sure had made the physical pain so barbaric that his inner world sometimes went quiet with blissful dissociation; Tim longed for that quiet feeling again.

He had killed the Joker, though.

So Tim had deemed it Bruce’s job to hurt the boy next. When he refused, it was like a slap to the face and the cycle of pained insults and suicide attempts began all over again.

A high pitched giggle escaped Tim for a second, then immediately he cut himself off, clenching his eyes shut tightly and his lips squeezing together into a taut line, as he took a shuddering breath.

He didn’t want to see his brother's look at him. 

He needed to get it the fuck together.

Before any of them would have the opportunity to comment on the giggle, Tim spoke again.

“I hurt Bruce a lot after he and Babs saved me. I don’t want to bring it all up again, he has enough to worry about.”

His eyes opened again, eyes to the floor once more. If they knew how bad he had hurt Bruce, would they hate him? 
Jason had done and said a lot of rough shit to the old man too, but it felt different . Jason had died and felt betrayed by the bat, he had more of a real reason for his anger. 
Tim had been saved by him, and he rewarded the man with insults and attempts on his own life. He’d essentially been trying to kill another of Bruce’s sons, just like the Joker .

“Tim…?” Dick said finally, his feet shuffling a bit to show his antsiness.

Tim hummed in reply, not trusting his voice then.

“Is it okay if I hug you?” His oldest brother asks, there’s a sadness to his voice that Tim recognizes as the attempt not to cry.

“You might not wanna.” Tim replies, voice barely a whisper.

“Why?”

Tim tried to recall a conversation he’d had with his therapist in the past.

‘It’s okay to say things in a too-direct way when overwhelmed, even if you might think you come off emotionless or even harsh.’ She’d said, when Tim had told her he wasn't sure how to explain his mental state properly.

“I don't feel deserving,” he began, he knew he sounded a bit robotic, but distancing himself from his emotions a bit made it easier to get it out. “When I was with him, he made me do things, horrible things… and after being saved, I continued to do horrible things.” Tim saw their faces in his nightmares… Bruce; the mother; the father; the children. His right pointer finger twitched at the memory. His skin buzzed with that electric itch again and this time Tim did scratch at his neck.

Dick shook his head, bringing his arms up a bit. “I don't see you any different… you’ll always be my little brother.” Dick assures, trying to catch Tim’s flickering eyes with his own.

“You don't know what I’ve done.” Numbness . 
“It won’t change anything.” Love .

Tim finally looked at him. Dick’s body language was open, his eyes still a bit wet and the faint smile on his face seemed genuine. The younger wondered how disgusted Dick would feel about him if he really knew the whole truth, maybe this was his last chance for his oldest brother to hug him before he’d see Tim differently forever.

“Okay.” His voice was quiet, but Dick immediately embraced him as the words left his mouth.

He’s warm, Tim noted, not realising how cold he himself had grown from being in the cave with such thin clothes on. His smell is familiar, calming. He’d stayed over for the weekend so his clothes had a faint smell of the detergent Alfred uses for laundry.

Damian came up beside them, with a bit of hesitancy he gently took one of Tim’s hands he had hanging slack by his sides. 
“We’ve all hurt father in one way or another in the past,” the youngest begins “You do not need to bear this burden alone.” Tim felt his heart clench at the soft display, Damian had never been this affectionate before. Once again, he wonders if this will be the last time.

Jason comes up lastly, a gloved hand on Tim’s back, rubbing soothly. “We respect if you want to keep all this to yourself… but we are family,” Jason strains the word, a lot of baggage behind that one painful word. Tim knows, he understands. “You have carried us, we are here to carry you too.” Tim takes a handful of deep breaths, second by second just absorbing each of their statements.

Every time he got triggered, he’d always retreat to his room. To scratch at his arms and neck or to giggle and laugh uncontrollably for a while into the fluff of his pillows until his throat was sore and his eyes were puffy with tears. 
He knew his brothers saw him as distant and possibly even antisocial, but it was a better assumption of his character than the truth—That their brother, the third Robin, is a killer, mentally unstable who had poured months of pain and verbal abuse upon their hero father; a man who is already on a cliff's edge every day from his own day to day struggles.

Tim sighed, maybe the truth would set him free, as that overused saying went. In any case, he didn’t have to lie every day of his life like he’d been the last handful of years. Even if his brothers would look at him like a stranger.

“You can read the document in my file.” He said, pulling back to nod his head towards the big screen. Dick quirked his brows, “You want to tell us?”

Tim shrugged, feeling tired and weirdly wired at the same time. “I’ll tell you what I’m able to in my current headspace.” He felt a bit removed from the situation, not quite dissociation, but emotionally distant. “If you feel pressured, we can drop it, really.” Jason chimed in, seeming to search Tim’s blank face. 
Tim shook his head, already moving to the batcomputer. “You deserve to be a part of my life, and even if I don't talk about it… this is a big part of it.”

The teen took his place in the seat, moving the mouse and clicking on the medical document. A list of milligram doses, electroshock damage and wound damage filled the screen.

“I’m sure you can guess what this is.” Tim said, before falling quiet as his brothers read line after line of the abuse.

“Tim… this is—the Joker Venom dosages are insane!” Dick exclaimed, before he felt his heart sink even more at the line reading ‘numerous bloody whip marks on the upper back.’ Tim followed his line of sight… oh yeah, that’s from when Joker got mad at Tim if he slouched his back.

“No son of mine will be hunching like a cave creature!” Joker had bellowed before taking a wooden cane to Tim’s back and ribs until the skin broke.

“Timothy?” Damian asked, his hand still clasped around Tim’s wrist. The older teen felt his body feel a bit lighter at hearing Damian call him by his first name for the first time. “How long did Harley Quinn and the Joker have you in their possession?” The youngest knew if all of this had happened at the span of a few days Tim would be dead in a ditch, the torture had to have been spread more out… but for how long?

“Three weeks.” Tim replied numbly.

Jason and Dick’s faces whirled to look at him. "Three weeks?!” They both exclaimed. 
“It took three fuckin’ weeks for that asshole to find you!? Were they even trying?” Jason growled, his leather gloves making a slight creaking sound from how hard his fists were clenching.c

Tim looked away from the section about his skin damage, to tilt his head up at Jason. “I don’t blame Bruce for it—or for how long it took, not Babs or Jim or anyone. Joker did what he did— Harley too. I don’t want to live my life hating people I love, I can’t afford that waste of time.” He hoped Jason didn’t feel it as a jab at him, it wasn't meant to be. He’d already hated Bruce enough, and even if it was caused by his damaged mental state at the time, it was enough of a stain on his heart. 

Dick took a deep breath, looking away from the screen like it was a horror movie. 
“What is the permanent damage? To your body, I mean.” He asked, looking over Tim’s body like it was the first time, as if trying to spot any details of his face or body he’d missed in the past.

The question felt like the medical questions Bruce had when they did checkups, it made it easier to answer, objectivity was easier.

“Repeated electroshocks have given me chronic muscle pains, it’s worse in my legs though. Mouth was cut slightly wider, so I have some scarring on my cheeks. There’s scar tissue on my back too from repeated cane-whipping and my skin is permanently pale from the venom injections, what’s why I'm never able to tan like the rest of you.” The list was old and familiar.

All three brothers felt a sense of discomfort at hearing how much Tim had hidden from them.

Jason felt guilty after several summers of calling Tim ‘Vampire’ or Dracula’ because he was so pale. Not paper-white anymore, like he’d been in the security footage, but enough to stand out; Jason hated when people pointed out his facial scars, and he’d essentially done that to Tim.

Dick regretted every time he had called Tim lazy for napping all day, or laying on the couch for hours, he now realized it was the muscle pains that made it impossible for him to walk, and Dick had basically rubbed it in his face—even if it was unknowingly.

Damian recalled he one time head walked in on Tim applying concealer to his face in the morning, teasing him with the nickname ‘Princess Drake’ for a week after, when he was likely hiding his mouth-scars.

“Timothy…” the youngest began, the rare feeling of guilt boiling in his little belly “I apologize if I’ve ever made you feel ridiculed about any of these things, it’s never been my inte—“ Tim lifted a hand up, stopping Damian in his speech. 
Tim hesitates for a moment, before the hand moves to brush over Damian’s soft hair affectionately. Normally Damian would scream and threaten to stab him if he’d attempted this before, but he was quiet, a slightly embarrassed blush on his tan skin.

“You don't have to apologize, Dames. None of you knew, now you do, there’s not much else to it.” There was a sense of finality to his tone, none of them wanted to argue with him. Maybe they could figure out some other sort of way to apologize later, one with less words (as Tim wanted none, apparently) maybe something more in the gift giving area perhaps. 

“Is this the part you didn’t want us to know?” Jason slightly changed the subject, gesturing to his list of physical damages.

Tim barks a laugh, before apologizing at the inappropriate response. They all tell him it’s okay. Tim doesn't feel like it is, but bites back a rebuke.

Oh god… if the physical damage was all there was it to it, Tim would honestly be thankful. It was the long lasting psychological damage and trauma that was worse, what had been done to him, and what he’d been made to do to others.

He shook his head slowly. The faces of a family flashing in his mind, the feeling of a gun too big for his small hands to hold, the way his arms had shaken to aim straight.

Well, here goes nothing. If they hate him he still has funds to move away, he’ll leave without complaint.

“You know how I hate my birthday, right?” Tim asked, his eyes fixed on the batcomputer’s big keyboard. He doesn't wait for them to answer, if he’s interrupted he fears he might choke and drown on his words.

His left left hand grips his right, he digs his thumb into the old scar there. 

“Two weeks and three days into being with them, it was my thirteenth birthday. I’d long confessed to Joker who I was, who Bruce was and even Barbara… Repeated electroshocks and injections have a way of loosening the tongue—“ the joke was bad, tasteless, but he smiled despite it. “So he knew when my birthday was, I shouldn’t have been surprised he’d do something for it, I don't even know if I really was. Maybe I didn’t want to admit how well I’ve begun to know him.

The other three were quiet as Tim talked, the air was full of unease and tense.

“He’d broken into a house, the day before—taken a family hostage, brought them to the old Arkham Facility. He put them on their knees, bound but not gagged in front of me, he wanted me to hear them. He told me about them…” each of their faces haunted him, their red, tear stained faces as they wailed and begged the newly thirteen years old boy in front of him to save them… they begged him to be their hero, but he wasn't, he was only Joker’s little Junior.

Years later, he’d not forgotten a single detail told about each member in that joyous tone Joker always used when he psychologically tormented Tim.

He began to rattle them off, the words were like bees in his chest, buzzing to escape. “Martin Lakewood, thirty-four years old, mechanic, he liked to watch football with his son and buy his wife flowers every Friday; Crystal Lakewood, thirty-two years old, secretary at a doctor’s office, she had a passion for dressmaking and fantasy novels; James Lakewood, eleven years old, he was top in his maths class and collected pennies and spare dollars in a jar under his bed so he could one day take his whole family on a vacation; Blake Lakewood, two ye—“ Tim voice broke and choked for a second, the memory of the little baby girl being too much for him, even years later.

On all sides his brothers once more embraced him, just holding Tim while he put himself back together, piece by scratched-up piece.

“You don't have to say it…” Jason quietly said against his hair.

Tim shook his head, he had to own up to it; what he did.

“He gave me a gun, and I used it—All four bullets.” He said, almost a whisper.

He’d murdered them, he looked them all in the eye as he took their life; their life which they deserved much more than he did his own. That fact had spurred on most of his suicide attempts, at least the ones that happened when he was in a depression rather than a manic episode. 
It had taken too-many-to-count appointments at his therapist, then prescribed meds by his psychiatrist and Bruce begging him to live and telling him he loved him despite it, to finally break the cycle.

“I didn’t want to do it.” He says, there’s a slight desperation to his words, scared they think he did, even a bit.

“We know,” Dick assures, squeezing him tighter. “You didn’t have a choice.”

“You were forced, their death is not on you, it’s on him .” Jason’s words had a lot of anger in them, but they were pointed to the clown, not Tim. He gave a kiss to the crown of Tim’s head.

“Timothy, you were severely compromised— not in your right mind, no one would have been.” Damian adds on, he pulls Tim’s hands apart, there was a blooming bruise in his right palm now, overlapping the scar from how hard he’d been digging his thumb in. Damian’s hands are too small to envelop Tim’s own, but it doesn't matter, he understands the gesture.

“I don't want to lie to you anymore.” Tim says, his voice is stronger, but still slightly distant.

“You don’t have to.” They all say.

“I don’t want you to feel disgusted with me.”

“We won’t.”

Dick catches Tim’s gaze with his own, both their eyes are slightly wet. 
“You don’t have to hide your struggles anymore. If your legs hurt, you don't need to get up. If you want to, you don’t have to cover your facial scars, we won’t stare. And if the memories get too much, we’ll listen, just like you’ve done with us.” The oldest says, his eyes never wavering.

Tim feels a warmth bloom in his chest, a feeling of love he hadn’t felt in a long time.

“All I’ve ever wanted was to just be your brother.”

"You are.”