Chapter Text
Tim woke up without ever realizing he was asleep.
He remained still, kept his breathing even. He wasn’t in his apartment, or his room, or the medical bay at the Cave, he could tell that much. The pillowcase beneath his cheek was soft, but odorless, as if it had been sitting in a closet for months before being put on the bed, and there were none of the usual ambient sounds - no footsteps or distant sounds of the family moving around, none of the electronics or fans from down in the cave, no sound of clicking keys. But he could hear the sound of air being forced through a vent, smell something a little dusty, as if the vents hadn’t been cleaned in a while, hear the sound of birdsong through glass. Wherever he was, he was above ground.
He kept his eyes closed, stayed motionless. He didn’t hear anyone else in the room but that didn’t mean there wasn’t anyone watching him. He hurt everywhere, bone-deep and exhausting, with a pounding headache that made him dread opening his eyes. Beneath that, or on top of it, maybe, there was a different sort of ache, in his muscles and joints, that came from spending too much time in one position. He’d been in that bed for a while, then.
Still no sound in the room, so he risked opening his eyes, just a sliver at first, then, when nothing happened, all the way. The room was dim, but the light was still enough to send a spike of pain through his skull. He flinched, biting back a groan of pain. He blinked past a rush of tears, staring up at a slowly spinning ceiling fan.
He turned his head just enough to take in the rest of the room. It was empty, which was reassuring, and a bedroom, a fairly nice one, though everything was a little out of date, especially the wallpaper. The furniture was older, antiques for sure, and expensive looking. The mirror on the wall, the fixtures, and the light fixtures all looked like they wouldn’t be out of place in the Manor.
Being held prisoner in a fancy bedroom was a change from the usual. Tim felt a brief flare of concern that Ra’s was involved somehow, but this place didn’t look like his usual style.
There was medical equipment next to the bed, and Tim traced wires from the heart monitor to his chest. There was an IV in his right arm, with what looked like normal saline set up, but none of the other equipment was in use.
Tim eyed the IV a little warily, and took a bit of a mental inventory of himself to make sure he wasn’t missing any more internal organs, but as shit as he felt, none of it seemed to involve stabbing so that was a win.
He sat up a bit, and felt the tug on the inside of his arm from the IV needle.
If he’d had his head screwed on straight he might have hesitated, but he was tired and confused, and the IV set off something visceral in him. Had they been drugging him? Is that why he felt so foggy and tired?
The last time he woke up like that, an immortal madman ended up with his spleen in a mason jar.
Okay, yeah, time to get the hell out of Dodge. Tim rolled onto his side and started to sit up just as the door swung open.
He tried to play it off cool, like hey, no, not attempting to escape at all! Just stretching my legs after a long day of being incapacitated! He thought he’d have pulled it off if it wasn’t for the damn heart monitor giving him away.
His captor froze in the door. “Holy shit,” Jason said, “it lives.”
“What the fuck, Jason.” Tim slumped against the pillows and began re-evaluating his impression of the situation. “Where am I? What’s going on?”
“You’re in the East Wing,” Jason said, which explained the musty smell, and why Tim hadn’t recognized the room. The East Wing was for long term guests, which they never had, and Tim didn’t know if he’d ever been up there except for the occasional spring cleaning.
Tim wasn’t sure why he was there now. “Why?”
“Uh, cause you were being poisoned, dumbass.” Jason’s phone rang and he waved a hand in Tim’s direction before he could point out that wasn’t what he asked. “Hey, Alfie. Kid’s fine. Yeah, he’s kinda restless, that’s probably why the heart monitor kicked up.” He aimed a finger gun at Tim and grinned. It probably wasn’t meant to be vaguely threatening, and yet. “No, no, finish what you’re doing. If the kid needs you I’ll just start screaming.” He hung up and tossed his phone onto the bedside table before dropping into a chair positioned near the foot of Tim’s bed. It was set so Jason could see the door, the bed, and the windows all at once, like he’d been on watch. “I don’t lie to Alfred unless it’s a very good cause, so you’ve only got a couple minutes before I spill the beans that you’re awake.”
Tim frowned. “Why wouldn’t you tell him? Why would he care?”
“What part of poisoned are you having a hard time handling here?” Jason hooked his ankle over his opposite knee and leaned back. “You dropped that bomb on Dickie and then passed out. Nicely done, by the way. If complete pandemonium was what you were shooting for, you really nailed it.”
“I wasn’t,” Tim said. He looked at the equipment lined up next to the bed. “If I’m sick then why am I here instead of my room?”
“So the demon child can’t find you.” Jason pinned Tim with a rather intense look. “And that’s why I lied to Alfred about you being awake.”
“Because of Damian?”
“Because Damian has been trying to kill you. A lot, apparently,” Jason added in a frustrated voice. “You know, when I tried to kill you, everyone got pissed, but no, apparently if you’re a toddler, homicide is cute.”
“I know why I’m annoyed, but why are you pissed?”
“It’s blatant favoritism, isn’t it? God, little siblings get away with everything.” Jason scowled at Tim.
“Don’t look at me,” Tim said. “I don’t get away with much.”
“Right, cause if I had run away to join the League of Assassins I would have been grounded for a decade.”
“You did join the League of Assassins!”
Jason wrinkled his nose. “Eh. I fell in with the League. It’s not the same.”
“Sounds like semantics.” Tim caught his eyes slowly drifting shut and forced himself back awake. “Which still doesn’t explain why I’m in the East Wing instead of my own room.”
“I told you. So Damian can’t find you.” Jason shrugged. “Well, not easily anyway. He’d have to look door-to-door since Bruce cut him out of the security system. That’s why I’m here.”
“You’re here to… stop Damian from looking for me?”
“No, I’m here to make sure you don’t die in your sleep. Stephanie’s here to stop Damian from looking for you. She’s on demon-guarding duty this morning.” Jason laughed. “Little shit took one look at her face and just closed his bedroom door and hasn’t tried to come out since. Good to know your ex still gives a shit.”
Tim blinked at the ceiling. “I’m confused.”
“Probably brain damage from all the fucking poison.” Jason swung his foot back down to the floor and leaned forward, elbows resting on his knees, hands clasped between them. “So. About that.”
“About the poison,” Tim said.
“Yeah. I heard quite an interesting story from the old man. Apparently Baby Dami’s been trying to kill you for a while now.”
Tim slumped back into the pillows. “Kill, not so much. I think he stopped actually trying to kill me a while ago.”
“Right, because I always poison the people I don’t want dead,” Jason said. “The part I found interesting was that apparently everyone else in your life knew about the murder attempts and the squirt’s still running around free.”
“I didn’t tell Dick about most of them.”
“Because you’re stupid.”
Tim frowned. “Hey.”
“Do you want to leave?” Jason asked. “Cause the second Bruce and the squad find out you’re awake they’re going to be in here. Right now everyone thinks you’re out for the count, and aside from Alfred and the changing of the guard, you’re mostly alone in here.”
“Changing of the guard?”
“I’ve got Tiny Tim guard duty from eight at night to eight in the morning. Alfred takes over so I can crash, and he stays till two in the afternoon, when Dickie comes in here and weeps over your scrawny ass until it’s time for me to take over again. Bruce comes by a couple times a day, and I’m pretty sure there’s at least one camera in here I haven’t found yet, so he probably checks in. Which might mean we have even less time than I thought. None of that is the point.”
Tim stared at him. “Guard me from what?”
“From the goblin child who’s been trying to kill you who the fuck do you think?” Jason pinned him with a glare that clearly indicated he didn’t think much of Tim’s problem solving skills. “The kid who’s apparently been trying to hurt you for a while now, and has clearly succeeded. Apparently now that it’s right in front of them, the gang’s all worked up.”
“Look, I told you, I think he’s mostly given up on the murdering me thing.”
Jason pinched the bridge of his nose, giving Tim the disconcertingly weird impression of a frustrated librarian who was built like a MMA champ. “Do we need to go over the concept of poison for you, Timbo?”
Tim frowned. “I don’t think he was trying to kill me, just-”
“Just poison you,” Jason said.
Tim was aware that antagonizing Jason did not traditionally end well for him, yet found himself unable to resist the urge. “Yeah, basically.”
“So we do need to revisit the concept of poison. You see, Timmy, when a tiny angry demon baby hates his brother very, very much-”
“Oh shut up.” Tim slumped back into the pillows and reconsidered putting effort into staying awake. If Jason was all he had to look forward to he might as well go back to sleep.
“Tim. We know about the grenade. And the time he cut your line.”
Tim couldn’t have hidden the flinch if he wanted to. “Shit. I didn’t want Dick to see that.”
“Yeah, it wasn’t pretty.” Jason pushed himself to his feet and paced a few steps before he stopped and put his hands on his hips. “Alfred says there was other stuff, when he first got here, that maybe got brushed aside in all the chaos of Bruce…” Jason seemed to choke on the word for a second. “Disappearing. Or whatever. So the question is, do you feel safe being here while you’re recovering?”
“What are you going to do if I say no?” Tim asked. He blinked up at Jason, torn between confusion at where this was coming from and being kind of touched by the consideration. Confusion was mostly winning. “You going to take me home and nurse me back to health?”
The look Jason gave him could wither crops in the field. “The point of this is to keep you alive, dipshit. I’d drop you off in Kansas. Or San Francisco, if you want. Or somewhere Bruce doesn’t know about, if that’s better.”
Tim’s heart kicked against his ribs for a second. “Jason. Bruce isn’t a threat to me.”
“Okay.” Jason tilted his head to the side. “But is he going to keep you safe?”
Silence stretched between them for a second, thin but not stretched to breaking, and they both were thinking of a different son and a different threat. “I think he will,” Tim said slowly. He licked his lips, trying to figure out if this was going to trigger something in Jason’s unresolved baggage with Bruce and his only mostly resolved baggage with Tim. “And I think if he can’t, I know who to ask for help.”
Jason didn’t say anything, but he didn’t look pissed, either. “Superboy, right? Cause as soon as I’m out of here I’m losing your number.”
Tim laughed, or as much as he could when he felt like just sitting upright was leaving him out of breath. “You say that like Barbara wouldn’t patch me through the first time I asked just to listen to you complain.”
The door behind Jason swung open, and Dick was standing there, staring at Tim with a wide smile. “You’re awake! Jason, why didn’t you tell any-”
Jason took two big steps forward and slapped his hand over Dick’s mouth, muffling the rest of his sentence, and shoving Dick backwards into the hall. He shut the door after him with a slam, and twisted the lock.
“Um?” Tim said.
“I’m calling Alfred!” Dick threatened from the other side of the door. The doorknob rattled violently.
“If you can’t pick that lock on your own you don’t deserve to be in here,” Jason hollered back before turning to look at Tim again. “Kid. You’re good to stay?”
“I am. I think I know what Damian’s goal was.”
“Not as reassuring as you think it is,” Jason said. “Do you feel comfortable if I stay until we know for sure?”
“Yes?” Tim blinked at him. “Why wouldn’t I?”
“Tim,” Jason said. “He’s not the only one who’s hurt you.”
That was possibly the last thing Tim had been expecting Jason to say, so he could possibly be forgiven for staring at him in confused astonishment for a long couple of seconds. “We,” Tim licked his lips, mouth suddenly dry. “We talked about that. We’re good now?”
“Me implying I might have been a jerk to you and you inviting me to breakfast isn’t really talking about it, dumbass.”
Tim found himself kind of squinting in Jason's direction. “Do you want to talk about it?”
“Hard pass,” Jason said.
Tim nodded, resisting the urge to grin. “Good talk. Nice bonding moment.”
“God, Dickface really has ruined you, hasn’t he?” Jason sighed in a particularly put-upon manner, which Tim thought was kind of rich considering he was the one calling literally all the shots since Tim woke up. Which was all of ten minutes ago, but still. “Look, if you ever aren’t okay with me being around, just say so. I forfeited the right to be offended about it around five broken bones ago.”
“And a stab wound,” Tim said, because that one had felt kind of personal whereas they both knew Titans Tower had never been about Tim. “Uh. Thank you.” The words were weirdly thick in his throat and he coughed a little. “Jason. It means a lot to me that you asked.”
Jason scrunched up his nose like Bruce faced with peas in his carbonara. “Ugh, emotions. I’m letting Dick in to deal with you.”
Jason yanked the door back open and Alfred was standing there, one eyebrow raised in a way that conveyed vague disappointment. Dick stood behind him and was definitely smirking.
“Sorry, Alfred,” Jason said, completely sincerely. “I needed an uninterrupted moment.”
Alfred gave him a considering look as he stepped into the room and made straight for Tim’s bed. “Very well. I assume it was time-sensitive.”
“It kind of was,” Jason said.
“He was gonna steal me,” Tim said, unable to hide the grin even if he wanted to, which he didn’t. “Said if I was scared of Damian he’d nurse me back to health himself in a secret location.”
“I don’t do nursing,” Jason said automatically.
“I bet you’d be a great nurse.” Tim deliberately didn’t look at Jason so he couldn’t see the murder in his eyes. “Alfred, Jason would be a good nurse, don’t you think?”
The butler didn’t blink, though the corner of his mouth quirked up just a little. “An excellent one, in my estimation. One time, a year or so before you arrived, your father was quite ill with the stomach flu and Master Jason-”
“Never happened,” Jason said loudly. “One more word out of anyone about it and I start shooting.”
The hint of a smile vanished from Alfred’s face. “I believe I am quite done with listening to members of this family threaten violence upon each other.”
Tim dropped his eyes to the bedspread, feeling chastised even though he hadn’t been the one to say it. “Sorry.”
“Relax, Alfie, I wasn’t going to shoot the kid.” Jason waited half a beat and added, “I was gonna shoot Dickface-”
“That’s quite enough,” Alfred said, voice carrying over Dick’s indignant yelling and Jason’s laughter. “If you can’t behave yourselves, then I will ask you to leave. Master Tim does not need the stress or the commotion.”
“Shit, sorry,” Dick said, and he slid past Jason to perch carefully on the side of the bed. “Is your head still hurting? I can make Jason leave if he’s bothering you.”
“If I’m bothering-”
“Children,” Alfred said, and all three of them shut up.
“My head’s fine,” Tim said quietly. “The headache’s mostly gone.”
Alfred nodded, and took Tim’s hand, fingers resting over Tim’s pulse as he kept his eyes on his phone. “Your heart rate is steady, if a little faster than I’d like, and your color is much improved. Master Richard, please hand me the infrared thermometer, please.”
Tim held himself still while Alfred checked his temperature - he knew moving wasn’t going to mess anything up but he always felt like if he so much as breathed too heavily he’d mess up the reading. Dick settled back on the bed and combed his fingers through Tim’s hair.
“I’m gross,” Tim said.
“Please, this is nothing,” Dick said. His brother brushed Tim’s bangs back and smiled. “I saw you when you had the Clench. That was disgusting.”
“Way to make a guy feel even grosser,” Tim said. He didn’t pull away though, and Dick didn’t stop smoothing his hair.
“Your temperature is still a little high,” Alfred said, “but significantly improved over a few days ago. I am going to have to insist on at least another day of bed rest, and we can re-evaluate tomorrow.”
Tim thought about objecting for half a second, but there was a look on Alfred’s face that suggested he knew what Tim was considering, and that he was perfectly willing to call Tim’s bluff and let him fall flat on his face. Then he’d have Jason and Dick sit on him to keep him in bed.
Honestly, Dick would probably do it, the mother hen. Jason too, but maliciously.
“Can I have my phone?” Tim asked instead. “I need to check in with Tam and Lucius before they think I’ve skipped the country again.”
“Phone, yes. I will also allow books, board games, video games, movies, and even whatever YouTube atrocity you are calling entertainment this week. However no laptop and no work of either variety.” Alfred skewered him with a pointed glare before he could even think of objecting. “And let’s limit screentime to no more than an hour at a time until we’re certain your headache is completely gone.”
Tim nodded and smothered a yawn. He’d barely been keeping his eyes open to begin with and Dick petting his hair was lulling him back to sleep. He had a feeling even if he wanted to disobey Alfred, he wouldn’t stay awake long enough for it.
“Master Jason, would you please let your father know Master Tim is awake? I know he’ll want to speak with him.”
Jason slipped out the door while Alfred busied himself putting away the thermometer and checking the IV. Dick stroked the back of his fingers over Tim’s forehead, as if checking his temperature for himself. It felt nice. Tim didn’t realize how little human contact he got without Kon and Dick in his life. “Do you want to go somewhere else?” Dick asked quietly.
Tim forced his eyes back open. “Go?” he echoed, a little fuzzily. “Go where?”
“Anywhere you want,” Dick said. His brother’s voice was hushed, but serious, and Dick was watching him carefully, eyes serious and dark. “If you don’t feel safe here, we can take you back to your apartment until you feel better.”
“Dick.” Tim leaned into his brother’s touch just a little. “If you let Alfred see my apartment looking the way it is right now, I will kill you.”
Dick nodded, the corner of his mouth ticked up in just the slightest hint of a grin. “So call the maid service for a rush job?”
Alfred didn’t sigh, but he did exhale in a way that suggested he was questioning his life choices if they’d brought him to this point.
Tim shook his head, just a little, just enough that maybe Dick wouldn’t stop. “I don’t want to go,” he said. He looked up at Alfred, still leaning over the bed. “It’s okay, right?”
“Of course,” Alfred said. He said it instantly, without even stopping to think about the options, which took some of the weight off Tim’s chest. “This is your home.”
“I don’t want to cause trouble.”
Alfred frowned and shot a look at Dick that Tim couldn’t quite interpret. “Master Tim, I can assure you that having you here is no trouble, nor would it matter even if it were. It would still be your home.”
Maybe. Tim was too tired to second guess things. But if Alfred said he could stay then Dick wouldn’t make him try to leave. “Then I want to stay.”
Dick’s voice sounded troubled. “No one wants you to leave, Tim, we just want you to feel safe.”
Tim snorted. “Damian wants me to leave. It would probably make everyone a lot more comfortable if I wasn’t here.”
“It would not,” Alfred said.
Tim sighed. “It’s all right, Alfred. I know things can’t go on like this forever. Something’s going to have to change, and it’d be easiest if I wasn’t provoking him.”
“Your existence isn’t a reasonable provocation,” Dick said. His nails scraped gently against Tim’s scalp before stopping, his hand pressed to the side of Tim’s head and encouraging Tim to look at him. “You leaving isn’t going to make anything better.”
“Isn’t it?” Tim asked. “Don’t pretend you aren’t already sick of us fighting.”
“Well I don’t love it,” Dick said.
Tim nodded, because of course he didn’t. “I want to talk to Damian.”
Dick made a face that did nothing to ease the tension in the room. “I don’t know if that’s a great idea.”
“Who are you worried about?” Tim asked. “Afraid I’m going to be mean to your real brother? Or are you just trying to avoid having to deal with us?”
“Stop it,” Dick said, and there was steel in his voice that time. “I’ve never once said anything about Damian being my real brother and you know it.”
“Haven’t you?” Tim said. “Your silence on the matter speaks pretty loudly. I want to talk to Damian,” he said, letting some of his own steel slide into his voice. Dick wasn’t the only stubborn one. Tim had been out-stubborning Batman since he was thirteen years old. “I’m not doing this until I talk to Damian and get his side.”
“Am I hallucinating?” Dick asked Alfred who only gave him one vaguely disapproving raised eyebrow in return. “What possible side could there be for poisoning you?”
“You seemed to think he had a side when he pushed me off the dinosaur and sent me a live grenade, I don’t know why you’re all worked up now.”
“I didn’t know about that.” Dick actually looked a little sick about it, which made Tim feel a pang of remorse. “Tim. You have to know I didn’t know about him cutting your line, or the grenade, or any of that. You have to know I would have done something.”
“But you didn’t know,” Tim said. “Because you didn’t want to know-“
“Because you didn’t tell me!”
“Maybe I didn’t think you’d do anything.” Tim felt bile crawl up the back of his throat as soon as he said it, as soon as he saw the absolute horror that crawled across Dick’s face. “Maybe I thought you’d think it a fair trade to keep the blood son happy and under control.” He forced himself to look away before he could apologize and turned to Alfred, who was also looking vaguely horrified. “I want to talk to Damian. This is about him and me, and I’m not going to condemn his actions until I hear his motivation from him directly.”
Alfred’s fingers curled around Tim’s, longer than his, and a little thinner, a little bonier in the knuckles. He had calluses on his index and middle fingers and the center of his palm from target practice. He didn’t squeeze or pull on Tim’s hand, just held it, almost carefully. “Master Tim. What possible motivation could there have been for this aside from wanting to cause you harm?”
“I can think of a couple, actually.”
Dick scrubbed both hands over his face. “I think one of us is confused.”
“If he was trying to hurt me then I deserve to see him anyway. Either way, it doesn’t matter. I want to talk to Damian. And if you can’t bring him here, then as soon as one of you turns your back I’m going to unplug this monitor and wheel my IV stand over to the family wing and talk to him without you.”
Dick frowned. “Jason-“
“Jason would let me do it.”
“Damn straight.” Jason said from the doorway. “What are you doing?”
Tim couldn’t swallow for a moment. Standing behind Jason was Bruce, still leaning on his cane, but otherwise upright and looking healthy. Tim hadn’t gotten him sick, hadn’t endangered him.
“Can you bring Damian here?” he asked, and all the steel and stubbornness slid out of him as soon as Jason nodded, and Bruce stepped aside to let him leave.