Chapter Text
When Tim woke up, the world was a haze of pain. A haze in general, really. His head was fuzzy and spinny, and he wasn't sure why. He sobbed, and the one band of comforting warmth around his hand tightened.
"Tim," murmured a familiar voice.
"Bruce?"
Tim’s voice was scratchy and rough, and his throat felt... strange. He couldn't say anything else, but the grip left his hand, and a minute later he felt arms carefully wrapping around him, letting him hide his face against soft cotton as fingers stroked through his hair.
"Oh, sweetheart."
Tim tried to reach up, hold onto Bruce, but only his right arm moved. His left twinged and halted, and he stopped crying from surprise when he realized his arm had been set in a sling.
"Dislocated shoulder and fractured ulna," Bruce said quietly. "They just wanted to make sure you rest it."
"They?"
Tim blinked open his eyes, looking first at Bruce's tear-stained, pale face, then around the room that was not the cave medbay, nor Leslie's clinic.
It was all beiges and whites and a slight amount of gray-green, sleek and sterile, but larger than most hospital rooms he'd seen. Under the window, which showed the smoggy Gotham night sky, sat an uncomfortable-looking couch. A TV hung on the wall across from Tim, blank and black, and behind Bruce was a half-open curtain, just showing the open door to the bathroom.
Tim realized he wasn't wearing a mask, or his suit. Just a thin, scratchy hospital gown.
He swallowed hard and whispered, "Why am I here?"
"You..." Bruce's face pinched. "You needed more help than we or Leslie could give you."
Yes, Tim was sure he had. After drowning and breaking and being eaten alive and having his leg stuck in that awful trap for so long it was still hurting...
Tim went very still.
He remembered how bad it had looked. How mangled and bloody. How surely it was going to get infected by the scummy water. How much he'd been thrown and yanked around. How terrified he'd been that...
His head pounded; he felt dizzy.
Bruce's red-rimmed eyes. Hospital beige. You needed more help than we could give you.
Tim's heart was beating too fast. Something was beeping. Nausea rose in his throat.
"Tim?"
Tim clenched the fabric of Bruce's shirt in his right hand, as if it could keep him steady when he turned his head to see that the blankets laid over his legs did not rise and fall to the same heights. That the blankets over his right leg simply flowed down and leveled off just past his knee. He startled as the pain in his left leg flared up, as if it was still caught in the trap. But it couldn't be. Because when Tim mustered the courage to pull back the blankets, the lower part of his leg was gone.
Tim whipped his head back towards Bruce, hiding his face against his father's chest as the ragged sobs burst out. Bruce's arms instantly closed around him once more, tight and grounding, heavy hand protecting the back of his head.
"I'm so sorry, Tim," he whispered.
"Why does it still hurt?"
"I don't know, Tim, I... I'm so sorry, sweetheart."
“Make it stop!"
Bruce kept apologizing uselessly as Tim wept and wailed, the force of his crying making the rest of his body ache. The oxygen tube stung his nose, and Tim pawed at it, but Bruce took his hand and laced their fingers together, murmuring another I'm sorry and trying to urge Tim to breathe as the beeping got louder.
Commotion by the door. Several intimidating-looking people strode into the room, seemingly on a mission. Tim cut off his crying with a hiccup, clutching Bruce's hand impossibly tight.
White coat. Colorful Peanuts scrubs. Less colorful polka-dot scrubs. Doctor and nurses. Safe.
One of the nurses gently reached over and reapplied the tape that was peeling from Tim's finger, then replaced her hand with Bruce's. Tim could see all three of the staff relax as the beeps evened out. The nurses offered sad smiles and filtered out of the room leaving him, Bruce, and the doctor, closing the door behind them. Bruce rubbed his thumb over Tim's knuckles, steady and comforting, as the doctor stepped closer. Tim eyed him warily as he took a seat on the uncomfortable hospital chair.
"Hello, Tim."
He had a long face, but the wrinkles on it indicated he smiled a lot. His hair had probably been dark and curly once, but there wasn't much substance or color left in it. Tim supposed that this was the surgeon that chopped his…
He gave an involuntary shudder and shoved the thought away.
"I'm Dr. Lowell," he said gently. "Can you tell me your name and date of birth please?”
Tim narrowed his eyes at the doctor, trying to muddle through why this man would want that information. His mind unhelpfully suggested that it was all some trick to expose his secret. Expose Robin, and from there the whole family. He knew someone had been after that. He remembered... Who am I...
"Tim," a quiet voice prompted.
Tim blinked, turning his face to Bruce, and dimly registering the gentle circle pattern being traced against his back, grounding him in the blank hospital room, and reminding him that the doctor was waiting on an answer.
“Tim?" he said uncertainly. He thought the riddle had been-- but no, this was a doctor in a hospital. Name and date of birth. "Tim Wayne-Drake. And, um..."
His mind unhelpfully left his birthday just out of reach. Turning to Bruce, he silently begged for help.
Bruce gave a slightly hysterical chuckle and recited Tim's birthday. Dr. Lowell confirmed by checking Tim's wristband, and asked Bruce about allergies, which was good, because Tim couldn't have remembered them if he tried. He closed his eyes, hoping Dr. Lowell would leave soon so Bruce could take Tim home. Maybe... maybe at the manor, everything would just... just be right again, and all the panic, all the pain, all the... All of it could just be a distant memory. Or better, a dream.
"Hey, Tim?" Dr. Lowell said. "I know that everything is super confusing and overwhelming right now, but can you look at me please? I need to check you out and redo your dressing, but then I can let you rest. Can you look at the pictures for me and tell me what you're feeling?”
Tim reluctantly opened his eyes, brows knitting together at the sight of the face scale doctors showed to really little kids and people who couldn't communicate. Tim wasn't a baby. But he was too tired to explain that though this was absolute hell it was nowhere near the ninth circle of having his leg in the trap, so he nodded and reached out to tap the orange frowning face above the number nine.
“Do you want Dad out of the room while we do the assessment?” Dr. Lowell asked kindly, and though Tim was incredibly glad that he asked, and asked Tim, not Bruce, he latched onto Bruce's shirt again and said breathlessly, "No, I want him to stay."
“That won't interfere at all, will it?" Bruce asked.
“It won't interfere with anything.”
Tim tried to pay attention as Dr. Lowell poked and prodded and asked him questions, but the world kept growing fuzzier and farther away. Between one blink and the next, Dr. Lowell was standing to go, with a promise that the nurse will be in soon with pain meds, and that those will help with not only this 'phantom limb pain' thing, but also the 'referred pain' and Tim's murderous headache.
"So..." Tim squinted at the foot of the bed, still gripping Bruce's shirt and leaning into the gentle circles Bruce was rubbing against his back. "It'll stop? Hurting?"
Bruce made a slightly strangled sound. "It... The medicine will make it better, y-yes."
"Yay," Tim murmured, laying his head on Bruce's shoulder and closing his eyes against the awful, rounded-off end of his leg. He felt Bruce tug the blankets back over his lap. "And then we can go home?"
"I..."
But before Bruce could answer, Tim was already asleep.
This time when Tim woke up, it was to voices, and not quite as much dizzy agony. There wasn't much less confusion though, because the phrase 'oil is the top of the ship' had absolutely no meaning that Tim could divine.
"Why would that be, exactly?" came in Barbara's wry, tired voice.
"Because it literally floats on top of water, duh," Steph said. "Also, it's literally less dense, meaning it's the one that stopped pining and did something with its feelings, ergo, the commanding top of the couple."
"Water doesn't have feelings?" Dick said.
An outraged gasp. "We are like ninety percent water, Richard, are we not? Are you saying we don't have feelings?"
"We're more like sixty to seventy percent water."
"Stop sinking my ships, Babs."
"What?" Tim croaked, blinking open his eyes to squint at bright sunlight and pinked faces.
"I'm trying to explain to Babs and Dick that water and oil are not in fact un-mixable but that they're enemies who haven't yet become lovers. One day-- Tim!"
Steph's eyes widened as she turned to really look at him, her face breaking out into a smile belied by the dark shadows across it. "You're awake!"
"I guess."
Tim frowned at the large, blank hospital room enclosing him. Steph sat perched on the arm of the grey-green couch, Cass cross-legged on the cushion below her, and Alfred beside her, eyes closed and head leaned back to rest against the wall, although now he was stirring. Barbara in her wheelchair was at an angle to them, facing towards Tim. Dick sat on the bed next to Tim, holding his hand. Bruce Tim half lay on, pressing close against the arm that wrapped around his shoulders. There was a leather jacket over the back of the empty chair which looked too big to belong to Dick, but Tim couldn't think of anyone who was missing.
"How are you feeling, Timmy?" Dick asked softly, giving his hand a gentle squeeze.
"Ow," was the best answer Tim could think of.
One side of Dick's mouth smiled. But not the other side. And not his eyes.
"Yeah," he said softly. "I can imagine."
Bruce made a soft sound and shifted. He lifted the hand not resting on Tim's shoulders to rub at his face, asking, "Tim?"
"He's awake," Babs said softly.
Her face looked more drawn and pensive than the others'. A strange sort of sad Tim didn't recognize. She offered him a smile as strange as Dick's.
"What do you remember?" she asked.
Tim stared at her blankly. What did she mean, 'what did he remember?' Tim remembered a lot of things. Like that she was allergic to shellfish and Dick would probably die if he ate peanuts but still begged for Tim's Halloween Reese's cups, and that Alfred made awesome crepes but terrible waffles, and that Jason's library card number was 2900834567 but Tim wasn't allowed to reserve anger management books for him because he'd probably end up dead in a gutter for it--
But... no... that couldn't be right. Because Tim remembered Jason yelling... remembered his voice cracking... He's a fucking teenager-- Yes, boo-hoo...
Tim's breath stuttered, and Dick's and Bruce's holds immediately tightened protectively.
That's what Babs meant.
"I remember tracking R-riddler," Tim whispered. "I... I stepped in a, a trap..." Searing, agonizing pain. "And then..." Ratcatcher. Riddler. The pit filling with water as they asked riddle after riddle... "Dro-drowning... And..." Who am I? "Ja-Jason..." Leather jacket on an empty chair. "Where's Jason?"
Tim opened his eyes and looked around wildly, searching for a broad frame, white hair, green eyes, he'd given up his name--
"Where is Jason!"
He grabbed Bruce's shirt, heart racing, hardly hearing the voices talking all over him, half panicked and half crooning.
"Did Riddler--"
"Jason is fine!"
Tim gulped in air, trying to follow the steady expand-contract rhythm of the chest under his hand, blinking to clear the spots from his vision. Bruce's face came into focus, open and worried.
"That's it, son," he murmured. "Keep breathing."
"Jason is fine," Dick repeated. "And Riddler..."
Tim glanced to him, stomach twisting at the uncertainty in his expression. He looked around at the others, all equally uncomfortable, and felt panic spike again at the thought they hadn't gotten him, he was still out there, he was going to come back--
"Edward Nygma is dead."
Tim gaped at Alfred, the one stolid face in the room, like the words that had just left his mouth weren't those of the most shocking relief Tim had ever been given.
"And Otis Flannegan suffered extreme head trauma during his capture, making it improbable to impossible that he will ever regain high-level brain function such as planning and memory. Neither you, nor Jason, nor anyone in our family or city, have anything to fear from them again."
A sob burst out. Tim didn't even understand why, but in a minute, he was wailing, turning to hide against Bruce's chest.
"It's alright, Tim," Bruce whispered. "You're safe. You're safe."
And then another pair of arms wrapped around him, another voice promised, "They're never gonna hurt you again, Timmy," and then Tim was completely encompassed in arms and faces and gentle kisses against his forehead and hair, half a dozen voices whispering you're safe's and i love you's, and it's gonna be alright's.
Tim wasn't sure whether to really believe them or not. He still remembered pulling back the blankets and seeing nothing. He still remembered pain and terror. But maybe they were right. Maybe... He was so tired, eyes stinging... Maybe when he woke up...
Tim was sick of the hospital. He wanted to leave.
It wasn't that the staff was unkind (they weren't) or the food was bad (though it was) or even that it was boring to the point of madness (because at least he had his laptop now).
It was that it was starting to feel like he'd be there the rest of his life. It was that his PT was focusing all on Tim's upper body, talking about wheelchairs. It was that his OT, who at least was talking about prosthetics, wouldn't answer when he asked how long it would take to run and jump again.
And it was that he missed his family. He understood they had to go back to their jobs and homes, but spending time with them - hospital staff far away - was the only way Tim could feel like he wasn't so broken the only thing left was to throw him away.
He didn't need two legs to watch animes with Cass and cackle over the fanfiction tags they were too scared to open. He didn't need to run or walk to help Steph with her homework as she ranted about all the gossip at college and they shook their heads over her pining classmates. He didn't need to stand to play video or board or card games with Dick, whose smile was almost as bright as ever. He didn't need to move at all to hear Alfred read aloud from Agatha Christie or Arthur Conan Doyle, or to melt in Bruce's arms and listen to him tell stories about all his travels.
Bruce was still around, of course, day and night, unless Alfred bullied him into going as far as the penthouse to shower and sleep on an actual bed for a few hours. Usually someone else was there, too. At the very least, Tim was never alone beyond the space it took someone to run to the cafeteria or library downstairs.
In all this week though, he still hadn't seen Jason.
He'd figured out that Jason must be the owner of the leather jacket he'd seen, but not where he had been all day, nor why he had come or left.
Well. Tim did have a guess.
I am Jason Todd.
Jason had said that for Tim. To save Tim, or try to. And even though Riddler was dead now and Ratcatcher would never remember or know what to do with Jason's name, it was a hell of a trade to give your identity -- quite possibly your life -- and rescue no more than a remainder of a person you didn't much like to begin with. It wasn't even a trade, really. It was more like a waste.
In twenty years of there being a Batman and eighteen years of there being a Robin, no villain had taken an identity by force. There were those that figured it out, or those who already knew, but never had there been a deliberate revelation based on violence. Not until Tim. And luckily the villains couldn't do anything with it now, and luckily it was Jason, who was the hardest out of anyone to trace back to the others, but still... That one sentence had put the entire family's lives at risk.
And it was all because Tim hadn't been even a little more careful, or a little bit stronger.
He couldn't even blame Jason for being too disgusted to look at him.
But still... it hurt.
The water was rising. Rising and rising fast. Tim struggled, trying to push himself up, crying at the burning in his leg, as the current shoved and made everything move, and then he tasted iron and looked down to see the lower half of his leg tear away--
"Tim. Tim. Tim, it's a bad dream, wake up, kid!"
Riddler was laughing, someone was shouting, Tim thought he might be screaming--
"Robin!"
He gasped, blinking at the dark, flailing around for--
"Bruce!"
"Bruce isn't here right now."
A deep voice, not entirely familiar, but gentle, calming.
"He stepped out, but he's coming back, ok, kid? Can you try to breathe slower?"
Tim's hand was pressed to someone's chest, and he tried to copy the way it contracted and expanded, feeling the tightness in his own chest ease, and the dizziness fade away. His leg still hurt, but it was no longer the blinding agony of being torn off; just the dull throb of a still-healing wound. He blinked, looking up from his hand to the person's face, seeing vaguely-glowing green eyes.
"Just a dream, Tim," Jason Todd murmured.
"Jason?" Tim said slowly, wondering if he wasn't still dreaming. "What are you doing here?"
Jason's face pinched. "I'll go get Bruce."
He let go of Tim's hand, pulling back, but Tim yelped, "Wait!" before he could leave. Jason turned back.
"I didn't mean-- I just--" Tim squeezed his eyes shut and opened them again. "Just... thank you. For, for what you did. I... I'm sorry I... I'm sorry."
"The fuck are you sorry for?" Jason asked slowly, brows pinched.
"You were... you could have been... You gave up your name. Because of me. I, I put you in dang--"
"God above, kid, no!" Jason shook his head, expression twisting further. "How do you even-- No. No, kid, Tim, I put you in--"
He swallowed hard, opening his mouth twice before whispering, "I thought I'd fuckin' killed you."
Tim blinked. "We are talking about..." He had to pause and run the math. "Last week, right? Because that was, that was R-riddler."
Jason shook his head. Suddenly instead of confused, he looked... frankly miserable.
"Riddler took you 'cause of me," he said, no longer meeting Tim's eyes. "It was never about you or Bruce, he-- I fucked up. I still... I have a guess how, but I don't know-- But he guessed who I was, or found it out. Everything he did was a big, fucked-up show to confirm it. He said it himself: 'It's a rhetorical question, we all already know.' I didn't realize until it was too late... Fuck, kid, I'm the one who's sorry."
Tim was quiet. He... He understood all the words and all the sentences separately, but what they meant as a whole...
"So you're not... mad at me?"
Jason laughed, but the sound was empty. "Not in the least."
Silence descended, tenuous and uncomfortable. Tim struggled to parse through everything Jason had said. He still didn't know... The jacket on the empty chair made sense if Jason were angry and dragged to visit by Bruce or Alfred, but not with... this.
"Why--" he started, as in the same breath Jason began, "Tim, I'm--"
They both cut off, glancing away. Tim tugged at the sheets, wishing for lint he could rip at just to have something to do.
"You go ahead," he muttered.
Jason sighed. Tim glanced up as he came closer, then gave the side of the bed a single pat when Jason hesitated. The bed creaked a bit as Jason sat down, so far on the edge he might well fall off with a good startle.
It almost seemed like he was trying not to crush a leg Tim no longer had.
"I'm sorry," he said quietly. "This is... This is my fault." He shook his head and swallowed hard. "After all the shit I gave Bruce about letting me die for his battles, you... I let you... get... hurt for mine."
"Jason," Tim started.
"I don't-- I'm so--"
"Don't say you're sorry," Tim snapped, "don't you fucking say sorry to me one more time."
Jason finally looked at him, eyes wide in confusion and wet with tears. He opened his mouth and closed it, and Tim felt an awful surge of too many feelings to name.
"I need you to stop using me like your, your own sick punishment," he said shakily. "And stop acting like I'm collateral damage in some big thing you've got going on over my head. Ok, I chose to be Robin, same as you, I knew what could happen, and I've fought just as many battles of my own! So this happened, and it sucks, and it hurts, and I don't know if I'm ever gonna make it on patrol again, but it could have happened if you were still dead and it could have happened if you were right next to me, so stop fucking saying it's your fault, because victim isn't the only fucking part of me that's left!"
The chair with the jacket was empty -- Jason was always absent -- for the same reason that Bruce had taken down all the pictures of Jason in the manor. He couldn't stand to look at Tim. And when Tim thought he was resentful, he understood, but there was no excuse for Jason to treat him like a corpse.
"I lost twenty-eight bones," he continued bluntly, and Jason flinched. "But that's only thirteen percent of my skeleton. And I lost eighteen muscles, but that's hardly three percent. You know what I didn't lose?"
Jason slowly shook his head. Tim raised his arms and waved his hands. "My hands. Arms, shoulders." He kicked his good leg and added, "One complete leg. Any major organs. My head. Brain function. My life. Yeah, everything is going to be different for me, and no, I don't know what it all looks like, and yes, I'm scared, but I'm not a write-off. I'm going to keep doing whatever the fuck I want to do, including being Robin. I just have to do it differently now. So don't feel sorry for me, and don't say I'm some horrible tragedy that's all your fault."
Jason kept staring, eyes a bit red. But he nodded.
"You're a brave kid, Tim," he said hoarsely.
Tim shrugged one shoulder. His face was a bit warm, and he didn't know if it was from the lingering anger or the compliment.
"Dick calls me stubborn."
A short laugh escaped Jason, but it wasn't as harsh as before. "He's one to fuckin' talk."
Tim raised his eyebrows, tilting his head. Jason managed to smile.
"Did no one tell you about the limeade incident?"
Tim's eyes widened. To this day, no one had said a word to indicate their was a limeade incident, except that everyone lunged to keep Dick from seeing anything green and citrus at the grocery store.
"Spill."