Chapter Text
The following days were better than Tim thought they would. His older self was a menace and pouted when Tim refused to call him other than ‘the older one’ or ‘magician’ and made the others follow his lead (the older one retaliated by insistently calling Tim ‘the middle child’).
The family was hopeful and slowly adjusting the house to the return of one of his own, and it was somehow both nice and worrisome at the same time — there was still a chance that even with the help of JL from Tim’s world something could go wrong with their brother and son.
Clark and Kon soon had to go back, but before they did, the magician talked to Superman for a while, and Clark was positively beaming as they departed, later sending an email to Bruce that made the man smile and pat the magician on the shoulder, so it looked like the older one made right on his promise to help with the invasion.
Various heroes established and confirmed that with the older Tim here it would be easier for Bruce from the other world to help change things back, since it would be a two for two switch - the older and middle Tim to little Tim and Bart of this world. So, it was just a matter of time for that side to solve things.
Yet Tim didn't plan on just waiting for a rescue like Rapunzel in her castle. He still searched the worlds, looking for his home through other people’s diaries and other magical documents, while holed in his room. He thought at the time that those tons of information on the other universes were still there, so at least Tim could continue cataloguing them properly, so even if he couldn’t find the coordinates of his own world, he would be still doing something useful.
And maybe that was a mistake.
Tim was not a violent person. He never had been, always preferring wit to violence. He understood Bruce number one rule about no killing, he agreed to that, this rule resonated with him on a deep level. He didn’t kill even his father’s murderer, even if it was a close call.
Yet now he really wanted to murder, and a lot of people, at that.
Browsing through worlds got boring after a certain point, with the worlds in the radius they were searching being more or less the same. That was until he discovered the existence of Talons and a world where little Dick Grayson got turned into undead tool, a weapon at the age of 8. He was 9 there now, scarred, scared and utterly hopeless.
In any universe, Dick is supposed to be open, kind. The man who wears his heart on his sleeve, loves teasing, cares fiercely for his loved ones, has compassion and faith even in the lost cases.
He is not supposed to be a hurting machine, shaped to hurt others, made to live in constant pain, in fear.
And he was so very, very small there, without anyone to help him. Every story he read from the kid’s diary that somehow ended on the magical paper made Tim want to scream.
The boy had half a mind to ignore his mission to come home and stabilise the universe and just run now and beg whatever magician he could find to rush to that world and save his brother.
Only it wasn't his brother.
His brother was somewhere else.
Tim let out a pathetic whimper.
He wanted to hug Dick. He really, really wanted to hug his Dick. He wanted to be home.
“You don’t look so good.”
Tim snapped his head at the voice. He didn’t even notice that someone entered his room.
His bananas older self gently closed the door, staying near it and not coming any closer, just observing Tim worryingly. With Alfred’s interference, he shed all the clothes that he came in, so now he always was in soft home clothes, aside from his old coat or other item with abnormal amount of pockets that he insisted on always wearing. He said that he needed all the little trinkets in those pockets if he were to switch world anytime with a chance to take to maintain with him.
Even under the clothes, thick bandages were easily noticeable on him if you knew where to look.
“I don't get why doesn't it heal. It should have been gone by now,” said the magician, noticing Tim’s gaze.
The wounds were still healing and that had made the magician somewhat thoughtful. Tim guessed this slow process might have signalled that the magician's immortality did cease to exist because of the consecutive dying he had taken. Might have. Or not.
Anyway, he did look different to Tim, being fully adult and all. So it helped the family to not see their son and brother in him as much as it was with Tim.
The magician and Tim still had matching turtlenecks, though. Just in case.
“Not in the mood to talk?” asked the adult.
“I’m fine,” automatically answered Tim, a well-crafted neutral expression on his face.
“Sure,” nodded the adult. “I just missed the rain that wetted your cheeks, my bad.”
Tim blinked and hurried to rub off the tears from his face. He could feel the mask he put on himself cracking.
His older self wasn’t saying anything, just waiting. And that did it, as sob tore itself from Tim’s chest. And then another. And another more.
“I can’t help him,” cried Tim.
“Whom?” asked calmly the magician.
“Dick. A child, broken, tortured and enslaved by the Court of Owls, his memories twisted and burned. He is so little,” choked Tim. “So little, so hurt and scared. And now, and now he stuck like that, forever. And I can’t do anything, I can’t help. I just have to live now, forever knowing that this version of my brother is somewhere there, in eternal suffering.”
Tim heard careful, telegraphed steps coming closer to him, giving him chance to protest if he wanted to. Tim didn’t, allowing long, bony arms to pull him to the hard chest. It was uncomfortable, but comforting. Tim wept, feeling sorry for the poor little child.
“He might get better”, said the magician quietly, and then carefully added when Tim didn’t respond. “My Dick did”.
Tim jerked away. “What?”
“My Dick was made a Talon, too. He got better. Though, he had to wear contacts for his whole life because of those golden eyes of his and his bloodwork occasionally was a mess,” the magician looked away from Tim. “But at least he wasn't always cold anymore, even if that might have helped him survive in the end when everybody died”.
The magician seemed to dive into a melancholic mood, eyes seeing something that no longer exists.
The middle one patted the elder’s knee, trying to wrench the man back from that dark place his mind went to. “There are some universes where time goes faster, you know?”
The magician only hummed at that, yet his gaze rested again at his younger self.
“And they have Damian,” continued Tim awkwardly. He swallowed heavily, saying weakly, “And he's nice. Like, really nice. Still an ass, though. But he cares.”
“He does care, bird boy,” said his adult self kindly. “He just doesn’t know how to show it yet. But he does already know what it is. He’ll get better, I can confidently promise you that.”
Tim nodded, before asking. “What are you doing here anyway?”
Magician’s face soured immediately.
“Hiding from Jason”, deadpanned his older self.
Tim snickered under the scorching look, but just couldn’t help himself.
The older Tim definitely long abandoned not only even basic self-care, but the whole 'sleep and eat are important' concept (turned out the man asking for food and rest as he did with his... remarkable coming was a thing he did only once or twice in the blue moon). The man would keep himself awake at all hours, wearing same dirty clothes he came in, not coming for dinners and hiding from anyone who tried to approach him on the subject, perpetually looking ill and haggard.
And Jason snapped.
It started with the man dramatically declaring "I can't take it anymore!" and dragging the 90th emo to the bath.
It turned out with older Tim's gruffer voice Jason was A-okay with applying severe caring measures to the skeleton-Tim, ignoring ‘stupid’ arguments (‘Why does it matter, I can’t die!’), pathetic curses (pathetic with Jason's Crime Alley upbringing), kicking and eventually screaming bloody murder. None of what older Tim tried worked, so the magician had no choice but to be fed, well-rested and nicely washed in fresh clothes, stuck with Mother-Hen Jason who, if needed, bodily dragged the hobo to bed, food and personal hygiene (it turned out older Tim no longer looking like a teen helped so much in the 'not triggering Jason' department that Jason sometimes even looked remarkably like Tim's non-guilt-trip version of his brother with the magician).
(although Tim was rather sure that if the guy really didn't like it, he would have done something more drastic than just pouting at overbearing Jason)
(why was he pouting in the first place was a whole together other mystery)
(though Tim heavily suspected the magician just wanted to be cared about but forgot how to take it like a normal person)
As about the care enforcer, Tim had a hunch Jason was returning back all the 'bullying' he had suffered from the hands of Dick and 15-year-old Tim.
“I will hide his ‘One Hundred Years of Solitude’,” grumbled older Tim.
“You should give up and just take care of yourself, otherwise he won't leave you alone, trust me,” told him the boy, giggling.
Older Tim groaned. “But it’s just a waste of time!”
“I know, right! But I wish you luck trying to explain that to Jason.”
Older Tim groaned more, before saying. “He’s baking waffles and soon will be here to kick you to dinner too, you know.”
Tim signed. “I guess we then better go down to save him the trouble.”
“I’d rather hide,” deadpanned older Tim.
“Don’t be like that. There are waffles! I wanted to try them all my life, and it’s Json cooking, and I love everything he cooks, so you should like it too, even if you haven’t tried his cooking in a while.”
“I haven’t tried anything in a while,” grumbled the magician, yet followed Tim outside. “And what if my tastes got all different from yours?”
“You don’t sound very convincing even to your own self, you do understand that?”
The older one pouted, but then flinched, clutching himself and falling on his knees in the manor’s corridor.
“Are you okay?!” fell near him Tim.
“Peachy,” spat the magician, through pain. “It feels, though, whatever your family did worked and I’m not eating the waffles after all. It looks like I’m coming home.”
A flash later, the magician disappeared. One blinding light later, the manor disappeared too.
Tim became aware rather sudden and his first coherent thought was that it was freezing, so much that he already could barely move. He raised his gaze from the rocks under his knees and so what looked like some makeshift bunker that for some reason was made out of wood and rocks, though.
It was agonizingly cold.
“Decidedly not fun,” said a dead voice near him.
Tim raised his gaze higher and saw his older self. The magician was calm, resigned even, but then he turned his head, saw Tim, and instantly paled. “Why are you here?! You shouldn’t be here!”
Tim could agree.
The magician caught the boy in his arms, taking off his coat and bundling the small trembling body in it. “Shit! Why are you in the wrong fucking universe!”
Tim couldn’t really answer even if he tried, since his everything was steadily cancelling on him.
“Don’t sleep! Don’t you dare fucking sleep! Where’s that fucking chalk?! Fuck!”
It hurt.
Something was torn over him and he heard frantic whispering in a language he couldn’t understand.
Tim felt so cold.