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Everything is faintly unreal, in the sense that the world is moving a little slower than Tim is used to, and his limbs aren’t cooperating. The latter doesn’t matter too much—he’s being dragged anyway, and he’s pretty sure the stabbing pains from his left ankle mean that it’s broken—but the former is turning his stomach and the last thing he needs to do is puke over himself.
The thugs are dragging him to—an abandoned warehouse, how delightful. Just once, Tim would like to be held hostage in a fancy hotel room, or maybe a luxury spa. A massage would do wonders for the jolts running through his muscles. They were a tad overenthusiastic with the taser.
Tim’s already pressed the panic button, but the taser was overloaded, and Tim can smell the smoke of overheated tech. It’s only confirmed by the ease with which the thugs stripped all his gear, no booby traps still working. Down a panic button, Tim’s hopes rest on him being able to escape—unlikely at the moment, his legs aren’t quite listening to him, and his arms are bound so tightly behind his back that Tim is worried about circulation—or someone finding him.
Also unlikely, given that Bruce is off-planet and Dick is in Bludhaven.
Looks like Tim’s taking a ‘wait-and-see’ approach then.
Unfortunately, this particular plan crashes and burns the moment the thugs drag him through the warehouse doors. The place is dimly lit, a single bulb illuminating a table with a solitary figure looming over it and—
“I thought I told you imbeciles that I didn’t want to see your faces again until you recovered my stolen merchandise,” the mechanized voice says, level.
The red helmet gleams in the light, and Tim can’t quite remember how to breathe.
This has just escalated several notches on his danger scale, bypassing ‘held hostage by a Rogue’ straight into ‘IMMEDIATE EXTRACTION’. The last time Tim was in the same space as the Red Hood, he walked—he crawled away beaten half to death. Hood has a vendetta against him, and he wants to make Tim hurt.
Tim is careful. Tim stuck to the opposite side of East End. Tim is not supposed to be anywhere near Crime Alley or the murderous drug lord that runs it.
“We—we don’t have the merch—”
Hood unholsters his gun without even looking in their direction. He’s studying a set of blueprints on the table with apparent intensity and Tim prays for the thugs to turn around and head out before Hood looks up and notices the netted bird that’s fallen into his grasp.
“But we have something better!” the thug speaks quickly, his voice rising.
Hood looks up. And his posture immediately shifts to something more prepared, straightening, glowing white lenses fixing on Tim.
“We—we’re very sorry about losing your merchandise,” Thug #2 says obsequiously, “And we thought—Robin’s the one who busted us—”
Lying. These men are lying, Tim hasn’t been anywhere near Crime Alley since Hood turned him black-and-blue, and he rarely ventures into Somerset either. Hood can have the entire island for all he cares.
“And you thought, what? You could ask real nicely and he’ll give it back?” Hood drawls.
Tim interrupted a fight, broke his ankle, and before he could move, they brought out the taser. They certainly didn’t ask him any questions.
“We thought he could square our debt,” Thug #3 says, more uncertain than his pals.
“Bringing me a bird is supposed to make up for ten grand in lost merch?”
“You hate Robin,” Thug #1 says, shaking Tim to emphasize his point. Tim, who’s remaining on his feet by the very dregs of his willpower, does not appreciate this. The world has started to go faintly soft at the edges, which is definitely not a good sign. He’s glad of the gag in his mouth, because he can’t think of any quips right now, can’t play the part of a good Robin while he’s aching and exhausted and terrified.
Hood still has a gun pointed in their direction. One twitch, and Tim will be screaming through the gag. Hood won’t kill him, he had ample opportunity in the Tower and stuck to outclassing Tim, knocking him down until he couldn’t get back up, and then continuing to kick him around until Tim blacked out.
“So we thought—you’d be happy?” Thug #3 ventures slowly.
Because Hood isn’t showing any visible sign of pleasure. Any visible sign of how goddamn overjoyed he must be to have Tim landing in his lap, already wrapped up.
Tim really thinks he’s going to be sick. No one’s looking for him. No one knows where he is. No one will even realize he’s missing for a couple of days. Hood can take his time, can do all the poisonous things he promised as he watched Tim try to crawl away from him.
“You’re giving me Robin,” Hood says flatly.
The thugs nod.
“As compensation for your mistakes,” Hood says—and there’s something in his tone that Tim knows to beware. The thugs shiver, clearly sensing it as well.
“He—it’s his fault we lost it, we swear—”
“Well then, it’s a good thing I like gifts.” The thugs exhale, visibly relieved. Tim tenses—there isn’t going to be a rescue, he knows this, but he can’t help himself from glancing up at the rafters in sight of a dark shadow.
There’s nothing there. Tim is on his own, injured and exhausted, with a man that despises him.
Hood leans against the table and crooks a finger, his intention clear. One of the thugs shoves Tim forward, and his ankle screams in warning as Tim stumbles forward a couple of steps. He manages to keep his feet, but he nearly bites through the inside of his cheek with the effort not to scream.
He stays where he is. One part is stubbornness—he refuses to do what Hood wants, and he’s certainly not walking straight to his torture—the other part is that Tim genuinely doesn’t think he’s capable of walking. It’s hard enough to stay on his feet, carefully balancing so that his weight isn’t on the broken ankle.
“Hmm,” Hood says, straightening up, “Not very obedient, is he?” There are some nervous chuckles behind Tim, and Hood raises a hand, presumably halting whatever they were about to do. Instead, he stalks forward, every step confident and sure, a predator slinking forward.
Tim, shivering in place, tries very hard not to flinch back as Hood approaches. His mind is stuck on ‘hurt this is going to hurt this is going to hurt’ and he tries to drag it back, tries to think of any way to get himself out of this situation, but his thoughts turn to static as Hood stops right in front of him.
“Obedience can be taught, though,” Hood muses, and Tim tries to glare, but the mask and the shuddering give him away. His muscles feel like limp jelly—the taser did its job well—and Tim wonders if Hood will stop when Tim passes out. If he’s planning to keep Tim, and the first thing Tim will see when he wakes up is that red helmet.
He remembers how much it hurt. That’s all he remembers, the pain aching and slicing as Hood brought his own bo staff down on his back, on quivering legs, on his outstretched arm, before finally breaking it in half like it was a toy.
The pain tearing through his heart in jagged lines as Tim was finally forced to accept that this was Jason, that Bruce was right, that Jason is Hood and Jason returned back from the dead and Jason wants to make them all pay.
Tim searches for any hint of a bright, grinning Robin in the dark armor and red helmet. He doesn’t find it.
“Kneel,” Hood orders.
Tim meets those white lenses, and stays still. He won’t—he’s Robin, he won’t kneel, not to Hood, he won’t be broken that easily.
“Boss,” a footstep creeps closer, but Hood holds up a hand.
“It’s not nearly as fun when they don’t do it themselves,” the distorted tone is malicious and cruel. “Kneel, Robin.” The helmet tilts to one side. “And maybe it won’t be as bad as last time.”
Tim has to fight to keep his breathing even. He—Hood isn’t—Tim can’t trust him, Hood could be lying through his teeth, could be being deliberately cruel, could be playing on a whim—the one thing Tim knows for a fact is that Hood hates him, and he isn’t sure whether the humiliation of his obedience is enough to satisfy him.
Tim remembers the sheer terror of those last few moments, being unable to move, unable to do anything but take it, wondering in panic if the blows would ever stop, if he was doomed to spend the rest of his existence in that purgatory—
Tim jerks his gaze downwards, a chill running down his spine.
It’s tricky trying to kneel with one broken ankle and his hands tied behind his back. Probably-cracked ribs scream as he forces his knee to bend, trying to keep his balance as he shakily lowers himself to the ground. By the time he’s done, he’s panting through the gag, breaths heavy and harsh, broken ankle doing more than twinging as he half-settles on his knees.
His whole face is prickling. He’s alarmed to register the wetness on his cheeks.
Please, Tim begs internally, please, please let this be enough for Hood. Tim would take the humiliation over the pain—humiliation won’t leave him unable to patrol for weeks, won’t leave him with visible reminders of his failure, won’t net him pitying glances from everyone around him.
“I knew you could be good,” Hood says, and Tim squeezes his eyes shut. There’s a hand in his hair, large and gloved, and it idly pets him. Like Tim is a dog.
Tim can only be slightly-hysterically thankful that it isn’t the hand with the gun.
“So—are we good?” one of the thugs asks. Probably eager to leave Hood with his gift. Tim considers the pros and cons of being tortured in front of an audience, and wishes they’d leave already.
Hood makes a considering noise. “You did bring me a present,” Hood says, still stroking Tim’s hair. Tim hates that he can’t stop the instinctive urge to relax into it, sinking forward as tears seep out from his closed eyes. “I wonder—is it enough to make up for your lies?”
“I—what lies—we didn’t—”
“Robin didn’t take your merch,” Hood says, “Robin doesn’t come anywhere near Crime Alley—negative reinforcement works wonders for keeping annoying birds out of your territory.”
Tim waits for the fingers in his hair to curl and twist and yank, and every moment they don’t, the trepidation crawls a little higher.
“Unfortunately, it seems like you’ve not learned your lesson nearly as well,” Hood says flatly.
The thugs protest, voices raising—gunshots. Six of them. Without pause.
Words die off into choked gurgles as Tim’s chest constricts. He listens to three men gasp out their last breaths, kneeling at Hood’s feet, utterly helpless.
Tim wonders if there’s a word beyond terror, because that’s where he is. It’s slightly floaty, and combined with the blurriness of the world, Tim is seriously wondering if he can just drift away.
Of course, that’s when Hood grabs his collar and hauls him upright. Tim flails to catch his balance, but Hood doesn’t seem interested in letting him, yanking him close enough that he can see his too-pale face reflected in red metal.
“I thought I made it explicitly fucking clear to stay the hell out of my territory, Replacement,” Hood snarls, shaking him enough to jar at the headache developing at the back of his head, “If I see you in Crime Alley again, I’ll break your face.”
Hood punctuates his statement by shoving Tim back, none-too-gently. Tim loses his balance, silently flails, and accidentally shifts onto the broken ankle.
By the time colors leech back into the world, Tim’s on the floor, arms throbbing from where they’re twisted beneath him, and the warehouse is silent. Hood’s gone.
Tim takes several precious seconds to gingerly lift up into a sitting position, and twist in a slow circle. No red helmet. The blueprints are no longer on the table. The light’s still on, but Tim can’t hear anyone.
Three bodies lay in pools of blood, and Tim looks away. Nothing can be done for them.
Hood is…actually gone. Tim spares half a thought to wondering if this is a trick, but either way, there’s no one in sight. His arms are still twisted behind him, and his broken ankle is shrieking with every breath, but he’s alone. He can get out. He can actually leave.
This plan runs into a major problem right out of the gate.
Tim can’t move his arms. They’re tied too tightly, and Tim is honestly worried about circulation now, it feels like his fingers are going numb. He also can’t move his left leg, and it takes several long moments to shift until his good leg is underneath him. He draws a deep breath, and rocks back onto his foot, clenching his calf and trying to lever up—
Exhausted and over-stressed muscles waver, and then give out entirely. Tim falls, directly onto his broken ankle. This time, he can’t strangle the scream.
He takes a few minutes to recover, panting against the warehouse floor, unwilling to even try lifting his head. His ankle throbs with the eerie synchrony of drum beats, sending pulses of pain through his leg with every heartbeat. He contemplates just staying here until someone finds him. The dead bodies aren’t going to hurt him, and surely someone will notice he’s missing eventually.
Right?
It’s at about the point when he hears the heavy, distinct tread of boots that he remembers just who is most likely to find him first.
“If I see you in Crime Alley again, I’ll break your face.”
Panic jolts through Tim like a drug, burning away pain and exhaustion. The footsteps are heading his way—shit, shit, Hood decided to let him go on a whim, Tim should’ve gotten the hell out before he changed his mind.
Tim tries to move. He tries. He can’t get up, his legs refuse to work, his arms are still tied behind him, and all he can do is kick at the ground with his good foot, sliding an inch at a time, swiveling to find some place to hide, please, please—
Steel-toed boots stop directly in his line of sight. Tim’s leg wavers, and stops. He squeezes his eyes shut, and goes limp. He doesn’t need to see the kick coming at his face.
Distantly, he wonders if it’ll just break his nose, or his cheekbones too. Wonders how hard Hood needs to hit to shatter the orbital bone and drive splinters into his eyes. Wonders if his face will ever be in one piece again.
The first thing Hood goes for is the gag. It’s ripped away, presumably so Hood can hear him scream. Tim swallows, moving his aching jaw—Hood isn’t going to listen to his pleading, he doesn’t care, he won’t—but Tim can still try.
“I—I’m trying to leave,” Tim says frantically. Hood’s crouching down, and Tim doesn’t know if it’s better or worse that the threat of the boots has moved away. “I am—I’m sorry—I’ll leave—”
“Shut up.”
Tim snaps his mouth closed. Stays silent as Hood grabs his shoulder and turns him over. Doesn’t make a sound when he feels the edge of a knife along his arm.
His arms jerk free in a sudden release of tension, and Tim—Tim doesn’t understand. What is Hood doing? Hood pulls him half-up, still holding his hands, and Tim watches as Hood trails his gloved fingers across Tim’s recently freed wrists.
He tenses when Hood grips his hand, thumb digging into his palm—if he jerks, if he twists, if he yanks—but Hood just digs his fingers in sharp bursts of pressure, pressing and releasing and pressing and releasing.
It hurts. Tim’s arms are flooded with pins and needles, his fingers are prickling like ants are crawling all over them, they’re visibly shaking where Hood has them stretched out, but it isn’t—it isn’t the torture Tim was expecting.
It’s a technique to restore blood circulation to his fingers. To help.
One part of him is still stuttering in confusion. The other part can’t help but wonder why exactly Hood wants to restore circulation to his fingers.
But Hood isn’t torturing him yet, and Tim screws up the remaining dregs of his courage and opens his mouth again.
“I’ll leave,” Tim says softly, “I swear—I was just—I was trying, I promise, I wasn’t trying to snoop or anything.” The blank red helmet betrays no emotion, but Hood digs a little harder on his next press. “I’m sorry, I a—am, I didn’t plan on—I didn’t want to come here—I swear, I’ll never come anywhere near Crime Alley, o—or East End, or the B—Bowery—”
“Shut up.”
It looks like whatever brief mercy Hood possessed is gone. Tim can barely breathe, his throat choked by terror, and he tries frantically to think of an escape, something, anything, if only he knows what Hood wants—aside from him broken into pieces—
“I knew you could be good.”
“I’ll do whatever you want,” Tim gets out in a rush, because Hood’s uncharacteristic merciful mood came only after he knelt. “I’ll—I’ll be obedient, I swear, I’ll listen, please don’t—”
Hood snarls, shifting up, and Tim instinctively jerks away, scrabbling at the ground to get away. His broken ankle hits the floor at an angle, and pain shreds through him like a lance.
He’s screaming—o—or sobbing, he can’t quite tell, it hurts, everything hurts, and Hood is just getting closer—“Please,” Tim begs, “I’ll be good, please don’t—Hood, please—” all he can register is the broad figure getting closer, the echo of phantom boots against his ribs, the crack of his own staff against his back, curling up against unending torment—“I’ll do whatever you want, please don’t—don’t hurt me, please, Hood, I can be good—”
“I’m not hurting you, you little shit—”
Not yet, Tim thinks hysterically, and tries harder, “I can—I can kneel—” he can’t, his ankle is screaming at him, but he tries to lever himself up, and he’s trying, but he can’t help but collapse off the broken ankle. He goes to push himself up again, and a gloved hand wraps around his wrist.
“Okay.” Tim doesn’t know if he’s imagined it. “Okay, Robin, I believe you.” The lenses of his mask are blurry with tears but he forces himself to look up—the red helmet gives nothing away, but Hood isn’t attacking him. Yet.
“I’ll do w—whatever you w—want,” Tim stutters out, his heart still racing, “Please don’t—”
“I said okay,” Hood snaps, and Tim almost moves to jerk his hands up, but stops himself. Obedient. He has to be obedient.
Hood is still for a long moment, then he crouches next to Tim. “Where are you injured?” he asks levelly.
Tim goes cold.
He debates not answering, but he doesn’t want to see how much worse it’ll be if he lies. “Left ankle,” Tim manages as clearly as he can through a choked-up throat, “Some—some cracked ribs.”
“That it?” Hood is already moving towards his ankle.
Tim strangles the sob that threatens to claw its way out, and blinks furiously. What does Hood constitute as an injury? His head is throbbing, his mouth is dry, his stomach is roiling, but those are all not injuries. Finally, he ventures, “They tased me a couple times.” He doesn’t know whether it’s what Hood wants to hear, but better safe than sorry.
Hood pokes at his ankle. Tim can’t quite bite back the whimper, and the helmet swivels towards him. Tim stills, a rabbit trapped in a fox’s gaze, and prays that Hood won’t twist his foot.
“Where’s B?” Hood asks.
The bottom drops out of Tim’s stomach. Any illusions Tim has about Hood letting him go after he has his fun shatter. Tim briefly fantasizes about lying, but doesn’t want to see the consequences. “Off-planet,” Tim says quietly.
Hood is still staring at him. “Agent A?” he asks.
Tim shakes his head—Alfred accompanied Bruce to sell the idea that it was an overseas trip. “Out of town.”
“Dickwing?”
Tim jerks his shoulders up in a sharp shrug. Dick is presumably in Bludhaven, but Tim doesn’t know for sure, and if he tells Hood that Dick’s there and he isn’t, Hood isn’t going to be very happy.
Hood sighs loudly.
“Please, I won’t—I’m not—I’ll be o—obedient, I swear—”
“I got that part, yes,” Hood growls, “Now would you shut up?”
Tim flinches back, but goes silent. Hood stays crouched near his ankle, unmoving. Tim watches him, tracking his hands. They haven’t moved towards a weapon yet, but it’s only a matter of time.
Hood mutters something too low to hear, the sound distorted by his helmet, but it sounds like ‘shit’. “Alright,” he says, straightening to his feet, “Field trip to the Cave.”
Tim stares at him. He can feel his fingers trembling. His heartbeat throbs incessantly in his ears, and he wishes that he didn’t hear that.
Not the Cave. Not the one place where Tim has always been safe—Hood’s ruined Titans Tower for him, he can’t take the Cave too—
“Please,” Tim stutters out, fear threatening to choke him, “Not th—”
“You said you’d be good,” Hood cuts him off. Tim nods shakily. “You’re going to stay quiet and listen. Do you think you can do that?”
Tim nods again.
“Fantastic.” The sound comes out distinctly displeased. “You think you can hang on a bike?”
Tim considers the question. He can feel his fingers again, even if everything is an exhausted mess of jitters, and Tim doesn’t want to tempt Hood’s rage. He nods.
“Great,” Hood says flatly, and moves closer. Tim tenses again, but does nothing to stop Hood from scooping him up.
The position puts him much too close to Hood—the armor presses against the side of his face, and Hood can feel every shiver, every tremble, every choked swallow as Tim tries to force down the tears. They leave the warehouse quickly, and Hood situates Tim on the front of his bike, and orders Tim to hold the handlebars. Hood doesn’t deliberately jostle of his broken leg, so the obedience is clearly working.
Tim has the half-hearted thought to get away—roll off the bike while it’s moving, crawl away before Hood can stop and follow him—but it’s squelched before it can fully form. Hood’s heavy weight against his back is an ever-present threat, and Tim holds the handlebars and watches dully as Gotham speeds by.
Hood’s codes have been removed from the Cave entranceway—a lesson they learned the hard way at Titans Tower—and they sit outside the entrance for a good five seconds before Tim reboots enough to realize that Hood’s waiting for him to open the Cave.
Tim presses the code in with shaking fingers.
Hood is just as gentle easing Tim off the bike. Tim swallows as he carries him through the Cave, but Hood’s headed for the medbay, and some part of Tim can’t help but relax when Hood puts him on a cot. He pulls off Tim’s boots—his left ankle is an angry pink and swollen.
“Okay,” Hood murmurs to himself, stripping off the gloves and removing his helmet. His eyes are startlingly green, and Tim watches as Hood washes his hands and goes hunting through the drawers. He returns with an assortment of items that he lays on the table—none of them look like torture devices.
Tim supposes that anything could be a torture device, if used creatively.
Hood holds up a syringe and a pill bottle. “Local anesthetic, for your ankle,” Hood raises the syringe. “Or general painkillers?”
Tim is—is Hood giving him a choice? Is this a test? Tim glances between the two items. He wants to take the painkillers, but he doesn’t want to imagine how Hood can twist the meaning of painkiller. And Hood probably wants him to take the anesthetic, so Tim can be awake for whatever he’s planned next.
“L—local.”
“Okay,” Hood says, and sticks the needle above his broken ankle. Tim waits for it to start burning, but instead everything goes pleasantly numb. Huh.
Tim still swallows as Hood maneuvers his broken ankle—he can’t feel anything, but he’s still expecting Hood to suddenly twist his grasp—maybe Hood will snap his foot off, and then let him come out of the anesthesia—
“Robin.” Tim snaps his gaze up to Hood’s face. “How about you lean back,” Hood says slowly, “Look at…that,” he points to a cupboard decorated with Justice League stickers. Tim numbly turns his head.
No looking then. No looking and no feeling—Hood could be doing anything to his ankle, and Tim won’t know.
He curls his hands against the cot and stares at the cabinet. It has two versions of Wonder Woman stickers, one Superman, one Green Arrow, and three Green Lanterns. The stickers are faintly chipped—Tim doesn’t know who stuck them on, they were there before he started visiting the Cave—and there’s a conspicuous lack of Batman. There’s a Nightwing at the edge of the cabinet, its edges ragged, like someone tried to peel it off.
Something tightens around his foot, pressure settling beyond the edge of the numbness, and Tim snaps his gaze back. Hood is hunched over his foot, doing something, there are thin metal rods next to him—
Hood looks up.
Tim meets green eyes, and something inside of him shrivels up. It’s a simple order. Don’t look. And Tim looked, and now Hood has a ready excuse to jump straight to the torture, and he’s still holding Tim’s broken ankle, and he’s getting up—
Tim only realizes he’s hyperventilating when the world goes blurry. Dark spots skitter across his vision, in tune to strangled gasps—he tries to force out words between them, apologies and pleas and I won’t do it again, I’m sorry, please, but they all come out half mangled and Tim can’t even twist away from the hands landing on his shoulders.
“Shh,” says a quiet voice, “Shh, Tim, calm down.”
“I’m s—sorry, I—I d—didn’t mean t—to—”
“It’s okay, Tim.”
No it isn’t. “P—please d—don’t—”
“I’m not mad. It’s okay. I—how about we try something different?”
Tim nods furiously—anything to make up for failing.
“Okay, how about you count backwards from one thousand. You think you can do that?”
Like Tim has a choice. “O—out loud?”
“Nope. In your head. Can you do that, kid?”
Tim nods again, shudders easing as he sucks in a breath. He can. He can do whatever Hood wants, as long as the man won’t hurt him. Tim manages to bring the sobs down to hiccups, and begins mentally counting.
One thousand.
Nine hundred and ninety-nine.
Nine hundred and ninety-eight.
The hands leave his shoulders.
Nine hundred and ninety-seven.
Nine hundred and ninety-six.
Something presses on his foot again, and this time, he doesn’t look. He keeps his eyes closed, and keeps counting.
Nine hundred and ninety-five.
Nine hundred and ninety-four.
Nine hundred and ninety-three.
Nine hundred and ninety-two.
Nine hundred and ninety-one.
Nine hundred and ninety.
He stutters a bit on the next number—the exhaustion is catching up, and the task of counting down isn’t helping him stay awake. The brief jolt of panic helps bring him back to alertness, and he continues.
Nine hundred and eighty-nine.
Nine hundred and eighty-eight.
When Tim reaches nine hundred and sixty-four, the footsteps come closer to his head. He wants to shift back to alertness, but everything in him protests, and he doesn’t tense at the hand cupping his face.
Something cold is brushed across his forehead, and below his eyes. Tim feels the mask slip off, and sweet, cool air rushes against his sticky eyes, pleasantly tingling. Something warm and soft is rubbed all over his face, wiping away the stickiness, and that’s even more pleasant.
Tim keeps counting as fingers unclasp his cape and undo his armor. He reaches nine hundred and fifty-three when an arm supports his back to reach underneath and tug the armor and cape free. He reaches nine hundred and thirty-nine when something warm is drawn over him.
He reaches nine hundred and thirty-two when gentle fingers drift through his hair, easing the tension out of his scalp. Tim leans into the movement. It feels so much nicer than when Hood did it.
Tim doesn’t know when he stops counting and falls asleep.
Dragging open his heavy eyelids takes effort, so much that Tim nearly gives up and goes back to sleep. Something is pinging at him though, something warning of danger even though Tim can feel the thin, firm mattress of the cots they have in the Cave. Tim blearily forces his eyes open, and twists his head to the side.
Dick is sitting on the chair next to the bed, balancing on two legs, feet crossed on the cot, looking at his phone. Tim must make some sound, because Dick snaps his gaze up, face brightening when he sees that Tim is awake. “Tim!” he smiles, leaning forward, “How’re you feeling, baby bird?”
Mainly tired, and sore, and—and the events of the past night slam into him like a freight train. There’s no red helmet in sight, and no sign of anyone else in the Cave as Tim twists around.
“Tim?”
“Hood,” Tim gasps out, because where did he go—Tim spares a panicked second to check that his foot is still in one piece and—and there’s a splint around it.
“Jason’s upstairs,” Dick answers easily, “He got affronted that I was planning to feed you cereal, so now we get a three-course breakfast.” He smiles a little conspiratorially, “I know Alfred’s left boxed meals for you, but don’t tell him.”
Tim stares at him blankly. The dissonance is so jarring he can’t compute it.
“Tim?” Dick’s face draws into worried lines, “You okay, kiddo?”
“When did you get here?” Tim whispers. Why did Dick come here. What is going on.
“Uhhh, like six hours ago?” Dick says, checking his phone, “Jason called me, said you’d gotten hurt.”
Jason—Hood called him?
“He was pretty worried about you,” Dick says gently, “Tried to deny it, of course, but he fluffed your pillow and tucked your blanket like twenty times.” Dick rolls his eyes, “He’s such a mother hen.” Dick pauses, and says abruptly, “Don’t tell him I said that—he’s going to burn my waffles.”
Tim isn’t worried about Ja—Hood burning waffles.
He looks down at himself, dread sinking deeper into his stomach. He—Jason—Hood is up to something, Tim knows it, he—he hurt Tim, and then he called Dick to cover it up, and pretended that he was helping, and—and now Tim’s going to have to face him and choke down whatever breakfast Hood—Jason—Hood has made and pretend like he can’t see Jason’s smirk.
His scan is first cursory, then more in depth. He isn’t missing any fingers or toes. His uniform has been half-removed, the cape and armor are gone, and Tim can feel wrappings below his shirt. There’s no soreness of a needle prick in his arms, or the patterned bruising of a bo staff, or any cuts.
He’s in one piece.
“Tim?”
Tim turns towards Dick, trembling, and whatever Dick sees on his face is enough to slide the smile off of it. Dick clambers onto the cot as Tim reaches for him, and Tim buries his head against his older brother’s shirt and shakes with silent sobs.
“Shh, baby bird, I’ve got you,” Dick says quietly, and Tim burrows further into his embrace, “You’re safe, I’m right here.” Tim shudders with every sob, and soon he can’t choke down the sounds, the relief tearing down all his walls. He’s alive. He hasn’t been tortured. He hasn’t been maimed.
Dick continues to hum reassurances, and then he suddenly goes tense. “Tim,” Dick asks quietly, “Did Jason hurt you?”
It should be a simple question to answer. Of course Jason hurt him, hurting Tim is what Jason enjoys the most, of course he took the opportunity provided by Tim practically falling into his lap—
But when he hunts down specifics, they vanish into thin air.
Jason—Jason made him kneel and he said—he did—he yelled at him and then—cut him loose, but that wasn’t—and Tim had to obey him and—and—
And he took Tim to the Cave, dressed his wounds, and called Dick.
“N—no,” Tim buries his head further against Dick’s shoulder, because it doesn’t make any sense. Hood hates him. He wants Tim to—he told him to be obedient—he—
He told Tim he wasn’t going to hurt him. And Tim didn’t believe him.
“Okay,” Dick says quietly—he drifts his fingers through Tim’s hair, but it doesn’t feel right, it’s missing something. “Are you hurting? Jason said you didn’t take painkillers.”
Tim is aching and sore, but that’s not that point.
It feels like there was a noose choking him, the failure to live up to the Robin he admired most, the disappointment and disapproval of his childhood hero, the suffocating pressure that Jason hates him—
And the noose has loosened.
“How about you eat something, and then you can take a couple pills, hmm?” Dick asks softly. Tim nods, and shakily disentangles himself from Dick. “You okay, baby bird?” Dick asks, watching him quietly.
Tim takes a deep breath and lets it out slowly. He feels like he can breathe again.
“I’m okay,” Tim says, drawing up a shaky smile.
And then Dick’s words actually register in his head.
Jason’s cooking breakfast? Jason is a mother hen? Jason’s making waffles?
Tim loves Alfred, but he hasn’t had a decent homemade waffle in years.