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Tim was a bird in a cage.
Literally.
He had been too slow. The magician had gotten a lucky shot in. Tim’s skin had been lit on fire before melting into black, iridescent feathers.
And while his body was morphing, shattering, and being put together again, changing in a way that felt wrong wrong wrong. The magician had grabbed his shrinking form and stuffed him into a cage to be his pretty bird.
Now, Tim was trapped. Both by a body that wasn’t his, and a metal cage with a lock made for human hands.
And now he was decorating a magic shop.
The bell over the front door rang and Tim lifted up his head.
It was the magician. He smiled as he laid eyes on Tim.
“Hello, Birdie, how are we today?”
This body couldn’t scowl properly, but Tim put as much venom as he possibly could into his bird eyes. His feathers puffed up and it felt so wrong on his body.
“You don’t look too happy. Do you have a reason not to be happy?”
Yes. Yes, he had a fucking reason to be unhappy.
He shuffled to turn his back to the magician. He couldn’t quite get his feet to work under him and he nearly fell off his perch.
The man behind him laughed as he watched Tim struggle with his bird body.
“Such a grumpy Robin,” he teased, and the words made Tim feel even smaller. “Though I guess ‘Red Robin’ isn’t the right title for you anymore.”
Tim wasn’t a robin. His feathers were black and white. His tail was too long.
A magpie.
The same kind of bird he had seen perched on traffic lights and picking through Gotham’s trash. Just a glorified crow.
“Oh don’t look so sad, you should be thanking me.”
For what? For stealing his humanity and stuffing him into a body he didn’t even know how to move?
Tim glared over his shoulder, trying to put as much venom as he could into it.
The man caught his eyes, and suddenly fury roared into them.
Tim only had a moment to be scared before the man lunged.
“I could have just dumped you in the middle of Gotham, you little shit.”
Hands grabbed the cage and shook Tim inside of it. He squawked, his heartbeat racing, as the entire world moved around him like it was an earthquake. He slipped from the perch and crashed to the floor, only to be rattled like he was the clapper of a bell.
“Is that what you want? To be dumped on a sidewalk? Where any stray dog or cat could snap you up and make you their dinner?”
He was still being shook. His world swirling around him and nausea rising in his throat.
The cage was terrible, but it was better than being made into dog food.
Tim shook his head, just praying that the magician would put the cage down.
He did, but then he opened the door.
“Come here, Birdie.”
Tim did not want to come. He did not dare to place this even more delicate body near the man.
But he knew he didn’t have a choice.
Slowly, he half hopped- half stumbled out of the open door.
For a second, he was sitting on the counter and he could taste freedom. The door to the Gotham street was right there and if Tim could fly to it…
If he could fly....
He hardly knew how to walk with bird feet let alone fly with unfamiliar wings. With his luck, he would just plummet and end up as a smear on the floor.
And even if he somehow got out that door… what would he do? The Manor might as well have been a country away when he was the size of a hardcover book.
“Try it, Robin,” the man whispered to him. “Please just try.”
There was a cruel edge to his words, one that sent a shiver down his spine.
He didn’t dare figure out what could happen if he tried.
“Ah, so someone’s content to stay a pretty little Birdie for me then?”
The man moved again and Tim flinched backed. No pain came, but something hard and metal wrapped around his ankle. When he cracked open his eyes, he saw that a small cuff had been placed around his leg and it connected to a chain leash the man held.
“Up on my shoulder, Birdie. I’m sure you’ll be a hit with the customers.”
He was.
And he hated it.
He didn’t blame the little kids for wanting to pet him, but he still hated it.
“Be a good pet,” the man murmured as he dipped Tim down so a toddler could pet through Tim’s feathers. The feeling of tiny fingers whispering down his body made his skin crawl.
The mother of the child began asking questions, but Tim tuned them out. He hated hearing the fake answers of how he was ‘bought’ and ‘trained’.
He wanted his hands, his voice and the ability to walk smoothly. He wanted to go back home and not sit somewhere to be gawked at.
The magician stood, smiling as he rang the customers up and said his good-byes.
When the store was empty, he looked back to Tim.
“You’re good at this, Robin,” he mused, swiping a hand down Tim’s head. “Dare I say that you’re getting accustomed to your new life? I was thinking of changing you back and wiping your memories, but...”
He lifted Tim on his hand and fixed him with a vicious smile.
“I think you’re enjoying yourself here.”
No. No. Please no.
“Do you love it? The petting? The treats? I admit that it does seem quite carefree.”
He would have cried if he could.
He was so frustrated, so scared all the time and so lonely.
No one talked to him. No had said his name in days. People looked at him like he was a dumb thing.
Tim croaked, and the sound was pitiful and ugly.
“I’ll have to think about that,” the man pondered as he put Tim back into his cage.
“Goodnight, little Birdie. See you in the morning.
It continued. Days and days of being a pet bird. Tim’s hope began to shatter that someone was coming for him.
Every day he stared at that door, just praying that one of his family members would come in.
Every day they didn’t.
Until one night, they did.
“Where is my baby brother, you sick fuck?” Jason’s voice roared around him, becoming his entire world. Tim tried to screech for him, to give him a sign, anything, but they were looking for a boy, not a bird.
The Magician laughed and the sound was oil over Tim’s feathers.
“Why he’s right here.”
His cage was being held up. Jason was looking right at him and…
“You think this is a fucking joke!”
Jason lunged, slamming into the magician and making the man toss Tim into the air.
Tim screeched as his cage was thrown and he rattled inside it. The world tipped around him. Metal bit into his body. Gravity sank its teeth in him and slammed him into the ground.
The bird part of him screamed about falling and not being able to fly.
The human part of him screamed about not having the correct limbs to help himself with.
Tim’s entire left wing was wrenched into an awkward angle and his muscles burned. He tried to right himself, but his cage was still rolling across the floor and forcing Tim to roll with it.
The magician laughed and the sound was gritty in Tim’s feathers. “Birdie finally learned to fly.”
“Fuck, sorry bird,” Jason said distractedly, as he lunged at the magician again. He didn’t even know that he had just punted Tim across the room.
“Enough of this,” the magician waved a hand and disappeared.
“I hate magic,” Jason muttered as both he and Dick whipped around to search the room.
Tim’s cage finally rolled to a stop and he could find his feet under him. He only had a moment to breathe before, his cage door was wrenched open and a hand grabbed his legs.
He screeched again, flapping his good wing as fingers wrapped around his feet and tugged him out. He was held, swung into the air, and dangled upside down over the floor.
His wing beat pathetically, trying desperately to right himself but unable to catch even a little bit of lift. His talons were his only weapons, and they were forced to curl by the man’s sweaty palm.
Both his brothers’ eyes were on him, but recognition wasn’t in either of their gazes.
“Do bats like birds?” the magician wondered, idly swinging Tim and making his world swirl in front of his eyes. His blood was rushing to his head and his pulse pounded in his ears.
“What?” Dick asked, his brows scrunching in confusion.
The magician grinned, and his grip tightened on Tim’s legs.
“I said, do bats like birds?”
Jason growled, his patience always thin. “What kind of question is that?”
“A simple one. Only a yes or no answer is required.”
“Just tell us where our brother is,” Jason snapped back.
“Answer my question, and maybe I’ll answer your’s.”
Jason’s muscles tensed like he was about to attack again and before he sprang forward, Nightwing put up an arm to stop him.
“Yes. We like birds,” Dick answered, his voice deceptively calm. “Now please just tell us where Red Robin is.”
The magician smiled and swung Tim harshly. He might as well have been shaking Tim like a toy. Tim’s brain felt like it was rattling in his skull. Black spots were filling his eyes. He could hardly think past the panic racing through him
“Here. Catch. He’s not very good at flying.”
Tim felt the grip tighten, the arm pulled him back, right before he was tossed through the air.
His body was weightless and completely helpless. Something told him to open his wings, but he didn’t know how and one wing shrieked when he tried to move it. And before he could figure it out, he was plummeting and the ground was rushing up to shatter his delicate bones and—
“No!”
A thump.
Hands catching him, saving him from becoming a broken heap on the floor.
He cried and the sound came out as pathetic little croaks.
“I got you,” it was Dick’s voice. “Shhh, it’s okay. I got you.”
The hands were drawing him close and into a black and blue patterned chest. Dick’s heart roared in Tim’s ears.
“He’s gone,” Jason growled from beyond them. “Fucker disappeared again.”
There was the stomp of his boots and then a heavy sigh. “I don’t think he’s going to be apparating next to us any time soon either.”
Dick’s hand cradled Tim’s tiny body and fingers smoothed the ruffled feathers on his neck and back.
“He can wait,” Dick said. “I think we have what we came for anyway.”
Tim could have cried. He wanted to cry.
Please don’t let this be a trick.
“Tim?” Tim’s own name was a blessing to hear. “Are you a literal baby bird?”
He warbled, rubbing his head on Dick’s thumb and nodding his head furiously.
Dick sighed and kept Tim tucked to his chest.
“We’re going to need to make a call to Zatanna. But,” Dick smiled, and Tim was never so happy to see it. “I’m just glad to have you back, Timmy.”
Tim couldn’t agree more.