Chapter Text
Tim’s spent an hour driving before he thinks he can pull off to the side of the road and call Dick without shattering back into a thousand little pieces. He grabs his phone like it’s a normal call, just saying hi, and his hands don’t even shake when he punches in Dick’s number. He’s fine. He’s fine. “Dick?”
“Hey, Tim. What’s up?” Dick sounds distracted. Tim hears the sound of something being poured into a bowl and wonders if he’s making dinner or something. Tim wasn’t paying attention to what time it was when he left.
Tim must be quieter for longer than he thought, because Dick stops whatever he’s doing and prompts him again. “Tim? Are you still there?”
Is he still there? Where is he? Tim suddenly realizes he wasn’t even paying attention to where he was driving. The Redbird’s navigation will tell him where he is from pretty much anywhere in the country, but that doesn’t help him with the hopeless lost feeling in his chest that sank in with the realization that he’s not sure he still has a home to judge his position by.
“Are you okay? Do you need help?”
“You’d tell me, right?” The wrong words fall out of his mouth, and Tim hates how tiny and vulnerable he sounds right now. “If there was something… wrong with me?”
“Tim.” Tim closes his eyes and imagines the way Dick probably looks right now from the way his voice sounds. Putting the bowl down if he hadn’t already, his gaze gentle but intent, confused, maybe a little worried. “Of course there’s nothing wrong with you, Jesus. Are you – did something happen?”
Someone laughs, and it takes Tim a second to realize the sound’s coming from his mouth. God. He thought he was… better, more together than this. “Yeah,” he says after a second. “Something happened.”
“Do you need me to – no, just tell me where you are, I’ll come pick you up.” It occurs to Tim that he probably sounds awful to Dick right now. Slow response times, disjointed communication. Like he’s in shock.
Is he in shock? Do people go into shock when they run away from home? Is that something he should have researched? His brain feels far away, but at least his mouth is still invested in this conversation. “I have the Redbird.”
“Are you okay to drive? You sound like you’re hurt. Are you hurt? Was there a fight?”
Tim must take too long to answer again, because Dick sounds like he’s on the edge of panicking. “Timmy, please. Tell me what’s happening. I can’t help you unless I know what’s going on, Babybird.”
“I’ll see you soon,” Tim says and hangs up because if he keeps talking to Dick, he’s going to do something he won’t be able to take back. Like start crying.
Tim climbs into the backseat of the Redbird and lies there until he feels like he can drive again.
When he gets to Dick’s apartment, Dick has the door thrown open practically before Tim finishes the first knock. He takes a firm hold of Tim’s shoulders and looks him over for a long moment before heaving out a sigh of relief when he doesn’t find any visible injuries. “Thank god. It’s been hours since you called me, Tim, where were you? I tried to talk to Bruce but Alfred said he was out of town and you hadn’t been around since a few days ago.”
“I’m not okay,” Tim blurts out before he can shove the words back down his throat with his usual mantra of everything’s fine I’m fine don’t worry about me.
Dick only freezes for a fraction of a second before he pulls Tim forward into a hug. It feels safe, and for some reason Tim thinks about how his three-year-old self would have been so thrilled to get the chance to see Dick again, be hugged by him. It would have been a dream come true.
Dick is maneuvering them through his apartment to the couch, where he sits them both down on the cushions. Tim waits passively, lets Dick fuss and arrange the two of them until there’s a blanket half-covering them both and Tim is tucked away safely in Dick’s hold again. “All right,” Dick says quietly. “Tell me what happened.”
“I left my dad.” It sounds ridiculous when he says it like that, like Tim broke up with his father. Maybe he kind of did. Wasn’t that what break-ups were about? Saying “sorry, this relationship just isn’t working for me anymore. Have a nice life”?
Dick’s fingers are carding through Tim’s hair soothingly. “Did you have a fight?”
“I. Sort of.” He’s doing that thing again, taking inappropriate amounts of time to respond, but at least Dick is right there this time and content to just be quiet and let Tim figure out his thoughts. “He was out on business for a couple days. And he forgot to tell me.” Dick’s fingers still for a second before resuming their gentle motions. “He left me a message yesterday to let me know where he was, and I just. I realized I was tired of it. Him telling me he was going to try harder to be my dad and then just… getting distracted. So I told him. I told him that he never actually wanted a kid, not a real one, and that I didn’t think I could keep trying to pretend anymore.”
“Tim,” Dick says, and it sounds like something deep and vital in him is breaking on Tim’s behalf – Dick’s always been generous with his heart like that.
“He said he loved me and was proud of me, and I pretty much said – “ Tim feels an ugly little twist in his chest. “Too little, too late.” Before Dick can react, Tim’s shifting so he can look at Dick, ask him a question and see his eyes. “Dick. You have to tell me the truth. Is there something wrong with me?”
He can see in Dick’s face that he’s just going to repeat the same answer he gave Tim earlier, so Tim covers his mouth with a hand. “Don’t. Not until I’m done.” He worries his bottom lip while he tries to think of the right words. “People… people don’t like me. Or they do, but it’s not enough to make them want to stay. Or. Or maybe they just decide they don’t anymore. I acted like it was my dad’s fault, but what if it’s mine? What if, what if there’s just something broken in me? I couldn’t get my parents to pay attention to me, Dick. My parents. If they figured it out from the beginning, then… what chance did I ever have with anyone else?”
It feels like Tim just blinks and Dick’s twisted the two of them around, gotten his hands on Tim’s face and is tilting his head up so Tim can’t not look Dick in the eyes unless he shuts his own. “Tim, you. You.” Dick rests his forehead against Tim’s for a few beats before pulling back to look at him again. “You are perfect. Okay? You are an amazing kid and a concerningly good stalker and pretty much the best Robin we could ever ask for. You figured out Batman’s identity when you were nine. You’re incredibly bright and way better at being a detective that I probably ever will be, and you take brilliant pictures that you should really pay more attention to because the Timothy Drake Photo Exhibit is pretty bare right now and the fans are getting restless.”
Tim opens his mouth to say something, point out the counter-arguments to Dick’s claims, but Dick won’t let him.
“Look, I don’t want to insult Jack because he’s your dad, but. If he sees any of this and isn’t constantly thanking some kind of deity for getting to have you, then he’s an idiot. Just. God. There is nothing wrong with you.”
Tim bites his lower lip while he thinks over Dick’s words carefully. He has to ask this, even if he’s not sure he wants to know the answer. “If I wasn’t… if I quit being Robin tomorrow, or, or – if I wasn’t Robin in the first place… would you? Have liked me?”
“Tim,” Dick says again, like he’s trying to stuff seventeen different kinds of meanings into that one word. “I did meet you before either of us was Robin, remember? I did a quadruple somersault for you. Do you think I would have done that if I didn’t like you?”
Tim manages to hold himself together for almost half a minute before he just… crumples, all the frustration and confusion and hurt he feels coalescing into these first few breathless sobs. Dick just holds him close again while Tim cries himself out, finally gives himself permission to feel all the times he felt lost or alone or abandoned by the people who were supposed to love him more than anything else in the world.
By the time his tears dry up, he’s exhausted. Dick re-arranges them so Tim’s lying on the couch with his head in Dick’s lap and starts petting Tim’s hair again. Tim can’t keep his eyes open, but Dick must not mind because he feels the soft brush of dry lips against his forehead and hears Dick’s voice saying, gently, “Sleep, little brother. It’s going to be okay.”