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Tim was having a bad day.
No, scratch that… Tim was having a bad week; a bad month; a bad fucking year – who cares! It just wasn’t good.
The tabloids were having a field day at the moment at his expense – photos of him tripping out of a limousine and face planting onto the steps of a charity ball were circling, along with photos and rumours spiralling about who the tall dark gentleman was who swooped in out of seemingly nowhere to help a red-faced Tim up.
For the record; it had been Jason.
If that was not bad enough; Tim had fallen asleep in a WE meeting yesterday! Twice! Not even an espresso delivered by a companionate looking personal aid from finance had managed to wake Tim up.
On top of that there was non-stop activity in Gotham for the Bats to deal with every night of the damned week. None of this seemed to affect the others!
Tim was getting bare minimum of sleep on the good nights let alone the bad ones! His caffeine habit was beginning to get out of hand, and Tim could not recall the last time he actually sat down and ate a meal. How could Bruce, Dick, Jason and Damian do this? And it never seemed to affect any of them at all!
To top off his bad bloody week – he had slipped up on a rooftop last night, giving away their positions and Bruce had shouted at him for twenty minutes straight when they got back to the cave. It was that bad that even Damian had looked sorry for Tim, and that could not possibly be right! Damian hated him! But Damian had winced when Bruce shouted something about being glad that Tim was no longer working alongside him permanently if he had let himself go this much, Tim had just stood there and bore the abuse until of all people; Damian had stepped between Bruce and Tim, effectively stopping his father’s tirade. Not even paying attention to what Damian said, Tim had just turned and left the cave… and he did not bother telling anyone that he had a microsleep on the way back to his apartment and crashed his motorbike.
For all he cared, Tim could have stayed in bed today, not that he had managed a wink of sleep but his phone went off at barely 6am. Not even having enough energy to groan Tim just rolled out of bed and ignored the pull of pain in his chest, pulled on a respectable suit so he could go directly from the manor to WE and left home like a zombie.
“Master Drake,” Alfred nodded as he opened the door for the second youngest Wayne child. Tim managed a wane smile for the butler and headed towards the lounge room where he could hear Dick’s laughter and Jason’s deeper tones as they spoke, sounding far too awake to be normal. Too tired to even heave a sigh or prepare himself for social interactions Tim walked into the lounge room.
“About bloody time Replacement, I was beginning to think you wouldn’t show,” Jason called from where he was leaning against the back of the lounge, Dick still chortling where he sat on said lounge and Damian was perched on the window sill, expression unreadable.
Nope. That was it. That was the last straw.
Tim could not hold it back. He loosed a single, strangled sob, tears clouding his vision. His brother’s all reacted in a bizarrely similar way; Dick looked stricken and was already half way to standing, Damian’s brow was actually furrowed in concern and he had managed to almost cross the lounge room and Jason had stood up straight, his expression pinched as he raked his eyes over Tim. Before even Damian could reach him, Tim turned his back on them and marched straight back out of the lounge room and smacked into Bruce blindly.
“Tim after our discussion last night I would have thought you could at least walk down a hallway without tripping into someone!” Bruce snapped and Tim looked up at his father figure in anguish, Bruce’s expression softened and he tried to grab hold of his second youngest but Tim slipped his hold easily and marched the rest of the way down the hallway, letting himself out with a gasped apology to Alfred who had been hurrying to get the door for him. Tim slammed it behind him on purpose and gritted his teeth against the pain, wrapping one arm around his ribs as if that could hold them in place and got onto his motorbike, tearing off down the front drive at break neck pace.
Tim had no idea what he was going to do. He had no idea where he was going. Usually he could ignore the way Jason spat that name at him like he was a disgrace but today was different, today everything hurt and he was so tired he could barely think. For God’s sake Jason still called him Replacement when he was not even Robin anymore, that mantle had been swiftly handed to Bruce’s ‘real’ son. At least Jason had died… Tim had been standing right there, alive and well… still useful, or so he had thought and he had still been thrown aside. Despite that Tim had loved Damian like a little brother from day one, and the little shit had been nothing but horrible and acidic towards him; Damian obviously loved Dick, he had a disgruntled respect for Jason but he hated Tim. The one person who had smiled when Damian turned up, the one person who took every verbal and physical jab and still came back without an ill word… for God’s sake Tim had taken a bullet for that little shit last week!
“You never belonged there anyway Drake,” he told himself, sucking in a huge, shaky breath as he pulled up at his apartment, he could not even remember how he had gotten here – or how many laws he had broken along the way. Tim left the bike and went up to his apartment, all he wanted to do was fucking sleep but he knew if he stayed here they would find him, and yell at him again so Tim did the only other thing he could think of; he started packing.
“Hey! The hell do you think you’re doing?” Jason demanded from behind him and Tim did not even have it in him to jump even though he had not heard his brother come in. Tim did not reply, just tossed another armful of clothes haphazardly into his travel case on his bed, still sobbing ugly sobs. Jason intercepted him the next time he dumped an armful into the already over flowing bag, grabbing Tim by both of his arms and giving him a very gentle shake, “Hey! Just stop!”
“Why?!” Tim all but screamed, throwing his whole body into escaping Jason’s grip but his older brother just held on, grip firm but careful not to hurt Tim as he thrashed and sobbed and screamed at Jason. The anti-hero just held on and watched the teenager throw a full blown tantrum and calmly let Tim rage on.
“You done now?” Jason asked when Tim drew breath, “Hey, you okay?”
“Why do you hate me?” Tim asked finally and he sounded so done with the world and exhausted that Jason frowned at the question and pulled Tim in for a rare hug but it seemed like the teenager could really use one.
“Why do you think I hate you?” Jason asked instead of answering.
“Replacement,” was all Tim bothered to answer with.
“You think I hate you because of some stupid nick name?” Jason chuckled and Tim punched him in the guts hard enough for Jason to grunt and pull away a little before hugging Tim tighter and smoothing one hand down the back of the teenager’s head to soothe him, “I call the other two Dickie or Golden Boy, and Demon Spawn. I call you Replacement. It doesn’t mean I hate any of you.”
“You call me Replacement,” Tim emphasised, “I didn’t want to replace you. Bruce didn’t want me to either. Why did I even bother when no one wants me…”
“Hey! Don’t talk like that!” Jason ordered, squeezing his little brother just a bit too tight to get him to stop talking. “I won’t call you that anymore okay? I won’t call you that ever, ever again. I promise. I swear I won’t. And for the record, I do not hate you little brother, I love you very, very much… more than you know.”
“You’re a liar…” Tim whispered and then winced, battering Jason’s hand away from his side with a sense of urgency that Jason allowed the slap without comment.
“There are only five people on this God forsaken planet that I love, little brother, and you’re one of them. I would never lie about that,” Jason murmured and changed his grip on Tim, carefully lifting his little brother off his feet and setting him down on the edge of the bed. “Now tell me what the hell is going on with you?”
“I am so tired,” Tim finally admitted out loud, sobbing again and turning his blood shot eyes on Jason, “Everything h-hurts… please make it stop?”
“You’re alright baby bird,” Jason nodded calmly and started to look the teenager over more critically – it was obvious that Tim needed sleep, but sleep deprivation would not equate to physical pain. Tim just sat there and continued to cry brokenly even as Jason eased him out of his suit jacket and then slipped his tie off, pulling the silk from Tim’s neck gently. “What’s this?” Jason asked, his concern increasing at what looked like a blood stain spreading across Tim’s side, leaking through his button down shirt. Tim was in no position to reply so Jason quickly divested his little brother of his shirt and gaped at the damage! He had road rash up his right side which was sluggishly bleeding and huge ugly bruises banding around his ribs and up across his pale chest. Jason steeled his resolve and gently lay his still gloved hand on Tim’s side, noticing for the first time how huge his hand looked against his younger brother’s rib cage – Tim really was too small and far too thin.
“Timmy?” Jason murmured upon deciding that while the damage was extensive, Tim did not in fact have any broken ribs. His baby brother looked up at him wearily, tears still trailing down his face, “How did this happen?” he asked, pointing to the road rash.
“Micro-sleep coming back here last night,” Tim replied, tone void of any emotion.
“Jesus Baby-bird,” Jason whispered then squatted down in front of Tim so that the teenager could not look away from him, “Why didn’t you phone one of us?”
“You all think I’m useless enough already,” the boy shrugged, not making eye contact with Jason, staring listlessly down at the floor. Jason felt like punching the wall to see how hard it really was but took a deep breath instead.
“No one thinks your useless.”
“Tell that to Bruce,” Tim scoffed quietly.
“Bruce doesn’t think you’re useless Baby Bird, he’s just scared and when he’s scared it comes out as anger or frustration,” Jason explained gently and Tim nodded because objectively he already knew that but it did not make it hurt any less. “Now, lay down, and go to sleep.”
Tim sighed and lay down without argument, hugging a pillow to his chest and watching listlessly as Jason unpacked, folded and put away all the clothes he had thrown at his suitcase before slipping the luggage back under the bed. Jason continued straightening up and Tim eventually fell asleep watching his older brother alphabetise the bookcase in the corner of his bedroom.
Objectively he knew he would feel no better when he woke up but it was kind of nice to know at least one of them had taken him seriously enough to follow him home. What Tim would not find out until hours later when he woke up was that Dick and Damian had also followed him and were sitting in his living room bickering over who could sneak up on Cass (word to the wise; neither of them would be able to).