Work Text:
When Dick sees Tim, curled up in a corner of the dark room he’s been kept in, he almost goes back to find his captors and start hitting until he breaks bones. He doesn’t. He stays with Tim, and it’s the worst thing in the world, listening to him talk as if he believes Dick’s just a hallucination.
“Let’s get you out of here,” he mumbles, glancing up at Bruce.
His expression is stoic, betraying nothing. It’s frustrating, and Dick’s mood is already bad enough.
“You should probably tell Alfred to prep the medbay.”
If Bruce gives him a reply, Dick doesn’t hear it. Tim, limp in his arms, twitches. That’s his only warning before his body stiffens and he starts seizing. Dick panics.
Bruce is there by his side, hands on his shoulders and telling him to calm down. His attention is fully on Tim, and mostly on not dropping him. Bruce guides Dick back to the ground and helps roll him onto his side.
Dick fumbles with shaking hands to pull off one of his gloves and check the time.
Tim lets out a low moan of pain through his clenched jaw as his body jerks on the ground. Neither Dick nor Bruce speaks, but the air is thick with tension. Dick can tell from the tense shoulders and clenched jaw that Bruce is angry. Angrier than he’s been in a while. Dick’s far too scared for Tim-- who’s still flopping around on the ground, muscles locked up in a way that looks painful-- to really focus on his anger.
seconds pass, and it feels like an eternity. And it’s not stopping. Tim makes low, whining noises in the back of his throat, and each one feels like someone driving an ice pick in Dick’s heart. He locks eyes with Bruce very briefly.
Tim’s jerking slows after almost a full minute and then it stops fully. Dick stares for a few minutes, feeling strangely disconnected from everything. His body is on autopilot, checking to see if Tim’s still breathing, making sure his airway is clear. In the bright light, Tim’s face looks waxy, smeared in grime, his closed eyes sunken and looking bruised. He looks like a corpse.
“We need to move him,” Bruce says, snapping Dick back to reality. “We have to get him to the Cave.”
Dick hums and quickly gathers Tim up in his arms. He wants to get the hell out of here before he actually kills those assholes. Dick carries Tim out of that room and holds him just a little bit closer when they walk past the five unconscious bodies on the floor.
Alfred is wrapping some gauze around a bullet graze on Jason’s arm when the Batmobile roars into the Cave. the quiet chatter from the others stops the moment the car screeches to a stop. There’s a commotion and shouting before Dick appears, carrying Red Robin in his arms.
Jason stares at the kid while Alfred and Dick waste no time laying him down on one of the beds.
He looks terrible. His face is grimy and bruised, his uniform torn. What catches Jason’s eyes though is the ring of bright red burns around his neck.
“What the hell?” Jason looks up at Dick. “What the fuck happened?”
Dick’s face is white with barely-controlled fury. When Jason looks closer, he can see the way his hands shake, and the way there’s worry alongside the anger.
Dick presses his lips together and his eyes flicker back to Tim, who’s being checked over by Alfred while Bruce presumably gives him the rundown of what happened.
“Shock collar,” Dick finally bites out. “They didn’t let him sleep. He had a seizure.”
“He had a what?”
Steph’s voice makes Dick flinch, like he didn’t even know she was there. Jason’s eyes skim over Tim’s still form again. Alfred is carefully wrapping his neck while Bruce holds him up. Even Bruce’s composure seems to be cracking slightly, worried eyes locked on the kid in his arms.
Jason gets up and leaves the medbay. If he stays in there much longer, he’ll start to get himself worked up so much that he might actually go and put a couple of bullets in the assholes who did this.
And from the expression on Dick’s face, he thinks the man might actually join him if he does.
A few hours later find Jason sitting in a chair in the medbay, keeping a careful eye on Tim. To make sure he didn’t have another seizure. And to make sure someone else was in the room with him if he wakes up.
Jason’s been trying (and mostly failing) to read a book. It’s hard to focus with the kid shifting and mumbling in his sleep. Mostly incoherent words, though occasionally he’ll say Dick’s name, or even his. Sometimes it sounds like he’s calling out to them, and Jason doesn’t really want to try to imagine what the kid’s dreaming about.
At some point, it shifts to a nightmare, paired with thrashing and mumbled pleas, and ends with Tim startling awake.
“Morning,” Jason greets, sliding his bookmark in place and setting the book down.
Tim blinks, disoriented, and focuses glazed blue eyes on Jason.
“Mh, hi, Jason--” he mumbles.
Tim’s voice is hoarse and scratchy and he starts coughing, which makes his face twist up like the action hurts. With the way his throat looked earlier, it probably does. Jason uncaps the water bottle on the nightstand and helps Tim drink. His hands shake too much where they twist the bedsheets and he looks so unsteady that Jason's convinced he’ll spill the water all over himself before it even touches his lips.
Tim drains half the bottle before Jason hands him the bottle and goes to find Dick. He’s not all that surprised to find him slumped at the Batcomputer, asleep.
He flicks him on the forehead.
“Hey--” he flicks him again until Dick startles awake, blinking owlishly at Jason. “Morning sunshine. Kid’s awake.”
This makes Dick sit up straight, any trace of exhaustion gone. He almost stumbles into Jason in his haste to get to the medbay and to Tim, who’s sitting in bed and drinking water. He goes very still when he looks up and sees Dick.
“It’s good to see you awake.”
It’s like a weight’s been lifted from his shoulders. He offers Tim a tired smile.
Tim flinches when he touches his arm and it’s like someone burned Dick, with the way he jumps back.
“Sorry,” Tim mumbles, shoulders hunched and eyes dropping to his hands in his lap. “Just-- please don’t touch me.”
His voice is still quiet and hoarse and the kid’s eighteen already but he looks so small, curled up on the bed, white bandages wrapped around his neck. Dick’s face crumples and he quickly excuses himself.
Jason sighs and drops in the chair and kicks his feet up on the bed, pretending like Tim’s not observing him with careful eyes. Dick’s told Jason about how Tim had been convinced he’d been a hallucination when he was rescued. He probably still thinks he’s hallucinating all of this. It’s not a difficult conclusion to jump to.
Jason meets his eyes. “You look tired.”
Tim shrugs. “I don’t want to sleep.”
It’s his turn to shrug. “Fair enough. Want a book or something to keep you entertained?”
The kid seems to consider it, then says, “sure.”
“Perfect.”
He reaches for the book on the nightstand and drops the battered paperback in Tim’s lap.
“Discworld,” Jason replies before the kid can ask. “‘S a good series.”
Tim doesn’t reply. He keeps his eyes on Jason for a few moments before picking up the book and flipping to the front page. Jason believes the kid when he said he didn’t want to sleep, so doesn’t really bother with that. He still has to find Dickwing and make sure he’s okay.
Dick feels exhausted. He’s been sent to bed by both Alfred and Jason, and yet barely managed to get half an hour of sleep. He feels like he’s being consumed by guilt and worry. His body is exhausted and he has to rub the sleep out of his aching eyes every few minutes, but his mind buzzes. His mind conjures up terrifying “what if” scenarios where he arrives too late.
That’s how Dick found himself wandering back down to the Batcave and told Steph that he’s fine to take over for her.
She’d looked doubtful, but eventually let him, wandering away with a yawn. It’s been an eventful night for everyone.
Steph must’ve informed the others, because Jason came down to glare at Dick and tossed a book at him to keep him entertained.
It’s sitting on the nightstand on top of the Discworld novel he gave Tim, with a ripped receipt peeking through the pages. Dick’s barely touched it, too distracted to focus on the book. He read the first chapter but barely registered the words he was staring at.
Instead, he ended up curling up in the chair, legs pulled up to his chest and chin resting on his knees. He watches the steady rise and fall of Tim’s chest, trying to rid himself of the anxiety squeezing his heart. Anytime he’s not actively looking at Tim and making sure he’s alive and breathing, he feels his ribcage try to crush the air out of his lungs.
Dick is sitting here, keeping an eye on Tim to make sure he isn’t going to have another seizure. That’s how the night and the following morning have been going, just everyone taking turns sitting beside Tim to make sure he’s doing fine.
Dick’s hands still shake and he can still picture so painfully clearly Tim’s body convulsing on the ground. He reaches forward and cards gentle fingers through Tim’s hair, working through the knots there.
Tim’s not so pale anymore, his skin returning to its normal complexion, and with his face free of grime, he doesn’t look as dead as he used to. It’s a little comfort, but Dick clings to it. He doesn’t look dead, he’s not dead, he’s alive and breathing.
They found him alive. That’s all that matters.
They found him five days after he went missing.
Dick doesn’t really think he’ll be able to let go of that guilt for a while. For five days, Tim wasn’t allowed to sleep. There’s thick gauze wrapped around the electrical burns on his neck, and it’s proof of that.
He thinks back to Tim’s words. To the pure terror and quiet resignation in his eyes when he saw Dick, thinking he was a hallucination.
How many times did he hallucinate being rescued before they found him?
“You’re not real. Please. Stop.”
His throat constricts. Five days. At least two or three of those days were plagued with hallucinations and intense paranoia. Dick inhales, holds his breath and counts to three, then slowly exhales, then repeats the process.
He focuses on Tim, who’s sleeping, who’s in the Batcave, who’s finally safe. Everything else will come later. For now, all that matters is that Tim’s safe.