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“Damn you,” Tim huffs, his voice thick and catching in his throat as he counts.
Thirteen
Fourteen
Fifteen
“You’re such a fucking asshole,” he nearly whimpers, his back and shoulders absolutely aching as he continues his frantic movements.
Twenty-five
Twenty-Six
Twenty-Seven
His wrists jar at the cracking under them but he doesn’t let up, too breathless to continue berating, his pants echoing in his ears.
Twenty-Nine
Thirty
Breathe
Tim tips Jason’s head back, pinches his nose and gives two rescue breaths that stutter and gurgle around the blood in his brother’s lungs. He pauses for ten agonizing seconds, ear to Jason’s mouth and shaking fingers digging into his still carotid, but both are silent and he lets out a wordless sob as he takes up compressions again.
“You bastard,” Tim says through hitching, painful pants as he pumps Jason’s dead heart - forcing it to beat. “You don’t get to do this a second time! You don’t get to fuck off and die and leave the rest of us… leave us…” He screams wordlessly, silently.
Twenty-Eight
Twenty-Nine
Thirty
Jason’s mouth tastes like copper from the blood and nicotine from the cigarettes he only chain smokes when he’s stressed and Tim can feel the gore that’s caked on his own face from breathing for him - can see it mirrored on Jason’s.
He waits ten seconds. He listens. He feels.
Jason’s chest is still.
Nearly blinded by grief and anger, Tim hits Jason’s chest in what he knows doctor’s would call a ‘Cardiac Thump’ but he means to hurt. He means to irritate. To force Jason awake with Tim’s own anger.
It, predictably, does nothing and Tim starts another round of compressions. How many is this now? How long ago did he press his and Jason’s beacons? How long has it been since Tim dragged Jason away from the pile of unconscious bodies he had brutalized with extreme efficiency? How long has it been since Jason took the bullet for him? Armor piercing and tearing through Kevlar like it was paper and sending Jason to his knees.
“It’s okay Timberly,” he had coughed around a mouthful of frothy blood, hand clamped loosely to the hole in his own chest. “It’s fine.”
“It’s not fine,” Tim sobs, arms numb and sweat dripping from his brow. His legs are completely numb under him. Jason doesn't respond, his body jerking with each perfectly measured compression of Tim’s overlapped hands. “It’s not fine you fucking idiot. Bruce can’t lose you again! Dick can’t… I can’t…”
Two breaths. Ten seconds. Listen. Feel.
Nothing.
Elsewhere in the warehouse Tim can hear doors being kicked open and shouting voices. It’s not Bruce or Dick or Damian though, it’s not anyone Tim recognizes. His own lungs clench in his chest but he doesn’t stop, he doesn’t slow down. He keeps up a perfect one-hundred and twenty beats per minute as he forces Jason’s dead heart to beat, breathing for him twice and going directly back to compressions.
Time is of the essence - he can’t wait ten seconds for Jason’s body to get the memo and get back on board with life.
The door to the storage room he drug Jason into is forced open and the men there pause in the doorway. Tim doesn't pay them any attention - he still has ten more compression. Two breaths. Start over.
“A little bird on his own,” one of them gloats. “And a dead Red Hood! Our lucky day boys!”
There are laughs and cheers from the door and Tim can hear them coming for him but he can’t stop. He can’t give up on Jason, he won’t do it! He removes one of his hands to activate the AED in Jason’s armor - they all have one, Bruce doesn’t like close calls - and gives two more breaths, starts compressions again but faster.
The AED can’t work unless there’s a heartbeat. It isn’t like the shows on TV. Tim has to get Jason’s heart beating, has to make sure he’s alive before he turns away from him -
Someone grabs him around the chest, forcing his arms tight to his body and Tim fights to continue the compressions, to break free, but they pull him back. Away from Jason and Tim screams in frustration, kicking and squirming and punching and biting anything in reach. The arms holding him curse when he gets a good bite of their bicep and he drops back to the floor and tries to crawl back to Jason - Jason who is sheet white and so so still and dead dead dead .
“Get off me!” Tim grunts, fighting as more people grab him. He slings his head back and breaks the nose of one, catches another in the instep and sends him to his knees where Tim viciously stomps on his crotch, elbows one so harshly in the abdomen he can feel ribs break.
Broken like Jason’s.
One of them gets in a lucky shot to his temple with some brass knuckles and Tim stumbles, dizzy but still upright, and, as he tries to get his wits about him, another sticks him in the neck with a needle and depresses a syringe of something painfully into the muscle there.
They stop fighting him after that and let him stumble over to Jason. Let him give four breaths this time (how long has Jason been without oxygen? He knows the stats about brain damage and hypoxia and he can’t let that happen) and start compressions again. He can’t depress Jason’s chest the full two inches he needs to though - his arms are like noodles - and his previously perfect pace is faltering, slowing down with Tim’s swimming vision.
When he tips to the side they catch him by the shoulders and pull him up and away from Jason. “No,” Tim mutters, voice slurred and muscles limp and loose and non responsive.
The worst thing they do is drag him out backwards so he can watch Jason’s frozen body as his vision tunnels and fades to black.
Tim wakes an indeterminate amount of time later cold and achy and tied to a chair in some goons creepy lair. For a moment he’s annoyed - he and Dick and Jason had a bet on who would end up kidnapped the next time and he had put his money on Dick since Nightwing actually seemed to sadistically enjoy being caught just so he could slip his restraints and rib his captors. Tim’s plans were normally too well put together to get him caught and Jason was an absolute tank; catching him would be like trying to catch and keep Bruce -
Sharp awareness floods back into his body all at once and Tim feels his throat close in fear and absolute grief , his breath catching and stangnating in his lungs.
Jason is dead. Tim has gotten captured and now Jason is dead because of him. Tim has killed Robin a second time.
Taking a deep but shaky breath through his nose, Tim halts that train of thought. He can’t think about anything but escaping for now - not revenge (even though he can feel resentment bubbling deep in his gut) and not the despair that is threatening to completely overrun his every thought. He is good at compartmentalizing and focusing on the task in front of him. He can do this. He can make a list.
Okay. A list. First things first - check his surroundings.
The room he’s in is dark - predictable - and small. Just him in a sturdy wooden chain in the middle of the room. Some disintegrating cardboard boxes in the corner. A single flickering light bulb. No cameras that he can see and he’s pretty damn good at spotting them. Pretty typical and nothing he hasn’t dealt with before.
Second thing - physical condition.
Tim closes his eyes to try to take stock. His head is pounding from whatever he had been drugged with or stress or both but it wasn’t unmanageable. He aches all over but specifically in his shoulders and chest and he forces himself not to think about why. He still feels dizzy and woozy from the drugs but he could push through that. His hands are cuffed behind him and he rotates them easily in the metal cuffs.
A quick glance down reveals that he still has his bow staff on his leg which means the idiots haven’t bothered to relieve him of his effects. He could slip the cuffs and either sneak or fight his way out. He’s worked with worse odds before and much tighter cuffs.
He could go back to the warehouse where he had left Jason.
Mind makes up, Tim takes a couple deep breaths to center himself and twists his head to the side to grab a mouthful of his cape and then, quickly and deftly, dislocates his right thumb.
The pain is a burning agony and he grinds his teeth into the thick material of the cape and let’s it come over him in waves for a few moments. It dies down enough within a minute for him to start scraping his hand back through the cuff, rotating the hand back and forth until he can work it over the flat joint of his knuckle and then down past the tips of his fingers.
Hands free, Tim gives himself thirty seconds the breathe. He feels a little dizzy from the adrenaline flooding his system and he goes through another breathing exercise to calm his heart rate back down into a more manageable level. He’s taking too long - he needs to be out of the room within the next couple minutes.
Gritting his teeth, Tim reduces the dislocation in his thumb and starts picking the left side of the cuff with his lock pick until it, too, unlocks with a click. He sets them on the floor and stands, gripping his bow staff in his good hand and creeping to the door. It’s unlocked of course and he opens it just enough to see out and down the hallway. It appears to be empty, which is a stroke of luck he hadn’t expected. Even better is the window almost directly across the hall from him.
Tim slips silently out of the room, closing the door behind him and inspecting the window. It’s old and plastic sheeting coated with duct tape covers it in a few places where the glass panes have been broken and knocked out. It has a lock but it’s broken and rusted with age. Holding his breath, Tim tries pushing it up and, miracle of miracles, it does open.
It opens with the most unholy screech that sets his teeth on edge but it does open.
“Guess we’re doing it live,” he mutters a little hysterically as he hears bumping and yelling downstairs and he puts all his strength into pushing the window up completely. It holds it’s ground for a three count but it finally gives and slams completely open. The musty, burnt smog of Gotham coats Tim’s tongue and he smiles as he fires his grapple to the building across the street, leaping out of the window to the cacophony of feet pounding stairs.
He’s as good as home free - there are very few people who can get their hands on a Bat once they’ve escaped to the roof tops. Tim grew up clambering up buildings and jumping from roof to roof - his mental map of Gotham is near perfect and this city is in the very marrow of his bones. The shouting behind him and bullets pinging off the brick of the building under him bring a feral smile to his face. What he wouldn’t give to go back and get rid of some of the aggression boiling his blood.
But he can’t. He tags the building in his head and keeps running, a little unsteady now that his fight or flight response is dying down and he’s starting to feel the physical and emotional consequences of the evening. His eyes burn behind his domino but the tears don’t fall. He’ll have time for that later, for now he needs to get back to the warehouse he was investigating in the Bowery with Jason.
And then he needs to make a phone call.
He doesn’t get the chance to do either. The original warehouse that they had been investigating earlier and the one Tim had been kept in later must have both had jammers that blocked his emergency beacon and, now that he has left the perimeter of effect, he is positively swarmed by Bats.
Nightwing gets to him first, he’s slimmer and quicker than Bruce and more invested in Tim’s continued safety than Damian, and catches Tim in his arms as his knees finally give out in relief and absolute tearing despair.
“Whoa,” Dick mutters, wrapping his arm around Tim’s shoulders and controlling his fall so that Dick ends up crouched on his knees with Tim sprawled half on the roof and half in his lap. “It’s okay. You’re okay,” he mutters into Tim’s hair as he lets out a sound that might be a hiccuping laugh of relief or sob or moan because his head really is throbbing now that he’s safe. He can feel Bruce and Damian hovering but Tim doesn’t look up at them - he can’t make eye contact with any of them right now.
“We have recovered Red Robin,” he hears Damian mutter into his comm and Tim is kind of glad his own broke earlier so he can’t hear what’s happening. “Please inform the Cave that we will be returning imminently.”
“Red Robin,” Batman’s deep voice rumbles through Tim’s chest as he crouches next to Tim and Dick, reaching out with one hand to grip Tim’s wrist, fingers digging into his pulse. “Run it down for me?”
Bruce’s voice is firm but gentle and Tim takes a couple deep hitching breaths to steady himself again. “Drugged with something,” he croaks. “Dislocated my thumb but I don’t think anything’s broken.”
“Concussion?” Dick asks, his hands a steadying pressure on Tim’s back.
“I don’t know?” Tim mumbles, letting them lever him up off the ground, keeping him upright when his legs wobble beneath him. How does he break it to them that he let Jason die? How does he tell his family that they have to go collect the body of their son and brother and bury him again . He chokes on what is definitely a sob this time and he can feel the panicked stares of all of them on him and he dissolves into tears that flood his mask and trigger the mechanical whiteout lenses to flip away.
He hears Dick and Bruce mutter back and forth about blood tests and his possible concussion and they just don’t get it . They knew he was patrolling with Jason tonight. Why is no one asking Tim about that? Are they not concerned about him?
“Jason.” He forces out and the roof is quiet again. “He’s dead. I tried to save him and I couldn’t… we have to.. we have to…”
Everyone around him is completely silent and still and Tim risks a glance up. Bruce, as per usual when he’s in the cowl, is impossible to read and Damian is behind him where Tim can’t see but Dick looks struck dumb; his jaw dangling and eyes wide behind his domino. Tim probably could have been a little bit more delicate and not just blurted it out but he’s pretty sure he’s at least a little in shock so he’s not surprised he can’t completely control the word vomit.
He hysterically wonders if Bruce will bury him in the family cemetery on the grounds of Wayne Manor or if he’ll use the same grave as last time.
“Tt,” Damian huffs behind him. “Is this some joke Drake because it isn’t-”
“Robin,” Bruce says firmly and Damian’s teeth click audibly as he shuts his mouth. “We have Jason,” he tells Tim, words slow and careful. “Let’s go back to the Cave and we can talk more okay?”
“B,” Dick hisses. “Don’t you think-”
“The Cave, Nightwing.” Batman says firmly and Dick clenches his jaw so hard Tim can see the muscles of his face twitch beneath his skin.
They already found Jason. They already know that Tim failed but none of them seem as upset as they should be and he feels a tendril of rage curl through his gut and he grinds his molars and bites his tongue. He has a lot he wants to say but he’ll wait - an empty rooftop in the Bowery is hardly the place for what he wants to say.
Tim lets Dick support him off the roof, trusting Nightwing’s firm grip to not let him fall when he doesn’t let go to grapple down into the alley below. He’s ushered into the back seat and, for once, there isn’t an all out brawl over shotgun - Dick settles in next to him and Damian in the front seat. He’s stiffer than usual in the way that means he’s fighting to not fidget the way most kids his age usually would. It irritates Tim even more for some reason and he has to close his eyes and take deep and meditative breaths to keep his cool.
The Batmobile is silent as a tomb the whole drive from the Bowery to Bristol, the silence heavy, and Tim feels ready to vibrate out of his skin by the time they actually pull into the Bat Cave fifteen minutes later. Damian is the first out of the car and Bruce hesitates only long enough to have a silent and irritated conversation with Dick in the rear view mirror before he exits the car too, pulling his cowl down as he does.
“Come on Tim,” Dick mutters, opening his own door and holding a hand out to pull Tim out. His legs feel like jelly, his knees wobbling as he stands and gets his bearings before ripping off his domino - it’s loose from sweat and tears anyway so it barely stings his face but Dick still sighs and glares at him for it. “We need to get you checked out.”
“How can you not care?” Tim blurts out, his voice rough and accusing. “I told you Jason was dead and you don’t even care! None of you do! How can you just-” Tim snarls and throws Dick’s concerned hand off, stumbling back to lean into the car as spots fill his vision. “He’s dead Dick. I couldn’t save him.”
“Oh buddy,” Dick sighs, pulling Tim into a tight hug and rubbing over the knobs of his spine. Tim lets him, gripping the Kevlar ridges around Dick’s escrima sticks and resting his forehead on his shoulder. “You did save him, Tim. Just come over to the MedBay with me so we can check you out and you can see for yourself.”
Tim doesn’t really want to move, actually, and maybe he can’t. His head is still pounding away and it didn’t really take kindly to the change in pressure that came from standing - his vision is spotty and everything feels far away and cotton-y around the edges.
Wait - what does Dick mean when he says Tim saved Jason? He sways forward toward his brother’s panicked face. “Oh jeez,” he hears Dick sigh and strong arms catch him as he sinks to the ground, “this is a terrible time to pass out Tim.”
Passing out seems to be the best way to handle the situation though, Tim decides. He needs to reset before he takes much more so he lets himself fall.
The Cave’s MedBay has the strangest mixture of smells Tim has ever encountered - a mix of the sterile smell of hospitals and bandages mixed with the musty, watery odor of rock-and-water and deep earth that even Alfred can’t fully banish from the space no matter how hard he tries. There’s a heart monitor beeping quietly but it’s too far away to be attached to Tim and he doesn't feel the subtle itch that comes from the sticky EKG nodes. Fabric shifts next to him and Tim opens his eyes.
The room is dimmed - thank god, his head still pulses dully and the LED’s are hard on his eyes on a good day - and Dick and Damian are sprawled collectively across two oversized office chairs sleeping. The clacking of mechanical keyboard keys in the background tells him that Bruce is working at the computer. He never was someone who did well sitting and waiting at someone’s bedside without something to take his mind off of spiraling.
The monitor continues to beep in a steady rhythm the next bed over and Tim frowns. Why is there a monitor going to an empty bed?
With effort, he rolls his head to the side and then promptly chokes on his next inhale.
Jason is propped up in the next bed looking pale and wan but alive .
Jason’s alive. And awake - he makes eye contact with Tim and half lifts a hand off his bed to wave.
Before he even realizes he’s done it, Tim stumbles out of his bed and across to Jason’s, flopping across his older brother's lap to circle his arms around his waist and making Jason grunt in pain in the process.
Serves him right for letting Tim think he was dead.
“You ass,” Tim seethes, gripping Jason tighter and marveling at the rise and fall of his chest and the sound of his heart beating under Tim’s ear. “You fucking jerk.”
“Language pretender,” Jason wheezes with no heat behind it as he awkwardly pats Tim on the back.
“I thought you were dead,” Tim tells him bluntly, unwilling to take his ear from Jason’s chest even as he watches the dips and crests of the wave on the EKG. It’s not a perfect sinus rhythm but it’s beating and pretty steady. “How are you not dead?”
Jason shifts, uncomfortable, and Tim considers backing off but he’s had a rough night and part of that is Jason’s fault so he can just toughen up and accept his punishment. “I was dead for a couple minutes,” Jason concedes, going slack against the bed and giving up on getting away from Tim - a testament to how tired he must actually be. “I’m told I have you to thank for my broken ribs.”
“You’re an asshole,” Tim tells him, not rising to the bait. He can take the high road here. “It’s the least you deserve for getting shot and nearly bleeding out in front of me.”
Jason looks confused for a split second before he snorts in laughter. Tim just glares. “I didn’t get shot or bleed out,” Jason grumbles.
“I watched it happen,” Tim insists, finally sitting back to stare at his brother. Jason isn’t wearing a shirt so Tim can see the intense bruising from the CPR but there aren’t any bandages or a freshly stitched up hole in his chest. “I swear I saw…”
Jason winces in sympathy and says, “You got some fear toxin on you. Diluted or something - not sure why or how Black Mask’s guys got their hands on it but I plan to find out.”
“Fear toxin?” Tim asks, head spinning. He doesn’t remember that happening but if it really was fear toxin would he…?
“Yep,” Jason agrees, popping the ‘p’ on the end. “I got electrocuted,” he gestures at the lichtenberg figures that Tim can just barely make out under the profuse bruising and curl back over Jason’s shoulder. “Stopped my heart but you started it back and then some.”
“Oh,” Tim mumbles, feeling a little dizzy and off kilter. Jason is watching him sharply but his face looks more haggard than it did a few minutes ago and he’s fading fast even if he won’t admit it. “Okay then.”
“Okay then?” Jason asks with a raised brow and Tim nods.
Dick snores softly behind them and Tim looks back at his own bed but then flops across Jason’s legs instead, curling up tight and reaching out a hand to curl around Jason’s wrist - his pulse thumping reassuringly under Tim’s fingers.
Jason sighs again but reaches carefully out to grab the spare quilt in the chair beside his bed and he drops it over Tim, surrounding him in warmth.
Tim listens, he feels and Jason’s breathing and heartbeat remain steady as he slips into sleep.