Work Text:
There was sweat dripping down Tim's neck from the too warm day and the sun shining through the kitchen window was just a bit too bright. But Dick was laughing and singing to some pop song that had cycled through three times already in the last hour and a half and even the shirt sticking to his back didn't bother him.
Dick swayed around to the music as he hip-checked his refrigerator door closed with an onion in hand.
"I'm telling you, Tim! There's a reason this song is popular!"
"Yeah. They use the same five chords as every other hit song out there and have a chorus that can be repeated on a fifteen second tiktok or YouTube short."
"No! Because it’s good!" Dick pouted over from where he was dicing the onion. The sound of the knife a steady rhythm under the blasting radio.
"Sure, whatever you say Dick." Tim smirked.
The pout Dick sends over is small and all the more heartbreaking on his face with his big blue eyes that shine just right in the sunlight. Tim hardens his heart. He refuses to budge on a pop song. At least not out loud.
Internally he's been singing every word.
"I know you listen to these things Tim. You blast your music way too loudly for us to not be able to hear it through your headphones." Dick puts his hands on his hips, knife still in hand. "Honestly, you're going to go deaf at this rate. We already deal with gunfire and explosions and —"
"I get it, I get it, Motherwing," Tim cuts Dick off before he really gets into the lecture. He’s heard all this before. "Lower the volume, don't sit so close to the screen, eat my vegetables."
"Yes! To all those!" Dick reaches and only looks back long enough to grab what remains of the onion to shake it around in emphasis, "Eat your vegetables!"
The bead of sweat on his neck rolled down and soaked into his shirt.
"Honestly. I don't understand how your Richie act makes you so bad at cooking when you're always lecturing us about our five-a-day."
"We are vigilantes!" Dick screamed while hissing the last word for some form of secrecy in his Bludhaven apartment. "We need our vegetables!"
"And I eat my proteins and take my vitamins." Tim drawled knowing full well he got all his healthy eating done like a good little vigilante with an immunocompromised body.
"Timothy Jackson Drake-Wayne!" Dick hissed while waving the knife around, slapping the onion back onto the cutting board.
The sun glinted off of the knife.
Next thing Tim knew he was throwing the nearest object that wasn't his phone at the blade. It ended up being a cup.
The plastic cup — because Dick always said he couldn't trust his family with glass or ceramic — bounced off the knife and knocked it out of a surprised Dick's hand. Dick barely jumped away in time to not have it slice his foot open.
Tim didn't see that though, he was too busy crowding himself with his back to a wall trying to breathe. The window was too small to crawl out of in the kitchen, he couldn't jump out of that.
"Tim?"
There was an itch below his shirt that Tim was trying not to grasp and losing the fight to.
'Timothy.'
Where was Pru? They needed to leave. They needed to run. They needed to —
"Baby bird. Breathe with me. Look at me, please? Breathe with me, follow my breaths."
Tim locked panicked eyes on Dick's chest that moved in exaggerated movements and tried desperately to follow. But his eyes strayed to every corner and wall and his lungs weren't working because it was too hot and he found his hands bruising his sides with the way they wrapped around his body protecting himself.
When Dick reached out a hand Tim flinched inwards, wrapping around that one scar that throbbed with a phantom pain that was flaring.
Dick lowered his hand again slowly.
"Okay. Okay. I'll be right back." Dick shuffled back without standing, talking soothing words the whole time and Tim couldn't bring himself to unwrap his arms to grab for him. Couldn't seem to breathe enough to beg him to stay.
'Timothy.' The glint of knives. The heat of a desert.
He's all alone again.
A sob breaks free and one hand unravels from around him to shoot up to his mouth to muffle the rest. Noise. Noise isn't good. Noise gets you caught.
But he’s all alone again.
Suddenly Dick is in front of him with a cup in his hands, a furrow between his brows, and repeating something over and over again.
"Baby bird, you're safe. You're okay. You're in Bludhaven at my home. You're with me in Bludhaven at my apartment. You're safe."
Tim lets a sob rip free.
Dick pushes the cup out between where they sit and slowly retracts his hand to hold them where Tim can see.
"It's ice. Timmy, can you hold one in your hand for me please?"
Tim doesn't want to.
"Timmy. Please, hold the ice in your hand." Dick asks a bit more firmly.
Tim reaches out slowly with one hand to hook a finger around the lip of the cup and drag it closer. Tips it a bit to look inside and see it full of ice. The chill of it is already seeping into his fingertip.
"That’s good, Baby Bird. Now can you grab some ice and hold onto it?"
He sees his own hand shake as he reaches into the cup to grab a few ice cubes and fists them. The shocking cold already almost painful in his grip.
"That’s really good. Thank you. Tell me what that feels like?"
"It's… it's cold."
"Yeah, I bet it is. What kind of cold? Where is it most cold?"
Tim unclenches and clenches his fist, feels the trickle of water seep through his finger. "It's achy cold. It's worst on my joints"
"Good descriptions." Tim didn't think so but Dick did look happy with them. "What else do you feel?"
"The ice is kind of melting. There's water in my hand now. It's trickling out between my fingers." Tim tried to grip the melting ice harder to reduce the space between his fingers, moves his other hand from his body to under the other to catch the slow drip-drip-drip, but he had already failed to catch too much. "Sorry."
"It's fine, Tim. Don't worry about that."
There was sweat pooled on Tim's forehead and a chill between his shoulder blades.
"I'm sorry."
"Really, don't worry about it."
"No. Sorry." Tim's fist flexed and the melted fragments of ice in his hand broke apart. "Sorry. I shouldn't have — sorry about… sorry."
"Tim." Dick's voice was firm. "Don't worry about it. We all go through them."
Tim had found Dick, once, curled around Damian in the training room below the nets where they practiced grappling. All Damian had said was, 'I slipped.' It had taken them a long time to get Dick to let Damian get back up there.
The ice is completely melted in Tim’s hand so he tips the water pooled in both into the cup with the rest of the ice. His palm is bright red.
"How are you feeling?"
"I'm okay."
Dick looks over him with sharp eyes and purses his lips, not happy with what he sees but unwilling to push just yet. "Okay… you wanna talk about what set that off or what happened?"
"Nope." He tries to stand, not entirely sure when he sat down, but his legs turned to jello while he wasn't looking and white spots dance in front of his eyes even while his legs give out. Strong arms catch him and ease him back to lean against the wall.
"Okay, let's give a second try a few minutes." Dicks amused voice said even as his face started to appear from behind those white spots.
"Sounds like a solid plan." Tim said even as he forced his legs under him and locked his knees to stay standing.
"Tim." The exasperation couldn't be faked.
"Yup."
"Seriously. Do you want to talk about it? Was it something I did?"
"No." Tim lied like the liar he was.
Dick sighed while getting up, cup of melting ice in hand. "I just don't want this to happen again. But we can talk about it later if you want."
Tim didn't want. He would rather ignore this all happened.
"It's just warm. And bright. And the knife." The scar was itching again and Tim gripped it tight over his shirt. Dick's eyes glanced at it before running over his face and frowning in thought. Putting together all the pieces.
"You thought… oh. Okay." Dick turned to walk away before stopping mid-turn right when Tim's panic was returning. "I'll be right back." Dick shuffled off with purposely loud steps and singing a tune from some musical that Jason had been blasting around the manor a few weeks ago.
Dick comes back with a ziploc bag filled with ice and hands it over. "For the heat. Come on, let's order takeout. I'm starving and you need some food in you."
Tim raises the bag full of ice to the junction between his neck and shoulder and feels the chill seep into his skin. The chill wraps around his chin and cools his face and, even if it's his imagination, the air he breathes is less stifling like this. He follows Dick to the sofa and leaves the safety of a wall at his back.
"I want breakfast food."
"You need vegetables."
"I want breakfast food."
"You get a vegetable omelet."
"I want pancakes and bacon and eggs."
Dick looks over. Smirks and shows Tim his screen where the order for pancake with bacon and eggs, waffles, mushroom omelet, and two milkshakes are already made.
"You think I don't know my own little brother?"
Tim smiles and it shakes the last of the itch on his scar and the bone-deep chill between his shoulder blades. "Waffles and milkshakes?"
"Let's be honest, Timmy. Alfred is God-sent… but he doesn't know how to make waffles. If we're having breakfast food we're having waffles too. And milkshakes are dessert."
Tim laughs, moves the bag of ice to the other side of his neck, and tries not to shiver as the heat of the room attacks the chill where the ice was. "Yeah. I really don't know how he always messes up the waffles. Why do they come out gummy?"
"It's a mystery for the ages." Dick leans back on the sofa, carefully snakes an arm closer to Tim, and leaves his side open in invitation.
Tim takes it.
He collapses against Dick’s side, suddenly exhausted, and melts when he feels the arm wrap around his shoulders awkwardly due to the bag of ice. Tim is tempted to throw it away to get a proper hug but it's probably not the wisest choice.
"We're okay. I got you. I'm right here. I'm never letting you go again." There are lips in his hair and Tim curls tighter into the hug as Dick whispers words into his hair. The warm air from his words warming the crown of his head.
"I know." Tim says. It's only half a lie because in this job there are risks and rewards and contingencies and when civilians are at stake there is always, always, the knowledge that you put on a mask knowing your life is not above theirs. Still… he says, "I know."
Dick brushes the hair at the back of his head down, the sigh warms his head, "No, you don't. It's okay. I just have to show you. We all do."
They stay like that, Tim shuffling around once to move the bag of ice, until the food comes and Dick gets up answer the door.
He walks into the room again with hands held high, both hands holding the bag above his head, "I return with an offering of sustenance!"
Tim giggles, "And you call Jason the dramatic one?"
Dick puts the food down on the table in front of them, winking, "Who do you think I stole that from?"
Tim imagines it; Jason with a pot or pan or plate of food walking in all his tank-build glory talking about sustenance in his Crime Alley drawl. It's surprisingly not too hard to imagine given the everyday dramatics but it still brings out a laugh because Jason’s dramatics always does.
"Okay, yeah. I can see that." The food gets distributed and the bag of ice only lasts halfway through the food. Tim declines a second bag.
There's breakfast food, there's a good show on, and he's not alone.
He'll take that second bag when he needs it.
He doesn't think he will.