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Damian Wayne is dying. He’s going to die here, in this fucking alleyway, and the only person there to witness it is Tim. The whole thing was an incident. Robin and Red Robin got jumped by one of Two-Faces gunmen, taken by surprise and hit.
Damian Wayne is dying. A bullet ripped through his stomach, spilling blood and organs and life. He's dying, and there's nothing to be done.
Tim holds the wound closed with shaking hands, demanding his brother to slow his breathing. Calm down. Damian doesn’t listen – he's so scared.
He doesn’t want to die – he doesn’t want to go back there.
“Damian, you need to calm down.” Tim says, voice trembling and gruff. He’s holding his brother close, red soaking through both their costumes, onto the concrete and through the streets. Damian is crying, truly and fully and all ugly–like. He’s weeping, grabbing at Tim desperately.
“I don’t want to go back there.” he cries, desperate. “Please, please, Tim, I don’t want to go back.” there's blood on his hands – small fingers soaked in red clawing at Tim's face. Damian's handprint sticks to his cheek – it doesn't even stretch from chin to eyebrow.
Damian has the hands of a child.
Tim does not reflect on this. He's sure, if he does, something in him will break. He simply focuses on bandaging the wound the best he can. They're not too far from one of Tim's safehouses. They can make it in time.
Damian won't stop squirming. Tim picks him up and holds the boy against his hip. Damian's little hands wrap around Tim's chest like a vice grip. He tugs at the heavy kevlar, trying to hold on.
"Here, Dami," Tim mutters to himself, maneuvering them so that Tim can use a free hand to unclasp his cape. He wraps the fabric around the both of them, tying Damian close to his hip. He does not think about how little Damian looks, swaddled in his cape. He does not think about Damian's head nodding forward against his chest, dipping into a heavy sleep. He does not– he refuses – to listen for the quiet cries that keep spilling out of Damian's lips. " I don't want to go back. Please. I'm sorry. I'm so sorry. I'm better. I'm better, please. Please. Please don't let me go back there."
Tim just keeps moving, like a shark, like it's all he knows how to do.
Its hard to climb up a fire ladder, through a window and onto a foam bed with a squirming child on your hip. Tim does it anyway before setting Damian down on the mattress. He grabs his medical supplies. “I’m gonna have to stop the bleeding.”
Damian nods “Please don’t let me go.” he begs, still reaching out for Tim’s hands, his cape, anything he can hold.
“I’m right here” and it's the closest thing Tim could give to a promise that it will be ok, and Damian still holds onto it like a lifeline.