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Pain was just part of it.
It was a fact that they had known if not from the very beginning, then they would learn it very quickly.
Being a vigilante hurts.
It isn’t just the physical pain of being hit, it’s the ache even days later. It’s the overexerting during tough fights, or even during training if they weren’t focusing enough on being careful. it’s the general pain of hitting the training mat again and again and again. Sure, in the best circumstances they might be able to take a few days break in between big fights but that didn’t always happen and sometimes that just couldn’t happen.
A stab wound here and there, or a broken bone or two seemed trivial when compared to the knowledge that if they weren’t out there helping, people were going to die.
Pain was part of it.
Tim had known that.
He had known that from the very start. He had known from watching Robin all those years ago, just by the virtue of sometimes he would not be on patrol because he had gotten hurt and even if he snuck out of the Batcave without Batman’s permission he would be out of breath and shaking and sometimes he would just let Batman carry him home again, buried into his Partners neck.
He had known from the way Batman moved no matter how hard he tried to hide it. After years of brutal fights and near deaths, Tim doubted Batman ever had a single day without chronic pain anymore.
They were in pain, and it had been the same when Jason had taken on the mantle.
Pain was part of it. It was expected. It was the cost of helping people, protect others from pain by taking it all on yourself.
But knowing to expect it and actually experiencing it were completely different, as Tim had discovered when he found himself curled up shaking on his bed. While he knew that the house was empty, he still tried to hide his sobs, knowing full well that one day he was going to get hurt on patrol again and that he needed to practice not reacting to it.
Even so, there was nothing that Tim could do to stop the tears from streaming down his face.
This was nothing. It was nothing compared to what his predecessors have been through, it was hardly more than a strain, and yet it had somehow stolen his breath all the same.
Tim barely even remembered getting back home, though he must have managed it somehow.
Ice had done little to sooth his overtaxed muscles, but heat had only managed to rip a cry out from him. He had almost thrown up then and there, but he had convinced his body that puking was just going to make the muscles over his ribs hurt so much worse.
Curling up in bed probably wasn’t the best solution, but Tim didn’t have any other choice. When he had tried to complete his household duties, his vision had started to grey out and his fingertips had tingled and Tim had gotten that weird feeling when you know for certain that you’re about to pass out.
Tim was going to have Patrol tonight so he needed to get all this misery out of his system now.
And oh how miserable he was, someone really should have told him just how much pain hurts. He only had ever more respect for his predecessors now, though he didn’t dare ask Dick how to manage the worst of the symptoms. Dick couldn’t know anymore than Bruce did. This pain was Tim’s and Tim’s alone.
Pain was a little price to pay when compared to the knowledge that his injury had occurred while helping keep someone safe.
It was just a strained muscle and yet Tim couldn’t breathe. He curled further into himself, hissing as he pulled on the injury again. He needed to get over himself, this was nothing compared to what Bruce has experienced, what Dick had received.
What Jason went through.
Tim was far from fine but that was fine. It was expected. He had known that becoming Robin would hurt, he had no right to complain now.
Except he couldn’t sleep, he couldn’t even drag himself out of his bed to do something more worthwhile than just lying here in a ball crying over one little strain. Well, probably more than one strain. While the muscles laying above his ribs hurt worst of all, in truth his whole body was beyond sore.
Some of the hurt he had reasons for; the pain in his wrist was from when he got too unbalanced and stupidly caught himself on his hand, the headache was from hitting himself in the head with the bo staff he was trying to learn how to use. The ribs were of course from when his grappling hook misfired so when it finally caught onto the building, his arm had overextended way too far because the alternative was becoming a multicoloured splat on the ground below.
In truth, it could have been significantly worse. Maybe an hour or two moping wasn’t that bad after all, as long as he remembered to go to Patrol tonight. He curled further into himself, breath catching as his strained muscle pulled weirdly.
New tears sprung up unbidden and unwanted.
Tim had expected the pain. He had expected that it was going to be difficult to be Robin, just as much as he knew that it was something that he had to do, that he wanted to do. Sure, Batman had needed a Robin in order to have someone there for him to stabilise him and make sure he didn’t do something he regretted, but Tim had also wanted to be out there helping. He would have never taken on the mantle without first knowing what it was that he had been in for.
The strain of being Robin had been expected. Pain was just part of it, and Tim had known that.
But when his alarm went off to alert him that it was time for Patrol, Tim couldn’t hold back a sob as he dragged himself from his bed, his overexerted and overextended muscles protesting.