Chapter Text
It shouldn’t be a problem.
After all, Tim was Robin and then not Robin and then Robin again and they all knew him well. It should be easy, right? For him to fit right back in, fold himself into the family as if he’d always been a part of it.
His parents die.
It’s with little fanfare, really and Tim doesn’t even know until almost a week later.
Their plane went down, a crash, fire, and the people that went to look for survivors didn’t think to let him know.
Tim is just a little too used to not hearing from his parents to worry that they’re late, so the police car is a surprise.
Bruce taking custody isn’t.
~•~
Tim has a room in the manor.
He’s had one ever since he started as Robin and despite the lack of time he usually spent there, it is still more lived in than his room at home. The Drake Manor that is, not home anymore. Bruce suggests they wait until he is a bit more stable to think about selling it and Tim agrees more for Bruce’s sake than his own. He really couldn’t care less.
There is nothing to miss about empty halls and the cold that seeps even through the thickest of blankets.
But Bruce is concerned and Tim is supposed to be grieving and perhaps he is, who knows, definitely not him.
So they wait and Tim unpacks his bag, one item at a time, meticulous and careful.
He folds his clothes until they look like they’d just been bought and layers them in the closet.
Then he orders his school books.
Then he sorts his toiletries and puts them into the bathroom cupboard, lined up in a near row.
Then he puts his electronics into his desk drawer.
Then he carefully checks through his box of contraband and, upon finding everything there, hides it under his bed.
Then…
Then he is done.
Tim sits on his bed and stares at nothing in particular.
“We need to go shopping,” is the first thing Dick says and Tim startles slightly, blue eyes turning to the doorway. It isn’t empty anymore, instead the eldest Wayne son is filling it, smiling in a way that is genuine but hides sympathy around the edges.
Maybe even pity. Tim isn’t sure and he doesn’t want to know.
“Right now?” he asks, because his brain isn’t quite here yet.
Dick laughs. “No, I mean eventually.”
“What for?”
“You know, stuff,” the young man replies, gesturing at Tim’s room.
The teenager looks around to spot what Dick is referring to, but he doesn’t find anything. “Stuff,” he echoes.
“For your room,” Dick clarifies. “You know, posters? Or paint for your wall if you want that. Or…I don’t know, a new bed spread.”
Tim looks down at his bed. It has the beige duvet that all the guest rooms have.
“Posters,” he says instead of saying that it’s fine and it isn’t quite a question, but it isn’t quite a statement either. Dick can tell, he thinks, because the man frowns.
“Yeah. Do you have any in mind?”
And Tim does. He’s seen a lot of posters he likes. He enjoys the art made of his friends on Young Justice or the one of his fam- the Bats. He likes the ones of his favourite musicals and adores several that have been made by his favourite photographers. He blinks.
“Posters,” he repeats.
He can tell that he’s lost Dick by the way the man’s smile grows slightly pinched, by the way confusion is creeping into his eyes. “Yes,” he repeats and then, like a joke, he adds, “you do know what that is, right?”
Tim blinks at him again. “Yes?” he says and he isn’t sure how convincing that is.
They stare at each other for a long time.
“You’ve lost me, Timmy,” Dick admits, shuffling closer and then, when Tim doesn’t react, sitting down next to him on the bed. “What’s with posters?”
“We can hang them up?” Tim asks, because finally his brain has caught on and he is actually communicating. Some of the blankness has receded in the face of this new mystery. This new rule.
“Yes.” Dick pauses. “Of course.” Another pause. “Are you okay?”
Is he?
Tim doesn’t know, he is still reeling from the shock of posters being a thing that can be put on one’s wall. He isn’t sure why he is so surprised. He’s seen Dick’s room and he’s seen the Flying Grayson poster. But that’s family, so maybe that’s an exception.
But Damian has those animal posters.
And Cass has dancers.
And Jason’s room, the old one that has a closed door that isn’t ever opened, has motorcycles on the wall and right next to them, a large poster of ‘Pride and Prejudice.’ His new room has one of those too. Keira Knightley watches every move of people visiting Jason.
“I thought posters are for museums,” Tim says regardless, because that’s what he’s been told and he is nothing if not obedient. Tim isn’t sure the rules change just because his parents are dead and can’t repeat them to him anymore.
“Not necessarily,” Dick says in the manner of someone approaching a spooked animal.
Tim isn’t sure why. “Huh,” he says and they leave it at that.
~•~
They do go shopping.
Dick suggests they make a family day of it, so they all pile into the car. Bruce asks him five times if that’s alright and Tim assures him with an increasingly patient smile that he is fine, prefers it really since it takes the attention off of him.
He wonders why Bruce is so desperate for his opinion.
Despite his assurances, he’s still glad when Dick drags Damian and Cass off and he’s alone with Bruce and Jason.
“Do you need clothes?” Bruce asks.
“I have clothes,” Tim replies, baffled that this is even a question.
“Well yes, but you have a lot of very formal things,” Bruce says carefully.
Tim blinks and then looks down at himself. He’s wearing a stiff button up and slacks. It’s casual wear, really.
“I need some new clothes for training,” he admits after a bit too long and is rewarded with a look of relief on Bruce’s face. It’s confusing, but he’ll take relief over the odd expression from before.
Some sweats and shirts are added to the cart. Things Tim can move in.
He’s grown since he’d last spent his allowance on training clothes so perhaps it’s good they’re here now. Bruce grunts something about needing a muscle shirt and Jason follows him.
Tim stands alone, hand loosely curled around the cool metal of the cart.
He is staring, blankly, at a display of hoodies. At first, he looks through them, but then one of them catches his eye.
It’s red.
Tim likes red.
On one of the sleeves, the word ‘anoshe’ is embroidered and Tim absently reaches out. He doesn’t know what the word means, but the material of the hoodie is soft. Very soft. Softer than anything he owns.
“You can buy other shit than clothes for training, you know,” Jason says and Tim jumps because one moment he was alone and now he isn’t.
His heart overreacts slightly, beating, beating, and for a moment the scar across his throat aches. It’s stupid, really. He isn’t scared of Jason.
“Hoodies are for slobs,” he answers before he can think better of it because his brain is still reeling and Tim has been in a perpetual fog that makes it hard to watch his words as carefully as he usually does.
Jason lifts an eyebrow, eyes briefly flashing green and Tim does not tense. He doesn’t. “Thanks,” the man says dryly, plucking at his own garment. He is wearing a hoodie. Oh.
“Sorry,” Tim says automatically. “I didn’t mean you. I just meant-”
“Yourself?” Jason asks and there is something sharp and sardonic to his smile that sends stress skittering across Tim’s skin. There’s something there, something knowing that screams danger. Tim decides to blame it on his own paranoia and subtly wipes his sweaty palms on his slacks.
“Yes,” he says simply.
Jason scoffs and moves to the hoodies. “Anoshe,” he says and his smile softens into something else, something too close to forlorn for Tim to be comfortable with. “It’s from a great book series. You should read it. You remind me of-”
He breaks off, but he takes one of the hoodies, checks the size and then chucks it into the cart.
Tim watches him do it. He swallows his protest and just stares at the hoodie. “Of whom?” he asks.
“Of whom,” Jason mocks, but it isn’t mean exactly, so Tim doesn’t curl away and just meets his teasing smile with a steady look. The teasing smile wilts. “Kell,” Jason says shortly.
Bruce comes back. He smiles at the hoodie. “Good choice,” he says.
Tim doesn’t say anything.
“We need to stop by the book store,” Jason says.
“Okay,” Bruce replies with easy acceptance.
Tim follows them quietly through the decoration isles, giving little input and trying desperately not to feel like a ghost.
~•~
In the end, he comes home with two posters, one of his friends and one of a mountain and a frozen lake by Galen Rowell. It’s all black and sharp, sharp colours of the sunset. It makes something deep in Tim ache.
He hangs it up over his desk, but he carefully doesn’t look at it again.
Bruce bought him the entirety of ‘Shades of Magic’. Jason insisted. They’re pretty books, he supposes, but they don’t quite fit with his school books so he pulls out his box with contraband and fits them carefully next to his other fiction books.
The first one he takes out though.
He doesn’t start reading it, but he settles it on his bedside table.
It looks oddly exposed.
The boy methodically starts taking the tags off his new clothes. All of it goes into his laundry basket.
Tim knows better than to try and do his own laundry.
He knows how to, of course, but Alfred insists he do it. Tim is pretty sure it’s a matter of pride and who is he to try and take someone’s pride?
He stares down at the rest of the items.
Dick, Damian and Cass had re-emerged with a stuffed bear in a Robin outfit. For Tim, apparently. They’d looked so proud that Tim couldn’t bring himself to tell them that he was sixteen and that made him ten years too old for a stuffed animal.
They’d also gotten him some frivolous care products like bath bombs and skin masks.
He puts those in the bathroom, in their own shameful little drawer. They can go rot there.
The bear though…
Tim sighs and pulls the contraband box back out. It doesn’t suit the bear to be hidden away, but needs must, he supposes.
He turns and the book is still on his bedside table. It’s very white and red and black and very obviously fictional, an abstract illustration on it that Tim finds abhorrent and appealing in equal measures.
He takes a step towards it and then another one, before snatching the book up.
He tucks it under his pillow.
Out of sight, out of mind.
It’s safe there.
~•~
He settles into a routine.
Tim got lucky, he guesses, insofar that his parents decided to die during summer vacation. It’s a morbid thought, but one he can’t quite suppress. It means not dealing with school and his classmates.
Tim likes his friends, he does, but they’re a lot.
He has the group chat muted right now.
Bruce also benches him from Robin. Tim is pretty sure that they think he’s fragile, because despite nobody else being benched, someone is always around. They alternate. Watch duty.
As such, Tim’s routine is actually pretty self-imposed.
He wakes up, has breakfast and then studies. After all, straight As don’t come from nowhere. Then he takes a walk, hot air against numb, cold skin.
His siblings always rope him either into training or spending time together in the afternoon.
In the evenings, when they’re gone on patrol and Tim can’t sleep, he reads the book. So far, he isn’t fully sure why he reminds Jason of Kell. He’s also not so sure he wants to find out.
He does find out what ‘anoshe’ means.
He isn’t sure how he feels about it.
The hoodie is stuffed behind his normal clothes and Tim pretends it doesn’t exist.
~•~
“You can eat, you know?” Dick’s comment is casual, meant-well, but it has the unfortunate side effect that all of his siblings now have their eyes fixed on Tim and his untouched food.
“Bruce isn’t here yet,” he says.
Damian looks on the verge of saying something rude, but a moment later there is a jolt and Damian glares at Cass. Presumably, she kicked him.
Normally, it would be enough to make Tim smile.
“So?” Jason asks.
“So I’m waiting,” Tim replies and he tries really hard not to sound patronising, but judging by the slight, annoyed grimace on Jason’s face, he fails.
“Why?” Dick pushes.
Tim shoots him a slightly confused look. He gets that they think they’re above the rules or maybe they simply think that they can handle the punishment, but Tim would rather not go hungry. “He’s the head of the house.”
That should have been the end of it.
Unfortunately, his siblings were acting particularly obtuse today.
“So?” Jason repeats and Tim curls his lips at him, just for a moment, before he catches the gesture and shoves his annoyance back under the fog. Jason definitely catches it though. He smiles, unrepentant.
“So,” Tim starts pointedly, voice sharp, “I would rather get to have dinner later than not wait for him.”
There is a long moment of silence.
It stretches a bit, making Tim feel like he is swimming in molasses. Like he made a mistake. But when he tries to think about it, tries to swim through the fog and come up for air, for a coherent thought, he can’t see anything wrong about what he said.
“Tim,” Dick says and Tim is pretty sure that’s the voice Nightwing uses with victims, which is odd and not appreciated. “You know that you will never be punished by having your food taken away from you, right?”
Ah.
Tim blinks.
He sees his mistake now.
“Duh,” he lies and dips his spoon into the soup, steadily starting to eat.
The liquid burns on the way down.
His siblings watch him quietly and he can tell that they don’t believe him, but blessedly they let it drop.
And when Bruce finally joins them, he doesn’t say anything about his children’s disrespect. He doesn’t say anything about how they should know better, about how hardworking he was, about how children aren’t supposed to step out of line and think they are better than others. He doesn't say anything about manners and waiting for everyone and letting your superior have the first bite.
Not one single word.
~•~
Arnesians had a dozen ways to say hello, but no word for good-bye.
When it came to parting ways, they sometimes said vas ir, which meant in peace, but more often they chose to say anoshe–until another day.
~•~
On Sundays, the family has brunch together.
It’s a little much, a little loud, but Tim likes it. He would like it a lot more if Cass could stop staring at his plate. Tim gives his best to make his plate healthy and balanced, making sure to not have more than anyone else, but he isn’t sure he succeeds when Cass exchanges a long look with Dick.
“Movie or boardgame afternoon?” Jason asks. He sounds like he has a preference and if Tim has to guess, it’s boardgames. Jason surprisingly doesn’t only like competitive ones, he is also very invested in cooperation and even just puzzles. It’s the most settled Tim ever sees him.
“Movie,” Dick replies immediately.
Jason’s preference very firmly shifts to boardgames now, even if it’s only to spite Dick. “I’m not watching a Disney movie,” he says, already close to yelling.
Tim shifts back subtly.
“Well I’m not wrestling Damian away from a Monopoly board,” Dick shoots back, which has Damian involved.
The three devolve into bickering.
Cass taps Tim’s arm and he flinches at the unexpected contact. “Hm?”
“You alright?” she asks, signing along, a habit that he adores because it means he understands her even with his brothers yelling and Bruce trying to mediate.
Is he alright?
Tim isn’t anything.
“Yeah,” he lies.
She looks like she wants to call him on the lie, but the others have finally settled on boardgames and are rallying them to leave.
Tim takes a sharp left when they leave the dining room.
“Where are you going, Timmers?” Jason asks.
Tim stops walking and turns, tilting his head at his older brother. “My room?”
“You’re not gonna play games with us?” the older pushes.
Oh.
Tim didn’t realise he was welcome. “Sure,” he replies, changing direction again.
Jason shoots him an odd look, but doesn’t comment.
~•~
Kell is a servant first and foremost.
They call him a prince, but it’s clear that he isn’t actually a part of the family, not to the King and Queen at least. Rhys definitely sees him as a brother and if Tim didn’t have his own adopted siblings, he might call the prince delusional.
There’s a lot of pressure on Kell.
He has a job to do. He was born for one thing and one thing only, shaped and moulded into it, and if he falters, everything ends.
Kell has the entire world on his shoulders.
Tim doesn’t throw the second book, even if he wants to. Instead he slides his bookmark back between the pages and tucks the book under his pillow.
It’s evening. Everyone except Bruce is out. Tim knows that Bruce is only on watch duty because he has bruised ribs and Alfred put his foot down, but it’s still nice to know that the man stayed for him.
Which didn’t stop Tim from following his usual schedule, so he is now holed up in his room. Out of sight, out of mind. Not seen and not heard.
After a brief moment of hesitation, he grabs his laptop and maneuvers to a silly online game Kon introduced him to the other day. The clone is determined to gain back all the childhood things he never got to have and he seems just as determined to pull Tim down with him.
Tim finally unmuted the group chat a week ago and it’s been nice. Yeah. Nice. They know not to swarm him, but they listen to him and occasionally send him silly memes or updates from the team.
The music from the game sounds a bit like carnival music and Tim lets it play, carefully on the lowest volume.
A knock on the door.
Tim has the laptop slammed shut before he can even begin to think, his heart jumping into his throat.
A littany of ‘Fuck, fuck, fuck’ comes through the fog.
“Tim?” Bruce asks from the other side of the door.
“Come in,” Tim croaks, eyes lowering to his hands, a picture perfect sign of contrition.
Not that it would help.
It never helps.
Bruce steps in and Tim can’t quite help looking up, wincing when he sees the man’s eyes flicker from the closed laptop to Tim’s face and back down again.
“Sorry,” he says quickly. Maybe it would have been better if one of his siblings had been on watch duty after all. They were many things, but they didn’t snitch.
“What for?” Bruce asks and when Tim looks up again, the man’s face is carefully neutral.
“I know I’m not supposed to waste my time,” Tim mumbles. He isn’t sure if he prefers the sharp anxiety to the fog. He doesn’t think so.
“Doing what?”
His parents used to do that too. His mom more than his dad. Make him spell out his mistakes. Humiliation makes his cheeks sting. “Playing stupid games instead of studying,” he replies regardless, because if there is one thing he can do, then it’s answer questions.
“I see,” Bruce says and then he fully comes inside and sits down in Tim’s desk chair. “Well, I don’t think playing games is a waste of time.”
Tim’s head snaps up and it’s the fastest he has moved since his parents died. “What?” he asks tonelessly.
“We all need downtime, Tim. It’s healthy. Plus if it makes you happy, it’s not wasted time in my opinion.”
Tim doesn’t understand. “I see.”
Bruce smiles in a way that tells him that he knows Tim is lying.
“Did you uhm…did you need something?” Tim asks, wincing at his stutter.
“I was wondering if you’d like to play chess,” the man says. “I even have some snacks in the study.”
Tim blinks. That’s…unexpected. After a moment, he pushes the laptop away and stands. “Yeah,” he says, desperately trying to ignore the warmth he feels at Bruce’s pleased smile. “I’d like that.”
~•~
When a friend left, with little chance of seeing home, they said anoshe. When a loved one was dying, they said anoshe. When corpses were burned, bodies given back to the earth and souls to the stream, those grieving said anosh
~•~
The chess game was nice. Comforting, in a way, to be able to just sit there and play and not think about everything else going on.
But now Tim is back in his room, staring at the wall and the fog is back over his brain, firmly settled, making the air around him feel like molasses.
Tim could get lost in this, he thinks.
He wonders if he will ever feel clear again, will ever feel more like himself, less like an intruder in a space that isn’t his.
His eyes blink at the photography, colours bright even in the low light of his room.
He blinks again.
The fog stays.
Tim sighs.
~•~
Anoshe brought solace. And hope. And the strength to let go.