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They get home beaten-up and leaning onto each other, more so Dick than Tim. The Cave awaits them with its usual coldness, and it doesn't help with Dick's shivering nor with Tim's increasing worry for his brother, who limps and gasps and hasn’t said a word the whole time.
Dick slumps against the chair, eyes closed and taking deep breaths. Tim bites his lip, worried and unsure, because although they've been defeated before, Dick's reaction this time is unusual and—it's been a while since he closed off from Tim.
It could be the stab wound, but Nightwing's been through worse than that.
(They all have.)
Tim watches as Dick's hand hovers over his side, seconds of pain flashing through his expression, before settling back into a blank, lost stare. Tim is running scenarios through his head, but he can't imagine what could've happened to leave Dick like this, what kind of conversation could've happened with a stranger that affected him so badly.
Information about Batman, maybe, but—no, Dick would've shared that with him.
Either way, it's not the time.
"I'll get the kit," he says. Dick offers no response, but Tim goes on. "And get out of the suit, will you? I'm not at the level I can stitch through kevlar yet."
Alfred might be able to, but Tim is the one available right now, and Dick has walked through the Cave—albeit with his help—so surely he can undress himself.
But when he comes back from retrieving the medical first aid, Dick hasn't moved an inch. Tim sighs and stays where he is, studying his brother. Against the light of the computer, the Nightwing insignia shines brightly, and his side profile shimmers in the blue. His posture holds defeat and something hopeless in it, some resignation that Tim hasn't seen in him in a while.
Part of Tim wants to stay rooted and admire Dick, drink in his figure and engrave it in his brain. Tim wants to let his affection simmer inside his chest—wants a moment to keep to himself. Rare are the times he can get away with it, and his heart is a greedy, selfish thing.
But Dick is in pain, and being stubborn about it, if in a less outspoken way than usual.
Tim leaves the kit by the keyboard, and pats Dick in the cheek a couple of times. "Didn't I tell you to take your suit off?"
Dick slaps his hand away, so at least he's reactive, but then he settles back in his—what, disassociation? Ugh. Must be. Tim had tested him for drugs and poisons and any other substance that might have led to this the minute they got into the car and the only thing that's in Dick's blood is stress. He doesn't even have an infection—the stab wound is as clean as a stab wound can be.
"What did that guy say to you?" Tim grumbles, lifting up the upper part of his brother’s suit the best he can without aggravating the injury. He cleaned it and patched it up earlier, but it needs more care. "Arms up, come on."
Dick obeys, grunting, quiet, so different from any other time Tim's taken his clothes off. While Tim stitches his side, he stays that way, faraway from the present, and Tim—
He chatters off, tries to evoke some kind of response. It's not a solution, but it's a de-escalating technique that he's used before, and more importantly that has worked before, on a Dick that was disoriented from his nightmares and the rain and who knows what else.
The stitching doesn't take that long, but bandaging the wound is considerably harder due to Dick’s refusal to cooperate.
"Alright, that should do it." Tim announces, resigning to the silence. To the humming of the computer and the creaking of the cave, and the unsteady breaths from both of them. "I'll write a report and then we can… go to bed, or something," then, under his breath, "Because you don't eat when you get like this."
Dick, predictably, doesn't say anything. The worry bubbles up, but Tim keeps it at bay. If tomorrow his brother isn't any better, then he can start taking measures.
Minutes pass that way. Tim writes a report that probably has more typos in it than words, but he's tired and aching and it's not like Bruce is watching over his shoulder like a high school teacher ready to deduct points from his grade from any and all grammatical errors.
He wants to go to bed. He wants to curl into Dick's body, feel the warmth and steadiness of his big brother's arms around him, even as he grumbles that he's too old for it and huffs about being Dick's teddy bear again. He wants the reassurance that they'll investigate this new opponent, and draft a strategy together, and then, maybe—
But Dick is—like that, and even if they do share a bed tonight, Tim doubts it's going to be as comforting as before.
"I'm going to change," he says, more for his own benefit than Dick's. "I'll be right back."
Dick's eyes follow him, so that's something, but Tim can't get his hopes up right now. He gets out of the Robin suit, puts on sweats that he'll end up sleeping in, and goes back to the Cave in three minutes or less. He doesn't rush, but being fast with it comes naturally, now.
"Alright." Stepping closer to Dick, Tim tries to think of a way to move him without hurting him more. "Let's get you out of here."
He wraps his arms around Dick, or makes an attempt at it, because before he can try and calculate the logistics of it, his brother grabs his wrist. Tim stills, and has to remind himself to breathe when Dick's other hand cups his cheek, trembling and tender.
"Tim." Dick's voice is raspy. There is a soft, desperate tone in it. Tim leans in, wary and cautious, memories resurfacing of all those nights Dick woke up from a nightmare with Jason's name stuck in his throat—with Bruce's, with Barbara's. Names that Tim can't bring himself to mention the mornings after. "Tim," Dick repeats, thumb caressing his cheekbone, and Tim can only be patient in the face of the brokenness that's taken hold of his brother.
"I'm here," he whispers. Slowly, Tim shifts his posture, the wrist that was under Dick's hand twisting until he can intertwine their fingers together. He carefully settles the other hand on top of Dick's own, trying to calm down the shaking and increase the pressure of it on his skin, wanting to assure Dick that he—that everything—is real.
It's the only way Tim knows to fight through the daze of Dick's nightmares, and even if the situation at hand is not the same, he thinks it's worth trying.
(Dick gets far away from reality, sometimes.)
It's not a sob that wrecks out of Dick's mouth, but it's so very close to it. Tim cannot fathom what that stranger told him, his mind racing through the possibilities, his heart aching at seeing Dick so distraught. The urge to fix it is strong, but Tim barely starts to think of a way to ease his brother before Dick tightens his grip and brings him down, down until—
Ah.
Tim relaxes, body instinctively going limp in Dick's hold, his lips parting and adjusting to the heat of Dick's own. His brother's kiss is forceful, his strength sure to leave some bruising—on Tim's lips, on Tim's hands—but it is not unwelcome. It's a frantic, frenzied kiss, yet loving all the same, something in it that’s wild and afraid.
It makes Tim reconsider the situation, that maybe it had nothing to do with others but what the stranger might have threatened to do to Tim, might have said he'd done to him. It doesn't make much sense in the context of Dick's reaction, for when it comes to Tim, his older brother is always so quick to react in anger, but Dick is pulling Tim to him like he's the last lifeline keeping him afloat, and—
Dick changes the angle of the kiss, demanding to be let in, asking and asking for Tim's lips to part. Tim yields to it, ignoring the burn in his lungs, Dick's need bearing down on him. It feels like Dick is about to devour Tim, an agony driving him, pouring it into the kiss. So desperate to hold on. It makes it hard to think. Dick's mouth on his is a savage thing, and Tim can't help the sound that Dick swallows in his fervour.
An arm holds him down, and Tim doesn't know when Dick moved enough for that, but the action brings their chests closer, ragged breaths becoming pronounced alongside one another. But Dick doesn't slow down. Tim spares a thought for his brother's wound before he sits down on Dick’s lap, trying to accommodate their posture without breaking the kiss, and aims to reduce its intensity a little, mind growing dizzy with it.
Dick lets up for a second before he kisses Tim again, in a better position, letting out a grunt when he moves his torso—again, he got stabbed, what is his brother thinking—but not letting it stall him as his tongue licks Tim's own lips and carves its way into Tim's mouth, again with that frantic edge that is trying to drown them both in it.
Dick's hand travels against Tim's spine, the other holding on so tight that Tim's is becoming numb. It has been so long since Dick reacted with fear—that Tim saw his brother in all his impulsive, reckless glory—that it's still taking Tim by surprise, how Dick's lips make him bend, how his tongue swirls and swallows all and any sound he makes, how fervent is Dick's need.
But this is Dick falling.
And Tim is all too happy to catch him.
It takes a while. Feet-curling french kisses that heat up Tim from inside out—that worry him yet leave him gasping and light-headed—become strong, breath-stealing open-mouthed kisses, and eventually, those turn into shorter, firm and lingering ones. Dick mutters his name in between, an unsteady plea that Tim answers in hums, in caresses, in I'm here's that he's not sure his brother hears.
“Tim,” Dick says against his breath, so softly, so sorrowful. Another kiss, and: Tim, Timmy, Tim, please.
“It's okay,” he reassures him, responding to each kiss and pouring his own love into it, all of his will focused on not letting Dick spiral again. I'm here, Dick, I'm here.
And once Dick is calmer, no longer on the edge, Tim pushes their foreheads together and gives them both time to breathe.
Dick makes a wounded sound when Tim avoids the following kiss, but he's no longer gripping Tim like he'll find salvation in him, so Tim doesn't allow it. He strokes Dick's curly hair—and since when has his hand found its way to it?—and keeps them that way, breaths stabilizing.
"Tim," Dick utters again, this time gentler, this time caught. "Tim, it was—"
The words don't come out so easily. Tim coaxes them out, ignores Dick's eyes blinking away their wetness and the breaks in his voice, because Dick needs him and Tim is holding him.
They are unbelievable. Tim can't help but think it's a trick, a trap, for how could it be? What Dick is saying is impossible.
Except Tim knows this world much better than any civilian ever could. Tim is Robin, and he knows just how real the impossible is.
Dick holds onto him, and Tim has him, will take care of him and get them both to bed and leave the thinking for tomorrow. It's late enough as it is, and he's sure Dick will need more grounding before allowing himself to sleep.
But the words will come back, again and again, disbelief and a thousand emotions—wariness, hope, worry, among others—accompanying them each time.
"It was Jason. I don't know how, but Tim, that man—it was Jason."
Dick says those words while looking at him, grief pouring, unable to make head and tails of it. So lost. With his heart breaking, and leaving it in Tim's hands like Tim has any idea of how to piece it back together again.
(But he does, because he did it once already. Because it's Dick's heart in the storm and Tim will always bring it ashore, a makeshift shelter in the curve of his arms.)
(It's the most precious thing they will ever hold.)