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Tim thrashes around in his sheets, images of the Joker standing above him with a grin flashing through his mind. Tim jolts up, gasping awake as the images disappear. It’s happening again, he thinks to himself, he’s seeing himself in situations that never happened. First it was with Harley at a park, and now it’s with the Joker in a white room with electricity crackling. Tim takes a deep breath. Maybe this is one of those soulmate tropes, he thinks to himself, where you have dreams of things that your soulmate has gone through. Tim shakes his head, ridding himself of those ridiculous thoughts. This isn’t some fanfiction; there are no such things as soulmates.
He glances to the side, reading the digital clock that lays on his nightstand. 06:31, it reads. Tim groans at the early hour, the sun just barely peeking through the blinds and streaming into his bedroom. He swings his legs over his bed, standing up and waddling to his door, not bothering to put his hearing aids in. Nobody else, except maybe Alfred, will be up this early to talk to him, anyway. He heads towards the kitchen, digging out whatever food he can find in the fridge. He’s surprised that Alfred hasn’t come down yet. He grabs the container of milk, looking at it intensely to try and decide whether he wants cereal or not. After a moment, he grabs a box of honey nut cheerios out of the pantry, yelping when he turns around to see Alfred eyes his breakfast in disappointment.
That solves that mystery, he supposes. Alfred says something, but Tim taps his ear and Alfred switches to sign language.
“At least let me make you some more substantial food before you eat that.” Alfred signs, his movements somehow still exuding prim and proper British butler vibes. Tim nods, stumbling to sit at the table while he waits for his food. When Alfred walks him, though, his eyes flicker up, curiously. Tim turns around, his eyes widening as the wrecked person who stands behind him. He jumps out of the chair, words just barely processing in his ears. She knows that he can’t hear well, how does she know? Tim’s breathing speeds up, Harley’s words only half processing in his brain. Why is she here? Why isn’t Alfred doing anything about it? Why is she coming closer? Why can he hear her?
“Tim, please, I won’t hurt you, I promise!” Harley cries, her expression twisted in pain and her words bypassing the rushing against his ears from his breathing. Alfred stands in both of their vision, not quite between the two, but ready to jump between them if needed. Tim doesn’t understand why Alfred hasn’t done that yet, why he hasn’t thrown Harley out of the house, but he trusts Alfred.
“Why are you here?” Tim asks, his voice strained. Harley purses her lips.
“I wanted to check up on you, after everything that happened…” she trails off. Tim looks at her, confused.
“What do you mean? Nothing happened.” He states, frustrated with having to use context clues in order to understand what she’s saying.
“Your hearing, the Joker– what do you mean? Everything happened?” Her voice cracks, or at least, Tim thinks it does. Tim scoffs.
“My hearing is the way it is because I got caught in an explosion, not because of the Joker.” Tim gulps, looking at her with confusion. Harley opens her mouth, as if to say something, but she shuts it after a moment, instead staring at him once more. Alfred signs something, but Tim only catches the latter half. Harley responds, voice too quiet for Tim’s ears to catch. Alfred must has said something, because Tim doesn’t think that Harley knows sign language. The world blurs around Tim, not processing anything that’s happening. He thinks that Bruce came in at some point? Dick yells something about not being told anything about what happened, which Tim doesn’t understand because Tim told him about the explosion.
Someone leads him to the couch, and he doesn’t remember who or when or how long he’s there before he tunes back in to the world happening around him. There’s conversation happening around him, far too quiet for Tim to understand, but he feels his hearing aid in his hand. When he puts it on, the world returns to it’s normal startling clarity.
“–didn’t tell you.” Bruce says, guilt tinging his voice.
“You should have. That’s probably something that I should know before trying to talk to him and learning that he doesn’t remember me.” Harley replies, angry. Bruce nods, but Dick cuts him off before he can say anything.
“And something that I should know about my baby brother.” His voice is strained, as if he was crying, and when Tim looks closer, he can see dried tear track on his cheeks and a ring of red around his puffy eyes. He probably was crying, then.
“Did something happen with Jason?” Tim asks, still a little out of it. Everyone freezes, staring at Tim.
“What do you mean?” Dick asks, hesitantly.
“You said something about your younger brother, that’s Jason.” Tim says, confused. Dick takes a breath.
“No, Tim, I’m talking about you.” Dick replies.
“Oh.” Tim says dumbly. “I told you about what happened, I thought?” His voice goes higher near the end. Harley bites her lip.
“Yeah, you did, but Bruce had a little more information about it than you, since you don’t remember a lot of it.” Dick isn’t wrong, Tim barely remember the explosion itself. All he really remembers is everything going a mix of red and yellow, and the next thing he remembers is waking up, his hearing barely functional and an aid beside him. Bruce barely said anything about it, just that something happened and now Tim needs aids to hear, so his brain filled the gaps. Dick is acting like all that was wrong, though, and Harley said something about the Joker and… maybe his brain did it wrong? Dick whispers something to Bruce, who nods in response before speaking again.
“Harley, thank you for coming to check on Tim. We’ll contact you if anything else arises, but I think Tim wants to be alone for a while.” Bruce says, clearly conveying a point to Harley that Tim is missing, because she nods and allows Alfred to show her out.
(Harley looks at the front door to the Wayne Manor, tears gathered in her eyes as she remembers Tim’s confused look when she went to go visit him. He doesn’t remember her. He doesn’t remember anything that happened with the Joker at all. Bruce told her that his doctor, Leslie, called it dissociative amnesia, that it’s his brain’s way of protecting him from what happened, but knowing that he doesn’t remember her at all, that he doesn’t trust her? She wills back tears at the thought. Bruce said that he would tell her if he starts to remember anything. She’ll just have to take what she can get, even if it hurts.)