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Day 6: Doctor Hospital Visit
Tim had not envisioned his day going like this. When he had first woken up to the sound of a phone ringing, his first thought had been that Kon wanted to go out today, maybe on a little date where they could have dinner in a romantic restaurant much like the ones Tim's mother always loved to brag about his father bringing her to.
Of course, such fantasies were unfounded. Kon did not want to go out to have dinner with him, and he was not the one calling. Instead, it was his brother, Dick. Once he saw the caller ID, Tim felt his shoulders drop. Only losers like him received phone calls from their older brothers this early in the morning.
“Tim speaking,” he answered the phone.
“Hey, Timmy, could you do me a favour?” Dick asked, his voice desperate. Tim frowned. It was not unusual for Dick to call him this early in the morning, but asking for a favour in that sort of tone? Yeah, something’s going on.
“Sure,” He broached uncertainly. “What is it you want me to do?”
He could hear a sigh of relief coming from the other line. “Alright, great. I'm going to send him over to yours then.”
“Wait, what? Send who over to mine?”
“Uh.” Dick drawled out. “Look, Timmy, thank you so much for doing me this solid, but I need to go. We'll be there in about 30 minutes.”
“Dick, wait, who’s we?” Tim yelled into the phone, snapping from frustration. Not only was Dick being cryptic—something that never boded well—but Tim had to wait for a mysterious guest to come over to his house, and not to mention that said house was a mess.
Not that he cared much about what people thought of his apartment; He was not that sort of freak. That had been his mother.
But before Tim could get an answer, not that he thought he would have gotten one anyway, the line cut off.
Tim laid the phone on the kitchen table and went to change clothes. What he had been wearing was dirty, stained with coffee and a little smelly; He had been in it for three days in a row. Maybe he should take a shower now that he thought of it.
Freshly dressed, Tim was just about to make a cup of coffee when the phone rang again. With an exhausted groan, he went to pick it up. He was about to yell at Dick to give him more information about their—whoever they may be—abrupt visit, when he noticed that it was not his older brother calling this time.
Butterflies fluttering in his stomach, Tim accepted the call only to hear the gruff voice of Kon on the other end of the line. “Hey there, Tim. How’re you doing?”
“Hi, Kon,” Tim tried to keep his voice from cracking at the most inopportune of times, as it was wont to do, but he failed. He was 19, goddamnit; he should not be dealing with this shit anymore.
“I was thinking if you'd like to come over to my place in Metropolis for some time today.” Kon’s voice was casual as always, but Tim—who knew him so well—could detect a hint of caution underneath the bravado.
The warm feeling in his chest increased exponentially. Kon wanted him to come over to his place. To hang out! Not for a mission or anything—at least he hoped so—but just to spend time with him. The ‘yes’ was on the tip of his tongue when he remembered Dick’s odd phone call.
His shoulders drooped; a sigh of frustration escaped his lips. “I'd like to, but it's just, uh, Dick just called me and he said he's coming over to visit with someone else, and I don't know how long they'll be here for.” Hearing nothing from the other end, Tim rushed to offer an alternative, “But if you'd like, you—you could come over to mine!”
“I have heard that it goes against the social contract for people to invade another's privacy while other guests have already intruded.” It was a very robotic answer that did not sound like Kon at all, but Tim tried to keep a level head about this. Maybe this was Lex Luthor's influence, or Lena's.
“I would not have offered if it made me uncomfortable, Kon. Don't worry.”
There was another silence, but eventually Kon’s voice broke out with a cheerful “All right, I'll be there in 5 minutes,” and he hung up before Tim could do anything about it.
Sometimes Tim forgot that Kon was made four years ago in a lab. This was not such an instance.
Tim, in his infinite wisdom, was starting to panic when someone knocked on his door. He hoped it was not another surprise visit from anyone.
When he opened the door, he came face to face with his older brother and…
“Damian? You brought me Damian?” The sheepish expression on Dick’s face did nothing to charm him in Tim’s eyes. Did he want Tim dead? Because the last time he and Damian had met, the little gremlin tried to kill him.
“I'm really sorry to spring this upon you so suddenly, but you were the last option. Jason's out of town. Bruce is in a board meeting that cannot be rescheduled. Alfred's visiting his family in Peru. Steph and Cass are vacationing in Shanghai. And Duke’s in school.”
“What about you? Why doesn't the gremlin go to school anymore? Did he try to kill someone over there too?” Not that Tim wouldn't have known if Damian had tried to kill someone in school. He liked to keep himself updated on the recent happenings in his family's life, and that unfortunately included the demon spawn. However, no matter how immature Bruce would call it, he kind of liked to poke fun at Damian. Usually the kid would have already given as good as he got and added biting remarks in defence of his honour, but he remained weirdly silent.
“I need to go to a meeting with the Teen Titans. Also, Damian can’t go to school because he's sick.” He put a comforting hand on Damian’s shoulder, despite the kid’s scowl at the gesture. That made sense. The kid must have been really tired if he did not make any sharp comments about Tim’s appearance.
”You do know that his grandfather has possession of my spleen, right? Coming into contact with him could kill me.” Tim shivered dramatically despite it being a warm day in April. “I think I'm starting to feel the effects of the sickness already.” A pause in which Tim sniffled like a Victorian damsel. “If you should bury me, please do it in an oak coffin. Otherwise, burn me and spread my ashes on Mount Everest.”
“Why Everest?”
“To annoy you, of course.” He grinned at the little gremlin on the side of Dick. Damian really did look pathetic. His cheeks were flushed, his face gaunt, his eyes glistening with fever. His hair was a bit sweaty, and he appeared to be shivering. And not dramatically like Tim had, but actually from the nonexistent cold. Who would have thought? The perfectly mature Damian Wayne had been brought low by an illness.
“Oh well, Tim, you wouldn't have to worry. It's not like he's going to get you sick.” Dick gave a small laugh, as if the mere notion was hilarious. Tim could not find anything funny about this situation. He could very well be bedridden for weeks for looking after the gremlin when he has an infectious disease—probably contracted from school. Dick probably hadn't seen the confused expression on his younger brother's face, because when he glanced at the clock, he cursed silently and gave a quick goodbye wave. “Gotta go, I'm already late. Have fun.”
“Yeah, fun,” Tim muttered to himself as he ushered Damian into the apartment. Oddly enough, Damian made no comment about the decor or about the messy look of the living room. He simply went to the couch, grabbed the blanket that had been half strewn across the dusty floor and wrapped himself in it.
Seeing him now, pathetically curled up like a kitten under the white blanket, Tim did not know what to do. How does one take care of a sick kid? Did Damian have a fever? His appearance certainly hinted so. Tim didn’t think he had any children’s medicine. What was he supposed to do?
Another knock sounded through the apartment, and it must have been a testament to how awful he was feeling because Damian didn't even react to the noise. This time the knock did not come from the door, but from the window. There Kon was, flying, with his sunglasses on top of his head, for all to see. Quickly, and with a hissed threat, Tim brought the clown inside and instructed him to stay quiet.
Of course, Tim should have known this was never bound to happen. "When you mentioned guests, I hadn't thought you meant him," Kon muttered, making his way through the apartment, undeterred by the scattered files, the half-empty coffee mugs, energy drinks and the chipped glasses. To be completely honest, Kon's apartment was probably worse.
Damian grumbled at the noise, burrowing deeper in his borrowed blanket. However, he still did not say a word. Even Kon frowned at the kid’s lack of energy.
“What’s wrong with him?” He pointed his chin at the lump on the couch, and Tim could only shrug in response.
“He’s sick.” Tim was not sure what kind of sickness plagued the kid. He probably had a fever, but he had not coughed yet; he had been here for about two minutes, so that may be why. God, what if he was about to vomit all over Tim’s white blanket? He hoped this was not a stomach bug. The only sure symptom was Damian’s obvious exhaustion.
“What kinda sick?” Kon asked. “There’s fever sick, stomach sick, vomit sick, heat sick, head sick,” He counted on his fingers to showcase the many kinds of sickness. Tim bit his lip to stop from laughing.
“I dunno,” He told him instead. Deciding to be brave, he went near the couch and laid a hand over Damian’s shoulder. Yep, definitely fever. He could feel the heat radiating from the kid under the blanket and the layers of clothes. “Damian?”
The only response he got was a quiet hum and the blink of two glassy green eyes. Tim’s chest squeezed at the look of exhaustion in them. He didn’t like the gremlin, but he was still a small, sick child. Tim could feel sympathy for him. It was completely normal. He did not need any other explanation for the sudden feeling of protectiveness that washed over him. If he gentled his voice just a little bit, then that was nobody’s business but his own.
“Where are you feeling bad?”
Damian’s eyes blinked at him again, and with a small yawn, he answered, “My throat hurts.” It seemed to cost him because he winced at his own raspiness and made to curl up again, before Tim stopped him.
“Anything else?” The gremlin shot him what he probably thought was an intimidating glare, but in his state it resembled a wet kitten’s scared gaze.
He moved his lips, as if testing something, before speaking as steadily as he could. “My mouth.”
“Your… mouth?” Kon questioned, a disbelieving eyebrow rising to meet his hairline. “Never heard of mouth sickness before.” He muttered to himself before his face cleared, as if a lightbulb had gone off in his head. “Is it your tooth?”
Apparently, Damian had enough energy to roll his eyes. “Tt, if it were my tooth, I would have said so, you moron.”
“Damn, kid, didn’t think you’d still sprout venom. You have the whole wet kitten look down,” The half-alien said, undaunted by Damian’s imitation of the BatglareTM.
Damian must have used up all his energy with that sentence because he said nothing in response. He, once again, attempted to suffocate himself with the blankets, but Tim caught his shoulder.
“You probably have a fever.” He told him, to which Damian rolled his eyes. Honestly, teenagers. “I should have a thermometer somewhere around here.” He turned to look at the cabinet next to the couch and signalled Kon—like his loyal dog—to rummage through it while Tim went into the bathroom to look.
Tim didn’t have to go far because, in the next minute, Kon’s triumphant ‘found it!’, followed suit by an annoyed grumble from Damian, prevented him from having to search anything at all.
The scene he walked into next was admittedly hilarious. There Kon was, standing over Damian with the thermometer extended towards him, but gripped from the very tip that was supposed to go inside the kid’s ear, while Damian wore a horrified expression and tugged the blanket over his face like it was a fortress that could help him escape the dangers of the thermometer.
He had to stifle a laugh because he knew it would not go over well with either of them. “You're holding it wrong, Kon.”
Damian huffed. “I could have told him that, but he wouldn't listen.” He sniffed dramatically.
“Oh, I'm sorry.” There was no hint of embarrassment in his voice and no flush on his face. It was just like Kon to feel completely at ease with being corrected on something. He switched his grip on the thermometer and held it on the right side. “Here you go!”
“I’m not putting your germs in my ear,” Damian rasped, disgusted.
“That’s a ship long since sailed.” Tim joked, but it seemed to fall flat. Damian just frowned and muttered something under his breath that he didn’t manage to catch. “Alright, alright, give it here.” He grabbed the thermometer from Kon and started wiping it on his shirt. Damian sniffed again, but allowed Tim to insert the thermometer in his ear.
He squirmed, tugging at his blankets, but Tim—imitating Dick’s comforting gesture—laid a hand on his shoulder to calm him. Gradually, Damian’s shoulders loosened, and he leaned his weight slightly onto Tim. His eyes closed for a bit, and his gaunt face seemed so peaceful that he felt guilty to startle him.
“Shit,” He winced at seeing the number on the thermometer. “You’re not feeling pretty hot, hmm?”
Kon leaned over to look at it too and whistled. “Damn, kid, that’s high.”
The kid hummed in response, falling back into the couch and curling himself into a ball. Minutes passed with a quiet conversation between Tim and Kon, but not a peep from the kid.
“You should give him something,” Kon whispered to Tim.
“What?” He hissed. Tim had no idea what one should give a kid with such a high fever. 102.7°F. “Maybe we should take him to the doctor?”
“I don’t think he’ll appreciate that.” He pointed at Damian’s curled form. He was probably asleep by now. Kon, intuitive to his inner conflict, sighed and took Tim’s hands in his. “How about we let him sleep for a couple of hours, and when he wakes up—if his fever’s high, we’ll go to the chemist and ask what we should get him, yeah?”
It sounded like a bad plan that was bound to end tragically, but it was the best that Tim had. Waking Damian up, dragging him to the doctor, and hearing him whinging the whole way there was not ideal.
“Fine,” He huffed. “But if his fever rises above 103°F, we are taking him to the ER.”
“Alright.” Kon smiled, and if Tim couldn’t have refused him before, he certainly couldn’t now.
Damian slept. For a while. Tim and Kon watched some TV quietly, played Monopoly as quietly as two competitive people could, and scrolled on their phones.
Tim did not stop worrying. His mind was in constant turmoil. What if the kid’s brain got fried from the fever? What if his eyeballs leaked from his sockets? What if his tongue became goo inside his mouth and stopped working?
Perhaps all those thoughts were a bit dramatic, but that notion did nothing to halt them. Tim would continue to worry until the kid woke up.
As if the universe was reading his mind and determining that he had suffered enough, Kon’s gaze immediately snapped to the kid. His eyes conveyed the message of ‘he has woken up’. Tim felt as nervous as he had when he told Bruce he knew his identity. Teenagers.
The boy grumbled under the covers.
“Hey, Damian,” Tim started, but the boy barely blinked. “C’mon, gremlin, scoot.” He grabbed the thermometer from the cabinet. The kid looked away with a tired roll of his eyes, but did scoot. Tim came near him and pushed the device into his ear. Just like the last time, he squirmed, but Tim held him steady.
Kon came over too, glancing at the numbers rising and rising. “Shit.” He muttered in a near-silent whisper.
“Yeah,” Tim replied in an equally low tone. Finally, they heard a beep. Damian just groaned and fell back to the bed. “What’d you think?” He addressed his friend.
“Bad,” Kon swallowed. He took the thermometer from Tim’s hands and frowned. “Well, it could be worse.”
“Oh, you—” Tim was too worried to verbalise his frustration. His eyes were drawn to the number on the thermometer. “104.2?! His brain’s gonna be fried!”
Damian whimpered. Tim winced. Maybe he shouldn’t have shouted like that. He should try a gentler approach.
“Damian, you need to wake up.” Damian glared at him. “We need to go, kid.”
“Where?” His voice was hoarser than Tim had ever heard it. This was bad. Really bad.
“To the doctor.” He was prepared to listen to the whole whinging rant that Damian was no doubt about to start, but it never came.
This most of all urged him to action. He gathered Damian up, blankets and all, and passed him straight into Kon’s arms. “What do you need me to do?” He looked so determined to help, so amazingly brave in the face of Tim’s rising panic that he had to take a moment to admire him.
His blue eyes, shining against the fading sun, held a glint of something that Tim could not quite name but closely resembled loyalty. With a bundled-up kid in his arms, others would have looked ridiculous and out of their depth, but Kon appeared as if he was in his element. He held himself straight-backed, and Tim had never thought he looked more like a hero than in that moment. He was Tim’s hero.
“There are Ubers down my street; take one to the hospital. I’ll grab some money.”
Kon seemed uncertain about leaving him. “Are you sure?”
“Yes.” He needed Kon to believe him, so he injected as much conviction in his voice as he could. It must have done the trick, because Kon walked out with a confident expression etched on his face.
Tim, on the other hand, was barely containing his panic. He needed to get money. Not cash—in Gotham that would be suicide—but his card. He had that in his wallet. Where could that be? In the kitchen drawer? No way. Maybe in the cabinet by the door?
He dashed towards it and rummaged through it. He did not find the wallet, but he saw his key. He needed that too. It wouldn’t do to be locked out of his own apartment.
Maybe the wallet was in his coat. He grabbed the cell phone on his way there, pocketing it as he went. In his haste, he would have forgotten it otherwise.
Luck blessed him and voila! There were three cards in his wallet. He grabbed the golden one—the one with an unlimited budget—and shoved it in the same pocket as the phone.
As if wild horses were chasing him, Tim dove out of his apartment and beelined for the Ubers. He saw Kon and Damian nowhere in sight, so he signalled a driver with a muttered, “Hospital.”
The ride there was both long and short. It was as if time had flown by inside the car, but each minute had slowed down to endless hours. Thoughts buzzed against his ears like a beehive; What if waiting had caused Damian irreparable damage? What if they couldn’t help him? What if his brain really had fried because of the fever, and right now his eyeballs were slipping from his sockets?
“30 bucks, kid.” He held out a hand as if he expected to hand over the money. Maybe the man really was insane.
The driver probably sensed his confusion, because he rolled his eyes and pointed to the window. Behind him stretched a miserable grey building. In the centre, the words ‘GOTHAM GENERAL HOSPITAL’ were half-erased, but still visible. “We’re here.”
Feeling embarrassed, Tim held out his golden card. At the sight of it, the Uber driver whistled, “You a Bristol kid, huh?”
“Could say that.” Tim needed to get out of here. If that meant being short with a stranger, then so be it. He had done worse things for way less noble causes. Maybe the Uber driver was a mind-reader because he let Tim go with a wave of his hand.
The walk inside was like a daydream; the next thing he knew, he was face to face with a bored-looking nurse. “How can I help you, sir?” She asked in a customer service voice, as if this were not a hospital but Batburger.
“I’m here for my brother. He must have come earlier.”
“Well then, sir, you must wait in line.” She pointed at a long queue of people, fidgeting with clear agitation. No way was Tim waiting that long.
At her expectant look, he name-dropped. “I’m Tim Drake, my brother’s Damian Wayne. Surely you can find him quickly.”
Unsurprisingly, the woman almost fell from her seat. She stammered and apologised, fixed her shoulder vests in an imitation of charm and went to work. While everyone else was looking at him with obvious contempt, Tim couldn't care less. The ends justify the means, after all.
“Room 391, Mr Drake.” The nurse told him with a flirty smile. He attempted to give one back, but her grimace hinted at his failure.
From what he remembered from his trips to Gotham General, room 391 was on the second floor—which was well known to be the best floor. Now, why they would name it 391 when it was on the second floor was anybody’s guess, but that was Gotham for you.
Tim reached it in relatively little time. Kon was sitting in a corner chair while Damian was hooked up to a drip stand, looking as exhausted as the last time Tim had seen him.
“What’d the doctors say?” He whispered to Kon. Said man shrugged.
“Not much. Claimed that the fever’s high. They’ve pushed acetaminophen—which apparently is Tylenol, if you can believe it—and they said they’ll run some tests.” Kon looked up sharply. “Wait, I think they’re coming.”
“Must be the name drop,” Tim tried to crack a smile, and he was sure that the pathetic little twist of Kon’s lips was reflected in his face.
True to Kon’s word, a stout doctor entered the room a minute later. He looked severe, not the kind of man who would play around. Tim appreciated that. He did not want someone who would endanger his brother’s life.
“Mr Drake,” the man greeted. His gaze slid to Kon. “And…?”
“Kon.” He extended a hand towards the doctor. He had come so far from the awkward boy who did not even know what handshakes were. Tim was so proud.
“Mr Kon.” His gaze settled on Tim, however. “Your brother has a high fever, and from the brief examination my colleague performed, it seems his lymph nodes are swollen as well. But with the medicine we injected, he should be feeling better in a bit. We need some blood to confirm it is an infection that’s causing this and what kind, so we can target it specifically. Then you’ll be good to go. It might take a few hours.”
“I see.” Tim could only hope that the doctor was right. Something in his gut told him he was not.
The doctor left after he had gotten the needed blood—not without Damian’s complaints, of course—and hours passed. Damian did not get any better. He kept squirming in bed, and while his fever had not risen, it had not dropped either. He slept a lot. In the few times he was awake, he scowled at Tim for dragging him to the hospital and muttering something under his breath that sounded familiarly similar to Arabic.
Kon had stood by him the whole time.
Bruce had called a little after they had gotten Damian to the hospital—exhausted from the board meeting—and asked how his youngest was doing. Tim did not have the heart to tell him that they were in the urgent care.
He had a missed call from Dick because while he could lie to Batman, nobody could lie to Dick Grayson, but he did not feel any guilt. His older brother would have rushed here if he knew, and Tim was certain that he could handle this by himself.
They had come here at around six and a half, and now it was midnight. What were the doctors doing all this time?
Every other minute, Tim glanced at Kon and asked if anyone was coming. With his super-hearing, the other man should hear any footsteps drawing closer. But Kon always shook his head.
This time though, luck shone upon the two of them, and Kon nodded. Damian had started stirring from his sleep, too. Wonderful.
“Mr Drake, Mr Kent.” There was an unfamiliar woman with a lab coat at the door. She shook hands with neither of them. Her face looked more serious than it should be to discharge them. She glanced at Damian and saw him waking up. Her face did not change in the slightest. It was so hard to read her.
“Doctor,” Tim started, but the woman raised her hand.
“We've conducted multiple tests, and we’ve found no signs of infection. While we cannot rule it out completely because the cultures have not come back yet, it is very unlikely earlier tests would have shown nothing. We must start looking at other causes for this fever.”
“So, you don’t even know what this is?” Tim asked, raising a hand to rub at his face. This was bad. Really bad. What would he tell Bruce? Call him in the middle of the night and say, ‘Hey, remember the son that was doing fine? Well, he is not; he is in the hospital, his fever is not going down, and the doctors have no idea what’s wrong with him.’ ‘Cuz that’d go over well.
“We are conducting tests—”
“Screw your tests! My brother is burning up over there and you—”
“What’s going on?” A small voice interrupted their soon-to-be shouting match. The doctor, Tim, and Kon’s gazes immediately snapped to Damian, who was sitting up in bed, rubbing his left eye with a fist and yawning.
“Sorry we woke you, Damian,” Kon offered, raising his hands up in surrender as Tim’s brother started glaring at him.
“Damian.” The doctor’s voice was gentler than when Tim had talked to her, and her face had softened. “I know this is confusing, but you need to stay here for a couple more hours.”
“Why?” He groaned. Tim felt a pang in his heart. He had never seen Damian acting so childishly before. “Will you give me the medicine already?”
Medicine? What medicine?
“Medicine?” The doctor questioned just as Tim was about to repeat the same thing.
Damian muttered something that sounded dangerously close to “All of you… imbeciles,” before clearing his throat as best as he could. “The medicine for my illness.”
“What…?” Tim opened his mouth, but the doctor raised a hand. What was it with people doing that today?
“Do you remember the name of your medicine?”
“Prednisone, or any corticosteroid, anyway.”
“Prednisone, high fever, swollen lymph nodes,” The doctor muttered to herself, counting on her fingers. “Damian, could you open your mouth, please?”
The boy rolled his eyes, but complied. The doctor stepped closer with a penlight, and whatever she saw made understanding dawn upon her face. Her eyes looked troubled, but Tim was now certain that the woman had discovered Damian’s mysterious illness.
“Damian,” She spoke slowly. Tim did not even have to look at him to see Damian’s displeasure at the tone. “Does the word PFAPA mean anything to you?” Tim had never heard of it, and he was sure Damian, whose first language was not even English, had never heard of it either.
To Tim’s immense surprise, Damian looked very bored with the whole ordeal. “Would you like to ask me what colour my eyes are next? Obviously, I am familiar with the term.” He said in the most condescending voice he could manage with such a sore throat.
The doctor looked as stunned as Tim felt. “Are you aware that you have that condition?”
Another eye roll. “Of course.”
“Wait, what? You have what?” Tim piped in. He felt so confused; his head was spinning, and he could barely think straight. What condition? What was PFAPA? Since when did Damian have it?”
“PFAPA stands for Periodic Fever, Aphthous Stomatitis, Pharyngitis, and Adenitis syndrome. It’s an autoinflammatory disease that affects primarily children. It is considered rather uncommon; about one in five thousand children suffer from it. Since Damian is about ten?" She looked for confirmation of the age. Damian nodded. “It will probably resolve on its own in some months.”
“You have an autoimmune disease?” Tim gaped, and Damian flushed.
“Autoinflammatory, but yes.” He pursed his lips. “I had thought you were aware of it, but it seems my assumption was incorrect.”
“If I had known about it, why would I have dragged you to the hospital?” Tim threw his hands up in the air and exhaled a sigh of what could be frustration, but he had the sneaking suspicion it was relief that the little brat would be fine.
“So this was not a plot to elongate my torture and exploit my weakness?” Damian asked, with genuine confusion on his face. Tim felt horrible. Was this what the kid had been thinking this whole time?
“No, Damian,” He said quietly.
The doctor cleared her throat before awkwardness could settle over them. “It seems the problem is solved. We will provide you with a dose of prednisone then, and you’ll be good to go.” She turned to Tim, and the cool gaze she had previously bestowed upon him was replaced by one of warmth. “I could give you a pamphlet if you’d like.”
Tim felt himself nodding. He was in too much shock to answer properly. Kon took his hand in his and squeezed. If this had been any other situation, Tim would have shouted and jumped with joy at the action, but the revelation that his brother—because Damian, for all his many faults, was still Tim’s brother at the end of the day—had thought he was ‘exploiting his weakness’ for being so concerned, and that said illness was an autoinflammatory disease that Tim was supposed to know about was too much.
Even Damian looked at him in concern. Maybe Tim appeared worse than he thought.
Gingerly, he picked up his phone and typed in a number. Kon was gazing at him with obvious curiosity, but Tim didn’t care.
All this fear for Damian’s life, the unadulterated, raw feeling of helplessness that Tim had felt watching his little brother squirm in bed with a fever so high that a hospital visit was prudent, could have been prevented if Dick had just said the word ‘PFAPA’.
So when Dick picked up with a sleepy “Is everything okay, Timmy?” Tim was sure that this was the ideal time to go on a tangent.
“DICK, YOU LITTLE PIECE OF SH—”