Work Text:
The sunlight washes over Tim like the shock of cold water as he steps out through the doors of the school.
He’s one of the last of the stragglers, despite his short, pointless bolt through the empty halls, most of the other students already gone home for the day. There are only a couple cars left in the student pickup area, and it’s easy to pick out Jason’s shock of white hair as he scowls down at his phone, even from across the front courtyard.
He hasn’t spotted Tim yet. That’s good. It gives him a minute to breathe, to try and banish any signs of shock and dull, baffled horror at what just happened before Jason can see it.
When he’s more composed, he makes his way down across the quad. Jason finally catches sight of him. He’s close enough now to be able to make out the concern on his face, quickly replaced by relief and then a familiar expression of annoyance.
“The fuck took you so long?” Jason asks, shoving his phone back in his pocket. “I’ve been out here for like forty minutes.”
“Sorry,” Tim replies automatically. “My, um. My teacher wanted to talk to me.”
Jason huffs, but doesn’t ask any more questions, barely even looks at him as he circles around to the driver’s side, not waiting for Tim to climb into the passenger seat, his limp more pronounced than it is on better days.
Tim can’t tell if he’s grateful he doesn’t pry.
Jason’s shoulders are tight as he starts the car. Tim knows they’ll relax, that he’ll gentle into something a little less prickly the further away they get from Gotham Academy.
He’ll be able to get to work on getting his GED before long, on finally starting to reclaim the shards of his future that the Joker left shattered on a warehouse floor along with his body, but Tim knows it still hurts him, the knowledge that he can never go back to that time in his life, to the classes that he loved and the child he used to be.
Tim really wishes Bruce would just let him take the bus instead of asking Jason to go pick him up. He suspects he’s not the only one.
He rests his head against the window as Jason makes his way out of the parking lot, as trees start to appear along the edges of the road as they get closer to the manor.
His hands are still shaking, he catalogues distantly. Or maybe that started recently. He’s not sure. He tucks them back in the sleeves of his blazer, hopes the fine shudders running through his body will be disguised by the vibration of the car.
Sure enough, out of the corner of his eye, he can see Jason slowly start to relax as they drive. When he breaks the silence, he manages to not even sound annoyed. “So, how was school?”
Tim shrugs with one shoulder. “Okay.”
Sometimes, this is risky ground, his adopted brother prone to sudden frustration and anger when he dares to complain about school and sullen quietness when he sounds too enthusiastic about it.
Tim has gotten pretty good at answering neutrally.
Jason doesn’t fill the silence this time. The next words spill out into the empty space even though Tim knows even as he’s saying them that he’d be better off choking on them. “I failed my science project.”
“What?” Any other time, Tim would soak up the outrage and indignation in his brother’s voice like a sponge. “How the fuck did that happen? I watched you work on that shit for hours, Bruce even helped you!” There’s a note of bitterness in that, but it’s mostly buried by genuine confusion. “No way you got less than a B, and that’s if your teacher’s a moron.”
Tim just shrugs again.
“You should make Bruce talk to your teacher, that’s bullshit,” Jason says decisively, and Tim’s head jerks around to look at him before he can stop himself.
“No!” he blurts out.
Crap. That was way too panicked. Jason’s eyes are narrowed, a furrow between his brow that reminds him strikingly of Bruce when he gets worried.
Tim looks back down, digging his nail sharply into the strap of the backpack in his lap. “I just - I don’t need Bruce fighting my battles, that’s all,” he mumbles. “It’s just a bad grade, I’ll - I’ll figure it out.”
Jason is looking at him now, glancing between him and the road. From his peripheral vision, it’s impossible to read his expression. “That was supposed to be a pretty big grade, wasn’t it?” he says carefully. “Are you gonna have to make it up somehow?”
The shudder that runs through him this time is so violent he bends back the nail hooked into the backpack. “Pull over,” he says abruptly, not caring about the pain in his thumb.
Jason begins to slow the car, now clearly alarmed. Not fast enough. “Tim, what - ?”
Tim is already gagging.
“Oh, shit,” Jason hisses, veering abruptly into the dirty grass at the edge of the road and slamming on the breaks.
Tim tumbles out of the car before he’s even had time to put the hazard lights on, retching into the ditch. He hears Jason fumbling with his seat belt and the car door, hears his heavy boots as he walks purposefully loudly over to stand awkwardly behind him.
There wasn’t much in Tim’s stomach to begin with, but his stomach continues to rebel, trying to claw its way painfully out of his throat with every vicious convulsion.
Jason shuffles a bit closer. A warm hand comes down to rest hesitantly on his back where he’s hunched over.
It burns like a brand.
“Don’t touch me,” he gasps out, jerking away as violently as if he could pull away from his very skin.
Jason’s hand vanishes as quickly as it came. He’s talking, Tim realizes, rapid and sharp with worry. He does his best to concentrate on the sound of his voice, breathing shallowly through his nose as he wills his stomach to settle.
Footsteps move quickly away from him, returning within seconds. A water bottle suddenly appears in his line of vision, and he accepts it, swishing the first gulp around in his mouth before spitting it in the grass with the rest of his bile and sipping slowly at the rest of the water.
It helps, his stomach reluctantly retreating to its spot at the base of his ribcage. He feels a little less like he wants to crawl out of his own skin, like he wants to take the part of himself that’s all burning bile right now and dump it in the grass so he won’t have to think.
“You good?” Jason finally says, almost gentle.
Tim nods shortly. It’s a lie to the question given, but a true answer to the unspoken are you gonna throw up in my car if we go home now?
He’s pretty sure it’s true.
“Alright, come on. Keep sipping that water, easy now.” He doesn’t try to touch him again, just hovers like Tim might suddenly collapse as they walk back over to the car.
Tim slumps into the passenger seat. To his surprise, Jason picks up the backpack that fell on the ground when he jumped out of the car, checking that nothing fell out before tucking it into the space at Tim’s feet.
Tim doesn’t have the energy to even mumble a thank you.
He gets into the driver’s seat, wincing slightly as he adjusts the seat to accommodate his clearly aching knee. He must have aggravated it jumping out of the car, and Tim feels guilt coil heavy and cool under the numb distance he’s begun to retreat under.
“We’ll getcha home, and see if Alfred can swing some gatorade and his good chicken soup, how’s that sound?” Jason says, still too gentle.
He presses his cheek to the cool glass of the window and shuts his eyes. “Don’t Robin-voice me, Jason, ‘m not a victim,” he mutters.
It’s a low blow and he knows it as soon as he says it. There’s a long stretch of tense silence, and then Jason turns the ignition with a sharp jingle of keys. “Fine, Jesus, be like that then,” he snarls, all traces of the rare affection wiped out of his voice. “Don’t you fucking dare puke in the car.”
Tim would do it in a heartbeat if he thought it would get rid of the regret and shame now resting in his aching stomach. Instead, he just sits in the stoney silence as they pull back onto the road.
They make it another couple miles down the road before Jason lets out a slow breath through his nose. “Can you just answer a couple questions for me so I don’t have to listen to Bruce badger me when we get home?” he says in a clipped tone. “How long have you been feeling sick?” he asks without waiting for any confirmation.
“It just kinda came suddenly,” he answers quietly.
“Do you have any other symptoms? Headache? Sore throat? Been feeling feverish or tired?”
“No,” he says, monotone.
Jason’s knuckles whiten slightly around the steering wheel. “Take any hits to the stomach during training recently?” It’s too forced to be casual.
There’s a small half-moon of blood under the white of Tim’s nail where he bent it. He studies the red of it, feeling foggy and dreamlike. “Can I ask you a question?”
His brother’s eyes flick to him and away again, surprised and wary. “What?”
His nail doesn’t hurt much, just the dullest of aches when he presses down against it. “When you were homeless, you slept with people for money, didn’t you?”
Jason jerks like he’s been slapped. His knuckles suddenly look more bone than flesh. “Did I -”
“Was it worth it?” Tim asks, drifting like a cloud over whatever furious reaction Jason was about to give him. “The money, I mean.”
His sternum slams into the seatbelt with bruising force. Unbraced for it, his head whips forward and back against his seat as they swerve off the road again and skid to a halt with a screech of rubber.
For a moment, he’s dazed, blinking dark spots out of his eyes.
When he’s able to focus on his surroundings again, the first thing he takes in is Jason’s paper-white face, the way he’s trembling, foot still on the brake instead of putting the car in park.
“Why the fuck would you ask me that?” he hisses, voice brittle and breaking.
Tim blinks rapidly, horror seeping in past the numbness that suddenly feels terribly out of reach. “I - I didn’t - I’m sorry -”
“What, did you - did you think I needed a fucking reminder? Worried I was, what, forgetting my place, beneath your little fuckin’ Bristol-bred boot?” He laughs, an awful, bitter sound. “Can’t have the fucking street-whore forgetting where he really comes from, huh? Don’t want me getting too cocky, or maybe I’ll forget all about how I’m a fucking cripple now and try and take Robin back from you. That what you’re scared of?”
Tim’s shaking his head violently, barely able to see through the tears flooding his vision. “No, Jason, that’s not - I’m so sorry -”
Jason sniffs, scrubbing a wrist harshly across his own eyes. “Whatever,” he scoffs, voice cracking. “Fuck you, you know that? The fuck is wrong with you?”
Tim is outright sobbing now, shoulders shaking as he tries to bite down the shattered sounds he wants to make. “I didn’t - I really didn’t mean it like that, I promise Jason, I really didn’t. I just - I wasn’t thinking clearly, and it just came out so wrong, I swear,” he says between choking, stuttery breaths.
Jason scoffs again, chewing roughly on his bottom lip as he stares out through the windshield at the grimy gray clouds hanging low above them. “What did you mean?” he finally demands. “What the fuck was going through your head that came out so wrong?” He sneers the last word.
Tim desperately fights to get his breathing stabilized. He needs to explain this clearly, needs to try and fix the hurt he knows he just caused. “I don’t think you’re beneath me,” he finally says in a rush, ploughing on past Jason's disbelieving snort. “I don’t, I promise. I have no idea what it was like for you. But I know that - that you did it because if you didn’t do it, the other option was worse, right? And I guess I was just - I was wondering if you regretted it. If - if you could go back in time, before you ever did it, would you stop yourself?”
He takes a deep breath that catches in his chest, and swipes at the snot and tears on his face with his blazer sleeve, for once about ignoring all of Janet Drake’s lessons about keeping oneself presentable. That ship has smashed into the shore at this point. “Only it was a stupid question anyway, because you did it to stay alive and it’s - it’s not the same. But please Jason, you have to believe me, I know you hate me but I didn’t mean to hurt you, I promise.” He swallows thickly, and he can’t tell if his throat hurts because of his earlier puking or because of his tears.
Some color has come back into Jason’s face, but it’s not a healthy color. It’s an ashen, sickly color, tinged with green. “Tim, can you look at me?” his voice is flat, but not flat enough to hide the faint quaver to it. “What do you mean it’s not the same?”
The water bottle crinkles as Tim squeezes it. “Promise you won’t tell Bruce?” he whispers.
“I’m not making any promises I might have to break,” Jason answers without hesitation. “Tim, what the fuck did you mean it’s not the same?”
He doesn’t really know what he was expecting. Maybe that Jason hated him enough that he wouldn’t bother. Maybe he hates him too much not to tell.
But he knows he’s not getting out of this without it getting out.
“My science teacher is going to fail me,” he finally chokes out. “But, um. She said - she said she knows I’ve been having a hard time since the adoption, and she, um. She said there was a way I could - I could make up the grade.”
Other than the sharp inhale, Jason could be made of stone.
“And I just - I dunno, I just froze up, I guess.” Pathetic. The fact that he ever even entertained the idea that he could be Robin, that he could live up to Jason’s legacy, seems crazy to him now.
“Did she touch you?” he says levelly, but Tim can hear the spider-thin cracks running through his voice, the threat of fracturing completely.
Tim jerks his shoulder in what might be a shrug. “She, um. She put her hand down my pants,” he mumbles, cheeks flushing pink with shame. “I said you were waiting for me outside, and she let me go.”
Jason makes a short, choked-off sound. “It happened right before you came out?”
He manages a tiny nod.
There’s a sheen to the older boy’s eyes, a little too glossy and distant to be all the way there.
“I’m sorry,” Tim rasps out, and abruptly it’s like he can’t suck in enough air to replace the words.
Jason’s too-bright eyes are locked on him, wide with panic. “Woah, hey, breath, it’s okay baby bird, just - hey, you need to breathe.”
Suddenly, there’s a large hand gripping his, pressing his hand to Jason’s chest. He slumps forward, head pressing into his big brother’s shoulder and praying he won’t shove him away in disgust. He can’t tell if he’s sobbing again, or if he never really stopped to begin with.
“Shh, shh, you’re okay, you’re going to be okay,” Jason is murmuring. He doesn’t shove him away. Instead, he gathers him closer, pressing his chin into Tim’s hair. “You’re alright, baby bird. You’re never gonna have to see her again. It’s gonna be okay, we’re gonna - Bruce is gonna fix this.” He says Bruce the same way he’d say Batman, with all the faith of a child in their hero, a faith that’s been fragile for a while now.
There’s nothing fragile in it right now that Tim can detect.
“Is he gonna be mad at me?” Tim asks, when he can finally breathe enough to speak again.
“Why the fuck would he be mad at you?” Jason asks, sounding genuinely bewildered as he squeezes him a tiny bit tighter.
It almost physically hurts to draw back out of the hug, but Tim makes himself do it anyway, blotting again at the fresh tears which have spilled down his cheeks. “I dunno,” he sniffs. “Sometimes I just - I feel like he regrets adopting me,” he says in a small voice. “I know it’s been really inconvenient, and I know it’s stressed you out when you’re supposed to be recovering and made you guys fight, and I just feel like - like he got you back, and then instead of helping I made it all worse,” he admits in a rush. “And I could’ve stayed with my parents -”
“Your parents were abusive, neglectful pieces of shit who left you alone for months at a time. And that was their parenting at its best,” Jason snarls, and Tim actually flinches, startled by the intensity in his voice.
Jason groans, tipping his head back to rest on the back of his seat. “Look, I know I’m pretty shit at being a big brother,” he says dully after a moment. “I’m not. I’m not doing so hot. At anything right now. And I’ve been an asshole to you, and you didn’t deserve it. But Bruce - Bruce did the right thing, by bringing you home to us.”
He chews on his lip, hard enough Tim is a little surprised he doesn’t draw blood. “He loves you, kid,” he says quietly. “You’re not a fucking - inconvenience, or whatever your asshole parents told you.”
Tilting his head to look Tim in the eye, he adds, “And I don’t hate you. You said that earlier, and I don’t blame you for thinking it, but I don’t hate you. I’m mad at a whole lot of things, but you haven’t done anything wrong.”
He runs his hands over his face. There are dark circles under his eyes.
Tim knows it’s because he still has nightmares most nights. His room is just down the hall, he can hear them, though he never says anything. He’s sure Jason knows anyway, wonders if it’s just one more thing Jason is ashamed of, even though he shouldn't be.
“Here’s what we’re gonna do,” he says decisively, as the first few fat drops of rain splatter on the windshield. “I’m going to text Alfred, and we’re going to sit here and wait for him to come pick us up, and then I’m going to come with you while you tell Bruce what happened. And if he gets mad at you, which he won’t, I’ll fucking yell at him, okay?”
That draws a tiny, surprised snort out of Tim. “Okay,” he whispers. “How come we need Alfred to pick us up?”
Jason raises a weary eyebrow at him, tipping his head towards the rain pattering down. “Do I look like I’m in any state to drive us home in a rainstorm? I didn’t survive the Joker just to die wrapped around a telephone pole.”
He stumbles only a tiny bit over the Joker’s name, and Tim is suddenly so, so proud of him.
He sticks out a still-shakey hand, and after a moment’s surprise, Jason takes it, squeezing it awkwardly over the center console.
He hesitates another moment, and then suddenly leans across to press a quick kiss to the top of Tim’s head, something Dick has done many times, but his other big brother has never done before. A flood of warmth washes over him at the gentle affection, something he never thought he’d get to have before this family.
“And someday, when Bruce says you’re ready, you’re gonna make a pretty kickass Robin.” The words are tinged with a lot of emotions, but most of all, he sounds sincere.
Tim leans over, not caring as the plastic console digs into his ribs, and rests his head on Jason’s shoulder. “You’re a pretty kickass brother,” he mumbles. “And you’ll always be a kickass Robin, no matter what you do next.”
Jason lets out a shuddery breath.
Around them, the world outside turns to rivers of soft outlines and blurry colors as the rain falls harder.
But it’s okay.
Tim believes it might actually be okay.