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Tim should be excited, right?
He had asked for this, spent weeks hoping it would work out. He had given Bruce permission to reach out to his parents about staying with the Waynes longer term, he had even been the one to fax the kinship care paperwork to Jack and Janet’s assistant Natalie. Tim had fallen asleep slumped against the fax machine in his dad’s office two days in a row waiting for a signed response.
Tim wanted this.
And yet when the time came to pack most of his belongings, he felt strangely numb.
“Take whatever you think you’ll want or need, but you can always come back if you forgot something or realize you want it for your room at the Manor, Tim,” Bruce clapped him on the shoulder and left him in the room he’d spent more time in for thirteen years than anywhere else.
He stared around at the familiar mess, at the open suitcase on the ground (one of Bruce’s, Tim’s parents were still on a dig in Ethiopia and they had all of the monogrammed Drake suitcases), and took a deep breath, shaking out his hands.
Okay. Here we go.
Tim was glad he’d had the foresight to do laundry, and it was fast enough to move the clean clothes he wore most often from his hamper into the suitcase. Then he went to the closet, which mostly held the Gotham Academy uniform shirts that wrinkled too easily for anything other than hanging and a handful of suits for galas, all but one of which he’d grown out of.
He put the school uniforms into a garment bag with the one suit that didn’t pull too tight across his shoulders (even moreso now that he trained with the Bats) and wasn’t too short at the ankles, and hung it on the doorknob where it wouldn’t be forgotten. There was still a bit of room in the first suitcase since Tim rotated through only a select few outfits when he wasn’t in school and one of those he was already wearing (a wash-worn red tee shirt, his most broken-in jeans (noticeably lighter at the knees from use), and a perhaps slightly embarrassing (now that he knew Dick personally) Nightwing hoodie that had holes in the sleeve cuffs where he rubbed his fingers across the elastic). Tim used his other hoodie, plain black and big enough to help conceal his silhouette in the Gotham night, to wrap around his camera case as an extra layer for the move.
Then Tim pushed his desk chair toward his closet door, pushed the brakes on with socked feet because he did not want to have another conversation with Bruce about swivel chair safety, and stood on it to unscrew a vent cover.
Once the manila folder of photos, SD cards, and three flash drives was safely removed, Tim replaced the vent cover. The folder slid easily enough under a stack of his clothes, and Tim zipped the first suitcase shut.
Next, his desk. Tim ran a hand through his hair and then shook it out again. He forgot that he’d tried using pomade today, and it left a tacky feeling against his palm. He rubbed his hand across the Nightwing logo on his chest a few times until the feeling faded, and exhaled sharply.
Tim pulled his backpack close and began to sort through the piles of paper scattered across his desk. Current projects and assignments went into the backpack, and old ones that he may still need for reference went into a file box Bruce had somehow thought to bring. The backpack filled quickly with his laptop, two textbooks, the assigned reading for English, and his separate notebooks and folders for each class.
The backpack zipper strained a bit but it still closed, so Tim counted that as a win.
Now for, well, everything else. Tim opened up an empty suitcase, a bit smaller than the first, and considered what would be most important to have with him. He wouldn’t need the white noise machine since Wayne Manor had its own background noise rather than heavy silence begging to be artificially filled. The small clock would come with him, the water cup he’d used at night since he was eight (the Batman logo had worn down enough to be unrecognizable so Tim wasn’t worried about it embarrassing him), and the one pillowcase with a texture that he could stand were quickly tossed in as well.
The coffee maker, though, would be a tough call. Tim knew that Bruce and Alfred were on a mission to reduce his caffeine intake, and they did have one of the really nice espresso machines in the kitchen closest to the family wing. But Tim had been using this coffee maker for his breakfast every morning for years now, in addition to filling his 32oz thermos with coffee before school. He made his instant oatmeal packets with water he heated in that coffee maker and ate it with the same bowl and spoon that he kept in his room and rinsed each day, and when his weekly reminder to wash it for real sounded on his phone Tim would take it down to the echoey kitchen, wash it properly, and bring it straight back for the next morning. He’d done this since he turned eleven and realized that the main reason he skipped breakfast was the three staircases between him and food, and since his parents no longer enforced the No Food Upstairs rule he could also make food upstairs, and five internet articles about dorm room “kitchens” later Tim had a coffee maker ordered and on its way, with bulk quantities of the one oatmeal flavor he liked alongside coffee grounds and filters.
He packed the coffee maker in the suitcase, along with his twenty or so remaining oatmeal packets and a half-gone bag of coffee grounds. Tim’s bowl and spoon fit easily enough, and he slid his coffee thermos into the side pouch on his school bag.
Tim looked across at the open closet door.
The edge of a blanket peeked out from behind the sliding door. He stood from the floor slowly and walked back to the closet, leaning in to look at his corner.
It was simple, really. A blanket and a couple of pillows shoved against the closet walls, a gap just wide enough for Tim to slide in and feel pressure from all sides if he used his legs to push himself back just right. A spare phone cord just barely reached the nest from the nearest outlet. A slight dent in one wall from the time–
It had been a few weeks since he’d needed to use the corner. There was a visible layer of dust on the linens.
Tim pulled the closet door shut and shook out his hands as he turned to face his now strangely clean room.
That was everything. A box of loose papers, a backpack, and two suitcases. His whole life.
No wonder Tim’s parents had such an easy time leaving.
He called down the hallway to Bruce that he was finished packing.
***
Things were great, really. Much better than before. Tim had people to talk to almost constantly, he wasn’t by himself, if he fell down the stairs someone would show up to ask if he was okay (he wasn’t sure it should count as a fall if it was only the last three steps, and they only heard it because he’d been carrying his empty thermos which clattered loudly enough that within the minute Bruce, Jason, and Dick (Tim hadn’t even known Dick was over at the time) were all there, having sprinted from different directions and a minute after that Alfred had arrived carrying a first aid kit). Only Tim’s pride was injured.
It should feel nice to have people looking out for him, but for some reason, it was starting to feel like Tim’s skin was too tight.
Bruce had wanted him to take his first week or two at the Manor off of patrolling, to help Tim “settle in,” but that meant yet another piece of his carefully constructed routine was gone.
Tim wasn’t sleeping. At least not well. He didn’t have patrol to tire him out so when he lay in bed at night (a different bed, this one for some reason centered against a wall instead of in a corner) Tim could hear everything.
He had expected the sounds of life at the Waynes’ to comfort him. Tim was used to feeling the crushing silence of being completely alone every night, was used to turning on white noise and leaving video essays playing as he fell asleep in an effort to feel like he wasn’t the only living being in Drake Manor. At those times living being had felt like a bit of a stretch. As though he was a ghost, some wayward spirit haunting the hallways with his pacing and the soft sound of one or two songs played on a loop for hours.
But these signs of life here, indications that he wasn’t alone cut through the silence and woke him from even a dead sleep, every time. Tim kept snapping awake to the sound of soft footsteps down the hall and catching himself just before he called out to his parents, thinking they’d come home early. Then the realization would come like a backhand across his face: Jack and Janet Drake were not home, and they had been given the perfect excuse not to return for however long they’d like. They no longer had to maintain the appearance of caring for their son.
His mother and father signed him away without even calling.
Tim sat bolt upright on his fourth night since moving into Wayne Manor. He was just awake enough to register a soft thump and muffled cursing outside his door. Jason must’ve dropped something. Shuffling noises, and more footsteps that got quieter with distance. He pressed a hand against his heart and could feel it pounding through his palm. It took a long time to slow, and Tim found himself rocking just slightly back and forth in time with his pulse. His skin itched.
Looking up from the blanket after a long while, the room that greeted Tim was starting to feel a bit more his own. The coffee maker hadn’t been plugged in but stood on the desk, striking a familiar silhouette. Some of his clutter had found its way around the room, school supplies and clothing, his camera. Someone (probably Jason) had hung a Justice League poster on the wall, but Tim refused to give him the satisfaction of bringing it up. His plastic cup sat empty on the bedside table. The room had two doors, one to the hallway and one to the ensuite bathroom which Tim was grateful for. He had a small walk-in closet but it was open to the bedroom and the built-in drawers and shelves made it so there were no hidden corners he could tuck himself into.
He rocked a bit faster, pressing his hand harder against his chest and longing to feel something around him. Tim was an expanding balloon, and without outside pressure, he’d grow until he burst, and then dissipate into nothing. He scooted back to lean against the headboard but even that wasn’t enough, only one side of him with contact, the rest of him not even feeling real. He briefly considered getting up to push the bed into a corner only to realize that the noise (and rearranged furniture) would draw attention he didn’t want. Attention he couldn’t stand.
The caring in this household was so thick Tim could choke on it.
Tim stood abruptly, picking up his cup and walking to the bathroom. Maybe some water would help. It certainly wouldn’t hurt. He filled the cup at the sink and drained it in one go, staring at himself in the mirror. He looked more exhausted than he had when he was still going on regular patrols. God, he needed coffee.
Hair tickled his forehead and Tim shoved it back, the light touch unbearable against his skin. He pulled at his shirt collar and looked around again. He needed something, and soon, or else he’d freak out and even though it had been a long time since that happened he really, really didn’t want to risk it here when he knew other people were around and awake.
His eyes landed on the bathtub. Alright, that could work . Tim shut the bathroom door, turned off the light, and shuffled toward the tub with an arm outstretched. He climbed in and pulled the curtain shut, still in his pajamas. He pressed himself into the sides of the tub and inhaled sharply at the touch of cold porcelain against his arms.
Tim could finally breathe.
He stayed like that, leg muscles tensed to push him even harder into the corner until he heard his phone alarm chime softly through the door. He shoved himself upright and shook out his hands, pausing to catch his balance, and trailed a hand along the wall until he found the light switch and flicked it on, squinting against the sudden brightness.
The alarm tone finished and restarted its song.
When Tim opened the door it was with a bit more force than he’d meant to use but he managed to catch it before it could slam into the wall. His reflexes felt dulled. Tim turned off the alarm which was titled “start coffee or else.” He hadn’t bothered changing the name yet even though now rather than signaling the exact length of time it took for coffee to finish before he had to leave Drake Manor to catch his bus, it gave him just enough time to get dressed and eat breakfast at the kitchen table with everyone before Jason would drive him to school (or else Alfred or Bruce if they’d decided Jason had been up too late to drive safely).
Tim wasn’t hungry.
The idea of the heavy breakfast Alfred typically prepared made him feel vaguely ill, but his stomach growled nonetheless.
Okay, maybe Tim was hungry. But he only wanted his oatmeal. And the coffeemaker wasn’t set up yet, and it would take too long to heat the water anyway, and it would be really rude to skip eating the breakfast that Alfred had made when already the butler had been so kind and Tim had increased his workload by a third just by existing and–
Tim pulled out a clean uniform shirt and started dressing in the scratchy, stiff fabric. He left the collar unbuttoned, but it still touched his neck with every shift of his shoulders.
Luckily Tim’s weather app forecasted a cold day, so he threw his softest technically-dress-code-compliant sweater over the shirt and pulled at the sleeves until they sat just right.
He shoved a pile of completed homework into his backpack, taking a deep breath. Tim shook out his hands one last time, another breath almost catching in his chest. It felt like he was psyching himself up for something, but he couldn’t tell what.
***
Dick had apparently spent the night after patrol ended. This was fine, good even. Bruce always seemed to be in a better mood when his oldest hung around, and Jason always lit up with someone extra to bounce off of. Tim liked Dick, so this was great.
But Dick, more than any of the other Bats, was a morning person.
So what Tim had been bracing for– good mornings from Bruce and Alfred, a grunt of acknowledgment from Jason, maybe a question or two about how he’d slept, a raised eyebrow when he poured himself coffee– was nothing compared to what met him at the small kitchen table. Because Dick also managed to bring out some secret hidden morning person within Jason, too.
“All I’m saying is,” Jason paused to catch a piece of cereal Dick threw in his mouth, “you can’t just make sweeping claims about authorial intent when, once published, the work is owned by the audience experiencing it! So to say, for instance, that my essay was–”
“Timbo! Just who I wanted to see! Save me from re-experiencing an English class that I hated the first time around!”
Tim managed to shape his mouth into a smile and raised a hand in a half-wave to Dick before dropping into his seat at the small round table. It placed him across from Bruce, and between Dick and Jason. He took a deep breath and stared at the food in the center of the table. The cereal and milk were out because it was a pancake day and Dick was on some sort of anti-pancake kick ever since he’d won an early morning eating competition against Jason at great personal cost.
The pancake tower in the center of the table felt far away when Tim reached a fork out to take one. He almost fumbled it on the way back to his plate, twice.
Tim didn’t notice Bruce’s eyes narrowing at him but did notice that Jason’s continued lament cut off with a deeper baritone as Bruce interrupted, “Feeling alright, Tim?”
“I’m fine, sir.”
Tim concealed a wince at the slip. He’d been calling Bruce sir less and less over the past few months. When he’d first started hanging around it had been near constant, instinct leftover from a lifetime of his sole adult interactions being with his parents, teachers, and gala attendees, all of whom seemed less dangerous when he kept to sir and ma’am. Yes, no, thank you, of course, my pleasure. Short and sweet sentences, a smile he’d practiced in front of a mirror when he tired of his mother’s comments about it looking unnatural.
Tim thought better of adding syrup when a glance revealed that much like Dick, it too had not fully recovered from the pancake-eating contest. He saw how the handle still shone a bit in the light and grimaced.
Tim took a deep breath and picked up a knife because as much as he wanted to just be done already he did have to keep up appearances. Jason was back to talking about his essay, Dick was typing something on his phone and pretending to listen, and for some reason, he had typing noises turned on so Tim could hear every keystroke. It was fine.
Until he got the angle wrong cutting his first bite and the knife screeched across the plate.
Tim’s teeth hurt. Dick and Jason seemed to be arguing in earnest now but he couldn’t tell what it was about anymore. Jason was gesturing widely and Tim’s vision swam with the movement. His fork and knife clattered onto the plate, the knife falling with another noise onto the table, but he almost couldn’t hear it over the feeling of his uniform shirt collar around his neck.
Tim tugged at his collar with more force than he meant to and felt as the fabric bunched and creased between sweater and skin. It was like wearing sandpaper. He wanted it off but he was trapped between three trained observers and he was already making a scene.
The conversation had frozen by the time Tim pushed back his chair and stood. He tried to choke out an excuse but the words stuck. Tim stumbled back from the table. Voices sounded concerned instead of angry but they were still so loud. Maybe he was wrong, maybe they were angry. What were they fighting about? Were they mad at him? He sucked in a breath and when he exhaled it came out in a sound that his throat squeezed around painfully, as though trying to hold it in. It was quiet but sounded distressed, like a wounded animal. Tim didn’t want to make a scene, he couldn’t make a scene, he’d been so good lately, so well behaved he didn’t want to get in trouble, he could be quiet, he was trying he was trying he was trying–
Tim fled.
It was hard to tell where he was, exactly. Things weren’t making sense and even Tim’s thoughts were hard to grasp onto but he needed somewhere safe and small and dark because it felt like his body was too big for him and maybe it was turning into air and floating away because he couldn’t feel where his limbs were, he just knew they were moving.
Tim’s shoulder slammed into a door frame he passed through and the pain was such a relief he could cry. He almost stopped to do it again because that doorframe was the first thing that had felt real all morning, but momentum carried him forward.
He slammed doors behind him as he went, pausing to lock the last one and throwing himself bodily into his bathtub.
The impact jarred Tim but that seemed to help, too.
He was pulling at his shirt collar again, nails catching his throat every so often. He ripped the shirt over his head, the sweater going with it, hating how the buttons each caught against his nose. Warm tears he hadn’t noticed fall smeared across his face, some drying on the fabric and others pushed up across his forehead.
The porcelain was so cold against his skin that for a moment he thought it might be relief before it turned to fire and he couldn’t stand the cold but he still needed the pressure from the walls. Tim hadn’t turned the light on so his hands fumbled in darkness as he tried to pull the shirt out of his sweater.
The room was quiet aside from harsh breaths that seemed to end on whines and the sound of straining fabric. A few stitches popped and Tim threw the starched, collared shirt as far as he could and tugged the sweater on. It took him too long to work his arms through the sleeves, and there was a soft knock on the door.
“Tim, kid, you good?” Dick sounded worried, sounded like Robin.
He managed a strained hum of acknowledgment, pushing himself into the corner as hands found his hair and he pulled. He had to act normal, just long enough that they would go away and then it would be fine, Tim could handle this himself, he had to. They had to go away or they might see.
Conversation was muffled through the door and Tim couldn’t seem to make sense of it even though the voices were too loud, like they were up close to his face and not in the other room.
He clenched his teeth and tried shaking out his hands but without the grip on his hair it felt like TIm’s head was gone, and it was awful.
Something was wrong with Tim. Normally he could control himself in front of others. Normally this only happened when he was alone at his house and normally he could keep quiet and keep still until he could climb into his closet and make all of the annoying noises he wanted to and nobody would see him fidget or rock or break any other rules. So the fact that those noises were slipping out of his throat with Dick right at the door, the fact that he had made a scene at breakfast at the Waynes the fact that when he shook his hands his watch lit up and showed that he should be leaving for school right now but he could hear Jason’s voice on the other side of the door now fading in and out of focus and that meant Jason would be late for school too and they would have to fill out Tardy slips and on the line for Reason Jason would have to write that Tim had gone and fucked up everything and there were metallic noises and the doorknob rattled but Tim couldn’t breathe.
He keened a bit and moved a hand to his mouth in an effort to stay quiet. The meat of his palm fit nicely between his teeth and his jaw tightened around it, a dull throb barely noticeable when everything was so Loud and it was only when the light turned on and Tim tried to close his eyes against the brightness that he realized his eyes were already closed. The light turned back off. His eyes stayed closed.
A voice.
“That’s alright, chum. We’ll keep the light off. I’m here. It’s Bruce. You’re in a bathtub at Wayne Manor, and you’re safe. I know that it’s hard right now but can you find something else to do with your hand? You could squeeze mine,” A shift of air and the warmth of skin just far enough that it didn’t touch.
Tim screwed up his face. He needed– he still needed something, the world around him was somehow too much and not enough at the same time and the only thing that felt real was the clench of his jaw and the throbbing at the base of his thumb, but he could sense that Bruce’s hand was right there and maybe that was real too? He couldn’t open his eyes to check because that was still too dangerous. But that voice, carefully metered even as it turned and seemed to direct someone else (footsteps so soft they were almost inaudible but there was nothing in the manor that Tim couldn’t hear, right now), that voice had continued even as Tim switched back and forth between working to understand it and trying to catch thoughts out of the fog in his mind.
It took a strange amount of effort to hinge his jaw open, as though it wasn’t his, but that was okay because even in the absence of pressure the throbbing in his hand sharpened with its release. Tim could feel strands of spittle break off as his hand pulled away. He shook it in the air for a moment, maybe longer. When he stilled he could feel that same hand trembling. Tim reached blindly for the warmth he could sense nearby.
A hand found his almost immediately, large and warm but rather than grabbing onto Tim it was carefully still.
“--can show you sometime, if you’d like. It helped Jason a lot when he first moved in and it might help you, too. There you are, Tim. Squeeze my hand, if you can, bud.”
He tried.
It must’ve worked, because he could hear the smile on Bruce’s next words, “You’re doing great. Do that again if you want me to squeeze your hand back?”
Tim did, desperately. He wanted Bruce to hold his hand so tightly it might break, wanted something real to tether him here. It felt like he was at the edge of a rooftop and falling and maybe, just maybe, Batman would catch him in time. He closed his hand around Bruce’s tightly and a hum tore through his throat, ending on a half whine.
“Alright, bud. If it’s too much then let go, but I’m going to hold tight, now.”
He did. Bruce’s hand caught Tim’s in a tight grip, callouses shifting against the boy’s palm, and suddenly the room was full of air again.
Tim could breathe.
***
Bruce’s voice kept going, smooth and even, and he didn’t seem to mind that Tim wasn’t really listening to his words as much as the tune, the quiet rumble, the way that every so often a bit of gravel roughed the sound on its way to Tim.
Bruce didn’t seem to mind how Tim’s grip stuttered around his hand, or the sweat Tim began to notice between their palms.
Bruce didn’t move, his grip never tightened or loosened. He held hard, but steady. An anchor against a storm, the concrete edge of the pool after the realization that you strayed beyond where you can reach the bottom.
Tim had been drowning but now Bruce was there to help him tread water.
The muscles in Tim’s legs tired, and he found himself able to relax them without a spike of distress when the sides of the tub no longer pressed into him as hard. His left hand, the one free of Bruce’s, found a pattern, rubbing back and forth across his chest. Tim could feel the sweater with each pass. After another moment he realized that he was timing his hand’s movement to Bruce’s breaths, that Bruce was no longer speaking but instead breathing deeply and audibly. He was matching Tim’s pace, and gradually slowing. As Tim’s hand found the pattern, his lungs did too, expanding and contracting.
He could tell where his hands were, and where his ribcage was as it rose and fell. Tim existed, started and stopped in space, he must. He couldn’t tell with all of himself yet, though. He let Bruce guide his breaths and noticed that they no longer caught in his throat. He wasn’t making noise anymore, beyond the soft sound of hand on fabric and shared breath.
Tim found his feet next, pressed down against the porcelain. That meant his knees were bent, that if he leaned forward he could rest his forehead against them.
He did so, let his head fall forward and knock into the bone of his knee and the thud helped him feel that much more real. He picked up his head to repeat the sensation. He desperately wanted to come back. Tim wanted to know where he ended and the space around him began. The pain was helping. He dropped his forehead to his knee again, with a bit of force behind it this time. The knock rattled through him.
“Hey, Tim. Can we try something else? I can’t have you hurting yourself,” Bruce was talking again, but this time at least Tim understood the words after a few seconds.
He stopped, halfway through lifting his head to repeat the movement, and hummed a bit.
“I’m going to give you two options, alright? If choosing is too much let me know and we’ll try something else.”
Tim hummed again, no longer screwing his eyes shut but not opening them either.
“Option one, we stay here. You can press your forehead into your knees for some pressure, but you can’t hit your head,” Bruce paused and took another deep breath for Tim to mimic, “Option two, we get up and move to your bed. The lights are off, and Dick brought in a weighted blanket you can try.”
Tim let himself rock side to side a bit as he considered. He replayed Bruce’s words a few times in his head, trying to piece together meaning. A choice. Alright. A simple choice. One or two. He rocked a bit faster, and pressed his left hand harder against the sweater until friction from the movement warmed his palm.
Option one: stay here. This pocket of relative safety, but not total safety. This wasn’t Tim’s corner, wasn’t the space in his closet where he was fully enclosed, the one place in that empty house where Tim could feel as though he were being held.
***
There was a sandstorm in Tim’s mind, scraping his skin raw and burning his eyes. He was at the mercy of the wind as it carried his thoughts to the corner, a loss he felt more keenly now that he had to try to make choices.
The place where despite its desperate assembly Tim had always felt quiet. A comforter shoved in, shoes cleared out hastily one night after his parents had called and sounded angry over the phone (not with him, Tim didn’t think. They hadn’t talked recently enough for them to be mad at him for something and his grades had stayed high). The anger was fine. Tim was used to the way his mother’s words clipped at the end, the way his father sighed, the way that their postures were undoubtedly shifting despite Tim’s inability to see across the miles between them. No, the problem that day had been different.
If there was one thing Tim had always said, back then, in defense of his parents, it was that they loved him. He knew it was true despite all evidence to the contrary because, no matter what, they always took the time to end phone calls with, “We love you, Timothy.”
But that day there had been a voice Tim couldn’t quite make out and a hasty, “Have a good day at school, Timothy” and then the line went dead before he could remind them that he’d actually just gotten home from school and it was wrong. It wasn’t correct. They always, always told Tim they loved him, that was the only way he knew and he hadn’t gotten to say it back and so if some terrible plane crash took Tim’s parents the last thing he said to them wouldn’t be that he loved them it would instead just be “Will do, Mom. Have-” and that would be it.
It was wrong. The most important part of the calls, the part that Tim clung to for the days when he wouldn’t hear from them at all, was missing. Forgotten. It was all wrong. Tim had felt like his skin was too tight. It was going to continue to shrink around him until he couldn’t even breathe and he didn’t remember the in-between but he knew that he had shoved the small rack of shoes out of his closet, sending pairs he’d long outgrown scattering across the floor, and as an afterthought taken his blanket with him, and pulled the closet door shut against him until he was fully embedded in the corner and it made it safe enough for all of those noises to come spilling out of his mouth.
Maybe the bigger reason Tim couldn’t remember the exact details of the night he built that corner was because that was the first night he had discovered that driving his head back into the wall made him feel something other than the storm inside of him. Tim had repeated this, tapping and tapping and tapping for a while, until he tried to stop. It must have been a bit too soon because then Tim had thought again about the call and about how everything was ruined because they’d done it wrong, and he had driven his head back hard enough that tears poured down his cheeks before he even felt the pain of it well enough to know something was wrong. That’s where the dent came from. He hoped his parents would never find his corner because they’d never taken kindly to damage to their property.
***
“Tim,” Bruce’s voice startled him enough that he noticed how his grip on B’s hand had tightened, how his breathing had sped up, “Tim, hey. It’s okay. You don’t have to choose right now. We can just wait here for a bit longer, that’s fine.”
But it wasn’t fine. Tim was supposed to choose. It was so simple. It was one stupid decision and he hadn’t even managed that and his eyes adjusted enough that he could make out the vague shape of Bruce’s worried eyebrows above piercing eyes and–
Tim didn’t remember opening his eyes, but it was nice, now. Being able to see Bruce there.
“It’s just you and me, Tim. Still want me to stay in here?”
Tim nodded and squeezed Bruce’s hand once, hard. Understanding was coming faster again.
“Alright.”
Tim shifted a bit, realizing for the first time how uncomfortable the tub was becoming, especially after spending so long in it even before the breakfast fiasco. Option two, then. Maybe.
If he could just– but words didn’t seem to be working yet.
Tim tried to think of how he could say it without being able to say it. This was Batman, not his mother and father. Surely he would be better at reading people, at understanding. And he at least wouldn’t be mad at Tim for trying.
He loosened his grip for a moment on Bruce’s hand and then quickly, before Bruce could think TIm wanted him to let go, he squeezed twice before going back to the steady hold he’d had before. Then Tim looked at Bruce, or toward Bruce at least, and then to where he knew the bathroom door would be, in the darkness to his right. He hummed.
Bruce tilted his head for a moment, considering.
“Option two? You want to go to your bed?”
Tim hummed again, nodded, and gave Bruce’s hand another squeeze in his.
“Alright then, let’s–”
Tim pulled himself to standing awkwardly, Bruce needing to support his weight as Tim used his hand for balance. He felt wobbly, legs numb from so long in one position, whole body unsteady from everything else.
They made it out into the room where only the softest of sunlight came through the edges of pulled curtains. On Tim’s bed there was a thick, dark blue blanket he’d never seen before with the corner turned down. At the foot were the oldest, softest sleep pants Tim owned and his most worn hoodie, the one with Nightwing’s symbol fraying on the chest.
Tim saw these things and felt warm.
Bruce stayed within reach, back turned while Tim changed. Tim tried not to think about how long it took him to get his arms through sleeves or how he had to sit down so he wouldn’t fall over trying to get the pants on.
After Tim reached up and tapped the man’s shoulder, Bruce turned around.
Seeing him there, so close, so real and solid, so warm, Tim was almost overwhelmed again.
Instead of running, this time, Tim leaned in.
He let himself fall against Bruce’s chest and arms came up around him and held him tight.
Tim knew Bruce was watching closely, and would let go the moment Tim seemed uncomfortable, and that made it even safer.
Tim let Bruce hold him.
Maybe, just this once, change could be a good thing.