sometimes I write

20s | SFW ONLY | no batcest | tk fics

[hyacinthanon]

me, color-picking the blog shades from my header image: ah yes... this will create a visual that is so .... coherent ....

hi hello yes i will be editing this multiple times but i wanted to make A Post so this isn't just an empty shell of a blog lmao

i'm hyacinth! i'm in my 20s. according to my niblings that means i am chopped and also unc, so. doin' great.

this is my dc tk fic blog! that's it, that's the only fandom here

various sundry important things:

🪻 this is a strictly SFW space

🪻i do not ship batcest. any interactions between the batkids & bruce are PLATONIC/FAMILIAL.

🪻if you're a minor/don't have an age in your blog i won't be dming with you - no offense intended!!

🪻this is a sideblog, not my main, so i can't follow you back from here

🪻 prompts are welcomed but i reserve the right to reject them for reasons ranging from "not my thing" to "realistically will not get around to it in this millennium" depending on what life looks like at any given moment

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hyacinth anon writes <- my own writing!

asked and hyacinthanswered <- asks!

[hyacinthanon]

hyacinth wip sneak peek 👀👀👀

“DICK!” Kon squawked, the word choking off into some kind of sputtering cough as he lurched backwards and managed to stumble over his own two feet. He clumsily brought his hands up in front of his torso. “Who–what–why–”

“What, you gonna go for ‘when’ and ‘where’ too?” Dick teased. It was too easy to take advantage of Kon’s flustered state and dart forward, tasering into his sides again. With another cut-off protest, Kon twisted to the side, an inelegant movement, and suddenly he was floating a couple inches off the ground.

“Who told you?” Kon asked, and Dick was pretty sure that he wasn't imagining the hint of giddiness hiding behind Kon's whining pout. No wonder he and Tim got along so well.

[grey-anon]

Tim’s Best Friend

2.9k words

lee!tim, ler!kon, there was an attempt ler!tim

tim and kon buddyisms. they are silly. I incorporated an old headcanon of mine towards the end of the fic <:) I love the idea of it so much eep…

I hope you enjoy. I’m so happy this is finally finished haha :’)

Tim’s hands tangled in his hair as he scanned the wide expanse of surveillance on the Batcomputer for the umpteenth time within the hour. His tired eyes had the grainy footage beginning to swirl. Bruce leaned over the chair behind him, another set of eyes. In all honesty, the constant of his gentle scratching at Tim’s upper back was significantly more helpful.

Tim wearily looked over when the feeling stopped. He must have looked like how a house cat did when you stopped petting them before they got their fix, but he was just being diligent. Bruce was doing that thing, the one where he lifted his head and squinted at nothing in particular. He heard something.

Nothing in particular turned out to be Superboy. It was the Batcave, so he came in costume. It felt like the respectful thing to do, but that was an educated guess at best. He hadn’t even begun to understand Batman and his various intricacies.

Kon was surprised to find everyone but him in civvies. His boots skidded against the ground as he landed.

Bruce gave Tim a little nudge, who redirected his gaze. Meeting Tim’s eyes, Kon couldn’t keep the thought off of his face.

He looks rough.

Bruce took a step back when he was sure no one was watching. He didn’t think Tim would want his friend to see him being doted on.

“Superboy.” He quietly acknowledged that friend’s presence. He’d been trying to place more trust in his children and who they chose to surround themselves with. Every time he hovered, they only grew upset with him, and never once had any of these friends proven to be a real threat. The risk outweighed the reward, just a bit.

Kon gave him a crooked little grin. His dimples stood out more than Clark’s, you could only catch his with certain expressions when the light hit him right. Nevertheless, Kon did look like a product of him.

Bruce found something else to do, and with Tim’s scary dad gone, Kon felt comfortable shuffling over. He floated near the arm of Tim’s rolling chair and gave him a smile. He looked like he could use it.

“What time is it…” Tim mumbled, pressing his palms against his eyes and sinking into his chair. He was too out of sorts to bother asking why Kon was here at all.

“Noon or something.”

Kon was terribly bored. Cassie wouldn’t answer his calls, and the last time he simply busted into her house, he was met instead with Cassie’s mom, who informed him she was away, visiting Themiscyra. Kon could vividly recall actually wanting to die, so he wasn’t going to do that again.

When he peered into Bart’s bedroom window, Peter Pan style, he found him fast asleep. Kon didn’t have the heart to wake him.

And Tim, he seemed to be having a bad day. So, this had turned into more of a wellness check than annoying him into hanging out. Although, chances were he’d still do that. With how stubborn Robins tended to be, he was beginning to wonder whether or not he would have a choice but to resort to more underhanded tactics. He’d be fine, Tim had a certain pattern about his behavior. If there was something he expressly did not want to do, there was about a fifty percent chance it would be good for him.

“You’ve been at this since, like, five in the morning. I saw you online. Can you even remember what you’re looking for?”

Tim sunk down further with a whine. Kon tugged on his arm. “Then c’mon!”

He still resisted. “No… this is important, I overslept yesterday. I need to make it up to B.”

Kim gave him a look. “Did he tell you that?”

“Well… no, I just—“ Tim moved his hands to briefly look up at him.

“You’re makin’ stuff up to freak yourself out again.” Kon interjected.

Tim didn’t seem to like that, but he knew it was true. That was just what Tim Drake did.

“Ten more minutes… maybe I’ll log off, I dunno.” He mumbled, resting his chin in his hand and continuing to stare miserably at this nothing footage.

“Fine… maybe your brothers will wanna hangout with me.” Kon flew over to elegantly sit himself down on the nearest countertop by where they were working.

Jason had earbuds in. He hadn’t been paying attention. He briefly pulled one out and glanced over suspiciously.

Dick was very badly trying to force his delighted grin down into pursed lips. He huffed through his nose, managing to shake the smile. It was funny because everybody in that cave knew it would work.

Kon was Tim’s best friend. His. He had a jealous streak a mile long.

And like clockwork, Tim’s back straightened, his expression pinched, and he turned over his shoulder.

Dick cleared his throat. “So… how’s Clark?”

“Busy with the little guy and being Superman. Nothing new.” Kon hummed.

“How many cats has he rescued from trees lately?” Jason got a couple of quiet snorts. Even Bruce gave him a “be nice” type of look, although his true feelings were written all over his face.

“Kon.”

He looked over. Oh, Tim was not happy.

Kon tilted his head.

“What are you even—? No!”

“You’re such a—! I don’t— ugh…” He stormed over, pressed his head and palms against Kon’s back, and started for the elevator.

“We’re leaving…” He announced. From Tim, when he passed, Dick got a pout. Jason got something more like a snarl.

Kon was grinning for the entire elevator ride, one arm crossed over his chest, the other lifted to gnaw on his knuckle. It wouldn’t be ideal to laugh at Tim right now, even if this was objectively hilarious.

The doors opened when they reached the first floor. Kon took the liberty of flying to the sidewalk just outside the manor, no reason to drag their feet. He looked at Tim. Tim looked at him.

“So?” He prompted, shifting his weight to one hip.

So sassy.

“You have my attention.”

“If you wanna come to my place, I think I’ve got just the thing for you.” Kon combated Tim’s grumpiness by keeping his tone light.

“I don’t… shouldn’t I ask first?”

“I mean… doesn’t Batman put tracking devices in you guys before you can start working with him?”

The way Tim’s nose wrinkled spoke for itself.

“My place?” Kon asked again. This time, Tim slowly nodded in defeat.

* * *

Kon had a little skip to his step as he let the two of them inside through the garage. Tim had nearly fallen asleep on the fly there, so he was much more docile than before. Things were looking up.

“We’re here.” He announced with a smile. He may have been bouncing on his toes, Tim couldn’t tell from behind the counter. Either way, Kon was very happy to have him.

That felt really good. All warm and fuzzy. Because when was anyone ever this happy to see him?

“I noticed.” Tim gave an awkward nod of his head. It began to swivel and take in their surroundings, even if he’d seen it all before.

“So, uh, everyone’s doing stuff. Jon has school, Clark and Lois have Daily Planet. Just us.”

It was in moments like this that Tim was reminded of the fact that he was a high school dropout, and his clone friend had an education conveniently inserted into his brain during his very unconventional development.

“Right…” Tim rubbed his eyes, “you said you had ‘just the thing for me?’”

Kon swung his arm and began to walk. Follow me.

Tim did just that. He was led to the family room, smack dab in the middle, there was an impressive, structurally sound blanket fort.

“Jon wanted to make one over the weekend.” Kon’s smile could almost be described as nostalgic, but this happened less than a week ago. Tim guessed it was just a symptom of Jon being a cute little kid.

“It’s a bit of an eyesore, but he really likes it, so nobody wants to be the one to ask him to take it down.”

“I’m not complaining, it is pretty nice in there. Which is where you come in, sourpuss.” Kon jabbed a finger into Tim’s chest.

With the accusation of “sourpuss” looming overhead, he was left with no choice but to follow Kon into the blanket fort. It was how Tim remembered: one of the coziest feelings ever.

“I haven’t been in one of these in forever.” He confessed, sitting cross legged and rocking back and forth.

Kon made himself more comfortable, flopping down on his back. “Yeah?”

“Yeah…” Tim nodded.

“I used to make them when I was a kid and I couldn’t sleep at night, then I’d grab whatever Batman junk I’d been working on and have a pretend stakeout.”

“All by yourself, huh?” Kon’s smile was sympathetic in the way that made bats clam up.

Tim shrugged his shoulders stiffly, but he couldn’t be upset with his friend. He was so much nicer to be around when he was acting authentic like this, and Tim was sure he was one of the few people who got to see it.

“Why won’t you get comfy?” He was still all sprawled out. Kon said that innocently at first. Then Tim shot him a suspicious look, it shifted to a knowing smile that made his face go all scrunchy, and his arms moved to wrap loosely around his torso.

He should have just asked to be teased, at this point. Kon raised an eyebrow, shifting onto his side. “What?”

“You tell me.” Tim reached over to shove at his shoulder.

Kon would have fallen onto his back again if he didn’t latch onto Tim’s arm. Tim, who was now struggling against his dead weight to try and get that arm back. His quiet snickers filled the blanket fort when Tim found a pillow to bring down onto his head over and over.

“You’re ruhuthless…” His other arm came up to try and lessen the impact.

“C’mon, that’s screwing up my hair!” He had Tim’s arm in one hand, and the pillow in the other. A human wasn’t ever going to beat a Kryptonian in a game of tug of war, not without kryptonite.

Kon squealed and immediately lost his grip when Tim released the pillow to wriggle his fingers under his arm. Kryptonite was unfortunately applicable literally and figuratively. You can belong to the most powerful race of metahumans this planet has ever seen, and still be ticklish. Ridiculous.

Tim dissolved into nervous giggles when he hoisted himself back into a seated position and rolled up his sleeves.

“Wait— I’m sorry, I’m sohorry… it was an accident.” Tim was surveying the area. It wasn’t like there were any corners he could back into, the blanket fort would collapse if they threw themselves at it. There was no quick, non-awkward way to crawl out either.

Kon huffed a laugh. “Holy bullshit, Batman!” He quipped.

Tim was too easily provoked at Kon dogging on the Robin mantle, and privately, his brother and lifelong hero. He leaned forward, pointing an accusing finger. “Listen, that was Dick’s thing—“

In the blink of an eye, he found himself flat on the ground, his pointing hand held captive at the wrist. Everything started to buzz as it occurred to Tim that this wrist was wrangled over his head.

“Oh gohod, nOHOHO! Give it back!” He tugged and flailed frantically. To no avail.

“Why? You need it for something?” Kon was going somewhere with this. Tim could already tell. He wasn’t going to feed into it, he pressed his lips shut. The occasional chuff or snort slipped past.

“Silent treatment?” He followed up smugly. “you got something to hide, Boy Wonder?”

Tim rolled his eyes. The answer to that question was so, so obvious.

“Prick…” Kon muttered.

He perked up. “I just got, like, the worst idea ever.”

Tim wasn’t sure if that idea being the worst was relative to him or Kon. He, only a little performatively, hacked when a weight settled on his upper back.

“You’re literally fine.” Kon’s amusement could be heard in his voice. “I know better than to crush your fragile human ribcage.”

He did, Tim knew that. He was probably defying gravity ever so slightly just to play it extra safe. But Tim liked to complain more.

“I’ll tickle it, though.”

He didn’t get the chance, bursting into frantic, breathy giggles when Kon’s fingertips vibrated gently against his ribs.

“hEY— HEY!”

“See? You’re stuck.” Kon sounded way too happy with himself for Tim’s liking, but he was right. With a border of solid half-alien steel separating his arms and the first quarter or so of his body from the rest, he wasn’t going anywhere. This must’ve been Kon’s terrible idea.

Tim’s palms tapped frantically at the various blankets lining the floor, his feet kicking in tandem. While he could start yowling like they needed to call animal control and making obscure threats, he knew that they both knew he didn’t actually want this to stop yet.

“I haven’t even gotten to the good part yet and you’re already freaking out.” Kon let up a bit, tapping and leaving short, nipping pinches along the expanse of Tim’s back to get a twitch and a smile.

“I don’t knohow what you want me to say…” Tim mumbled.

“You could tell me I’m the best superhero who’s ever lived, if you want.” Kon tried.

“Hard pass.”

“You’ll figure it out one of these days…” He sighed. “I’ve stalled long enough, gimme this—“

Tim lurched at least a few inches off the ground when Kon’s pinching was redirected to his waist. Usually, he had a set of arms nearby to protect his sides. That wasn’t the case right now, and he was a little distraught.

“Don’t think I’ve heard you laugh like that since Bart’s birthday party.” Kon hummed affectionately.

Tim wheezed and pressed his flushed face into the blankets. He felt a little self conscious despite the fact that there was nobody home except Kon and him.

“You’re awfully quiet.”

Tim didn’t think Kon was done, but he was given all the necessary time to catch his breath and remember how to string together sentences.

“I just get awkward about that sort of thing… I don’t know.” He turned his head to press one cheek against the floor.

“I do know.” Kon was feeling sentimental all of the sudden.

Tim’s silence must have said “you do?” for him.

“I don’t know why or how, but you think it’s embarrassing. You’re pretty smart most of the time, but you’re totally wrong about that.” He slipped his fingers beneath the hem of Tim’s shirt, his skittering hardly more than a whisper. He recognized the startled squeak and breathy laughter it elicited.

This would feel weird in any other situation, but Kon was just trying to lower Tim’s blood pressure. Lord only knows what all he’s put into his body for the past twenty four hours.

Tylenol for his eye strain, caffeine to keep his eyes open, Benadryl to crash for a short power nap only to wake up less than half an hour later and continue working. Overworking.

It was hilarious that Tim wondered and complained about how he always felt like garbage. A mystery, really.

“Okay, okahay…” Tim hiccuped. He was scrubbing his hair into the carpet, his kicking had slowed to the occasional, petulant little twitch.

Kon let up, giving a pat to his lower back. He floated up and off of the giggly Robin.

“Feel better?” He asked with a smile.

“I didn’t realize that was to make me feel better.” Tim grunted.

“Maybe you haven’t caught on yet, but that’s why you get tickled so much.”

That snapped the boy wonder to attention real fast. Tim shot up towards him, slapping a hand over the other’s mouth. “Stohohop!” He whined.

Kon growled playfully like he was gearing up to snap at the offending hand. Tim pulled back with a giggle, shoulders hunching up.

“I don’t know why you think it’s so embarrassing, I think it’s great. You’re like one of those cats who lays with their belly up and pretends to get mad when someone rubs it.” Kon himself rolled over to demonstrate. He looked more like he was playing dead. He caught Tim’s wandering hand when it shot out for his tummy.

Kon huffed, sitting himself up. “Nice try.”

Having been thoroughly bested, Tim finally released a long sigh. He tried, he lost. If it were anyone else, he’d push himself even harder. For a friend, he’d let himself go. He shook his hand about until Kon loosened his grip, then decided it was his wrist’s turn to be captive.

The kryptonian had to lean down awkwardly when Tim fell onto his side, flopping Kon’s wrist back and forth like some kind of fidget toy.

The code switch always happened too quickly. Kon had come to the understanding at some point in his friendship with Tim Drake that this was him going into sleep mode, so to speak. He became bleary and much more relaxed when he realized that no one who really knew him was falling for his tricks. He could lower the facade and save himself all the trouble.

He was pretty sure it made him special, Clark once said that Mr. Wayne did something very similar. Like father like son, and Batman was even more of a hardass.

He looked down at his exhausted, busy bodied friend. He never said it, but he didn’t have to. Kon knew: Tim really liked him.

[hyacinthanon]

hyacinth anon coming to you from the adriatic to share that the yj gang are all characters that can be so ticklish

[hyacinthanon]

If you genuinely apologize for more lee!Tim fics I'm going to assume that you're kidnapped and being held hostage because one can never have enough of lee!Tim

DHSBDBHSBD ok this is so fair lmao

[hyacinthanon]

NEVER apologize for too many lee!Tim fics! (I don’t think there even is such a thing!) LEE TIM MY BELOVED!!

They are my absolute fav!!

(But everything you write is amazing!)🤗🤗🤗🤗

aww thank you wonderful anon!! Lee!tim be upon ye 😌

[hyacinthanon]

You Don't Hate It, Do You?

a/n: based on This Anon (thank you for feeding my lee!Tim brain worms sdhfjghf) Tim's about 13/14 here!

summary: Tim will never, ever snark at Dick in front of his friends ever again. Never.

or: After claiming that he hates it when Dick tickles him, Tim, unable to sleep and concerned that he might've been a bit of a jerk, goes to find his oldest brother. Dick isn't mad in the slightest, but he will take the chance to fluster his little brother into oblivion with all the teases and tickles.

━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━

It was after two, and Tim couldn’t sleep. 

To be fair, it had been a busy day – Kon and Bart had come over, for the first time, and Tim had gone all-out in his preparations. He’d made sure all the gaming consoles were working and that they had a copy of Mario Kart for each, ensured that Alfred had a sufficient quantity of snacks on hand for Bart, put in special grocery orders with the kind of licorice that Kon liked and that limited-edition lemon Zesti for himself, double triple quadruple checked that Jason was in town and that Dick would be at the Manor in case anything happened so he wouldn’t be disturbed, rearranged the furniture in the den twice then a third time for optimal comfort and visibility, found the six nearest take-out options and ranked them in order of diversity of options and reviews, and – 

Okay, in hindsight, he had stressed way too much for what had turned out to be an absolutely epic, chill afternoon sprawled in the den with his friends playing video games and eating quantities of junk food that were not Alfred-approved. It’s just. Well, it was the first time he’d had other hero/vigilante/meta friends over, and he'd really really wanted it to go well. 

And it had! It had gone great. So great that Tim had somehow managed to relax into his home self, so when Dick had come around to say hi and do some obligatory messing around, Tim had been more than happy to duck away from his outstretched hand and snap out something like “Hey, I hate it when you tickle me, cut it out!” He’d fully expected Dick to give him That Look™ with one of his eyebrows raised and that smirk that only ever meant trouble, then tackle him to the carpet. 

But Dick had just smiled and pulled back, apologizing, then wandered back upstairs. 

The thing was, Tim couldn’t sleep, which meant that his brain was churning along at a million miles an hour on tracks of questionable integrity. Normally he’d go find Dick, who’d said –and Tim believed him– that Tim could come find him any time. 

Now, though – Tim wasn’t sure. He’d been about to get up when the memory of Dick going “sorry, Baby Bird” and retracting his hand hit, and Tim’s already racing thoughts had plunged over the cliffside into a spiral that he was definitely, totally overthinking. 

“This is dumb, right?” he muttered, staring up at his ceiling. “I’m being dumb.”

The tiny glow-in-the-dark stars stuck up there didn’t offer any response, but that twitchy feeling in his legs was becoming unbearable. Okay, fine. 

Tim’s sigh echoed into his empty room as he heaved himself up and swung his legs to the side of his mattress. The sudden rush of chilly air sent waves of prickles up his arms, so he snatched a random sweatshirt off the clothes pile beside his door, then ventured out into the comforting, warm hallway light. 

He paused for a few seconds that felt like a subjective ten minutes and stared at Dick’s closed door, diagonally across from his own. The five or so feet between him and the doorway might as well have been a mile. Yeah, he’d been kind of an asshole earlier, but Dick wouldn’t – wouldn’t really be mad at him, right? Dick had seemed fine, but then again, he usually did, so…

More of those uncomfortable, anxious feelings twisted together somewhere in the pit of Tim’s stomach as he stood there, frozen in the hall. He hadn’t meant to be rude, he’d just been so caught up in the game with Kon and Bart, in the high of having friends over who were there to see him – on purpose, not just because he was someone’s tag-along little brother. And, sure, he’d had a flare of irrational panic when Dick had started joking around with his friends, like maybe they’d suddenly realize that Dick was way more funny and interesting than Tim could ever be, and then he’d lose this little space that he’d worked hard to carve out for just himself. 

The grown-up rational brain knew that wouldn’t happen. 

Unless – 

No, no. Shut up. 

Tim balled his hands into fists at his side and took a deep breath. Even if Dick didn’t want to spend time with him, Tim could at least apologize for snapping at him earlier. The odds were good that Dick would forgive him. Right? 

Before he could keep overthinking it, Tim crossed the hall in two big strides and knocked twice on his older brother’s door. 

“Come in!” Dick called. 

Well, he didn’t sound mad. He had to know that Tim was the only one around who could show up at this hour, too, so that was a good sign.

Still, that tight, anxious shyness settled in his stomach as Tim shuffled through the doorway, and he fought back the sudden urge to wrap his arms around his middle.  

Dick was lounging sideways on his bed, both his legs propped up on the wall. He flashed Tim a bright, upside-down smile. “Hey, Timmy. What’s up?”

Tim managed to return the smile even though his face felt stiff. “Hi.” He paused for a second to search for the right words. It was like when he’d first met Dick, he felt all clumsy and awkward again. 

The bedframe squeaked when Dick did some combination of a flip and a backwards roll and came up sitting on the edge of his bed. He combed his hair out of his eyes, giving Tim another one of those warm smiles. “Can’t sleep?” 

That, Tim could answer even though his words still felt stuck in his throat. He shook his head. 

Something achingly gentle flickered through Dick’s eyes that made Tim feel a little too perceived. Before he had the chance to fixate on that, though, Dick scooted backwards and patted the mattress in front of him. 

“There’s room for ya in the nest if you want it, Baby Bird.” 

The wave of relief that crashed over Tim nearly made his knees weak. Okay, Dick wasn’t mad at him, wasn’t going to send him away. Acting on pure instinct, he scurried over to the bed and flopped down facefirst into the pillows. 

Dick chuckled, and suddenly a hand was running through Tim’s hair, gently tugging every now and then to send pleasant shivers racing down his spine. Between the dizzying relief that the entirely made-up scenario that Tim’s brain had concocted was, indeed, not real, and the head scritches, Tim went limp against the mattress. He still wasn’t tired, tired, but he sure did feel more relaxed. 

What had he even come in here for, again? Oh, right. 

Tim pushed himself up on his elbows and turned his head so he wasn’t talking directly into the pillows. “I’m sorry ‘bout earlier.” 

The hand in his hair slowed, faltering in its rhythm, and Tim butted his head against it with a displeased sound. Bad hand. Those were his head scritches, thank you very much. 

“Sorry, bud,” Dick said, and his voice sounded strained, like he was trying not to laugh as he resumed carding through Tim’s hair and scratching over his scalp. “I’m just trying to figure out what you’re apologizing for.” 

Was he serious? Tim scowled at him. “For snapping at you while we were gaming.”

“Oh. Tim,” Okay, Dick was definitely holding back laughter, and Tim found himself with the growing feeling that he’d misunderstood the situation. “It’s fine. I wasn’t upset, I just wanted to give you space to be with your friends.” 

Tim smashed his face back into the pillow and wondered if maybe his high IQ came at the cost of utterly nerfed emotional intelligence scores. “Hn.” 

“You sound like B.” 

“Hnn.” 

Dick snorted. Then, softer, he asked, “Have you been twisting yourself up about this, Baby Bird?” 

Tim frowned into the memory foam beneath his face. Not…not really? Not in the sense that Dick probably thought, anyways. It hadn’t even occurred to him to be stressed until he was lying there staring at his ceiling, unable to sleep. 

“I don’t think so,” he muttered after a few moments. He knew he was probably muffled by the pillow, so he rolled over onto his back. Dick’s ceiling also had an array of glow-in-the-dark stars pasted onto it. Some of the patterns were different then Tim’s, but they both had a couple of the more recognizable constellations. Jason did, too. “I got up because I can’t sleep.” 

“Ah.” Blankets rustled as Dick shifted around to wrap his free arm around Tim’s shoulders, warm and solid and safe. Tim leaned into him, and immediately some of the restless feelings that had been gnawing at the back of his mind quieted down. 

“‘M restless,” Tim added. He couldn’t possibly make it clearer, right? Those were practically Dick’s own words, back when he’d scoop Tim up into his arms and tickle his sides and coo about “aw, are you a little restless tonight, Timmy?”  

With an understanding hum, Dick squeezed Tim a little tighter. “Is there anything I can do to help you, or do you just want to sleep?” 

He had to be kidding. As if Dick didn’t take any possible chance to – to tickle his little brothers and, god, just thinking about it was making Tim’s face heat up – and here Tim was, offering himself up on a platter – 

“Huh?” 

Dick winked down at him. “If there’s something you want, Timmy, you just have to ask.” 

Oh, fuck that. Absolutely not. Tim couldn’t – he wouldn’t – oh god, his face was burning now. 

“Dick.” 

“Yeah?” The corners of Dick’s eyes crinkled as he looked at Tim with a teasing, mischievous grin playing at his mouth. That particular look never boded well. “I’m not mad at you, I just wanna respect your boundaries. If you really hate it when I tickle you–”

Tim yelped and promptly tried to bury his face in the pillows again, only for Dick to drag him back with the arm still tucked around his shoulders. 

“Nuh huh, Timmy, don’t burrow away from me. Whatcha after?” 

Maybe this was how Tim would die, spontaneous combustion from sheer, overwhelming embarrassment. Now that his earlier burst of anxiety had dissipated, it was easy to recognize that, no, Dick wasn’t mad at him, he was just teasing, sort of like he’d tease Jason whenever he’d snark at Dick. Tim just didn’t usually give Dick that amount of snappiness or snark, so this was a little new for him. Okay. He was Robin, he could adapt – 

Except adapting meant asking for – for – for tickles, and not just any tickles, but the cozy, spidering scribbles over his stomach that Dick had long-ago christened as Timmy tummy tickles, and the thought of saying any of those words out loud did in fact make Tim want to explode into flames on the spot. 

He groaned and thunked his head into Dick’s shoulders. “Di–ick.” 

“Yeah?” 

Tim didn’t have to look to know that Dick had an entirely guileless expression pasted on to hide the fact that he was an evil, evil person who just wanted Tim to spend the rest of his life as a puddle of embarrassment underneath his covers. 

“Just do it.” Okay, yeah, Tim knew he was whining, he heard the way he sounded, but he couldn’t help it. “C’mon!” 

Dick let out a low, teasing chuckle and pulled Tim against his chest, pressing a kiss to the side of his head. “I need you to be specific, Timmy, I’m not sure what you want.” He patted Tim’s stomach, but didn’t move his hand otherwise.

Supposedly, Slovenia was lovely this time of year. Maybe Tim could just move there – it wouldn’t be too hard to change his name, and he could always dye his hair. His knowledge of Slavic languages was…pedestrian, but he could learn! He was good at learning. That was, like, part of his whole thing. 

But, as tempting as that plan sounded, he was getting twitchy. It was the same kind of wound-up giggly feeling he’d get when one of his brothers had him pinned but, rather than just getting it over with, would just sit there wriggling their fingers half an inch above his skin. That tactic never failed to make Tim’s brain completely short-circuit, and they knew it. 

“Please,” he muttered through gritted teeth, trying to rip the bandaid off. Then, for emphasis, he tapped the back of Dick’s hand that was still resting on torso. “Onmystomach.”

Dick hummed again, considering. “I guess that does narrow it down.” 

Oh, thank god. 

“...But I’m gonna need you to use the technical term.” 

  Tim felt the weight of Dick’s teasing words as his face blazed with all the warmth of a firework. “Dee, you’re just – I’m sorry I snapped at you, I–” he was never ever ever going to snark at Dick ever again, no matter who else was around. Not if this was his payback.

“None of those are the right words, bud.” 

“I hate you,” Tim muttered. “You’re so, so so mean to me and nobody would ever believe it.” Belying his own words, he smashed his face against Dick’s chest since his stupid older brother wouldn’t let him hide in the pillows. 

Dick laughed again, and it resonated through his whole body, vibrating through Tim’s ears in a way that almost, almost made him forget how much Dick was teasing him. “Aw, you’re cranky when you’re flustered.” 

Tim just pushed his face further into Dick’s fleecy pullover. After what was approximately a hundred years, he squeezed his eyes shut and braced himself for the inevitable wave of embarrassment and gritted out, “I want – Ti – Timmytummytickles, there!” 

“Oh!” Dick said with an entirely fake amount of surprise that made Tim want to smack him upside the head. “You should have just said, Baby Bird.” 

All thoughts of wrangling one of his arms free to bat at Dick’s wavy hair flew away when the hand on Tim’s stomach started digging in, fingers wiggling into his belly with a rhythmic precision that had him choking on a sudden wave of giggles. 

“Aww, there’s my Timmy,” Dick cooed, leaning down to nuzzle against the top of Tim’s head. “I thought I had a ticklish, giggly baby brother somewhere in there.” 

“No mohore teheheheasing!” squawked Tim as he let his head fall back against Dick’s shoulder, grinning through his laughter. No matter how old he got, Dick’s particular brand of older-brother teasing would never not burrow under his skin and make him squirm.

“No teasing? Not even about this ticklish tummy right here?” Dick made a line of pokes across Tim’s lower stomach, just above the waistline of his pajama pants, for emphasis. 

Case in point – Tim would’ve sworn his brain started to give off steam like a Looney Tunes character. “Nooo!” 

Dick tsked, his smirk barely concealing the well of affection that showed through in his gaze. “Okay, bud, if you insist.” 

He brought both hands up to make light scribbles over Tim’s stomach with just his nails. It – god, it tickled, all Tim could do was let himself laugh as his mind drowned in the overwhelming tingly prickles. His face rubbed against Dick’s smooth pullover as he tried to hide again, but the quick fluttering of fingertips across his collarbones made him squeak and snap his head back around. 

“Nuh uh, no hiding,” Dick scolded. He used each of his index fingers to tap on the twin giggle spots on either side of Tim’s bellybutton. “Don’t wanna make these tickly-tickle-tickle spots lonely, hm?” 

God, he was really going all-in on the teasing, and Tim couldn’t stop the giggly whine that welled up in the back of his throat. “Dee!” 

Dick was alternating between light tapping over those particularly ticklish places and scribbling his index fingers over them, occasionally pinching at the squishy spots. “That is my name, Tim, great job.”  

Tim tried to channel some of Jason’s blustering defiance by telling Dick to shut the fuck up, but then Dick started using all the fingers of each hand to scribble over his giggle spots and Tim collapsed back into fits of squeaky laughter, shaking his head. 

“It–it tihihic–it tihihickles!” 

Dick hummed. “Yeah, it sounds like it does, Squeakers.” 

The nickname sent a fresh wave of little brother feelings rolling through Tim’s thoughts as he tried to wrangle the peals of giggles under control long enough to say something else – he didn’t know what, but it’d come to him. 

Or maybe it wouldn’t. When he felt Dick’s hands slowly crawling outwards towards his lower ribs, Tim started squirming even more. He was expecting Dick to poke and prod at his ribcage, so when Dick stopped and suddenly vibrated each of his hands into Tim’s upper stomach, he startled and squeaked around a cackle.

“Y’know,” Dick said like he was having an epiphany in the middle of digging wiggling, prodding fingers into Tim’s abdominal muscles. “You don’t actually hate it when I tickle you, do you?” 

That was one of the worst, easiest things he could’ve said and Tim’s wriggling increased as he tried to shield himself from whatever else Dick was about to say. “I – nahahaha!” 

“Aaw. In fact…” 

The tickling fingers suddenly jumped down to the outer parts of his stomach, close to his sides, and dug in with a series of nibbling pinches. 

“These are your favorite tickles, aren’t they, Baby Bird?” 

Actually, maybe that was the worst thing Dick had ever said. Tim could hardly think but he knew he was more scarlet than the fever itself, drowning in his own ticklishness. His hands came up on instinct to try and push Dick’s away, but he’d been so weakened by all his previous laughter that he just latched onto Dick’s wrists and held tightly, not actually pushing against him. 

“You – you’re – tihihickling!” Tim gasped out, slamming his eyes shut when Dick cooed again. 

“Yeah, I am,” Dick replied, his voice a couple notches removed from the one he used to talk to babies and toddlers. “Glad you’ve recognized that, Timmy.” 

The voice made everything tickle more – well, either that, or Dick had magic tickle powers that, hey, for all Tim knew were totally a thing that existed – and Tim gasped, managing to flip onto one of his sides, facing Dick. 

Rather than shielding his stomach from questing, tickling fingers, his new position just meant that one of Dick’s hands went back to niggling around his bellybutton and the other started squeezing up and down his newly-exposed side. Tim collapsed into waves of helpless giggles, hiding his face in Dick’s chest. He could smell traces of the cedar cologne that Dick usually preferred, a scent that Tim had long ago learned to associate with brother, love, hugs. 

“C’mon out, Tim,” Dick teased, the words gently cajoling. “Don’t let the tickles get lonely, or they’re all going to start hanging out here.” His fingers migrated towards the back of Tim’s lower ribs on that side, fluttering over one of his worst tickle spots. 

Tim made a muffled, strangled yell and frantically shook his head, helplessly trying to use his elbow to push Dick’s hands away. 

“Hmmm. Well, maybe there’s another way to get you back out of hiding.” 

Suddenly, Dick was nuzzling a flurry of raspberries and nibbles against Tim’s neck and chin and collarbone while his fingers squeezed and scrabbled across Tim’s stomach. 

“Hey!” Tim shrieked, then promptly snorted with laughter as he tried to cringe away from the raspberries and nibbles. “Do nohohot–Deehehehe!” 

Dick’s only response was a long raspberry right at the crook between his neck and shoulder that made Tim flinch hard enough that he kicked his legs out, heels uselessly drumming against the bedsheets. 

“How’s your restlessness?” Dick asked as Tim’s laughter began to settle down again. 

“It’s– it’s gohohone!” Tim giggled, barely keeping himself from instinctively trying to roll all the way onto his stomach. He didn’t think he could stand it if Dick decided to tease at the kill spots on his lower ribs.  

“Do you think you can sleep now?” 

“IdoIdoIdohoho!” 

Dick gave him one more raspberry paired with a burst of featherlight scribbles over his giggle spots, and Tim melted back against him as his laughter weakened into wheezy, high-pitched giggles. 

“And you’re going to stay here?” Dick checked. 

A burst of warm happy feeling fizzled in Tim’s gut, right where his earlier anxious dread had been. “I will!” 

“And you’re going to remember not to sass me in front of your friends?” 

“Said–said you weren’t mad!” 

Dick laughed, low and fond. “That’s true, Baby Bird, and I’m not. But –” he nudged the side of his head against Tim’s for emphasis. “I gotta uphold my own older brother cred, which means the next time you snap at me in front of Kon and Bart, they’re gonna learn how to tickle those ribs of yours until you’re all hazy and wheezy and tapping out.” 

Just the thought of that sent sympathetic ticklish sparks running up and down Tim’s ribcage, and he let go of Dick’s wrists to wrap his arms around his middle, nodding quickly against Dick’s chest. “Ok, ok!” 

“Good!” And, man, did Dick sound way too chipper for someone who’d just taken his younger brother to pieces in the early hours of the morning. He finally stopped scribbling over Tim’s stomach, instead flattening his palm to rub slow, wide circles to chase away the leftover ticklish feelings – not that it stopped Tim from periodically falling back into fits of giggles, those tickles had somehow sunk into his nerves and made a home for themselves there. After the second or third time it happened, Dick gathered Tim up in a hug and kissed the top of his head. 

“Still giggly, huh?” 

“Yeah,” Tim said, unable to wipe the grin off his face. “Jus’ a little.”

Dick huffed a small, amused laugh. “Adorable.”

Tim didn’t know what to do with that, so he squeezed his eyes shut again. “Hn.” 

Dick adjusted his hold to nestle Tim more firmly against him, and Tim didn’t even put up a token struggle – he wasn’t Jason, he adored getting pressganged into Dick’s so-called octopus hugs. “And, hey. I’m glad you had your friends over today, you should do that again. They think you’re great.” 

Ah. So Dick had clocked some of the underlying reasons between Tim’s earlier words, even if they hadn’t been beyond the bounds of normal brotherly snark. Once again, Tim found himself feeling a tad too perceived, but that came with the territory in a family of detectives, even if the emotional intelligence wasn’t always a ….visible trait, for some of them. 

“Y’think?” he asked Dick’s shoulder. 

“I do,” Dick replied, the affirmation rumbling through his chest and into Tim’s ears. “And so do I.” 

Tim made an acknowledging sound and finally burrowed himself into Dick’s arms, stubbornly ignoring the voice in the back of his mind muttering about burrowing gremlins that sounded suspiciously similar to Jason. When Dick pulled the absurdly thick comforter up over both of them, Tim would have purred if he could. 

“Th’nks,” he murmured instead. 

He felt Dick press another kiss to the top of his head. “Of course. I told you to come find me if you have trouble falling asleep, and I’m glad you did.” 

Tim couldn’t help but smile, sleepy and content, with his older brother’s warmth and company to scare off his more overzealous trains of thought. “Me too, Dee.”

[hyacinthanon]

You Don't Hate It, Do You?

a/n: based on This Anon (thank you for feeding my lee!Tim brain worms sdhfjghf) Tim's about 13/14 here!

summary: Tim will never, ever snark at Dick in front of his friends ever again. Never.

or: After claiming that he hates it when Dick tickles him, Tim, unable to sleep and concerned that he might've been a bit of a jerk, goes to find his oldest brother. Dick isn't mad in the slightest, but he will take the chance to fluster his little brother into oblivion with all the teases and tickles.

━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━

It was after two, and Tim couldn’t sleep. 

To be fair, it had been a busy day – Kon and Bart had come over, for the first time, and Tim had gone all-out in his preparations. He’d made sure all the gaming consoles were working and that they had a copy of Mario Kart for each, ensured that Alfred had a sufficient quantity of snacks on hand for Bart, put in special grocery orders with the kind of licorice that Kon liked and that limited-edition lemon Zesti for himself, double triple quadruple checked that Jason was in town and that Dick would be at the Manor in case anything happened so he wouldn’t be disturbed, rearranged the furniture in the den twice then a third time for optimal comfort and visibility, found the six nearest take-out options and ranked them in order of diversity of options and reviews, and – 

Okay, in hindsight, he had stressed way too much for what had turned out to be an absolutely epic, chill afternoon sprawled in the den with his friends playing video games and eating quantities of junk food that were not Alfred-approved. It’s just. Well, it was the first time he’d had other hero/vigilante/meta friends over, and he'd really really wanted it to go well. 

And it had! It had gone great. So great that Tim had somehow managed to relax into his home self, so when Dick had come around to say hi and do some obligatory messing around, Tim had been more than happy to duck away from his outstretched hand and snap out something like “Hey, I hate it when you tickle me, cut it out!” He’d fully expected Dick to give him That Look™ with one of his eyebrows raised and that smirk that only ever meant trouble, then tackle him to the carpet. 

But Dick had just smiled and pulled back, apologizing, then wandered back upstairs. 

The thing was, Tim couldn’t sleep, which meant that his brain was churning along at a million miles an hour on tracks of questionable integrity. Normally he’d go find Dick, who’d said –and Tim believed him– that Tim could come find him any time. 

Now, though – Tim wasn’t sure. He’d been about to get up when the memory of Dick going “sorry, Baby Bird” and retracting his hand hit, and Tim’s already racing thoughts had plunged over the cliffside into a spiral that he was definitely, totally overthinking. 

“This is dumb, right?” he muttered, staring up at his ceiling. “I’m being dumb.”

The tiny glow-in-the-dark stars stuck up there didn’t offer any response, but that twitchy feeling in his legs was becoming unbearable. Okay, fine. 

Tim’s sigh echoed into his empty room as he heaved himself up and swung his legs to the side of his mattress. The sudden rush of chilly air sent waves of prickles up his arms, so he snatched a random sweatshirt off the clothes pile beside his door, then ventured out into the comforting, warm hallway light. 

He paused for a few seconds that felt like a subjective ten minutes and stared at Dick’s closed door, diagonally across from his own. The five or so feet between him and the doorway might as well have been a mile. Yeah, he’d been kind of an asshole earlier, but Dick wouldn’t – wouldn’t really be mad at him, right? Dick had seemed fine, but then again, he usually did, so…

More of those uncomfortable, anxious feelings twisted together somewhere in the pit of Tim’s stomach as he stood there, frozen in the hall. He hadn’t meant to be rude, he’d just been so caught up in the game with Kon and Bart, in the high of having friends over who were there to see him – on purpose, not just because he was someone’s tag-along little brother. And, sure, he’d had a flare of irrational panic when Dick had started joking around with his friends, like maybe they’d suddenly realize that Dick was way more funny and interesting than Tim could ever be, and then he’d lose this little space that he’d worked hard to carve out for just himself. 

The grown-up rational brain knew that wouldn’t happen. 

Unless – 

No, no. Shut up. 

Tim balled his hands into fists at his side and took a deep breath. Even if Dick didn’t want to spend time with him, Tim could at least apologize for snapping at him earlier. The odds were good that Dick would forgive him. Right? 

Before he could keep overthinking it, Tim crossed the hall in two big strides and knocked twice on his older brother’s door. 

“Come in!” Dick called. 

Well, he didn’t sound mad. He had to know that Tim was the only one around who could show up at this hour, too, so that was a good sign.

Still, that tight, anxious shyness settled in his stomach as Tim shuffled through the doorway, and he fought back the sudden urge to wrap his arms around his middle.  

Dick was lounging sideways on his bed, both his legs propped up on the wall. He flashed Tim a bright, upside-down smile. “Hey, Timmy. What’s up?”

Tim managed to return the smile even though his face felt stiff. “Hi.” He paused for a second to search for the right words. It was like when he’d first met Dick, he felt all clumsy and awkward again. 

The bedframe squeaked when Dick did some combination of a flip and a backwards roll and came up sitting on the edge of his bed. He combed his hair out of his eyes, giving Tim another one of those warm smiles. “Can’t sleep?” 

That, Tim could answer even though his words still felt stuck in his throat. He shook his head. 

Something achingly gentle flickered through Dick’s eyes that made Tim feel a little too perceived. Before he had the chance to fixate on that, though, Dick scooted backwards and patted the mattress in front of him. 

“There’s room for ya in the nest if you want it, Baby Bird.” 

The wave of relief that crashed over Tim nearly made his knees weak. Okay, Dick wasn’t mad at him, wasn’t going to send him away. Acting on pure instinct, he scurried over to the bed and flopped down facefirst into the pillows. 

Dick chuckled, and suddenly a hand was running through Tim’s hair, gently tugging every now and then to send pleasant shivers racing down his spine. Between the dizzying relief that the entirely made-up scenario that Tim’s brain had concocted was, indeed, not real, and the head scritches, Tim went limp against the mattress. He still wasn’t tired, tired, but he sure did feel more relaxed. 

What had he even come in here for, again? Oh, right. 

Tim pushed himself up on his elbows and turned his head so he wasn’t talking directly into the pillows. “I’m sorry ‘bout earlier.” 

The hand in his hair slowed, faltering in its rhythm, and Tim butted his head against it with a displeased sound. Bad hand. Those were his head scritches, thank you very much. 

“Sorry, bud,” Dick said, and his voice sounded strained, like he was trying not to laugh as he resumed carding through Tim’s hair and scratching over his scalp. “I’m just trying to figure out what you’re apologizing for.” 

Was he serious? Tim scowled at him. “For snapping at you while we were gaming.”

“Oh. Tim,” Okay, Dick was definitely holding back laughter, and Tim found himself with the growing feeling that he’d misunderstood the situation. “It’s fine. I wasn’t upset, I just wanted to give you space to be with your friends.” 

Tim smashed his face back into the pillow and wondered if maybe his high IQ came at the cost of utterly nerfed emotional intelligence scores. “Hn.” 

“You sound like B.” 

“Hnn.” 

Dick snorted. Then, softer, he asked, “Have you been twisting yourself up about this, Baby Bird?” 

Tim frowned into the memory foam beneath his face. Not…not really? Not in the sense that Dick probably thought, anyways. It hadn’t even occurred to him to be stressed until he was lying there staring at his ceiling, unable to sleep. 

“I don’t think so,” he muttered after a few moments. He knew he was probably muffled by the pillow, so he rolled over onto his back. Dick’s ceiling also had an array of glow-in-the-dark stars pasted onto it. Some of the patterns were different then Tim’s, but they both had a couple of the more recognizable constellations. Jason did, too. “I got up because I can’t sleep.” 

“Ah.” Blankets rustled as Dick shifted around to wrap his free arm around Tim’s shoulders, warm and solid and safe. Tim leaned into him, and immediately some of the restless feelings that had been gnawing at the back of his mind quieted down. 

“‘M restless,” Tim added. He couldn’t possibly make it clearer, right? Those were practically Dick’s own words, back when he’d scoop Tim up into his arms and tickle his sides and coo about “aw, are you a little restless tonight, Timmy?”  

With an understanding hum, Dick squeezed Tim a little tighter. “Is there anything I can do to help you, or do you just want to sleep?” 

He had to be kidding. As if Dick didn’t take any possible chance to – to tickle his little brothers and, god, just thinking about it was making Tim’s face heat up – and here Tim was, offering himself up on a platter – 

“Huh?” 

Dick winked down at him. “If there’s something you want, Timmy, you just have to ask.” 

Oh, fuck that. Absolutely not. Tim couldn’t – he wouldn’t – oh god, his face was burning now. 

“Dick.” 

“Yeah?” The corners of Dick’s eyes crinkled as he looked at Tim with a teasing, mischievous grin playing at his mouth. That particular look never boded well. “I’m not mad at you, I just wanna respect your boundaries. If you really hate it when I tickle you–”

Tim yelped and promptly tried to bury his face in the pillows again, only for Dick to drag him back with the arm still tucked around his shoulders. 

“Nuh huh, Timmy, don’t burrow away from me. Whatcha after?” 

Maybe this was how Tim would die, spontaneous combustion from sheer, overwhelming embarrassment. Now that his earlier burst of anxiety had dissipated, it was easy to recognize that, no, Dick wasn’t mad at him, he was just teasing, sort of like he’d tease Jason whenever he’d snark at Dick. Tim just didn’t usually give Dick that amount of snappiness or snark, so this was a little new for him. Okay. He was Robin, he could adapt – 

Except adapting meant asking for – for – for tickles, and not just any tickles, but the cozy, spidering scribbles over his stomach that Dick had long-ago christened as Timmy tummy tickles, and the thought of saying any of those words out loud did in fact make Tim want to explode into flames on the spot. 

He groaned and thunked his head into Dick’s shoulders. “Di–ick.” 

“Yeah?” 

Tim didn’t have to look to know that Dick had an entirely guileless expression pasted on to hide the fact that he was an evil, evil person who just wanted Tim to spend the rest of his life as a puddle of embarrassment underneath his covers. 

“Just do it.” Okay, yeah, Tim knew he was whining, he heard the way he sounded, but he couldn’t help it. “C’mon!” 

Dick let out a low, teasing chuckle and pulled Tim against his chest, pressing a kiss to the side of his head. “I need you to be specific, Timmy, I’m not sure what you want.” He patted Tim’s stomach, but didn’t move his hand otherwise.

Supposedly, Slovenia was lovely this time of year. Maybe Tim could just move there – it wouldn’t be too hard to change his name, and he could always dye his hair. His knowledge of Slavic languages was…pedestrian, but he could learn! He was good at learning. That was, like, part of his whole thing. 

But, as tempting as that plan sounded, he was getting twitchy. It was the same kind of wound-up giggly feeling he’d get when one of his brothers had him pinned but, rather than just getting it over with, would just sit there wriggling their fingers half an inch above his skin. That tactic never failed to make Tim’s brain completely short-circuit, and they knew it. 

“Please,” he muttered through gritted teeth, trying to rip the bandaid off. Then, for emphasis, he tapped the back of Dick’s hand that was still resting on torso. “Onmystomach.”

Dick hummed again, considering. “I guess that does narrow it down.” 

Oh, thank god. 

“...But I’m gonna need you to use the technical term.” 

  Tim felt the weight of Dick’s teasing words as his face blazed with all the warmth of a firework. “Dee, you’re just – I’m sorry I snapped at you, I–” he was never ever ever going to snark at Dick ever again, no matter who else was around. Not if this was his payback.

“None of those are the right words, bud.” 

“I hate you,” Tim muttered. “You’re so, so so mean to me and nobody would ever believe it.” Belying his own words, he smashed his face against Dick’s chest since his stupid older brother wouldn’t let him hide in the pillows. 

Dick laughed again, and it resonated through his whole body, vibrating through Tim’s ears in a way that almost, almost made him forget how much Dick was teasing him. “Aw, you’re cranky when you’re flustered.” 

Tim just pushed his face further into Dick’s fleecy pullover. After what was approximately a hundred years, he squeezed his eyes shut and braced himself for the inevitable wave of embarrassment and gritted out, “I want – Ti – Timmytummytickles, there!” 

“Oh!” Dick said with an entirely fake amount of surprise that made Tim want to smack him upside the head. “You should have just said, Baby Bird.” 

All thoughts of wrangling one of his arms free to bat at Dick’s wavy hair flew away when the hand on Tim’s stomach started digging in, fingers wiggling into his belly with a rhythmic precision that had him choking on a sudden wave of giggles. 

“Aww, there’s my Timmy,” Dick cooed, leaning down to nuzzle against the top of Tim’s head. “I thought I had a ticklish, giggly baby brother somewhere in there.” 

“No mohore teheheheasing!” squawked Tim as he let his head fall back against Dick’s shoulder, grinning through his laughter. No matter how old he got, Dick’s particular brand of older-brother teasing would never not burrow under his skin and make him squirm.

“No teasing? Not even about this ticklish tummy right here?” Dick made a line of pokes across Tim’s lower stomach, just above the waistline of his pajama pants, for emphasis. 

Case in point – Tim would’ve sworn his brain started to give off steam like a Looney Tunes character. “Nooo!” 

Dick tsked, his smirk barely concealing the well of affection that showed through in his gaze. “Okay, bud, if you insist.” 

He brought both hands up to make light scribbles over Tim’s stomach with just his nails. It – god, it tickled, all Tim could do was let himself laugh as his mind drowned in the overwhelming tingly prickles. His face rubbed against Dick’s smooth pullover as he tried to hide again, but the quick fluttering of fingertips across his collarbones made him squeak and snap his head back around. 

“Nuh uh, no hiding,” Dick scolded. He used each of his index fingers to tap on the twin giggle spots on either side of Tim’s bellybutton. “Don’t wanna make these tickly-tickle-tickle spots lonely, hm?” 

God, he was really going all-in on the teasing, and Tim couldn’t stop the giggly whine that welled up in the back of his throat. “Dee!” 

Dick was alternating between light tapping over those particularly ticklish places and scribbling his index fingers over them, occasionally pinching at the squishy spots. “That is my name, Tim, great job.”  

Tim tried to channel some of Jason’s blustering defiance by telling Dick to shut the fuck up, but then Dick started using all the fingers of each hand to scribble over his giggle spots and Tim collapsed back into fits of squeaky laughter, shaking his head. 

“It–it tihihic–it tihihickles!” 

Dick hummed. “Yeah, it sounds like it does, Squeakers.” 

The nickname sent a fresh wave of little brother feelings rolling through Tim’s thoughts as he tried to wrangle the peals of giggles under control long enough to say something else – he didn’t know what, but it’d come to him. 

Or maybe it wouldn’t. When he felt Dick’s hands slowly crawling outwards towards his lower ribs, Tim started squirming even more. He was expecting Dick to poke and prod at his ribcage, so when Dick stopped and suddenly vibrated each of his hands into Tim’s upper stomach, he startled and squeaked around a cackle.

“Y’know,” Dick said like he was having an epiphany in the middle of digging wiggling, prodding fingers into Tim’s abdominal muscles. “You don’t actually hate it when I tickle you, do you?” 

That was one of the worst, easiest things he could’ve said and Tim’s wriggling increased as he tried to shield himself from whatever else Dick was about to say. “I – nahahaha!” 

“Aaw. In fact…” 

The tickling fingers suddenly jumped down to the outer parts of his stomach, close to his sides, and dug in with a series of nibbling pinches. 

“These are your favorite tickles, aren’t they, Baby Bird?” 

Actually, maybe that was the worst thing Dick had ever said. Tim could hardly think but he knew he was more scarlet than the fever itself, drowning in his own ticklishness. His hands came up on instinct to try and push Dick’s away, but he’d been so weakened by all his previous laughter that he just latched onto Dick’s wrists and held tightly, not actually pushing against him. 

“You – you’re – tihihickling!” Tim gasped out, slamming his eyes shut when Dick cooed again. 

“Yeah, I am,” Dick replied, his voice a couple notches removed from the one he used to talk to babies and toddlers. “Glad you’ve recognized that, Timmy.” 

The voice made everything tickle more – well, either that, or Dick had magic tickle powers that, hey, for all Tim knew were totally a thing that existed – and Tim gasped, managing to flip onto one of his sides, facing Dick. 

Rather than shielding his stomach from questing, tickling fingers, his new position just meant that one of Dick’s hands went back to niggling around his bellybutton and the other started squeezing up and down his newly-exposed side. Tim collapsed into waves of helpless giggles, hiding his face in Dick’s chest. He could smell traces of the cedar cologne that Dick usually preferred, a scent that Tim had long ago learned to associate with brother, love, hugs. 

“C’mon out, Tim,” Dick teased, the words gently cajoling. “Don’t let the tickles get lonely, or they’re all going to start hanging out here.” His fingers migrated towards the back of Tim’s lower ribs on that side, fluttering over one of his worst tickle spots. 

Tim made a muffled, strangled yell and frantically shook his head, helplessly trying to use his elbow to push Dick’s hands away. 

“Hmmm. Well, maybe there’s another way to get you back out of hiding.” 

Suddenly, Dick was nuzzling a flurry of raspberries and nibbles against Tim’s neck and chin and collarbone while his fingers squeezed and scrabbled across Tim’s stomach. 

“Hey!” Tim shrieked, then promptly snorted with laughter as he tried to cringe away from the raspberries and nibbles. “Do nohohot–Deehehehe!” 

Dick’s only response was a long raspberry right at the crook between his neck and shoulder that made Tim flinch hard enough that he kicked his legs out, heels uselessly drumming against the bedsheets. 

“How’s your restlessness?” Dick asked as Tim’s laughter began to settle down again. 

“It’s– it’s gohohone!” Tim giggled, barely keeping himself from instinctively trying to roll all the way onto his stomach. He didn’t think he could stand it if Dick decided to tease at the kill spots on his lower ribs.  

“Do you think you can sleep now?” 

“IdoIdoIdohoho!” 

Dick gave him one more raspberry paired with a burst of featherlight scribbles over his giggle spots, and Tim melted back against him as his laughter weakened into wheezy, high-pitched giggles. 

“And you’re going to stay here?” Dick checked. 

A burst of warm happy feeling fizzled in Tim’s gut, right where his earlier anxious dread had been. “I will!” 

“And you’re going to remember not to sass me in front of your friends?” 

“Said–said you weren’t mad!” 

Dick laughed, low and fond. “That’s true, Baby Bird, and I’m not. But –” he nudged the side of his head against Tim’s for emphasis. “I gotta uphold my own older brother cred, which means the next time you snap at me in front of Kon and Bart, they’re gonna learn how to tickle those ribs of yours until you’re all hazy and wheezy and tapping out.” 

Just the thought of that sent sympathetic ticklish sparks running up and down Tim’s ribcage, and he let go of Dick’s wrists to wrap his arms around his middle, nodding quickly against Dick’s chest. “Ok, ok!” 

“Good!” And, man, did Dick sound way too chipper for someone who’d just taken his younger brother to pieces in the early hours of the morning. He finally stopped scribbling over Tim’s stomach, instead flattening his palm to rub slow, wide circles to chase away the leftover ticklish feelings – not that it stopped Tim from periodically falling back into fits of giggles, those tickles had somehow sunk into his nerves and made a home for themselves there. After the second or third time it happened, Dick gathered Tim up in a hug and kissed the top of his head. 

“Still giggly, huh?” 

“Yeah,” Tim said, unable to wipe the grin off his face. “Jus’ a little.”

Dick huffed a small, amused laugh. “Adorable.”

Tim didn’t know what to do with that, so he squeezed his eyes shut again. “Hn.” 

Dick adjusted his hold to nestle Tim more firmly against him, and Tim didn’t even put up a token struggle – he wasn’t Jason, he adored getting pressganged into Dick’s so-called octopus hugs. “And, hey. I’m glad you had your friends over today, you should do that again. They think you’re great.” 

Ah. So Dick had clocked some of the underlying reasons between Tim’s earlier words, even if they hadn’t been beyond the bounds of normal brotherly snark. Once again, Tim found himself feeling a tad too perceived, but that came with the territory in a family of detectives, even if the emotional intelligence wasn’t always a ….visible trait, for some of them. 

“Y’think?” he asked Dick’s shoulder. 

“I do,” Dick replied, the affirmation rumbling through his chest and into Tim’s ears. “And so do I.” 

Tim made an acknowledging sound and finally burrowed himself into Dick’s arms, stubbornly ignoring the voice in the back of his mind muttering about burrowing gremlins that sounded suspiciously similar to Jason. When Dick pulled the absurdly thick comforter up over both of them, Tim would have purred if he could. 

“Th’nks,” he murmured instead. 

He felt Dick press another kiss to the top of his head. “Of course. I told you to come find me if you have trouble falling asleep, and I’m glad you did.” 

Tim couldn’t help but smile, sleepy and content, with his older brother’s warmth and company to scare off his more overzealous trains of thought. “Me too, Dee.”

[hyacinthanon]

You Don't Hate It, Do You?

a/n: based on This Anon (thank you for feeding my lee!Tim brain worms sdhfjghf) Tim's about 13/14 here!

summary: Tim will never, ever snark at Dick in front of his friends ever again. Never.

or: After claiming that he hates it when Dick tickles him, Tim, unable to sleep and concerned that he might've been a bit of a jerk, goes to find his oldest brother. Dick isn't mad in the slightest, but he will take the chance to fluster his little brother into oblivion with all the teases and tickles.

━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━

It was after two, and Tim couldn’t sleep. 

To be fair, it had been a busy day – Kon and Bart had come over, for the first time, and Tim had gone all-out in his preparations. He’d made sure all the gaming consoles were working and that they had a copy of Mario Kart for each, ensured that Alfred had a sufficient quantity of snacks on hand for Bart, put in special grocery orders with the kind of licorice that Kon liked and that limited-edition lemon Zesti for himself, double triple quadruple checked that Jason was in town and that Dick would be at the Manor in case anything happened so he wouldn’t be disturbed, rearranged the furniture in the den twice then a third time for optimal comfort and visibility, found the six nearest take-out options and ranked them in order of diversity of options and reviews, and – 

Okay, in hindsight, he had stressed way too much for what had turned out to be an absolutely epic, chill afternoon sprawled in the den with his friends playing video games and eating quantities of junk food that were not Alfred-approved. It’s just. Well, it was the first time he’d had other hero/vigilante/meta friends over, and he'd really really wanted it to go well. 

And it had! It had gone great. So great that Tim had somehow managed to relax into his home self, so when Dick had come around to say hi and do some obligatory messing around, Tim had been more than happy to duck away from his outstretched hand and snap out something like “Hey, I hate it when you tickle me, cut it out!” He’d fully expected Dick to give him That Look™ with one of his eyebrows raised and that smirk that only ever meant trouble, then tackle him to the carpet. 

But Dick had just smiled and pulled back, apologizing, then wandered back upstairs. 

The thing was, Tim couldn’t sleep, which meant that his brain was churning along at a million miles an hour on tracks of questionable integrity. Normally he’d go find Dick, who’d said –and Tim believed him– that Tim could come find him any time. 

Now, though – Tim wasn’t sure. He’d been about to get up when the memory of Dick going “sorry, Baby Bird” and retracting his hand hit, and Tim’s already racing thoughts had plunged over the cliffside into a spiral that he was definitely, totally overthinking. 

“This is dumb, right?” he muttered, staring up at his ceiling. “I’m being dumb.”

The tiny glow-in-the-dark stars stuck up there didn’t offer any response, but that twitchy feeling in his legs was becoming unbearable. Okay, fine. 

Tim’s sigh echoed into his empty room as he heaved himself up and swung his legs to the side of his mattress. The sudden rush of chilly air sent waves of prickles up his arms, so he snatched a random sweatshirt off the clothes pile beside his door, then ventured out into the comforting, warm hallway light. 

He paused for a few seconds that felt like a subjective ten minutes and stared at Dick’s closed door, diagonally across from his own. The five or so feet between him and the doorway might as well have been a mile. Yeah, he’d been kind of an asshole earlier, but Dick wouldn’t – wouldn’t really be mad at him, right? Dick had seemed fine, but then again, he usually did, so…

More of those uncomfortable, anxious feelings twisted together somewhere in the pit of Tim’s stomach as he stood there, frozen in the hall. He hadn’t meant to be rude, he’d just been so caught up in the game with Kon and Bart, in the high of having friends over who were there to see him – on purpose, not just because he was someone’s tag-along little brother. And, sure, he’d had a flare of irrational panic when Dick had started joking around with his friends, like maybe they’d suddenly realize that Dick was way more funny and interesting than Tim could ever be, and then he’d lose this little space that he’d worked hard to carve out for just himself. 

The grown-up rational brain knew that wouldn’t happen. 

Unless – 

No, no. Shut up. 

Tim balled his hands into fists at his side and took a deep breath. Even if Dick didn’t want to spend time with him, Tim could at least apologize for snapping at him earlier. The odds were good that Dick would forgive him. Right? 

Before he could keep overthinking it, Tim crossed the hall in two big strides and knocked twice on his older brother’s door. 

“Come in!” Dick called. 

Well, he didn’t sound mad. He had to know that Tim was the only one around who could show up at this hour, too, so that was a good sign.

Still, that tight, anxious shyness settled in his stomach as Tim shuffled through the doorway, and he fought back the sudden urge to wrap his arms around his middle.  

Dick was lounging sideways on his bed, both his legs propped up on the wall. He flashed Tim a bright, upside-down smile. “Hey, Timmy. What’s up?”

Tim managed to return the smile even though his face felt stiff. “Hi.” He paused for a second to search for the right words. It was like when he’d first met Dick, he felt all clumsy and awkward again. 

The bedframe squeaked when Dick did some combination of a flip and a backwards roll and came up sitting on the edge of his bed. He combed his hair out of his eyes, giving Tim another one of those warm smiles. “Can’t sleep?” 

That, Tim could answer even though his words still felt stuck in his throat. He shook his head. 

Something achingly gentle flickered through Dick’s eyes that made Tim feel a little too perceived. Before he had the chance to fixate on that, though, Dick scooted backwards and patted the mattress in front of him. 

“There’s room for ya in the nest if you want it, Baby Bird.” 

The wave of relief that crashed over Tim nearly made his knees weak. Okay, Dick wasn’t mad at him, wasn’t going to send him away. Acting on pure instinct, he scurried over to the bed and flopped down facefirst into the pillows. 

Dick chuckled, and suddenly a hand was running through Tim’s hair, gently tugging every now and then to send pleasant shivers racing down his spine. Between the dizzying relief that the entirely made-up scenario that Tim’s brain had concocted was, indeed, not real, and the head scritches, Tim went limp against the mattress. He still wasn’t tired, tired, but he sure did feel more relaxed. 

What had he even come in here for, again? Oh, right. 

Tim pushed himself up on his elbows and turned his head so he wasn’t talking directly into the pillows. “I’m sorry ‘bout earlier.” 

The hand in his hair slowed, faltering in its rhythm, and Tim butted his head against it with a displeased sound. Bad hand. Those were his head scritches, thank you very much. 

“Sorry, bud,” Dick said, and his voice sounded strained, like he was trying not to laugh as he resumed carding through Tim’s hair and scratching over his scalp. “I’m just trying to figure out what you’re apologizing for.” 

Was he serious? Tim scowled at him. “For snapping at you while we were gaming.”

“Oh. Tim,” Okay, Dick was definitely holding back laughter, and Tim found himself with the growing feeling that he’d misunderstood the situation. “It’s fine. I wasn’t upset, I just wanted to give you space to be with your friends.” 

Tim smashed his face back into the pillow and wondered if maybe his high IQ came at the cost of utterly nerfed emotional intelligence scores. “Hn.” 

“You sound like B.” 

“Hnn.” 

Dick snorted. Then, softer, he asked, “Have you been twisting yourself up about this, Baby Bird?” 

Tim frowned into the memory foam beneath his face. Not…not really? Not in the sense that Dick probably thought, anyways. It hadn’t even occurred to him to be stressed until he was lying there staring at his ceiling, unable to sleep. 

“I don’t think so,” he muttered after a few moments. He knew he was probably muffled by the pillow, so he rolled over onto his back. Dick’s ceiling also had an array of glow-in-the-dark stars pasted onto it. Some of the patterns were different then Tim’s, but they both had a couple of the more recognizable constellations. Jason did, too. “I got up because I can’t sleep.” 

“Ah.” Blankets rustled as Dick shifted around to wrap his free arm around Tim’s shoulders, warm and solid and safe. Tim leaned into him, and immediately some of the restless feelings that had been gnawing at the back of his mind quieted down. 

“‘M restless,” Tim added. He couldn’t possibly make it clearer, right? Those were practically Dick’s own words, back when he’d scoop Tim up into his arms and tickle his sides and coo about “aw, are you a little restless tonight, Timmy?”  

With an understanding hum, Dick squeezed Tim a little tighter. “Is there anything I can do to help you, or do you just want to sleep?” 

He had to be kidding. As if Dick didn’t take any possible chance to – to tickle his little brothers and, god, just thinking about it was making Tim’s face heat up – and here Tim was, offering himself up on a platter – 

“Huh?” 

Dick winked down at him. “If there’s something you want, Timmy, you just have to ask.” 

Oh, fuck that. Absolutely not. Tim couldn’t – he wouldn’t – oh god, his face was burning now. 

“Dick.” 

“Yeah?” The corners of Dick’s eyes crinkled as he looked at Tim with a teasing, mischievous grin playing at his mouth. That particular look never boded well. “I’m not mad at you, I just wanna respect your boundaries. If you really hate it when I tickle you–”

Tim yelped and promptly tried to bury his face in the pillows again, only for Dick to drag him back with the arm still tucked around his shoulders. 

“Nuh huh, Timmy, don’t burrow away from me. Whatcha after?” 

Maybe this was how Tim would die, spontaneous combustion from sheer, overwhelming embarrassment. Now that his earlier burst of anxiety had dissipated, it was easy to recognize that, no, Dick wasn’t mad at him, he was just teasing, sort of like he’d tease Jason whenever he’d snark at Dick. Tim just didn’t usually give Dick that amount of snappiness or snark, so this was a little new for him. Okay. He was Robin, he could adapt – 

Except adapting meant asking for – for – for tickles, and not just any tickles, but the cozy, spidering scribbles over his stomach that Dick had long-ago christened as Timmy tummy tickles, and the thought of saying any of those words out loud did in fact make Tim want to explode into flames on the spot. 

He groaned and thunked his head into Dick’s shoulders. “Di–ick.” 

“Yeah?” 

Tim didn’t have to look to know that Dick had an entirely guileless expression pasted on to hide the fact that he was an evil, evil person who just wanted Tim to spend the rest of his life as a puddle of embarrassment underneath his covers. 

“Just do it.” Okay, yeah, Tim knew he was whining, he heard the way he sounded, but he couldn’t help it. “C’mon!” 

Dick let out a low, teasing chuckle and pulled Tim against his chest, pressing a kiss to the side of his head. “I need you to be specific, Timmy, I’m not sure what you want.” He patted Tim’s stomach, but didn’t move his hand otherwise.

Supposedly, Slovenia was lovely this time of year. Maybe Tim could just move there – it wouldn’t be too hard to change his name, and he could always dye his hair. His knowledge of Slavic languages was…pedestrian, but he could learn! He was good at learning. That was, like, part of his whole thing. 

But, as tempting as that plan sounded, he was getting twitchy. It was the same kind of wound-up giggly feeling he’d get when one of his brothers had him pinned but, rather than just getting it over with, would just sit there wriggling their fingers half an inch above his skin. That tactic never failed to make Tim’s brain completely short-circuit, and they knew it. 

“Please,” he muttered through gritted teeth, trying to rip the bandaid off. Then, for emphasis, he tapped the back of Dick’s hand that was still resting on torso. “Onmystomach.”

Dick hummed again, considering. “I guess that does narrow it down.” 

Oh, thank god. 

“...But I’m gonna need you to use the technical term.” 

  Tim felt the weight of Dick’s teasing words as his face blazed with all the warmth of a firework. “Dee, you’re just – I’m sorry I snapped at you, I–” he was never ever ever going to snark at Dick ever again, no matter who else was around. Not if this was his payback.

“None of those are the right words, bud.” 

“I hate you,” Tim muttered. “You’re so, so so mean to me and nobody would ever believe it.” Belying his own words, he smashed his face against Dick’s chest since his stupid older brother wouldn’t let him hide in the pillows. 

Dick laughed again, and it resonated through his whole body, vibrating through Tim’s ears in a way that almost, almost made him forget how much Dick was teasing him. “Aw, you’re cranky when you’re flustered.” 

Tim just pushed his face further into Dick’s fleecy pullover. After what was approximately a hundred years, he squeezed his eyes shut and braced himself for the inevitable wave of embarrassment and gritted out, “I want – Ti – Timmytummytickles, there!” 

“Oh!” Dick said with an entirely fake amount of surprise that made Tim want to smack him upside the head. “You should have just said, Baby Bird.” 

All thoughts of wrangling one of his arms free to bat at Dick’s wavy hair flew away when the hand on Tim’s stomach started digging in, fingers wiggling into his belly with a rhythmic precision that had him choking on a sudden wave of giggles. 

“Aww, there’s my Timmy,” Dick cooed, leaning down to nuzzle against the top of Tim’s head. “I thought I had a ticklish, giggly baby brother somewhere in there.” 

“No mohore teheheheasing!” squawked Tim as he let his head fall back against Dick’s shoulder, grinning through his laughter. No matter how old he got, Dick’s particular brand of older-brother teasing would never not burrow under his skin and make him squirm.

“No teasing? Not even about this ticklish tummy right here?” Dick made a line of pokes across Tim’s lower stomach, just above the waistline of his pajama pants, for emphasis. 

Case in point – Tim would’ve sworn his brain started to give off steam like a Looney Tunes character. “Nooo!” 

Dick tsked, his smirk barely concealing the well of affection that showed through in his gaze. “Okay, bud, if you insist.” 

He brought both hands up to make light scribbles over Tim’s stomach with just his nails. It – god, it tickled, all Tim could do was let himself laugh as his mind drowned in the overwhelming tingly prickles. His face rubbed against Dick’s smooth pullover as he tried to hide again, but the quick fluttering of fingertips across his collarbones made him squeak and snap his head back around. 

“Nuh uh, no hiding,” Dick scolded. He used each of his index fingers to tap on the twin giggle spots on either side of Tim’s bellybutton. “Don’t wanna make these tickly-tickle-tickle spots lonely, hm?” 

God, he was really going all-in on the teasing, and Tim couldn’t stop the giggly whine that welled up in the back of his throat. “Dee!” 

Dick was alternating between light tapping over those particularly ticklish places and scribbling his index fingers over them, occasionally pinching at the squishy spots. “That is my name, Tim, great job.”  

Tim tried to channel some of Jason’s blustering defiance by telling Dick to shut the fuck up, but then Dick started using all the fingers of each hand to scribble over his giggle spots and Tim collapsed back into fits of squeaky laughter, shaking his head. 

“It–it tihihic–it tihihickles!” 

Dick hummed. “Yeah, it sounds like it does, Squeakers.” 

The nickname sent a fresh wave of little brother feelings rolling through Tim’s thoughts as he tried to wrangle the peals of giggles under control long enough to say something else – he didn’t know what, but it’d come to him. 

Or maybe it wouldn’t. When he felt Dick’s hands slowly crawling outwards towards his lower ribs, Tim started squirming even more. He was expecting Dick to poke and prod at his ribcage, so when Dick stopped and suddenly vibrated each of his hands into Tim’s upper stomach, he startled and squeaked around a cackle.

“Y’know,” Dick said like he was having an epiphany in the middle of digging wiggling, prodding fingers into Tim’s abdominal muscles. “You don’t actually hate it when I tickle you, do you?” 

That was one of the worst, easiest things he could’ve said and Tim’s wriggling increased as he tried to shield himself from whatever else Dick was about to say. “I – nahahaha!” 

“Aaw. In fact…” 

The tickling fingers suddenly jumped down to the outer parts of his stomach, close to his sides, and dug in with a series of nibbling pinches. 

“These are your favorite tickles, aren’t they, Baby Bird?” 

Actually, maybe that was the worst thing Dick had ever said. Tim could hardly think but he knew he was more scarlet than the fever itself, drowning in his own ticklishness. His hands came up on instinct to try and push Dick’s away, but he’d been so weakened by all his previous laughter that he just latched onto Dick’s wrists and held tightly, not actually pushing against him. 

“You – you’re – tihihickling!” Tim gasped out, slamming his eyes shut when Dick cooed again. 

“Yeah, I am,” Dick replied, his voice a couple notches removed from the one he used to talk to babies and toddlers. “Glad you’ve recognized that, Timmy.” 

The voice made everything tickle more – well, either that, or Dick had magic tickle powers that, hey, for all Tim knew were totally a thing that existed – and Tim gasped, managing to flip onto one of his sides, facing Dick. 

Rather than shielding his stomach from questing, tickling fingers, his new position just meant that one of Dick’s hands went back to niggling around his bellybutton and the other started squeezing up and down his newly-exposed side. Tim collapsed into waves of helpless giggles, hiding his face in Dick’s chest. He could smell traces of the cedar cologne that Dick usually preferred, a scent that Tim had long ago learned to associate with brother, love, hugs. 

“C’mon out, Tim,” Dick teased, the words gently cajoling. “Don’t let the tickles get lonely, or they’re all going to start hanging out here.” His fingers migrated towards the back of Tim’s lower ribs on that side, fluttering over one of his worst tickle spots. 

Tim made a muffled, strangled yell and frantically shook his head, helplessly trying to use his elbow to push Dick’s hands away. 

“Hmmm. Well, maybe there’s another way to get you back out of hiding.” 

Suddenly, Dick was nuzzling a flurry of raspberries and nibbles against Tim’s neck and chin and collarbone while his fingers squeezed and scrabbled across Tim’s stomach. 

“Hey!” Tim shrieked, then promptly snorted with laughter as he tried to cringe away from the raspberries and nibbles. “Do nohohot–Deehehehe!” 

Dick’s only response was a long raspberry right at the crook between his neck and shoulder that made Tim flinch hard enough that he kicked his legs out, heels uselessly drumming against the bedsheets. 

“How’s your restlessness?” Dick asked as Tim’s laughter began to settle down again. 

“It’s– it’s gohohone!” Tim giggled, barely keeping himself from instinctively trying to roll all the way onto his stomach. He didn’t think he could stand it if Dick decided to tease at the kill spots on his lower ribs.  

“Do you think you can sleep now?” 

“IdoIdoIdohoho!” 

Dick gave him one more raspberry paired with a burst of featherlight scribbles over his giggle spots, and Tim melted back against him as his laughter weakened into wheezy, high-pitched giggles. 

“And you’re going to stay here?” Dick checked. 

A burst of warm happy feeling fizzled in Tim’s gut, right where his earlier anxious dread had been. “I will!” 

“And you’re going to remember not to sass me in front of your friends?” 

“Said–said you weren’t mad!” 

Dick laughed, low and fond. “That’s true, Baby Bird, and I’m not. But –” he nudged the side of his head against Tim’s for emphasis. “I gotta uphold my own older brother cred, which means the next time you snap at me in front of Kon and Bart, they’re gonna learn how to tickle those ribs of yours until you’re all hazy and wheezy and tapping out.” 

Just the thought of that sent sympathetic ticklish sparks running up and down Tim’s ribcage, and he let go of Dick’s wrists to wrap his arms around his middle, nodding quickly against Dick’s chest. “Ok, ok!” 

“Good!” And, man, did Dick sound way too chipper for someone who’d just taken his younger brother to pieces in the early hours of the morning. He finally stopped scribbling over Tim’s stomach, instead flattening his palm to rub slow, wide circles to chase away the leftover ticklish feelings – not that it stopped Tim from periodically falling back into fits of giggles, those tickles had somehow sunk into his nerves and made a home for themselves there. After the second or third time it happened, Dick gathered Tim up in a hug and kissed the top of his head. 

“Still giggly, huh?” 

“Yeah,” Tim said, unable to wipe the grin off his face. “Jus’ a little.”

Dick huffed a small, amused laugh. “Adorable.”

Tim didn’t know what to do with that, so he squeezed his eyes shut again. “Hn.” 

Dick adjusted his hold to nestle Tim more firmly against him, and Tim didn’t even put up a token struggle – he wasn’t Jason, he adored getting pressganged into Dick’s so-called octopus hugs. “And, hey. I’m glad you had your friends over today, you should do that again. They think you’re great.” 

Ah. So Dick had clocked some of the underlying reasons between Tim’s earlier words, even if they hadn’t been beyond the bounds of normal brotherly snark. Once again, Tim found himself feeling a tad too perceived, but that came with the territory in a family of detectives, even if the emotional intelligence wasn’t always a ….visible trait, for some of them. 

“Y’think?” he asked Dick’s shoulder. 

“I do,” Dick replied, the affirmation rumbling through his chest and into Tim’s ears. “And so do I.” 

Tim made an acknowledging sound and finally burrowed himself into Dick’s arms, stubbornly ignoring the voice in the back of his mind muttering about burrowing gremlins that sounded suspiciously similar to Jason. When Dick pulled the absurdly thick comforter up over both of them, Tim would have purred if he could. 

“Th’nks,” he murmured instead. 

He felt Dick press another kiss to the top of his head. “Of course. I told you to come find me if you have trouble falling asleep, and I’m glad you did.” 

Tim couldn’t help but smile, sleepy and content, with his older brother’s warmth and company to scare off his more overzealous trains of thought. “Me too, Dee.”

[hyacinthanon]

I'm so excited for your next work and I hope you're having a good time making it!! Nothing is more flustering than a lee!tim fic but I'm preparing myself!! I hope you have a lovely day!!

aww thank you so much!!! i can say that here at hycacinthanon dot tumblr dot com we are on vacation for the first time in probably 10 years and having a great time! have a GREAT day/week, and brace yourself hehehe

[hyacinthanon]

Hello! I've come bearing more headcannons for you:D Bruce Wayne edition:

1. I feel like he is the type to statue. Aka, he stays still in a position for so long, he looks like a statue. His body functions as normal, blinking and breathing- but he kinda- dissociates. It's a thing that he picked up, cause y'know Batman is known for blending into the shadows like no other. He snaps out of if someone like really tries to get his attention, like shaking or tapping him. Usually one of his kids, and he does probably get some whiplash from it, particularly if hes been like that for a while. Like kinda groggy, because snapping out of it so suddenly, is getting woken up from a deep sleep. But anyways, I feel like this would create a perfect opening for one/or more of the batkids to get some much needed payback on their old man. Just to even out the playing field a little.

2. Tipsy Bruce Wayne. Particularly teenage Bruce. I know that Bruce has a high alchol tolerance now- like as adult Batman, but it would make a lot of sense if he had to buildup said tolerance from nothing. And  obviously Alfred would be the one to have wrangle a stubborn, giggly, wasted Bruce to go to sleep. I mean...he has to tire him out somehow, since Bruce refuses to go to bed on his own.

3. This one is more a Ler!Bruce, but I absolutely had to add this- He has Batfangs. Not exaggerated ones- like some plastic Dracula teeth- but rather natural, subtle but noticeable fangs. Oh, and- it makes any nibbles from him to the Batkids, absolutely insane. It doesn't hurt- but rather makes the feeling ten times more intense- so like if it ever happened on their worst spot, they might actually die- (or at least get a severe hit to their pride, after their screeches bounce off the walls, and are heard from everyone in the Manor.) As always, have a great day!

-Jester Anon:D

Jester my beloved anon these are delightful, thank you for sharing!!! Sdghfd imagine Bruce fully lost in thought in statue mode with Dickbin trying to get his attention to tell him something and that's how Dick makes a particular discovery about his adoptive father. Bruce, realizing that otherwise he'll never know peace again, snaps himself out of it to scoop Dick up and tickle him silly in revenge/as a deterrent against future mischief. And ler!Alfred looking at Bruce, firmly in his teenage dirtbag years, and thinking "well he's not too old to be wrecked until he's sleepy" fhdjdjf amazing incredible. Bruce, ofc, absolutely has it coming. AND THE POINTY TEETH omg the batkids are cooked, plucked, and roasted. The first time Bruce gives any of them the raspberry+nibble combination he discovers an entirely new register of screeching and cackling for each kid. I think for Damian and Dick it's probably around the neck, chin area, and Tim and Jason on the stomach. Jason almost broke a lamp with how hard he thrashed out shdhfjg

[hyacinthanon]

*slides you $20*

A bribe for more Tim fics please

Hgdfhgdh well I must make use of these funds to buy coffee for writing,,,

[hyacinthanon]

Hello! Part two is here!

4. Damian Al Ghul Wayne. Hands, or more specifically palms. For being a trained assassin, whose hands are covered with calluses, from gripping every weapon know to mankind- gentle tracing with a feather, or just fingernails renders him completely helpless. I've seem some stories where Jason uses taser/shock guns. So imagine him showing them off to Damian, allowing him to hold one- only to find out that Damian can't hold them for longer than a few seconds, due to the vibrations going along the handle being too much for him. Jason definitely teases the hell out of him for this, prompting to a challenge. Hold them for at least, three minutes, or he'll tell the rest of the family all about this. (He tells them anyway- but it's the illusion of a choice and a lot of pride on the line.) Long story short, he drops them with a minute left and Jason wrecks him anyway. Also, have to sneak this in here- uh, Jason is nothing less than a menace to Damian after finding this out, but he wears gloves while handling the tasers for a reason;)

5. Duke Thomas- ( needs more love and acknowledgement, so definitely needed to be included-) Scalp. Just gentle head scratches. Some of his oldest, and fondest memories of his mother would be of her dragging a gentle comb through his hair, or with her fingers braiding it- he couldn't sit still during most of it as a child. He cut his hair short after the Joker incident, hasn't grown it out since, because having it braided or just having it longer would bring those memories back, and it would hurt too much to acknowledge the fact that his mother would never do his hair again. But if he did decide to let it grow, and was at a crossroads at what to do- he could leave it alone, let it retain it's natural shape and curls, but he wants to braid it- it just would feel...awkward and uncomfortable to have someone he doesn't know touch it how she used to. That's when Damian comes in. I feel like he would know how to braid hair. Have you seen the length of Ra's hair- he would have definitely braided it as a child- or, if u prefer you could have Damian actually learn how to with videos, research, even asking some hairdressers around Gotham how to do it- because Damian doesn't show affection in a verbal manner, he does it through actions- so it would make sense for him to do this for his brother. Duke does cry a bit, and Damian stops immediately- they have a heart to heart- and Duke allows himself to start healing that part of himself- so hurt with comfort and fluff. Anyways, thanks for reading my long rant- might do a separate one for the Batgirls- (Cass, Steph, and Barbara-) and  maybe another one for Bruce- but that's all for know. Pls excuse any typos, and as always have a great day

- Jester Anon.

GJFDJDHSKSL this is awesome, Damian getting humbled right off the bat lmao, Jason's just going "yeah ok so this is totally fucking hilarious" which. Fair!! And DUKE YES he's deserving of all the head scritches and I adore the concept of Damian learning how to braid his hair specifically as a brotherly nonverbal love language thing. The boys of all time 💯

[hyacinthanon]

Hello! Have a couple of headcannons that have bouncing around my head all day. Yknow those spots where it makes your barn turn all fuzzy and stuff- but without ut being to intense- it's not aggressive or anything like that and that's what makes it so bad. It's soft, gentle, constant and is a instant KO for any arguments, protests, or just thoughts of any kind. Yea. So here is a list of what I think those spots might be on the Batboys- (ofc feel free to change and adjust as you like-) 1: Dick Grayson Neck, chin area- just a little down his chest. You know how the Discowing suit has a cutout that goes from his neck to reveal a bit of his chest? Yeah that was intentional for another reason besides looking hot and showing off skin for pics. He likes the feel of a slight breeze brushing past- it reminds him of when he was younger and Bruce would give him gentle scritches under his chin, and along his neckline- back when they were on better terms, during Discowing time- he couldn't ask for that anymore since anytime they interacted it was nothing but arguing. So the low cut was his method of kinda getting what he wants without asking for it. He never admited this to anyone and it is one of the reasons he is so defensive over the suit design despite all the teasing it gets him, ofc his pride is at stake- and it was another era- leave him alone. Anyways Bruce found out the real reason behind it eventually, because hes the worlds greatest detective- and to say the least, Dick doesn't have to give him self ridiculously lowcut suits anymore to get them- Bruce takes care of that:) 2. Jason Todd Cheeks, nose, forehead- general face area. You know how Jason's mask/helmet covers his entire face? So due to the lack of constant exposure to wind, breezes, stuff like that- just a small gush of wind, without his helmet will have him bitting his lip, which are curling up in a wobbly smile despite his best efforts, face flushed but not due to the cold breezes. Also very sensitive to soft brushes, maybe feathers- anything soft and with a lot of bristles. He keeps this information sealed away, despite that- it takes one small slip, during Halloween night- when Dick is doing his face paint- that puts it out in the open. Yeah he's never living it down. 3. Tim Drake. Ears. I feel like out of everyone, he has the coms in his ears the most- due to his workaholic type behavior. The buzzing of voices, of noises, trips him up and causes him to turn into a giggly faucet, shakkibg his head uncontrollably- but he can keep his reactions controlled to a minimum, if he's expecting it. It also helps that he uses headphones when stationed at the Cave, rather than earbuds directly inserted in his ears. But in the unfortunate event that his headphones die, misplaced, or broken- he has to use the dreaded ear buds. And unfortunately, no form of preparation can help him with this, and since I imagine that Jason and Dick would be the ones to exploit this one the most- and of course they would be the ones to find out- like imagine Tim, having to finish a report, hack into something, ect- while his older brothers, who are halfway across Gotham- somehow manage to turn him into a giggly flustered puddle, without even touching him- and teases- oh my god- the teases would destroy him.

Gonna have to do this in two parts, since the word limit wont let me put it all:(

Have a great day,

-Jester Anon

JESTER these are !!!! I'm screaming I'm throwing myself against the bars of my enclosure SDHGHFHS you're cooking up a whole 6-course meal here in my inbox. I love love love the idea of each of the boys having a spot that makes them just fall into some kind of soft-tickles-induced hazy gigglefest and you're so real for that. And Jason's secret leaking during Halloween when Dick is painting his face, poor guy, Dick's just there like "no no, we're not done. In fact maybe we should start over." RIP. And Dick designing the Discowing suit around it oh my god he's SUCH A DORK as if Bruce won't figure it out eventually... once there's less anger and angst there Dick surely will not lack for those particular types of tickles. And TIM oh god he's in the trenches but I'm sure his older brothers will step up and down their duty accordingly.

[hyacinthanon]

Ur fucs are a bless to this world 💛💛💛 ty sm for writing them!!

Aaah thank you so much 🥹❤️💙❤️ I have so much fun writing them!!

[hyacinthanon]

Ok I know I've been posting a lot of lee!Tim fics here on hyacinthanon dot tumblr dot com however. the brain worms are real.

[kanene-yaaay]

Life got me thinking about Bart getting tickled and how he probably isn't able to stand still through it at ALL which ends up w him getting away from the tickle attack by mistake and being sad when he actually manages to escape

That leads to Tim planning the perfect layout w both Cassie and Kon across the room so everytime Bart escapes from someone's tickly clutches he immediately stumbles (all giggly and crackling and clumsy because tickles always leaves his mind and body in scrambles) into another friend's very awaiting very tickling arms so he can't escape his tickly fate at all ♡♡♡♡

Anyway the mental image of Bart being like a giggly pinball jumping from one tickly embrace to another across the room over and over while Kon/Cassie/Tim all tease him with "awww, but I wanted more Bart Tickle Time :(" and "Oh, it's my turn with Giggly Bart now? So kind of you to walk right into my arms ^^" again and again while he gets more and more giggly until he finally melts into the tickles and stay was too strong ♡♡