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Summary: Tim probably shouldn’t have gone back to his dad’s penthouse alone after the night he had. Thankfully, Alfred has his number, and enough sense to call Dick for help.
Relationships: Tim Drake & Dick Grayson, Tim Drake & Alfred Pennyworth, Dick Grayson/Koriand’r
Characters: Tim Drake, Dick Grayson, Alfred Pennyworth, Koriand’r, Bruce Wayne, Leslie Thompkins, Stephanie Brown (mentioned)
Words: 6,296 — Chapters: 1/1
This fic follows directly from events in Robin Vol. 2 (1993) #3-5, during the Knightfall arc in 90s Batman comics, but the events are described in this enough that it can hopefully be read without reading those comics if you want. This is kind of a fix-it for Tim having zero actual support during this time, and also because I love older brother Dick Grayson. The medical stuff in this might not be totally accurate but I’m just hoping it’s better than Chuck Dixon’s.
Additional Tags: Hurt/Comfort, Angst and Hurt/Comfort, Batman: Knightfall, Tim Drake is Robin, Tim Drake is Bad at Self-Care, Hurt Tim Drake, Good Sibling Dick Grayson, Dick Grayson Gets a Hug, Dickkory isn't the focus but definitely features; Buried Alive; everyone's health is so bad in this era. fixing that; mentions of Jason's death, Protective Alfred Pennyworth, Protective Dick Grayson
See this work on AO3 for more timeline notes.
-0-
Tim’s head hurt.
He’d been hoping it’d go away once he’d gotten some fresh air, but even though he felt better than he had when he’d been down there, suffocating and trapped in a buried truck after completely misreading Cluemaster’s nasty plan to bury the stolen money under cement…he still didn’t feel back to normal. His chest ached, he felt out of breath, and sweat still clung to his skin despite the frigid air he’d just stumbled in from.
Tim shivered as he sluggishly changed into sweats, shoving his Robin suit into the closet with less care than he usually took.
At least he didn’t have Mrs. Mac to worry about. For a brief moment half an hour ago, he’d almost headed home on instinct, before he remembered staying at his dad’s Mooney Towers penthouse for…some reason. He knew he was staying at the penthouse right now, that’s what mattered.
What time was it now, anyway?
Dizziness and fatigue interrupted Tim’s thought, and he sat against the wall, rubbing his head. He needed to catch his breath. He hadn’t really gotten a chance yet, between dealing with Cluemaster’s buddies, his awkward interaction with Steph, and then having to book it home before the police got on scene. His breath came out in pants from the night’s exertion, and Tim closed his eyes to focus on recovering his breath.
He needed sleep, but his bed felt too far. Tim curled up on the floor a little. He’d be fine staying here for a bit. Not like Mrs Mac or Alfred were around to catch him snoozing on the floor, right?
His head hurt. His chest hurt. He needed sleep.
-0-
“Something wrong?”
Alfred glanced up at Bruce’s voice, worn from little sleep and poor health. Alfred frowned and turned back to his phone. “It’s Master Timothy. I called him when we settled things earlier, to tell him about his father, but he never answered. Not even a text.”
“Maybe he went to bed early?” Bruce suggested, setting down the papers he’d been studying. “It’s not even dawn yet in Gotham, he could’ve been sleeping.”
Alfred scrolled through the text messages again. “That’s not much like him. He’s off school, and with his worry about his father I would be surprised if his propensity for working late has been curbed. I first called him at 21:00 Gotham time, and I’ve only once managed to get the boy in bed that early.”
Bruce grunted in acknowledgment, turning back to his workspace. “Did you call Mrs. Mac earlier?”
Alfred’s mouth pressed into a thin line before he admitted a large motivator for his increased worry over a few missed calls. “She said he has been out of town for vacation the past several days and she hasn’t spoken to him.”
A pause. “He seemed to talk like he was still in Gotham when he called yesterday.”
“Precisely, sir. I do believe he may have misled her.”
Bruce hummed at that, and tapped some keys on his laptop. “Maybe he’s been staying at the Manor, then, with Jean Paul.”
Alfred hummed doubtfully at that. When Tim had last called, he had privately admitted to difficulties with Jean Paul. It was possible he’d choose to stay at the Manor to mend those difficulties, but Alfred had gotten the distinct impression Tim was holding back more than he let on.
Bruce finally spun his chair again to observe where Alfred stood primly by the window, phone clutched in hand. “You have a bad feeling.”
He needed no response. Over the years, Alfred had learned to trust his instincts when it came to his brood of bats. And today, the foreboding in his chest was enough to make Alfred wary of the radio silence, even at a time Tim should be resting peacefully in bed.
Still, no use panicking when plenty could be done to check if all was truly well.
“I’ll call him again. Perhaps he returned from a late patrol and neglected to check his messages.” Alfred stepped away from Bruce’s workspace, and Bruce nodded, taking the cue to continue his work while Alfred did his.
Usually, calling someone during what should be the pre-dawn hours of their time zone would cause Alfred some hesitance. Yet, as he waited for the line to pick up, he felt no such polite inclination. Besides, he rationalized, if it turned out he’d only woken Timothy from a good night’s rest, he was certain Tim would be glad to hear news of his father’s retrieval, despite the hour.
The line clicked, and a familiar 14-year old’s voice came through in a sleepy mumble. “Hello?”
Relief swooped through Alfred’s stomach and brought a soft smile to his face. “Master Tim. I apologize if I’ve awoken you.”
A quiet hum, then, “‘s alright.”
Alfred paused, trying to give Tim a moment to wake up. He relaxed a little, as he imagined it the way he’d seen it in those months Tim stayed with them at the Manor. Hair ruffled, eyes droopy, clothes messy. If he’d gotten to sleep after a late patrol, he likely wouldn’t be fully awake until noon, but now that Alfred had him on the phone, he felt compelled to keep him there. “I have news about your father. We found him late last night. He’s unwell, but alive.”
Another hum. Alfred frowned. “Master Tim? Did you hear?”
There was a pause, before Tim’s mumbling voice said, “Sorry. I don’t…what?”
“We found your father. He’s in hospital here in London.”
Tim hummed again, then coughed a little. “Um. Right. ’s cool…”
The earlier relief soured back into concern, and Alfred narrowed his eyes. “Tim? Are you quite alright?”
“…Yeah.”
Alfred grimaced, remembering that Tim possessed a similar trait to Dick and Bruce in that he sometimes attempted to feign health even in great peril. Perhaps Tim was simply tired at this hour, but Alfred was nothing if not stubborn in these matters.
“Where are you at the moment, Master Tim?”
Silence held over the phone line for a concerning time before Tim said, “I’m at…dad’s Mooney Towers place.”
Alfred didn’t know of such a location, but he made note of it before continuing. “Did you patrol earlier?”
Tim hummed yet again. “Think so.”
“Are you injured at all?”
Another round of silence, and the tension built up in Alfred’s body at the slow answer. “Dunno,” Tim finally said, and Alfred’s instincts were instantly on overdrive. “Prob’ly ‘kay. Feel kinda…funny. ’m so tired…”
Alfred carefully controlled his breathing. “Is there anyone with you, Master Tim?”
“Umm…huh?”
“Are you alone?”
Tim paused. “Yeah.”
Alfred couldn’t stop the fearful flutter in his chest at the idea that something could be wrong and he was thousands of kilometers away from this beloved child who had no one else checking up on him. The haunting memory of learning Jason had been killed without Bruce or himself there to keep him safe sprung to Alfred’s mind against his will.
Perhaps there was nothing wrong. But he couldn’t take that chance.
Realizing the phone line had been silent for some time, Alfred quickly said, “Tim? Are you still listening?”
Silence. Then a mumble that couldn’t be distinguished over the phone.
Alfred continued, “I want you to stay where you are. I…I’d like to know you’re safe.”
No response this time. Alfred held his breath in an attempt to listen more closely, and in doing so finally realized he could faintly hear Tim’s breathing on the other end. He hoped he was imagining that it sounded too shallow and too fast for Tim to merely be sleeping.
Alfred nearly ran back to Bruce’s office space, phone still on call in his hand. He turned the phone to speaker mode just as Bruce looked up at him with knitted eyebrows.
“Master Bruce, please search for a Mooney Towers property owned by the Drakes, as quickly as you can. And if you could point me in the direction of another cell…?”
Bruce, bless him, instantly gauged his urgency and without hesitation handed Alfred a phone before turning back to his computers and starting a new search.
Alfred took a steadying breath, sitting in a nearby chair as he entered a familiar number into the phone. He could only hope his call would get a quick answer, because he felt rather short on people he could trust to handle whatever situation he feared they may be running into.
Blessedly, it took only two rings for a slightly aggrieved voice to come over the line. “Yes?”
“Master Dick,” Alfred said. “I apologize for the hour, but if at all possible, I require your help in an important matter.”
Alfred heard shifting fabric over the line before Dick’s voice came much clearer and wide awake. “What’s wrong?”
“It may be paranoia, but I fear Master Tim is unwell and with no one to check on him. We’ve learned he seems to be staying alone at one of his father’s properties, and when I called him, his behavior was quite concerning.”
Dick listened with rapt attention as Alfred further explained the nearly one sided conversation with Tim. He felt Bruce’s concerned listening across the room as Alfred added, “Master Bruce is finding the address just now. If you’ll indulge me to check on young Master Tim as soon as possible while I’m here in London, it’d be much appreciated.”
“Of course,” Dick said at once. His voice moved away from the phone to speak to someone else, then returned as clear as before. “Tell me the address and Kory can fly me over right now.”
A wave of appreciation came over Alfred, for both Dick and the kind woman who’d become such a fixture in Dick’s life these past few years. “I’m glad to hear it. Thank you, dear boy.”
-0-
Dick tugged on his shoes with practiced speed and scoured the bedroom for his thick jacket as Kory pulled a compact first aid kit from under the bed. “Thanks for this, Kory. Sorry for waking you.”
Kory walked over with the kit in hand and Dick could feel more than see her smile in the dim lighting from the window. “I’ll sleep later. He seems like a good kid. I know you worry for him.”
Dick grimaced a little and held close to Kory as she lifted him in flight from the window of their apartment. He didn’t voice the vivid nightmares about Jay that still interrupted his sleep over a year after his death. Kory was more aware of those nightmares than anyone else.
They flew in silence for a while, the chill wind whipping past them. It wouldn’t take long to get from Manhattan to downtown Gotham at this speed. Kory held him securely in her arms by his knees and upper back, with Dick holding the first aid kit in one hand while his other was slung across Kory’s shoulders. Though they were flying fairly high, it wouldn’t have been too difficult for someone in the city to spot them, and Dick felt a now-familiar appreciation for the stunt they’d pulled a while ago so people knew Dick Grayson was dating Starfire and that Nightwing wasn’t so happy about that relationship. Although Dick hadn’t enjoyed the publicity that had followed that reveal, having Kory able to fly with him as Dick instead of Nightwing without worrying about his identity…it definitely outweighed the downsides of media scrutiny.
Dick tilted his head to watch the skyline toward Gotham, his thoughts beginning to linger on unpleasant memories and worries.
“Sometimes I’m scared I encourage him too much,” Dick finally admitted. Kory gave no reaction, but he could tell this was something she wanted him to voice. Wanted him to share, rather than lock these words away to haunt his sleep later. She’d always preferred honesty. “I always…it’s not that I think it’ll be better for him if I don’t support him, but…I used to encourage Jay in being Robin whenever I talked to him about it. And even when I think I’ve gotten over feeling like if I’d talked him down from it a little, he’d still be…I just wonder sometimes if like, when Tim last came to see me, I should have told him to at least take a break from being Robin while Bruce is away. I don’t…”
Dick tilted his head into Kory’s shoulder, soaking up the comforting feeling of her warm skin against his chilled cheek. “I don’t want him to go out because I told him he could handle it only for him to get hurt while I’m not there to keep him safe.”
I don’t want him to get killed while I’m off in space thinking he’s fine. I don’t want to lose another kid like we lost Jay.
Kory looked down at him, her bright green eyes reflecting the lights below as her faint smile glowed with the flames of her hair trails. “You’re trying to keep him safe just like this, Dick. He needs someone who will listen to him and encourage him just as much as he needs someone to watch his back. I don’t think Earth is so different from Tamaran that young children are not safer when they have someone they can trust to talk to without being judged or demeaned.”
Dick took a deep breath, closing his eyes for a moment, then opening them again and squeezing her hand. “You’re…you amaze me, you know that? Kory…” Dick felt a steadiness in his chest that’d been missing in the last few weeks, while the two of them had been struggling in their relationships as they left the Titans. “Kory, whatever we decide to do, I want you to be happy. That’s what I want. Even if…”
Kory smiled. “I know, Dick.” Her eyes then left his to peer down at the ground. “We’re above Gotham. Do you see it?”
It took a few minutes of navigating in the dark and Dick peering at a digital map of the buildings, before he saw the one that looked right. They landed on the roof, and Dick felt himself falling quickly back into field readiness as they slipped through the sliding roof access door.
The penthouse was all too easy to get into, and small enough that finding Tim’s room wasn’t difficult. The place seemed empty, but Kory and Dick still stood ready to blast sunbursts and wingdings into the room if anything seemed dangerous while Dick cracked open the door.
Nothing. Nothing but a dark room covered in a teen’s belongings and—and a small body on the floor.
Dick’s breath caught in his throat and he rushed over, kneeling beside Tim and scanning his limp figure as Kory set the first aid kit down nearby.
Tim lay prone on his stomach with his head turned to one side and his phone held loosely in one hand near his head. Kory turned on the light, revealing Tim’s pale skin, with a light sheen of sweat. He wore only a pair of shorts and a thin tank top, and his skin was cold to the touch as Dick pressed fingers to his neck. His pulse was slow, and Dick bit his lip. He wasn’t sure whether it was slower than Tim’s usual resting heart rate. It seemed in the range of an athlete, if on the low side. But his breath was short, slightly wheezing. Certainly, his position couldn’t be doing his breathing any good. After another check of Tim’s body, Dick gently rolled him onto his side into the recovery position to clear his airway, then listened again. Better, but still not great. At least he wasn’t finding any sign of bleeding, though the downside of so much of Tim’s skin being visible to see there were no obvious lacerations was that he had little protection from the cold air in the room.
“He feels really cold and I don’t like how he’s breathing,” Dick said. “Kory, could you—?”
A blanket dangled in front of him, and Dick sent Kory a grateful smile before laying it out over Tim’s body. He checked his pulse again (no change), then lightly shook Tim’s shoulder. “Tim? Can you hear me?”
No response, though maybe his eyebrow crinkled a bit. Worry wrung Dick’s gut, and he looked up at Kory, mouth set seriously. “Kory, if I give you the address, can you take him quicker with me or without me?”
“I fly faster carrying only one person, but…”
Dick pulled out his phone and quickly showed her directions to the Thompkins Clinic. “You can come back to get me once you get him to Leslie—she runs it, and I’ll call her while I’m waiting. She probably knows his identity, and she knows mine, so don’t worry about that. Just get him there as carefully and quickly as you can.”
Kory nodded and gave him a reassuring squeeze on the shoulder before she wrapped Tim more tightly in the blanket with Dick’s help and held him bridal carry. He followed her to the roof access, where she flew into the crisp night air as Dick held his phone to his ear and waited for the call to pick up.
“Dick? Is that you?” came Leslie’s voice. Despite the hour, she sounded wide awake, honed from years of being Bruce’s second go-to doctor after Alfred.
“Yeah, hey,” Dick said, the sound of her voice relieving a bit of the tension from his shoulders. “I’ve got Starfire headed over to you with Robin. I don’t know what happened, but we found him cool to the touch and unconscious on the floor, and Alfred said when he called him a while ago, he seemed disoriented.”
Leslie, bless her, was all business, just as Dick wanted her to be. “I’ll start prepping the usual space. Did you get his vitals when you arrived? Notice any visible bleeding?”
“No visible bleeding, heart rate around 33 BPM, his breathing was kind of shallow and he was wheezing a little but that eased when I put him in the recovery position.”
“When did Alfred talk to him?”
“He said it was almost 3:30 our time. He was talking to Alfred for a few minutes, then went quiet. Starfire and I took about half an hour to get here.”
“Will you be coming to the clinic?”
“Starfire will come back for me to bring me over, if you don’t need her there.”
There was a pause on the line, then Leslie said, “Wow. I see her. She’s fast.”
Dick closed his eyes and leaned against the wall, taking a deep breath. “Yeah.”
“I’ll see you in a bit, Dick.”
“Bye.”
The call ended and Dick folded his arms, opening his eyes to stare out through the glass door into the familiar night lights of the city. The sounds were muffled up here, so the skyline felt almost calm, nothing like the chaos Dick had encountered night after night when he was still part of the dynamic duo.
Don’t think about Jason. Don’t think about Jason. This isn’t like that.
Dick exhaled and tried to imagine his nightmares leaving him with the air.
-0-
“It’ll be another couple of hours with the NIV before his blood should be cleared and his oxygen levels are back to normal,” Leslie said as she readjusted the thermal blanket over Tim. “He might wake before then, but I’d wager he’ll still be exhausted so he could sleep longer.”
“Right,” Dick said. He was standing off to the side, with Kory by his shoulder. Tim lay on the bed with his skin less pale than it was half an hour ago, but his eyes still closed and a non-invasive ventilator covering his lower face. The room itself was nearly the same as it looked several years ago, tucked away in the clinic where Gotham’s vigilantes could recover away from prying eyes.
Leslie picked up some equipment and gave Dick a soft smile and pat on his shoulder that reminded him a bit too much of Alfred. “I’ll be back to check on him in a bit. You should call the others. It’s good to see you, Dick.”
He returned the smile easily. “You too, Leslie.”
She left, and Kory slipped her hand in his as he glanced at Tim’s still form before meeting Kory’s eyes.
“Are you alright?” she asked.
Dick raised an eyebrow. “I’ll be fine.” He paused, then turned to slowly pull her into a hug. She reciprocated without hesitation, arms wrapping around him perfectly as if meant to be there. Her chin pressed against the top of his hair and his arms warmed from the weight of her hair against them.
“Don’t feel like you have to stay for me,” Dick said softly. “I’ll just be waiting, and I have to call Alfred and Bruce, anyway. Go see Donna.” He paused. “Well, maybe get some sleep and then see Donna, when you won’t be waking her at hours that’ll get you smacked with a pillow.”
Kory breathed a laugh then pulled back from the hug with his shoulders held in her hands. Her smile glowed, as it always did. “I will. I suggest you sleep, too. You’ve hardly slept much in the past week, dealing with my dreams. And call me when he wakes up. I want to know he’s alright.”
“Got it,” Dick said, squeezing her hand before stepping away. “I’ll talk to you later. And, uh, I don’t know how long I’ll be here, but can we meet up soon? Just…to talk. Even if we both end up needing…space, I still want us to be able to talk.”
Kory pulled some sunglasses from her pocket and grinned as she put them on. “Call me.”
Kory left Dick with a lighter feeling in his chest than he’d had the past few weeks, but he still sat in a chair by the wall with a knot in his stomach. He pulled out his phone and made another call.
“Have you any news?” Alfred asked.
“He’s alive and stable.” Dick couldn’t see Alfred, but he knew him well enough to imagine the ease of tension from his shoulders at that. “We had to take him to Leslie’s, though. He’s been unconscious, but she said he’ll probably wake later today.”
There was a pause and murmur of voices on the other end, then the phone was obviously put on speaker or handed over because the audio shifted before Bruce’s voice could be heard over the line. “What happened?”
Dick grimaced and watched Tim’s chest rise and fall, with the mask feeding oxygen to his body. “We won’t know how until Tim can tell us, but Leslie says carbon dioxide and monoxide poisoning and oxygen deprivation paired with some mild hypothermia and some bruising. He looked like he might’ve collapsed in the penthouse after patrol.”
A pause as Bruce and Alfred seemed to process the information. “He’s been unconscious since you found him?” Bruce asked.
“Yeah. Leslie’s giving him oxygen to reduce the carbon monoxide levels. They were…pretty high. He…” Dick pressed his lips together. Now that he was talking to Bruce, he had to hold himself back from harshly voicing all the things he’d wanted to say to Bruce the past hour, the past month, the past few years. But he didn’t want to say it over the phone, and he definitely didn’t want to end up yelling in this room when Tim needed to rest.
Still, he needed to say something .
“He’s just a kid, Bruce. He shouldn’t have been alone,” Dick finally said.
A pause. Dick watched Tim breathe and tapped his fingers against his chair’s frame.
“You’re right,” Bruce said quietly.
They were all silent for a moment, and Dick couldn’t prevent Jason from floating back to the forefront of his mind again. He didn’t mean to be thinking of Jay so often when he saw Tim, but this situation was bringing back memories of coming home from space only to learn his little brother was six feet under. Now, he’d been sleeping while the new Robin was—
Kory was right. He couldn’t let his fears stop him from being there for Tim. He wanted to hang out with Tim and do the things he did with Jason, and all the things they’d never gotten a chance to do. And now that he wasn’t in the Titans anymore, and he and Kory were thinking about taking a break from their partnership, maybe…maybe he could leave New York, stay nearby for a while.
Well, whatever happened, he wasn’t going to let another Robin die.
-0-
Tim woke up feeling fuzzy and sore.
He blinked blurriness from his eyes, brow crinkling at the unfamiliar ceiling above his head. He could feel a firm bed beneath him, and a strangely warm blanket (heated?) laid over him. Something was beeping near his head, and something else moved with his finger when he shifted his hand.
“Tim?”
Tim’s head snapped over to the right. Dick sat leaning forward in a chair by the bed, a book on his lap.
“Hey, how you feeling?” Dick said.
Tim realized he was staring and hurriedly cleared his throat to speak, only to find his mouth extremely dry.
“Oh, here.” Dick stretched to grab a bottle of water on the floor behind him. “Can you sit up?” he asked, uncapping the bottle.
Tim shifted until he could prop himself up on his elbows and scoot back to lean against the wall behind him, wincing with the soreness of his muscles and the fatigue weighing him down. Dick adjusted the pillow behind his back as he did, then handed him the water. A few sips later, Tim felt marginally better, at least enough to glance around and recognize the thing pulling at his finger was a pulse monitor, also the cause of the beeping.
He finally met eyes with Dick, who was watching him from the seat by his bed. “What happened?” Tim asked.
Dick held out his hand for Tim to hand back the bottle, and capped it again as he said, “What do you remember, Tim?”
“Umm…” Tim thought back through the remaining fogginess in his brain. “Well, I…I went to take down the Cluemaster, then I went back to the…to my dad’s penthouse.” He gave Dick a questioning look, but Dick’s expression remained fairly neutral.
“Do you remember Alfred calling you?”
Tim blinked. “Uh…maybe?” Not really. “Dick, where are we? Why am I…what are you doing here?”
Dick leaned further back in his chair, adopting a more relaxed pose. “We’re at Thomas Wayne Memorial Clinic. You know Leslie?”
“Yeah. Bruce introduced us.”
Dick nodded. “Before I tell you anything else, can you give me a better idea of what happened before you returned to the penthouse?”
Tim tried to hide his cringe at that, and he couldn’t help but look away from Dick. He didn’t want to tell his hero how he’d made such a rookie mistake and almost failed everyone.
“Tim?”
Something in Dick’s voice made Tim turn to meet Dick’s eyes again. Suddenly, he felt like the toddler sat on an acrobat’s knee, looking into eyes too kind to disbelieve.
“I’m not going to judge you,” Dick said. “We promised, remember? You remember you’re a kid, and I won’t treat you like one. I won’t think badly of you for anything that happened, but I want to help you, and I can do that best if you talk to me.”
Tim took a steadying breath and tried to figure out where to start. “Um…do you know the Spoiler?”
Dick blinked, and his eyebrow creased. “No?”
“Well, the Cluemaster has a daughter, and she became the Spoiler a while ago to kind of…stop his schemes.”
Dick sat back in his chair again, settling in for Tim’s explanation. Tim wasn’t sure if Stephanie was really relevant to what Dick needed to know, but then again, he wasn’t totally sure what Dick wanted and he didn’t want to leave her out. “I see,” Dick said.
“Bruce doesn’t want her to keep being Spoiler, since she’s pretty much an amateur at this point, but I’ve been…uh, hanging out with her sometimes. And I ran into her while I was looking into the Cluemaster’s latest scheme. She was trying to get him too, so we decided to work the case together.”
He paused for a moment, picking at a stray thread on what he was now realizing was the hospital patient clothing he was wearing.
“Um, but when I figured out the Cluemaster and his buddies were going to steal this money truck, I didn’t want Stephanie—that’s her name, I mean—I didn’t want her to be part of the fight, but I knew I couldn’t beat all three of them on my own, so I waited until the Cluemaster was alone and I ambushed him in the armored truck.”
Tim grimaced. “It, uh, turned out I hadn’t quite figured out his whole plan. His pals came back and…they dumped the truck in a pit and filled it with cement, so it’d be hidden from the cops for a while until they came back for it.”
The room went silent for a moment as Dick seemed to absorb this and Tim tried not to cringe again at having revealed one of his biggest mistakes of the night.
“You…so you were in the truck when they covered it in cement?” Dick finally said, his voice sounding strained.
Tim glanced over at Dick, then away. “Yeah.”
Dick stared at him with a glint in his eyes Tim didn’t recognize, and Tim shifted uncomfortably. Dick seemed to notice this, because the glint went away a little and he asked, “What happened next?”
“Well, I think I was knocked unconscious for a minute or two when they dumped the truck in. I figured out they were using the cement, but my comm wasn’t working, so I tried to hole out in there with the Cluemaster until hopefully…” Tim hesitated, not wanting to voice the hours he spent on and off dwelling on how he probably wouldn’t be found until he was dead. “I had to knock the Cluemaster out at first, because he was panicking, and after he woke up he still fell asleep, and then after a while, I think I passed out. I don’t think it was long, though. I woke up when they started breaking up the cement to collect the money. I think Steph might’ve chased them there, because she was out there when I knocked one of them out and got up, and then…”
Tim’s face heated as he remembered a part of the disastrous case that he’d nearly forgotten in his hazy state. “I uh, I accidentally kissed her? I didn’t mean to, I wasn’t even thinking, I already have a girlfriend, I was just so relieved she found me, and—I made an absolute mess.” Tim buried his face in his hands, completely avoiding Dick and feeling the embarrassment and fear rolling through him. Oh, goodness, Ariana. He already had a girlfriend, and it wasn’t Steph, and he’d just kissed —
“Hey.” A heavy hand rested on his shoulder, and Tim risked a peak at Dick, who looked far more understanding than Tim probably deserved. “Don’t worry too much about it. You were ill, Tim. You definitely weren’t thinking clearly, and once you’re back to full health, I’m sure we can figure out how to talk to your girlfriend and Stephanie about it.”
The words calmed some of the anxiety buzzing in Tim’s head, but as he processed them, Tim frowned at Dick. “What do you mean, I was ill? I felt fine before I got stuck in the truck, I just needed some fresh air and sleep after that…”
The serious expression on Dick’s face made Tim go quiet. “Tim…I’m guessing you headed home after you kissed her, right?”
“Uh…yeah. The cops showed up just in time,” Tim mumbled.
“Do you remember anything after you got to the penthouse?”
Tim hesitated, then lifted one shoulder in a shrug.
Dick didn’t seem surprised, and he moved on. “Alfred called you, then he called me because he could tell something was wrong over the phone. Kory and I found you passed out on the floor and we took you here.”
Tim opened his mouth, then realized he didn’t know what he could say, and closed it again, looking down at his blanket. His cheeks flamed at the idea of Starfire and Nightwing finding him passed out on the floor like…the whole idea was possibly more embarrassing than getting stuck in the truck.
“Tim.” Dick’s voice made him look up again. “How long were you under the cement?”
At least Tim knew the answer to that question; he’d kept careful track most of the time he’d been down there. “About…five hours.”
Dick leaned over in his chair and pulled some papers off a side table, then turned back to Tim with that serious look in his face that Tim was getting used to seeing. “You got carbon monoxide and dioxide poisoning from being trapped in the truck, Tim. You were deprived of oxygen and dehydrated, and you were still feeling symptoms when you kissed Stephanie and when you headed to the penthouse.”
“Well—” Tim bit his lip. He knew that, mostly. He’d been keeping track of his symptoms while he’d been in there. That was how he knew how close he was to running out of air. He’d gotten enough medical training from Alfred and Bruce to recognize symptoms like that, but—
“Why were you staying at that penthouse alone, Tim?” Dick asked.
Tim’s head snapped up to look at him. “What does that have to do with anything?”
“I just want to know.”
Tim shrugged, his legs itching to move around after lying in the bed talking for so long. “It’s closer to the action, and it made it easier to be Robin without Mrs. Mac around. Plus, Bruce and my dad were gone, and Jean Paul kicked me out of the cave, so…I just told Mrs. Mac I was on vacation with my friend. It’s not like I don’t have plenty of my dad’s money to pay for food on my own.”
Dick closed his eyes for a moment, breathing in, before he opened them to meet Tim’s again. “This kind of thing is pretty serious, Tim. Yes, it’s good to get fresh air and sleep, but you’re always supposed to seek medical attention after something like that. Even I should go to Star Labs or Raven or Alfred or at least visit someone who can check up on me. Again, I…I’m not judging you for doing things wrong or something like that—but I do want you to understand that Kory and I brought you here for a reason. It takes a lot of oxygen to get rid of the levels of carbon monoxide and dioxide you had in your blood. Leslie had you on oxygen for a little over six hours, and you slept for another two after that. You could’ve…”
Dick cut himself off, lips pressing tightly together for a moment before he continued, “There’s a reason Batman and Robin are partners, remember. We…all of the Bats, I mean, we’re supposed to support each other. When Bruce went off the deep end after Jason, you came to me. I want you to feel like you can come to me when you’re the one going off the deep end, too. Or even just to talk.”
Tim started, eyes a little wide, and then looked down at his blanket again. He didn’t know how to respond to that. He definitely didn’t know how to respond to Dick Grayson saying that, the same person Tim had spent most of his life dreaming that he’d comfort Tim when he got nightmares, and now those dreams were real and Tim didn’t know how to react.
“I…I don’t know how to do that,” Tim said quietly, wincing a little at the admission. “I’ve never…I mean, before you guys, there wasn’t really anyone I could just…call. My parents were never very good at calling to just…catch up. And there’s so many other people who need more help than I do, how am I supposed to…?”
Dick’s eyes were warm as he shifted out of his chair to sit on the edge of Tim’s bed. He rocked his shoulder lightly against Tim’s in a playful way. “Hey, we can’t save anybody else if we aren’t saved first. Wasn’t that how you met me? Bruce swooped in to help me when my parents died. And—I don’t know how much you figured out about how Bruce found Jason, but he needed help too. And I doubt Batman would exist if Alfred wasn’t there. I mean, you saved Batman last year. Don’t you think, maybe sometimes, you’re the one who might need help before you can help anyone else?”
Tim opened his mouth slightly to respond, but the words were lost in his throat, so he swallowed. After a moment, he leaned into Dick’s side and rested his head against his shoulder. Dick wrapped his arm around Tim, and the warmth seemed to ease the chill in Tim’s limbs more than the heated blanket. He closed his eyes.
“Dick,” he said.
“Yeah?”
“Thanks. For finding me…I guess staying alone at the penthouse was a bit lonely.”
Tim could almost feel Dick smiling at that. “Anytime, Timmy. Just rest now. I’ll be here.”
Author's Note:
Hope you enjoyed. I welcome all sorts of comments even if it's just, like, a heart emoji. Feel free to rant at me about Dick and Tim's brotherhood in the comments, bc truly I love them.
Comics referenced in this fic, for anyone interested:
Robin v2 #3-5 (Tim gets trapped in a truck under cement)
Batman: Shadow of the Bat #23 (Alfred and Bruce find Jack Drake and get him to the hospital in London)
Showcase '93 #11-12 (Dick & Tim work on a case together, and Dick promises he won't treat Tim as a kid if Tim remembers he is one)
The New Titans #95-96 (Dick & Kory make their civilian relationship public and ensure that the media thinks Nightwing is jealous so Dick's identity is protected - also known as "Ward of Millionaire Playboy Woos Fashion Model")
So yup, Dick is ticked Bruce didn’t ask him to be Batman even if he wouldn’t have said yes. It seems to him it’s about the gesture more than the answer, and it would’ve been nice of Bruce to have at least talked to Dick about getting Jean-Paul on board.
Dick is good at quashing Tim’s self-blame though, and I think this foundation helps them build a brotherly relationship.
that dick and tim fanfic that you're hoping to post sounds like everything i've ever hoped for, knightfall is so underutilised in fandom and i'm so excited!!! i hope it all works out soon!
For real, I rarely ever find Knightfall era fics, but Tim especially has so much potential for good fics during that time (it has almost everything fanon tim fans have ever wanted for him…) and Dick has some good potential around/after Prodigal too.
I might use my mom’s laptop if mine is still being stubborn. Glad to hear there’s other people with my taste :) I’ll likely post it on here too so you can see when it’s up.
Once again, Tim is unable to handle seeing Bruce in such a state. He’s seen some pretty squeamish things, like the man who had every bone broken in his body by Bane, so I’m guessing it’s because he had never imagined Bruce could be so vulnerable.
Tim has to chase Batman down again, and of course Alfred is in van duty once more. I think the fandom emphasis on Tim’s tendency to not eat may be influenced by how other people have to bring him sustenance and it’s not something he actively does for himself. And like in this case, it’s usually when he’s absorbed.
Bane publicly parades Batman’s broken body before throwing him off a roof. Alfred and Jean-Paul then enter disguised as paramedics and take Batman off the scene.
Some pretty important things here concerning Alfred’s relationship to Bruce. They’ve been in this position before, Alfred says, but it seems unlikely it has been this bad. He might just be saying it to allay Tim’s fears though. And Tim is really affected by this, because he fears for Bruce’s life, but I’m wondering if it’s also because of what happened to his own father.
Also, looks like the colourist forgot that Tim’s sleeve is supposed to be green.
I love how Bane just stands on a skyscraper roof and yells at no one in particular.
Tim consults Bruce about the situation at hand, even broaching the possibility of Dick stepping in. But Bruce respects Dick’s wishes to be on his own, even though it could be (or actually was, I’m not sure) misconstrued as not trusting him with the mantle.
