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.
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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.”
