Fic: Giving Ground

[iesika]

For faile_neume (again ^_^;), who perservered through adversity and finished her goddamned paper. Once again, I fail at ficlet, because this came out to about 2000 words. Ha. Also, it is an angstmonster, since that's what she wanted, and very rough and unedited, because the library closes in five minutes. I didn't even have time to name the damned thing.

Warning for super-emo-crazy Tim.

He’d been so careful. He’d been traveling illegally, undocumented, and under a series of previously-unused aliases. He’d stuck to cash, mostly out of the pockets of unconscious drug-dealers and pimps. He’d avoided public places and anywhere he even suspected might bear a surveillance camera – major intersections, banks, gas stations, convenience stores, toll-booths... They’d found him, anyway.

The worst part was he knew exactly where he’d slipped up, because when it came down to the choice between saving a little girl’s life and spending a few too many seconds too close to an ATM, there wasn’t a choice at all.

“Tim,” Dick said, inching slowly toward him across the roof. He was dressed in civilian clothes, but Tim was pretty sure he was wearing Batman’s belt under his sweater. He was using the voice he usually used on jumpers and half-feral animals. If Tim weren’t so furious, it would have been amusing.

“If I’d wanted to talk to you, ever again, I wouldn’t have snuck away in the middle of the night,” Tim said. Dick flinched back as if he’d been struck, and Tim took advantage of the reaction, making a break for the edge of the roof.

He hit the tar-paper hard, half a second later, Dick’s arms locked tight around his knees. Tim couldn’t get any leverage to kick him away, so he twisted in his grip and tried for a nerve strike that left his fingers aching. Apparently Dick was wearing more than just the belt under his clothes.

“Let me go, you bastard!” Tim snarled. He struck hard for Dick’s throat. There was armor there, too, but the pressure was enough to make Dick cough. He growled low in his throat and struck back. One of Tim’s arms went numb below the elbow. Dick got him onto his stomach with the other arm up behind his shoulder. Tim thrashed beneath his weight, but it proved futile. He’d never yet beat Dick at rooftop wrestling.

He should have gone for Dick’s face, exposed and vulnerable in the moonlight. He should have gone for his eyes.

“Please,” Dick begged, “Tim, will you just talk to me? For – ow – for five damned minutes, even?”

“Fuck you,” Tim snarled, “get off me.”

“I’ll drug you if I have to,” Dick threatened, “drag you somewhere and tie you down--“

“Like a criminal. You hunted me down like a criminal.”

“You didn’t give me a choice!”

Tim let his body go limp, his face pressed against the rough grit of the roof. He was going to have to give a little ground. That was the only way he could get out of this. He swallowed his anger and lowered his voice. “I had to leave,” he said quietly.

“No,” Dick said, exasperated, “you really didn’t.”

Tim sighed. “Let me up,” he said. When Dick didn’t move, he added, “please.” That was apparently enough, because Dick rolled away and let Tim sit up. He kept his hand on Tim’s good arm, though, just below the elbow, and his whole body screamed that he was waiting for Tim to bolt again. Tim pulled his legs in and sat cross-legged on the tar-paper. That seemed to help. Some of the tension bled out of Dick’s shoulders.

“Hey,” Dick said. He bobbed his head down looked up at Tim with his head cocked. “Think you could take off that cowl?”

Tim avoided his gaze and looked down at his hands like a recalcitrant child. Dick smiled ruefully and reached out to do it himself, which gave Tim just the opportunity he needed for a palm-strike to the nose.

He didn’t get much farther than he had the first time, but at least this time Dick was bleeding when he pinned him to the ground.

The knock-out spray tasted as awful as it ever had.

*

When Tim came around, he’d been stripped to his boxers and strapped securely to a metal framed bed. A few feet away, Dick was sitting in an armchair with his head resting on his fist, watching him. Tim’s mouth was dry and his stomach was trying very hard to find something to expel. The sensation would undoubtedly be worse if he had eaten in the last…was it two days? His eyes felt like they’d been sandblasted. So did the inside of his head.

“Want some water?” Dick offered. He held out a clear plastic cup with a flexible pink straw in it.

“I hate you,” Tim rasped, but when Dick slid a hand gently behind his neck, he let himself be lifted, and took a sip. There was no sense in making himself weaker.

“I’m sorry,” Dick said. “I wish it didn’t have to be this way.”

“It doesn’t,” Tim said. “Let me go. I haven’t done anything wrong.”

“You remember what Bruce was like, after Jason? That made you hunt me down?”

“Fuck you,” Tim said, tiredly, and turned his face away.

“That’s where you are now, Tim. Only worse, because you don’t have Alfred looking after you. Jesus, look at yourself – when was the last time you bothered to get medical attention?”

Tim didn’t answer. He couldn’t, actually remember, but he wasn’t about to tell Dick that. Anyway, he was perfectly capable of stitching his own wounds, and he always remembered to take the antibiotics, eventually.

“When was the last time you talked to someone who you weren’t beating into a pulp?”

Dick didn’t know he’d been in contact with al Ghūl. Good.

“Tim, please,” Dick said, plaintively.

Tim closed his eyes.

“Please, Tim, I’m sorry, okay? I’m sorry. We can go back to Gotham together, right now. We can talk about anything. I’ll get down on my knees and beg, if you want.”

Once upon a time, Tim would have done anything to make Dick happy. Dick would have just looked at him, like he’d done on the roof, and everything would have been forgiven. Tim’s stomach roiled. He blamed it on the sedatives and ignored the hot feeling behind his eyes.

Dick’s sigh was loud against the silence of the room. Wherever they were, it wasn’t downtown. He couldn’t even hear cars outside the curtained windows. Tim held very still and concentrated on his kinesthetic sense. He didn’t think they were more than a few stories off the ground, if that – there was no sway. Not underground, because of the window. Something about the space felt… like a house, maybe. Too quiet for a motel. It was very likely that no one would hear him if he screamed. Tim turned his wrists against the zips. There was just enough give to keep his fingers from going numb. Even if he broke his thumbs, he didn’t think he’d get free.

He could hear Dick shift in his chair, and then there was a warm hand on his cheek. “Tim,” he said quietly. “Please, little brother, will you look at me?”

Rage flared hot in Tim’s chest. “Don’t call me that,” he snapped.

Dick’s hand withdrew. “What?”

“You’re not my brother.”

“Um,” Dick said, in his timid-animal voice, again, “I didn’t exactly bring the papers to prove it, but I’m pretty sure I am, kiddo. And I still would be, even if Bruce hadn’t signed on for either of us.”

“You’re not my brother,” Tim repeated. He turned his head and glared. Dick winced back a little under the force of his anger. “You never were. I never wanted you to be.”

It was Dick’s turn to close his eyes and breathe deeply. “You’re angry,” he said after a moment. “You don’t mean that.”

“Don’t tell me what I mean!” Tim snarled. “I never wanted to be your fucking /brother/, okay? That was never what I wanted from you!”

“Jesus. Okay,” Dick opened his eyes and blinked at him. “You-“

“I hate you,” Tim said again, and this time he was mortified to feel the heat around his eyes. It just made him angrier, and the angrier he felt, the less he could breathe and the more he –

“Tim. Tim, it’s okay-”

“You took it away from me!” he cried, all pretense of control gone. He felt wetness on his face, felt his weakness, and that was worse, that made it worse. He scrabbled at his bonds, feeling the thin plastic cut into his skin. He didn’t care. He would have cut hacked his thumbs off, if he could, just to get away from this place, away from Dick. “Robin was all I had left! It was all I ever had, and you took it away from me!”

“No,” Dick said. He caught Tim’s face between his hands and tried to hold him still. “You never let me finish, Tim. I had this whole speech planned, and you started shouting and I didn’t know what to-“

“Robin was all I had,” Tim plowed on, eyes squeezed tight so he wouldn’t have to look at the horror on Dick’s face. “It was never about The Mission. It wasn’t about protecting people or, or Batman, it was –“ Tim jerked his head, trying to escape Dick’s hands. “I hate you,” he sobbed. “Let me go. Let me go!”

“Tim,” Dick breathed, and there was so much shock and pity in his voice that Tim had to swallow back bile.

“I hate you,” he said again, and then he went limp, all his anger and will to fight flowing out with the tears. “I-“ There was snot on his face. Tim squeezed his eyes tighter. “You were all I had. My parents-“ he coughed. “Before I ever really met you, you were all I had.”

“Oh, Tim.”

“Everything I did. Everything. I- You took it away. You took Robin away. You- I wasn’t good enough. I wasn’t –“

“Tim,” Dick said again. There was a pop, and then Tim’s arm would have hit him in the face if Dick hadn’t caught it, rubbing a little at his sore wrist. He cut the other cuff, and freed Tim’s feet, and then crawled into the bed to hold him when Tim curled tight into a ball.

“I couldn’t save them,” Tim whispered. He couldn’t seem to make himself shut up, now that Dick was petting his hair. “Kon and Bart and my Dad. I wasn’t good enough to save them. I wasn’t enough for Steph, or Cassie. I couldn’t hold my team together. I couldn’t keep your city safe.”

“No, Tim,” Dick said into his hair, “It wasn’t your fault. None of it was your fault.”

“If I’d been better-“

“There’s no such thing.”

“-you wouldn’t have chosen him over me.”

Dick sucked in a breath. “I didn’t. I didn’t, Tim. I want you to be my partner, okay? I want you to help me train the kid. I want you to come home.”

“I can’t,” Tim said. He shrugged Dick off a little and sat up. He sniffed, and Dick pulled a travel-sized pack of tissues out of his pocket. He pulled out one for himself, and passed the rest to Tim, who took them gratefully. He pulled a few tissues out and blew his nose, loudly.

Dick laughed. “Donna taught me you always bring tissues to a heart-to-heart,” he said, wiping his own eyes. Now tell my why you think you can’t come home?”

He wasn’t expecting the blow. He’d taken his armor off – Tim had realized that, during all the hugging – so the strike was a success. Dick didn’t even have time to look surprised before he was sliding, unconscious, to the floor.

Tim sat up and looked down at him. ”I’m going to find him,” Tim said. “I’m going to find him, and bring him home to you.”

Dick, of course, said nothing.

Tim didn’t have much time, and he would need all the head start he could get. He started looking for his costume.

END

 

END