#does timmy miss his bio parents? | Explore Tumblr posts and blogs

dairy-farmer · 2 years ago

Note

Your tweets got me thinking of an au where Tim is Dick's bio brother but everything still happens the same way except slightly twisted.

What if on the day the Graysons fell the Drakes still went to the circus. Maybe they can't have children, don't want to try or Janet simply doesn't want to give birth, but they see this little orphan boy all by himself with no one paying attention to him and are like yes, he'll do. So they grab him while everyone is looking elsewhere.

Dick was a bit too busy with his parents dying in front of him to notice that his baby brother wiggled away from his minder to watch his family's act and is now gone. He's devastated when he can't find him. Of course, Dick blames his parents murderer for snatching his baby brother and is ready to do whatever it takes to get him back, but even after searching high and low as Robin, he can't find him. Bruce convinces him that Tim has most likely been trafficked and is already out of the country by now, so they put the case on the back burner instead of actively pursuing it.

The irony being if he had only looked next door as Dick Grayson, he'd find Tim locked up while being "trained" to be a Drake.

Que not as stable Dick who imagines only the worst has happened to his brother. Tim becomes this open wound for him because at least he has his parents bodies to bring him closure.

When Dick finally finds out Tim Drake is the baby brother he thought gone forever, he becomes insanely possessive and refuses to let Bruce or anyone have him ever again. Tim is his, and if the Drakes aren't dead by the time Dick finds out, well...

Bonus if one of the last things Baby Tim said before their family fell apart was that he wanted to marry his big brother!! And Dick takes that As A Promise. XD

😭😭😭😭😭😢😢😢😢😢😢😢😢😢BABY TIMMY BEING KIDNAPPED!!!!!!! no because i can't even count the amount of times i read and reread this!!! just the angst!! the turmoil!!! the gut clenching fear!!! dick really does get the short end of this stick in this AU. as a character that values emotional connections, bonds, and family, this hits HARD.

like dick is just getting kicked while he's down. finding out his parents died, blaming himself for it, and losing his brother as well as being taken away from the circus that he considers an extended family.

it really does turn out to be the worst day of dick's life! he loses his, parents, his brother goes missing, and only he's left. he has nightmares, horrible visions of the terrible things that could've happened to tim and they only become worse when he becomes robin and sees the reality that some kids live through. and some that don't.

tim is soft. sweet. gentle. he has the kindest hands in the world that dick loves to kiss as he carries the toddler around on his back. timmy's giggles bring smiles and butterflies to dick's gut.

tim's far too young to begin training with the rest of the graysons. an exception had been made for dick because by the time he'd been 3, he'd been climbing up on dressers and trailers and leaping off to imitate his parents. teaching him how to safely tuck and roll was just a measure to make sure he didn't accidentally break his neck when no one was looking.

but timmy was a rule follower. he was the troupe's littlest helper. always eager to follow directions and be rewarded with soft caramels or little chocolates. so he listened to their mother when she stressed that he had to wait before they could teach him to fly.

during their shows, timmy would be in the stands seated by one of the stagehands and cheering louder than the next 10 people around him. dick would always dedicate a flip for him during every show, a quadruple somersault. it was tim's favorite move and dick happily indulged his little baby brother.

that night...on that night.

dick made a lot of mistakes.

he and his parents usually did photo ops a half hour before curtain call. greeting and posing for families and their children. tim would be beside them, munching on the bit of cotton candy he managed to beg out of meghan, haly's circus' confectioner.

she had a sweet spot for tim's bright red, chubby little cheeks. most people did.

dick would proudly puff up his chest when other parents with their kids would coo over tim standing with their family and waiting for the stagehand to come get him to take him to the stands.

one of the familes, a couple, smiled at tim and softly asked him his name. when they posed for their picture they asked to include tim in it. dick didn't mind but he did notice how his parent's expressions shifted slightly when the man knelt down and picked tim up without them saying it was okay.

dick had been confused at how his mom had quickly taken tim into her arms after the photographer snapped their shot. the phot op had ended after that couple and despite the smiles on their faces dick could tell his mom was upset.

he didn't get a chance to ask why because tim was quickly handed to him and he was instructed to take tim to dan, who would still be helping set up the control board for the lights.

but dick listened. he walked through the backstages, bouncing a giggling tim in his arms as he passed through several people warming up or putting finishing touches on their costumes.

"who dat?" tim asked him, sweet voice thick with the smell of sugar. dick could see where a bit of the blue dye from the cotton candy stained tim's lips. tim was looking over their shoulder and staring back at their parents.

"'who was that?' you mean, baby?" dick asked, smile tugging at his lips as tim furiously nodded. honestly, dick was pretty sure that his timmy was the smartest baby to ever live. he already spoke so clearly and pointedly even though his mouth was uncoordinated in the way all babies were.

"they're here to see your big brother, timmy!" dick exclaimed. "they're here to see me do flips!"

tim perked up at the word and immediatly clashed his little baby fists to dick's cheeks to he could stare at his face.

"qwadouple sowmersault?" he asked intently before breaking into a brilliant smile at dick's nod. tim's clapping attracted some attention, a few of the performers looking over with small smiles and grins.

tim is dropped off quickly beside dan who is scratching his head over why the opening lights are red instead of yellow.

"if the wrong color lenses were put on we'll just have to do the show like this- it's too late to change them."

dick hears them mutter as he walks away. it's 10 till curtain call and dick is speedwalking to get into position. the backstage is near vacant and he passes someone he knows shouldn't be there.

a lost guest perhaps. normally dick would stop. normally he'd tell them they weren't allowed this far back into the tent.

but it was 7 to curtain call and dick hurried away before he could be late.

someone else would spot him and lead him away.

dick had so many chances. so many opportunities to tell a stage hand, an equipment handler, anyone. all he had to do was say a guest was backstage and might be lost.

then maybe they would've seen the bulge in his pocket. they would've noticed that it was part of the safety gear from the trapeze rig.

obviously, one piece wouldn't lead to the equipment breaking down immediately. it took time for the strain and pressure to be too much and for the swings to snap.

it was just bad luck that it happened when they took down the safety nets.

red was all dick could see. red that seeped into the knees of his suit as he knelt beside his parent's bodies. red from the lights above him casting a crimson glow.

there was screaming. the crowd was stampeding to vacate the stands and leave the tent.

the big top of haly's circus could seat 1,900 people. rarely did they have a full house. but that night they did.

haly didn't have an electronic set up, they were still saving up for one and when dick was a kid most people paid with cash rather than card. they had a booth, a cashier, and a big roll of pre-printed tickets.

haly's circus didn't ask for ID only that anyone under the age of 13 be accompanied by a parent, guardian, or someone over the age of 18.

there was no record of who bought a ticket that night.

dick would live with the shame for the rest of his life but he wasn't the one who noticed tim missing.

"the crowd was like a wave!" dan was frenzied. he was explaining to the GCPD officers that showed up. "they just swept him up! carried him away! please! he's just a baby!"

but the GCPD had a more important matter to deal with. two dead people took precedence over one missing child who was probably just wandering around lost and confused after being separated from his guardians.

half an hour. that's how long it took for them to start looking.

forty five minutes. that's how long it took for them to call for backup in the search.

an hour and thirty minutes. that's how long it took for them to start casing the neighborhood, handing out descriptions of what tim was wearing.

dick had already been crying but his sobbing got worse when he heard they still hand't found tim.

tim was so small, he had these little baby legs that desperatly tried to keep up but he was just TOO small. dick carried him everywhere otherwise tim would be ten paces behind and bobbing after him.

'like a baby duckling' his mom would coo. she had her little robin and her duckie.

dick felt like the air had been ripped out of his lungs. he was bent over, fingers digging into his stained knees. veins were visible in his throat as he tried to hold back the vomit with wanted to rip a burning trail out of his throat. his abdomen was cramping from the force of his sobs. dick was crying so hard he could barely get a breath in.

the paramedics that arrived from some hopeless idealism that his parents could be saved had to put an oxygen mask over his face.

bruce explained to him that paramedics are only supposed to use sedatives to calm violent patients but that night they decided to inject a hysterical dick with something to make him 'easier' to deal with.

bruce said it with clear displeasure on his face.

the decision of those paramedics was why dick hadn't been able to get up and go looking for timmy himself.

he could've still been close by. he could've been hiding. maybe he would've come out if he'd heard his big brother dickie calling out for him.

dick would never know. it was just another horrible 'what if' from the worst night of his life.

dick hunts down zucco with a fury.

it's not a logical conclusion that he was the one that took tim. bruce pointed that out to him afterward. zucco had been heading away from the tent when dick spotted him.

by the time the rig gear failed he'd probably been long gone. witnesses could account for tim being present up to about 2 minutes before dick's parents fell.

dick, deep in his heart, knew zucco didn't have tim. but zucco had already taken so much from him he didn't know what else to do but blame him for that as well.

haly's circus can't get custody of dick and even if they could dick would refuse to leave gotham. not when it was the last place timmy had been seen.

"gotham's a hub for traffickers" bruce explained to him. they had airports, train stations, bus stops, and ship ports that were all used to move product into gotham and to the rest of the country. but sometimes...they were also used to move things out. but that was rare. gotham underground wasn't a big 'producer' they were more like a market to buy, sell, and trade whatever.

meaning tim could either still be in the city or he could've been sold to someone else.

it's rare for children to be snatched up and trafficked. more often it's family members. neighbors, and friends that sell a person out to be used. it's always the person you know. the person you've met. the person who's face you trust.

for them to snatch tim up?

they had no way of knowing that tim's parents had just died. that meant they'd taken advantage of the chaos and singled tim out. that was a BIG risk for someone to take.

"someone you know or met might've taken him. that might be why he didn't scream or fight back."

haly's had only been in gotham for 2 days before that horrible night. he and tim were forbidden from wandering away from the circus grounds without an adult.

gotham was a city they didn't know. they couldn't just go off to explore.

dick was friendly but even he didn't strike up conversations with strangers in a strange city he'd never been to.

bruce tries. he pulls on every lead, follows every string. nothing.

it's like tim just vanished into thin air. bruce puts as much time as he can into tim's case, every spare moment he has he tries to help dick look for his lost family member.

but crime in gotham never stops and with no new leads...

dick never stops looking for tim. every toddler with dark hair and a wonderful giggle is his timmy. every unaccompanied child is tim.

dick sees tim in his dreams, in his nightmares. he sees his timmy crying out for him and begging for his big brother to save him.

dick wakes up covered in sweat and shaking from images of big hands grabbing his sweet baby timmy.

gotham is not a nice place.

every case that involves children has dick returning to the cave and throwing up.

his face goes white and he can't stop shaking for the rest of the night because he keeps imagining tim in their place.

dick cries himself to sleep sometimes, terrified and afraid for his timmy. he's seen the things that sick and depraved people do to children. bruce starts keeping the cases away from dick once he sees what they do to him but dick still seeks them out.

every pedophile, molester, pervert, murderer, or kidnapper could be a lead to tim.

years pass.

the hole in dick's chest never stitches closed. it always feels as fresh as the day he realized no one knew where timmy was. sometimes dick has good days. days where he's so happy he almost forgets. but then other days he can't even get out bed, the pain is just too much to bear.

dick becomes a hero. he meets magic users, heroes with abilties, a man who can identify anyone in the world by just their heartbeat.

dick has the resources to find tim now. he tries.

more dead ends.

dick's not in a good place when jason comes into the picture. he's just off another failed attempt to use his blood to find and locate any close relatives with zatanna.

robin. his colors. dedicated to his family. colors that tim would know to trust if he ever saw them. even if he was just a baby when it happened dick was absolutely certain tim would recognize the colors from the suits his parents and brother wore when they performed.

dick's not proud of how he reacts. there was no way jason knew the meaning or significance behind that suit.

he yells at him regardless. he screams at bruce as well. because he knew. he fucking knew what that suit meant to him.

dick throws himself into looking for tim with a new fervor because fuck bruce fuck bruce fuck bruce. dick will find his real family.

jason dies. in his colors.

dick has lost yet another brother. the pain brings him to his knees when he hears.

dick is distant from bruce afterward. he stays in san francisco with the titans.

until a little thing squirms in close.

dick doesn't hear his soft voice and gentle pleading at first. he just stares at his face. those long lashes, dark hair, and blue eyes. sweet button nose and perfect peachy lips.

his name is tim. dick tries his best not to let the pain of that name show on his face.

dick's had years of practice.

tim talks about...that night. how his parents took to the circus, how he saw dick's flip, how he recognized it on the news years later.

tim becomes the new robin. dick tries to do for tim what he didn't do for jason but it's..hard.

a boy with dark hair whose name is 'tim' wearing that suit and those colors.

dick catches himself falling into a fantasy. a fake reality where tim was never taken and bruce took them both in. a reality where dick was teaching his baby timmy all the acrobatic moves that fascinated him so much.

tim is a good kid. sweet and shy. his parents are world travelers and he talks about them with so much brightness and affection even though they're gone most of the year.

"they send me presents in the mail!" tim brightly tells him when dick asks about Christmas and his birthday. he gets a saddened look for a brief moment before shaking it away. "i wish they'd stay home sometimes though, they used to do that a lot when i was smaller."

dick likes tim. after a while he barely even feels that empty twinge in his chest when he catches sight of him or hears his name.

tim is smart and clever, quick on his feet which more than makes up for his small size.

tim's also a good partner to bruce, the two of them work in tandem and develop a better dynamic than the one dick had with bruce.

tim takes good care of bruce and it lifts a weight that dick hadn't noticed he'd been carrying. dick can't be the one to lift bruce. not anymore.

dick always searches for his timmy, but just like in the beginning- there's always something that needs to be dealt with.

tim experiences problems with robin. at one point he needs to quit at his father's insistence. jack drake is a protective man.

he becomes hostile, not worried when he discovers that tim is robin. he threatens bruce, and dick, and alfred to not come near their family again.

that doesn't seem to matter because he dies soon after and leaves tim heart broken, confused, and wrangling with unsure feelings about their relationship.

so much spirals and dick cannot dedicate the time he usually does to searching for his timmy. he has a consultation with constantine that keeps getting put off when red hood and then damian enter their lives.

dick's grief is amplified by the loss of bruce and he makes mistakes.

he and tim have an odd tension between them when he returns from europe with the proof of bruce being alive.

things never quite settle to how they were before. tim doesn't trust him as much, he's wary about dick just as he is with damian and jason.

but the four of them get through it. it's slow going, they hit rough patches, they fight, they forgive.

but they're brothers.

dick doesn't talk about his timmy often. the pain of that night is unlike anything he's ever felt. dick's parents are dead and he will always carry the weight of that. but it's a different pain from what he feels for his timmy. because at least dick knows what happened to his parents.

only bruce and the people dick has reached out to in his search know about timmy.

he's not sure how they get onto the topic but jason mentions how much of a...dick dick had been when he found jason wearing his suit.

but dick apologizes.

"it's not so much that you were wearing it that made me angry but the fact that bruce handed it to you when he knew what it meant to me."

jason nodded.

"yeah he told me about your parents and the suit."

dick shook his head.

"no, it was more than that... it-"

dick takes a steadying breath before he tells them about the third victim of that night. his timmy. sweet baby timmy and how he'd been swept away just a foot away from the sound booth where someone had been minding him. how neither he nor bruce nor anyone knew what happened to him after that night.

his brother's faces go from confused to shocked.

"i...i didn't know that." jason shifted uncomfortably, looking down with furrowed brows.

haly's circus grounds had pitched a tent right outside crime alley.

as good of a job as jason had done cleaning things up, things had been horrendous back then and dick knows that the most likely theory he's developed so far is that timmy, when he was swept away with the crowd, stumbled in and was swallowed by gotham.

bodies are dragged out of the gutter every few months, fished from the harbor, or reported from homeless camps. hundreds of people die unindentified in gotham every year and as much as dick wanted to believe that tim was alive...chances are he was one of them.

the thought never fails to bring tears to dick's eyes. he wipes them away discretely and clears his throat while his brothers avert their eyes.

"you've never found evidence of what happened to him?" damian asked, eyes oddly intense. dick knew damian had a fondeness for him and appreciated the concern and likely determination his younger brother had at helping dick with this.

dick shook his head.

"me and bruce reviewed the files so many times i have it memorized. no security camera, no witnesses, nobody ever came forward."

flyers and missing person's posters had covered gotham for four months. before they'd been replaced by another person. dick was lucky that bruce had kept paying for people to keep printing and putting up flyers.

tim's brows were furrowed.

"what was his name?" he asked, voice soft and comforting. two other sets of eyes flickered to dick with thinly veiled interest and dick bit back the startled choked sob that almost left his mouth.

"his uh.." dick sniffled, "his name was timmy." dick's voice cracked and he couldn't hold back the fresh wave of tears that burned like they were made of vodka.

tim's forehead creased in guilt.

"n-no tim, it's okay!" dick insisted knowing his younger brother's tendency for guilt.

"i've uh...i've had years to get used to it. when i was a kid-" dick let out a strained clucky laugh, "- i used to chase after every toddler with dark hair and i'd uhm hyperventilate if i heard the name 'tim'."

dick had been a wreck those first years. he didn't even remember his first few months at the manor and both bruce and alfred got a distant, haunted look in their eyes when dick asked about it.

dick bit his lip, and roughly wiped away another flow of tears. he hadn't wanted to ruin the mood.

jason's brows were furrowed, displeasure on his face as he probably worked through the likelihood of what had happened to dick's little brother.

"how old was he?" jason's question was thick with tension and dick felt another pulse of pain throb in his throat.

"three. he was just three."

jason cursed viciosuly.

"that's a fucking baby." he spit out. "swear if it ever find out that somebody laid their hands on the kid-"

dick swallowed back a whimper and tried to ignore the slideshow of horror that started playing behind his eyelids. damian was hesitantly patting dick's knee in comfort when-

"wait. i was three."

eyes flickered to tim whose brow was furrowed in thought.

"that day in haly's circus, it was my 3rd birthday and we got a picture with your family as a treat."

tim straightened up while damian turned to him.

"are you saying you were there that day?" damian asked, brows furrowed. jason was similarly frowning. tim turned to them both with a surprised expression.

"uh yeah? i mean i told dick and bruce about it, it was how i found out they were batman and robin, the day at haly's cicus was like my earliest memory."

tim shook his head for a moment before turning back to dick, an analytical look in his eye. it was the same look he got when he found a break in a case.

"i have a picture." tim's lips spread into an eager smile. "it caught a good amount of the crowd because the line was right behind us! if we can track down even a few of them we've got a good pool to start with!"

tim was up and pushing to his feet, darting out and likely racing to his room where he kept a bunch of his his from his old house.

dick felt a ball form in his throat.

"bruce and i were never able to track down anyone who'd been there that night."

a few dozen people had tried filing lawsuits against haly's circus for emotional damages for what they witnessed but it was gotham and unless you were willing to pay for your case to be seen by a judge it was all thrown out.

both jason and damian straightened up at dick's words and all three of them turned when a widely grinning tim carried in a blue photo album. he opened to the first page.

"right here!"

dick barely covered his mouth to muffle the sob that burst out.

timmy. it was his timmy.

held in the arms of a broad-shouldered man that dick instantly realized was jack drake.

but that wasn't what mattered. what mattered was the toddler in his arms whose mouth was stained blue from cotton candy.

"oh timmy, there you are-" dick felt his tears blur his vision as he shakily stroked a finger against the soft curve of that chubby cheek he'd kissed so much.

dick sniffled and let out a shaky cry as he stared at that picture. the last picture of his sweet baby timmy alive.

tim was right about the line of people in the background but dick was only focused on one thing.

"there's my dad," tim pointed, showing jason and damian who were also crowded around the album, "there's my mom, and there's me."

tim pressed a finger to dick's timmy.

dick frowned.

"no."

three pairs of eyes turned to a frowning dick.

"no, that's not you."

tim frowned.

"uh..yeah it is dick? see, that's my dad, that's my mom and there I-"

"no." dick stressed the word. "that's timmy, that's my timmy. i remember that night! this couple took a picture with us and wanted timmy in the photo, mom was upset that they picked him up without permission, she told me drop him off with dan right after."

dick pointed to how upset his mom was, a small bit of tension in her brow. dick's dad's eyes were pointed away from the camera but still smiling, although tightly. and timmy, who was confusedly looking at the stranger holding him.

when dick looked back up all three of his brothers were staring at him, thin veils of concern in their eyes.

"uh...dick," jason began slowly, "that's pretty clearly tim."

tim shifted. his face flashed with discomfort as dick flickered over to him.

"i mean...it was a pretty bad night for you." tim began "it's understandable if you...don't remember things perfectly-"

no. no. dick knew exactly what happened that night. he remembered every detail. some people's memories faded by not dick's.

he remembered timmy's candy sweet breath, remembered dropping him off with dan, kissing his nose, and promising him another-

"you promised me a quadruple somersault, remember?"

dick froze. his guts suddenly clenched oddly as tim's big blue eyes stared at him with some sympathy as he tried to 'jog' dick's memory.

dick stared at tim.

really stared at him.

he took in his eyes, his lips, nose, his eyelashes. looking at tim had hurt in the beginning, he was so soft and young. he looked like-

"timmy." dick breathed. "timmy"

dick didn't notice he crawled over the photo album between them until tim let out a startled noise as dick wrapped both arms around his shoulder.

"timmy, i-it is you o-oh shut, holy fuck, oh my god- here, let me look at you-"

tim's eyes were wide staring up at dick.

"timmy." dick breathed breathlessly. "i found you."

---

they freak out. dick's brothers are sure that he's lost it and they keep glancing over at dick as he's strapped down in the medbay.

bruce is frowning down at the photo album in his hands.

"-might have gotten dosed? or hit his head? or maybe just talking about it made him...uhm-"

"tim's trying to say he thinks dick snapped."

jason is tense standing beside tim and dick who's tied down to a gurney. he'd been the one to pry dick off of tim even though dick clearly hadn't wanted to.

jason had scratches on his arm, some of which were sluggishly bleeding.

"this is jack and janet." bruce said. "and you're say that dick thinks this-" he points at the cotton candy-stained baby. "-is his brother."

tim nods uneasily before listing more suggestions, that perhaps because tim is in the appropriate age range that dick is just projecting memories, maybe the pain of remembering has forced him to cope by seeing his brother where he isn't.

damian remains silent, staring down at the photo album. he hasn't said a word so far until-

"why are there only two tickets?"

a pair of tickets printed with 'admit one' are pressed into the protective sleeve beside the picture.

"a family of three attended the circus that day so why are there only two tickets?"

tim stared at damian blankly.

"i was a kid damian, some places admit people under a certain age range for free."

"not haly's circus." bruce interjected. "it's a production geared towards children, they'd lose a lot of profit if they didn't charge the kids."

tim turned his eyes to bruce, expression blank.

"are there no other baby pictures of you drake?" damian asked, ripping the book from bruce's hands. no one said anything. "the cover says 'my first memory book' and yet the first page starts with a picture of you at the circus of all places."

tim's jaw tightened.

"i don't like what you're implying." tim's words were tense.

damian's eyes flickered up to him.

"and what am i implying, drake?"

tim's teeth clenched, and he breathed harshly through his nose.

"if you must know, i wasn't, stictly speaking, born in the U.S"

bruce turned to look at him, eyes narrowed on him even from behind the cowl.

"you have a U.S birth certificate, a social security, i saw nothing in your documents that-"

"my parents paid for some...expedited paperwork. i'm not sure it was fully legal but customs wouldn't let them back into the country with me unless i had a U.S passport so..."

tim shrugged.

"i was already a year or something old by that point and digital cameras didn't exactly exist yet so no baby pictures."

tim shot damian a narrow eyed look.

"is that a good enough explanation for you?"

damian glared at him.

"your birthday is coincidentally the day that grayson's sibling disappeared, that's not odd to you detective?" the way damian said detective edged a little too close to mocking.

bruce frowned at him.

"dami-"

damian cut his father off.

"by your own mouth you admit that your earliest memory is seeing the flying grayson's perish, that's not odd to you?"

"hey demon-"

jason was similarly ignored as damian flipped the album around and lifted it close enough to tim's face that he couldn't look away.

"and it's not odd to you that your parents were seated at R-34 and R-35, four feet away from the sound booth that timothy grayson disappeared from?"

damian went down like a sack of rocks from the force of tim's sudden punch.

both bruce and jason let out similar shouts.

scoldings were on the edge of bruce's tongue, his hand reaching out to grab tim and ask what he thought he was doing when tim was suddenly yanked back with a startled yelp into dick's arms.

"don't even think about it!" dick half turned away from the three of them, body covering tim's as a snarl creeped on his face. "don't you dare lay a hand on timmy! he's a good boy!"

dick's eyes were dark as they glared at bruce. glared at him like he was...a threat.

---

a dna test confirms it all quickly.

tim is devastated. inconsolable. he locks himself in his room and dick stands outside of it, begging for timmy to let him in.

bruce can't get an inch close without dick's head whipping around to face him and barking at him to back off.

both jason and damian were similarly treated and bruce laid a comforting hand on damian's shoulder when he saw his expression crease in hurt at the rejection.

not even alfred could get more a few feet away before dick eyed him with suspicion.

the only reason that dick hasn't barged into the room is because he can hear that tim is on the other side crying. that's the only thing stopping him because bruce is certain that he'd be inside with him otherwise.

bruce understands the behavior. he knows it's rooted in over a decade worth of nightmares, fears, and imagining the worst-case scenario for that little baby dick lost.

still. it hurts to be treated with such blatent suspicion and distrust.

"sickos." jason shakes his head beside bruce, scowling down at tim's birth certificate with the day he was taken as his date of birth. "what kind of pieces of shit do this?"

bruce asks himself that question every night. he and jason are doing a bit of a dive into jack and janet. they're both long dead so there's no chance of ever bringing them to justice but...it's good to get perspective on their son and brother's kidnappers.

the more bruce looks the worse it looks.

"look at this shit," jason hands him a print out of jack and janet's financials from one of the many boxes that tim had pulled out into the hall when he though he was going to help break the case of dick grayson's missing baby brother.

hypnotherapists, electroconvulsive therapy, and child psychologists. office visits and billings for sessions that were paid in cash and off the record.

"they put a toddler through ECT." jason's grip on the paper tightened and bruce's chest felt much the same.

he knew there was a gap in tim's memory. he'd learned about it the first day he'd met him. he'd thought it a bit strange but never lent much thought to it.

tim's first memory had been when he was 3. it'd been the night at haly's circus. his next memory had been when he was 9, the night that he saw dick perform the quadruple somersault on the news and discovered his identity as robin and bruce's as batman.

6 years in a dissociative state was sign of massive mental trauma.

tim had no memory of life before batman. he had no memory of life beyond robin.

---

dick holds his timmy tenderly, as soft as he used to. his timmy has grown bigger, so much bigger.

he's shaking like a leaf in the wind as dick holds him.

he whimpers like a hurt dog at every stroke dick passes through his hair. he's buried under his blankets while dick lays on top of his bed and tries to soothe hust like he used to on the night there were thunderstorms and timmy would run to dick instead of their mom and dad.

"i'm here now timmy, it's okay, it's okay now i promise nothing bad will ever happen you you again-"

timmy sobbed.

the sound stuck a dagger through dick's heart and he crawled closer, hugging the lump that was his baby brother.

"i'm sorry, timmy-" dick rubbed his forehead against where the crying was coming from. "i looked for you, i looked for you everyday i'm so sorry that i let those horrible people take you."

there was a lump in dick's throat that burned like he'd swallowed vinegar. rage unlike anything he'd ever felt before pulsed through him when he realized that jack and janet were the couple that had creeped out his parents. they were the ones who had taken his timmy.

what had they done to him in that time? dick can't even imagine the horrible things that'd been done tim, things he'd kept silent about because he'd spent the last few years in bruce's care and he hadn't felt anything off.

not one thing.

dick could've had timmy back years ago. he could've been helping his sweet baby learn to be soft again, to open up just like the darling little flower he'd been when he chased after dick like a little duckling.

tim was secretive. tim kept a lot to himself and pulled away from people. he was nervous about attention and didn't like to be put into situations he couldn't control.

dick's timmy hadn't been like that. dick's timmy had been tender. he'd laughed out loud and pressed kisses to dick's cheeks while asking him to play with him and begging him to teach him how to fly.

but bruce had dropped the ball. 'world's greatest detective' dick's ass.

bruce had hurt tim as well. as robin. jason too, he'd slit his throat, he'd nearly killed him and damian...if help had gotten to tim to late he could've bled out.

timmy wasn't safe here. not with these people.

dick had lost part of himself that day. that horrible day.

and now timmy was here, in his arms again.

and he'd grown up so beautifully. his features are soft and dick can see the hint of their mom in timmy's lips and eyelashes.

they both share the same coloring as their dad.

staring down at teary eyes and dick can even scout out a few features he shares with dick. they have the same small ears and high cheekbones. tim's much smaller. not as muscular or tall as dick. he got mom's height it looks like.

dick tightened his grip on tim's hips, squeezing them in comfort as tim sniffled while staring up at him with tearful eyes.

"oh timmy." dick nuzzled their foreheads together, just like he did when they were young. when they were both innocent and unscarred.

tim whimpered and dick pressed gentle kisses to tim's soft cheeks and brows.

one on his left cheek, one on his forehead, one on his right cheek, one on his nose, and one on his lips.

just like when they were kids.

timmy would always giggle when dick did that and press his face up to kiss him back. as the youngest members of the troupe and the only children, the two of them had really only had each other for company.

when timmy had disappeared he'd taken half of dick's heart. half of his soul.

now they were together again and dick could start rebuilding.

"it's you and me timmy," dick whispered against his lips. "just you and me."

dick would never let anything happen to timmy ever again.

a knock echoed from the door that dick had locked behind him when he slipped in.

dick turned his head and stared as the brass doorknob tried to turn with a chair propped under it.

dick was going to look out for timmy from now on.

nothing and no one would ever touch him again.

"dick?"

another knock followed the call of his name.

dick stayed quiet. answering didn't matter. the people on the other side of the door didn't matter.

all that mattered was timmy.

'dickie?'

dick could hear his baby timmy's sweet voice in his head again. usually, that only happened when he was alone.

"yes? timmy"

'we stayin towgehder?'

dick nodded.

"yes baby, we are."

timmy shifted under him, making a soft noise.

'like-like mommy an daddy, dickie?'

"yes timmy, just like mommy and daddy."

an angel's giggle rang in dick's ear as he pressed a kiss to timmy's soft forehead. timmy used to love their pretend weddings, draping a sheet over his face like a veil and waiting for dick to lift it up and kiss the bride.

timmy used to cheerfully tell their parents and the other performers that he and dickie were going to get married when he grew up.

they'd all coo and pinch his cheeks because tim was every inch adorable as a baby could be.

dick could still see the image in his head. little chubby hands holding a bundle of fake flowers usually kept in a vase as a bedsheet covered tim's head like he was a ghost.

'you gon kiss me, dickie?'

dick carefully peeled back the sheets covering tim's face, exposing his red face and tear-streaked cheeks. his puffy stared back at dick with misery thick in his expression.

dick leaned down.

'noooo! you gotta say 'i do'! dickie you gotta!'

"i do." dick pressed his mouth to tim's, humming in contentment as some ripped, raw edge of himself began to stitch itself back together. tim's lips tasted salty from his tears. he made a muffled 'mph' sound as dick pressed closer, letting his vody cover tim's.

'i do' dick thought. 'i do i do i do'.

he pulled away with a quiet 'smeck', staring down at tim's hazy expression and starlight eyes. tim's mouth was slightly open, exposing the pink waterline of his little mouth.

"till death do us part baby brother."

and dick leaned down again.

#anonymous #asks #answered asks #bio dicktim au

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