#this is in an au where Dickie lives in the manor. why? I don't know I just like having him there

[zorilleerrant]

Bernard knows he’s muttering to himself the kind of monologue that would be annoying to watch in a movie, something incoherent with a lot of nos mixed in, something that wouldn’t be at all helpful if he actually had to communicate with Tim, but he doesn’t have to communicate with Tim, and that’s the problem. He could say whatever he wanted to right now, and Tim wouldn’t give a single fuck. He could confess his love, or break up, or tell him about fucking up the oven, or say his neighbors are spying on him, or claim Wendy wasn’t even that good of a show. He could he tell Tim he knew he was Robin and it wouldn’t make a difference.

Like, of course he knows Tim is Robin. He has to, in order to be having this breakdown with his boyfriend’s body limp in his arms, covered in blood. Bernard can’t find the source of the blood. And if he doesn’t know where it’s coming from, how is he going to be able to stop it?

He shouldn’t. He shouldn’t be doing this himself, not when the hospital is so close, and so – and so what? He can dress Tim in his own clothes, peel the costume away and say he found him like this, a mugging, the kind of thing that happens when someone steps out for fresh air at three in the morning in Gotham. They’d believe him. And what is he supposed to do, stitch Tim up right here? He has a normal first aid kit, he has over the counter painkillers. But he has Tim’s clothes, and he’s used to undressing and redressing unconscious people, that’s a skill he has.

But there are scars all over, scars that stood out at first, and then made sense, and then he didn’t even notice them unless he was looking, but he’s looking now, because what is a hospital going to say about that? But the doctors must know, right, because he’s been there before, he’s gotten – fuck, he got shot and they had to do surgery and now he’s going in again? They’re going to ask about his injuries, and about his scars, and about his history, and about Bernard, and who knows whether Tim wants all that?

He wishes he’d brought this up before. Bernard could take Tim… who knows where. Bruce must know where. Several of his kids are vigilantes, and it’s not like he could be totally uninvolved in that side of Tim’s life. Or, with Bernard’s luck, he is, and he’d be fucked either way. He thinks there was a doctor. There must be one, with all the shit they go through. He didn’t think to get the name, though, not before Tim came stumbling into his apartment, passing out cold in the fucking Robin suit, and Tim doesn’t know what to fucking do.

Tim’s phone is in his hand, and the weight is familiar, the scuff marks along the side, but the screen doesn’t show anything he’s used to, icons changed and names… fuck, these are all vigilantes. There’s no ICE number like there is on Tim’s phone when it’s not in whatever this mode is, but Bernard’s seen it, he remembers. It’s Dick’s number, because he always says he thinks they wouldn’t call Bruce Wayne, no matter how dire it was.

And Dick is Nightwing, he thinks. Pretty sure. Pretty sure because the timing works out, if you look at the timeline a little too hard, the way it doesn’t for any of the rest of them. Dick is either Nightwing or Red Hood, and it’s hard to tell because they’re the same size and they do the same kind of flip that Dick does when he’s showing off, but Bernard’s pretty sure he’s Nightwing because Nightwing’s been around longer. More attached to Gotham, probably.

He wishes he could wake Tim up and ask.

Instead he hits the logo and sets the phone on speaker, and at least that much of the shape of it is familiar, at least whatever system it’s operating on now is designed to be convenient to someone who was already using Wayne Tech. WayneTech. Of course. That’s how Bruce fits into all of this, and Bernard wishes he could disable the superhero mode somehow, because of course there’d have to be a way to do it, to put it back, but it probably requires Tim’s voiceprint or his eyes, and his eyes are too dilated and one is filling with blood and it’s not going to work for a scan even if Bernard could pry them open.

Bruce’s number might be on here, but it isn’t anywhere he can find, and he wishes it were, because he would be willing to call Bruce the way the hospital wouldn’t, because he knows Tim and he believes him, even when he says he isn’t Robin. He isn’t Robin when he’s with Bernard, he lets himself be Tim, so it isn’t even totally a lie. Nightwing is on speaker and Bernard is peeling off Tim’s suit and everything is covered in blood, even the new clean clothes he pulled out of his drawers and he can’t see because he’s starting to cry.

“Robin?” Nightwing says, again, for what might be the second time or the hundredth, but he’s clearly starting to get worried, and he should be, because Robin isn’t even here to answer, only Bernard, and fat lot of good that does.

“Tim’s hurt,” Bernard says, and thinks maybe he should’ve said Robin, or maybe he should’ve explained, or maybe he should say who he is, but he can’t get more than a few words out and even they sound choked, thick and full of spit and he has to clear his throat before he can say, “I’ve got him changed, but you can drive me to the hospital faster than the ambulance will get here.”

He’s guessing. Probably it’s true, because Dick has speeding tickets out the wazoo and he’s sort of known, in the tabloids, for loving reckless driving and showing off his far too expensive cars. The ones he crashes frequently, purportedly, even though Bernard notices more and more he's never seen pictures of the cars, only the injuries. So if he’s close enough, he can drive here, and then – Bernard doesn’t know what, then. All he knows is that he’s got to get Tim dressed before Dick gets here to pick him up, and then there’s a knock at the door.

He’s going to get up to get it. He plans to, at least, but by the time Bernard is standing, soaked through the entire leg in blood, both legs, both sleeves – the door is open and he has some distant memory of metal scrabbling, like Dick had a key, except Dick didn’t have a key, but he’s in here now, and worried, and carrying Tim like he weighs absolutely nothing, hurrying out to the car without even asking Bernard along.

Bernard follows. He follows quickly, because he needs to be there, and he slips into the back seat where Dick is laying out the bloody Robin, and Bernard takes Tim’s head in his lap and just holds him. They don’t talk. It’s a normal car and Dick’s in normal clothes, and it’s possible he wasn’t even patrolling at all because Nightwing patrols more at dusk than in the middle of the night, but he doesn’t even ask how Bernard knows, or what Bernard knows, or anything that might keep him from hyperventilating, which he is, which he does until Tim’s out of his hands and into the doctors’ and then Dick has him by the shoulders and is saying something to him over and over again.

He’s aware, sort of, that Dick picked Tim up, gently, cradling him in both arms, smearing blood over his arms and chest, and brought him inside, and that someone came by with a stretcher before they were even in the door, and that Bernard himself was trailing after them like a lost lamb and then Dick has him by the shoulders and he doesn’t know what he’s saying.

“Breathe, Bernard,” Dick says, again, again and again, “Tim’s fine. He’s going to be fine. They’re going to fix him up and it’s going to be fine.” It sounds like something Dick’s said a lot before. Bernard’s not sure whether to believe it. He’s not sure whether Dick even believes it.

“He’s hurt,” Bernard says, finally. Wails, really. He’s not sure his voice is at a pitch that can still be heard by human ears, and his words are definitely too gummed up to be intelligible, but still Dick pulls him into a hug, and repeats those stupid words he’s been saying all along, that he’s probably going to continue saying forever because he doesn’t know Bernard well enough to know what comforts him, and whatever it is isn’t crying into a shirt the scent of drying blood.

There’s so much blood on both of them. Tim shouldn’t have that much blood. Or he should, but it should still be inside him, where it keeps him whole, and Bernard’s saying this out loud, and Dick keeps shushing him, and for fuck’s sake how can it possibly be helpful that someone he barely even knows has arms around him, saying reassurances he probably says to every rando on the street. Bernard needs to get ahold of himself.

Tim is Robin, and Dick is Nightwing, and Bernard knows that because he called Nightwing and Dick showed up, and now Bernard is, he doesn’t know, some sort of resource. Some sort of support like whatever Oracle is, except Bernard is human and not a robotic alien consciousness, and actual fucking Nightwing is trying to tell him everything is going to be okay. Except it’s not as believable, when he’s not wearing his suit, because everything sounds more true when a superhero says it.

He’s still a superhero. Bernard has to tell himself that, because if Nightwing isn’t here to save Tim, then who’s here to save Tim? If a superhero is here, even if he’s wasting time trying to get Bernard to stop hiccupping, then there’s hope that everything can be fixed, all the terrible things fought off, and Bernard struggling to wash Tim’s blood off his hands in the tiny sink in this little room that he doesn’t even know what it’s for. It’s not a waiting room. There are chairs, but they’re too mismatched and rickety to be there for the patients or everyone waiting on the patients to come home. Someone’s juice box is sitting there, but there’s no one next to it. Dick is wearing scrubs. Bernard is wearing scrubs, too, but he barely remembers changing into them.

He thinks they might be in an employee lounge, some kind of break room, except that doesn’t sound right because it’s so fucking small and claustrophobic, there are no windows anywhere and the lights are too dim. It’s so small that Dick is speaking softly now, trying not to scare him away, patting a raggedy couch that looks like it used to be a better color than that, and Bernard goes to sit next to him. To cry into his shoulder for real, and not just because he’s tearing up from the smell of blood. It’s softer now, warm and dry, and, because they’re sitting, Dick can tuck his chin against the top of Bernard’s head. It feels reflexively, like it’s something he does all the time to other people. To Tim, probably.

Tim’s going to be fine.