Chapter Text
Tim feels gross when he wakes up,knows he’s sick, of course he does. However, he’s not going to let some gross feelings and a bad headache stop him from doing his daily chores. Deciding to start in the kitchen, Tim does his dishes from last night, wipes down the counters, sweeps and mops the floor before moving on. By the time he’s finished most all his other chores Tim feels awful: his bones hurt, his head hurts, he’s well past tired, and it feels little he could throw up at any moment. After some very careful consideration Tim decides that the 3 mile walk from his house to the nearest gas station is a worthy trip for some cold medicine; if it means he’ll be able to finish his chores. Grabbing his rain boots and coat Tim sets out.
He’s 2 miles in when he finally sees the gas station, in all its neon glory. He debates running the last mile for less than a second before forgetting the idea all together. Another 15 minutes later and he is finally in the medicine aisle. Grabbing the first bottle he sees that says both kids and cold he heads to the register.
At first Dick doesn’t believe it, because there is no way his neighbors’ kid is standing in a gas station medicine aisle looking pale as paper without any adults to be seen. Looking around again, still seeing no adult, not even a bathroom someone could be in, Dick is officially on edge. Moving closer, he taps the little boy on the shoulder,
“Hey, buddy, are you with anyone?”
he asks, now squatting down to meet the boy at eye level.
It takes a minute for the boy to respond with a quiet
“no”
not wanting to lie but also not wanting to get in trouble for being outside the house without Ms. Mac. Dick speaks again
“Is there anyone I can call or bring you too?”,
and again the little boy responds with a quiet,
“no”.
Now Dick is very worried,
“Ok, buddy, do you need any help?”.
He asks fully intending to help the little boy in any way possible, except that sets the little boy off, he starts crying. ‘Shit’ Dick thinks as the little boy stutters out a louder,
“N..no.. I..I.. I do..don’t… need.. any… h..h…help”,
to which Dick responds softly,
“Yeah? I can see that now, but it would really help me out if you could tell me what you want right now”,
making sure to further enunciate any words that had to do with helping himself as a means to distract the little boy. While it took a minute for the little boy to calm down and answer Dick he eventually answered with a small,
“I wanna go home”,
Dick felt his heart break a little at the boy's pitiful tone. Dick then stands up and states
“Well then lets get you home.”
Before offering his hand for the small boy to hold, it takes a few seconds for the boy to grab hold but eventually he does and they walk over to the register to pay.
Tim is very confused however when Dick reaches for the medicine he picked out,
“Umm, I got it.”
Tim says as he reaches for his wallet. Dick however, must not have gotten the memo as he quickly snatched Tim’s medicine, having the gas station employee scan it before paying for both his own ice cream and Tim’s medicine, giving Tim a quick
“Na, that’s the adults job kiddo.”
as he did so. As soon as the receipt was handed back Dick lightly pulled Tim’s hand towards the door before leading the way to a dark blue 2017 Infiniti Q50 sport sedan. He opened the trunk placing the bag of ice cream in it before pulling out a water bottle, looking at Tim's medicine and pouring out at dose,
“Here you go buddy”,
he said as he gave Tim both the dosing cap and the water bottle. Tim quickly thanked him before downing the medicine, not even looking at the water bottle in his hand, Dick’s made a face at that taking a quick look back at the medicine bottle before asking with a grimace
“Do you like cherry, bud?”,
as he opened the back door on the driver's side. To which Tim crawled in as he answered without much care,
“No, not really.”
Once Dick was inside that car he chose to ask,
“Hey, buddy, just so you know my name is Dick, do you want to tell me your name?”,
as much a Dick wishes he knew his neighbors' kid’s name he’d only ever met the little guy a few times at Bruce’s galas,
“Timothy Jackson Drake”
was what Dick got in response.
“Yeah? Is it ok if I call you Tim?” asked Dick,
he wouldn’t really mind calling the kid Timothy, but I would feel a little odd calling what looks to be a 7 year old such a mature name, to which Dick heard a small ‘happy?’ voice respond
“Yes”.
Dick wonders if Tim is feeling any better as he asks
“Ok, Tim, can you tell me if anyone is at home waiting for or looking for you?”,
the only answer Dick gets is to the one he was wondering in his head, as Tim throws up in his back seat.
“Shi-Shoot!”
Dick squawked, as he quickly pulled over,
"It's ok buddy, it’s ok, I’ll be right there, let me grab a towel from the trunk.”
Dick said quickly as he made his way out the front seat.
However, by the time Dick made it out and around the car to grab a towel and move to where Tim was, the boy was leaning forward, looking ready to hurl again.
“Oh, buddy, hey, it’s ok, can you lean up for me?”
Dick asked as he tried to get a better look at where the vomit had ended up, Dick thought, ‘thankfully not very much had ended up on Tim himself’ as he began wiping what little did end up on the boy off with the towel. Tim it seemed, on the other hand, was not thankful the very little of the vomit got on him, in fact he seemed to cry harder the more time Dick spent cleaning him off. However, no matter how much Dick tried to reassure the little boy that things were gonna be ok, Tim just kept apologizing, mumbling sorrys through hiccups and tears. In the end though Dick was able to get him to calm down enough to explain,
“Hey, little bud, it’s ok, that the floor got a little dirty, it’s easy enough to clean, and I’m more worried about you.”.
An answer Tim seemed to calm down more at, mumbling a soft,
“Are you sure it’s easy to clean?”,
and with last reassurance in the form of a quick
“Yep”,
and confirmation from Tim that he would tell Dick if he felt like he was gonna throw up again led to Dick hopping back in the front seat and pulling back onto the road.
After that it only took Dick about 5 more minutes to be able to see both Tim’s house, and the manor, which is what led to the slowing of the car and repeated question of,
“Hey, Timmy, do you know if anyone is at home waiting for or looking for you?”,
to which Tim responded with a whispered,
“No, no one.”.