Chapter Text
“He’s not going to be here,” Steph says to him for the third time as Dick jabs the passcode into Tim’s security system. Her unhappiness has been following her around like a cloud for the last hour they’ve been together, and Dick can’t exactly say he blames her. It’s not like he’s doing any better.
There’s thrumming tension under his skin, none of it has been settled, he’s so anxious that he thinks he’s going to puke, but he can’t lose his shit right now. Not with a more terrified eighteen-year-old next to him, not with Bruce half out-of-it on pain meds and fear, Jason unconscious, and Damian barely alive in the med bay. Cass is with them, but Dick doesn’t think it’s enough. His sister isn’t always great at playing emotional crutch, juggling multiple people at a time. That’s Dick’s job, and he’s abandoning her to it because Bruce asked him.
Because no one has been able to get ahold of Tim since yesterday, when he hung up after Damian begged him for help then called Steph and hung up on her, too.
“We have to check it off,” Dick tells her, because that’s the excuse that he’s using instead of admitting out loud that if Tim isn’t here, he has no idea where he is.
Tim hasn’t been on any active cases that Dick knows about, Bruce pulled him off the patrol roster after he passed out last week like he was going to seize again, and Dick took him home and sat up with him until Tim kicked him out to sleep. He’s been acting…weird. He won’t answer any of Dick’s calls, which is unlike him, and he hasn’t even been online in over twenty hours.
If he isn’t here, where is he? It can’t be for casework. And it would have to be incredibly sensitive Wayne Ind. shit for Tim to hang up on Damian.
There is very little the two of them wouldn’t do for each other, if anything. Watching their relationship finally settle and relax over the last year has been like being allowed to breathe for the first time.
Tim wouldn’t have done that to Damian without something much, much worse looming down on him.
If he is here, which is almost worse, why would he leave Robin in danger? Why hasn’t he checked in, even after Bruce demanded a headcount yesterday?
When Dick gets into Tim’s actual apartment on the third floor, it’s empty. The lights are still on, which is unlike Tim. It’s not messy, there’s no evidence of a struggle, the only thing that Dick can see by way of evidence Tim has been here in the last day is spilled coffee staining the counter, and the coffee machine, which has been taken apart and not put back together yet.
“Check the bedroom,” Dick tells Steph. He doesn’t know what he was expecting. Babs already told him Tim wasn’t here when she checked the cameras, but he was hoping… He was hoping what? Tim would have magically appeared in his bedroom and he’s sleeping. He’s fine? At best, he’s bleeding out somewhere.
“He isn’t here,” Stephanie repeats, hot, “Dick, what the fuck are we doing? We need to find him, he could be hurt. I told you that he sounded like he was losing it on the phone.”
“I know,” Dick says, with as much patience as he can muster. He moves toward the kitchen aimlessly. He feels like he’s in a daze. Or a trance. Or both. Bruce’s words from when before he left are sitting like a physical weight in his stomach. The low, whispered monotone, like a hissing threat. I think he’s on some sort of drug, you’ve seen the way he’s behaving. He’s been struggling ever since the assault, he may have OD’d.
It isn’t doing anything to soothe him, thinking about it.
He moves to the kitchen, rifling through the cabinets.
He picks up the coffee machine, looking through the dismantled parts. What was he doing? Was something wrong? Why wouldn’t he have put it back together?
Dick picks up the filter, frowning. It’s been cleaned out, but not scrubbed. He dabs a finger against the edge of the dried coffee beans. Something seems off about the color.
One of the kitchen knives was used to pry it open. Dick picks it up, weighing it. No blood. No evidence of any trauma. Tim didn’t abandon the coffee machine to defend himself.
“His camera’s here,” Steph calls from the bedroom. “So’s his laptop. He didn’t make his bed. What am I looking for, Dick? A note? ‘Hey, I went and got high, catcha later’?”
Dick opens up the lower cabinet, looking through the pans. This is where Roy used to stash everything. Food, freezer, unused pans. He squats down, flipping over a bread pan he doesn’t think Tim knows he owns, and flips it over. Nothing.
“Will you just keep looking?”
“The hell do you think I'm doing, Dick?” Steph shouts. Her agitation is practically vibrating. She’s scared. They all are, after Damian, after Jason. After Bruce. It’s not often they get so many of them laid out like this. “I’m looking.”
Dick pulls out one of the pans. There’s a small crawl space, he sticks his hand into it. Keeps his voice as level as he can make it, “Hey, you need to calm down, we’re going to find him.”
“So it’s fine for you to be a total wreck, but when I am, that’s when it’s a problem?” There’s a clatter from Tim’s bedroom, like a drawer being overturned. “I’m worried, too, Dick. He’s my—" a weighted pause where boyfriend clearly wanted to slip out, and she says instead, "Tim. ”
“Steph,” Dick breathes, dropping his head against the cabinet. He wraps his hand around a frying pan handle.
Someone clears their throat. Not Steph. No one else is supposed to be in this apartment. Dick doesn’t jump, he’s been trained out of that, but he does startle, grabbing hold of the knife on the end of the counter and throwing it before he can think otherwise. Every hackle is raised, his little sister is defenseless in the other room and—
Tim catches the knife out of the air before it can impale itself in the eye of the man at his side. Tall, white, easily six-three, full build, ice-tipped hair, early twenties. Piercing green, very wide eyes. Dressed in a suit with a Wayne Ind. badge clipped to his waist.
Dick’s fingers sag on the frying pan. He lets go of the doorframe.
Tim looks terrible. His eyes are gray and smudged, his hair is clumping with sweat, he clearly hasn’t changed his clothing in at least two days. He’s been crying, eyelids raw and red. He’s swaying on his feet.
“Tim?” Dick breathes. He’s alive. God, he’s alive, and he’s—
Dick doesn’t let go of the pan, looking at the man. He’s staring at the knife with wide eyes.
“Give me that,” he hisses, snatching his hand up to wrench the knife from Tim’s hand. His brother lets it happen, fingers sagging open. His eyes glaze.
Who the hell does he think he is, ordering Tim around like that? “Tim, who is this?”
Tim’s voice is hollow. “Tyler Anderson, my bodyguard.”
“Your what?” Dick nearly drops the pan. What bodyguard? What does he mean bodyguard? Since when does Tim Drake need a bodyguard? Is this about the ransom? If he felt that unsafe, why didn’t he say something to Dick? To Bruce? They would have stepped in, they could have fixed this. Why go to a stranger? Who is this? Where did he come from? Why did Tim take him to his nest? It's one of the most secured buildings in Gotham.
“Which you clearly need,” the stranger insists, bodily shoving Tim a step. He stumbles and Dick’s stomach tightens at the manhandling. “If your brother’s greeting is a knife to the face. What the hell, man?”
So he doesn’t know about nightlife.
Dick drops the frying pan. He crosses the distance between them and pulls Tim around the shoulders, yanking him into a hug, squeezing so tight he feels the breath wheeze out of Tim. He can feel the press of Tim’s shoulder blades against his forearms, the lean muscle underneath.
Tim only hesitates a moment before he hugs him back, scraping his nails roughly against Dick’s shirt, burying his face into Dick’s neck. His breath hitches faintly.
“Christ, Timmy,” Dick closes his own eyes, pulling him closer, wishing he could engage Tim in his ribs. He pulls back, to look Tim over, the grime on his pants, his dry lips, the rings of bruises under his eyes. “You scared the shit out of me.”
Is still scaring the shit out of him.
He hears Steph making her way toward them, footsteps fast. The man—Tyler Anderson, looks up at her approach as well. He runs his tongue over his teeth, rocking back and forth on his heels, like a restless toddler.
There’s a gun on his belt. His shoes aren’t up to Wayne Ind. dress code, and the smell of cigarettes clings to him even indoors. A flash of dogtags under his jacket, but Dick can’t make out what’s on them. He doesn’t look like military. He’s got the build for it, sure, but there’s no discipline in his step.
“I’m sorry,” Tim sounds like he’s nauseous. “I know I should have gone radio silent, but I was busy.”
He was—
“Busy.” Dick pulls back finally, gripping him by the shoulders. What does he mean busy? Busy enough to ignore Bruce, busy enough to hang up on Damian and Steph and ignore all of them? Busy enough that the only person he could apparently talk to or bother to check in with is a stranger who is, without any subtly whatsoever, eyeing Dick suggestively.
There’s blood dribbling out of Tim’s nose. Dick lifts a finger to it, dabbing his thumb. He frowns. “Your nose is bleeding.” Frustration leaks out of his voice, he can’t keep it, not with the state that Tim is in. “You look terrible. Have you slept? Where have you been? Dami is—Jay and Bruce are a mess, and no one could find you, then you hung up on Damian, and—”
Tim looks overwhelmed at the sudden rush of questions. His eyes flick back to Anderson.
Steph joins them, her shoes skidding on Tim’s clean floors, eyes gone wide. Dick turns to look at her as well, pulling back so she can see Tim is…
Not unharmed. He looks awful. He looks like he could fall over at any second, like he’s not sleeping again, and Steph notices. There’s alarm in her voice.
“Tim?” Steph says, relieved. She slumps with relief, her voice raising. “We thought you were dead.”
They didn’t. No, they did. Bruce thought he OD’d. Dick had been expecting to find something like Roy—
He’s not thinking about it.
Tim’s reaction is delayed by more than a second. He looks up at her like he didn’t hear her coming, or didn’t know she was in the apartment. Dick surreptitisouly checks his pulse, fingertips against the inside of his wrist.
His skin is so, so warm to the touch. He’s wearing a lot of clothes for the weather, but even still.
Dick moves back as Steph moves forward, glancing the bodyguard up and down. Anderson returns his gaze easily, offering a disarming smile. He’s exactly the kind of guy Dick would expect to pick out as a bodyguard for civilian cover. Hapless and a little undertrained, tall, gorgeous.
Blond.
Steph moves, pulling Tim into a hug, and Tim meets her. “I’m sorry,” Tim can’t seem to stop saying it, he’s unsteady on his feet, “I lost my phone.”
He what? When? That would explain the lack of answers, and the ignored check-in. But this is also Tim, who didn’t think to use a computer once in the last twenty-four hours? He knows better.
Steph doesn’t have the patience to put up with the obvious lie, and Dick doesn’t blame her. They’ve all been scared shitless all day about everyone, this is the last straw. “You lost your phone?” She looks at Anderson, and then seems to change her mind abruptly about yelling at Tim in favor of pushing at him a little. “Who the fuck is this? Who the fuck are you? What are you doing here?”
Finally, Dick gives into the urge to check Tim’s temperature, pressing the back of his hand against Tim’s forehead. He frowns deeply, chewing hard on the inside of his cheek.“That’s his bodyguard.”
Fuck.
“His bodyguard?” Steph repeats, somehow managing to sound like she’s never heard the word before. Then, to Tim, “Your bodyguard?”
“The one and only,” Anderson says it with a flourish that’s incongruous with the rest of him, delicate and bourgeois, his smile wouldn’t melt butter. Even Steph seems to fluster at it, and the man’s words are somehow even more… congenial. Friendly. Dick doesn’t like it, no one should be a Wayne’s bodyguard and that happy. “Pleased to make your acquaintance, Ms….?”
It does not escape Dick’s notice how Tim goes stiff all over when Anderson speaks.
Steph ignores Anderson. Dick knows that she’s doing it on purpose, she does that with people she doesn’t like, playacts being a dumb blonde and stupid until they leave her alone. She’s too smart to keep the game going for long.
“Do you want to know how I found Damian?” Steph pulls back from Tim, and Dick sees her crack, finally. “After you hung up on him, do you want to know how I found him? What kind of state he was in?”
God, he wishes that he didn’t.
Tim’s eyes are glazed. His lips chapped. He’s sick, some sort of infection, if the hives up and down his arms and swollen lymph nodes are anything to go by. He flinches badly at the rebuke, even though the only thing in Steph’s voice is fear. She’d found Damian, found him, rushed the lifeless body of their little brother cave. She was knee-deep with Alfred in patching them back together by the time Dick got to the cave. He’d half-carried her to the locker room when it was over, and washed the blood off her hands and face while she stared at the ceiling in silence.
Steph had thrown up in the bathroom after, and Dick sat with her alone, because Cass was holding Bruce as he sobbed over Damian’s bedside, even though he was alive, he didn’t look alive, and he still hasn’t regained consciousness.
Last night’s debrief was one of the hardest Dick’s had in a while.
Jason was sitting next to Damian when Dick left, because he had been the one who finally convinced Bruce to get some sleep. He’d barely spoken to Dick, just watching Damian, and the limp, lifeless shell that their little brother is. There’s a tube down his throat.
“Steph, not right now,” Dick says. Bruce will remand him anyway, and do a better job than either of them could. And Tim knows not to go offline, they need to hear his report.
Tim’s voice cracks when he says, staring at Steph with watery eyes, “Is he alive?”
Anderson looks away, biting his lip, gaze on the window. There’s something a little guilty in the moue of his lips. He moves in a little, right up beside Dick, giving him a grimace-smile and a nod. Dick raises an eyebrow at him, a little put-out by the audacity.
He needs to get rid of him, so they can actually talk.
Steph pushes Tim. It nearly sends him crashing to the ground at the sudden imbalance, and Dick’s reprimand is swallowed in Steph’s anger, “No thanks to you! Is he alive? Are you serious? You hung up on him! He’s thirteen, Tim! I know that we all act like he’s older, but he’s still a kid, and you can’t pull the same shit on him that you did with me!”
Jesus, she can’t lay it on him right now. Tim looks as bad as Jason does.
“I know,” Tim wipes the blood from his face, his eyes still aren’t focusing. He’s so pale that he looks bloodless. He’s still swaying, grabs hold of the nearest object to stay upright. It’s Anderson, who’s swooped in like he was expecting it while Steph was talking, and Tim only grazes his fingers over Anderson’s arm before he flinches back from him so hard that it looks like Anderson shocked him.
The same way Steph shocked him, when she came in. And any sudden moves Dick makes either goes right over Tim’s head, or startles him. His reflexes are gone.
Anderson grabs Tim by the waist and hauls him upright, settling him. “Hey,” his voice is sharp and it isn’t amused, his eyes on Steph, unmistakably chastising, like she’s a stupid child, “it’s been a long few days. Cut the kid some slack.”
Tim’s voice changes. The tremble in it falls away. Maybe because it looks like Steph is about to shove Anderson against the far wall and pin him there with Dick’s kitchen knife. Dick stares at where the man’s hand has settled on Tim’s hip.
Oh, fuck no.
“Tyler,” Tim says, testy, the edge of Tim’s very typical snideness finally coming back. His face is only flushing more though, and Dick eases forward, about to pull Tim away from the man forcefully. But Tim says, “You can go now,” and Anderson lets go of him.
Dick cups Tim’s face with his hands, letting his brother wrap an arm around his shoulders. Fuck, he’s trembling everywhere. Shivering. Dick pulls back his upper lip—pale and dry but not blue—and checking his pupils—equal and reactive.
“I’ll be fine at home.” Tim is measuring his syllables.
Anderson’s eyebrows only climb higher. His hand sets on his gun, and Dick tenses. “Right.” Dry and arid, annoyed. He glances once at Dick then says, “Tell me if you need something.”
Tim shifts against Dick, and his throat works, but he starts talking, like it’s some sort of compulsion, “Water. Sleep. I need to eat something. And my meds. And I—” Tim bites off the words, swallowing them, and glances at Dick’s face. He’s humiliated.
Tell me if you need something.
Dick feels his eyes narrow on Anderson, who’s staring at Tim with shock. His stomach sinks at the memory of Damian just doing whatever they said, no matter who was talking to who, strung out and listless, a little like this.
Damian is so much smaller than Tim, though.
Dick can’t see any recognition on Anderson’s face, like this is a normal thing for Tim to be doing, just following orders. He might not know, then. When Dick texted him about where Tim might be, Kon told him Tim was working on a case—so either Kon was lying for Tim, or Tim was lying to Kon.
Or Tim hasn’t registered an open case. And he’s trying to slip one past Bruce for some reason. Does Anderson have something to do with that?
“Stephanie,” Dick uses her full name on purpose, so she’ll look at him and know that he’s serious, “Get me some water. Tim, when was the last time you took your azithro?”
Tim looks at him like he’s not speaking English. Like he’s not on this planet. He’s so zoned out. He’s so—
Dick thinks about Anderson’s hand on Tim’s hip, possessive for no fucking reason, suggestive in a way it shouldn’t be with his seventeen-year-old brother. “You can see yourself out,” Dick adjusts his grip on Tim, puts his arm on Tim’s shoulders. He has to make himself say it. “Thanks.”
He doesn’t know why he doesn’t like him, only that he does. Anderson is trying too hard.
Anderson gives a two-fingered salute, again with that perfect, movie-screen smile. He nods to Steph, and then Dick and Tim, says, dutifully, “You’ll see me tomorrow, bright and early.”
Steph scoffs, flipping her hair as she goes back into the kitchen.
Tim’s shoulders drop. He meets Anderson’s eyes and stares at him like he’s the center of the universe, the only thing alive in this room with him. “Yeah, okay.”
Anderson’s smile turns awkward, head bobbing as he nods, slipping out of the apartment again. Dick feels himself relax a fraction, just that, and in his arms, Tim starts tensing. His next breath is gasped in, and he starts hyperventilating a second later, shaking everywhere, like he’s coming apart at the seems, and the sound of the door was his cue.
Dick isn’t surprised. He knows Tim, knows what he looks like when he’s straddling a brink. He’s not surprised, he can just feel dread winding up in him, curling his stomach.
Steph shares a look with Dick over Tim’s head. Her expression softens and she leaves the two of them alone to get Tim a glass of water. Tim just shakes in his arms, his eyes going in and out of focus, struggling to breathe.
“What’s wrong with him?” Steph’s voice is low as Dick takes the water from her and presses it into Tim’s hands. He doesn’t let go of it, he thinks Tim will drop it if he tries.
Tim’s legs buckle, his feet skidding on the tile, and Dick curses under his breath, bending his knees to lower them to the ground, careful not to spill the water. His eyes have glazed over, Dick’s not sure that he’s hearing anything they’re saying. “He’s burning up,” Dick says, glancing up at Steph. “Get me some tylenol, and a thermometer.”
Tim makes a noise, faint and pained, drinking quickly, like he hasn’t in days. Dick rubs a hand up and down his back, staring at his little brother, cushioning his cheek on Tim’s forehead.
He smells like stomach bile and gun powder, sweat, drenched all the way through. He smells like Anderson, a lot like Anderson. Dick doesn’t recognize the jacket he’s wearing, he thought, at first, it was Kon’s. It’s Kon’s style, but it’s dwarfing Tim in a way that even Kon’s clothes don’t usually.
The hand on Tim’s hip. Endo symptoms. Bruce’s haunted eyes, as he gave the post-ransom report to Dick, Barbara, and Cass. Tim may have suffered sexual violence at the hands of his captor, it was alluded to in the ransom call.
Dick tries not to tense. Doesn’t let his voice go as tight as he wants to. “What happened, baby bird?”
“I was just—” Tim’s words slur, and then he stops abruptly and changes mid-sentence, “it’s nothing. I was just caught up in work. I’m just tired.” He gestures at himself mindlessly, “this is just because I haven’t eaten recently. I’m sorry.”
Liar. A bad liar, too, but that’s pretty typical for Timmy. Dick squeezes his shoulder. Steph comes back with the tylenol, crouching in front of Tim to point it at his head, tossing the bottle to Dick.
He does tense, a beat later, when she leans over and shows him the readout.
“Tim,” Dick says calmly, quietly. He puts the tylenol back down, starts gathering up Tim’s limbs. Tim still is just… blinking, moving slowly, like he’s going through molasses. His jacket shifts, the zipper sliding down a little, and Dick catches the edge of a stain. He forces himself to take a deep breath. “We need to go to the hospital. Your fever is 104.6.”
“Oh,” Tim’s voice is very faint.
Dick lifts him, grunting a little as he adjusts to the weight and tries to keep Tim from slipping. Tim’s head tips back, his eyes fluttering. It’s only once they’re off the ground that Tim seems to come back to himself, and his voice is distinctly and loudly panicked as he says, “wait, no.”
“Stephie,” Dick says, trying to keep the alarm out of his voice. She’s chewing on her bracelet, wrist up to her mouth. “Get some ice packs, the first aid kit, and some IV metamizol. And grab some more water, and one of the blankets off the couch. We’re going to—”
“Dick,” Tim’s fingers are like claws, he rakes his nails on Dick’s chest for his attention, “Dick, I can’t,” his voice clearer than it’s been since Anderson left, but his words are running over each other from how fast he’s talking, desperate and scared. “I’m okay, I’m fine. I just need to sleep, this is. It was hot outside, and my temperature is hotter, so you really need to put me down. Where’s Tyler? You need to get Tyler, I have to talk to him.”
Anderson?
What the fuck does Anderson have to do with this?
Dick keeps moving for the door. “Call Bruce,” he says over his shoulder, as Steph gathers the equipment, “Tell him we’re going to Gotham General, ask him or Alfred to bring Tim’s medical folder.”
Shit. Shit. Shit.
They just got Bruce to sleep. How many more of them have to be hurt, what the fuck happened to Tim in the last thirty-six hours.
“Dick!” Tim is yelling now, a little hysterical, writhing in Dick’s hold. It’s weaker than it should be, but Dick still has to work to keep them both upright. Tim hits him in the chest, hard enough that the breath is knocked out of Dick a little, but he ignores it. “Stop! Stop!”
“Hey, hey, I know everything is confusing right now, but we’re going to take care of you,” Dick says, soothingly. His fever’s so high he’s probably not thinking straight. He’s half a degree from brain damage. “I just need you to trust me. I’ve got you. Stay with me, you’re going to be okay, just—”
Tim’s entire body locks up against him, his eyes rolling up in his skull, and he jerks violently in Dick’s arms. He doesn’t stop shaking, the tremors get worse.
“Shit!” Dick yells, crashing to one knee as Tim starts convulsing. A full on tonic-clonic seizure. The doorway catches Dick’s shoulder as he lays his brother out on the ground so he doesn’t hurt himself if Dick drops him. He moves automatically, unzipping Tim’s jacket, moving his hands to cup the back of Tim’s head so it doesn’t hit the ground as hard. “Steph!” Dick yells, “Call a fucking ambulance, he’s having a seizure.”
“What?” Steph shouts, she sounds terrified. Dick can’t think about it right now. He rolls Tim to his left side, keeps his hands on his hip to try and steady him, glances up at the clock, 10:22:17.
Steph’s voice is closer. “Shit. Shit.” Dick watches her dig out her phone, “Oh shit. Shit.”
“Calm down,” Dick says, evenly, blowing out a hard breath when Tim’s limbs stop twitching, and his lashes flutter, mouth working. He reaches out and opens Tim’s mouth, checking his airways. He’s breathing fine, but there’s blood seeping from his nose. “Get EMS on the phone.”
“I just—” Steph lifts up her phone, “I’m sorry. I’m working on it.”
“You’re okay,” Dick kneels next to Tim’s head. “He’s going to be okay. He’s breathing alright. Do you know where he keeps Valtoco?”
Steph makes a gesture at him, moving deeper into the apartment, phone cushioned between her ear. “Hi, yes, my friend is having a medical emergency,” Steph says, her voice suddenly much, much calmer and even, what Dick would expect from her in the field, even if she’s still pale. “Yes. He’s seventeen, his brother is with me, he just had a seizure. His fever is 104.7. Tim Drake. My name is Stephanie.”
Dick rubs over Tim’s cheek, smoothing his hair out of his face. “Tim, buddy, can you hear me?” Dick asks. Tim’s eyes are rolling, he’s not present. Postictal. “You’re okay. You just had a seizure. It’s Dick. We’re at your apartment right now. Can you hear me, Tim?”
Tim’s eyes slowly, slowly focus. When they find Dick, his back arches sharply and his eyes roll back again, and then he’s gone, the convulsions are worse this time, sharper, shorter motions, like he’s going to rattle apart.
“Fuck. Fuck,” Dick shakes his head, sharply, resisting the urge to get up. He checks the time. “Steph, the Valtoco, please, now.”
“Geting,” Steph reports and moves for the kitchen, phone still jammed to her ear. “Dick, should I tell them to meet us upstairs or are we trying to transport him?”
Dick bites his lip, cupping his brother’s neck, feeling all of Tim’s powerful muscles contract under his hands. “Upstairs,” he calls back.
“Upstairs, please,” Steph reports. She grabs Tim’s first-aid kit and moves back to him, unlatching it one-handed and digging out the nasal spray, crashing down to her knees to do it, spilling contents across the hardwood. “EMS says they’re ten minutes out.”
“Wait, wait,” Dick watches the seconds tick by. “Let him come out of it first.”
“What if he doesn’t?” Steph’s voice is thick. She’s staring at Tim’s bloody nose.
But Tim does come out of it, less than ten seconds later, his whole body easing. His eyes don’t open this time, but his lips part, drawing in rasping, unsteady breaths.
“Okay, now,” Dick says. Steph doses him, one spray in the left nostrils and the second in the right. Tim’s body relaxes, slowly, the hitched, pained quality in his breath evening out.
“You got a pen?” Dick asks, but Steph’s already got one out, writing the time on the back of the Valtoco bottle.
Dick finishes unzipping Tim’s jacket, pulling him back into the apartment and out of the doorway, moving to get Tim out of it. He stops short at the sight of blood, brown and dried, all over his shirt.
“What the fuck?” Steph breathes, staring. “What the fuck?”
How the hell did he miss this?
Dick pulls up Tim’s shirt, “Shears, Steph,” he barks, without really meaning to, probing at Tim’s abdomen, going back up to his neck and feeling along the skin for open wounds. Tim moans under his touch, but doesn’t wake.
Steph puts the bottle down. “Getting,” she says again, and rifles through the first aid kit until she finds a pair, handing it over to him handle first.
Dick takes it, starting from the top of Tim’s shirt and cutting down the left side, then the right, and peels it off. There’s a wad of duct tape on Tim’s right arm, the skin is irritated from the glue, it’s been bent and crinkled from use.
Steph takes that arm, while Dick goes further down on his trauma assessment, cutting through Tim’s khakis, leaving his underwear but pulling it back to check.
“It’s a blood draw, Dick,” Steph says. “A shitty one. Maybe he did it on himself. Not an injection. The bruising has already started, it’s at least two or three hours old.”
“Good,” Dick says. “Go downstairs and direct EMS, I can hear the sirens. See if you can get Bruce or Alfred on the phone.”
“I’m gonna call Jason,” Steph says, “he was up, wasn’t he? Or Cass. They can find Bruce.”
“Cass.” Jason’s on too many pain meds, he shouldn’t be moving at all. Dick starts taking Tim’s peripheral pulses, and checking for fractures.
“Okay.” Steph brushes her hair behind her ears. She looks at Tim again, her expression getting tight before she moves for the stairs, putting her phone to her ear. He hears her phone dialing.
Tim stays limp under him. He should be regaining consciousness by now. He should have already regained consciousness, Volstaco isn’t a sedative, it’s a benzo. He should be drowsy. He wouldn’t be gone like this unless it's an overdose.
Blood draw. What was Tim doing with the blood?
“Timmy,” Dick shakes him, no response. “Tim, Tim. Robin.”
He clenches a fist, rubbing down Tim’s sternum with his knuckles, and the boy gasps, jerking a little, eyes fluttering open and finally staying there. His mouth his parted, blood from his nose staining his lips and dripping inside, and he just stares at Dick, inhaling for a long time, visibly listing as he tries to lift his head.
“Tim,” Dick says again, but there’s no recognition in his eyes. His gaze slides over him, expression slack, eyelids drooping.
It’s postictal, Dick tells himself, over and over, it’s just postictal, it will stop in a few minutes. The important thing is that he’s awake. Dick keeps his hands on Tim’s shoulder and his hip, applying grounding pressure. Come back to me, kid.
A beat, long. Tim’s nose bleed starts up, and his face screws tight with pain. “Dick,” he whimpers, hands twitching at his sides. Dick cups his face, tilting his head up.
“I’m here,” Dick says. “I’m here, baby, do you know where you are?”
“You’ve…” Tim slurs it badly, putting an s at the end, “Tyler—”
His eyes roll up, and Dick can’t help the alarmed shout when Tim starts seizing again.
It isn’t the last one.
EMS isn’t any happier about Tim than Dick is. They’re talking fast in the ambulance as Tim seizes on the cot between them all, measuring with watches, passing medications. Nothing is working. Any time they get Tim into postictal, the moment that he regains the slightest fraction of awareness he’s gone again.
It’s freaking Dick the fuck out. He can’t stop his leg from jumping anxiously, and it’s not helping. He squeezes at his bracelet until he can’t feel his fingers.
Steph had to stay behind. Dick could feel her resentment at it, but he doesn’t think he could leave Tim right now if he tried. And Tim is a minor, Dick’s minor, he has power of attorney.
The paramedics have questions for Dick—mostly about Tim’s history of seizures, and why did you have Voltoco if he’s not prescribed it?— Dick tolerates it as best he can, holding Tim’s hand the whole ride to the hospital.
“Shouldn’t you sedate him?” Dick asks, unable to stop his frustration.
“He’s having seizure clusters,” the paramedic tells him. Her name is Angela or something. She’s too calm and it’s making Dick want to shake her. “He’s headed toward status epileptic, we let the neuro docs decide that.”
“He can’t seize if he’s unconscious,” Dick says, testily. Bruce would have called it by now. The fever, all that electricity in his brain. Tim’s skull is going to fry if they’re not careful.
“He needs long-term sedation if none of the anti convulsants are working, we can’t start that here,” Angela tells him, “the best thing we can do is try to manage it. I know it’s scary, but we will do everything we can for your brother.”
In his pocket, Dick’s phone starts to ring. He nods, dismissively at Angela, turning his shoulder for privacy as he pulls the device from his pocket and swipes up.
“Dick,” Bruce’s voice is so raspy Dick almost apologizes. He doesn’t sound awake. He shouldn’t be. “Report.”
“He’s had four seizures since 10:22,” Dick says, hunching forward, elbows on his knees. “Medication-resistant. Nosebleeds, fever, evidence pointing to a systemic infection. His pulse is all over the place, and Gotham EMS got a low BP. I need a full background check on Tyler Anderson. Works at Wayne Ind.”
“I’ll ask Barbara. Stephanie said that she found evidence of a blood withdraw.”
“I don’t know from what,” Dick says, it’s impossible to keep the frustration out of his voice. “It looks self-administered. Kon said he was working. Bruce. Bruce, can you come to the hospital?”
“I’ll be there,” Bruce promises, sounding tired, but no less worried. He’s panicking a little, too, even if it’s not in his voice.
Dick swallows. Glances at Tim, slack and limp for now. He’s being over oxygenated, and they’ve already got IV fluids in him. “He’s showing signs of Endo toxicity, B.”
Bruce is quiet for a long moment. Too long. “Okay,” he says. “Do you think that’s what’s going on?”
“I don’t know,” Dick repeats, even though he needs to stop saying that, because it’s not helping anything. But Bruce insists that it’s just as much of an answer as anything else is. Admitting you don’t know means you have a place to point your questions.
“The hospital won’t dose him, if it is that,” Dick says. “Once the tox screens come back, we’ll know. Can you bring a sample when you come? Just in case.”
Angela drops the tablet she’s holding, rearing back, staring at Dick like he’s grown a second head. He guesses not a lot of her transports make illicit drug transactions in full-volume in front of her.
“I’ll take a sample of Damian’s blood for comparison," Bruce says, “I have his medical folder. Do we know if he took his medication today? The ER will need to know.”
“I don’t. He said he needed it, earlier, but he’s near brain damage territory, I don’t know how much of that we can rely on.”
Bruce is quiet for a moment, waiting for Dick to say something. He doesn’t. Bruce asks, his voice dropping. “Are you okay?”
“I’m fine,” Dick says it too harshly, maybe, but he doesn’t have the patience to peel apart how he’s feeling right now. “I’m sorry, for,” he wipes a hand over his face, not unsurprised to feel tears. “I wanted him to be okay.”
“...he’s with you now,” Bruce says. Like that’s ever mattered before. The world seems desperate to chew Tim up and spit him back out in pieces. “I’ll be there soon. He’ll be okay.”
Dick bites back the very bitter yeah sure that wants to escape him, because he’s not sixteen anymore. “Okay,” he says instead. “Can you call Kon for me? He was worried about Tim.” Enough to ask Dick what was going on with Tim, because Tim was upset enough to call for Kon.
“I’ll let him know. Keep me posted.”
“Wilco,” Dick agrees. “See you.”
Tim’s hand squeezes his faintly. His eyes are open, he’s staring at the ceiling of the ambulance without seeming to see it at all. “Di…” his voice breaks off. Seizure number five is no less terrifying than the first one. Two minutes. The longest out of all of them, and Dick tries not to lose what remains of his composure.
The doctors take Tim into the ICU almost before the ambulance docks. It’s terrifying, a set of doctors and nurses climb up into the rig to unload him, talking over each other. Dick tries to follow them into the hospital wing, but a nurse puts his hand against Dick’s chest, pushes him back firmly.
“I’m sorry, Mr. Wayne,” he says. “You’ll have to wait for your brother out here.”
“But I—”
“We’ll let you know as soon as we know anything, the front desk will have paperwork for you to fill out so we can help him better.”
The paramedics are allowed to follow in, because they have medical information Dick doesn’t. He tries not to be irritated and fails, because in the place of the irritation is just the panic attack that he’s been trying to avoid rising to the surface of his skin.