Chapter Text
Tim was getting really sick and tired of all these chemists running around Gotham with their stupid toxins. At first, it was just Scarecrow, then Ivy started with her pollen and now it seemed like every week there was some new random guy with some random toxin that did nothing but make specifically the Bats’ lives harder.
Just today it happened again, this time to him. It was supposed to be a drug lab he, Nightwing, and Red Hood were busting. It was supposed to be a normal lab with normal drugs like heroin and normal crooks who were apparently an endless supply in Gotham.
Instead, there were barely any people inside, three to be exact, and Tim still managed to get hit with a syringe from the lead scientist, who refused to answer any questions about the effect of the contents but kept asking for a report of how well it worked while getting stuffed into a police car by Gordon, who was less than amused.
As soon as they were arrested the three vigilantes returned to the cave. They normally would’ve gone back sooner when one of them was hit with an unknown toxin, but Tim was fine. He didn’t feel any effects whatsoever.
In the cave B quickly drew blood from Tim’s arm, asked for symptoms, and disappeared to analyze the blood and a sample Jason had taken from the lab.
B told them not to leave him out of his sight, meaning his brothers bullied him into the medbay in case he suddenly started feeling any effects. The only effect Tim felt was a weird feeling of lightness in his chest, but that could also be attributed to his bruised ribs no longer being tightly hugged by his skintight suit.
Dick stared at him as if he was about to drop dead, while Jason had not stopped complaining about Tim being too careless since they left the crime scene. He only stopped his rantings once Tim sat in the medbay and he could finally light up a cigarette, sighing a breath of smoke out with relief.
“I don’t think you’re allowed to smoke in the cave,” Tim commented, which promptly earned him a cloud of smoke to the face. “Ew.” Tim made a face.
Jason rolled his eyes. “God, Replacement, you really gotta get laid or something to get that stick out of your ass.”
“Jason, give him a break,” Dick chastised him, though he didn’t look mad, just a little worried.
“What?” Jason defended himself, “We’re all thinking it.”
“I’m not,” Dick grumbled.
“Ra’s is,” Tim added nonchalantly, only to freeze when his own words registered. Why did he say that? What was he thinking?
“What?” Jason asked eyebrows furrowed slightly.
Tim looked up, confusion on his face. Why the fuck did he say that? Why did he-
“Tim, what are you talking about?” Dick asked, confusion lacing his voice.
Tim planned on changing topics, diverting their attention, pretending he wasn’t thinking clearly and just not making sense. But instead, as soon as his mouth opened, that wasn’t what came out.
“I’m talking about Ra’s’ obsession with me giving him an heir,” he said in a neutral tone and immediately froze up again. What the fuck.
“What.”
“What the fuck.”
His brothers stared at him with wide eyes, a similarly murderous look on both of their faces.
Tim pressed his lips together. Why the fuck couldn’t he control his own words? What was going on?
“Tim, talk, now,” Jason ordered. “What the fuck do you mean, Ra’s wants you to give him an heir?”
“Well, that’s pretty much it. He is like, obsessed with me and when I declined to be his heir he instead sent his daughter to get an heir from me,” Tim said, unable to keep his mouth shut despite his best efforts.
His brothers were silent for a few seconds. Dick’s hand hovered over Tim’s shoulder, unsure if he should touch Tim. He finally pulled his hand away and instead moved to stand in front of Tim. “Tim, what happened?”
Tim clenched his jaw. He refused to answer, he didn’t know what was happening but he wasn’t going to tell them any more than this, it was none of their business-
A soothing feeling spread in his chest. Why shouldn’t they know? It wasn’t like Tim really did anything wrong, it wasn’t his fault. There was no reason he couldn’t just…
“When Bruce was in the timestream I needed help finding him, and Ra’s was the only one offering.” He blinked a few times, feeling a little dizzy. “I think he wanted to groom me into becoming his heir but instead I blew up his base and rejected him. So he sent the Daughter of Acheron to get an heir from me. She kidnapped me in Paris and tied me up, but Cass saved me before she finished taking my suit off. So, nothing happened, crisis averted.”
His muscles relaxed the more he talked. This was good, he could trust them. It felt good to talk to them; his sorrows were just getting swept away from his mind.
“That’s not-“ Jason started, his cigarette dropping to the floor, forgotten. Dick absentmindedly pressed his foot onto it and twisted, leaving a black mark on the floor. “Tim, are you okay?”
Tim frowned. “Like, physically? I told you Cass intervened before anything happened.”
Dick sat down on the bed next to him. “Tim, what happened to you… You do realize that it is okay if you… If you struggle to cope and I’m sorry that… That we made you feel you couldn’t tell us this.” His comforting voice felt like drinking water after wandering through a desert for hours, and Tim knew what that felt like. He smiled.
“Don’t worry, Dick. Nothing happened. I mean, I still sometimes have nightmares, but who in our line of work doesn’t?”
Dick smiled sadly and looked at his hands. “Yeah.”
In Dick’s peripheral vision, he saw Jason’s legs tense up, and looked up at Jason, whose frown had gone from worried to confused and irritated.
“We are definitely not done talking about that, but did I hear you right? You were working with the League of Assassins to get B back?” he asked, his usual teal eyes letting a little bit of green bleed into them.
Tim frowned lightly, confusion blooming in his chest. Why didn’t he tell them again? There had to have been a reason… One Tim couldn’t really recall right now. “What, did you think I spent those six months away just breaking into art museums and visiting archeological sites?”
Dick shrugged helplessly. “I knew there was a little more to it, considering Ra’s al Ghul followed you to Gotham and tried to kill a bunch of people, but generally yes!”
“Well, that’s just dumb. You must’ve seen I hardly ever spent money after the first month.”
Jason’s eye twitched. “Are you telling me you spent five months with the League of Assassins and nobody knows about it?”
Tim ducked his head and drew his shoulders up. “Pru does,” he protested weakly.
“Pru?”
“Prudence Wood, she used to work for Ra’s but defected with me when I blew up the League.”
The words were now flowing easier from Tim’s chest as he stopped trying to fight them. All of this was in the past, why didn’t Tim tell them sooner? What harm could possibly come from this?
Jason and Dick meanwhile stared at Tim in horror and disbelief.
“There is so much to unpack there,” Jason muttered. “She defected with you? So you really were part of the League, not just staying with them?” Tim nodded. “Okay, I- Okay. But what do you mean you blew up the League?”
Tim shrugged. “Ra’s and I made a deal, I take down the Council of Spiders and he helps me find evidence that Bruce is alive. Besides, I owed him, so I kinda had to work for him, but I wasn’t planning on being loyal or anything. So when Ra’s let me lead the League I hacked into their network and made a shortcut that would let me blow up all League Servers so they’d lose all of the information they have. After I fought the Council I activated that shortcut and blew up all of Ra’s bases.”
“You-“ Dick stopped.
“What. the. fuck.”
Tim squirmed under their gazes. “What?”
Jason and Dick stared. Tim squirmed.
Jason turned around, looking up at the ceiling of the cave, and silently willed for patience. Dick glanced at him before turning back to Tim.
“How are you alive?” he muttered, seemingly speaking more to himself than actually asking, but Tim replied nonetheless.
“Oh, I almost wasn’t.” Jason swirled back around. “Yeah, an entire group of assassins coming after you leaves its marks, but you don’t have to worry that much. I was only really critically injured once.”
“That’s one time too many, what the fuck” Jason growled.
Tim shrugged, seemingly completely unaware of his brother‘s emotions. Dick squinted. Setting every concerning thing Tim just told them aside (because what the fuck), Tim was acting weird. He seemed too open and chipper, completely unaware of how his words were affecting them, which was extremely out of character for him.
“Tim, are you feeling okay?” he asked hesitantly.
Tim tilted his head. “I should be good as long as that needle was properly sterile.”
“I doubt it,” Jason commented dryly, though his eyes betrayed that he was only half listening to them, half still processing.
Tim made a face. “Yeah, I should probably increase my meds for the next few days.”
Dick and Jason paused at the same time, trying to remember any medication Tim was on.
“What meds?” Jason broke first, already dreading the answer.
“My antibiotics.”
Dick buried his head in his hands.
“Why are you on antibiotics?” he asked his voice flat with exhaustion and fear to even ask.
“Oh, you know how I said I was only critically injured once? Yeah, I was stabbed in the spleen and it had to be taken out, so now my immune system is a little damaged.”
Dick refused to raise his head from his hands. What the fuck. How had they missed all of this?
Jason didn’t seem to be doing much better as he tugged Tim’s suit off his shoulders. Dick peeked through his fingers and caught sight of a scar he had never seen before. He hid his eyes behind his fingers again. What the fuck.
Tim seemed unaware of what they were doing and saw Jason’s actions as a suggestion to change into civilian clothes, which he did while humming a cheery tune (what the fuck) until he sat back down, now dressed in black sweatpants and a way too big shirt, it probably belonged to either Jason or B.
Jason and Dick exchanged a glance, unsure how to proceed, but the choice was taken from them when steps approached.
“Good news,” Bruce appeared in the doorway, unaware of the tension in the room. “I found out what Tim was injected with. It’s harmless, from what I can see it just lowers someone’s inhibitions, so they act without really thinking and just doing what they want.”
He was still looking at a datapad. “Tim, do you by any chance have a sudden feeling of hunger?”
Tim tilted his head. “Yeah, I could go for a bite!”
Bruce looked up and smiled lightly at him. “Good, Alfred said he’d leave something out for us, wanna go ahead and eat?”
Tim nodded eagerly and scampered up the stairs. “And don’t leave the manor before we do another blood test, Tim! It should be out of your system by tomorrow but we’ll check to make sure.”
Tim made an affirming noise and disappeared into the manor. Bruce clicked away on the datapad in his hand, slowly walking back to the Batcomputer.
A look of horror crossed Dick’s face. “Any chance this was intended to be used for interrogation?” The brothers followed Bruce into the main part of the cave. “Like lowering someone’s inhibitions to loosen their tongue and make them not care what they’re saying.”
Bruce’s eyebrows creased slightly. “That’s a good theory.”
Dick and Jason exchanged a glance. “So, this could be seen as some kind of truth serum?”
Bruce’s frown deepened and turned worried. “I guess so.” He finally looked up at his boys and smiled. “Good thing you got him to safety before someone could ask him the wrong questions.”
He left without looking back, leaving the two brothers behind in shocked silence.
After several minutes Jason quietly said, “I’m wiping the security cameras.”
Dick nodded, still trying to process everything that he learned in the last 20 minutes. He followed Jason to the Batcomputer and watched as he made a copy of the file onto a USB stick and pocketed it before doing his best to wipe the footage from existence. Babs would probably still be able to find it, but they’d let Tim know once he was back to normal and the video would probably disappear into the depth of obscurity because Tim was thorough like that.
“We’ll have to talk to him about this, don’t we?” Jason asked after a few minutes of silent working.
Dick nodded. “It wasn’t fair for him that he was forced to tell us, so we won’t confront him about it again today, but once he is back to normal… Yeah, we can’t ignore the things he told us.”
“We’re not telling B unless Tim allows it or we think it’s absolutely necessary,” Jason added. It wasn’t a question or even a demand, it was a statement. Dick nodded.
“We’ll have to tell him about the spleen and update Ra’s file that he may take special interest in Tim, but otherwise it’s up to Tim. We aren’t even supposed to know.”
Jason nodded slowly as he scanned for anything he may have missed that would alert someone that footage had been altered, but didn’t find anything and backed away from the Batcomputer. “By the way, I heard Nanda Parbat is quite lovely this time of the year. Any chance you’ll join me on a visit to an old friend?”
Dick’s expression darkened with something that made Jason’s spine prickle. Jason may be the one who had no issues killing people, but Dickhad always been the one people really shouldn’t ever piss off. Dick had come a long way with his bad temper, but if you hurt the people he cared about… Yeah, Jason was glad Dick still saw him as a brother after Titans Tower.
“I think I’d enjoy getting out of Gotham for a few days,” he agreed, voice heavy with the promise of vengeance.