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Tim lays in his bed, curled up under the heaviest blanket he can find— some old fleece thing, itchy side up to avoid touching his skin— and lets his thumbnail scratch against the pads of his other fingers. Alternating between gentle and rough while he stares at them. His eyes feel unfocused, something about his vision feels wrong, and the noise of everything at once would be almost unbearable if he hadn't stolen a pair of ear muffs from the cave's shooting range.
The sound isn't muted perfectly, but it makes everything feel a lot more tolerable. Less like he wants to tear his ears out or start screaming and more like it's just noise.
No extra feelings attached.
Just noise.
His free hand comes up to tap, tap, tap at the plastic of the ear muffs, shoulders loosing some of their tension at the sound and the feeling against his nails.
He's probably missing dinner. Jason is finally coming around tonight— after months of coercing from Alfred— and Dick is in town for once. It won't just be Tim, Damian, and maybe Bruce.
The thought makes him more anxious than it probably should.
Only a few days ago, he'd been looking forward to it. The thought of Dick Grayson— Tim's hero, older brother or no— and Jason Todd— still terrifying, but so much softer now and still one of the original Robins— eating dinner with him as a family event was a dream come true. Kind of.
(It's complicated.)
Things had started to go wrong some time after lunch, though.
Tim isn't sure what started it— he never really is— but there had just been so many noises all of a sudden. All of them layered on top of each other: the TV, the clicking of Titus' nails against the floor, Damian talking to Alfred (the butler) in the next room over, the thump of Alfred (the cat) jumping from his cat tree to the ground, and the click-click-click of the gas stove turning on. All of it piling on top of each other until Tim thought he might start crying or screaming at the top of his lungs just to get all of it to stop.
(It's happened before. It'll happen again. Tim isn't sure how to stop it, though, or what the problem even is in the first place. Everything just feels like too much all of a sudden, and he's stuck feeling so angry he could hit somebody.)
He ended up running away to hide in his room like a baby. And now he's going to miss dinner.
Probably for the best, he decides as his nails continue to tap, tap, tap against the plastic of the ear muffs. Jason and Damian still don't like him, so the interaction is sure to cause some kind of drama if he shows up, and Dick probably just wants to spend time with Damian.
It's fine.
He jolts upright at the sound of a knock on his door, yanking the ear muffs off and hiding them under his pillow so whoever it is doesn't find them.
Just as he finishes dropping the pillow to cover them, Jason pulls the door open and peeks inside.
"Replacement," the man— teen, really. He's only nineteen to Tim's seventeen— has his hands in his front pockets, hip cocked out to the side and shoulders deceptively lax. Tim can see the underlying tension to them, the way Jason stands like a predator ready to pounce. His eyes track Tim's every movement, lazy and unconcerned with the possibility of Tim running. "You coming down for dinner?"
Dinner. Right.
"Yeah," he coughs, standing up off of the bed and shaking out his arms to try and get rid of the anxious energy he's feeling. He can't quite bring himself to look at Jason, focusing instead on the floor at Jason's feet. "I lost track of time."
There's a long pause, and Tim can feel Jason staring at him for all of it. "Right," Jason agrees. "Sure. Come on, then."
Tim risks a glance up and lets his shoulders slump with relief when he sees Jason already turned around and walking off. He takes just a second to compose himself, giving into the urge to rock up onto his toes and flap his hands out a few times, before he follows after.
"Drake," Damian sneers when they come down. Jason's chair scrapes across the floor when he takes his seat and Tim winces. "Pity you didn't die up there, but I suppose we can't all get what we want."
Tim doesn't bother to answer, taking his own seat and poking at the food somebody set out for him.
Conversation flows easily between everybody else— it seems, at least. He's not entirely keeping up with what everybody says, focused on trying not to start snapping at them— and nobody seems to call him on his odd behavior as he pushes his food around on his plate. He only needs to take one bite of the steak to decide he's not really feeling up for it— wrinkling his nose at the texture of it against his tongue and teeth— and set his fork down.
His knees get pulled up to his chest, head pillowed against his arms on the table. God, this is embarrassing, but they might let him go back up to his room if he acts tired enough.
(And that's all it is. Tired. Normal. Nobody will look at him and think there's a guy who gets so angry at noise he can barely breathe. No, they'll look at him and think he needs a nap.)
"Hey," one voice cuts through the rest of them— Jason again— and everybody else quiets down in response. Tim isn't sure who he's talking to, busy staring at a bump-out on the wall. "Tim."
Tim hums, sitting up and turning his attention to Jason.
Everybody is staring right at him, looking concerned. Even Damian, though the kid tries to hide it with his usual scowl and sneer.
"You good, kid?" Jason asks, voice low.
"Yeah," Tim nods, fighting the urge to rub his thumb over his neck to soothe the anxious itch from talking. "Yeah, I'm alright. Just tired."
"Right."
Bruce stares at his hands on the table in front of him, clasped together so hard that his knuckles turn white, with his mouth set in a grim line. There's worry lines around his eyes, posture still in a way it usually only is as Batman.
"Bruce?" Tim asks.
The man in question sighs, heavy and exhausted, and lets his shoulders slump. "Tim," he starts and then cuts himself off. "Tim. If you're feeling overstimulated, you can—"
"No," Tim doesn't mean to cut him off, but he can't really help it. He feels a jolt go up his spine at idea, forcing his body into a more natural-looking— normal— position. "No, no, no. I'm fine. Why would you say that?"
"You're freakin' out, kid," Jason points out. "You looked dissociated as fuck—"
"Language," Bruce scolds halfheartedly, only sighing when Jason flips him off.
"— and I saw the hearing protection you tried to hide under your pillow. Come on. Just go back to your room and lay down, nobody's judging you."
"I'm not overstimulated—"
"Would there be anything wrong if you were?" Dick cuts in now, leaning forward with an earnest look on his face. "Why do you wanna correct us on it so bad, Tim? What's wrong with being overstimulated?"
Tim freezes, feeling caught with all of their gazes focused so intently on him.
Logically, Tim knows there's nothing really wrong with overstimulation. It's a thing that happens to everybody sometimes, and it's not like he's experiencing it very intensely. But he's never put a name to it before. Never felt like it was okay to name these episodes and make them into a thing— something regular enough to need a name at all, something that needed investigating and doctors and the kinds of attention his parents would have killed him for attracting.
"Nothing," he says after a minute of them staring at him. "I'm just— I'm not. And I don't need to go lay down."
Dick's shoulders slump right along with Bruce's, and Jason lets out a derisive snort but doesn't try and argue with him. Damian, on the other hand, squints at him like he's a puzzle in need of solving. Tim itches again, starting to feel the anger flare up over the exhaustion that had been starting to take its place.
"I might, actually—" he gets up, wincing at the loud scrape his chair makes against the ground. "I'm tired."
And then he walks— walks, doesn't run— off to his room, ignoring the scrambling footsteps behind him until he's safely locked himself inside.
He grabs the ear muffs again, tugging them over his head and then crawling under his bed with the blanket behind him. The comforter on the bed falls over the edge, blocking out the light and leaving Tim in a peaceful sort of darkness and warmth.
He ignores the knocking on the door, letting the ear muffs block it out enough that it doesn't make his heart feel like it's going to jump out of his chest. His eyes start to droop, and he tugs the blanket up over his shoulders to cocoon himself in it.
Tim's tired.
There's nothing wrong with letting himself drift off to sleep now that the noise is gone and his arms no longer feel like they're itching with the need to start breaking the nearest glass object. It's okay if his eyes won't stay open anymore— his room is safe. Safe and his. He can do whatever he wants here. It's okay.
Unfortunately, his plans are disrupted by the comforter on his bed being pulled back. The sudden influx of light under the bed makes him wince, and he can't help the whine that spills from his lips as the heels of his palms press into his eyes.
"Tim?" The voice is low, barely audible with the ear muffs on. Whoever it is— big, either Jason or Bruce based on the size— crawls under the bed with him and lets the comforter fall back down to block the light back out. "Hey, kid. Didn't mean to scare ya, I'm sorry."
Tim lets his hands fell back to his side and looks at Jason. "Hi," he murmurs, moving to pull his ear muffs off. "'s okay."
Jason stops him, though. "Hey, no," he tugs the ear muffs more firmly over Tim's ears, careful to avoid touching him. "You're good, kid. I just wanted to make sure you were alright. You ran off real fast."
"I'm tired," Tim repeats, eyes focused on a point just past Jason's shoulder. "I want to sleep."
"Okay," Jason agrees. "Let's get you on the bed, though. It's not very comfortable down here."
Tim doesn't have the energy to fight as he's— gently, so gently— tugged from under the bed. He can't help but whine again at the light, pressing his face into Jason's chest until he's set down on the bed and can pull the comforter over his eyes.
There's some muffled shuffling and then Jason tugs the blanket away. "Lights are off," he says, like Tim can't tell that just by the way his eyeballs don't feel seared out of his skull when the comforter is removed. "Nobody else is gonna come up here, alright? We'll save some dinner for you."
Tim thinks he nods— really, he does— but it's hard to tell when his eyes start drooping again as soon as Jason's out of the room. He tugs the blanket more securely over his shoulders, readjusts his head so the ear muffs aren't digging into him, and then just lets himself fall asleep to the sound of a quiet room— no lights buzzing, no people talking. There's not even the usual ring of tinnitus to bother him tonight.
Just complete and total silence.