Chapter Text
“Red Robin? What was that?” Dick waits a beat, but Tim doesn’t answer. He’d been right in the middle of speaking when a strange noise had cut him off, and now he’s gone silent. “Red, report.”
There’s only a faint scuffling sound, as if Tim’s comm line has been left open after whatever just happened and is picking up background noise.
“O, give me his location.”
She gives him the nearest cross streets, not too far from him.
“Robin, let’s go.” He says, and Damian is at his side in an instant, albeit with a scowl on his face.
“If we get there and Red Robin has simply dropped his comm, or something equally as foolish…” He grumbles, but there’s a hint of worry in his tone.
“Then it’ll just be a quick detour.” He keeps his tone lighter for Damian’s benefit, but he doesn’t really believe it’ll be something so simple. It never is with this family.
This part of town has narrow alleys and cramped streets, so it’s easy to climb up to a rooftop and run across the tops of the buildings in a straight path rather than navigate the streets and alleys below. They reach the intersection Babs indicated without trouble.
“You stay high, I’ll go low.” He tells Damian, who nods and darts off to sweep the surrounding rooftops. Dick drops into an alley, looking around for Tim or any sign of a struggle. He should be nearby, unless his tracker has been tampered with.
There’s a sense of unease crawling up Dick’s spine as he slips between piles of trash bags waiting for pickup and out onto the street. Something happened, he just knows it.
“Nightwing.” Damian’s voice is sharp over the comm. “I have found…something.”
He sounds perplexed, but not scared or disturbed, so whatever “something” is, it’s probably not a horrifically injured Tim.
“On my way.” He can see Damian on a rooftop, so he makes his way to the foot of the building and scales the old fire escape. Halfway up, something in the shadows catches his eye. In the corner of a landing where the streetlights don’t quite reach, is a familiar-looking boot.
He picks it up. It’s Tim’s. There’s no blood on it, but how had he lost it? Is that what Damian’s found, another piece of Tim’s suit? He leaps up onto the roof to find out, tucking the boot under his arm. Best not to leave Bat gear lying around when possible.
“Robin.” Damian has his back to him, apparently looking at something near the rooftop access door. “What did you find?”
He’s already walking over to see what’s caught his attention, but he stops when he draws close and finds Tim’s suit in a pile on the ground. The gloves and remaining boot are scattered, and sitting in the middle of the pile with the too-big collar hanging off of one shoulder is a child. A little dark haired boy looking up at them with wide blue eyes.
“Red Robin?” Dick tries. The child doesn’t respond to the name, but he does look frightened. Poor little guy. Dick crouches in front of him.
“Hi. I’m Nightwing, and this is Robin. Can you tell us your name?”
“Timofee.” He says quietly, little fingers gripping the cape nervously. He certainly does look like Tim. Dick had met him at around this age, but he doesn’t remember that night at the circus well enough to be certain. He only remembers the fall.
“It’s nice to meet you, Timothy. Can I call you Tim?”
Little Tim nods.
“Thank you. You must be pretty confused right now, huh? Robin and I just need to look around a bit so we can figure out how you got here, then we’ll get you home and into some clothes that’ll fit better. How’s that sound?”
“Okay.”
Dick drops the boot he’d picked up with the other. He picks up the cape and hits the quick release to remove it from the suit collar, draping it over Tim’s shoulders and wrapping it around him.
“That should help for now.” He says, and moves to stand, but Tim reaches a hand out, looking distressed.
“You’re leaving?” He asks.
“No, of course not.” Dick soothes, sinking back down. “I just need to look around a little, that’s all.”
Tim doesn’t seem reassured, so Dick changes tack.
“Do you want to look with me?” He asks, and Tim nods and holds up his arms, waiting to be picked up. It’s adorable. Dick scoops him up and settles him on one hip as he stands, keeping the cape wrapped around him.
“Robin, gather up the rest of the suit for me.” Damian’s been staring at the kid in Dick’s arms, but he huffs and starts to pick things up, wadding everything into a bundle as well as he can. Dick turns to inspect the surrounding rooftop. There’s nothing just laying around up here, but he has a hunch that whatever did this to Tim happened down below, based on the boot he’d found on the fire escape. Tim must’ve climbed up here to get off the street before he… shrunk? De-aged? Time traveled? They’ll have to figure it out back at the Cave.
He walks down the fire escape. He could scale down the outer railings with one hand, but he doesn’t want to scare Tim, and he needs to inspect the whole structure anyway. He reaches up to tap his comm.
“We found Red Robin, but there’s a situation. I need whatever you can find on cameras of his last movements.”
“Already on it.” She doesn’t ask about the situation, so maybe she’s already seen little Tim, as captured by some security camera.
There’s nothing on the fire escape. Dick looks both ways down the alley when he reaches the bottom. There are scorch marks on the wall and the dumpster near the mouth of the alley, and he drifts closer to examine them. There’s a trash bag dragged loose from the edge of a pile, flattened a little as if maybe it had been tripped over. A chase, then? With some sort of weapon or spell firing wildly at Tim as he ran.
Little Tim sniffles in his arms. Dick looks down and finds him wiping his nose on the cape wrapped around him.
“Are you cold, Timmy?” He asks, and Tim nods. “I’m sorry, we’re almost done.”
“Done what?”
“Looking for evidence of whoever… brought you here.” He settles on that as a vague way to refer to whatever’s responsible for tiny Tim without confusing or stressing him.
“Robin, I’m calling the Batmobile. We need to go home.”
Damian drops down beside him after a moment, crossing his arms and looking like he hadn’t found anything significant either. At least they’ll have security camera footage.
The Batmobile pulls up, and Dick puts Tim in the back with Damian. He’s too little to ride in a regular seat alone, but they don’t exactly carry a car seat around. Damian will just have to hold him—a necessity he isn’t happy about.
“I don’t see why he can’t just wear a seatbelt. It’s not as if we’re going to crash the car.” He grumbles, but he accepts Dick placing Tim on his lap and wraps his arms around him awkwardly.
“Because you never know what might happen, and this is the safest option we have.” Dick closes the door on them while Tim is looking up at Damian curiously and circles around to the driver’s seat. He’d rather drive them carefully back to the Cave himself than let the autopilot take care of it.
“Robin?” A little voice asks from the back. “Where are we going?”
“Home.”
Dick glances back in the rearview mirror. Tim is playing with the spines on Damian’s bracers, poking at them with little fingers. Damian is looking down at him like he’s an alien. He stifles a laugh at the sight and returns his focus to the road.
They reach the Cave without incident, and Dick takes Tim back from Damian as they get out of the car. Damian goes straight for the locker room to shower and change. Tim looks around in awe from Dick’s arms, staring at the dinosaur, the penny, the cars, the Batcomputer. It reminds him a little of the first time he’d seen the Cave himself. He’d been older, of course, and not all of the big impressive things they have today had been here back then, but it had still been like something from a kids’ book to learn that there was a cool secret hideout under his house.
Bruce meets him in the medbay, brow furrowed.
“I heard there was some sort of trouble.” He starts, but stops cold when he sees the kid wrapped in the cape. “Tim?”
Tim tilts his head like a puppy, staring at Bruce.
“Tim, this is Bruce.” Dick sits him down on a medbay bed. “He’s going to stay with you while I go change clothes, okay?”
“Hi.” Tim looks up at Bruce, who has the softest expression on his face, because he’s a pushover for little kids.
“Hi.” He says back, smiling. Dick ducks out to clean up and change, satisfied that B can handle things here. He passes Damian in the locker room, already dressed and toweling off his hair.
“Tim’s with B for now. You can head upstairs if you don’t want to hang around, but I’m sure they wouldn’t mind if you wanted to keep them company while Tim gets a checkup.”
“Hn.” Damian says, just like his father, and stalks off. Maybe the whole de-aging thing is just too weird for him, Dick thinks as he strips and steps into the shower. Maybe he’s not comfortable with what’s likely going to be a big upset to the family for however long it takes to turn Tim back to normal. He’ll have to keep that in mind and try to check in on Damian, make sure he doesn’t feel neglected while he’s not the youngest for a while.
He showers quickly and pulls on sweatpants and a tacky shirt that proclaims Blüdhaven “a scary name for a great place to live”—not the promotion board’s finest work. When he goes back to the medbay, he finds Tim dressed in what he recognizes as his own old clothes. But given that he moved in at nine, and there’s no way Tim is even five, they’re still big on him. He’s sitting in Bruce’s lap chattering happily about something, and there’s a bright green bandaid on his arm.
“Nightwing?” He asks when he notices Dick.
“That’s me. But when I’m not wearing the mask, my name is Dick. Nightwing is a secret, okay?”
“Secret.” Tim nods, then makes a cute little thinking face. “Um. I ‘member you. The circus.”
“Yeah, we met at the circus.”
“But you’re big now.” Tim points out. Dick glances at Bruce, wondering how they should handle this.
“That’s because it’s been a long time since that night.” Bruce says gently. “You were big too, but you don’t remember. It seems someone used magic to make you small again.”
“Why?”
“We don’t know yet.”
“Oh.” Tim seems to consider this new knowledge for a moment. “Can I have snack?”
“Of course. We’ll go upstairs and see what we have in the kitchen.” He stands with Tim in his arms and heads for the elevator. Dick trails after.
“You’ve confirmed it’s magic, then?” He asks, because apparently all Bruce’s standard procedures for debriefs have gone out the window in the face of a toddler’s request for a snack.
“Yes, as far as we can tell. Barbara sent over the footage she put together, which she says corroborates my findings.”
“You haven’t watched it?”
“Tim didn’t want me to leave. But I’ve already reached out to Zatanna. She’ll be by when she can to take a look at him.”
“Ding.” Tim announces when the elevator stops without the chime a commercial building’s elevator might have.
When they reach the kitchen, Alfred is already waiting for them. He’s undoubtedly the one who’d dug out Dick’s old clothes, so he’s obviously aware of the situation.
“Hello, Master Tim.” He smiles warmly at the little boy.
“A’f’ed?”
“Yes, that’s Alfred. How did you know?” Bruce asks.
“Umm… I’unno.”
“Maybe he does remember some things.” Dick suggests.
“I ‘member lots. I’m smart.” Tim chimes in.
“Indeed.” Alfred agrees, setting a small plastic plate on the kitchen island. “Here we are, ants on a log for the young master.”
“Ants?” Tim scrunches up his face in clear skepticism.
“Raisins.” Alfred explains. “They’re only arranged to look like ants.”
“Oh. I like raisins.” He reaches out for the celery logs, and Bruce sets him down on the top of the island, staying right there in case he falls.
“Did Damian already go up to bed?” Bruce asks while Tim is crunching through his snack.
“He was a little grumpy when we got back. I think suddenly being an older brother is going to be an adjustment for him.”
“As if any of the rest of you took to becoming a middle child easily.” Bruce grumbles, and Dick snorts. Fair point.
“Speaking of everyone else, we have to tell them about Tim. And let his team know he’s on leave, at the very least.”
“That’s on my list. We also need to get him clothes that actually fit.”
“May I also suggest children’s bath products if he’s to stay this age? And perhaps some toys to keep him entertained.” Alfred adds.
Bruce looks down at the little hands tugging on his shirt. Tim is looking sleepy, and when Bruce picks him up, he presses his face into his shirt.
“Looks like it’s bedtime.” Dick says quietly.
“He can sleep in my room. I don’t want to leave him alone overnight when we haven’t had the magic examined yet.”
“You’ll find a nightlight on your dresser. I discovered it while hunting for those clothes.” Alfred tells him. “I recommend plugging it in, in case he wakes up during the night.”
“I will.”
“Goodnight, Timmy.” Dick says as Bruce carries him away, earning a mumble that’s probably a goodnight in return.
“You should get to bed too, Master Dick. I expect we’re all in for an interesting day tomorrow.”
“You’re probably right. Goodnight, Alfie.”
“Goodnight.”