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The sharp, clear tone of a whistle pierced through Gotham’s smoggy night.
Tim clenched his hands harder against the rooftop he was sitting on. He had been sitting here for most of the night, but it was his orders for this patrol. He told himself he didn’t care that it happened to have Robin out of sight out of mind for the weekly patrol that Nightwing and Red Hood did together.
He knew what that whistle meant. Well, not in the true sense. All he knew was that was a call from Nightwing. Tonight, it was asking for a response from Red Hood. He kicked his legs against the rooftop as the call resounded inside Tim’s head as it echoed through the city. Even without knowing exactly what they meant by it, Tim knew the notes like he knew the beating of his own heart.
A second whistle rang through the night. A civilian—or criminal, based on the dark clothes and concealed weapon—scurried out of the alleyway at the sound. If Tim focused, he could probably hear the man swear against the Birds.
Tim laughed a tiny, pitiful thing. He couldn’t make it stronger, despite the hilarity of the situation. The criminals of Gotham knew those whistles too. They understood what they meant even less than Tim did, but they knew enough to fear them.
The man didn’t know that there was something adjacent to a bird right above him. He still fled at hearing that sound in the distance, like a warning sign that they were close.
He waited patiently. Any minute now, his comm would crackle to life.
Tim had given up on trying to figure out which whistle meant what. He had tried once to replicate the sounds of their most used whistle—a two tone slide that started high and ended low—exactly once. Bruce had come crashing into the cave afterward, frenzied, Jason’s name on the tip of his tongue.
When Bruce realized it was Tim who had made the noise, his face settled into a glare. Bruce had stared at Tim until Tim folded in on himself. The man then proceeded to tell Tim not to use that sound again. Tim took that to heart, and never did.
Red Hood and Nightwing didn’t use the tones very often anyway. Most of the time, they stuck with the comm units. Tonight must have been one of those nights that they felt freer with it. Sometimes on rare nights like this, they used those whistles when in close enough range to each other.
Like Tim predicted, a few minutes later his comm vibrated to life. He barely was able to remove his hand from the rooftop to click his comm into transmitting.
“Robin, reporting.” Tim said. He was proud of himself for how his voice managed to stay stable.
“What’s your location?” Nightwing’s voice filtered in through his comm.
Tim idly wondered if that was what the whistle meant: some kid of question of location? He shook his head and put it out of his mind. Even with Jason back now, he wasn’t sure what Bruce would do if he found out Tim had interest in the whistle code.
He never wanted to see Bruce’s face contort into that amalgamation of grief and anger again. Tim knew how to handle the grief at this point, even now that Jason was back. He could even take the anger that Bruce periodically sent toward Tim instead of the criminals and villains. Both at once was a terrifying, heartbreaking mix that made Tim wonder if he really was needed at all.
“Still scouting from the second building to the left of Gotham Cathedral.” Tim said instead of any of that.
There was another whistle that split through the night. This one was different then the first two. The hallow in Tim’s chest devoured more of him. He wanted nothing more than to understand, but he was barred from it.
The whistles were for the Waynes. Tim may have forced himself to be a bird, but it wasn’t his place to force himself into their lives even more. There was a line that Tim still wasn’t allowing himself to cross. He was here first as a crutch for Bruce, now as a tool to help control the crime in Gotham.
There wasn’t another response from the comm. Tim assumed that the whistle was supposed to be the response.
Tim reached up and started scratching at his arm. He hated not knowing things, especially when they pertained to the night job.
Nightwing plopped down onto the rooftop next to Tim. He forced himself up to standing. Tim put the whistles out of his mind and fell into line like the good solider he was. If he wasn’t ready for the next set of orders he was to receive, then what good was he for?
His comm had started malfunctioning once his kidnapper had electrocuted him twice. Tim wasn’t surprised. The shocks were enough to make his limbs twitch with phantom jolts for several minutes after each touch with the taser. If his comm had gone down, he could also guess that his tracker was shot too.
His only saving grace was that his hands were free. It didn’t matter that his entire body pulsed with pain, not only from the taser but from the cuts and bruises inflicted on him as well. It was a little difficult to move, but having his hands free meant that there was a chance of escape.
His kidnapper had left him for the moment, content with Robin’s state of post-electric shock that he couldn’t escape. With how much Tim was shaking—and now his electronics were fried—he didn’t blame them.
But there was another tool in the birds’ pocket. Tim regretted not knowing exactly what each whistle meant, but maybe just using one would help the others know his location. He was willing to be reamed out by Bruce again if it meant that he didn’t get electrocuted again.
Taking a hit was normal for Tim. That was what Robin was for: to be a stop-light colored target that brought distraction to goons and hope to civilians. The electrocution, though, was a level of bone-deep pain that Tim never wanted to experience again.
He was unsure if he could form the proper positioning for the weakest of whistles. It would definitely make him feel better about this situation if he knew the correct code, but Tim still had to try.
Tim’s electricity addled limbs twitched as he brought his fingers to his mouth. Whistling with them didn’t look too hard. Maybe Tim could figure it out? Then again, Tim didn’t know which whistle to use. He got his shaking fingers into his mouth and decided to use the most common two toned slide.
He tried the finger whistle he witnessed Dick and Bruce—even Jason, now—preform with ease. It spluttered and died as a gross wet sound the first time he tried. The second time yielded some noise, but not nearly enough. Tim re-positioned his fingers and tried again.
By the time that he was able to make any sort of loud noise, his limbs were weak. They were no longer shaking, so at least that meant that the placement of his fingers was more stable. It was harder to keep them in his mouth, though, so Tim rolled over onto his side.
This way, it was a little easier to keep his hands upward. Unfortunately, his movement made him jolt again. His muscles locked up, and Tim was frozen with his fingers in between his teeth until they decided to loose again. He unclenched his jaw when it was finally over, trying to ignore the pain that now pulsed through his fingers.
Instead, he repositioned his fingers in his mouth. Tim didn’t think about how the blood tasted.
He finally was able to make a stable, long sound. Through his fingers, he spit out the conglomerate of blood and saliva that had built up in his mouth. Tim wasn’t risking moving his fingers to a different position.
Tim experimented with the tones of the whistle first. He wished he knew how to do this before now, so that he didn’t have this burning in his chest that had nothing to do with his injuries.
If he had just been good enough, maybe Bruce would have allowed Tim to just know one. He wasn’t asking to know the whole code: he understood that it was a family bonding thing. Tim’s place wasn’t there. But if Tim could have been better, just one for a situation like this would have been nice.
As he figured out the first tone, he realized that was a nonstarter. A good soldier would never have gotten himself captured like this. Jason had a plan and a goal that he unfortunately failed in. Tim, on the other hand, had been jumped by a no-name criminal. They were in no way comparable.
As usual, Tim fell short of the goal he had always striven to.
Tears welled up in his eyes as he started to figure out the lower toned whistle. What was he thinking? There was never going to be a chance that Bruce would have taught him how to whistle like this. Not only was Tim not a good enough soldier for this, but Tim wasn’t wanted enough in the first place.
Tim was a necessary evil. Bruce kept him around to stifle his grief at first. But now that Tim had proved himself useful enough, being a tool was what he was for. He was an obedient soldier, not a family member.
He figured out the correct tone for the lower whistle. Tim went to work connecting the two sounds. It sounded awful, but at least it was the correct noise.
Tim ignored the tears on his face just as he ignored the blood in his mouth. He pulled as much air into his lungs through his nose, then released all of it as forcefully as he could through his fingers. As he did so, Tim slid the note downward the way he had heard from the other birds countless times.
The whistle was so loud that echoed throughout the warehouse. His heart stopped in his chest as he listened to the sound bounce from wall to wall. It was louder than he was expecting, but being loud was exactly what he wanted.
Tim was willing to subject himself to a little more pain, he thought, if that meant that he would be found sooner. He whistled the sound again, just as loud. His heart might have been beating rapidly against his rib cage, but this fear was worth it.
He didn’t want to die here. The human body could only take so much electricity.
After the fifth whistle, the door opened again. The man with a taser entered. Tim didn’t bother to take his fingers out of his mouth. He expended too much effort doing the whistles, and now he had little to none left.
“What do we have here?” The man said. Tim didn’t remember his name. He looked vaguely familiar in the way that a lot of the goons that they put behind bars did. Tim only forced himself to remember the ones he fought directly, or who did the most heinous of crimes. “The Robin calling for help?”
If Tim didn’t have his fingers in his mouth, he would have retorted back at that. As it was, he just blinked his eyes heavily to get rid of the last of the teardrops.
“That’s no matter. Keep your fingers in your mouth. Bite them off, see how I care,” The man stalked closer. He turned on the taser weapon—a cow prod, maybe—as soon as he got withing reaching distance. Tim wasn’t proud of the flinch his body made. “Maybe that will just show the Bat what he really was messing with.”
That explained why Tim didn’t really recognize the man. He was someone that Bruce had put away, not Robin. He was just taking revenge on him through Robin. Tim should have expected that.
The man returned the cattle prod to Tim’s side. Tim didn’t take stock of how loud he screamed, or how hard he bit into his fingers. He only focused on making as many mangled whistles as he could when his jaw and diaphragm allowed it.
Tim had no idea if they would help. He wasn’t even sure what whistle he was doing. All he knew as the electricity surged through his body is that he wanted to be saved, and this was his best bet.
He must have lost consciousness at some point, because the next thing that Tim was aware of was a hand trying to take his fingers out of his mouth.
Tim immediately clamped down onto his fingers. His teeth went straight into the already bloody grooves there, but he didn’t care. He needed these right where they were in order to do the whistle that he had taught himself.
“Robin, it’s okay,” A familiar voice said. Tim grunted and didn’t let go. The man said he could keep whistling, so Tim was going to do that until help came. It probably was going to be a while, yet. “You can let go. You did good, okay? We heard you.”
That didn’t sound right. Tim opened his eyes despite being unaware that he closed them. Crouched in front of him with his hand on Tim’s wrist was Red Hood. From the sheer shock of seeing the red helmet, Tim’s jaw slackened.
Jason took the opportunity for what it was and gently pried Tim’s fingers out of his mouth. Immediately, he was pressing gauze down onto the bleeding portions. Tim just blinked sluggishly at him, not understanding.
His whistle had worked?
“Why didn’t you whistle help?” Jason was muttering. It didn’t sound like he was talking to Tim, really, so Tim stayed quiet. At least he knew now that the sliding whistle didn’t mean ‘help.’
The hollow in his chest ached at the fact that Tim didn’t even know the ‘Help’ whistle. That would have been so useful. Would that have brought them here sooner?
Before Tim could register the movement, a careful set of arms was pulling him into their embrace. Tim moved his head a bit to see who it was, only to be wracked with muscle-locking tremors. The arms held him tight through it, a hand brushing through his sweat soaked hair until it was done.
“You didn’t whistle for help. Why didn’t you whistle for help?” That was Dick’s voice. That made sense. He was always the one more into physical touch than the others. Tim didn’t mind, since it felt so nice to be held.
“Didn’ know how.” Tim found himself muttering in reply. He didn’t mean to. He wasn’t supposed to speak, yet. He knew his place. Don’t speak unless told to, and Tim wasn’t sure if the brothers were actually wanting him to or not.
“You don’t know the help whistle?” Jason asked incredulously. Tim nodded. The anxious twirl in his gut lessened. They were indeed talking to him in expectation of a response.
“Not good enough,” Tim spoke a bit louder this time now that he knew his place here. The arms around him tightened. “Not good soldier.”
“No—” Jason started, head clunking down into Tim’s—almost like he wanted to give Tim a kiss on the head but had forgotten that he was wearing a helmet.
Dick didn’t have the same issue. He pressed his lips firmly to Tim’s head, peppering the top of it with several kisses. “Hood’s right. That’s not… that’s a no, there, Robin.”
Tim felt like he was going boneless at that action—with these words—even though his limbs were weak and shaky. Dick let him, gathering him further into his arms.
Tim decided that this was good enough. He had been found, and that was all that mattered. He let himself slip back off, glad the whistle he taught himself had helped.
“I know how to whistle, now.” Tim grumbled. He didn’t need to be pulled out of bed at the crack of twilight.
It was several days after his unfortunate encounter with electricity. Tim had just stopped getting tremors, and Bruce cleared him for patrol. His before patrol nap was going so well, too, so he had no idea why the brothers had to interrupt it.
“You taught yourself while being tortured,” Jason refuted, plopping himself down on Tim’s other side. “Which is a travesty. That’s why I asked for Dick to kidnap you.”
Tim never thought a rooftop could feel crowded, but here they were. Dick was on Tim’s left, and with Jason now on his right, it felt like there was little room to run. It wasn’t like there was another building nearby Wayne Manor for Tim to be able to grapple onto. That wasn’t even taking into account that they weren’t even in their uniforms right now.
“I’m really, really confused.” Tim said instead of voicing his concerns about feeling trapped. That wouldn’t go over well.
Dick sighed heavily before putting his head down into one of his hands. The other one reached over to rest on Tim’s shoulder. “We should have taught you this immediately once you became Robin but…”
“I still can’t believe Bruce didn’t teach him the whistle code,” Jason grumbled. He shook his head, disbelieving. “All because I died?”
“You were the main reason it got used so much,” Dick countered with. Tim was still confused. This was about the whistle code? He thought they covered that when Tim was recovered. “I’ve already yelled at Bruce about this. I’ll yell at him more later. Right now is for making sure Timmy knows the rest of the code.”
“You’re actually going to teach me what they mean?” Tim asked as he looked between the two brothers. The furrow in his brow wasn’t relaxing. If anything, it was only furrowing quicker. “I’m not family.”
“Yes, you are.” Jason said, and there was no room for argument.
Tim didn’t know what to do with that. He had never been family, always a pretender or a replacement for Jason himself. Now, the Robin he was filling in for was telling Tim he was family?
“You don’t have to be Robin to be our brother,” Dick started. Dick pried up a loose shingle on the roof.
Jason pulled out a pocket knife and handed it to Tim while Dick did so. Tim looked at the knife, confused. Dick did the sliding whistle, so Tim turned to Dick, the lost look still on his face. Seeing his confusion, Dick voiced: “Look, here.”
Tim moved his eyes down to be met with the carved names of Richard Grayson and Jason Todd. Suddenly, the knife in Tim’s hand made all the more sense. Tears sprung to Tim’s eyes unbidden. He couldn’t get them to stop.
“You want me to—?” Tim cut off with a sob. His hand holding the knife was shaking. Based on how the ‘Jason Todd’ looked, Jason’s hand once shook here as well.
“It’s required,” Jason replied. “Then we’ll teach you more than the ‘Look here’ whistle, okay?”
Tim nodded eagerly. His chest was already feeling so warm at their profession of brotherhood. Knowing what the sliding whistle meant only made it burn more.
This was more than he had ever wanted. He hadn’t even dared to dream what it might have been like to have Dick and Jason as his older brothers, let alone what it might be like for Bruce to be his pseudo-father. They already were so much better to him than his actual family. They were easily topping that, just by offering this olive branch.
Jason guided the point of the knife to the space underneath his own name. Tim carved in his name with careful, perceive letters. Tears still dripped down onto his bandaged hands—and the rooftop—but they didn’t get in his way. He wouldn’t let them.
After the last letter was done, Dick directed Tim’s fingers into the proper placement. Jason then helped Tim find the correct tones. The smile on Tim’s face made it harder to do the correct sounds, even moreso than the bandages on his fingers. Tim didn’t care, and it didn’t seem like Dick or Jason did either.
The birds whistled together into the night, practicing what would always be theirs.