Chapter Text
Timmy’s bedroom is filled with moving boxes. There are so many boxes that Jason keeps losing Timmy in the sea of cardboard.
Jason’s guest room at Drake Manor had all the new clothes he bought for himself when he went shopping with Timmy and not much else. It took up one large box and Jason hauled it onto the flatbed of Bruce’s truck yesterday. The only thing left to pack up is Timmy’s stuff.
Jason looks around the room and for a second he legitimately can’t find Timmy. He pats his thigh and a little furry German Shepard puppy charges at him.
Jason leans down and lets the puppy lick his hand.
“Alright, girl. Can you find Timmy for me? Can you find him for me, Churro?”
Churro barks and wags her tail, but makes no moves to find Timmy. Instead, she hops onto her hind legs and tries to lick Jason’s face.
Jason laughs, “Chill, girl. We’re not doing CPR again.” He lets her get in a few licks before repeating, “Find Timmy.”
Churro lays on her back and waits for Jason to pet her.
Jason rubs her stomach, “We need to work on this. You do all kinds of tricks when Uncle Teddy asks, but whenever I ask you to do stuff you just want cuddles.”
Jason can hear Timmy giggling from behind a box to his right. He picks up Churro (who likes to be carried even more than she likes belly rubs) and leans over Timmy’s hiding spot.
Timmy’s tiny giggles turn into full laughter.
Jason hands Churro over to Timmy. He ruffles the kid’s hair and goes back to packing up the room. He lets Timmy and Churro play while he gets back to work.
He pulls a long strip of tape from the packing tape dispenser and uses his teeth to rip it off. That’s not the best way to do it, but Jason’s patience for the tape twisting and sticking on itself has reached its limit. Not to mention his all-over poison ivy rash is starting to itch again. Even with the antitoxins and magical chemicals stocked in the Batcave, Jason still has another week before the rash goes away. And even though the poison ivy incident happened just yesterday, Jason’s patience for healing has reached its limit too.
A box to Jason’s left speaks to him with Timmy’s voice, “Can I take all my stuffed animals? Mom and Dad always left me behind and I don’t want to treat my toys like that. I don’t want to be like them.”
Jason moves the box to see the little guy standing behind it with a worried look.
“We can take whatever you want Timber. That’s why we have a thousand and one boxes here. We need to move all your stuff from this room to your new room in Wayne Manor. That way you never have to come back to Drake Manor again. Remember?”
Timmy is hugging a stuffed seal.
“Can we take Sealy?” Tim asks.
Jason kneels down and sighs. He’s lost his patience with literally everything around him, but he will never lose his patience with Timmy. Well maybe when little Timmy turns sixteen and acts like the chaos gremlin from his original timeline, but even then, he’s pretty sure he’s never going to lose his patience.
Jason ruffles Timmy hair.
“Kiddo, we can take anything you want. I’m prepared to shove every single thing inside this room into boxes if that’s what you want.”
Timmy bites his lip and nods.
Jason’s still not sure what the issue is, but he doesn’t want to push. Timmy’s eyes have looked shiny ever since they walked into Drake Manor.
Jason tosses Timmy’s Nightwing nightlight into a box and pauses when he gets to the dresser. There’s a picture of Tim, Jack, and Janet in a frame. Jack looks bored, Janet is smiling too hard, and Timmy is standing up so straight he looks like one of those freaky lifelike dolls. It’s the only picture Jason has seen in the entire Manor of the whole family together.
He’s pretty sure Timmy doesn’t want to see any reminders of his parents anytime soon, but pictures are important, so Jason packs it away in one of the many moving boxes.
Jason starts to peel Timmy’s posters off the wall as Timmy takes all his clothes from the hangers in the closet. Tim has to stand on his tippy toes to reach, but every time he unhooks a piece of clothing from the closet he marches it over to his clothing box, folds the article of clothing and makes Jason look at how neatly he put it away. Every time Jason says, “Good job,” Timmy’s smile widens even bigger.
Jason frowns as he picks at a piece of tape on the corner of one of the posters and mumbles, “I think every piece of tape in this place is conspiring against me, right Churro?”
Churro had left the room a few minutes ago to explore the rest of the Manor.
Jason really hopes that Churro isn’t destroying the rest of the house. He steps up onto the bed to get better leverage. The bed is just a mattress, all the sheets and pillows have been packed away, and even though Jason is wearing his boots, he doesn’t have enough traction and his foot catches on the edge of the bed frame.
He stumbles back, falling off the bed, but he keeps his footing and doesn’t fall down completely. He keeps stumbling until he collides with the wall. It takes him a second to realize that the wall is in fact the closet. He realizes this because a latch on the top of the closet clicks, locking the door automatically.
Jason dusts himself off and scans the room for Timmy. He really hopes the kid wasn’t looking when the Red Hood essentially fell off a bed and tripped over his own feet.
Jason doesn’t see Timmy. It’s not out of the question that Timmy might be behind one of the boxes, but a sinking feeling at the pit of Jason’s stomach tells him exactly where Timmy is.
Jason turns to face the closet and pushes against the door to open it, but it’s locked.
“Timmy?” he asks through the closet door. “Are you in there, buddy?”
A sniffle from the other side ignites Jason’s urge to rip the door off the hinges.
Timmy’s sniffles sound like he’s right on the other side, so Jason can’t punch through the door without the risk of hurting Timmy.
The sound of hyperventilating gasps mixed with tiny whimpers has Jason gritting his teeth.
“You’re okay, Timmy. I’ll get you out in a sec.” Jason’s eyes dart wildly around the door for a solution. He quickly spots a latch on the top of the door. He pulls the latch, and the door opens easily. In his panic he must have missed that unlocking mechanism.
Timmy’s inside, hugging his knees to his chest, curled up into a tiny ball. His shoulders are hiccupping up and down as he gasps for breath.
Jason sits on his heels to be on Timmy’s level. Timmy is sobbing, and wheezing, and shaking, and all Jason can think is… Shit. This is my fault.
Jason’s anxiety level might even exceed Timmy’s at this moment, but he pushes that all aside and goes into his old Robin mode.
“Timmy. I’m right here. Everything’s alright. Can you crawl over to me?”
Timmy nods and crawls over to Jason, stopping just an arm’s length away. Timmy’s chest is heaving as he tries to force in raggedy breathes, his shoulders bouncing to his ears, up and down rapidly.
“Easy Timbear,” Jason says. He wants to pull Timmy close, but he can’t risk frightening the little guy even more, so he keeps his hands up where Timmy can see them.
The Robin inspired bravery he’s been relying on is fading fast.
“Do you—can I—is it—” None of the words are coming out right.
Jason takes a breath—a breath that he desperately wants Timmy to take—and he starts again.
“Is it alright if I put my hand on your shoulder?” he asks. He hopes a grounding hand will help.
A tiny squeaking noise comes from the back of Timmy’s throat and the little guy launches himself at Jason. Timmy’s tiny hands grip onto Jason’s shirt, holding the fabric in tight little fists. Fists that are holding on so tight that his little hands are trembling.
Timmy’s sobbing loudly, which means he’s breathing again, but Jason can barely celebrate that victory.
“Sweetie. I’m here. I’m here. You’re safe now,” Jason says through tears of his own.
He holds Timmy against his chest, wishing he could hug his Timmy tight enough to make all the bad feelings go away.
Timmy’s voice tumbles out in heartbreaking sobs, “J-Jay. I w-was s-so scared. It-It was so d-dark.”
Jason puts a hand behind Timmy’s head running his fingers through his hair. Timmy’s breathing pattern goes back to stuttering hiccups and Jason rubs circles on his back.
The panic attack is scaring Timmy just as much as the locked closet, so Jason soothes him until he comes down from the worst of it.
Tim is still crying and shaking when Jason picks him up and sits on the bed. He places Timmy in his lap. Timmy lays his head on Jason’s chest, and whispers, “I’m still scared, Jay.”
“I know,” Jason says quietly. “And it’s okay to be scared, even if there isn’t any danger and you’re with someone you trust. Sometimes your body doesn’t know it’s time to not be scared anymore and it takes a little while.”
After a while of just sitting in silence while Jason rocks him Timmy asks, “Why did that happen?"
“It’s because you remembered being locked in the closet for a long time and you thought it was happening again. And that’s alright. It’s alright to—to have bad days.” Jason wipes away his own tears.
“You and me Timmy. We’re both survivors. My dad did some messed up stuff to me when I was a kid. I’m talking about my other dad Willis, not Bruce. Then, I got blown up when I was Robin. I have bad days too, but you know what?”
“What?” Timmy asks softly.
“I thought I was scared and weak but I was actually braver than I realized. No matter how scary things got, I was always brave enough to face it and that made me stronger. And it will make you stronger too.”
Timmy’s teary eyes get wide, “I’ll be big and strong like you, Jay?”
Jason nods, “You’ll be even stronger than me, kiddo. And I’ll be right here to make sure that happens. You’re safe now and I’ll be with you forever. I’ll make sure to protect you, even if I get blown up again by the Joker and I’m far away. I’ll still always be with you.”
Timmy starts to cry again, and Jason asks, “Happy tears?”
Timmy nods while rubbing his eyes. He stays in Jason’s warm embrace for a while and then tilts his head up.
“I want you to be my real brother.”
Jason smiles down at Timmy.
“Bruce has the paperwork set up for you to be his foster kid. That means he’ll take care of you until he can make it a full adoption. He’s adopting Dickie too. And once you’re both Bruce’s kids, Dickie’s gonna be your big brother. I’m too old and grumpy for Bruce to adopt, but it doesn’t matter. I don’t need a piece of paper to tell me that you’re my little brother.” Jason puts a hand over his heart. “This tells me that we’ll be brothers forever.”
Timmy nods and opens his mouth to speak. He has the same look in his eyes as the older Tim. Jason can practically hear the gears turning in his head.
“You can protect me because you’re my brother, and I’m Dickie’s brother so I can protect him. I have to make sure he doesn’t have food with milk in it when he isn’t supposed to. I have to watch him.”
“I don’t know,” Jason says with a chuckle, “Keeping Dickie from doing dumb shit is a full-time job.”
“I have to do it. That’s what brothers do. Right, Jay?”
“Yeah, little guy, that’s what brothers do.”
“I love you, Jay.”
“I love you too, my little Tim burrito.”