[Email log] Cold Gray Evening -- Dick and Tim

[needsarobin]

In the afternoon following Tim's break up with Bart, Tim has his own very Timmish failure to cope. Dick tries to help but as always, there's so much more than the obvious going on with Tim that Dick is forced to just accept that for now, all he can do is hold on. Dated to Wednesday, November 5



Bart hadn't really had all that much in here, when it came right down to it. Some clothes, some books, a few odds and ends. Nothing that should make Tim's room feel so...large and empty. Tim told himself that it was merely the change of it, not the actual physical reality. He would get used to it soon enough and then this room would feel right sized again. He should really bring in more books, that would help the transition. There are plenty of medical journals that he'd been coaxing out of the bookshelf that could fit up there now.

Tim very deliberately kept his back to the bed, still rumpled from this morning. He could make it, tidy it up. Maybe that would make it too feel less empty, more like his and not like theirs.

But he didn't turn around.

Since his talk with Tim, Dick's been thinking a lot about what a life on the island could look like for him. Mostly, thinking means talking to people, hearing what they do, what they need, what they miss, and trusting his heart to lead him to where he can make a difference. So far that's little things, like designing sets of trapezes for the gym and near the trampoline. He hasn't talked to Devon about it yet, but he's pretty sure they can work together to teach PE and if not, he can offer a gymnastics class on the weekends. Today, it meant going for a run and stopping to nominate Babs for a Council office.

He's just coming up from taking a shower, toweling off his hair when he spots Tim loitering in the door to his room, back to it but not apparently leaving. Quick mental check says it's still midafternoon and Tim shouldn't be at the Treehouse at all. Quick Tim-check tells him it's definitely more than an unexpected day off that has him lingering uncertainly like he's not sure where to put his feet.

Dropping the towel to his shoulders, he leans a hip against the wall and waits to see if Tim will talk without him probing.

Tim waited a few seconds to see if Dick was going to be easily gotten rid of. He was far from in the mood to deal with Dick's teasing right now. When his inaction didn't result in Dick getting bored and wandering off, Tim turned around and started to make the bed. "Did you need something?"

"Funny. I was about to ask you that." Dick slips into the room behind him, then resumes his lean against the wall, this time with his arms crossed loosely over his chest. "Why don't we skip the part where I say something to provoke you, then you get pissy and tell me to leave you alone, and jump right to the part where you tell me what's wrong." Only the fact that he's not Bruce turns it into a request and not an order.

Tim stifled a sigh and fussed over the hospital corners with the sheets. "There's nothing wrong." From a certain point of view, that was even true. Technically, there was nothing wrong. Bart and Tim had agreed, this was the best thing for them both. Tim had seen it coming for a long time, had known even longer than that. It had been a relationship based on need, no matter how much love was also involved. And it was past time for both to make their own way without the other holding him back.

Dick watches him for a minute, then shakes his head. Like he could miss the way Tim feels jagged and jangly and raw to be near or the way he's fussing with hospital corners that are already too perfect? He propels himself off the wall to settle inescapably at the end of the bed. If this doesn't work, he'll lie down. He doesn't need to be a master detective to guess this has something to do with Bart. He's seen it coming since Halloween and felt it since he got here. "I didn't think I needed to specify leaving out the part where you think I'm an idiot and you try to lie to me."

It was really a pity that one of the things that Tim liked best about Dick, his persistence, was making him extremely unwelcome. "Charming as that assessment of my character is, it's not a lie, Dick. Get up, you're ruining my bed." Tim shoved him firmly, still frowning at the bed itself. There were wrinkles in the sheet now. He was going to have to start over.

The more he pushes, the more Tim retreats. That's how it's always been, but Tim's cracking around the edges like desiccated paper. Normally, Dick would leave it be, but he can't this time. Tim's going to crumble and here with him is the safest place. So he rolls with the push, almost clown-style, and but swings capoeira-style back onto the bed right into the middle of it. "I'm not ruining anything. I'm decorating it."

"Go decorate someplace else. Like the floor. Or your room. Or Monet's room." Do anything but stay here and poke until I have no choice but to give in. Tim's jaw clenched. He stepped back from the bed, folding his arms over his chest. "I'm not lying to you, Dick. There is really nothing wrong." Only things that were going to take a while to feel right again.

"Too hard. Too empty. Too hot. Nope, your bed is just right." He pats it, motioning for Tim to come and sit. In spite of the teasing words, his expression leaves no doubt he's serious. "Tim, if you're not lying to me, then you're lying to yourself. And that's worse."

Tim glared, "Not everything in my life is open for sharing and discussion, nor does it all need brotherly intervention. Sometimes, I'm just trying to make my bed for once." As soon as he said 'for once' he knew that he'd miscalculated. He took a couple steps backwards, went to fold the laundry in his hamper.

For once. The words tumble through his brain, picking up momentum as they hit his heart. Tim doesn't make the bed usually. No point, with Bart in and out of the room. Which means... "Tim. Is this about what happened on Halloween?"

Tim stiffened then forced himself to relax again, "No, Dick, this isn't about Halloween. Halloween was about this." Everything had been about this for weeks now and Tim really should have been better prepared for it. "Are you satisfied, now?"

It explains a lot, really. Not everything, but definitely the guilty glances. The way Tim seemed to punish himself for remembering to smile when he and Tim were together. The way he'd never seemed entirely comfortable being physically close to Bart and had nearly bitten Dick's head off over suggesting Bart wasn't doing well. "It's not about me, Tim. Except maybe in the sense I've been through this and I know how much it hurts to suddenly feel alone like that."

"It was the right thing to do. We both knew it." The quiet conversation this morning was as much as admitting that they'd known it for a long time. Tim hadn't thought that Bart would ever actually admit it though. Maybe that's what hurt the most, that Bart hadn't fought at all. They'd both just let go.

So was ending things with Babs. "It doesn't make it any easier. Sometimes it just makes it harder." Especially when circumstances change and you think for a few minutes maybe you were wrong. "Like me and Babs," he says finally. This isn't about him, or them, but sometimes with Tim the key to opening his heart is to give him somewhere else to look for a few minutes.

"Bart and I aren't you and Barbara. Our relationship was totally different." Was. That's what it was now. Past tense. Tim leaned against the wall, letting it hold him up. "Dick, I appreciate what you're trying to do but honestly there's not really anything to talk about."

If Tim really doesn't want to talk, there's damned little he can do. But instinct tells him Tim needs to talk. Or at least to have someone to yell at. "Hn." It's a poor but passable imitation of Bruce. "I doubt the wall agrees."

Tim turned around, grimacing. "What am I supposed to say? We were together. We broke up. He moved out," he gestured sharply around the room, pointing out the empty places where there should have been signs of Bart.

Dick forces himself calm and still, when he wants to be on his feet and going to Tim. Quietly, he answers, "You could say that your room feels too big. That you miss him. That you're worried about your friendship and your team." He glances at Tim, soft blue gaze resting on blue. "You could say you don't want to be alone right now and ask me to stay."

Tim didn't answer right away, looking at Dick, not looking at Dick. Looking at the bookshelf. At the dresser. At the curtains that Bart always complained let in the sun too early. "It is," he said finally, his voice low and rough, "I do. I am." His arms tightened across his chest, more hugging himself than anything. "and I don't. I'm afraid I made a mistake and that fixing it would be worse still."

The tone of his voice gives Dick all the permission he needs to roll to his feet, cross to Tim, and wrap his arms around him. Complications of timestream (multiple times over counting the Crises) aside, weird unexpected walls to slam into aside, everything and everyone else aside, Tim is family. Already here, and in ways they aren't at home, he's Dick's closest confidante, and Dick is his. Tim's breaking, from Bart and so many other things, and Dick needs him to know in a way Tim can't refute with words that he's here and he's not going to let him fall. "I've got you."

Tim closed his eyes and let his arms wrap around Dick's waist instead of his own. He didn't cry, he wasn't going to cry over this, but he drew in a breath that jumped and shuddered and shook his form. Dick had accepted his relationship with Bart unquestioningly and yet... "You don't seem surprised," he asked without lifting his head.

Like he had on Halloween, and at home when Tim had finally given way to the need, Dick smoothes a hand over Tim's hair, easing his head to Dick's shoulder. His other hand unerringly finds the knot in Tim's back where he's locked his tension and his tears, and rubs the heel of his hand into it. "I'm not," he answers quietly, heart aching for Tim - and Bart, who he'll have to find later. Tim first. Tim very much first.

"Why not?" What made it so easy for everyone else to see in them that they'd managed to ignore for so long? Tim sometimes hated his own need to analyze everything, pull it apart and examine how it fit together so he could learn how it worked but it was the only way he knew to understand something. He didn't have Dick's intuition or Jill's empathy. Didn't have Morgan's millennia of study. And so he didn't understand what it was that made it so clear for them to see what he'd done wrong.

Because you don't let him hold you. Because you don't smile when you see him coming. Because you don't steal glances at his mouth while he's talking. Because he knew, the same way he knows most things about people. He just does. But none of those things will make sense to Tim. So Dick searches his mind for something that will. Something irrefutably true that explains what he knows. "Because he doesn't understand the Bat in you."

Bart hated the secrets. Even though he knew that Tim wasn't able to tell him everything, or even most things, he'd still push when it came to someone like Barbara. It had hurt him, that Tim wouldn't admit that he was lying. And, if Tim was being honest, he had been telling Bart less and less as time had gone on. When this had started... "When this started, I was just trying not to lose him. He wanted to give up. He gave him his ring." The Flash ring, with the uniform coiled so tightly inside. "I couldn't let that happen."

Dick can't follow Tim's logic. The way he thinks, the connections, the assumptions about what Dick means go beyond foreign to alien. It's not like Bruce where any emotional considerations are ruthlessly suppressed and are always exactly the same. Tim's more sensitive - and Dick wants to keep him that way - more innocent, there are myriad emotional stressors, and Tim factors them in ways that make absolute zero sense to Dick.

He tugs on Tim, drawing him to the bed where at least he can remove the stressor of remaining upright and, conversely, the false positive of "I'm still standing on my own two feet". It's also possible that being held in his bed by someone not his ex-boyfriend will break free his emotions. What's logical to Dick is to weep or rage and take comfort where it's offered (if he's being totally honest, which he doesn't have to be, because he's fine right now, the right person has to be offering it, but there's no way he's not the right person in this situation) but Tim needs to think it through, so they'll do both.

"You do what you have to. Including this, until it stops working. When it does, you have to let them stand or be their safe place to fall."

Tim moved with the pulling because there didn't seem to be any reason not to. If there's one thing he knew absolutely, it was that Dick was not going to consider him weak for it. It might have upset his Titans to see him failing this badly to maintain perspective but Dick had seen him through worse. It helped, more than he could say, to have Dick tell him the relationship hadn't been a mistake to begin with. It was there in his own doubts strongly enough already. "I can't be his place to fall anymore. I just hope he doesn't need one anymore."

Dick scoots to the top of the bed and rests his back against the wall, drawing Tim down and settling him between his legs where he can hold him easily if he starts to shake. "He's starting to trust me. I'll make sure he knows I'm here for him too." Not the same, not ever the same as for Tim. It's not because he doesn't care, but... "You come first though. Anything you need, I've got you."

"Been a long time since I've broken up with anyone," Tim said distractedly. It was the most directly he'd referenced Stephanie since Dick had arrived. It was the most directly he'd referenced in even longer than that if he was going to think about it. Which he wasn't. "I'm not even sure what I'm supposed to be thinking or feeling right now."

Stephanie. Tim doesn't have to say her name for Dick to know, and his arms tighten around Tim reflexively. Losing her was like him losing Donna, something that went so deep it completely denatured them. Something they couldn't even put words around. Only he got Donna back. Maybe Tim will get Stephanie. He wouldn't wish this place on her, but if she's dead, maybe it's better than that. The thoughts, more like a wordless prayer, scatter when Tim says he doesn't know what he's supposed to think or feel. "Whatever you do," Dick answers, low. "I've felt something different every time."

"I need to reorganize the dresser," Tim said, like he hadn't heard Dick, like he hadn't admitted anything in the first place. He was letting Dick hold him, that was the best he could do right now without falling apart. He couldn't let himself fall apart, there was too much to do. Too much at stake. And Dick shouldn't have to be the one holding him together, not when he'd just barely started to adjust in the first place.

Tim's tone is so deep-down wrong it's like the first patrol all over again. His hair wants to stand up on the back of his neck and his hind-brain's kicking him with primal protective urges that make his voice rougher, almost a growl. "Locking this up in dresser drawers won't make it go away." Barking at Tim isn't going to help, so he's rubbing his hands up and down Tim's arms even while he says it, and he rests his cheek against Tim's head. "It only makes you vulnerable in the long run."

He tensed, every muscle in his body going rigid. "Talking about it isn't going to make it go away either, Dick. I'm not like you. I can't just talk about my feelings and then it gets better. If I do it, I'll fall apart and my team needs me. This can wait. When there's time, I'll...do whatever it is that you do in these situations. But right now, I need to deal my way."

"Do you think I don't? You've seen it, haven't you? You have pictures of everything else." Dick shakes his head, pissed at himself for letting Tim bait him like this. He's still strung too tight even after letting go a bit and the irony's not escaping him of him keeping it together because his Tim needs him. "Your team's always going to need you. There will never be a day when the Titans don't need their leader. But you trained them well and I'm here. Trust them to do what needs to be done while you get straight with yourself."

It's too much. Tim could feel it inside of himself, the pain of loss, a deep agonizing well that the loss of his relationship with Bart barely floated on the surface. He already knew that when he finally let himself go there, he'd fall in and Tim wasn't sure anymore that he could ever kick back to the surface from there. "I was gone, just for a few hours in August. Bart panicked. The girls didn't keep him in hand. They're not ready. I can't do this yet."

August. Dick suppresses the frisson of awareness that goes with "gone for a few hours in August." Tim should never have to be alone for that. Everything bleeds away to soothing hands on his back and shoulders, firm pressure to break through the tension. "What happened in August?" It's phrased as a request but he's asking for debriefing and Tim knows better than not to give it to him.

"I was studying some of the dinosaurs on the other side of the island--civilian work. Miscalculated and managed to get non-critically injured," venom in his eyes, claws on his face, blood in his mouth and the sound of his own desperate breathing in his ears as he scrambled up the closest tree purely by feel and hoped it would be enough, "I wasn't able to get back on my own. The Titans came after me when I didn't return on schedule."

Miscalculated, as if Tim ever would miscalculate with something as dangerous as a dinosaur. If he thinks he can snow Dick with the same load of crap he sells his team with, he's forgotten who Dick is. "Define non-critical and don't bother with the dictionary version."

Tim lifted his hand, traced his finger under one eye to highlight the scarring. "Three small raptor type dinosaurs, capable of spitting venom. One got me with the venom, another one tried for my throat with teeth--the face strike was unintentional I believe. I spent a couple of weeks with my eyes bandaged while the tissue healed. I was never in mortal danger from the injuries and I didn't have much trouble getting away once I'd regained my spacial awareness." His report was clean and clinical but something under it suggested an apology for being so sloppy in the first place.

Dick's just been waiting for those scars to come up, sure there was a story behind them. This isn't the story he expected, with Tim risking everything to save Bart or Jill or Dari. No. This is Tim putting himself in danger so he doesn't have to feel. Dick turns Tim's chin so he can see his soft-eyed frown. Runs his thumbs over the scars, feather-light. "Blinding yourself to it won't work, Tim. And if I'd been here, having bandages over your eyes wouldn't have kept me from seeing."

Most of Tim's expressions were centered right around his eyes, where the mask would hide them so it was the corners of his eyes that frowned, dismay glittering in blue depths. "I assure you, blinding myself was never my intention. I'm neither self-destructive nor suicidal. It was an accident. That's all."

With his fingers gentle on Tim's face, his eyes flashing hurt at being seen and seen through, it's hard not to kiss Tim's forehead the way he had when Tim was five. It's hard not to kiss his mouth and soothe his pain away in the ways Dick knows best. "I'm not accusing you of either. Recklessness maybe. Looking for something to distract you and finding wounds you'll let yourself heal from, instead of the ones you won't face." He smooths his hand back over Tim's hair and hugs him in close again, wishing he could make this go faster for Tim, and knowing it will take as long as it takes. "I'm sorry I wasn't here when you needed me before."

Tim's jaw clenched and he considered arguing, but in the end it wasn't worth it. He was tired, heart-sick in ways that fighting just made worse. Instead he let his eyes close and his body sag into the Dick's grip. "I would like," he said carefully, "if you would let it go for now, Dick. Not forever, I know I can't ask that. But for now. For today."

Exactly as he had on Halloween, Dick drops his head over Tim's, giving what comfort Tim will take. "I can do that." It's not over, not by a long shot, but as long as Tim doesn't shut him out, it will come.