#no 21 | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

sardonic-sprite · 2 years

Text

Should Have Said...

Whumptober Days 21, 25, 28

Tim squirmed in the chair he was tied to, cursing under his breath, because what kind of paranoid asshole had decided to use zip ties and duct tape?

“If the bonds were escapable, Drake,” Damian droned, sounding bored, “I would have escaped.”

He was seated and bound on Tim’s right, somehow looking haughty and regal instead of small and afraid. He'd given up trying to slip free two hours ago, and Tim really wished the little brat could go back to giving him the silent treatment because his sass was not helping.

“They haven’t even made the ransom call yet,” Tim hissed, still straining to kick his legs free. “I am not just sitting here for another three hours--"

“Four.”

Tim looked up sharply, searching Damian’s face for a prank. “Not funny.”

“Why would I be jesting? You were unconscious for an additional hour after I woke up.”

“And you’re telling me this now?”

“What does it matter?” Damian complained.

Tim bit back a retort. It matters because I have that much less time than I thought.

He hadn’t even bothered to worry about this happening. Well, that was a lie. He’d worried about it, but he’d dismissed it as irrational. Tim was always moving, or always could move. Besides, it had been an aside mention on one website, and ‘missing spleen' didn’t even make honorable mentions in the ‘causes' list for the problem itself.

But your spleen was supposed to filter your bloodstream. Take out things like old red blood cells and platelets. Platelets that helped blood to clot. Platelets that helped blood to clot a hell of a lot faster when you weren’t moving.

“Drake.” Damian sounded almost pitying. “Batman or Nightwing will come to save us soon. Red Hood, even, if we are supremely unfortunate. I do not think we will come to serious harm before we are rescued.”

“You won’t,” Tim muttered.

Damian was silent. Tim kept twisting and pulling at his binds. The tape was starting to get gummy and loose, but the zip ties refused to snap.

“Whatever foolhardy plan you have to attract our captor's violence to yourself,” Damian said, voice higher, tighter, snootier than Tim had ever heard it, “Rest assured it is unnecessary. I can handle--"

“Damian… no,” Tim said softly. He looked over at his little brother’s pinched face and raised chin and abruptly felt guilty. “That’s not what I meant. I mean not how I meant it!” he added quickly, when Damian raised his head higher.

“I am going to protect you if I can, but I didn’t mean— I’m not mad about it. When I said… it didn’t have anything to do with you at all.”

He made sure Damian met his eyes – that the kid believed him – before turning back to dislodging the tape.

His thigh was starting to burn.

“What did you mean then, Timothy?” Damian asked, slow and shrewd.

“I mean I’m gonna suffer brain damage due to boredom,” Tim said.

Come on, come on, come on. Maybe it wouldn’t be that bad. Maybe they'd be rescued, or it wouldn’t become an embolism, or maybe he was imagining the whole thing.

“You don’t have enough of a brain left to be damaged.”

“Gee, thanks. I love you too, you little shit,” Tim muttered without thinking.

He didn’t even realize what he’d said until Damian croaked, “What?”

“I… I said ‘right back at you, you little shit,’” Tim stammered.

“Timothy, what is going--"

But Tim shushed him. He could hear footsteps coming down the hall, conveniently saving him from having to explain anything and giving him a way to alert Batman, who had to find them soon, because the pain was traveling up his leg and he had to be imagining that it was starting to swell—

“Say hello to your daddy, boys,” said the man holding the phone. Two others flanked him, holding guns, but all were masked, which meant they would in theory let Tim and Damian leave alive…

“Father, something’s wrong with Drake!” Damian hollered.

“What the fu--"

“You little--"

“Tim? Damian, what do you--"

“I’m fine!” Tim yelped, because one of the men had stepped towards Damian, raising his hand. “I pranked him and freaked him out, I’m fine, he’s fine, we’re not hurt, I mean, I could use a bathroom--" (Bat-code for ‘hurry the fuck up, old man,’ as established by Jason) “but we--"

“He said ‘I love you,’ Father,” Damian tattled, shouting over Tim, “to me.”

Tim heard Bruce’s breath catch. The last time he'd told Damian I love you, he’d been shot by Penguin and was in imminent danger of bleeding out.

One of the men muttered, “What the fuck?”

The apparent leader snatched the phone away before Tim could hear Bruce’s words. “If you want ‘em back, Wayne,” he drawled, “You know what we want.”

He hung up, stalked to Damian, who was glaring – “Wait--" Tim tried – and struck him across the face.

“The fuck was that, you little brat?” the man roared.

“It was my fault,” Tim cried. He couldn’t breathe. “Please, I scared him, he--" He started coughing.

“See?” Damian shrilled. “What did you drug him with, you heathens?”

“Not--" Tim kept coughing, his chest was burning, head spinning, and, God, it was hard to breathe. “Not drugged…”

Fuck, fuck, fuck. The kidnappers were yelling and Damian was shrieking, and Tim needed to do something, but he was completely immobile, and that was the whole reason he was fucked in the first place—

“--faking--"

“—shits, I’ll--"

Something warm and wet was trickling out the corner of Tim’s mouth.

“—think someone could fake that, you imbeciles?”

He should tell Damian he loved him. Really, not sarcastically. He should have told Bruce.

“—charged with murder, call the damn--"

Doot.

The world was fuzzy and floaty, but there was a warm weight anchoring him on one side. Voices were speaking, low and choked, and one was definitely angry. A girl made a shush sound and said, “Awake.”

“Timmy?”

A hand brushed his forehead.

“You with us, baby bird?”

Tim hummed. The warmth pressed even closer, and he thought there were fingers fisted in his shirt.

“Oh, Tim…” Someone kissed his forehead.

“Don’t you ever,” came the angry voice, “fucking scare us like that again, you little secret-keeping, spleenless bas--"

“Jason,” Bruce rumbled.

Tim blinked open his eyes to see them all gathered around him. Dick was sitting close, hand still tangled in Tim’s hair. Jason hovered, glowering, over Dick’s shoulder, but his eyes eased when he saw Tim awake. Cass was perched over Tim’s head, and Bruce sat on the bed beside him. The warmth against his side was, miracle of miracles, Damian, clinging to him like he was a life raft in a stormy sea.

“Wha' ‘app'ned?” he rasped.

“What happened,” Damian said, tight and high and imperial, “was you developed a pulmonary embolism due to a deep vein thrombosis because apparently you are missing an entire organ.”

Tim winced.

“Why didn’t you tell us, Timmy?” Dick whispered.

“Tell me you knew yourself,” Jason said. “Or I swear to God, I--"

“I knew.”

“Tim…” Bruce took his hand. “When did this happen, sweetheart? Why…”

Tim closed his eyes again, wishing he could sink through the mattress and never have to see their faces.

“While you were… gone. Got stabbed… they had to take it out.”

“Stabbed.”

“Who's ‘they,’ Tim?”

He'd like to be unconscious again, please and thank you. Better yet, he'd like to wake up and find that everything from taking Damian to the art museum to waking up in the hospital was just a wacky, horrible dream.

“League.”

“I’m gonna kill ‘em.”

“Oh, Tim…”

“Tim!” Dick was suddenly sobbing, bowed over Tim to press their foreheads together. Teardrops landed on his face and in his hair. “Tim, baby bird, God, I’m so sorry! I should—I should have--"

“You were,” Tim murmured. “You were there when I needed you the most.”

Dick pulled away, shaking his head. “Why wouldn’t you tell me,” he whispered brokenly, “unless you… unless you did-didn't trust me?”

“I do trust you, Dick.” Dammit, now Tim wanted to cry. “Listen, I… I knew you’d take it this way, so--"

“So you decided to keep secret a life threatening condition?” Damian seethed, clawing even closer to Tim. “You are an idiot, Drake, it’s a miracle you’re still…”

Tim cautiously extricated the arm Damian was lying on to wrap it around the kid’s shoulders.

“I’m sorry I scared you,” he said softly. “But I was handling it on my own, and I was fine--"

“’Fine,’” Jason echoed, sounding furious. “’Fine,’ ‘on your own,’ because apparently, you would rather literally fucking die than inconvenience your family with a little well-fucking-deserved guilt.”

“Jason--"

“No, Bruce. No. For once in all of our goddamn lives we’re going to fucking talk about it. Because every single one of us knew the kid has a fucked-up sense of worth--"

Tim tried to protest but was barreled over.

“And not one of us did a damn thing about it. And if the idiot bastards who took him hadn’t panicked and called EMS, we could be standing around a coffin right now, all because we never explained to the kid that we love him for more than being a perfect little soldier who never needs help or has feelings!”

No one seemed to know what to say. Tim was blinking back tears. Then Dick took a shaky breath and whispered, “You’re right. You’re right, Jay.”

He brushed his hand across his eyes and looked back at Tim, who couldn’t even process all the emotions on his brother’s face.

“You… you don’t have to do everything alone, Tim. And I’m sorry, that I… that I let you think that you did.” He was crying again, silently, and Tim felt tears on his own face. “I should have been there for you, the whole time, not just when… not just when you would have…”

Dick shook his head, unable to speak.

“And I’ve been an asshole to you since forever,” Jason said ruefully.

“I’m sorry,” Damian whispered, tucking his head against Tim’s shoulder. He didn’t elaborate.

“I forgive you guys,” Tim said quietly. “I understand why--"

“Tim, sweetheart,” Bruce said, cupping Tim’s hand in both of his, “the fact that you understand why we acted as we did doesn’t excuse the actions we took. We should have shown you that you can come to us for help, even if we are the problem, and ask us to do better. We should have made sure you understood that you are more important than… than our own emotional comfort.”

Bruce could barely get the words out, like it was fucked up that Tim had ever thought otherwise. Maybe it was.

“I still forgive you,” he whispered, because he didn’t know what else to say.

“It’s more than we probably deserve,” Jason huffed under his breath.

“But we’re gonna do better,” Dick promised. “Starting right now. I promise.”

Tim could only nod.

But he believed them.

#whumptober 2022 #no 21 #no 25 #no 28 #coughing up blood #duct tape #anger born of worry #batman #fic #medical innacuracies #tim drake #damian wayne #tim's missing spleen #hurt/comfort #bad things bingo

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