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lurkinglurkerwholurks · 2 years

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Whumptober prompts 8 (everything hurts and I'm dying), 17 (breaking point), 22 (pick your poison), 27 (stumbling), alt3 (dazed and confused), alt12 (carried to safety), alt15 (tears)

Bruce fumbled for his phone, only partially awake but more so by the moment. It was still dark in his room, the only light coming from the screen.

Dick, his heart stuttered. Tragedy out in Bludhaven. Or the League, some threat that couldn’t wait until morning.

Bruce’s grasping hand missed, knocked the phone to the rug where it landed face up with a muffled clatter. He noticed the time first, a mere hour after he had gone to bed. He noticed the caller second, the name in white across his default ocean coast background: T.

Tim?

Tim was supposed to be home, asleep—Bruce squinted one-eyed again at the time even as he snatched up the phone—yes, definitely home asleep. Jack had come home yesterday, so Robin was off-call for the weekend.

Bruce tapped open the call and lifted the phone to his ear. “Hello?”

Silence.

No, not silence. Faintly, Bruce could make out the sound of someone crying.

“Hello?” he asked again, still half-stretched out of bed, one hand braced against the floor.

A wet, hiccuping noise, louder this time, closer to the phone. It still took Bruce a moment to recognize Tim’s voice. Gooseflesh rose up his arms. He had never heard Tim cry before.

“Tim?” Bruce pushed himself fully upright but sat frozen in bed.

He saw death. He saw blood. He saw Joker with a knife to Tim’s throat, Riddler with a bomb duct-tapped to Tim’s chest. He saw more heartbreak than he could survive.

“Bruce?” It was definitely Tim, even with his voice warped by tears.

Bruce, not Batman, some detached corner of Bruce’s brain noticed. This was Tim talking, not Robin. Tim, calling Bruce, in tears.

At least he’s still breathing.

“What’s wrong?” It was a fight not to dip into Batman’s register, low and with bands of steel to bind back his emotions.

Bruce was on his feet now, reaching for clothes, for shoes, phone pinched between his cheek and shoulder.

“Uh’need he-elp.” Tim wasn’t just crying. He was sobbing. Sobbing so quietly that Bruce hadn’t noticed until he spoke, words slurred and hiccuping with each breath.

“Where are you?” It could be anything. An accident at home, a tragedy in the city. What if Tim had gone patrolling on his own? What if he and Jack had been out somewhere? He needed more information, but Tim was crying too hard.

Bruce put the phone on speaker so he could pull on sweatpants and scoop the fob from the end table into his other hand. Tim’s wheezing echoed tinnily, and Bruce found his own chest catching.

He stopped, hand splayed against the dresser, knuckles white, and forced himself to take a breath before picking up the phone. “Tim, listen to me. I need you to breathe with me, can you do that?”

Tim mumbled something indistinct. It could have been an agreement or not meant for Bruce at all. Was he drugged? Fear-gassed? In some kind of medical crisis?

“Tim.” Bruce let a little of Batman’s command thread into his voice. “Take a deep breath right now. With me, ready?”

In.

Out.

He could hear the exhalation from Tim, sooner than Bruce’s own, and still too shaky and shallow, but he was doing it.

“Good. Again.” Bruce breathed again as he yanked open his bedroom door and sprinted for the stairs. “Again.”

Bruce took the stairs three at a time, thundering down in a way he hadn’t since his youth. He needed to get to the Cave. There was no time to wake Alfred, and Bruce worried that shouting for him would distract Tim. They repeated the process as Bruce tore through the back hallways. Tim was still crying, but he wasn’t gasping for air any longer. That was good.

Or is it because he’s dying? He’s not breathing at all, that’s why you can’t hear it.

No. No, Bruce could hear breathing, voiced exhalations like teary moans.

“You’re doing great,” Bruce lied. “I need to know what’s going on. Are you hurt?”

“Hurt,” Tim echoed in little more than a croak. “Hurt.”

“Okay. Okay, tell me what hurts.”

“Heeeeeaaaaad,” Tim groaned. “M’st’m’ch.” As if to underline his point, the sound of retching echoed over the line. Poison?

There was a garbled noise like a stumble or a fall, and a cry from Tim.

“Tim?”

No answer. The silence made Bruce’s skin crawl.

“Tim, talk to me,” Bruce ordered. “What happened? Are you bleeding?”

“Bleeding?” Tim’s voice was high with panic, nearly a squeak. “‘m I bleeding??”

Okay, bad question, though not having the answer made Bruce want to curl up and have a little panic attack of his own. He was in the Cave now, sprinting full-tilt to the computer, praying to anyone who would listen that Tim had the GPS on his phone turned on.

“Where are you?” he tried again.

“Dunno. Don’t know,” Tim wailed, and he sounded more like a lost little boy than Bruce had ever heard him be before.

Please, he’s just a kid. He’s not even mine, but he’s just a boy.

“Okay, sweetheart, okay, just breathe,” Bruce soothed. “I’ll find you. Stay right where you are and I’ll find you.”

There was the sound of retching again and quiet weeping. Bruce could have drowned in it, but he tried to listen beyond to background noises, any clue to where Tim was being held.

“What do you see?”

The BatComputer was waking up. He just needed a minute more.

“Dark.” Tim’s voice was muffled. “Trees.”

Trees?

“Tim, are you outside?” Trees in Gotham? A park? Or was he not in Gotham at all?

“Nn-hnn.”

Outside with trees, but dark. It was a waxing moon that night, not full but nearly so, and even at this hour, there still should be some light to see by.

“Can you see the moon?”

“No-o. Just trees. Hurt, hurt my leg, I—” Tim coughed, then groaned.

Woods? Bruce knew every block of Gotham, every patch of scraggly brown grass and crooked branch, but his mind was blank with panic. All he could picture was cracked asphalt and crumbling brick. Nowhere with enough trees to block out the moon.

“What’s wrong with your leg?” he asked, desperate to keep a coherent line of dialogue flowing and to have some picture of what was happening.

“Fell off,” Tim said, blunt in a way that made Bruce’s brain stutter. “Can’t—m’stuck. Bruce, m’stuck, help me. Help me.”

Tim had his GPS on. Bruce stared at the screen, disbelieving, but only for a moment. In the next heartbeat, he was gone, sprinting back upstairs.

“I’m coming,” he promised, putting every drop of conviction into his voice, as if he could reach through the phone and clasp Tim’s hand through force of will alone. “I’m coming, Tim, just keep talking to me.”

Nothing made sense. Not the blinking red light on the map Bruce had thrown to his phone. Not the mumbled, weeping replies from Tim. Not the way Bruce felt like he couldn’t breathe, broken from the inside out at the thought of anything happening to this child.

It took too long to reach the thick patch of trees that delineated the property line between the Waynes and the Drakes. Bruce had Tim on speaker again, looking from the screen to the dark and silent wood in front of him. He didn’t pause at the edge, instead plunging in even as he flicked on the flashlight function. He wanted searchlights, floodlights, but had to content himself with sweeping the narrow beam in enough of an arc to see by.

“Tim!” Bruce bellowed into the open air. “Tim, can you hear me? Timothy!”

The return cry was more echo than noise, but Bruce heard it. He crashed through the bushes, leaping over scrub and fallen branches, until he reached the ditch where a black-haired boy lay sprawled half in, half out, limbs tangled among the thick shrubs.

“Tim.” Bruce knelt and lifted his phone to get a better view.

“Bru-usssse.” Tim’s face was smeared with tears, snot, and dirt, a red scratch across his cheek, likely from stumbling through the woods. He tried to reach for Bruce, but the sleeve of his t-shirt had snagged on the bush he had fallen through.

“Hold still,” Bruce ordered, checking quickly for broken bones, impalement, or any other danger that would prevent Tim from moving.

When he found nothing, he looked back to the still-weeping boy in the ditch. With Bruce in sight, Tim had stifled his own hiccuping sobs and subsided back into near-silent tears. He looked miserable, which Bruce tried to keep in mind as his cresting panic warred against the reek of alcohol that wafted off Tim like smog.

“Timothy,” Bruce began, relief and crashing adrenaline quickly shifting into growing anger, but Tim had flinched back from the light and was cringing with his face buried in his own shoulder. He looked pathetic. Pathetic and so very young.

“Hurts,” Tim croaked again. Bruce sighed, relented.

“Okay, he murmured. “Okay, hold still, I’ll get you out.”

Bruce began the painstaking process of disentangling boy from debris. Tim’s stumbling path through the woods was clear enough, even by flashlight. Just out of sight would be piles of vomit where alcohol and fear had forced their way up. Bruce could see where Tim had tripped and fallen into the ditch. A better examination later would likely show a twisted ankle.

Tim was still crying as Bruce lifted him out of the ditch and into his arms.

He should cry, Bruce thought bitterly, then regretted the bitterness and the approval alike. He never wanted to hear a child cry, no matter the reason. Especially not this child.

“Okay,” Bruce mumbled and shifted Tim to hold the boy a little closer. “Okay. It’s alright.”

The journey was a slow one, hindered by the lack of light on the return and Bruce’s need to be careful with his back. It was silent except for the crunch of Bruce’s carefully placed steps in the dirt and the distant chirping of crickets. Tim’s tears soaked Bruce’s shirt but didn’t make a sound. Bruce was careful to think only about what would happen next and not about what could have been, nor about the disorienting muscle memory of cradling a half-grown boy he had never held before.

Alfred was waiting at the side door when they arrived. They exchanged looks over Tim’s head—Alfred’s concerned, Bruce’s dour and bewildered all at once. As they passed by, Alfred caught whiff of Tim and his expression changed. Bruce’s stayed the same.

He didn’t understand. This was Tim. Quiet, responsible, meticulous Tim. Tim, who bullied Bruce into going to bed and eating dinners outside of the Cave. Tim who had never once shown any signs of addiction or even interest—who had, in fact, ratted Bruce out a time or two to Alfred or Dick.

Tim, who didn’t ask for help.

Tim, who didn’t cry.

Bruce carried Tim into the kitchen and poured the boy into a chair. In the light, Tim managed to look even worse than he had outside. Though less hauntingly pale, he was still several shades below his normal color, a difference only heightened by the high pink in his cheeks and nose. Bruce kept him braced upright with one hand as the other pulled a second chair close. As he sat, Alfred placed a damp washcloth on the table with a cup of water and then disappeared after a nod of thanks from Bruce.

“Tim,” Bruce began, then stopped, not sure how to proceed.

Dick had gotten drunk once that Bruce knew of. He had been given a bottle of wine by a grateful citizen who had ignored the teen in Teen Titans, and he and Wally had made short work of it. As far as Bruce knew, Wally had been fine, but Dick had staggered home, peed in a vase, and then woken the next morning with a hangover powerful enough to make Bruce almost pity him. Almost.

Bruce had been at a loss then, too, not sure how to navigate the already unsteady ground of brother-father figure that was further in flux as Dick became more independent. The illegality of underage drinking he could deal with, though he knew it was hypocritical of him. The rest… He had fumbled through it, as he often did, with one eye to Alfred’s example. Their relationship had survived, and as far as Bruce knew, Dick had waited until 21 to drink again.

But Tim… This was different. Tim was different, but so was Bruce’s role in his life. Right?

Anger, a white-hot flareup from a fire never fully extinguished, roared in Bruce’s chest before being banked again. Where was Jack Drake? Why didn’t he care that his son was wandering through the woods, drunk, upset, and alone? Or maybe Jack was also drunk, passed out safely in the shelter of his own home.

Bruce couldn’t think about that right now without wanting to break something, and Tim already looked like he was on the far side of fragile. Instead, Bruce pressed the water into Tim’s hand and forced him to drink as he did another inspection under the sconced kitchen lights. Only when Bruce was sure that there was no damage other than some scrapes, bruises, and a mildly twisted ankle did he let himself breathe more fully.

Tim had stopped crying for the moment, his attention and concentration fixated on lifting the cup of water to his lips. Bruce took advantage of the moment to pick up the washcloth and begin to wipe away the dirt, snot, and tears that caked Tim’s face.

“Tim,” he began again, and swallowed a grunt as Tim’s head jerked toward his voice. “Do you know where you are?”

Tim blinked, then looked around slowly as if realizing he was somewhere new for the first time. “Inside.”

Bruce made sure his sigh wasn’t vocalized. “Yes. Do you know inside where?”

Tim hummed. “Th’ Manor.” As soon as he said it, his already slouched body relaxed further, as if some tensely strung cord inside of him had been released.

“That’s right,” Bruce agreed. “You’re in Wayne Manor with me and Alfred.”

He dragged the washcloth across Tim’s cheek and was both bemused and amused when Tim physically leaned into the sensation. Bruce was struck again by how very young this Robin was. He wanted to strangle Jack Drake. The man was only in town for the weekend after three weeks abroad. The least he could do was be aware that his underage son was drunk in the woods in the dead of night.

Bruce cleared his throat and made sure his tone was neutral before asking, “Tim, where’s Jack?”

Tim burst into tears. Bruce froze, washcloth still lifted. He stayed completely still as Tim—sobbing, nearly incoherent, and still very drunk—confessed that Jack Drake had not come home after all. Instead of arriving the night before, he had texted, saying he would see Tim next week instead. Tim, hurt, angry, and bewildered, had helped himself to Jack’s fully stocked bar. Because it was there, and Jack was not.

“Why didn’t you just come here?”

Alfred would have been thrilled to have company, and Bruce had thought Tim knew by now that he was welcome any time. But Tim shook his head and tearily refused to answer, and Bruce understood. No child should have to protect their parents the way Tim did.

Bruce relented. “Okay,” he murmured as he wiped the fresh tears from Tim’s face. “Okay. We’ll talk about this in the morning.”

“M’sorry,” Tim mumbled. “M’sorry.”

Bruce bent down, ducking his head until he could catch Tim’s gaze. “Tim. I’m glad you knew it was safe to come here. Next time…” He hoped there was never a next time. “Call me. I’ll come get you. And don’t ever drink alone.”

Tomorrow, they would address the legal concerns, the danger Tim had put himself in, the what-ifs, and the consequences. But not tonight.

If Tim were Dick or… If Tim were his child, Bruce would have kissed his forehead and pulled him into a hug. Tim was not. Instead, he squeezed Tim’s narrow shoulder and then straightened with a pop of his spine.

He could hear Alfred setting up an IV pole in the living room. They would need to check Tim’s BAC and monitor him for the night, so Bruce mentally bid farewell to his bed. Knowing Alfred, there was likely a toothbrush and spit bowl waiting as well, so no need to detour. Rather than lifting Tim back into his arms, he helped the boy to his feet and guided him into the waiting gloom.

“Baseball or talk shows?” he asked as they sat on the couch.

Tim wrinkled his nose. “Ugh.”

Bruce grunted, as close as he would get to a laugh tonight. They would get Tim cleaned up and settled. Alfred would return to bed. Tim would get to doze lightly, letting rest burn away the alcohol and sharpen the edge of his first hangover. And Bruce would stay awake, blinking gritty eyes at a bright screen, another man’s son heavy against his shoulder.

———

The phone vibrated by his elbow, the accompanying flash pulling Bruce’s focus away from the paperwork spread across the desktop in front of him. It was still relatively early in the night, at least for his family, and as he pushed his glasses up onto his forehead and lifted the phone to see the caller, he mentally calculated the odds of whose name would appear.

TIMOTHY DRAKE WAYNE the screen read. Tim’s face looked back at him, a nervous little half-smile captured at Bruce’s request a few months after his adoption. He had looked so young even then, but younger now, several years onward.

It was Dick and Damian’s week at the Manor, a routine that continued to chafe but also eased many of the tensions still bubbling after Bruce’s presumed death and return. Tim would be at his own apartment, most likely, or maybe at one of Jason’s safehouses. Bruce didn’t know the full shape of their relationship and he was reluctant to take its measure without invitation. Whatever peace they had brokered in his absence, he was glad of it.

Bruce set down his pen and leaned back in his chair before answering. “Hello?”

He expected a question, perhaps a tricky case Tim was fiddling with in his spare time, or a random thought Tim would then use to segue into a casual chat to help fill the time until it was his week at the Manor. Bruce enjoyed both of these, when they happened. Tim was more inclined to text, but Bruce liked to hear his voice.

Instead, there was no greeting, just the sound of breathing.

Bruce sat up a little straighter. “Tim?”

“Broke my promise.” That was Tim’s voice, but not the Tim Bruce knew. This Tim was flat, as dead-toned as a hostage reading from a script.

Bruce had to remind himself to keep breathing. “What promise did you break?” he asked, careful to keep his tone light and open.

Tim hadn’t made many promises to Bruce. He had a way of going quiet when pressed, implying agreement without actually agreeing, then slipping off to do whatever he had planned in the first place, conscience clear and mind set. The few Bruce could recollect pinning him down on all had to do with his own well-being.

There was a noise like the gurgle of water and a clink.

“Tim?” Bruce asked again. “Everything alright?”

He braced, waiting for the family code, the signal that Tim wasn’t alone, that he was under duress, that he needed Batman to crash through his window.

Instead, Tim asked, “Can you come?”

Bruce was already pushing away from his desk. “Yes. Where am I going?”

“My place.” Another sloshing sound, which Bruce finally recognized as a glass bottle being tipped up.

“I’m coming,” Bruce promised. “Stay on the phone with me.”

Tim left the phone on but didn’t speak again. Any attempt at conversation was met with a grunt or silence. Bruce drove with an iron grip on the steering wheel, keeping track of each audible sip.

He knew Tim’s address but had never been before. He had asked, more than once, and Tim had demurred, citing conflicting schedules, messy bedrooms, or later times that would be better. And it was true, the current shape of their lives meant it was difficult to make schedules align. If it was Tim’s week at the Manor, he didn’t want to be at his apartment, and if it wasn’t, then Bruce was expected to spend his time with Dick and Damian. Bruce had always expected to find a way, someday, or just wait out the clock until Tim was able to move back permanently. This was not how he expected to visit.

Bruce took the stairs, phone off speaker and held to his ear now as he hiked up narrow stairs to Tim’s apartment. He had a key. Tim’s emancipation was still a touchy subject, but after his collapse earlier that year, Bruce had required a backup set. So Bruce didn’t have to wait to be let in, but instead gave a perfunctory knock and then stepped inside.

Tim was not in the living room. At least, Bruce thought this was the living room. The front door opened onto a small room, carpeted, with a couch, beanbag chair, and end table. A small television sat on the floor against one wall, a gaming console with two controllers in a pile next to it. The walls were white. The carpet was vaguely beige. A Mario poster taped to one wall was the only thing with color. It was all so un-Tim that Bruce could only stare.

The kitchenette was a narrow strip of linoleum and one half-wall of cabinets with a small square of laminate countertop. There, at least, was some sign of life—a sink full of dishes, a roll of paper towels without a holder, a wilting geranium in a plastic pot. But still no Tim.

“Tim?” Bruce called.

He heard his own voice echo from a hall just off the living room. Cautiously, Bruce followed it down, until he was standing in the doorway of the bedroom. The room had no overhead light, just a small bedside lamp. Tim was caught in the edge of its glow, profile limned in gold as he sat slumped on the bed, back against the wall, a bottle resting against his leg.

The lighting obscured most details. Bruce tried to look for injuries but saw none. Then again, his children were far, far too good at hiding all but the worst. He was afraid, studying Tim’s profile in silhouette, that this was one of those times.

“Tim?” Bruce said again, low and gentle.

Tim twitched, not quite turning to look at Bruce, but jerking his chin enough to acknowledge the sound. “Hey. I…” He licked his lips, pausing to chew on the top one a moment. “Sorry. Broke m’promise.”

“Promise?” Bruce echoed, aware of the reverberating deja vu from earlier. “What promise is that?”

Tim made to lift the bottle, but only managed to waggle it a few inches off the bed before letting it fall again. There was a good portion gone. “Not t’drink alone. Sorry.”

Bruce hadn’t thought about that horrible night in ages. There had been other horrible nights since—with Tim, with Dick or Jason or Cass or Damian, or with Bruce himself—and new traumas took precedence over old. And Tim, as far as Bruce knew, had stayed away from alcohol since, the combination of his resulting hangover and Bruce and Alfred’s joint disappointment a powerful enough deterrent.

But Bruce had been gone a long time, and there was no accounting for what else he might have missed.

Bruce edged into the room, careful to keep his posture loose and nonthreatening. All of his children were sensitive to his disapproval, his perceived anger, and Tim was no exception.

“Where’d you get that?” he asked, not sure where to start but knowing he must. A full bottle of alcohol supplied to his still very underage son was at least a place to begin, if not the best.

“Don’ worry ‘bout it,” was Tim’s slurred reply. As Bruce watched, he brought the bottle to his lips and took another drink, grimacing at the bite. He looked no less miserable as he lowered the bottle to the mattress again.

“Jack,” Tim began, and Bruce went still. Tim rarely brought up either of his parents freely. “Jack always said a good negroni was the mark of a ‘proper Drake man.’”

Tim’s voice deepened in mocking approximation of his dead father. He snorted, rolling his eyes at his own air quotes. “Only, only he never taught me.” Tim sniffed and wiped his nose on the back of his wrist. “Thought I c’ld figure it out. YouTube.”

He shook his head. “Nope. So I…” He lifted the bottle again, wordlessly displaying the result of his failure.

Bruce didn’t know what to say. He never did, when it came to Jack. The man was dead. There was no healing to come from excoriating him, no matter how badly Bruce wished he could. Nor did the story explain why Bruce’s straightlaced son felt the need to get drunk in the first place.

“Rough day?” Bruce asked.

Tim shrugged, shoulders rising and falling the way a marionette’s might, all string and no muscle. Even as he brushed away the question, his expression rippled, collapsing into something nearing tears before righting itself again. He closed his eyes and let his head rest back against the wall.

It had taken Bruce too long to notice how skilled Tim was at hiding his own hurts. At how quick he was to bury the first sign of need or want. And too often Bruce had let him. They were both trying to be better now, but some patterns were hard to break. But Bruce knew, for Tim’s sake, he had to be better. And it turned out he knew where to start after all.

Instead of waiting for an invitation, Bruce took the two steps needed to reach the bed and sat next to his son.

“C’mere,” he murmured and caught Tim as he collapsed into his side.

It was a unique kind of pain, listening to his children cry. If Bruce could snap his fingers and change the world for them, he would. But there was nothing to fix here, not really. All he could do was listen and wait.

Bruce pressed his lips to Tim’s scalp and held him close as Tim sobbed, then decided that an arm around him wasn’t close enough and pulled Tim onto his lap instead. Tim, small though he was, was too big. Bruce didn’t care. He had allowed Tim his space early on, assuming that Tim didn’t want or need physical affection, that he was too independent, that he didn’t look to Bruce for that sort of thing. It had taken dying to find out he was wrong.

Tim clung to him, face pressed into his shirt, body shaking with sobs.

“Talk to me,” Bruce encouraged gently, one hand rubbing circles between his son’s shoulder blades.

“Hurts,” Tim gasped. “Hurts.”

“What does?”

“Ev’rything.” Tim pressed a hand to his own chest, over his heart, and pushed as if he could rub the pain out of himself.

Bruce caught that hand and brought the knuckles to his lips. “I’m sorry, love. I wish… I could fix it for you.” He would have moved earth itself, crossed universes, thrown himself back into the clutches of time, if it meant his children never needing to cry again.

Tim made a noise somewhere between a groan and a sigh, and Bruce rested his cheek atop Tim’s head. There would be time later to find out what, if anything had happened. It could have been an event, a memory, a trigger. Or it could have been nothing at all. They all bore their own scars, and some ran deep enough to be lifelong. They could talk about medication, about a change to Tim’s therapy, about consequences for underage drinking. But all of that could wait for the new day.

Bruce rocked his son until the shaking sobs subsided into sniffles. The combination of booze and tears had left Tim boneless and nauseated, so Bruce lifted his boy as if he were fourteen again and carried him into the living room.

There was no Alfred this time, so Bruce had to fetch the water and the washcloth himself, but the rest was an echo, reverberating and distorting. The face he cleaned now was leaner, older, its nose crookedly reset after a break, but it was his boy’s face. Bruce was getting better at leaning into impulse, so he did now, pressing his lips to the spot on Tim’s cheek that the cloth had just cleaned.

Tim gave a wet little snort. It was a nicer sound than tears.

“I’m glad you called,” Bruce murmured. “Thank you.”

Tim hummed, and Bruce pressed the glass of water into his hands as they settled back on the couch.

“Baseball or talk shows?” Bruce asked as he reached for the remote.

“Only got subscriptions,” Tim said, this side shy of smug, though his voice still wobbled. “Cartoons or cooking shows.” He gave a little urp, then amended, “Cartoons.”

Bruce chuckled and reached for his phone.

At Tim’s, he pecked out with one thumb. Done for night.

A pause, and then a thumbs up on the other end.

Bruce turned off his phone.

#whumptober2022 #no.8 #no.17 #no.22 #no.27 #alt3 #alt12 #alt15 #batfic #fanfic #my fic #Tim Drake #bruce wayne #BatFam #whump #hurt/comfort #knuckle kisses #GoodDad!Bruce

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bogusboxed · 2 years

Text

Boxtober - Day 20: “Headcanons For Cuddling The Proxies.”

Day 20:

-Proxies (+ Clockwork!) X GN!Reader

“There’s only us.” x “Falling Asleep Together”

-I do not own any of these characters and do not take credit for them.

Brian

---

-If we’re talking post-Brian after Marble Hornets, it isn’t a common thing that happens between the two of you, but when it does, it's very special to him.

-He may not show it, but he enjoys cuddling with you a lot. This is because he likes to ensure you're safe and also since he doesn’t get breaks from his missions often.

-If you're typically a sleepy person and you decide to sleep on his shoulder, he won’t wake you up. He’ll probably just let you snooze until he has something to go take care of. But if you're on a mission with him, expect to be woken up or expect something random to happen.

-He also likes to lend you his hoodie as a blanket because he finds it cute.

-His favorite part of cuddling would be when you fall asleep. It warms his heart to see you completely tranquil around him, even when he could snap you like a twig.

-One time you fell asleep on a mission with him, and he just left you there in the middle of the forest.

Tim

---

-This is extremely rare, even more, rare than Brian. This goes for pre and post, but mostly for post-marble hornets.

-Tim isn’t the type to cuddle up to you, especially in the early stages of your relationship.

-But you'll find one day, maybe during a movie or show, you're cuddled up to him and he seems into it. And eventually, it leads to cuddling.

-Tim is the best at cuddling, which doesn’t make a whole lot of sense due to him not being into physical touch. But, he still manages to be the best at it.

-Expect to be scented like coffee and cigarettes by the end because it's Tim and there's no way he won't try to smoke. Unless you say otherwise, but, yet again, you can't stop him if you're asleep. But he won't do it if you can't handle it or if you're awake staring him down.

-If you were to fall asleep on him, he’d probably wake you up and put you to bed. Or he would try and slowly make his way out of the situation. Then, put a blanket on you and call it a day.

-Though if you fall asleep on him during a mission. He’ll wake you up, but it doesn't mean he’s not incredibly concerned about why you're so tired. And will insist you go to bed in his truck after the mission. Also, he’ll probably give you his flannel as a blanket.

-He’s got a lot of personal problems, so it just takes a lot out of him to try. He is, however, willing to try for you.

-He’ll never admit to it, but, after a while, he finds himself enjoying the physical touch, specifically after a long stressful mission.

Toby

---

-You had plans in the morning? Too bad, because you're stuck with him until he gets a random burst of energy to get up.

-This man is not going to let you go anywhere if he wants to hold you or you to hold him. And it's not him verbally telling you to stay, it's just him having an iron grip on you, making it impossible to escape.

-He typically likes physical touch constantly and enjoys cuddling daily. However, sometimes he can get grouchy and push you away for a little while. But, try not to worry too much because he’ll be back soon.

-If you fall asleep on this man during a mission, he will be extremely fidgety and may wake you up by accident. But don’t worry, he’ll make up for your lack of sleep later with a good amount of cuddling.

-A bad side to this would be that if you were to deny him of his physical affection, he’d probably ignore you for an hour. Depending on your mood, this could be a good or bad thing.

-Also it would be extremely rare to be lent this man’s hoodie due to the fact he never takes it off other than when it has to be washed. So, if he gives it to you, make sure to thank him and use it.

-After a long, harsh mission, expect him to be even more clingy than he typically is. It’s mostly because he misses you and just wants your attention.

Kate The Chaser

---

-How did you manage to get her to cuddle with you?-

-She’s constantly on the move and can’t stay in one place for very long. But, if you can manage to get her to cuddle with you, it’s very sweet and heartwarming. The cuddling normally involves her hands against your arms and whispering sweet nothings to you to try and coax you to sleep.

-Though physical affection may not be her favorite thing it doesn’t mean she will deny you of it. Because she loves you too much to not give in to your pleas for a cuddle.

-Her favorite thing about cuddling with you is the times she gets to fall asleep with her chin on the top of your head. It makes her feel safe and on top of everything.

-If she gets paranoia, expect her grip on you to increase. She’ll use you to ground herself if things start to go haywire for her.

-If you fall asleep on her during a mission, she won’t mind at all and will let you sleep, unlike the others. She’ll even leave you with her hoodie if it makes you sleep any better. She knows that the operator pushes all of you, so she doesn’t mind giving you a break. And by the time you wake up, the entire mission is already over with and she’s carrying you back in bridal style.

-She doesn’t mind doing any lovey-dovey stuff in front of any of the other creeps. And won’t mind if you start snuggling up to her randomly. But do expect her to return the favor.

Clockwork

---

-Oh boy.

-She loves cuddling with you whenever you let her, and she’ll typically spoon you unless you want it the other way. And if you can manage to spoon her, she loves it when you play with her hair.

-She also tends to prefer physical contact over other things and loves to see you wear her jacket. It's one of the best things for her. She just loves seeing you rock her staple outfit and sees it as a necessary thing for your relationship.

-Unlike most of the people on this list, she will show you she loves you and her cuddling by straight-up telling you. She will praise you constantly for cuddling with her and, in all honesty, just wants to smother you in her love.

-And if you fall asleep on her during a mission, she’ll probably fall asleep with you. So if you want a mission to go smoothly, try your best not to fall asleep, or else you are going to have to deal with the operator.

-She flexes the fact you and she are together to a plethora of other creeps to the point you’ve had people you’ve never met before come up to you. And if you want her to stop, just tell her. It wouldn’t stop it completely, but it'd stop a good portion of it.

-Though if someone makes fun of you, expect to stop a fight. To her, it's onsight to whoever dares mess with her partner. She will not hesitate to beat a bitch up.

[A/N -

Today had been absolutely horrendous and I am holding on by a string so, take some HC's in the mean time!!! <333

Sorry for the shorter post like I said today has not been my day and I feel like total crap. I wasn't even planning on posting today but, I gotta keep up that streak so, please forgive me!! <333

love you guys!!! ]

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annikavelde · 2 months

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{.866.}

.:ANATOMY:. Head: LeLutka - Ceylon Body: Ebody - Reborn Hair: VCO - Roo Horns: Vermilion - Lustful Nights Horns *NEW* @ Hentai Fair Wet Shine: Moonphase - Wet Shine *NEW* @ Hentai Fair Wet Materials: ALT3 - Lusty Shine

.:CLOTHING:. Top: Yaya - Elf Dress *NEW* @ Hentai Fair Sleeves: KRR - Eliza Silk Sleeves *NEW* @ Hentai Fair Bottoms: KRR - Eliza Silk Bottom *NEW* @ Hentai Fair Flowers: Sakura - Body Blossoms *NEW* @ Hentai Fair

.:SCENE:. Bubbles: Nani - Dreamy Pond - Bubbles Aura past gacha Background: Milk Motion - Flooded Ancient Building

#lelutka #ebody #reborn #vco #vermilion #moonphase #alt3 #yaya #krr #sakura #nani #milkmotion #hentaifair #sl #slblog #slblogger #secondlife #secondlifeblog #secondlifeblogger

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lilynightfall · 24 days

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♥ outfit

MIWAS / Lana Camisole top #FATPACK @Equal10 Bonnie - Mizuki Skirt Fatpack @Equal10 *Tentacio* Fleur bandleg fatpack @Fameshed

♥ body

[monso] Ubel Hair @NeoJapan ALT3 > Pixie Dust FX Shine .STOIC. [ UNPACKER ] . GEL HEART NAILS NEUTRALS Lelutka EvoX eBody Reborn

♥ decor

SEmotion Libellune Panda Bear Companion 01 @Kustom9 +Half-Deer+ Mini Lantern Sakura Vase @SakuraMatsuri +Half-Deer+ Wooden Slat Display Table @SakuraMatsuri [[RH]] NIHONKAOKU -Japanese Summer House Lyrium. Niji Animations Set

♥ flickr post

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mio-blogs · 7 months

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~ Woof

Sponsors ♥ Insomnia Angel | NANAO ♥

Knife: Insomnia Angel - Killing sticky knife @ The Fifty Blood On Hand: Insomnia Angel - Sticky hands tattoo @ The Fifty Muzzle: NANAO - Heart Muzzle / Male-Female + Custom HUD @ The Warehouse Sale Event Cyber Arm: NANAO - 2077 Cyber Arms // Female+Male @ NEO Japan Panties: NANAO - Taylor Thong // 6 Sizes + Hud Metal // ALL COLORS @ Kinky Event

Anatomy

Mesh Head: Lelutka Briannon Head 3.1

Mesh Body: eBODY - REBORN

Chest Mod: eBODY - REBORN Waifu Boobs

Hair: Yomi - Nimu Hair (hair has been edited in photoshop)

Face Skin: My personal custom skin (not for sale)

Body Skin: My personal custom skin (not for sale)

Eyes: NecroNoir - #1 Ectoplasm Eyes Coming soon to Spookzilla Hunt (Starts October 20th)

Eye Shine Overlay: NecroNoir - Timid Eyes - FATPACK @ Wasteland Event (starts Sept 30th)

Ears: Swallow - Gauged XL for Lel Evo X Ears (female)

Teeth: The DeadBoy - Noc teeth @ The Warehouse Sale Event

Makeup/Tattoos

Brows: Suicidal Unborn - Aneria Eyebrows -Lelutka EvoX & Evo 2.5

Eyeshadow: Suicidal Unborn - Tired Eyebags -Lelutka EVO X

Eyeliner: NecroNoir - Razor Makeup

Face Fluff: NIMU - Fluff marks 2

Face Stars: CELESTIA - astra

Nose Tattoo: CELESTIA - nose tattoos

Lipstick: NecroNoir - #3 Bat Lips Coming soon to Spookzilla Hunt (Starts October 20th)

Lashes: Void - Demure Lashes @ Marketplace

Cyber Neck: RZ - Cyber Implants EVOX FATPACK

Leg Tattoo: CELESTIA - wonderland

Body Shine: ALT3 - Mylar Glitter FX Shine

Accessories

Arm Bands: Miss Black - Aleister Add-ons - Plastic B.O.M @ Sabbath Event

Puppy Ears: HAZEL - CANINE BUNDLE

Glove: babyboo - destroy gloves - leather pack @ The Warehouse Sale Event

Clothes

Shirt: PSYCHO:Byts - Lisbeth Top - Ska Set

Follow me on Flickr ♥

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naturepointstheway · 2 years

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Flufftober catchup: Day 2 (alternate used): “Falling Asleep Together”

Here we go with a wee ficlet. Cats the musical, Zurich production (as always, with mute Misto), Jemima and Misto friendship.

Losing himself in the spectacle of stars on moonless nights always calmed Mistoffelees, even if he was alone—or thought he was, until someone--Jemima--called softly out to him from the dark. He looked around to see where she was, catching her silhouetted face turned to him only a few paces away. He could tell she was smiling, even in the dark.

“Come sit with me, you don’t have to watch the stars alone.”

Mistoffelees didn’t hesitate to settle down beside her, paws crossed over each other as they watched the stars in companiable silence.

“Do you ever imagine shapes and cats among the stars?”

Mistoffelees smiled more to himself than Jemima—he’d done that since he was a kitten. Letting magic sparkles fly from his paw, he aimed at a group of stars, drawing the vague silhouette of a mouse between them. His heart swelled at Jemima’s soft, excited “Oooh, I see it! Show me another!”

Mistoffelees drew another creature in the stars, Jemima gasping with awe, again asking for another. He drew again and again, until Jemima fell asleep against him, nose buried between her paws. Ordinarily he would have shifted away, but Jemima was one of the few cats he allowed so close into his personal space—and the only kitten who came up to him to give him a nuzzle whenever she sensed he needed a little bit of loving.

Jemima now asleep, he tucked his paws under his chest, staring at the stars, still searching for shapes among them, until his own eyes became heavy with drowsiness, nose dipping until he too was fast asleep, comfortable and warm with his friend at his side.

#flufftober2022 #alt3 #cats the musical #Mr Mistoffelees #Zurich!Mistoffelees #Mute!Misto #friendship fic #Zurich!Misto needs friends ok #And there's like at least two moments in the Zurich recording #where Jemima gives him a nuzzle and it's so sweet <3 #Jemima has a pure heart

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applexscruff · 1 year

Photo

Indestructible

SPONSORED BY: The WareHouse Sale

C R E D I T S:

Find all things i’m wearing by clicking [x]

◉ W e a r i n g

- Head & Makeup

Lelutka - Avalon Head [x]

Odio - Seon Skin [x]

VCO - Mao Hair [x]

Reverie - Juno Eyebrows [x]

ALT3 - Neo Graphic Liners @ The WareHouse Sale [x]

Swallow - Pixie Gauged Ears [x]

RichB - Lecter Plugs [x]

Minuit - Jihyo Piercing [x]

- Body & Clothes

Tanaka - Power Sweatshirt & Shorts @ The WareHouse Sale [x]

Just Yaska - Faux Thight Fishnet @ The WareHouse Sale [x]

Greenies - Battle Knee Pads [x]

Dappa - Jin Tattoo [x]

Tanaka - Not All Starz Shoes [x]

- Accessories

Conviction - Hexem Choker [x]

RZ - Face Band-Aid [x]

TanakaXTrevor - Power Demon (Hammer) @ The WareHouse Sale [x]

Tanaka - Renchii Goggles [x]

- Backdrop

Zeroichi - Zankyo [x]

Song

#SecondLife #TheWareHouseSale #Lelutka #Odio #VCO #Reverie #ALT3 #Swallow #RichB #Minuit #Tanaka #JustYaska #greenies #RZ #Zeroichi #Conviction #Dappa

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sylvanfreckles · 1 year

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(Day 18/Alt 3: Soft Words)

It's a regular night, a regular report, a regular meeting, but Yasha's starting to worry for Caleb. The rest of the Nein had someone to go home to...but their wizard was all alone.

Time for some soft, found-family time for Yasha and the empire kids. The establishment of family dinner night, the spare room, and Yasha's adventures in baking.

#febuwhump2023 #febuwhumpday18 #alt3 #soft words #critical role #beauregard lionett #yasha #caleb widogast #beauregard x yasha #beauyasha #domestic beau/yasha #found family #caleb's lonely life in rexxentrum #he doesn't even have his cat anymore #i love them your honor

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sooyun-ichtama · 26 days

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{ credits } Adora-tions - BFF Heart ALT3 > Fishnet Arms Ascendant - Jae Skirt | the fifty CryBunBun - Impaler Top - Black (Enfer Sombre*) Hope Eyes .ET. Locked Heart Pendant Black FOXCITY. Photo Booth - Alley [LEGACY] Meshbody (f) Special Edition LeLUTKA Ceylon Head . MILA . POSES // Heini 3 MIWAS / Thigh high #1 Fishnet tights #Black [monso] Lita Hair MUDSKIN - BONA - CLOUDY [Som] Devil belly piercing

flickr | instagram

#secondlife #slblogger #sl #ALT3 #ascendant #crybunbun #enfer sombre #enfant terrible #FOXCITY #MILA #MIWAS #monso #the fifty

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lurkinglurkerwholurks · 2 years

Link

Whumptober prompts fulfilled listed at the end.

His hands are red to the wrists, like he has dunked them in a bucket of paint. Blood pours from the lacerations, but he can’t feel any pain. He can’t feel anything at all.

Dev stares at his fingers, willing them to move. They don’t. He can see them, those pieces of himself he knows so well, can make out the sparse black tufts of hair plastered flat to the knuckle beneath the red. Still, nothing.

Somewhere in the back of his head, a shrill voice suspiciously like his own screams that he needs to move. There is something he is supposed to be doing. Danger he is supposed to be fleeing. Dev turns over his dead hand to stare at the palm instead.

“Yeah. Yeah, I got him,” says a voice off to the right.

It should startle him. Dev continues to stare at his hand. Maybe if he focuses just on the tip of his index, he can get it to twitch. He should at least try to stanch the bleeding.

“Dev?”

A figure stands between him and the flickering streetlight, far enough away not to crowd, close enough to loom.

“Dev?” the figure says again, stepping closer. “Whose blood is that?”

Dev tilts his chin just enough to bring the man into his middle periphery. Nightwing. Of course. He knows that voice. Dick, though he mustn’t call him that here, out in the open.

“Is someone hurt?”

Someone is hurt. That’s right. Someone is hurt and he can’t move his hands. The zip-ties. He can’t get the zip-ties off. Can’t—too tight. Can’t—he might bleed to death. Is bleeding still.

Nightwing takes another step forward, then pivots away again, looking for the injured party. Dev should help. He considers standing, then discards the idea without trying. His legs are as numb as his hands. He looks down and is relieved to see no zip-ties on his legs. That’s something.

Nightwing is speaking again. Dev isn’t listening. That feeling is building in him again, of danger and alarm. Is he supposed to be helping someone? How can he, with purple-swollen fingers and hands dipped in his own blood?

… It is his blood, isn’t it?

Dev blinks and tries to focus on his hands again. When did he grow so many fingers?

“Yeah, I don’t know, I don’t see anyone else. She didn’t say anything else?” Nightwing asks, nonsensically.

There’s a snick at the edge of his hearing, like a latch, like a… like a knife being flicked open.

“—blood all over his hands but I don’t see anyone. Ask Jay—”

Jason. Zsasz.

Dev is on his feet, staggering toward Nightwing as the asphalt rolls beneath him.

“I think you should—whoa!”

Gloved hands catch him, brace him up even as Dev scrabbles slippery hands for purchase against Nightwing’s uniform.

“J—Hood,” he rasps, mouth dry as cotton. “He has him. He has him, I—”

“Who?” Nightwing’s voice is pitched low, firm but soothing, the Wayne way of addressing the panicked and insane. He echoes when he speaks, like talking into a barrel of water.

Dev isn’t a victim. They need to find Jason. They need to find Jason Wayne right now before blood bags and clamps won’t be enough.

Dev wrenches away from Nightwing and stumbles in the direction of the alley’s opening. He needs feeling in his hands, his feet, but he will have to go without for now. That will be the next problem, once he finds the boy wherever he is currently bleeding out.

A hand catches his arm and Dev wrenches away. All goes black, then blinks back on in time for him to catch himself, hands crashing against the pavement. He can hear himself, mouth moving of its own accord—

“Zsasz, he’ll have—We’ve not long—Got to, got to—Tell Batman, Zsasz is waiting for, for—He’ll bleed out—Must get to him—These bloody zip-ties—”

He will get back on his feet if it was the last thing he does, because somewhere in the night, Jason Wayne is bleeding out from brachial lacerations and Dev will be damned if he lets that boy die.

He will not look Bruce Wayne in the eye and tell him he let his son die. Will not tell Timothy his brother died on his watch. Will not be the reason Alfred is made to mourn.

“—don’t know, he’s saying something about Zsasz, I don’t—” Nightwing is saying, voice no longer low and soothing. “His head—”

He is moving in blinks, like stop-motion with frames missing. He is on the ground, hands and knees smarting from impact, then meters away, then further still. He can see streetlights where the little side street meets the larger thoroughfare, but he can only look at their reflection off the sparkling glass fragments. The light itself stabs at his eyes and swirls in nauseating loops. Still, it is a direction to aim for.

Dick’s gloves are at his shoulders again, trying to stop him, steady him.

“Jason,” Dev rasps, code names abandoned. They are too hard to keep in his head. “Dying, he’s—cut off these ties, I can’t—”

“—covered in blood, Dev, what—”

Dev is tall and Dick is not, and it hardly matters because even with the aggression of fear and pain, Dev is a willow wand trying to shove past a brick wall, and he wishes he had paid more attention when Wayne taught him how to throw a punch or flip a man over his shoulder, because Jason is dying, it’s his blood, it’s Dev’s blood, he’s a doctor, he’s meant to stop it—

He blinks back the black and the black is still there.

“Dev,” says a new voice, as if it has been saying his name for a while now.

Dev squints up, out the one eye that can still see, at a thin-lipped Batman.

“Jason,” Dev pants, and is cut off.

“Is fine.” Wayne’s tone brooks no argument. “I can hear him on comms right now.”

“Zsasz,” Dev tries again.

“Is dead.”

Wayne has him pinched by the shoulders between two broad, gauntleted hands, bedrock in the sloshing sea that standing has become.

“—wound first,” Wayne is saying, lips a fraction out of sync with his voice. He has shifted his grip from supporting and seizing to guiding, moving Dev backward until his heels knock against curb.

“Sit.” And Dev is sitting, not because he’s told to but because his legs will no longer allow for the alternative.

There is shadow in his periphery, sweeping across his face to the side that is already dark. He flinches back, but Wayne catches his chin and holds him still as something presses to his forehead.

“Packing.”

That’s a word he knows, the sensation settling into place a long, syrup-slow moment later.

Dev blinks, what feels like his first blink that’s not a dip into darkness in a very long time, and lifts a blood-soaked hand to his head. Wayne’s hand is already there, steady pressure against his frontal bone, and Dev’s fingertips trace the lines of his gloves, running down to where material meets flesh.

The hand that was holding his chin releases to catch those fingers, and then Dev’s hand is pressing the gauze, and Wayne’s hand is steady atop his.

“—need to get back to the Cave,” Wayne is saying, to him or Dick, Dev isn’t sure.

“Jason,” Dev says, because he can see the warehouse, Jason prone on the floor, face bloodied, wrists slashed. Are they outside the warehouse, then? This warped, funhouse space, are they outside? Zsasz jumped him from behind, hit him upside the head, his head aches—

Whoop, he is up, lifted from the curb into Batman’s arms, his own hand still pressed to his head.

“—ahead,” Wayne is saying to Dick. “Help Agent A prepare.”

Dev thinks he may vomit. May have already vomited before? His mouth tastes vile. A woman is at the intersection, arms crossed, watching them pass.

He is not in Batman’s arms but the backseat of the car, prone, familiar leather under his back. The streetlights fly by, casting flickering shadows on the ceiling that make him sick to look at. He closes his eyes.

The lights hurt even though some part of him recognizes that the Cave has been deliberately dimmed. Another ceiling he knows well, and Dev blinks up at its shadowy contours, wondering how long he has been here without realizing it.

Jason is the thought that sends him rocketing up, or would have, except for the straps across his chest. Dev claws at the plastic, and can see his hands are still covered in blood, but drying now, no longer crimson and fresh.

Wayne is standing over him, cowl gone, catching his hands. A touch on the other side makes Dev jump and twist, the wobbling vision in his one good eye looking long enough to catch Alfred on the other side, nimble fingers working at the straps, before turning back to Wayne.

“Wayne, listen, you have to—”

“Jason is fine,” Wayne interrupts, low tone an echo of Dick’s. “Jason?”

Alfred has undone enough that Dev has managed to prop himself up on one elbow, but he slumps back again when the thirdborn Wayne steps into view. Jason is unmasked though still in his Hood attire. He looks utterly grim, but not dead. The only speck of red on him is the bat splashed across his chest. There is no blood spatter on his face, no life-ending lacerations carved into his arms.

“I’m alright, Dev,” he says. He sounds like he’s been smoking. He sounds very young.

Dev sags back onto the table and closes his eyes.

When he opens them again, he is staring at the same ceiling, just a different portion. The nearby lights are off, the only visibility from far-off reflections at the other end of the Cave. Dev lifts a hand to his head and flinches at movement in his periphery.

“You here?” Wayne murmurs as he leans into view. There is only one of him now, though his edges are a little blurry. He is no longer in uniform but dressed in a navy Gotham Knights sweatshirt, reading glasses perched on his nose.

“Jay—” Dev begins, then stops when Wayne shifts in his chair and leans back so Dev can see across to the second cot, where a shape he recognizes as Jason lies curled, face barely visible beneath the pillow smashed over his head.

Dev goes limp and exhales. He has a vague recollection of asking before, of reassurance from various mouths, of Jason himself sitting in Wayne’s chair, awkwardly patting Dev’s arm. He wonders if this time will stick. He wonders why it hasn’t before.

Dev lifts a hand before his face and is relieved to see his own skin unmarred by blood, then lowers it to feel the edges of his own face.

“Careful,” Wayne murmurs, catching Dev’s wrist before he can prod too much. “Twelve stitches and a black eye. You’ll be hurting for a while yet. No skull fracture, though. You were fortunate.”

“What…” Dev stops, face contorting. His mouth tastes like death.

A cup of water appears, straw tapping against his lips until he parts them and takes a sip, then another.

He tries again once the cup has been set back on the bedside table. “What happened?”

“What do you remember?” Wayne asks instead, as Dev half-anticipated he would.

Dev thinks, then frowns in place of the headshake he dare not give. “I remember Dick. The little alley or lane, whatever it was. You showing up.”

“Nothing before?”

“Zsasz?” he asks tentatively, though by now he has pieced together context and his own fragmented memories of a morgue visit in the dead of night.

“Still dead,” and it sparks a satisfied kind of warmth in Dev’s chest that Wayne can say so with a wry upturn to one side of his mouth. But it also means that Dev has no more pieces to add to the puzzle of his night.

Wayne nods, as if that is what he expected. He was sitting forward, elbows planted on his knees, hands collapsed, but now he sits back again. Dev can see both him and Jason slumbering beyond from where he lies.

“We pulled footage from your apartment,” Wayne begins, and his tone is conciliatory, if not apologetic. Dev doesn’t mind. The devices were meant for emergencies, and this seems to qualify.

“You left your apartment just after 1 AM. You seemed distracted, but nothing too concerning.” No massive head wound, then. No hands coated in blood. “You wandered a bit. We were able to follow you via street cams until you got to St. Marks. The surveillance camera was broken the night before. It was a blind spot.”

Wayne’s voice had dipped, a bit of edge and gravel creeping into the underside of his tone.

“Not a coincidence?” Dev surmised.

Wayne shook his head. “We think you were mugged.”

Mugged. Dev sat with the concept for a moment, then patted at his own pockets beneath the sheets.

“Your phone, keys, and wallet are missing,” Wayne explains, and Dev almost feels sorry for the criminal that will receive that steel bite. Almost. “You were either jumped or fought back. Nightwing found a brick covered in blood at the scene.”

Dev snorted despite himself, then grimaced at the pain that shot through his head. “Jumped, maybe. More likely couldn’t keep my sodding gob from mouthing off.” He had a pattern of that, letting his mouth run off with itself when under duress. It was a maladaptive habit.

Wayne grunts, conceding the point. “They kept to the blind spots. The next we see is you staggering to the next intersection.”

Dev lifts his hand again, flips it to study the back, then the palm. “I remember blood on my hands.”

“From your head,” Wayne agrees. “Where you were hit,” and here his hand lifts and ghosts into Dev’s blind spot, feather-light touch against the edges of the bandage, “the wound isn’t visible from your right side.”

That explained some things.

“Jason got a call from a mutual contact who said you were wandering down Tenbruck, blood on your hands, muttering to yourself about getting help.”

“Mutual contact?” Dev echoes.

Wayne, uncharacteristically, hesitates. “Apparently someone recognized you as an acquaintance of Red Hood. Something about fish tacos?”

Despite his lingering nausea, Dev’s mouth salivates. He still mourns the loss of those tacos.

“Nightwing was closest, so he arrived on scene first,” Wayne was saying, and Dev forces himself to focus on the matter at hand. “Your right side was to him, and he only saw blood on your hands.”

“So he assumed someone else had been injured,” Dev finishes for him.

Wayne nods. “Up until you lunged at him like an extra in a horror movie.”

Dev cringes, picturing it. “Sodding bad job, that.”

“You left us all feeling… unsettled,” Wayne admits quietly. Dev glances at him, and his face is grave. “CT scan shows no permanent damage, but we’ll do a second MRI in a few weeks to compare with the one from tonight, to be sure.”

Dev would have expected nothing less, though it is a relief to hear that both scans were done and that the CT showed nothing. He can’t help squinting, the concussion leaving a distortion to his vision even in the dim light, but he lifts a hand again and stares at it.

“Couldn’t feel my hands,” he murmurs, almost to himself, but loud enough for Wayne to catch. “Shock, most likely, but I… I saw zip-ties.”

A hallucination, a fragmentary image brought on by head trauma and… A not-quite-memory, less image than emotion, flickers.

“I think I had a nightmare,” Dev says. “I think that’s why I left the flat.”

He still can’t actually remember leaving or the mugging itself. Everything before Nightwing’s arrival is a blank. It might always be; such is the way with head trauma. And he’s not certain about the nightmare either, but it feels right.

“Zsasz?” Wayne asks.

“Zsasz,” Dev agrees. He’d had nightmares for months after the attack, a putrifying mish-mash of what had happened and what might have happened. Jason had nearly bled out. Dev had nearly died at the hand of a maniac with a blade fetish, potentially one of the top five worst fetishes, in Dev’s biased opinion. And Dev had come close to losing utility of his hands, his one reliable tool, the one part of him that made a difference.

His hands still feel cold and wooden—again, likely the comedown of shock—but it’s too close to how they had felt in the warehouse. Dev flexes his fingers and cracks his wrists, just to feel the movement of them, to verify that he could.

Wayne’s hands settle atop his, warm, calloused skin enveloping cold fingers in heat.

“I didn’t realize you were still having nightmares about that. I’m sorry.”

Dev tried to flutter a hand dismissively, but his were still being held, and he didn’t want that to change, so instead he gave a small shake of his head. “M’not on the regular. Just a fluke, I suppose.”

He has little emotional privacy left with this lot, but Dev still feels compelled to clear his throat and change the subject. “Taking shifts, then?” he asks, tipping his chin slightly in Jason’s direction.

Wayne’s expression doesn’t change so much as soften around the edges into something Dev has come to read as fond. “Alfred will be down later to take my spot. Jason decided to stay close. You weren’t retaining much for the first few hours.”

Blathering like a madman and reliving one of the worst nights of all their lives on loop, that’s what that meant.

Wayne must have noticed some of Dev’s chagrin, because he gave a small shake of his head. “He wanted to stay close. He…” Wayne considers the right words, letting them form fully in his mouth before admitting in an even quieter voice, “He was more shaken up than he’d like to admit, seeing you hurt.”

The details are too fuzzy to make out right now, but Dev knows, beneath the shadow of the pillow and the sheets wrapped up to Jason’s chin, pink scars that will continue to heal but never fully disappear. Dev has a few of his own—and now, he realizes, a new one to add to the collection. Bloody fucking mugger.

Wayne flicks his gaze beyond Dev, toward the blind side of his vision blocked by his swollen eye and the bandages taped to his head. “Tim’s on the other cot. Damian and Cass would be down here, too, but Dick and Alfre managed to convince them that you would be overwhelmed if everyone were down here when you woke.”

He would be, too. He loves them, all of them, but they are a force en masse, and Dev is too accustomed to recovering in solitude. That he is already flanked on either side by Timothy and Jason, unwilling to leave him to himself, like bodyguards of the physical and mental kind, is nearly too much to ponder.

Dev swallows around the lump in his throat and croaks. “I’ll need to inform security at the hospital about my passkey. And my bank. And—”

Just thinking about the many steps needed to reorder his life makes the ache in his head deepen, but Wayne’s hands tighten slightly around his, and Dev’s list retreats into his throat.

“We’ll take care of it,” Wayne promises. Dev didn’t doubt that he would.

Well. All that was left to do was rest, then.

“Alfie will be down later, you said?” Dev asks around a yawn.

“Yes.” One hand lifts long enough to brush hair back from Dev’s forehead, blunt fingertips drawing across his skin, before returning to the bedside.

Dev hums, eyes drifting shut. “And you’ll be here ‘til then?”

“Yes.”

Then that’s alright. There isn’t a bogey living or dead that can best Batman. Dev doesn’t realize he’s said so aloud until Bruce chuckles, a rich, dark sound from the back of his throat.

“Bugger concussion,” Dev mutters, embarrassed.

“Sleep, Kiran,” he’s told, and since Batman is the one telling, he does.

———

Whumptober prompts fulfilled: alt3 (dazed and confused), alt5 (ambushed), no.4 (hidden injury), no7. (silent panic attack), no8. (head trauma), no15. (new scars), no19. (repeatedly passing out), no20. (going into shock), no23. (tied to a table), no24. (blood-covered hands), no27. (stumbling), no28. (headache), no.31 (bedside vigil)

36 notes · View notes