Chapter Text
Tim shuddered. He felt stretched thin. His limbs ached and his core felt hollow. He’d felt off this morning, an assortment of aches reaching deeper than they should, but given they’d been dealing with an Arkham breakout for the last several days, and busting a trafficking ring the night before, which he’d been tracking and planning for weeks, he’d written it off as just being tired. He was regretting that now.
Dick bounced in his seat next to Tim, jostling the younger and causing yet another wave of not-yet pain to wash over him. He shuddered again.
“If you’re not feeling well, Drake, just leave,” Damian sneered.
Dick stilled his movements. “Are you sick, Tim?” he asked, concerned. He put his hand on Tim’s shoulder and pain finally ripped through the too-big feeling he’d been trying to ignore all day.
A groan tore out of his chest as the weight of Dick’s hand felt like it was squeezing him like an overfull balloon.
The hand tightened and another went to his forehead, causing the pressure to grow. His body was begging him to relax, but his deeply ingrained fear refused to let go. The points of contact on his body felt like heavy bricks on pillows - inevitably crushing and leaving an imprint of its presence when an involuntary whimper escaped his mouth and Dick withdrew immediately, concern visible in every inch of his body language.
“I’m fine,” Tim said, in a forced, even tone. Damian scoffed. “Just sore. I think I’ll just go to my room. Take a shower and go to bed.”
“We could get you some heat packs,” Dick started, determined to keep both brothers together for movie night.
“You don’t need to be here Drake,” Damian interrupted.
“Really, Dick,” Tim said, ignoring Damian, “I haven’t slept all week and I’ll definitely get better rest away from Demon Spawn.” He got up from the couch, neatly avoiding Dick, who tried to stop him. “I’ll join you for a movie or something tomorrow.”
A shudder wracked his body as he left the room, causing him to stumble as his legs buckled, fortunately out of sight of the den where the room was set for a movie marathon.
“Woah, Replacement,” an unwanted voice spoke as large, strong hands caught him before he fell and caused pain to ripple from the points of contact like fiery waves of pressure would ripple across a water balloon.
The whimper that escaped his throat was as unwanted as it was involuntary, the surprise of contact taking him off guard.
Jason’s hands tighten in surprise, causing another wave of pain and a muffled groan, as Tim ground his teeth together to muffle his involuntary sounds of pain, before leaving entirely. Tim swayed in place before locking his knees and catching himself on the wall with one hand, a gasp escaping.
“If you’re hurt, I can just get Dick or Alfred,” Jason said, caution and hurt clear in his voice.
Tim’s head shot up and he lunged to stop the older teen as he started to turn away.
He shuddered violently as he made contact, which caused Jason to stop completely. “Not,” he grit his teeth, “you.” He took a deep breath, lungs struggling to keep up without the extra work of a deeper breath causing his chest to shudder with effort. “Just, forgot. Medicine. Don’t tell.”
Something settled on Jason’s face that Tim couldn’t read, too much effort spent on keeping his form to try and read it.
"Okay," he said after a moment that felt like an eternity. "Okay, where is it?"
Tim went limp against Jason in relief and his form softened for a moment before he stopped it. Jason caught him again before he slipped to the floor and ignored the whimper it caused before picking him up, bridal style. "My…room," Tim managed.
Jason started walking quickly and evenly to Tim’s room. Tim shuddered and groaned through his teeth constantly on the way.
"How often do you need to take your medicine?" Jason asked when they were almost there.
"Uh," Tim struggled to think past the too big fiery pain to remember lessons learned on his own through his childhood. "Uh, once or twice twice a week is recommended. I usually remember once or twice a month."
Jason holds him tighter as he opens the door. Tim can hear his teeth grind against each other as he absorbs that. "My parents," Tim shuddered violently and Jason nearly dropped him on the floor, "my parents… didn't like that I needed it. Had to hide it, and ration it. I can go," a keen tore itself from his throat as Jason adjusted his grip to turn down the blanket before putting him down. After a few breaths, he continued, "I can go longer than I should. I know that. It's just. Hard."
A few more breaths, then Jason replies, "Yeah. Where do you keep it?"
"Bathroom. No label, by the Aspirin."
Jason leaves and Tim hears bottles rattle for a moment before he returns. " Do you need help?" He asks, shaking the bottle.
"I got it," Tim replied, holding out a shaking hand.
Jason levels a disbelieving look at him, but hands it over regardless.
Tim opened the bottle with surprising ease, given his obvious pain and shaking limbs. He shook out two tablets and threw them in his mouth quickly, preventing Jason from seeing them.
"Just need to rest, now," Tim said, rolling over. "Goodnight Jason."
An air of disbelief for a beat. Two.
"Goodnight Timberly," Jason said as he left, shaking his head.
The door closed.
Tim counted to ten. Then again in every language he knows, before breathing a sigh of relief and finally letting himself relax.
His body rapidly grew smaller and soon he was smaller than a pen, hiding under the covers. He breathed deep meditative breaths as his body finally adjusted to his real form.
A long time ago, before Tim was born, Janet had found an odd magical artifact. It drew her to it, and she ignored everything she had ever been taught to touch it. Before long, Jack Drake had found a scared woman trying to find something she couldn't articulate, who didn't know how to write or use a computer but could read with ease.
One thing led to another and before long, they were married and running a company and traveling the world. They didn't even know Janet was pregnant until she started having contractions.
Tim was born at home, with no witnesses.
Tim was born half the size of a normal baby and shrank in his mother's hands as she held him for the first time.
It took Tim three years to understand and hold his human form for longer than an hour. After a week of holding his form as long as possible, and hiding when he couldn't anymore, like hide and seek, his parents celebrated by taking him to the circus.
The nightmares that followed, as well as his sudden inability to keep his size through the night, upset his parents. They hired a nanny, who never stayed the night, and went traveling again. To find a cure, they said.
Yet, they rarely stayed home long. Once he was old enough, he was enrolled in a boarding school. It was only when he was nine, and he figured out the identities of Batman and Robin, did his parents let him come home.
They had him tested and moved up a grade. The boarding school wouldn't let him move up, so they enrolled him in Gotham Academy. Mrs. Mac, the housekeeper, only seemed to come by when he was in school.
He tried to experiment with his smaller form, climbing and moving and scavenging. He loved it.
Until his parents came home and told him about the security in the house designed to alert about mice and birds getting in the house. He was punished and threatened with boarding school. And then they left again.
So, he made up a medical problem. He took an empty pill bottle and filled it with candy and taught himself to go as long as he could before he learned the aches that meant he was going to shrink regardless of what his parents wanted.
He hid in his room, door locked, or explored outside: in the yard or in Gotham.
Sometimes, he'd even come across others like him, small and hiding. He'd spend weekends and breaks learning about the people his mother tried to forget she came from.
And when his parents had a surprise visit home, and he returned with Borrower supplies, he was punished again. He was moved up a grade again and his parents left him licking his wounds with more responsibilities and less resources to fill them.
Tim learned his limits very quickly. He set up spots in Gotham where he could store supplies to Borrow. He also learned that his parents didn't care how late he left, if they caught him coming home in the middle of the night. They'd simply check his bag. Upon finding his camera, water bottles and snacks, they send him to bed. That they would then demand he be awake with the sun the rest of the time they were home, or that he was awake to send them off to the airport regardless of the hour was obviously neither here nor there.
By age twelve, Tim had come to see his house as a cage and learned how to survive despite it, how to slip through the bars and live. He’d made contacts, big and small. He'd learned Batman and Robin's patrol patterns and successfully stalked them and taken their pictures for years.
But the one thing he'd never learned, even now, as Red Robin at eighteen, is how to escape the leash tying him to the cage of their expectations.
When the pain finally left and he was left with aches, he stood on the bed in the cave made by where the blanket had covered his larger form and started stretching.
He was just finishing up, and trying to decide what he should do while he waited for his body to recover the stamina he needed to be human again, when his door banged open. He froze.
"The hell kind of stunt are you trying to pull, Replacement?" Jason snarled.
Oh no.
Oh, God , no.
Feet stomped harder than normal towards his bed, and Tim felt his breathing pick up as he tried to figure out what to do.
His bed was empty, he was sure Jason could see that from the moment he opened the door.
But where could he hide?
He was hidden, but Jason would look here, so where could he hide?
"I took a pill, when I got your bottle," he said.
Tim couldn’t breathe.
"Imagine my surprise when I tested it," of course he did. Of course he did . Given what happened with his mom, why didn't he think about that? "and the test came back as sugar ?"
The stomping stopped by his bed. Tim still couldn't breathe, couldn't move, couldn't think .
"So what the hell are you hiding with fucking smarties? "
The blanket hiding him was ripped away and Tim found himself staring up into bright, surprised green eyes. He saw them fade rapidly into a much duller teal.
At any other time, he’d be fascinated. At this one, he struggled to breathe, taking in gulps of air that didn't seem to reach his lungs. The large face above him shifted from shock to concern and Tim felt his body fall as a hand lager than himself reached toward him and darkness overtook his vision.