Work Text:
There was no time.
Normally, Tim could form half a dozen plans, and then five more for every outcome of the first six whenever anything happened to them. But this time—there wasn’t time.
They had really gotten themselves into quite a pickle.
Well…
Damian had gotten them into said pickle.
He was too brash sometimes.
Maybe if he stopped to think more often, Tim would have more time to think now.
But instead, he found himself collapsed on the floor, trying his best to hold all his insides where they belonged, while Damian subtly panicked by his side, similarly applying pressure to the massive gash in Tim’s abdomen.
It’d been a lucky hit, honestly. Tim had been distracted by trying to disarm the moron with the gun and wrongfully assumed Damian was handling the idiot with the knife. He hadn’t been. And that guy managed to slash out at Tim and get him, right in the side.
At least Damian took him out immediately after. What he’d been doing before Tim nearly lost more of his organs, he isn’t sure. But at least he pulled through in the end…
Now, though. Now they were royally screwed.
They were in a room, deep inside the compound they’d infiltrated, essentially trapped. There were two unconscious guys handcuffed to the radiator pipes, and about three hundred more outside.
Looking for them.
Tim could hear gunfire down the hall. The periodic bang bang of a trained gunman, walking through rooms, and shooting at whatever he saw. It was setting Tim on edge, because he knew they were looking for them.
And Tim couldn’t walk.
He could do nothing to defend Robin. To defend himself. He’d just be a passive observer to Robin’s death.
“Robin,” he wheezed, causing Damian to look up from his wound, the whites of his lenses not revealing anything the boy was feeling, “Go.”
There was nothing Tim could do. He wouldn’t be able to follow Damian. Wouldn’t be able to even make it out of this room, much less follow the complicated path they’d taken to get in this far. And Damian most certainly couldn’t carry him. Sure, he was strong, but Tim weighed more than him, and at this point he’d be pretty much dead weight.
“What?” he demanded, “and what, you’ll just cartwheel your way out behind me? Don’t be ridiculous.”
After pushing himself into a sitting position, Tim tried to shove Damian away from him, but all he succeeded in doing was groaning as his side protested at the movement.
“Drake,” Damian snapped, “do not be stupid. You are in danger of bleeding out if we don’t staunch the blood.”
“You,” Tim said, his breathing labored as he tried to get his body to obey him, tried to keep his strength in check, “need to leave.”
Instead of responding, Damian pushed Tim back down into a lying position and started rifling through his pockets. He pulled out an emergency suture kit, and Tim just reached out and grabbed his hand.
The gunshots were getting closer, and each double tap filled Tim with more dread. Because if they entered this room, there was absolutely nothing he could do. He’d be helpless, just laying here. As he calculated, he only had a few more minutes of consciousness before the blood loss got him, and then not much longer beyond of actual…. Aliveness. And Damian would likely get himself shot trying to defend Tim, and he did not want his last minutes on this earth to be crying over the death of Robin.
No thank you.
He’d much rather Robin leave and get away. Go find help, maybe. It didn’t really matter what he did, as long as he had a chance.
“No. There isn’t time. You have to get out of here.”
Damian scowled and pushed Tim’s hand away from the wound, after he’d threaded the needle and stuck a flashlight in his own mouth to point directly at the wound.
Tim grimaced as the needle went into his skin, then clenched his teeth so hard he thought he might crack the crown in there when Damian pulled it through.
“Damian,” he plead, between stitches, “Please. You have to go.”
“No,” Damian snapped, pausing just long enough to hold the flashlight so he could talk, “I am not leaving you. So shut up.”
The gunfire paused for a moment, and Damian took it as an opportunity to get three more stitches in, each one making Tim suppress a groan. Because, damn, Damian was not being gentle.
“Sorry,” Damian mumbled, around the flashlight, “we’ll have to redo…”
“If you don’t leave,” Tim whispered, just as the gunfire started up again, now more constant than before, “they’re gonna catch us. The sutures won’t matter.”
Scowling harder, Damian picked up the speed and put four more stitches in before finally cutting the thread. He spat the flashlight off onto the ground and snapped, “Do you want to die?”
“I want you to not die,” Tim replied, echoing Damian’s tone.
“Right,” he said, aggressively ripping open a clean pack of gauze before he placed it over the fresh stitches and started wrapping Tim’s entire abdomen, “Great. I live, you die. Just how everyone would want it, right? Is that what you think?”
The next gunshot happened not even 30 feet away, outside the locked door they were hiding behind. It made Damian jump, just slightly, before his scowl deepened.
Tim closed his eyes and put a hand to his forehead. “You bought us time,” he mumbled, trying to think through the haze that had started to set in, “You can get away and go get help. Then come back for me.”
“I’m not leaving you,” he whispered harshly.
“We don’t have much of a choice,” he shot back, succeeded this time at sitting himself up, Damian now done wrapping the wound. It was still bleeding, ever so slightly, but it wasn’t a danger of bleeding out anytime soon.
Kill him with infection? Sure. But that required he lived long enough for it to get infected. Either he’d be shot in about 64 seconds, or they’d escape and Alfred would fix it.
He was kind of counting on the getting shot option.
Damian looked around frantically and locked eyes on a pipe, laying on the ground among a pile of random repair pieces. He grabbed it, then tiptoed to the door, positioning himself just beside it, waiting for their hunter to bust in the door.
“Damian,” Tim pleaded, whispering as loudly as he dared with someone just outside.
“Shut up, Tim,” Damian whispered back.
Just a second later, the door knob jiggled, and Tim sucked in a breath. Damian gripped the pipe tighter and lifted it high, ready to bring it down on the head of whoever broke in.
A gunshot went off, blasting the lock into a dozen tiny pieces, and then the door was kicked open, faster than a strike of lightning.
Tim was unable to suppress the pained cry he made when he jumped, possibly tearing one of the already shitty stitches.
At the same time, Damian swung the pipe and connected solidly with the helmet of their hunter, causing a crack to form right at the crown of it.
“The fuck,” Jason cursed, snatching the pipe from a stunned Damian and throwing it across the room, away from both Tim and the unconscious thugs, “Watch where you’re swinging shit, brat. You’re lucky I wear a helmet, unlike you dumbasses.”
“Hood,” Damian sighed, the relief in his voice so palpable, it made even Jason freeze.
“Yeah, kid,” he said, awkwardly patting Damian on the head, “I’m here.”
“Was that you shooting?” Tim asked, pausing in the middle to take a breath. His side was hurting about fifty times more, now. With the definitely popped stitch.
“Uh huh.” Jason crossed the room in three long strides and knelt beside Tim. Damian retrieved his pipe and took up position by the door, but considering how relaxed Jason was acting, Tim doubted there were anymore men outside to post threats to them.
He just hoped Jason hadn’t killed everyone in the building…
“Heard you two were infiltrating this place tonight. You should have talked to me first, I’ve been watching this operation for months. You were woefully unprepared.”
“Yeah,” Tim laughed, moving his hands so Jason could look at the quickly bleeding through bandages, “Figured that out.”
“Seriously, you brats taking on an entire gang’s main operation? By yourself? Idiots.”
“Tt,” Damian huffed, “We were fine until Red got himself stabbed.”
“It was your guy,” Tim protested, “Your guy stabbed me.”
“And then he wanted me to abandon him to die,” Damian continued, completely ignoring Tim.
Jason added another layer of gauze to the wrap, then pat Tim on the shoulder. “I know teaming up with the demon is difficult,” he said, slipping one arm behind Tim’s back and the other under his knees, “but really, there are much better ways to be rid of him than dying. Trust me. Been there. Done that. 0/10 would not do again.”
“Shut up,” Tim whined, trying his best not to cry a little as Jason jostled him. He wrapped one arm around Jason’s neck and closed his eyes tight. “I didn’t know you were the idiot shooting everyone.”
“Yes,” Damian drawled, falling in step just before Jason as they began making their way out of the compound, “I was not aware you were in Gotham tonight.”
“This idiot just saved your hide, you ungrateful little brats. And I lied about going on a mission. I wanted a break. But nooooooo, you morons had to go on a suicide mission instead.”
“Tt. It was not-”
“Red is actively dying,” Jason interrupted, “So zip it.”
Surprisingly, Damian did zip it. And he kept it zipped, at least as long as Tim could remember. Because he did eventually fall asleep, lulled by the gentle swaying motion caused by Jason’s gait. If Jay tried to wake him, it didn’t work, and in retrospect, Tim was glad for that.
Because the next thing he knew, he was waking up in the Batcave, his torso properly cleaned and sewn up, an IV in his hand, delivering what Tim was sure to be heavy antibiotics to stave off whatever infection the crappy field suturing probably caused.
When he looked around, he was mildly surprised to find no Bruce sitting at his side. Usually Bruce was all over these sorts of things. His guilt complex awesome at making him be comforting after nearly dying.
Honestly, there was nothing like a ‘I’m glad you didn’t die, Tim,’ hug from Bruce.
But Bruce wasn’t there. Instead, Damian was sitting in the chair, his legs thrown up over the side as he watched something on his tablet, completely oblivious to the world.
“Where’s Bruce?” Tim croaked, then paused to clear his throat, because wow. He hadn’t used his voice in a while, had he? “How long was I out?”
Damian looked at his watch and said, almost uninterested, “About 17 hours. Pennyworth made Father go to bed a couple hours ago.”
Tim wanted to ask Damian why he was there, then, but he had the feeling doing so would just make Damian leave. And Tim didn’t really want to be alone. He always hated being alone, trapped in the medbay in the cave. It was dark and spooky down here, honestly. When alone and unable to work on anything. The screeching of the bats was just creepy. Sometimes.
So instead, he asked, “What are you watching?” as he sat his bed up some.
“A documentary series I found on youtube. It’s about royal families in Europe and how they’re all related.”
“Uh,” Tim said, scrunching his eyebrows, “That’s interesting.”
“Hardly,” Damian dismissed, waving a hand at Tim, as if asking him to stop talking.
And maybe being alone down here wouldn’t be so bad, after all. “What are you doing down here?”
Annoyance flickered on Damian’s face before he clicked the tablet off and stood. “If you ever,” he said darkly, taking the few steps to Tim’s bedside to point a finger at him, “ever ask me to leave you to die again, I’ll…”
Damian paused, and narrowed his eyes. Tim couldn’t help it, he had to ask, “You’ll what? Kill me?”
“Tt,” Damian huffed, scowling now, “Obviously not. That would be counterproductive.”
“Then what?”
“I’ll tell on you,” Damian decided, nodding to himself.
“You’ll tell on me? What are we, five?”
“Yes. I’ll tell Father and Grayson about your recklessness and—”
“I wasn’t being reckless,” Tim said, “Your guy stabbed me. Not! Reckless!”
“Whatever,” Damian said, rolling his eyes, “Just don’t do it again.”
Tim wanted to keep arguing. He wanted to tell Damian there was nothing he could threaten Tim with to make him value his own life above that of a literal child’s, especially when that child was kind of technically his little brother. But instead he could see the underlying anxiety forcing this entire encounter, so he couldn’t help himself saying, “Aww, you were worried about me.”
And instead of snap back and deny it, as Tim was expecting, Damian just scowled harder and said, “Of course I was. You were trying to make me let you die.”
“Damian,” he sighed, rubbing at his face with his free hand. He was honestly so exhausted. Which was weird, sleeping 17 hours and all. “I was just trying to save you.”
“We’re family,” Damian said slowly, looking away from Tim as he did and crossing his arms, “I can’t….”
“Damian,” Tim interrupted, reaching out and latching onto Damian’s sleeve.
“Tim. Don’t ask me to do that again.”
All Tim could do was nod. Because he was afraid if he tried to say anything, he might just cry. Or say something stupid and ruin the entire moment.
But Damian spoke up, holding his tablet up for Tim to see. “I have movies on this.”
With a smile, Tim scooted over the best he could and let Damian climb up next to him. About an hour into The Incredibles, when Damian’s eyes kept drooping more and more with ever blink, and Tim was just about as close to falling back asleep, Tim whispered, “Sorry.”
And when Damian just nodded and leaned his head against Tim’s shoulder to fully fall asleep, he took it as forgiveness.