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Tim grumbled under his breath, just loud enough for Dick to catch a few of the words. It sounded like a threat of bodily harm? But Tim was definitely muttering to himself.
“What was that, Timbo?” Dick smiled over at him.
Tim groaned loudly, like Dick was the greatest inconvenience since Calendar Man, then turned to glare.
“Whoa. What’s up, Baby Bird?” Dick blinked back at him.
“Hell.”
“Hell?”
“Hell!” Tim threw his hands in the air. And, incidentally, ended up throwing a file of loose papers into the air. Probably important loose papers. Tim devolved into a quiet fit of curses and watched the papers make their airborne escape.
“Okay…” Dick gave a slow nod. “And why hell?”
“Sharks,” Tim muttered.
“I’m not following.”
“That’s because you and your stupid Y chromosome don’t have to deal with them,” Tim muttered.
Dick opened his mouth. Then closed it. He took a long moment to think that over. It clicked after a moment. “Oh. Oh. Oh, that sucks, Timmy.” Shark week.
Tim scoffed and waved him off dismissively, then made an aborted move to squat down, presumably to get the escaped papers. He frowned and straightened again. He debated the ground like it had personally offended him.
“Have you taken anything?”
Tim turned a poisonous glare to Dick.
“Drank anything? Hydration helps—”
“Fuck the shut the hell up,” Tim demanded.
Dick blinked a few times and closed his mouth slowly. “Have you… slept recently?”
“What’s it to you?”
“Well, sleep probably helps, too. Sleep, water, maybe some pain meds. Tea? Hot water bottle or heating pad? When was the last time you’ve eaten?”
“Oh my god, shut up,” Tim grumbled. He still hadn’t started picking the papers up off the ground, yet.
Dick got up from his place at the Batcomputer and walked over. Dick and his ‘stupid Y chromosome’ might not have had to deal with menstrual cramps, ever, but he could make a pretty good guess about how crouching might be uncomfortable. Especially given how stiff and tight Tim’s body language was.
“I can do it!”
“I don’t mind,” Dick grinned at him, then picked up the first of the twenty-odd papers that had escaped from Tim. “You didn’t answer any of my questions, though. Twenty-four hours?”
“For what?”
“Since sleep? Food? A liquid that isn’t primarily caffeine and sugar?”
Tim blew a raspberry at him.
Dick regarded him for a long moment between two of the pages. That was a no, then, for any of those things in the last twenty-four hours, probably. Which was. Well. That was pretty bad. “Binder break?” he asked, gently.
Tim scrunched his nose and looked away.
“Oh, Timmy,” Dick sighed.
“It’s fine! I’m fine. I don’t need a break. I just need… I just need to keep doing shit and getting shit done.”
“Tim, it sounds like you need a sandwich, a glass of water, a nap, and a binder break,” Dick turned his attention back down to the papers. He only had a few left. “And pain meds, of course.”
“It’s not that bad,” Tim said.
“Maybe not, but it can’t hurt to get an NSAID in you.”
“I’ve had worse.”
“That doesn’t mean you don’t deserve relief, kiddo,” Dick straightened, last page in hand.
Tim hadn’t moved at all.
They faced off for a long moment as Dick held out the pages to him. Then Tim snatched the pages back. “I’m not taking my binder off,” he muttered. “It’s bad enough without inviting that bullshittery in.”
Dysphoria. Dick winced.
Tim didn’t talk about it a lot, but he had done so. Once or twice. It didn’t matter that Tim didn’t consider himself one hundred percent male one hundred percent of the time, his dysphoria could still hit him like a truck.
Dick didn’t consider himself one hundred percent male one hundred percent of the time, either, but he didn’t experience dysphoria, as far as he knew. He was trying to be better about checking in with himself and not ignoring stuff, though, so maybe he’d notice something, eventually, that he’d just been sweeping under the rug and convincing himself wasn’t there.
“You need a break,” Dick said gently. “For your ribs and your lungs. Don’t think I won’t sicc Bruce on you, Timmy. I’m sure he has a PowerPoint all about the dangers of wearing a binder for too long, and you know how much he loves breaking the PowerPoints out…”
“You can’t blackmail me,” Tim said.
“It’s for your own good.”
“No, I mean. It won’t work. I’m immune. I have no shame, especially after the forty-hour mark,” Tim scoffed. “Binder safety PowerPoint? Bring it on. I’ll probably have time to update some of our files, under the table, while Bruce does his thing. You have no power here, Gandalf the Gray.”
Dick frowned at Tim.
Tim smirked back.
Dick nodded slowly. “Fine.”
Tim’s smile fell. “Fine?”
“Yeah, fine. Clearly I need to pull out the big guns.”
“Alfred won’t—”
“Conner.”
Tim somehow managed to straighten. Which was impressive, since he was already standing straight. “Kon.”
“Yeah. I’ll call Kon,” Dick nodded. “I’ll have him help bundle you off to bed. Food, water, meds either packed away already or in tow.”
“Fuck,” Tim muttered.
Dick allowed himself a victory grin. “Two hours,” he said.
Tim’s eyes snapped to Dick’s eyes. “What? No, I have too many things that need to be done. I can’t stop for two—”
“Three hours.”
“Three! No way—”
“Four, then,” Dick crossed his arms and let himself both look and feel smug.
“Fine! Fine. Three hours. I’ll take a break for three hours.”
“For sleep,” Dick nodded.
“For… sleep,” Tim echoed. Shiftily.
“And a binder break, li’l bro,” Dick sighed.
“C’mon! It’s not a big deal!”
“It’s not healthy,” Dick shook his head. “If you don’t think I won’t conspire against you and your caffeine, if I have to, you’re dead wrong.”
“Whoa, that’s too far…!”
A blast of air announced the arrival of a Super. Dick grinned over at Kon. “Heard your name a few times?” he asked.
“And that Tim needs sleep,” Conner nodded.
“Fuck!” Tim leaned his head back and groaned. “No, I don’t!”
“Yes you do,” Dick said. It pleased him that Conner said the same thing, at about the same time. He was a good egg. And, weirdly enough (considering his formative years), a good influence. Or maybe Tim was just the worse influence, between the two of them. (But that didn’t sound right, Tim was extremely professional when he was “on the job,” be that Red Robin stuff or CEO stuff.)
Conner scooped Tim up. “Babe, have you taken anything?”
“It’s not that bad!” Tim shoved an ineffective hand into Conner’s face. It didn’t deter Conner in the slightest. It did, however, give Dick an opening to steal away the file in Tim’s other hand.
“Babe,” Conner prodded.
“Fine! Fine. I’ll take some stupid ibuprofen or whatever.” Tim went boneless.
Conner shifted Tim around a bit, to accommodate the boneless flopping. He grinned over at Dick.
“I’m offended at how easy it is for you,” Dick said.
“It’s convenient, though.”
“I’ve gone soft,” Tim hissed. “Woe is me to have such a blatant weakness." He whacked Conner’s shoulder a few times. “You’ve made me soft! Weak!”
“I think it’s cute,” Dick said.
“It is,” Conner agreed.
“Hateful.” Tim sighed and went boneless again. He took a short pause, then sighed loudly. “But it’s nice. I guess.”
--
“I hate you.”
Conner just tossed him a fond smile.
“I’m serious! So much hate, right now,” Tim snuggled up to Conner, but it was because Conner was warm! Not because Tim liked him or anything. Not when he was being forced to nap. And forced to nap without his binder! The fucking audacity of the clone, honestly. Tim felt naked without it. And weird, besides.
And apparently swapping binder for a sports bra wasn’t in the cards because it wasn’t a proper break. Or something he should be sleeping in.
Tim was coccooned in probably Conner’s biggest sweatshirt over one of his own tank tops, and the softest stolen pajamas he owned (they were probably Dick’s before Tim had stolen them, but he couldn’t quite remember, anymore). Conner’d even swapped his jeans out for pajama pants before curling up with Tim, which made it all that much more domestic.
Not that Tim liked Conner at the moment.
(He did, but let him have his delusion.)
Tim was snuggled up to Conner, between the sheets and under the comforters of his own bed. And two whole weighted blankets, because Tim was extra like that, sometimes. Especially in winter. Outside the confines of his bed, Tim’s room was dark and cozy. If he hadn’t been sleepy before (which he would say, if asked), the darkness and warmth and safety would have brought on the feelings of tiredness.
“I’m so mad at you,” Tim yawned.
“That’s okay. It’s for a good cause.”
“Oh yeah? What cause?”
“The health and wellbeing of my favourite person on the whole planet,” Kon said.
Tim was quiet for a long moment as he let that sink in. “Oh,” he mumbled. “Okay. Uh. Maybe I’m not really… that mad.” Not that he could ever really be mad at Kon. Except when Kon was being a royal idiot, particularly in the middle of a fight for their lives. Or when Kon wasn’t listening, especially in the middle of… a fight for their lives. Or when Kon challenged him… especially in the middle of… a fight for their lives.
Okay, maybe he was actually mad at Kon pretty frequently.
But he never actually hated him. Obviously.
“I figured,” Kon said.
“Don’t get smart with me,” Tim snipped. He buried his face in Kon’s chest, though. He felt flustered, but Tim tended to turn into a bit more of an idiot than usual, when he was with Kon and Kon got, like, mushy or something.
“Wouldn’t dream of it,” Kon murmured. He pressed a kiss into Tim’s hair, which only served to make Tim feel even more flustered, inconveniently enough.
"G’night, Kon,” Tim mumbled.
“Goodnight, Tim,” Conner murmured back. His hand smoothed through Tim’s hair. It was nice.