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He doesn't know when it started, in all honesty, he can't remember a moment without it. There must've been, at the very least a few years, logically speaking. He can't remember that though. He does remember his weight in third grade. Does remember his clothing size when he was ten. Does remember the bony-knuckled hand of his mother on his shoulder, the one and only time he went to the beach with them. The way she'd smiled at him, and the way the bones on her chest had carved out shadows below it. It had been such a distinct contrast to all the other mothers around them, in brightly colored two-pieces, who's body swayed with every step as they ran after their brood. Janet Drake had never done that. She'd lounged in an elegant swimsuit with a giant hat and sunglasses and had sipped a cocktail. Tim had gone swimming for a while and then went back to read. They'd gotten oysters that night. Janet hadn't eaten her salad.
There must've been a time before, but Tim can't even imagine it. He's always been almost painfully aware of his own body and of those around him, constantly comparing and trying to measure up. He'd been born a bit early, underweight and pale-faced and he'd never did chub-up like most babies do. Janet had liked that. Jack hadn't cared.
Tim would weigh himself at random at first, all alone in his house, just to see. But the numbers are stuck in his brain, and even years later, they won't leave.
There are painful reminders everywhere really. He has sweaters he's worn since fifth grade, and his swimming trunks still fit him, all of nine years later. He doesn’t know what that says about him, except that he never did grow up to be as tall as his dad.
He used to sit on the couch with his mom, on those rare evenings when she was home, and they'd watch TV. Janet used to love America's next top model and Tim would scoff in unison with her if the girls on screen where deemed 'too fat'. Years later, he can say that none of them had even been chubby. But Tim grew up in the late nineties, during the height of the heroin-chic era and some habits where hard to shake. His mom had certainly helped. She'd been a tiny woman, and if they went out to eat, they would share an appetizer. He's not even sure if she knew what she was doing, what she was setting her son up for. She probably did, though. Everybody could see that she wasn't healthy and neither was Tim. His knobby knees looked weird in his uniform and he had no-one to wrestle with when they had to find a partner in PE. He'd been sent to the nurse, but the woman had just shook her head. 'He'd grow out of it' she'd claimed, and Tim had been terrified. That had been the drop that made the pot overflow.
That night, he'd frantically looked for a solution not to 'get fat' and he'd found it.
--
Tim is Robin, is Tim Drake, and he's Starvinmasc. The latter is far more popular than the others. Tim has a pretty sick six-pack, biceps that are to die for, and a thigh gap. He's 'admired'. He loves the quiet nook of the web where he gets to be himself. His body-checks get hundred of notes on tumblr, and the darker forums are all over his muscle-definition.
It’s validation that he very clearly lacks everywhere else. Nobody gives a flying fuck about him, nobody cares. But Tim hasn't gained a pound since his twelfth birthday. Which was incidentally when he started going out as Robin. See, normally anorexia is diagnosed in part by a significant weight-loss, but Tim doesn't lose weight. He just also doesn't gain it. He'll be sixteen and still barely two pounds heavier than he was when he started. He'll be nineteen and have gained exactly ten pounds total, despite growing (a very reasonable) 5 inches. He's by far the shortest vigilante he knows, but that works just fine for him. He likes stealth missions and creeping through vents when not even Damian fits through them anymore.
Sometimes Tim looks at the world and feels like he's frozen in time. Sure, everything moves around him, people come and people go, but he looks the same, and he's wearing a hoodie he bought at thirteen. He still styles his hair the very same way, he hasn't gained any weight, hasn't filled out too much, and he still counts his calories. Nothing ever really changes. He has to be careful to access his blog in the manor, but he still posts what he eats, still talks to people, still does bodychecks and the occasional diet-challenge. He gives work-out routines, and helps people get their protein, to have the energy to do said work out. When he scrolls back, he finds he still agrees with posts he made nearly a decade ago.
Nothing changes for him., it never really does.
(It can be comforting at times, to know he can control something in his terribly unpredictable live, and sometimes he does enjoy it. But he feels the brainfog more and more these days and he knows he can’t be healthy. He's pale, and when he moves for too long, he starts blacking out. It's dangerous as hell. He doesn’t see a way out)
Nothing changes, and so he hugs himself in the shower, just to feel the skin pull on his collarbones, and touches the ridges of his back and he curls up under the stream and just lets the heat in. He's always cold, as of late. He knows he needs to up his intake again, but he's already at the edges of low res, eating just under 1200 calories a day. He'll feel like a fake, eating even more. It's irrational because he burns probably just as much in a single night of patrol, and he's a grown man, not a tween stuck in bed, but he can't seem to adjust. His brain is permanently stuck in the same mindset, and quotes flow through it. Quotes he would never dare say to anyone, but quotes that he has ingrained into himself. They haunt him when they don't motivate him.
(It does have its positives, the starvation. Hell, he was just recently named most eligible bachelor in Gotham, effectively kicking Bruce off the pedestal. He's handsome in a twink sort of way.)
He wonders what it will take for him to stop, if he'll live his whole live haunted by calories and intakes and whatever the heck else he can't seem to get over. If he'll die like his mom—hungry.
When it’s late and Tim feels like being cruel, he starts wondering about his family. His family of detectives who can't seem to figure it out. Hell, most suburban moms could’ve probably clocked him on sight. (He's lucky Gotham doesn't even have a suburb and Gothamites are generally minding their own business)
Wonders how Bruce could've let him out at all. Wonders if the man even gives a shit. If he's looked at Tim for long enough to see it, or if Tim was truly only a placeholder for Bruce to project onto. It's not a nice thought.
Sometimes, Tim cries.
Tim folds his laundry when he realizes that he's been wearing the same shirt he wore the day his dad died. It's kind of nostalgic. Tim's a grown man now, who can face his issues like any adult should—namely not at all until everything blows up in his face and he has to go to court-mandated therapy or whatever. But since that hasn't happened yet, he stays and locks his feelings in a tiny little cupboard that he locks. And there they stay together with grieve about the people who had and those that could’ve been.
He wonders if he's his families dirty little secret. The sort of thing you know but never talk about—like, Aunt Janice who very clearly has a drug addiction of the worst kind, or Grand-Uncle Bobby who's been an alcoholic since the nineties. If he's the sort of person with a problem everyone knows about but no-one feels quite close enough to ever say a thing.
(The press certainly doesn’t hesitate. One second he's Gotham's most eligible bachelor, the next he has a cocaine addiction because he's always wired. One time, they caught the Wayne's on an outing to a pool and there had been heavy speculation around him wearing a T-shirt. Tim had retaliated by posing for a cover of GQ entirely shirtless, though very heavily edited. That had shut the vultures up for a second before allegations started that he'd had some weird surgery. They never poke at the giant bear called eating disorder though—probably because he's a guy. He snorts)
His friends don't get it. They tried, and he’s grateful for that. Kon used to call him handsome a lot, when they'd assumed it had something to do with fragile masculinity. Cassie used to make him eat before every mission, but that had only made him feel worse. The only one he ever truly felt comfortable eating around was Bart, Bart who ran so much he was practically always eating and when Tim couldn't stomach more, he'd get the leftovers gratefully, without any sort of snide comment.
There were a lot of people who loved how skinny he is, Tim knows that. He's been asked to model more and more in recent years and it’s helped his public image quite a lot. He has a standing contract with some skater-brands and a billboard of him 'In his Calvin's' had been on the side of the highway for well over three months. He has a partnership with Bulgari for jewelry that he's loaned at gala's and events and there's about to be a new perfume-line headlined by Timothy Jackson Wayne, which did smell pretty nice. His brothers loved to make fun of him, but it was a millions times better than Brucie, so he figured they had no room to talk. He was known as somewhat of an it-guy, captured for all sorts of street styles when he wanted to be. He looked good in the sort of skinny-sickly way that was currently pretty fashionable. His prominent cheekbones and deep set eyes were welcomened. He wonders if he's the inspiration for another kid going through the same damn thing right now. The thought makes him sick.
Outside of the public, people liked it too. He was a bit of a curiosity, a short guy as a vigilante? Yeah, uncommon. He'd been victim of a throwing contest before, and Jason had, on one very memorable occasion, actually launched Tim at a guy. It had worked, of course, but Tim had been very vocal about his dislike. (mostly because Jason had looked at him with a suspicious amount of worry after. He hadn't liked that look one bit)
Ra's loved to loom over him, and during his time with the League, he'd watched Tim eat like a hawk, smirking whenever Tim finished as if it was some sort of accomplishment that Tim 'admitted defeat'. It didn't help that he was a foot taller than Tim. Tim still kicked his ass, but the attention made his skin crawl.
(Maybe in another live, Ra's would've been lurking on twitter as an 'ana coach' approaching boys to dominate them. Or maybe that was actually a pretty mean thought and Tim should've gone to a therapist ages ago.)
No matter how far he comes, he stays the same. His wrists poke out, his shoulders are bony to the point of sharp edges he uses to get through crowds. No pants will hold up without a belt, especially not the ones Tim likes, and even underwear tends to be loose on him. His fingernails chip, brittle material that aches painfully until Tim bites the bullet and goes to a nail salon. He's fighting toxic masculinity, is the press-release, one bright purple nail at a time.
He has to get the ring from his mom taken in, the one she always used to wear on her middle finger, with the bloody ruby that gleams in the light. It had been an heirloom by her mom, her engagement ring. It hadn't fit Janet and it didn’t fit Tim either. The next time he wore it out, the stone seemed to sparkle more than usual from his own middle finger. It matched his red nails and the paint on his lips.
If you want to hide something like this halfway decently, you have to get over a whole bunch of standards set by society. Standards like men shouldn't wear makeup. Tim has to, if he wants to seem healthy. His eyes are sunken in, deep purple around them, his cheeks are gaunt, his lips don't have a color of their own and he's almost painfully pale. Its all hidden pretty well with a bit of a fake tan and make up. Ut fits with his image anyway.
He gets the same undercover roles he did at fourteen, dances on a pole when needed and sprawling across any given lap if it means they'll get information. He makes a pretty good coke-whore, if he does say so himself. It's not really something he should be proud of.
One day, he finds a photo he took in his bathroom at just fifteen. It must've been when he was back to living with Jack for a hot second, because it’s their old brownstone. His face is thankfully cut off, but his abs are visible, just like his scars and his ribs flaring out to the side. His hip bones seem to laugh at him through the screen. It’s scary, not because he didn’t know how he looked a few years ago, but because it’s not his own -albeit hidden- gallery, he finds it in. No, it’s been posted in a thinspiration thread, right next to a girl Tim used to text with. She died in the ICU due to heart failure. That had been two years ago. People like the picture, comment on it. Thousands of people saying they want to be. Just. Like. Him. He gulps. But what can he really say anyway? He's still on there now, and he'd done the same damn thing a million times. He'd just never thought he was thin enough to be inspiration.
Tim is 23 when he takes a long hard look in the mirror and sighs. He doesn’t know how to go on. He doesn’t want to recover, doesn't ever want to be too chubby, but he's driving himself into an early grave. He'd have to pick a struggle. Either he continued being passively suicidal through vigilante-work or his eating disorder, both couldn't work anymore. He makes a few calls.
Three weeks later, he's in an empty office after hours. He's wearing an indistinct mask and completely black clothes. He's not in Gotham anymore, but in Santa Monica, as far away from anything that could relate him back to this as possible. He had to grease a few hands but the doctor does show up. With a heavy heart, he starts making a plan.
The talk goes something like this:
T: Say, I was a vigilante with anorexia, what would be my ideal minimum diet so I won't die?
Dr. H: I really have to insist you attempt recovery, this much stress will be-
T: Yes, I get that. But what will be the minimum I should be okay with so I won't die by thirty?
Dr. H: Well, I'd have to check and you would have to take certain-
T: Just make me a plan doc, I'll eat whatever is absolutely necessary
He comes out the other end with a plan. It's a lot more than he thought he'd be looking at, almost 3000 calories, just to maintain his current weight. It's a wake up call but his stomach churns uncomfortably anyway at the thought of eating so much.
The next morning he's blind for approximately four minutes after standing up from his bed and he sighs. He can't go on like this.
Tim is twenty six close to twenty seven and he still fits in a whole bunch of stuff he wore in his teens. But he's gained weight. Not a lot, and almost exclusively muscle mass, but he feels way better. His hair is shinier, his skin no longer as ashen and he can patrol fine. Sure, he still skates the line to underweight but he's not nutrient deficient. He's recently come to learn the term orthorexic. Is it ironic to try to recover from ana just to slide head on into ortho? Maybe, but at least he's not staring constantly anymore.
That's when it gets out. He's not sure how, if somebody with an extraordinary amount of free time decided to hack him, or what happened, but his blog gets associated with his name. Thousand of images of his bare chest, his body, thousands of posts dedicated to staying slim, his most disordered thoughts just out there, for anyone to find and read and debate over. When Steph sends him the first article -in the Gotham Gazette of all places- he has to rush to the toilet to vomit up his lunch. His hands start shaking and he hasn't felt this bad in weeks. Buzzfeed makes a compilation of his most disordered body checks and every random in Gotham seems to have an opinion on his body. People claim they'd always thought he was too thin, emaciated really. Old classmates crawl out of the woodwork to make wild claims about his lunches. Tim wants to die. He contemplates just cutting his wrist open right there.
He doesn't. He regrets that for the weeks to come. More and more shit comes to light Tim had earnestly forgotten about. He tries to catch as much as possible but he's fighting a losing battle. At least there's no connection to the bats, Tim tries to console himself. Sadly, it doesn't work. He turned off his phone entirely. He doesn't want to read the false pity. He hadn't even really hidden jack shit in the last, oh, ten years? They didn't need to worry now that he was practically over it.
It's awkward when he meets up with the others on patrol. Thankfully, Bruce is pretty strict about keeping civilian stuff off the line so they don't actually say anything at all, but he can tell they're looking. Bruce has semi-retired, his back is hurting more and more in recent years, so Dick mostly wears the cowl full time. It's made the city a bit lighter. It also means Tim is met with full Batman judgement when they meet on the rooftop of a jewelry shop. That and Damian, who towers over Tim and has taken to having a bit of a stubble now. He's awkward, clearly torn between his usual antagonism and whatever lesson on morality Dick gave him before this. Tim holds his hand up and jumps backwards off the ledge. He catches himself but for one exhilarating moment he pretends he won’t.
Jason is better about it. He joins Tim as he watches the street below. He's filled out even more recently, what with getting older by the day. He stopped smoking but the rasp is till there sometimes. He doesn’t say anything though, doesn't even attempt it. Pity is hidden pretty well by their dominoes anyway, but Tim knows Jason doesn't pity him. He gets him. He had a lot of exposure to this shit from the corner girls, he's sure. It helps that he doesn’t say anything. It makes Tim want to talk.
It's the third night in a row when Tim finally doesn't hold back anymore.
"'s shit that it came out now"
"Yeah?"
"I left that behind years ago, you know? And now it’s all over the society pages. It's bullshit"
"You're good though?" The worry is charming though Tim doesn’t really buy it. But if he were in Jason's shoes, he'd probably feel a duty to ask too.
"Better than ever" which is the truth. But Tim had never been good in his memory of existence, so his scale is screwed and he doesn't mention it. Eating salad and making sure he hits his macros is better than refusing to even touch a banana for a year because he read they made you fat.
"I'll try and get Dick off your back" Jason offers. Tim shrugs.
"Thanks. I guess it's to be expected, he has to play at being a good example for the murder child"
Really, all this would hurt less if he knew they meant any of it. But they don't. Because Tim had been 100 pounds for years and not once did Dick say something, not once did Bruce mention it. He had been a fully grown nineteen year old and he hadn't hit 120 pounds. That was insane. That was visible. He got check ups like all the other bats. If Bruce had cared even a tiny bit, he'd known. But he hadn't and he didn't. So the care is appreciated but about as sincere as anything Bruce does outside of the bat.
The conversation ends there and Dick stops approaching him. He does get a weekly food basket hand delivered by Alfred though. Tim can't check the macros, and has to guess at the amounts but the thought is appreciated. He even eats a hot dog (without the chili because he has his limits) when Jason shows up again.
Bruce predictably keeps quiet and eventually the media storm dies down. Tim still has Vicki Vale’s title in his head weeks later, when he's back on his shit, this time with a changed handle and a private account because he's not risking it.
SKELETON OR SUPERMODEL—THE SHOCKING DETAILS OF TIMOTHY WAYNE'S EATING DISORDER LEAKED