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“No, Dick, please don't, just, don't-”
But Tim's pleadings are ignored when Dick passes the threshold, his form twisted into something inhuman and fitting for the hour. It's just after three a.m, the microwave clock mocks him, I should have stayed in the cave.
He had been having such a good nap in the Batchair before he woke up. He considered just changing the position and curling right back up, but he had to go to the bathroom, and at this point, he could go drink some milk as well, since he felt like doing just that.
He had not accounted for Dick being in the Manor. He hadn't known Dick was there at all, so the thought of him coming into the kitchen at such an hour that would usually mean being out on patrol or already in bed?
Yeah. Tim might have miscalculated. He should have retreated to spend the rest of the night peacefully, but noo, he had to try and appeal to his brother, as if there was ever a chance for mercy to be granted without Tim having to beg for it. And he would never, ever go as low as to beg the gremlin!Dick.
That thing isn't his brother. It can hardly be reasoned with and it thrives on scaring and creeping out other people, like a sadist may from their victim's pain.
Dick creeps into the kitchen, head lowered close to the floor and neon green eyes boring deep into his own with unnerving, unblinking eye contact. His shoulders almost seem dislocated with the angle his elbows arch up into the air, creating an illusion of elongated forearms all the way down to the fingers. In the flickering lights, they appear to be finished off with sharp claws at the tips, black and blue like in Dick's Nightwing suit.
It gets worse, though. The first half could be explained with Dick's flexibility, gained with hard work and practice through more years than Dick himself can remember. The rest? Not so much.
Dick's spine is arched, as if someone had drawn a sharp line from the bottom of the hill to its top. His legs are sprayed sideways, as if the pelvis and hip bones never had a say in limiting their movement. His feet face forward and yet the knees point outwards to the walls. His butt shouldn't be this high in the air — Dick isn't that tall and even with most of his height in the legs, they're bent in such a way it shouldn't be possible.
Dick steps forward silently, the movement too smooth. The lights flicker when he tilts his head sideways. Tim points a finger at his face with a stern expression.
“No,” he says firmly. “No. Don't you fucking dare, Dick.”
Tim is not getting fucking pounced on today. Gremlin!Dick doesn't lose any of his weight or his yearning for cuddles, but he easily forgets the fragility of human bodies. Tim is not in the mood to get a concussion from a too-aggressively-cuddly monster jumping him, but no way in hell is he going to just lay down and take it. He's not a weak prey.
Tim slowly backs away without breaking eye contact. He doesn't dare to blink, knowing just how fast his brother can move, how little it takes to provoke him to attack. Tim searches blindly for the counter with his hand. He climbs it slowly, first placing a knee on the surface then shifting his balance to it to draw up the other one and curl them under. There, he has a higher ground than Dick does, and Dick never climbs furniture backed against a wall. Walls themselves and fucking ceilings are fair game, obviously, as are couches and armchairs or chandeliers. Countertops that he cannot leap from in any direction? Mortal enemy.
Tim is not above using this weakness to his advantage. He is ready to camp here until something distracts Dick or a more convenient target shows up, preferably in the form of Damian, with whom gremlin!Dick is especially obsessed with. As if his fixation on family wasn't already fucking turned up to eleven and a half like this.
Ugh.
They're at a stalemate like this: Tim curled up on the hard counter that digs into his knees and is sure to get him scolded by Alfred if the man ever finds out about Tim getting his feet up here. Dick is still hovering close to the floor a few feet away. Tim growls — ouch his poor fucking throat — when Dick's butt starts to wiggle.
Before Tim has the time to warn Dick about having the fucking audacity to try and jump him in his safe heaven, a long trill with an uplift at the end echoes unnaturally through the kitchen with clear origins. Both of their heads snap up to the ceiling. Tim gapes, shocked and now actually scared, just a bit.
Tim takes in the creature that appeared in their home to the sound of Dick's curious chirps. It's smaller than Dick, closer to Tim's own size, and more curled upon itself to the ceiling like it's the floor. One of its hands is curled to its chest, the other digging holes in their ceiling with white claws. Its eyes shine the same neon green as Dick's, swallowing the whole pupil until it's almost impossible to say where it's looking. The skin on its face is dark brown and freckled. Whenever the light flickers off — and it does every time any inhuman noise is made — the freckles shine with their own light, illuminated by the eyes.
It seems to be covered in a tight material, like a suit, all black. The only exceptions are the arms, from where white creeps from the claws and fades in a gradient around the elbows. Something similar happens with its feet and knees. The creature has no shoes despite its humanoid shape. In comparison to Dick's widely side-splayed legs, this one’s are tucked to its body, like it's trying to protect its vulnerable insides.
Huh.
Tim stays frozen in his position as Dick and the new creature interact with each other. It's the first time Tim sees another specimen of Dick's presumed species (or a victim of a curse — it's still up in the air). His brain goes into overdrive to note down all possibly relevant cues with no way to write them down yet.
At first, Dick stays down and barely moves. He makes various noises, chirps and trills and whistles that seem to be an actual language now that there's another participant able to respond. Neon green bleeds from his irises, devouring the white color. Tim feels a shiver run down his spine and realizes that the temperature in the kitchen has dropped significantly. He trembles and curls his shoulders inwards, vaguely entertaining the idea of sneaking out and getting somewhere warm. He regrets leaving his second hoodie downstairs. If I get sick because of this, someone is going to pay.
The creature responds with similar noises, although there are significantly more whines, little and big, thrown in and sometimes overlapping, as if a second pair of vocal cords is involved. They echo, unlike Dick's, and its tone in general seems to be a higher one. It also doesn't move much. Tim wonders if body language isn't something significant to them in general or only now, for whatever reason? It would make sense, though, with the different build, unless the creature can unfold and doesn't, just as Dick can fold but chooses not to? He's always so stretched out, but maybe it's a choice and not a must?
Tim's brain swirls with theories and guesses. There're so many options with how little he knows for sure, all based on his own observations only. After this, he needs to talk to Dick, but- how will this situation end, though? Will they fight or is the creature going to leave once it gets whatever it wants from Dick? It's clearly not interested in Tim at all. The eyes may not be able to tell him where it's looking much, but he knows he would feel its gaze and he hasn't.
He wonders a bit if he should somehow intervene, but really, it's a pretty stupid idea anyway. He doesn't have much to base off what type of de-escalation is needed for the creature to leave and whether it understands human language is up in the air. Dick certainly seems to be a strong fifty/fifty on whether he does and Tim has a much harder time reading if he's doing it on purpose or not when he's like that.
Finally, they seem to come to… something. An agreement, perhaps, if he were to guess from Dick's uplifted melody (a question, most likely) and the creature’s meek, weak humm overlapped with a chirp. Then, the creature moves. To Tim's despair, it doesn't leave. He would like to get back to his normalcy, as happy as he is for Dick to find a… friend? Potential packmate? Big question mark?
The creature slowly straightens its three limbs, ungluing itself from the ceiling. It then floats down like the kitchen's a zero gravity space, the movement gentle. Its hair still floats around like it's underwater, rather than adhering to any gravity laws and somehow not getting into the creature's eyes, despite being long enough to. It twists itself the right side down somewhere in the middle of its journey down — it's… actually moving very slow, now that Tim pays attention to it. He blinks, a bit baffled, because Dick's always fast.
Maybe it is injured, Tim thinks, eyeing the curled left arm intently. Or it's young, like a baby? Do they grow into the unnerving smoothness?
Finally, the creature touches the floor. It does so with a little bounce, like the tiles are Minecraft's slime blocks, before sinking low with its chest and knees. Tim carefully lowers himself, curling on the counter with fingers gripping its edge to observe better.
Dick's face is open and soft, in a way it's rarely seen in daylight. Tim knows this look from experience; how warm it makes him feel inside, but also how his cheeks burn and urge him to hide himself in a hug, right under Dick's chin, preventing his brother from forcing eye contact. Now, even with the glowing eyes and no trace of irises, Tim can see the love in them so clearly—
The realization comes crashing down on him so hard it makes him gasp. Fortunately, it goes unacknowledged by the others, although it's little of a consolation when their family just expanded again.
Tim knows, with a startling clarity, that this creature has been adopted by Dick, in spirit if not yet legally, and once Dick decides you're his? There's no coming back, ever. They may joke it's Bruce who has the empty nest syndrome, but everyone knows it's Dick who has adopted so many into his heart. Without Dick, the family would have long fallen apart.
Tim places his chin on his hands as his head spins a little with the new knowledge. It also gives him an even better close-up to what occurs next.
During Tim's internal freakout, Dick has lifted his chest and head up for the first time. The creature — he… should probably start referring to it as ‘them’, for now — is still curled up, a pretty pitiful sight. Dick chuffs at them, head moving up and down and his ear flickering. Tim notices it's still human-like round, in comparison to the creature's very much pointed ones. They're turned downward, which is usually associated with negative emotions in animals.
Then, Dick huffs and almost straightens one of his elbows while lifting his other arm high up. The creature's eyes flicker up and down, judging by the eyebrow movement, before they slowly, ever so slowly, creep closer. They extend an arm forward, somehow staying stationary despite their knees not touching the floor either, the tips of their toes being the only point of contact during the movement. The claws reach through what would be considered Dick's personal space. They place a flat hand under Dick's chest, lowering their upper half and head even closer to the floor while craneing the neck to look up. Dick remains as steady, open and loving as ever as he smiles down, gentle.
He must pass some sort of a test as the creature moves more confidently now. Their movements aren't fast in any way, but there is a significant difference. Dick lowers his neck and the other presses up to nuzzle the underside of his jaw with an inquiring sound. Dick answers with a deep rumble from his chest. The creature (jeez, he could use a name now) moves down the length of Dick's torso, rubbing their back all the way to Dick's stomach, when they finally turn to face the same direction as Dick. Tim's brother lowers himself until he presses the other closer to the floor yet gets nowhere near the position he was before.
The creature sits on their calves, allowing Dick to create more of an enclosed space behind them. Slowly, they reach their left arm forward with a grimace. Dick makes a long, drown out sound of sympathy as he gently takes the hand. He leans down until his cheek is pressed to the side of the creature's head to inspect it. He trills worryingly, nuzzling their head as his thumb caresses the back of their hand. He allows them to tag it back when they try. They curl then, so small, and Dick easily covers their whole form.
They close their eyes and Tim blinks in the sudden darkness. The lights went out some time ago, leaving only the glowing eyes and appliances as the sources of light. Tim hopes the blackout's only in the kitchen and won't attract anyone to come and investigate — they just reached, well, something! — as that would possibly spook them. While Dick would never harm them on purpose, there's no saying how the new one would react.
Now, though, Tim wonders if it's possibly the first time the creature relaxes, as they haven't blinked at all since Tim saw them. It must mean something then, for the eyes to be closed. Dick begins to shake and it takes Tim a second to place the oncoming sound as purring. It's deep, loud and soothing even from a distance.
Tim's eyes snap up from the white hair he can just barely see from where Dick is completely wrapped around the other. They had curled their head inwards like a bird to make themselves even smaller. Dick's eyes bore into Tim's when his brother trills, quiet and with an uplift.
“What?” Tim asks, lifting an eyebrow. Dick taps his own forearm before wriggling it out and extending it into the air. “Uh, no. No thanks, Dick, I'm good,” he says quickly before straightening up and getting down to the floor. His knees and shins hurt, fuck. How long has he been in that position?
Dick pouts before chirping insistently. The following trill is clearly disappointed, but Tim is not about to get cuddled into oblivion on the kitchen's tiles, of all things.
“Should I get you some blankets or anything else?”
Dick thinks about it before nodding so sharply it looks more like his neck snapped. Tim shivers even though he's used to the sight and walks to the adjacent sitting room. He gathers some pillows and blankets from there, dull pain throbbing in his shins as he goes back. He comes closer to the pair much slower, wary of the creature waking up, but it seems they're out for good. Dick licks Tim's hand in gratitude for the blanket he drapes over his back — ew, what the fuck — and the rest of the stuff he sort of just… leaves on the floor next to them, since there's nothing he can do without them moving.
“Okay. Goodnight,” Tim says but freezes when Dick grunts sharply before pointedly bobbing his head up and down. Tim looks at him, bewildered and needing a moment to get what Dick wants. “Seriously?”
Dick's unblinking gaze seems to bear into his soul. Tim breathes out, defeated and all the more tired from the adrenaline crash from the creature's arrival, and slowly sinks into a crouch to lean down and allow Dick to give him a goodnight kiss.
“You're ridiculous,” Tim informs him, flickering Dick on the forehead. His brother merely grins, teeth sharp and fanged, unrepentant. Tim rolls his eyes before ruffling Dick's hair and quickly skedaddling after.
The Manor's halls are hauntingly quiet after all of that, as Tim traverses them, his eyes long adjusted to the darkness. He doesn't meet anyone on his way to his room and soon enough, he's crashing in his bed and burrowing under the covers. He's still fucking cold, ugh.
Tim's on the verge of falling asleep when his eyes snap open with the realization that he never drank his milk.
“Fuck,” he curses, heavily debating going back to do that anyway, but his lack of energy to deal with his brother(s)’ bullshit wins and Tim merely curls on his other side.
He wonders if Dick and the other one will be human tomorrow. It will determine whether the screams he wakes up to will be of fear or surprise and glee over the new addition to the family.
Most of all, though, he hopes they'll be able to talk tomorrow.
He's tired of not knowing the creature's name and pronouns.