To the Bone 3 of 3
Jul. 21st, 2010 08:46 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
oroburos69Title: To the Bone 3 of 3
Beta: lady_of_scarlet
Rating: NC-17
Warnings: double penetration, non-con, tentacles, multiple partners, violence, torture, cannibalism, sex pollen, dub-con, angst, horror, hurt/comfort.
Summary: A riot erupts in Arkham Asylum, and Robin is locked inside.
Characters: Robin/Tim Drake, Poison Ivy, Bane, Killer Croc, Batman
Author’s Note: Written for![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
bitternarration, the winner of my offer in the Gulf Aid Now auction. Also, look at the warnings. I fulfilled each to the absolute best of my abilities while keeping the story reasonably plausible. This is sick shit. Finally, I’m using this one for the caught in a robbery square on my H/C bingo (they were stealing away when they caught Robin...It’s a stretch, but the only idea I have). Additional thanks to kirax2 for her help with research and characterization.
The shower is in the middle of the cave and open air, and the water is lukewarm at best. When Bruce said ‘shower,’ he actually meant ‘a diverted water pipe heated by groups of resistors hooked up to a car battery.’ He’d mentioned that he was still getting around to adding a shower head, giving Tim a faintly embarrassed look.
Lukewarm or not, the torrent of water that pours from the pipe washes most of the dirt, blood and grime off through water pressure. Tim feels more solid, even if Bruce has to hold him up to keep him from losing his balance. The shampoo/conditioner/bodywash is the same brand they use in the main batcave. The smell is more comforting than Tim’s really willing to admit.
Bruce’s grip on Tim’s wrist is taking his pulse, from the angle and position of his hand. “Are you done?” Bruce asks. He’s staring off into a corner of the cave, very deliberately not looking at Tim.
“Yeah,” Tim says. “I’m good.”
Bruce twists the spigot closed and grabs Tim a towel from the pile on the ground. “Can you get dried off without falling over?”
“Yeah.” Tim shivers. The cave is cold. “I... the cuts are still bleeding,” he says, holding the white towel away from himself.
“There are lots of towels. If blood gets on one, we’ll throw it out,” Bruce replies, picking up the scattered rags of Robin’s costume. He drops them into a trash bin without examining them, and even though Tim knows he did so deliberately, he cannot help but to be grateful.
Tim nods, even though Bruce isn’t looking, and runs the towel over his body, gingerly patting dry the wounds from Croc’s claws. Two of them gape open in the middle, and he isn’t looking forward to Bruce stitching them up. He wraps the towel around his hips, and grabs another towel from the pile to wrap around his shoulders (if they can throw out one, they can throw out two).
His feet hurt, and he has no idea why because nothing happened to them. Tim spends a moment being jealous of his feet before realizing how ridiculous that was. “Do those pills make you loopy?” he asks.
“Tranquilizers to neutralize the more violent side-effects are packaged with the antidote,” Bruce confirms.
“Okay, good.” Tim blames the tranqs and sits down on the bench. Bruce had covered it with another towel when Tim wasn’t looking.
There will be three towels we’ll need to throw out, Tim thinks absently, letting Bruce help him lie down. His head swims at the change in position.
“Are you alright?” Bruce asks, and Tim notices, belatedly, that he’s tugged Tim’s towels (they’ll need to throw them out) apart so he can reach the big cut on his hip, where Croc had held him still while--Tim frowns.
“I’m fine,” he murmurs, rubbing his face against the towel underneath him to get the wet line of drool—spit and come—off of his cheek. It leaves the terry cloth a little damp under his face. He reminds himself that he’ll need to throw it out, later.
His hand wraps itself in Batman’s cape, tangling it around his fingers. The fabric is warm from Bruce’s body heat.
He realizes that he can’t feel his stomach and looks down blearily. Bruce is pinching the edges of the deepest cut together and sewing them up, one laborious stitch at a time. Tim’s definitely okay with not being able to feel his stomach. Bruce does stitches like a fish does ballet. Incredibly poorly.
Tim’s eyes slide half-closed as he watches Bruce stab him with the needle, realize that he doesn’t like the spot where he stabbed him, pull back, hesitate because he’s already stabbed him, and then push the needle through anyway. Alfred will have to pull out at least three of the stitches and redo them, and Tim will have to be careful when he moves to make sure that he doesn’t pull any of the stitches out.
He wakes up when Bruce pulls his hand free from the cape and applies disinfectant liberally and messily. The white gauze pad he tapes over top is reassuringly clean and white, completely hiding the cut from Croc’s teeth. Tim closes his eyes (they itch) and grabs hold of the cape again when Bruce lets go of his hand.
Bruce slides his hand under Tim’s ribs, pulling him into a sitting position. He brings Tim’s shoulder towel with him, which is nice because the towel is warm and Tim is not.
It takes a loop or two for Tim to realize that Bruce is wrapping up the crooked lines he stitched into Tim’s stomach. The flash of long white bandages as Bruce pulls them past blurs and twists in front of Tim’s eyes, oddly hypnotic. Bruce tucks the edge into itself and leans back to grab something off the floor.
Tim brushes his hands over the bandages, finding the hidden wounds and touching them. He can’t feel them, they’re numb. He kind of wishes he could.
Bruce lifts Tim’s feet one at a time and slides them into of a pair of boxers. They’re printed with cartoon bats and little birds. Bruce shrugs at Tim’s curious look, and lifts him up to pull the boxers over his hips, sliding them under his towel. “JLA Secret Santa. Superman—actually, probably his wife, gave them to me. I got him one of those stuffed Superman dolls they sell in Metropolis souvenir stands. It came with the Aquaman one. They held hands.”
Tim laughs and if it sounds a little like a sob, Bruce doesn’t seem to notice. “Aren’t those just modified Cabbage Patch Kids?”
“Yes. Yes they are.” Bruce smiles at Tim and pulls the drawstring of the sweats tight, tying it in a bow. Tim blinks in confusion. He keeps losing time, missing things. He can’t remember Bruce putting them on him.
Bruce taps Tim’s arm, and Tim lifts both of them up so Bruce can tug the tee-shirt over his head. The towel falls off his shoulders and he thinks, I’ll need to throw that away.
“There’s a bed over there,” Bruce tells him, standing up. “I need to put sheets on it though.” He stops a step away, and looks down.
Tim is holding into his cape again, but can’t remember when he grabbed it. He starts to let go, his heart jittering in his chest, but Bruce has the cape off and draped over him like a huge black blanket before he can unhook his fingers.
“I’ll be right back,” he assures him, and he talks like Batman, so Tim nods and calms down.
He’s all Bruce when he struggles with the bed sheets. Eventually he picks up the entire mattress and hooks the top sheet on two corners, then flips it and does the other two. Bruce just tosses the blankets on top.
Tim blinks, and Bruce is in front of him, urging him to stand. The bottom falls out of his head when he does, and he sways into Bruce’s hands. Bruce drags him, foot by stumbling foot until the ground under him is rough limestone rather than swaying metal sheeting. Then it’s a soft mattress covered by white sheets and Tim falls into it.
Batman’s cape drops over him, heavy and warm, and Tim falls asleep.
“I’m sorry, Robin.”
Tim sighs, turns over and says, “It’s not your fault.”
He can hear Batman’s silence.
There’s another pill and a glass of water, and Tim falls asleep again, Bruce’s hand holding his wrist, fingers pressed lightly against the radial artery pumping beneath his skin.
He wakes up with the sheets wrapped around his legs. For a moment, he thinks they’re vines.
Tim pulls his legs free. His back hurts, his stomach hurts, and every movement sends spikes of pain through his thighs. He knows he can call out and Bruce will get him painkillers. Instead he stretches, letting the stitches pull at his skin, inviting the aches into his bones.
I didn’t like it. It hurts, it hurt, and I didn’t like it.
“What time is it?” Tim murmurs, asking the shadow beside him.
Batman stirs, the white lenses of the mask turn to look at him. “Five.”
“We leaving soon?”
“Yes.”
Tim sighs and sits up. “How soon?” he asks, pressing his hand against his forehead. His head is pounding.
“When it’s dark.” Batman hands Tim a glass of water and another pill. “Any nausea? Dizziness?”
“Killer headache,” Tim admits, absently tugging the collar of his shirt up. “Withdrawal?”
“It should be setting in. Your eyes stopped glowing three hours ago.”
“Oh good,” Tim whispers. The cave walls seem to roll around him and he swallows hard. “Oh man, nausea. Nausea now.”
Batman hauls Tim to the edge of the cave, holding him still with an arm across his chest. Tim’s stomach twitches, and then practically turns itself inside out. Even though he knows it’s impossible, he feels like he can taste Croc all over again.
Tim pushes himself back up onto floor, stone crumbling under his palms and skittering into the pit. “So how are we getting out of here?”
“Batmobile.”
“I don’t have a costume,” Tim replies, rising to his knees and crawling back to the bed. Moving hurts. He stretches a little, just to prove...
“There’s an extra in storage here.”
“It’s not Dick’s, is it?”
Silence.
“I seriously don’t want to wear green panties,” Tim says, grabbing a pillow and hugging it in front himself. He’s being manipulative, and he really, really doesn’t care. He doesn’t want to wear the fucking panties.
“You could wear the sweats?” It’s a rare thing to hear Batman sound uncertain. Tim shouldn’t be so pleased.
“Can I borrow your cape?” Tim reaches over his side and pulls the edge of Batman’s cape over himself. It’s warm. “And the sweats,” he adds.
“Yes,” Batman says. Silence unfolds. “Are you sure you don’t want your cape?”
“No, I want yours.” Tim stretches again, as a reminder.
“I—Tim.” Batman paused. This uncertainty in his voice doesn’t bode well. “I need to ask you a few questions.”
Tim’s skin crawls, and he shivers, pulling the cape tighter around himself. “Yeah?”
“Bane, Killer Croc, and Poison Ivy. Were there any others?”
“No.” Tim stared at the twisted rock formations beside him, breathing slowly, keeping calm.
“I looked into their medical records.” Batman rubs his fingers together, the polymer-based fabric hissing quietly. It’s a blatant sign of nervousness for Batman.
The pit of his stomach drops to somewhere around his knees. He hadn’t considered—“What did they have?”
“They’re all clean of diseases.”
“Then what—?” He doesn’t know what to ask. Doesn’t know what Batman is saying.
“All three have been put on new medications in the last two months. Was their behavior...particularly unusual?”
Soft and withered flesh, yellow-green from lack of sun, something unnatural twisting around beneath her skin.
“What were they giving Ivy?” Tim asks before he can stop himself.
“Nitrogen. One of the new psychologists is also a horticulturalist.”
“They should stop giving her that. I don’t think it’s helping,” Tim resists the urge to laugh, because he doesn’t think he could understate the case any more dramatically if he tried.
“She was the instigator.” A statement, not a question.
“Yes. I’m fairly certain she was controlling the other two as well.” Tim props himself up on his elbow, looking at Batman more directly. “You aren’t surprised.”
“No.”
“Why aren’t you surprised?”
“Killer Croc and Bane aren’t sexual predators. Poison Ivy is.”
Tim rolls the idea around, thinking it through, remembering dozens upon dozens of situations that had seemed funny or trivial afterward. He’d never made that particular connection, but the conclusion was fairly obvious, now. “I never thought of her pheromones like that before,” he admits.
Batman laughs once, sharp and bitter, and replies, “Neither did I.”
“Did she ever—” Tim cuts himself off there, because it’s not any of his business. Even if he really wants to know.
“...To me?” Batman says.
Tim nods, his cheek rubbing against the wrinkled cotton of the pillowcase.
“Once.”
NINE
Batman sets him down on the passenger seat of the Batmobile. Robin relaxes into the heated leather, pulling Batman’s cape up under his chin. He’d stiffened up overnight, the dull aches returning as painfully tight muscles, stitched together skin pulling in all the wrong directions.
Apparently, Venom is a mild analgesic. The ones Batman keeps in locked containers are significantly more effective.
“You can sleep,” Batman says, and his voice is quiet and far away. Tim--Robin closes his eyes. He feels like he’s made of Jello. 100% pain-free Jello with a side of clouds and maybe a litter of kittens like they show in toilet paper commercials. He likes kittens.
“He alright?” someone asks from really far away, like, Tibet or Belarus. But he can hear them, so it’s not that far away.
Tim frowns. “I want a kitten,” he murmurs. “A black one.” They could call it Batcat, and it could live in the cave with them.
“He’s fine,” Batman replies, closing the car door really loudly. “Just tired.”
He wakes up in the Batcave, sprawled across the pallet bed Batman uses for naps while the computer is processing results. The first thing he does is check for his mask. Tim isn’t wearing it.
There’s no one else there. He’s alone.
The bats above squeak sleepily when he turns on the lights (it must be day), chasing away the shadows. Tim changes into civilian clothes, getting rid of Dick’s old top in favor of a plain white tee-shirt that’s loose, old, and comfortable. He keeps Bruce’s pants, even though they’re way too long, the hems catching under his feet as he walks.
There’s a clumsily folded afghan beside the bed. It’s usually in the media room.
Tim lies down and goes back to sleep, curled underneath the blanket.
The sheets have twisted around his body again, pinning him down, preventing him from escaping. He checks for the mask as he catches his breath.
Tim untangles himself and heads for the stairs. His skin crawls, and he turns around, Bruce’s pants tangling around his feet like vines like roots. There’s nothing behind him other than rows on rows of trophy cases. Tim stares into the shadows, daring them to move, until his heart calms down.
He can’t shake the feeling that he isn’t alone, that he’s being watched. The bats are gone (it must be night).
He backs toward the stairs, out of the cold light that illuminates him for anyone in the shadows. He can’t see out. Everything else can see in. The first step catches him by surprise, adding a few more bruises to his bruises when he falls. Tim scrambles back to his feet, and heads up the stairs, ignoring the dozens of pangs and twinges moving brings.
The stairs creak with every step, a clear and loud indication to whatever is watching him (there is nothing watching him), telling it where he’s going. There’s a matching squeak behind him, probably a bat that stayed. It sounds like footsteps.
Tim unlocks the secret door with shaking hands, darting out from the grandfather clock and slamming it behind him. The counterweights sway gently, a muted clock strike of inaccurate hour.
He runs cold water over his hands and blames the shaking in them on the temperature. Every light in the kitchen is on, and the blinds are all pulled down. There aren’t any shadows, and the air smells like Alfred’s cookies.
Tim’s still afraid. Irrationally so, and he counts down the reasons why he’s safe here. There are many, and they are compelling. His hands don’t listen to his carefully crafted list.
“Are you okay?”
Tim flinches, his heart in his throat. He turns off the water and the truth slips out before he can catch it, “I’m really not.”
To the Bone 1 of 3
To the Bone 2 of 3
To the Bone 3 of 3
To the Bone Epilogue
Beta: lady_of_scarlet
Rating: NC-17
Warnings: double penetration, non-con, tentacles, multiple partners, violence, torture, cannibalism, sex pollen, dub-con, angst, horror, hurt/comfort.
Summary: A riot erupts in Arkham Asylum, and Robin is locked inside.
Characters: Robin/Tim Drake, Poison Ivy, Bane, Killer Croc, Batman
Author’s Note: Written for
bitternarration, the winner of my offer in the Gulf Aid Now auction. Also, look at the warnings. I fulfilled each to the absolute best of my abilities while keeping the story reasonably plausible. This is sick shit. Finally, I’m using this one for the caught in a robbery square on my H/C bingo (they were stealing away when they caught Robin...It’s a stretch, but the only idea I have). Additional thanks to kirax2 for her help with research and characterization.SEVEN
The shower is in the middle of the cave and open air, and the water is lukewarm at best. When Bruce said ‘shower,’ he actually meant ‘a diverted water pipe heated by groups of resistors hooked up to a car battery.’ He’d mentioned that he was still getting around to adding a shower head, giving Tim a faintly embarrassed look.
Lukewarm or not, the torrent of water that pours from the pipe washes most of the dirt, blood and grime off through water pressure. Tim feels more solid, even if Bruce has to hold him up to keep him from losing his balance. The shampoo/conditioner/bodywash is the same brand they use in the main batcave. The smell is more comforting than Tim’s really willing to admit.
Bruce’s grip on Tim’s wrist is taking his pulse, from the angle and position of his hand. “Are you done?” Bruce asks. He’s staring off into a corner of the cave, very deliberately not looking at Tim.
“Yeah,” Tim says. “I’m good.”
Bruce twists the spigot closed and grabs Tim a towel from the pile on the ground. “Can you get dried off without falling over?”
“Yeah.” Tim shivers. The cave is cold. “I... the cuts are still bleeding,” he says, holding the white towel away from himself.
“There are lots of towels. If blood gets on one, we’ll throw it out,” Bruce replies, picking up the scattered rags of Robin’s costume. He drops them into a trash bin without examining them, and even though Tim knows he did so deliberately, he cannot help but to be grateful.
Tim nods, even though Bruce isn’t looking, and runs the towel over his body, gingerly patting dry the wounds from Croc’s claws. Two of them gape open in the middle, and he isn’t looking forward to Bruce stitching them up. He wraps the towel around his hips, and grabs another towel from the pile to wrap around his shoulders (if they can throw out one, they can throw out two).
His feet hurt, and he has no idea why because nothing happened to them. Tim spends a moment being jealous of his feet before realizing how ridiculous that was. “Do those pills make you loopy?” he asks.
“Tranquilizers to neutralize the more violent side-effects are packaged with the antidote,” Bruce confirms.
“Okay, good.” Tim blames the tranqs and sits down on the bench. Bruce had covered it with another towel when Tim wasn’t looking.
There will be three towels we’ll need to throw out, Tim thinks absently, letting Bruce help him lie down. His head swims at the change in position.
“Are you alright?” Bruce asks, and Tim notices, belatedly, that he’s tugged Tim’s towels (they’ll need to throw them out) apart so he can reach the big cut on his hip, where Croc had held him still while--Tim frowns.
“I’m fine,” he murmurs, rubbing his face against the towel underneath him to get the wet line of drool—spit and come—off of his cheek. It leaves the terry cloth a little damp under his face. He reminds himself that he’ll need to throw it out, later.
His hand wraps itself in Batman’s cape, tangling it around his fingers. The fabric is warm from Bruce’s body heat.
He realizes that he can’t feel his stomach and looks down blearily. Bruce is pinching the edges of the deepest cut together and sewing them up, one laborious stitch at a time. Tim’s definitely okay with not being able to feel his stomach. Bruce does stitches like a fish does ballet. Incredibly poorly.
Tim’s eyes slide half-closed as he watches Bruce stab him with the needle, realize that he doesn’t like the spot where he stabbed him, pull back, hesitate because he’s already stabbed him, and then push the needle through anyway. Alfred will have to pull out at least three of the stitches and redo them, and Tim will have to be careful when he moves to make sure that he doesn’t pull any of the stitches out.
He wakes up when Bruce pulls his hand free from the cape and applies disinfectant liberally and messily. The white gauze pad he tapes over top is reassuringly clean and white, completely hiding the cut from Croc’s teeth. Tim closes his eyes (they itch) and grabs hold of the cape again when Bruce lets go of his hand.
Bruce slides his hand under Tim’s ribs, pulling him into a sitting position. He brings Tim’s shoulder towel with him, which is nice because the towel is warm and Tim is not.
It takes a loop or two for Tim to realize that Bruce is wrapping up the crooked lines he stitched into Tim’s stomach. The flash of long white bandages as Bruce pulls them past blurs and twists in front of Tim’s eyes, oddly hypnotic. Bruce tucks the edge into itself and leans back to grab something off the floor.
Tim brushes his hands over the bandages, finding the hidden wounds and touching them. He can’t feel them, they’re numb. He kind of wishes he could.
Bruce lifts Tim’s feet one at a time and slides them into of a pair of boxers. They’re printed with cartoon bats and little birds. Bruce shrugs at Tim’s curious look, and lifts him up to pull the boxers over his hips, sliding them under his towel. “JLA Secret Santa. Superman—actually, probably his wife, gave them to me. I got him one of those stuffed Superman dolls they sell in Metropolis souvenir stands. It came with the Aquaman one. They held hands.”
Tim laughs and if it sounds a little like a sob, Bruce doesn’t seem to notice. “Aren’t those just modified Cabbage Patch Kids?”
“Yes. Yes they are.” Bruce smiles at Tim and pulls the drawstring of the sweats tight, tying it in a bow. Tim blinks in confusion. He keeps losing time, missing things. He can’t remember Bruce putting them on him.
Bruce taps Tim’s arm, and Tim lifts both of them up so Bruce can tug the tee-shirt over his head. The towel falls off his shoulders and he thinks, I’ll need to throw that away.
“There’s a bed over there,” Bruce tells him, standing up. “I need to put sheets on it though.” He stops a step away, and looks down.
Tim is holding into his cape again, but can’t remember when he grabbed it. He starts to let go, his heart jittering in his chest, but Bruce has the cape off and draped over him like a huge black blanket before he can unhook his fingers.
“I’ll be right back,” he assures him, and he talks like Batman, so Tim nods and calms down.
He’s all Bruce when he struggles with the bed sheets. Eventually he picks up the entire mattress and hooks the top sheet on two corners, then flips it and does the other two. Bruce just tosses the blankets on top.
Tim blinks, and Bruce is in front of him, urging him to stand. The bottom falls out of his head when he does, and he sways into Bruce’s hands. Bruce drags him, foot by stumbling foot until the ground under him is rough limestone rather than swaying metal sheeting. Then it’s a soft mattress covered by white sheets and Tim falls into it.
Batman’s cape drops over him, heavy and warm, and Tim falls asleep.
EIGHT
“I’m sorry, Robin.”
Tim sighs, turns over and says, “It’s not your fault.”
He can hear Batman’s silence.
There’s another pill and a glass of water, and Tim falls asleep again, Bruce’s hand holding his wrist, fingers pressed lightly against the radial artery pumping beneath his skin.
He wakes up with the sheets wrapped around his legs. For a moment, he thinks they’re vines.
Tim pulls his legs free. His back hurts, his stomach hurts, and every movement sends spikes of pain through his thighs. He knows he can call out and Bruce will get him painkillers. Instead he stretches, letting the stitches pull at his skin, inviting the aches into his bones.
I didn’t like it. It hurts, it hurt, and I didn’t like it.
“What time is it?” Tim murmurs, asking the shadow beside him.
Batman stirs, the white lenses of the mask turn to look at him. “Five.”
“We leaving soon?”
“Yes.”
Tim sighs and sits up. “How soon?” he asks, pressing his hand against his forehead. His head is pounding.
“When it’s dark.” Batman hands Tim a glass of water and another pill. “Any nausea? Dizziness?”
“Killer headache,” Tim admits, absently tugging the collar of his shirt up. “Withdrawal?”
“It should be setting in. Your eyes stopped glowing three hours ago.”
“Oh good,” Tim whispers. The cave walls seem to roll around him and he swallows hard. “Oh man, nausea. Nausea now.”
Batman hauls Tim to the edge of the cave, holding him still with an arm across his chest. Tim’s stomach twitches, and then practically turns itself inside out. Even though he knows it’s impossible, he feels like he can taste Croc all over again.
Tim pushes himself back up onto floor, stone crumbling under his palms and skittering into the pit. “So how are we getting out of here?”
“Batmobile.”
“I don’t have a costume,” Tim replies, rising to his knees and crawling back to the bed. Moving hurts. He stretches a little, just to prove...
“There’s an extra in storage here.”
“It’s not Dick’s, is it?”
Silence.
“I seriously don’t want to wear green panties,” Tim says, grabbing a pillow and hugging it in front himself. He’s being manipulative, and he really, really doesn’t care. He doesn’t want to wear the fucking panties.
“You could wear the sweats?” It’s a rare thing to hear Batman sound uncertain. Tim shouldn’t be so pleased.
“Can I borrow your cape?” Tim reaches over his side and pulls the edge of Batman’s cape over himself. It’s warm. “And the sweats,” he adds.
“Yes,” Batman says. Silence unfolds. “Are you sure you don’t want your cape?”
“No, I want yours.” Tim stretches again, as a reminder.
“I—Tim.” Batman paused. This uncertainty in his voice doesn’t bode well. “I need to ask you a few questions.”
Tim’s skin crawls, and he shivers, pulling the cape tighter around himself. “Yeah?”
“Bane, Killer Croc, and Poison Ivy. Were there any others?”
“No.” Tim stared at the twisted rock formations beside him, breathing slowly, keeping calm.
“I looked into their medical records.” Batman rubs his fingers together, the polymer-based fabric hissing quietly. It’s a blatant sign of nervousness for Batman.
The pit of his stomach drops to somewhere around his knees. He hadn’t considered—“What did they have?”
“They’re all clean of diseases.”
“Then what—?” He doesn’t know what to ask. Doesn’t know what Batman is saying.
“All three have been put on new medications in the last two months. Was their behavior...particularly unusual?”
Soft and withered flesh, yellow-green from lack of sun, something unnatural twisting around beneath her skin.
“What were they giving Ivy?” Tim asks before he can stop himself.
“Nitrogen. One of the new psychologists is also a horticulturalist.”
“They should stop giving her that. I don’t think it’s helping,” Tim resists the urge to laugh, because he doesn’t think he could understate the case any more dramatically if he tried.
“She was the instigator.” A statement, not a question.
“Yes. I’m fairly certain she was controlling the other two as well.” Tim props himself up on his elbow, looking at Batman more directly. “You aren’t surprised.”
“No.”
“Why aren’t you surprised?”
“Killer Croc and Bane aren’t sexual predators. Poison Ivy is.”
Tim rolls the idea around, thinking it through, remembering dozens upon dozens of situations that had seemed funny or trivial afterward. He’d never made that particular connection, but the conclusion was fairly obvious, now. “I never thought of her pheromones like that before,” he admits.
Batman laughs once, sharp and bitter, and replies, “Neither did I.”
“Did she ever—” Tim cuts himself off there, because it’s not any of his business. Even if he really wants to know.
“...To me?” Batman says.
Tim nods, his cheek rubbing against the wrinkled cotton of the pillowcase.
“Once.”
NINE
Batman sets him down on the passenger seat of the Batmobile. Robin relaxes into the heated leather, pulling Batman’s cape up under his chin. He’d stiffened up overnight, the dull aches returning as painfully tight muscles, stitched together skin pulling in all the wrong directions.
Apparently, Venom is a mild analgesic. The ones Batman keeps in locked containers are significantly more effective.
“You can sleep,” Batman says, and his voice is quiet and far away. Tim--Robin closes his eyes. He feels like he’s made of Jello. 100% pain-free Jello with a side of clouds and maybe a litter of kittens like they show in toilet paper commercials. He likes kittens.
“He alright?” someone asks from really far away, like, Tibet or Belarus. But he can hear them, so it’s not that far away.
Tim frowns. “I want a kitten,” he murmurs. “A black one.” They could call it Batcat, and it could live in the cave with them.
“He’s fine,” Batman replies, closing the car door really loudly. “Just tired.”
He wakes up in the Batcave, sprawled across the pallet bed Batman uses for naps while the computer is processing results. The first thing he does is check for his mask. Tim isn’t wearing it.
There’s no one else there. He’s alone.
The bats above squeak sleepily when he turns on the lights (it must be day), chasing away the shadows. Tim changes into civilian clothes, getting rid of Dick’s old top in favor of a plain white tee-shirt that’s loose, old, and comfortable. He keeps Bruce’s pants, even though they’re way too long, the hems catching under his feet as he walks.
There’s a clumsily folded afghan beside the bed. It’s usually in the media room.
Tim lies down and goes back to sleep, curled underneath the blanket.
The sheets have twisted around his body again, pinning him down, preventing him from escaping. He checks for the mask as he catches his breath.
Tim untangles himself and heads for the stairs. His skin crawls, and he turns around, Bruce’s pants tangling around his feet like vines like roots. There’s nothing behind him other than rows on rows of trophy cases. Tim stares into the shadows, daring them to move, until his heart calms down.
He can’t shake the feeling that he isn’t alone, that he’s being watched. The bats are gone (it must be night).
He backs toward the stairs, out of the cold light that illuminates him for anyone in the shadows. He can’t see out. Everything else can see in. The first step catches him by surprise, adding a few more bruises to his bruises when he falls. Tim scrambles back to his feet, and heads up the stairs, ignoring the dozens of pangs and twinges moving brings.
The stairs creak with every step, a clear and loud indication to whatever is watching him (there is nothing watching him), telling it where he’s going. There’s a matching squeak behind him, probably a bat that stayed. It sounds like footsteps.
Tim unlocks the secret door with shaking hands, darting out from the grandfather clock and slamming it behind him. The counterweights sway gently, a muted clock strike of inaccurate hour.
TEN
He runs cold water over his hands and blames the shaking in them on the temperature. Every light in the kitchen is on, and the blinds are all pulled down. There aren’t any shadows, and the air smells like Alfred’s cookies.
Tim’s still afraid. Irrationally so, and he counts down the reasons why he’s safe here. There are many, and they are compelling. His hands don’t listen to his carefully crafted list.
“Are you okay?”
Tim flinches, his heart in his throat. He turns off the water and the truth slips out before he can catch it, “I’m really not.”
To the Bone 1 of 3
To the Bone 2 of 3
To the Bone 3 of 3
To the Bone Epilogue
