A/N: anonymous asked:

Hurt!Tim and no. 6 please :)

I was gonna skip this because I'd already written it with Tim and Jason, but it is just SUCH a good prompt. There are definitely more than two scenarios that could be written with that line.

"Where are you? Tell me where you are."

"Bruce, can you come get me?"

It was Tim's voice, breathless, scared. Bruce pressed the phone closer to his ear, already heading for the door before he realized that he didn't even know where Tim was. He could hear chatter and music in the background on Tim's end, young voices, boisterous and loud, a bass line boosted high enough to distort the pop music coming out of a too-large speaker. Had Tim gone to a party or something?

Bruce clenched his fist. He really should have put a tracker on the kid. But he was supposed to be having a normal life, at least sometimes. Living with his dad, going to school, hanging out with his friends. He wasn't supposed to be in danger, not when he wasn't dressed in a brightly colored costume fighting criminals and monsters on the grimy streets.

"Where are you? Tell me where you are."

Tim let out a breath of relief, as if he hadn't been sure if Bruce would agree to come for him. As if he didn't know how important he was. As if he didn't know that Bruce would go to the ends of the earth for him, let alone a house party somewhere in the suburbs of Gotham.

"Brad Culbert's house," he said miserably. "Do you know who that is? Of course you do. You've probably memorized the contact information of everyone in my school, you paranoid freak."

Bruce snorted. Tim wasn't far wrong. He had certainly run background checks on all of the teachers at Tim's junior high, as well as most of the students. He didn't quite have it all memorized, though. He pulled Culbert's address up on his wrist computer as he strode toward the garage, grabbing a jacket from a coat rack as he went.

"I'm on my way. Tell me the situation. Why do you want to leave? Are you somewhere safe?" And why was he calling Bruce instead of Jack? Was he worried about getting into trouble, and he thought that Bruce wouldn't scold him the way his father would? In that he was definitely wrong, though Bruce planned to keep the lecture until after he had Tim safe. Within arm's length. Possibly between two layers of armor.

A door closed on Tim's end, and the noise of the party became muffled, as if he had shut himself in a closet or a bathroom. It bothered Bruce that he hadn't already done that on his own, before calling Bruce. Was Tim compromised in some way?

"It was just, just supposed to be this end of the school year fling," Tim said, his voice wavering. "I thought it was gonna be, you know, like soda and chips and board games and maybe some people would swim in Brad's pool. He has a nice pool. I didn't realize until like an hour in that his parents weren't here. And I didn't realize that someone had spiked the punch until, like, ten minutes ago."

Bruce eyes narrowed. He was in the car now, one of the Bentleys that looked relatively ordinary but had been reinforced with heavy armor, just in case. He hadn't noticed that Tim's voice had a slight slur in it until he mentioned the punch. "How much did you drink?" he asked sharply.

"Kind of a lot." Tim sounded like he was going to cry. "I'm really sorry, Bruce. I should have been more aware of my surroundings. I thought there was just, like, lemon juice or something in it. Something kind of bitter. I've never been drunk before. I don't know what to do. I'm really scared and I feel kinda sick. Please don't yell at me."

Well, and now Bruce felt like an asshole. He softened his voice and deliberately made himself loosen his fist around the phone, though he did not let up on the gas pedal. "It's okay. It wasn't your fault. You've never even tasted alcohol before, have you?"

Tim was such a good kid. Always obedient, always attentive, never out of line. He seemed almost terrified of screwing up, rather, which was a little too far the other way. Bruce was kind of looking forward to the day Tim was comfortable enough with him to rebel a little, though he was also dreading it. There was no way he would have consumed enough alcohol to get drunk at the age of fourteen if he'd been aware of what he was doing.

"No," Tim moaned, and now he was sniffling. "I'm really, really sorry. Please don't tell my dad."

Oh no. He was a sad drunk. Poor kid.

Now Bruce's heart was totally melted, and there was no use even trying to deny it to himself. He tried to keep it out of his voice, though. Hopefully Tim was too inebriated to tell. "It's okay, Tim. You can sleep it off at the manor. We'll come up with a story for your dad."

Tim let out a breath. "No need. He's still on his book tour. I just...please don't tell him when he gets back."

Bruce had to close his mouth and do meditative breathing for a few moments to release his rage. Even now, when he was sporadically trying to be a better father, Jack Drake was still managing to neglect his already heavily neglected son. Not my business, Bruce reminded himself, as he did every time he was smacked in the face again by Jack's inadequacies. Not my business, not my business, not my business.

"Okay," he said once he got himself under control. "I'll be there in twenty minutes. Just keep yourself safe." He did not trust a bunch of unruly high schoolers around his tiny, tipsy Robin. Not even a little bit. "I'm coming for you. Everything is going to be okay."

He held the phone against his shoulder with the side of his head as he checked the glove compartment to see if he had any activated charcoal. Yep, an almost full bottle. He was gonna pour the whole thing down the kid's throat. Hopefully that would stave off any potential alcohol poisoning. If that didn't work, Bruce would not hesitate to drive him to the ER and get his stomach pumped. Hell, he would take the Batjet.

"Thank you," Tim breathed, still sniffling. "I'm gonna...gonna stay in the bathroom. It's down the hallway from the front door, second door on the left."

"Lock the door. I'll be there soon."

He set the phone down on the seat and drove.

If Bruce had a little too much fun bursting in the front door and putting on the Batman voice to scare a bunch of drunk and half-drunk teenagers, that was no one's business but his own. Someone yelled, "It's the cops!" at an incredibly high pitch, and everyone scattered in a very satisfactory way. Then Bruce strode down the hallway to retrieve his inebriated kid.

Tim did not have a good night, though fortunately the trip to the ER turned out to be unnecessary. Bruce did indeed get a handful of activated charcoal capsules into him, though it was probably too late to do any good, as well as several bottles of water. He stayed with him while he threw up and cried and babbled apologies, seemingly for hours, then fell asleep in a sweaty, stinky heap. He camped out in a chair next to the guest room bed where he had carried the boy, keeping an eye out for any signs of alcohol poisoning. Tim made it through the night, and in the morning, Alfred prescribed his patented hangover cure: a raw egg with Tabasco and Worcestershire sauce.

It was punishment enough, almost. Bruce barely scolded him for his lack of situational awareness, though he did step up Tim's training in that area over the next couple of weeks. As promised, he didn't tell Jack. He didn't think Jack would care even if he did, and the thought made him angry every time it rose to his mind, but eventually he managed to repress it.

Tim deserved better. Bruce wasn't much better than Jack Drake, he knew that. It was a low bar, but Bruce had cleared it. If Jack Drake wasn't going to be there to care for his son, Bruce would damn well do it for him. Every single time.