AU where Tim didn't have the ablation and lives and works with Wolff Parkinson White syndrome.
"Reported robbery on Kane ave." Alfred crisp English accent went out over the comms.
"Where is Stalker?" Red Hood asked it was unusual for Tim to take the night off regardless of what else was going on. It seemed the kid loved hearing and being around action even if he couldn't be a part of it.
"Master Timothy has caught a rather nasty cold and is sleeping. He will be quite alright with some sleep, I'm afraid the last few nights have caught up with him," Alfred reported. As much as they all encouraged Tim to take care of himself it was hard for him to break the workaholic tendencies he'd been instilled with a young age. When he first got the WPW diagnosis he was told so many times to slow down, but it never seemed to stick it didn't matter who or how many times they had told him to slow down.
"Is he going to be alright?" Robin asked with mild curiosity, he didn't care for Drake but he was better at comms than Pennyworth.
"He'll be back on his feet in no time at all. The robbery is still in progress," Alfred reminded them as he went on watching Gotham on the computer monitors.
"I'm on the way," Jason said, he'd been on the way, but it was clear that Alfred wanted confirmation.
Patrol was mostly boring stuff no major rogues were out. Jason just happened to decide to drop by the manor instead of going back to his apartment. He wasn't worried about Tim. The little defective replacement was always alright. It was almost funny how he'd been knocked down so many times to dust himself off and give it another go. They often joked that the world was against them all, but Tim had done something to make them extra angry.
Jason was surprised to see that Damian and Dick were already in Tim's room. The room had the smell of a sick person the stale air, the stench of sweat and puke mingled with the spice of the tea on the night The little almost bird was asleep in his bed wrapped in multiple blankets with two cups of Bengal Spice tea beside on his nightstand. Dick and Damian must have thought they would sneak up and give him the tea without telling the other.
"We just brought up some more tea for him. You know how important it is that he doesn't get dehydrated," Damian said when Jason raised an eyebrow at them. They all had done research on Tim's heart condition. When he and Damian first came to Gotham they were looking for potential weaknesses and dehydration would cause his heart to beat faster and make it more likely to have an episode where he would pass out. Jason wasn't proud of that fact. There was a lot of things he wasn't proud of when he first came back to Gotham and trying to kidnap Tim was at the top of the list. Tim had expected him and he and Jason had talked when Jason burst through his window Jack and Janet had come running to find Jason getting tazed by a bored Tim. He had explained to his worried parents that it was a misunderstanding and that Jason was a work friend. He was still crazy back then, and Tim was the only one he could talk to because he didn't replace him or have memories of the person he used to be. Jason could see Bruce getting a new kid like a family would get a puppy after their old dog was put down he was glad that Tim wasn't that replacement.
Jack and Janet knew that Tim was Stalker and that Red Hood bursting through the window wasn't that strange. Jack and Janet were strangely supportive of Tim being Stalker. They had only asked if they need anything and left them alone. Jason was surprised that Stalker had parents and parent's that cared and let him be IT support for Batman and Co. They talked and Tim made him go to Bruce and talk to him. Stalker brought him back in the fold by not being Robin.
It hadn't slipped Jason's mind as he set the mug of hot tea he brought up for Tim. The short walk over to his Tim's beside showed just how out of it the teenager really was. Even though he was never Robin he tried to sleep light and be prepared for anything. Jason walked out of Tim's room with Damian following after him. If he hadn't been sick he would have already kicked them out. It had been years since he split his time at the manor and with his parents, he hated to show any weakness to any of them.
Dick fussed over the heavy blankets Tim had cocooned himself in and then shut the door behind him. The three brothers lingered in the hallway until Dick reminded them, "Tim will be fine. He's gotten sick before. Alfred knows what to do and if his heart rate gets too high, or if it stays for too long. Leslie's already been told that he's sick so she's prepared."
Once Jack and Janet had to take him to the ER because Tim got the flu and got really dehydrated which gave him more heart palliations. After a two day stay at Gotham Memorial, he was able to go home and rest they all remember the call that Alfred got from a frantic Janet explaining that they were on the way to the ER and she would keep them posted on how Tim was.
"Your right, Grayson. Drake should be more careful so as not to put stress on Father and Pennyworth. He knows that without a spleen and having a heart condition is dangerous, but he never listens," Damian huffed.
When Damian had first been sent by Talia he'd been given a short dossier on Timothy Drake the boy with a heart condition who barely was apart of Batman's crusade. The paltry boy wasn't Robin and by all accounts didn't and would never have the stamina to be up to half Robin's standards. He had thought of Tim as worse than Pennyworth, less than the servant. Over time Drake and Pennyworth had both shown their value to his father's mission. Damian didn't have to like Drake, but in some ways he envied him. Father was always willing to listen to him and he felt guilty that no one believed him that he was lost in time. Damian should have believed him and saved his father instead of being the first Robin after Todd. That had been a bad time for everyone.
They all silently went to their rooms to sleep off the hard patrol. It wasn't long before they all fell asleep.
The next morning Tim was at breakfast still sniffling and sweaty from the fever. He was in the middle of talking to Bruce on how the night's patrol had gone. In between sniffles he had been interjected about the case Bruce had given him before he got sick.
"Take a break Tim, the case was cold. You don't have to kill yourself to solve it," Bruce chided him.
"But, Bruce I found a lead and it isn't right for him to get off free. His victims deserve some peace," Tim said finally drinking from his cup of tea. "Anyway thanks for letting me crash here. You know how Mom and Dad freak out if I get the sniffles."
Bruce shook his head knowing that Jack and Janet would have freaked out if he was sick. They were fine with him working with Batman behind the scenes as long as he was safe. He never would have believed how much he was dependent on Tim on top of the cases he solved he was active in both DI and WE. Tim's parents were told them the first anniversary of when he passed out in the Batcave that he was Stalker. In all the scenarios that Tim was prepared for it never entered his mind that they would be supportive. It was amazing to see that they both cared and stayed in Gotham they took more security measures to ensure that they all would be safer. Even though Tim was in the background they wanted to make sure that they wouldn't be kidnapped for leverage.
Bruce still didn't understand how Tim got away with chasing after him in time. No one believed him so he had to set up an elaborate scheme to go to the middle east. He created a plan and he implemented it enlisting help where he could and doing what needed to happen. In the end, it was almost unbelievable he fixed to get Bruce back with more complications than there should have been. Tim did it like Stalker always did. Heart condition or not he never let anything slow him down. Bruce knew that quite a few people asked why Tim didn't have the catheter ablation done, get his heart fixed for good. Tim always answered the same way, "I'm not broken."
Tim never told anyone that he never had the procedure was because he was afraid that his parents would leave again. He was happy being Stalker and didn't want to mess with the best thing that happened to him.
