Disclaimer: Everything belongs to its rightful owners. I do not own anything in the Batman franchise nor do I claim to own anything there.

Characters: Damian and Tim, with vague mentions of the rest of the Bat-clan.

Warnings: Cursing. Somewhat graphic depictions of torture, specifically the one Tim faced while held captive by the Joker, in addition to brief mentions of suicidal thoughts and actions. Damian is also a little kinder than usual. Hopefully, he's not desperately OOC.

Author's Note: I will be including some of the girls soon; don't worry! The next story will likely be a slightly humorous piece revolving around Steph and Damian as it's the one that's closest to being done and will break the depressing, angsty trend I have going on here. Afterwards, I have a couple with Jason, maybe Bruce, and Dick being the forefront, another with Cass and Damian, one with Steph and Cass, and a fourth that might involve little Mar'i and Kory. In the meantime, enjoy the piece!

Also: Please if you have any suggestions, comments, or ideas for a story you think might be good for this collection, don't hesitate to post them as a comment or just PM me. It helps me keep this collection going and really shows me what you guys want next.

Tim doesn't remember much of the first few weeks after his rescue. Sometimes he gets flashes, little blurs of black and blue, of Bruce's tired eyes as he looked down on him, of Jason's rough palm against his forehead, the tail edges of a Romanian lullaby, once even the phantom warmth of a smaller body pressed up against his. Other times, it's as if he never left the Joker's lair. Instead of his family, he feels the gurgle die in his throat as the Joker tightens his hands around his neck, and the chilling metal of Harley's shackles biting bruises into his wrist because its noon and the that's the time we play 'House with Mummy and Daddy.'

Even though he knows he's not there, that he's safe in the cave, those flashes are as real to him as the crisp sheets pulled across his midsection. More than once, it gets so bad that he begs them to just kill him and get it over with. More than once, he tries ending it himself. He's certain he'll never be able to scrub the look on anguished look on Dick's face after one of these incidents out of his mind.

Mostly though, Tim remembers the deranged laughter building up in his throat. It always spills out in haggard little gasps, lapping up the silence until a needle comes along to pump cooling medicine into his veins.

The derangement lessens after the third week. He begins to get his awareness back, starts acting somewhat more like himself. Tim's still nowhere near alright, and yes, he's still cloudy from the endless sedatives spilling into his bloodstream, but some of the psyche that the Joker built up begins to fall away. All that's left is Bruce's training and the strikingly raw flashes of his alter ego. Despite everything -the mind games, the restraints, the torture-, Red Robin still remains a vital part of of who he is, as much as Tim would like to rip the persona away if it would help end this misery faster. Whatever the personal cost, he is still a student of the dark knight. He is still the same nine year old kid who determined The Batman's identity from a flip his sidekick did when Tim was four.

Timothy Drake is still a genius, still a detective, and as such, the drugs do little to cover up the obvious clues to just how much his disturbia has affected the family gathered around him.

Dick is perhaps the easiest to analyze due to the near constant proximity he has to Tim's sick bed. Something is different -wrong- with his older brother, and Tim knows he's to blame. Because what else would make Dick, ever cheerful, caring, above all else bubbly Dick, stop smiling. Oh the ever-present grin is still there, carefully held in place whenever Tim turns to look, but it's fraying at the edges and so fake that it makes his own stomach flip every time he happens to see it.

Tim can't let his stomach flip. The feeling is the same as when The Joker hit him with that heinous pipe iron during his detainment to get him to comply, to get him to laugh. While Tim may not be his usual on-the-ball self right now, it is a certainty in his mind that if he were to laugh right now, Dick will cry and that is something Tim will not stand for. He will not make his older brother cry. Not again. Not after all he's put him through.

The other occupants of the house are not unscathed by Tim's insanity either. Bruce somehow manages to brood more than he already does, and even Alfred, who's always taken care of them no matter the cost, hasn't made his way over to Tim's sick bed other than to sedate him and bring him meals. Somehow he even manages to affect those far out of his own reach. It doesn't escape Tim's notice that Jason, who he now actually gets along with, shirks the cave like it's his own grave. There's been recurring incidents of him even going as far as to call Dick's personal cell on patrol if it will keep him away from the cave for an extra day or two. Dick, eternally the big brother, always finds some excuse for Jason's absence, something and anything to explain the constant emptiness by Tim's side, despite the fact that Jason promised to read him The Tale of Two Cities the next time he was free.

The effort means nothing. Despite the drugs, Tim's mind isn't scrambled enough not to see the obvious clues left out for him. He knows it's not the manor Jason's going so far to avoid. He knows it's not Dick who's laughing like a madman at every slightest detail, or Damian who can't get his head on straight, and for once it's not even Bruce -who Jason is finally on speaking terms with- that his brother is sidestepping. It's him; it's always been him. He's the one who is tearing his oldest brother to pieces; who is turning Bruce's one-nighters into week long events; who is ruining the last chance of reconciling that Jason has. He was right in calling him The Replacement. There's nothing he's started that any of his brothers couldn't have already challenged, tousled with, vanquished by now. Hell, Jason's already died once, and Tim's complaining about a little torture?

He's pathetic and they all know it.

Even the demon brat seems to be changed by Tim's sudden return, eyeing him at odd moments as if studying the madness will make it go away. They don't argue anymore, or speak really. It's as if Damian is afraid of hurting him.

Somehow that's almost worse than what he's doing to Jason.

There's no way Tim can possibly begin to make this situation better, but at the very least, he can stop it from becoming worse. So he shuts up. On days when he can, he cuts back on the laughing, bites his lips until they bleed if he feels even the slightest inkling to giggle. He draws away from Dick, despite the other's insistence that he is fine with the late night watches and missing patrol. He hides the flashbacks with something akin to ease, smiles at Steph and Cass and Kon the best he can when they come and visit, though by their faces he knows it's nothing more than a thinly stretched grimace. He even tries to fight with Damian, despite the fact that his brother freezes the second Tim flinches from the slightest raise of his voice.

The facade isn't perfect, but for the most part, it's gotten his family to ease up, if only a little. The only thing he's powerless to stop are the nightmares. He can't protect himself constantly, not when he's unconscious, and the worst of the terrors come then. Sometimes they start with Harley, other times it cuts straight to the good part, and the Joker barrels in, a mask of impotent glee as he rushes to bash Tim's brains in.

He screams his way through those ones, and often the others as well. Alfred has to increase the sedatives when the night terrors are particularly bad, and even then Tim will wake to the image of a baggy-eyed Dick leaning over him, muttering reassurances under his breath as he soothes Tim back to sleep. The teen wonders if there's any use to that; they all know sleep will only bring another nightmare to wake him tomorrow.

Tonight is no different. Dick and Bruce are out on patrol, Dick's first in weeks, but Tim knows they're prepared to be back at the manor at the slightest disturbance from him. Maybe even if he does scream, they'll pretend the radio they've placed on his nightstand didn't pick up on it. They've dealt with enough of him over the past month. He'll only be dragging them down anyway. Worry makes them sloppy, and Tim will not be the cause of anymore of his family's pain. With shaking hands, he turns his feed down until it's nearly silent, until he's certain the duo will hear nothing from his end of the line, and then revels in the emptiness of the room.

Somehow he finds it in himself to go to sleep. Unsurprisingly, the nightmares meet him there. It's a reoccurring one, as most of them are, and his brain recalling the memories that haunted him all those nights he was captive.

He's strapped to a chair back in the Joker's lair, the lawn one that he should be able to move but can't. He's too drugged to even raise his eyes up to meet Harley's as she leans towards him.

"Look at what we have here, Puddin' Pops." She coos, and reaches a hand up to tap the side of his face. "Our baby boy's here and all ready to play. But the sad thing is darlin," -And suddenly, Joker is there, filling in right beside Harley- "He's much too pale. We need to get some color back in the poor thing."

She smiles this pitying sort of smile and the Joker copies her, and Tim can't make heads or tails of anything with his mind clouded like it is. At least, he can't until Harley reaches in her belt for the hammer, and Tim feels his heart stop.

"N-no. Please."

It doesn't faze her in the least, and pain spikes hot and fast against his side as she brings the hammer down in a sudden arch. He sputters, and it comes down again. For talking back, his mind supplies, though Tim knows he did no such thing. It's one of the first rules the pair instilled in him when he arrived. Any sound he made during their sessions was teenage rebellion; the baby bird was talking back, and we can't have our boy be mannerless, can we darlin'?

Harley's laughing now, and the sound is an awful thing, cackling that grates his ears like nails on a chalkboard. Tim's insides turn to ice at the noise, because he knows if she's laughing then she's done, and if she's done…

The Joker's face fills his vision, wide-eyed and grinning. In his hands is nothing more than a dented tire iron. Tim blanches, sputtering out promises that he'll be good, that he'll never go back to Bruce, that he'll be their's forever if he just doesn't use that on him, please don't use that on me-

"Oh come on, Robbie, are you afraid of the itty-bitty tire iwon? There's no use for that little birdy," The Joker taunts as he eyes Tim's shaking shoulders. "After all, it's only ever killed one Robin. There's no such saying as killing two birds with one stone."

The grin is wolfish. "Oh wait, there is."

And the tire iron is raised high above his head, ready to strike down and take him away from his family, and the last thing Tim is going to see is the Joker's face grinning down on him, and oh god, he's going to die; he's going to die; he's going to-

"Drake!"

And suddenly, the face looming down on his is no longer the Joker's but his younger brother's, hair mussed and eyes wide, as he drinks in the stature of his now awake brother. They are both breathing heavily, and with every labored exhale, Damian digs his fingers, currently gripping his older brother's shoulders, tighter into Tim's plaid nightshirt. Somewhere, remotely, Tim hears a constant, pulsing noise, buzzing at the edges of his consciousness.

"DRAKE!" Damian yells again, and the teen finds himself being shaken. "Stop your mindless screaming!"

Tim hadn't even been aware he was screaming, though now he suspects that's what the noise was. As it is, he didn't think he could stop it if he tried. The action is as involuntary as he finds it necessary, and Damian, being his the only flesh-and-blood son of The Batman, seems to knows this before his brother can even find it in himself to try and voice it. The boy shakes him once more before deciding the action is entirely worthless and rears back. Tim barely has enough time to take notice of the change before Damian brings his open palm down on the side of his face with an audible smack.

The noise stops as Tim's jaw smacks shut automatically. He's numb, been numb ever since this entire shit-show started, but distantly, he feels himself touch trembling fingers to his now-stinging cheek. The skin feels inflamed and swollen, despite the short time-frame between Damian's slap and Tim's investigation. In short, it hurts in a way a lot of things haven't recently. It's about as much of a shock to his system as anything could be at the moment, and suddenly Tim finds he's angry, or well, as angry as this new version of himself can be.

'How dare Damian smack him like that, how dare he,' some muffled part of his mind rages, but it's insignificant to the sudden scrape of his brother's fingers under his chin, grasping and digging until once again Tim is nose-to-nose with the angry assassin.

"Are you listening now, Drake?" Damian growls, and Tim inclines his head in a nod, despite the anger brewing in his gut. The older boy may not like the treatment, but he does understand it. He's terrorised this family enough over the past month. The least he can do is listen to his sleep-deprived little brother lecture him on how real Waynes do not scream in their sleep.

That doesn't stop Tim from flinching when Damian pulls him up to a sitting position, never relenting his grip even when the two are settled, pressed forehead to forehead in the king sized bed. It's awkward as, though Damian is tall for his age, he's still smaller than his brother by a good three inches and Tim finds himself having to slump over to keep the position. The only good part of the situation is that the kid is at least warm, something Tim hasn't been since his enslavement. It's strangely nice?, and all the confusion from that first month is back, filtering in through the slight breath his brother takes to get his thoughts together.

"You are safe here." Damian whispers on the exhale, and for a second, Tim doesn't think he hears him right. This is after all Damian raised-to-kill-from-birth Wayne. His little brother doesn't do comfort or kindness or anything that doesn't involve a batarang and the possibility of bodily harm. Anything fluffy or warm has always been more of Dick's area of expertise. This version of his brother is new and slightly terrifying and Tim has no time to really comprehend this momentous turn of events before Damian starts back up again.

"I do not care who is plaguing your insolent mind, Drake." -now that sounds more like the demon brat- "It doesn't not concern me whether it is the clown, or that Quinn woman, or any of the numerous villains that Father has incarcerated. They will not touch you. I will not allow them to. The only person who is allowed to kill you is me, and I have determined it inconvenient to follow through on this act at this moment in time. Therefore, if it will ensure your sleep and my own sanity, I will proceed to stand guard tonight" -wait what?- "and prevent them from harming your delicate form."

And just like that, all the air that Tim thought he was finally able to breathe caught up in his lungs and clung there. His little brother, the demon brat, the boy who tried to kill him the very first time they met, is offering -in albeit a creepy and slightly homicidal way- to protect him. He's offering a sleepless night of staring down blank walls, because he's Damian and would refuse sleep on the principle that he had given an oath, to ensure that his brother would feel safe enough to enjoy a relatively quiet night of rest.

It shouldn't have meant as much as it did. It shouldn't have meant anything really, because he and Damian fought tooth and nail over every and any subject of their choosing, because Dick still chose Damian over Tim time and time again, because of Bruce and the Ra's and a whole slew of other things. It shouldn't have meant anything because Damian was twelve and Tim was nearly a legal adult and could -should- handle himself.

It shouldn't have meant anything but somehow, it did, more than Tim would ever be able to vocalize. He ducks his head at the intensity of the fondness that fills his chest, feels Damian lessen his grip to allow the action. All at once there's this feeling of intense pride that quells up inside of him, and it saddens him to know that the first olive branch Damian's ever sent his way will be one he'll have to refuse.

"I don't want you to stay." Tim whispers. It's a lie.

"Tt- It is for my own sanity. I certainly don't want to stay." Damain says, and as far as Tim can tell, that's a lie too.

The conversation pitters to a standstill. This should be the part where Tim tells Damian to leave because Bruce and Jackson both raised him to be a prideful bastard, but the words refuse to escape his throat. The only sound Tim finds himself emitting is a pitiful squeak, before Damian -the domineering brat- takes over again.

The grip on Tim's face hardens to get his attention, then slowly releases when Tim's eyes focus in on his brother's. Tim finds himself on the receiving end of an accepting nod, of what he isn't quite sure.

Damian's quiet voice breaks the silence. "As soon as you fall asleep and I ensure you will not wake me again with your childish screaming, I will leave."

The affection in the tone is like a jab to the gut, and Tim gazes down at the boy through a curtain of dark lashes, feeling all the more pathetic for not demanding he go immediately. The feeling intensifies when, despite their agreement, Damian curls a hand around his wrist after Tim settles back into bed, and Tim, for his own part, doesn't break from the hold.

When he wakes up the next morning after a night of near perfect sleep, Damian is still there, curled into Tim's side and dozing fitfully. For the first time in a long time, there's a glimmer of hope. Somehow, they might beat this. Somehow, everything is going to be alright. Tim feels his mouth tug into a smile, and then promptly slips his eyes shut once more.

His pride can suck it. He'll just get Oracle to erase the pictures from Dick's phone later.

Thanks to Rye Scop and AutumnHobbit for leaving my first two comments on this collection, and to anyone who followed or favorited. It's good to hear from you all!

Again, if you have any sugguestions, don't hesitate to PM me. As always, thanks for reading and have a nice day!

-D. SAM