Bruce half-sprints for the Batjet, only slowing himself to keep pace with Dick and, more noticeably, Tim, whose breathing is quickly becoming labored. Hands full of the two children, Bruce burns with the desire to ask what the kids were doing in there with Tim, but he prioritizes: get on the Batjet, get everyone else on the Batjet, get back to the Cave, get Tim to know he's safe and he's home. Then questions can be asked.
Slightly shifting how he's holding the two children in his arms, Bruce activates his comm as he sprints. "Incoming, Oracle, with success."
A sharp intake of breath greets his ears as the sight of the Batjet's ramp lowering greets his eyes.
Bruce hurries Dick, Tim, and all of the children in their arms up the ramp and into the Batjet, where Barbara is already spinning her wheelchair to see.
"Tim," Barbara says fondly, with only a hint of shock. "You're a real sight for sore eyes."
Tim manages a weak grin, over the head of the small boy in his arms. "Same to you."
They stare at each other for a moment, a moment that is then broken by Dick coming over to Tim and draping his arm not currently supporting the tallest boy over Tim's shoulders.
At least, Dick tries to drape an arm over Tim's shoulders. Tim's whole body goes tight and tense, visibly so, and Dick pauses.
"I'm sorry," Dick says, leaving his arm to hover in the air above Tim's shoulders.
"Don't be," Tim says.
"I'm sorry it took us so long," Dick clarifies.
Tim gives a lopsided shrug, but he says nothing, clutching the small boy in his arms even closer.
Dick pulls his arm back to his own side and adjusts the boy on his back.
"I want to get down now," the boy on Dick's back says quietly, almost hesitantly.
"Sure thing, kiddo," Dick says easily, kneeling so it's easier for the tallest boy to get down.
As the tallest boy gets down from Dick's back, Bruce sets the two children in his own arms down as well. All three children rush toward Tim, huddling around his legs, and Tim doesn't discourage them.
"Calling the others back now," Barbara reports, turning back toward the Batjet's computer.
Tim nods once and says nothing. His lips are pressed together in a firm, thin line, starting to pale from the amount of pressure he appears to be putting on them.
Concern floods Bruce. Tim is clearly holding something back.
"What's wrong?" Bruce asks.
Tim shakes his head but says nothing still.
Bruce has to ask. "Is it anything that will keep us all from getting home?"
Tim's lips tremble at the last word. He shakes his head again.
All right then. Bruce will prioritize. If it's nothing that'll prevent them all from returning home again, then it's nothing that needs to be addressed until they are in fact home again. Tim can tell them when he's ready.
They stand in silence for a few minutes. Bruce's muscles soon feel strained simply from standing there. He forces himself repeatedly not to rush over to Tim like the children did minutes before, reminding himself of how Tim reacted to Dick simply trying to put an arm around Tim's shoulders. Almost two years. Tim spent almost two years in the hands of Ra's al Ghul, surely being put through horrible things. It'll take time for Tim to readjust to his family. If that wasn't clear before, it's clear in the way Tim is slowly shifting backward into the nearest corner.
Eventually, Damian and Steph enter the Batjet. Damian's steps speed up as he comes within sight of Tim, and Steph's steps stutter minutely.
Tim gives a small wave and croaks out, "Hey."
"Hey yourself," Steph says with a smile. It's a relatively weak quip, Bruce finds himself noting, but within the situation, it more than fits.
Damian waves back and gives a tiny smile of his own. He stops on the other side of the Batjet from Tim.
Steph keeps going, heading for the corner Tim has backed into with the kids.
Dick steps into her path.
Steph swerves around him.
Dick grabs her arm.
In one fluid movement, Steph reverses the hold so that she's holding Dick's arm. Then she pauses and turns more toward Dick.
"Give him a bit," Dick says quietly.
Tim winces anyway.
Steph looks at Tim, apparently in time to catch the wince, because she nods, lets go of Dick, and backs off.
That's when Jason and Cass make their hurried appearance at the bottom of the ramp.
"We're here," Cass says simply as she makes her way up.
"Gettin' followed," Jason says, then he evidently catches sight of Tim surrounded by the small huddle of children, as Jason swears enthusiastically but mostly under his breath.
"All aboard," Barbara half-asks, half-states, already closing the ramp.
"Lift off," Bruce says simply in response.
Barbara makes the necessary adjustments to the controls.
Tim turns, looking out the nearest window. His breath catches audibly over the quiet hum of the Batjet's engines lifting off.
Bruce steps a little closer to him and watches out that same window as the entrance to the secret League of Assassins base shrinks into nothingness while the Batjet makes its way into the sky.
Tim breaths out slowly. Then in. Then out. Then in, then out, then in, then out, and that's when it stops being regular breathing and starts to become hyperventilation.
"It's okay," the tallest boy says almost immediately. "We're okay, it's going to be okay."
The two medium-sized children lean in closer to Tim's legs, and the small boy in Tim's arms puts his small hands on Tim's cheeks.
"Focus on what you can sense," Bruce suggests, wracking his brain for other ideas.
"Copy my breathing," Steph tries, exaggerating her own steady breaths with a hand on the middle of her chest.
"Give him some space," Dick says. He moves forward, apparently ready to clear the area around Tim of the children pressing so close to him.
Tim practically sobs his next breath, pressing himself further into the corner, clutching the smallest child to his chest with one arm and pushing his other arm forward in front of him, palm out, a clear sign to stop.
Dick falters. He looks back at the rest of the family.
Jason clears his throat, but then must think better of whatever he's about to say, because he just shrugs instead.
"Let them be," Cass suggests, settling into a seat. "Wait."
And so they wait.
As Tim's breathing shudders up and down, from hyperventilation to not and back into hyperventilation, over and over. As the four kids murmur quietly amongst themselves and to Tim. As the rest of Tim's family watch helplessly but not hopelessly, because he's there, at least he's there, Tim's there, Tim's alive.
So they wait.