omni

Oz came to see him sometimes. That was the only reason he knew he hadn't been completely forgotten here. Abandoned, left to rot.

He was terrified between visits. He had no way to sense the passage of time. No way to know if it had been days or weeks since he'd last been questioned, no way to know for sure if it had been too long to believe Oz would be coming back again.

He wanted to die. It had taken longer than it should have for that feeling to set in. For the hopelessness that had been knocking at the door to finally slither through the cracks and coil beneath his ribs. He'd been sure that he'd see a black shadow passing through the door any day now. Could feel the swish of a heavy cape settling around his shoulders as he was pulled against a warm body. He'd waited for that for so long.

But it didn't happen. No one was coming for him.

He didn't seem to need to eat or drink here. His hair grew, albeit slowly. Slowly enough that it was barely noticeable. His skin grew paler and he grew thinner, weaker, though not as much as he would if he were starving back on earth.

Eventually he seemed to hit a plateau and his weight evened off. So he couldn't starve himself to death. His feet were bare—no shoelaces with which to strangle himself. He had nothing but soft pants and a soft t-shirt.

He'd tried eating the shirt, tried choking on it, but he just vomited every time and cried himself to sleep, and the next time he woke, the shirt was always intact and the vomit gone. He never figured out how.

He'd tried slamming his head into the wall, but he couldn't do it hard enough to do anything but knock himself out. He'd woken up healed, the blood cleaned off of his body.

He dreamed of going home every time he slept. He slept a lot. Sometimes when he dreamed, he'd realize he wasn't asleep; he'd been staring at the ceiling hallucinating. It happened more and more frequently and he never knew what was real. He wasn't even sure Oz was real when he came. Maybe he had really been abandoned.

He started talking to himself, speaking every thought out loud. He'd lose the use of his voice, otherwise, and he needed to hear something other than his own breathing. Sometimes that turned into whole days of just screaming, hurling wordless obscenities at the blank walls until he did lose his voice. 

When he got really bad, he bit himself until he bled and did math problems on the wall in his own blood to keep his mind occupied.

He became desperate for Oz's visits.

Then one day Oz just...let him go. Sent him home. Said the timeline had been preserved, whatever that meant, and that Tim no longer needed to stay removed from it.

——

He blinked and found himself standing in the Bat Cave. The smell hit him first and he held back a sneeze. Petrichor, guano, motor oil. He'd smelled nothing but stale, recycled air for...he didn't know how long, and it was overwhelming. He tried not to gag.

He wandered around the Cave, touching everything he passed, picking up bits and bobs and studying them before putting them back in their place.

He wasn't really sure any of this was real. It probably wasn't. He wasn't relieved or excited. He just felt numb. Empty.

If he let himself feel anything else he didn't think he could handle it.

He meandered over to his own desk that shared a platform with the Batcomputer and settled into his chair. His computer sat dark before him. He always left it running. He wondered when they had finally turned it off.

He reached forward and pressed a button. The screens lit up, the fans whirring as it booted up.

He stared at the date at the bottom of the screen.

He'd been gone for ten months. Almost a year.

He leaned back in his chair and just...sat there. It's all he really knew how to do anymore. He wiggled his bare toes. They were cold. It was an odd sensation, he'd forgotten what real temperature felt like.

He lost time as he sat there, dazed, but he came back to himself when he heard a sound. He turned his head and Bruce was standing next to him. He was wearing workout clothes. The bottle of water he'd been holding hit the ground and bounced. Tim just blinked up at him. Waiting for whatever.

Bruce's face went stormy. "He's dead. He's gone. Who are you?"

Tim just shrugged. Bruce would either figure it out or he wouldn't, Tim didn't need to work to convince him. He didn't have the energy.

"What do you want? Why are you here?"

Tim huffed. "I don't know. He just dropped me off here."

"Who?"

"Mr. Oz."

"Why do you look like my son."

"Because I am."

"You're not. Tim is dead."

"I wouldn't be the first to come back. Not even the second. Not even the third."

"No, he was...we saw—I don't believe you. Not until I run tests."

Tim nodded. "Okay."

Bruce reached forward and wrapped a hand around Tim's bicep. The touch felt like a jolt through his body, like he'd been shocked. He made a choking sound and reeled back, ripping his arm from Bruce’s grasp and tumbling out of the desk chair, crashing hard to the ground. The palm of his hand burned where it scraped against the stone floor as he caught himself.

His skin was crawling where he'd been touched. That made sense. He hadn't had any physical contact with another person in almost a year.

"Don't—don't touch me," he stuttered. Emotion was starting to seep back in and he clamped down on it. He couldn't. He couldn't afford to feel. Not yet.

Bruce had lunged to help when he'd fallen, but at Tim's protest he took a step back and raised his hands in surrender. "Okay. Fine, I won't touch you. But I need you to come to the med bay for tests."

Tim swallowed. "I know. I know the way. Don't touch me."

Bruce nodded. "No touching. I understand."

—-

Tim led the way to the med bay, Bruce insisting that Tim go first. He didn't blame him—Bruce didn't want an unknown at his back.

Tim was quickly flagging. It had been too long since he'd had real interactions, real stimuli. It was exhausting. He could hardly keep his eyes open.

Bruce directed him to a gurney and instead of sitting down on it like Bruce likely expected him to, he lay back and rested his head on the pillow. The thin mattress beneath him was unimaginably soft compared to the hard floor to which he'd become accustomed.

He let himself drift off to the sound of Bruce running scans and was even tired enough not to react to the pinch of a needle in the crook of his elbow as Bruce took a blood sample.

He didn't know how long he'd been sleeping when he was blinking awake at the insistent sound of his name.

"Is it really you?" Bruce's voice wavered.

"As far as I can tell," Tim said with a weak smile, sitting up on the cot. His head rushed a little at the change in position.

Bruce moved toward him but froze at Tim's involuntary flinch.

"How? How are you alive?"

"I was transported just before the drones struck. Someone calling himself Mr. Oz trapped me in some kind of prison outside of dimensions." He blinked hard, still struggling to keep his eyes open.

"You—you're exhausted. You should rest before I start wearing you out with questions. But you'll need to...to debrief when you're feeling better."

"No, we can do it now. I don't know if I'll be able to handle it later. When this all...really hits. I'm not sure it's real yet."

Bruce's face twisted in concern at that. "Alright. But stop whenever you need."

——

Dick didn't remember what he said to his coworkers when he dropped everything and sprinted to his car. He wasn't sure he even told them anything. He didn't remember the drive back to Gotham. He probably broke every speed limit.

He was breathing hard when he burst through the Manor doors. Alfred wasn't there to greet him—he was out of the country visiting family. He was probably getting on a plane early right now.

Bruce entered the foyer at the sound of Dick's entrance. 

"Where is he?"

"I took him to his room." He put a hand on Dick's chest when he tried to push past him. "Hold on. We need to talk first."

He pushed against Bruce's hand. "I don't care, I want to see him."

Bruce didn't budge. "Dick. He's delicate. We need to take this slowly."

"Delicate? What do you mean, delicate?"

"He's been...he's been in solitary confinement. All this time. Locked in an empty cell with no stimulation, nothing to occupy his mind, to keep him sane. His only human interaction was from his captor, and visits were few and far between. He's going to have difficulty adapting. You need to stay calm, don't overwhelm him. He's not even sure yet that this isn't all a hallucination."

Dick's heart ached. Ten months of isolation. Hallucinations. Tim was so brilliant, he had an amazing mind. What kind of damage had that done to it?

He nodded, speechless, and Bruce let his hand drop. "I'll let you speak to him alone. He doesn't need us both crowding him."

Tim was sitting in the middle of his bed when Dick entered, legs crossed. His eyes were glassy and distant, focused on nothing. His hair was longer, but not as much as Dick would expect. He barely had any stubble on his chin. He was pale, and thinner than Dick had ever seen him.

"Timmy?"

Tim didn't respond. He didn't even acknowledge Dick's presence. Dick stepped forward until his knees bumped against the bed. "Tim?" he tried again.

Tim's eyes slowly cleared and they drifted to Dick's face. "Dick." His voice was soft, but not quite emotionless. He brightened, if only a little. "Hi."

Dick's shoulders fell in relief. His voice was thick when he spoke. "Hi." He lowered himself to the bed and sat cross-legged, facing Tim but not moving too close. He wanted so badly to fall forward and wrap him in a crushing hug, but Bruce had said he understandably didn't react well to touch. "We missed you so much. So much. I'm so sorry that we didn't...I'm so sorry." His breath hitched.

Tim smiled softly. "It's okay. You didn't know. I don't blame you."

"Are you...I know it's a stupid question, but...how are you feeling?"

Tim sighed and closed his eyes. "I don't know. I don't feel anything right now."

"That's...that's okay. You just need to process. You're...you went through a lot. That takes a toll. Um. I think usually people don't…"

Tim nodded, opening his eyes again. "I know. I have theories. On why I'm not...a drooling mess. Normally solitary confinement causes physical changes in the brain. The hippocampus shrinks. I think maybe whatever force was keeping me alive, keeping my bodily systems sustained, slowed any damage. We could run scans, but," he shrugged. "I don't really see a point. I'm mostly functioning. So far."

So far.

"Is there anything I can do? What do you need?"

Tim took a breath. "Dinah, I think. Probably Leslie. I need...I think... I'm probably going to unravel at some point. Right now nothing feels real. I don't know how much longer that will last." He frowned. "And I think I'm thirsty. I should probably try eating soon."

"I'll get you some water." Dick slid off the bed and turned, but he froze when he heard Tim make a sound. He turned back to see his eyes wet and his breathing picking up.

"Dick...is this...are you really real?" His voice was barely a whisper.

Dick nearly made that same choking sound himself. "Yeah, Timmy. I'm real. This is real. You're home."

Tim took a deep, shuddering breath and nodded.

"Promise?"

"Promise."