Archive of Our Own

"Give me another piece," Jason directed, vaguely motioning toward the box next to Tim. Tim obliged, drawing out a fine piece. It looked like yarn, but it was actually dragon heartstring, spun thin and soft. It felt like velvet to the touch and warmed the pads of Tim's fingers as the magic nestled in the string reacted with him. 

He passed it over and Jason grunted a sound that meant thanks while he kept weaving it into the talismans along his suit. 

Jason was a skilled witch whose talent favoured runes. His fingers were callused but clever as he teased the heartstring into a needle and gave it a simple knot. He didn’t blink as he pierced his suit with the needle and guided the string into a place next to a previously made shape. This one was a basic rune for protection, something to soften direct blows and provide a small buffer against the world. It was one of hundreds that Jason had already placed onto their suits, a complicated system of magic that made them stronger, quicker, quieter, and harder to kill. Tim had learned that was how Jason showed his love, not through words but through hours spent bent over their colours weaving safety into them. 

As Jason sewed into the suit, he pulled on the web of bonds that stretched between everyone in their little vow. The pull was a request, an expression of need, telling them what spell the witch was performing, what kind of magic they needed, and how much of it. 

As familiars, Bruce and Tim acted as their vow’s magic conduits, connecting to the magic that flowed around the world and giving their witches exactly what they needed. 

It was a powerful place to be in, even if familiars couldn’t perform spells themselves. Witches without familiars were little more than glorified sparklers, able to make a couple of sparks fly but do little else. Because of this, competition to secure a bond with a familiar was fierce and only intensified by the fact that they were rare. While witches made up about 60% of the population, familiars only made up about 10%.

Traditionally, familiars usually only bonded with one witch at a time though it wasn’t completely uncommon for a familiar to be shared in a close-knit circle, also called a vow. 

Familiars were the key. They were the power. They were coveted. 

Good familiars, well-trained and precise in their distribution of magic, were as precious as gemstones. Wars had been fought over the control of the most powerful familiars. Witches spent years trying to secure their connection with a familiar, vying viciously to gain their favour.

Which is why Jack and Janet Drake had hidden Tim’s familiar nature in an effort to give him a normal childhood. They gave him charms to hide the animal traits that showed he was a familiar. They told him all the ways that witches tried to trick familiars, luring them into making connections and then never letting them go. They told him to tell no one, absolutely no one, until he was an adult. 

It was good plan until both his parents died and left him to be adopted by his neighbor with absolutely no idea if he should tell Bruce that he was also a familiar. 

He knows he’s only nine and could be easily be tricked but… he doesn’t think the Waynes are tricking him. He thinks maybe everything would be alright. 

The problem, though, wasn’t the Waynes. It was the Bats.

Batman was the familiar. The Robins were witches. That was the way it was.

And Tim, as a familiar, a secondary power source to an engine that already was full, simply didn’t fit.

Maybe he would be accepted into the family, but he wouldn’t be accepted into the Bats. He wouldn’t be able to be Robin .

Losing Robin felt like a last straw. He had already lost his parents, his ability to live as a familiar, his home, he didn’t know if he could lose anything else. He thinks losing Robin would break him.

So he kept quiet and let them think he was a really shitty witch.

And as long as they kept thinking he was a witch, he was allowed to be Robin and nothing changed. Nothing changed and Tim’s world didn’t keep falling apart. Nothing changed and still had a place in his family. Nothing changed and Tim thin-walled security still stood. 

As long as they thought he was a witch, he could continue to keep company in the cave, half asleep on his homework, idly listen to the bat’s chatter above them, to Jason’s low humming, mumbled magic words, and almost fall asleep to the sounds of the big computer running tests. 

It wasn’t perfect, but it was his and that’s what kept him still swallowing down the truth as when it tried to crawl up his throat. 

“Tim,” Jason said, not looking away from the talisman he was just finishing up. “Go ahead and get me your capes. I want to check up on the runes I put on them last month.” 

Tim yawned, but followed directions. He got up and meandered towards the dressing room to get the cape. He shuffled through his uniforms, unhooking the capes from their tunics and throwing them over his arm before ambling back. 

He placed them on the table in Jason’s workstation and then silently began passing them over, rune-side-up, so Jason could efficiently begin magic maintenance. 

Jason was still recovering, that was his official story and he’s been sticking to it these last few months. He’s not Robin anymore, he’s long since begrudgingly given up that title, but he’s not anything else right now either. He’s working endlessly, tirelessly, behind the scenes, but he hasn’t graduated into the individual sort of hero that Nightwing is. 

They sat in a peaceful silence, Tim handing over whatever material Jason needed, until they were so rudely interrupted.  

"Something's wrong with Bruce!" 

The yell echoed off the cave walls, sharp, startling both the bats above and the bats below.

Jason snorted and Tim turned to watch Dick, still in civilian clothes, rush his way towards them. 

"You're going to have to be more specific than that," Jason chuckled, snapping his fingers for another string. Tim rolled his eyes but handed another one over. Their fingers do not touch. 

"I'm serious," hissed Dick, leaning into them like he was giving over some great secret, crowding over both of them and almost hiding them from sight. "I think there's something seriously wrong."

The oldest witch's magic was frazzled, sparking at the edges in a way that suggested anxiety. He was disturbed both mentally and physically, and it was enough for Tim to relent. Dick looked around, panicked, breathing fast and worried. His face turned that ugly ruddy red it gets when he’s too close to his emotions overwhelming him. 

"Like what?" asked Tim, giving Dick a little grace. 

"He's giving me too much magic." 

Tim’s not really sure what in the world that Dick is even talking about-

Jason actually laughs . "Dick, you're just fucking up your spells."

Dick nearly growled, his cheeks get an uglier red, flushing unevenly and strangely. "I am not . These are spells I've done a hundred times! A thousand times! I've been doing this since I was eight and now all a sudden I'm consistently messing them up every single time?” His eyes are wet, and he tries to hide the welling up by cutting his eyes away. “It doesn't make sense."

"And Bruce messing up the transference of magic makes more sense?" Jason has finally given up on embroidering runes into the capes and has fully turned towards Dick with a jutted jaw. He can read his brother just as well as Tim can, maybe better. "Bruce has, quite literally, the best control in all of North America. He's able to handle four witches simultaneously and you think he's just what? Letting magic slip through the cracks? He’s not the kind of familiar who would mess with his vow like that.” 

Dick's gaze was steely, hard and steady even through the ugly emotions under the surface. "Yes."

There was silence between them and Tim didn't dare input anything. There was a conversation passing between the witches, silent and made more with small gestures and facial expressions than anything else. It was translated through a specific kind of witch bond they had through their vow. One that Tim couldn't understand. 

"You can't possibly be suggesting that ," Jason says finally, his face fighting between multiple emotions. 

"He is getting up there in age."

"We just celebrated his 40th!"

"It could happen."

"I'm sorry," Tim says, finally letting his confusion get the best of him, but hating to inturrupt. "What is Dick suggesting actually?"

"That Bruce is losing handle on his magic," Jason spat, forcefully turning back to the capes and stabbing a needle in. 

Dick sighed and further explained. "It happens to familiars when they get older," he said gently. "They start losing control of their magic, and it... well... they essentially become a bomb, a literal ticking time bomb for when they lose full control and all the magic in them just explodes through."

“He’s not losing control, though.” Jason spits, angry, furious, the fine yarn in his hands goes from an off yellow-orange to a much, much brighter color. “Dick’s just crazy. The old man’s got too much paranoia to let even the most minute slip ups happen and you know it, Dick.” 

Dick threw both hands up, exasperated, but the red ruddiness of his cheeks finally leaving, “I am not fucking up these spells, Jason, you have to feel it too, just at the end of the magic there’s a push of extra influx that shouldn’t be there.” 

“I don’t do your kind of magic, Dickface .” The thread glows brighter even further still in Jason’s hands, the needle of bone seems to shake just a bit. “You know that I don’t feel it in the same way that you do.”

A sore spot between them. 

All witches had areas of magic they excelled at more. Dick was good at casting, a flashy, showy magic that interacted heavily with the environment. He could call the electricity latent in the air to make a firework or gather water from the ground to bounce a ball of it around. As a vigilante, he mostly used the wind, giving himself extra pushes through the air and making him glide as well as a bird. As a normal son of a billionaire, Dick normally used shine and glamor and flowery brilliantly show stopping magic.

Jason, on the other hand, had a much quieter skill.

Jason was a runeist, skilled at weaving magical symbols onto items and marking talismans onto objects. He could take magic and store it within objects, letting that magic be used by anyone who had the object.  It was a highly useful skill and nearly everyone wore runes all the time. Ever since Jason came back, Tim had found runes delicately sewn into his pants, his shirts and his vigilante suit. They thrummed with a power despite the same size and it spoke to how skilled Jason really was. Easy to learn, hard to master, with nothing to practice the brighter, harder, needing a familiar and a vow magic, Jason had gotten really, really good at the magic that needed only him and could be done on simple materials. 

Despite that though, most kid witches didn’t actually want to excel at runes. It was a practical but “boring” skill. It took many hours hunched over fabric, delicately poking a needle and threading, or carefully lining a perfect circle with the correct elements, or backbreaking chisel work that etched protection and luck into stone or wood. No, kid witches wanted flash . They wanted spectacle. 

They wanted to be Dick Grayson.

Dick looks away, quick, sharp, “We all do magic differently, Jason, we don’t have to all have flashy spells, just ask Tim-“ 

Tim would rather be anywhere else, actually, don’t ask him anything- 

“Tim does the small stuff too, the stuff like you do, the protection runes and the talismans.” 

Jason stabs the needle through the fabric, anger pulsing through the rune, the fabric, magic tangling up as Jason’s spells so often due nowadays, he’s pulling, hard, on his familiars to get more magic, hard and angry and- 

Jason, through the bond of the vow, demands the magic he needs. Demands it sharp and fast and yanks hard, Tim responds, instinctively, giving Jason what he needs, what he’s asking for, what he’s demanding - 

The three of them watch as the dragon's heartstring frays from the heat of too much magic pumped through one spot.

"You see!" Dick nearly screeches and Tim has to physically keep himself from flinching away. The sound wouldn't have bothered a human but his ears were more sensitive. He had to resist the urge to shake his head, to press his ears flat with his hands and to rub the tragus with his thumbs. 

Jason is quiet. He's staring at the frayed heartstring in his hand. It's still burning, practically glowing like an ember where it had been overloaded with magic. 

Tim couldn't help a small swoop of shame pass through him. He should have been able to control that. He shouldn't have let that happen and only given the exact amount Jason needed.

"I told you," Dick was still yelling. "Something! Is! Wrong! The last time you were burning heartstring, you were practically in diapers."

Jason looks like... he's almost about to be sick as he stares at the string, slowly blackening as it cools. 

"It... It must have been a mistake. My mistake."

Dick's eyes narrowed, and he made a frustrated sound. He grabbed the notebook that Tim had been using a pillow before this whole mess started, flipped it to the back, blank pages and slammed it onto the table.

"Rune a fire wisp," he commanded, finger tapping the page. 

Jason stared at the page, not moving. 

"Come on Jay, it's the first spell anyone learns in Runes. Even I couldn't mess it up."

Jason is looking at the book like it could bite him. But he picked up a pen, and then began making the marks. The rune really is one of the first things all witches learn. The shape isn't complicated, the words that Jason whispers aren't too difficult, the amount of magic he's pulling is just a drop from Bruce's stores. A witch without a vow to their name would still be able to create enough heat to light a cigarette or a candle. Still, if Tim were to try it, it would have taken all of his concentration to bring forward the small wisp of fire. 

But he can't think about that. Instead he focuses on spilling only the correct amount of magic, only enough to meet the tiny pull of Jason's want. 

The flame floats right above Jason's palm and Tim thinks he got through it. He did it! It was--

He feels the moment that Tim lets too much through the bond of their vow. It's a little slip up, but it goes straight into the fully formed wisp. 

The wisp sparks, doubling in size, before abruptly shrinking, becoming smaller than it had been before. 

No , Tim said in his head. 

"Fuck," Jason said out loud, extinguishing the wisp with a flick of the wrist. 

Dick is looking at him expectantly. "Do you believe me?"

"I want more evidence," Jason growled.

Dick is quiet, eyes slicing Jason apart to study him. "You don't want to believe me."

Jason doesn't deny it.

"Jason, you always knew this was a possibility. It's... not especially uncommon for familiars."

"We still need more evidence," Jason snapped back, the talismans he had already woven into the cape, glowing and reacting to his emotions. "We can't come to conclusions without evidence."

Dick sighed, tired. 

(God. When did Dick get so tired? Tim sees the way that this effects him and feels awful, watches the way his shoulders slide into slumped slopes and his eyes have bags.) 

“Tim.” 

Tim gets handed the notebook and the magic marker with it. 

“Can you make a simple rune?” Dick’s voice is soft, softer than he ever speaks to Jason with. Their relationship is different. 

“You know I’m not very good at runes.” Tim has explained it away before, to get people off his back. He’s not very good at runes, even if they are rather low level basic magic. They require a fine tuned dial of precision that Tim- that Bruce too- is not good at. 

It’s like trying to fill a glass of water with a fire hydrant. It’s like wanting a single ten gallon bucket from Niagara Falls. You could , but it’s a hell of a lot easier when a witch is there, a part of the vow, and able to use the correct tools for the task.

“It doesn’t have to be complex, we just want to see if Bruce is giving us a little too much juice. We need to convince Jason, who will convince Bruce to get help-“ 

“There’s no help for that kind of degradation,” Jason snapped. “We both know that it’s a death sentence.” 

“There’s medication we can try.” Dick snapped right back, attention focused on Jason again. “We can extend his magic farther if we know and make ourselves aware of his condition-“ 

Tim hates when they argue. 

He uncaps the magic marker, and gets to work trying to control enough of the waterfall to make sure his bottle was full with no spill over.

Runes truly aren’t difficult. They’re a preset grouping of elements with a direction attached. They simplest ones are easy enough for children to follow along and draw. The magic required is very low, so low that even the magicless, human with only trace amounts of magic in their system, can learn a couple of runes for household tasks. 

Familiar magic is different than anything human though. Familiars are beings of nature where humans are beings of clay. Familiars have wildness instead them evidenced by the animal traits on their otherwise human body. Familiar magic isn’t this scalpel sharp precision instrument.  It’s an tidal wave that does nothing but wipe the slate clean. 

Tim finds his well of magic, and cracks the smallest of leaks he can into the ink. 

Tim learned from watching Alfred do up the manor wards, writing on the windows and intricate script over and over and over again. Alfred was a master at protection spells. He taught them all tips and tricks to keep themselves safe while out there on the field.

The more complicated the rune, the more magic it can hold, the more magic it can hold the greater chance that Tim will mess this up. He needs some simple. He needs the plainness of a fire rune’s four simple strokes- 

The ink seizes. Heat burstsa and the paper tears itself to shreds. 

Too much magic makes the rune unstable. Even the simplest rune in the book.

His mouth tastes like the ashes now scattered around him. 

He knows what went wrong. He also knows exactly what this looks like and what it implies about Bruce.

"It wasn't Bruce's fault," he saids quickly, shoves the broken paper away and scrambling to find another clean sheet. "It was mine. I messed up. Here let me--"

"It's okay, Tim," said Dick, putting a hand on Tim's before he can make another mark. "You don't need to take the blame. We know that it isn't you."

But it is him. 

Familiars don't finetune magic like witches. They can't master it into useful forms with spells, runes, potions, divinations and curses. It's not shameful that Tim can't do this. He isn't expected to know the witching arts. He should be focusing on theoretical magic studies that deepen his connection to the ephemeral realms and allow him to widen his stores and connect better with the witch that bonds with him in a vow. Failure, however, fills Tim with guilt and the sense that he's betraying Bruce. 

"How long have you been noticing this?" Jason asked, very very quietly but it speaks exactly to how much belief he's giving Dick's theory.

"About three months after you... got back," said Dick, his voice going softer and taking a tone that it only did when Jason's resurrection was mentioned. It was a subject they did not talk about. As if speaking about it would break the magic and put Jason back in the ground.

Jason's head snapped up. "It's been almost a year since that."

"I know," admits Dick looking away. "I... didn't want to believe it either and it was much less frequent than it is now. I thought it was me just... messing up and being off my game but..."

He sniffs and it sounds wetter than it should. Tim wants to die inside. 

"It's textbook, Jason," his voice is so, so sad. "Just a couple times at first. It was so far between instants that I hardly noticed it, but then more and then more..."

Or it describes Tim gathering up confidence to slowly start integrating himself into the preexisting vow Bruce has with the family and testing out putting his magic into the available stores.

"It wasn't Bruce's fault." Tim tried one more time, but the older two are already talking over him, discussing what to do, how to do it, what their next steps are. 

The sounds of the cave were so, so loud. The voices of his brothers are sharp and pointed. The bickering, anger hot in their voices, make the bats above them chatter and become unsettled. The rocks don’t do anything to muffle the sounds. It just builds and builds and builds until Tim can feel his hidden features press hard against his own head, trying to make the noises softer. He has to stop himself from pressing down on his own ears to manually silence the world. 

"Have you tried talking to Bruce about this?" Tim speaks up, louder, more cutting through the words that are building up to be yells. 

This gets them to stop their discussion, making them both turn to him at the same time. They are not biological brothers, but they were raised by the same man and sometimes the mirrored expressions between them were uncanny. They both looked at him like he's crazy in the exact same expression. 

Then, Jason looks at Dick. Dick looks at Jason. They talk in that way they do when they're not talking. Tim wishes, not for the first time, that he was a witch, that he knew what they were talking about when they did that. 

Just as cutting, he wishes is was a brother like they were. That he could speak to them both through their shared history, the magic of being raised together. Bruce had adopted Jason when Dick was 13 and they spent four close years together before Jason died. 

Dick had told Tim so many stories about those years. He had taken to Jason almost instantly, adopting the boy as the brother he always wanted. He taught Jason how to steal food from galas, how to use puppy eyes like weapons, and, most importantly, how to handle Bruce. 

"Tim." Dick's voice is strained, never a good sign. "Tim, we don't talk to Bruce." 

"Bruce doesn't listen." Jason tried to say at the same time. 

"Your diagnosing him with- with nothing but speculation!" Tim tries again. "You're yanking on the magic so hard that nobody can stop you from taking way too much! Have you considered that something like that makes Bruce give you too much!?" 

Tim had tried to make them see sense. Tried to sway them both to his side. 

But instead of brightening with understanding, Dick and Jason’s twin expressions darkened at the same time. Their nostrils flared just like Bruce’s did when he was annoyed and Tim was sure their ears would be pinned back if they had them. 

Tim gulped, his head ducking towards his shoulders and getting the distinct feeling like he had stepped in dog poop. 

“I’m sorry, Tim, but maybe you don’t understand Bruce like we do. We’ve lived with him longer. We know what works and doesn’t work with him.” Dick was trying to be kind, but his words still hit like a jab to the stomach. It was clear Dick was annoyed, and he was holding back a little less. Tim wasn’t sure he had meant it to be as much of a reminder Tim hadn’t even been here a year as it was. 

“You’re just making an assumption. You know what they say about assumptions.”

Dick looked torn between being annoyed and laughing. Jason looked a lot more sure of his attitude.

“You don’t understand,” said Jason, his voice as sharp as a blade. His voice had a vicious edge, something honed to cut him down. “You’re a child. And more than that, you’re a witch that can’t even hold a flame for more than a couple seconds, what do you know about connecting with a familiar.”

A heat that was both shame and fury sparked in Tim’s belly. He had to crane up to look Jason in his eyes and he tried desperately to look strong in front of him.

Him and Jason had always had… a rocky relationship. Jason hadn’t taken too kindly to coming back to life and suddenly having a new younger brother. Tim had tried to stay out of his way, but it was clear that Jason was possessive of his vow and he wouldn’t be having anyone take them away from him again.  

Even though it would make Jason angrier, Tim couldn’t help but look towards Dick for support.

Dick was pointedly looking away, silently confirming that maybe he thought the same thing as Jason. 

The fury in Tim’s stomach brightened and, to his horror, it started to come out in the form of hot, wet tears.

“Stop being mean!” Tim yelled, tears burning down his face.

Jason gave him a cruel smile and he pounced. “I’ll stop being mean when you stop being a dumb little kid.”

“Jason!” Finally, Dick snapped back. “That was uncalled for!”

“He started it.”

“He’s nine!”

“And you’re fourteen!”

The yelling gets louder now, between them all, accusing and vicious and mean and-

"Boys," Bruce's voice doesn't boom, but it effortlessly commands the space. 

It cut through the echoes of the hard, stone walls, deadening the ricochets of the sound. It makes everyone stand at attention, and TIm’s hidden ears swivel. 

Both Dick and Jason perk quick enough to think that they are actually the dogs and not Bruce. Their argument ceases, cutting out as abruptly as the flame Tim tried to conjure. 

Similar to Dick, Bruce is in sweatpants and an old shirt that reads: “Get Familiar with Me”. His body was relaxed and his shoulders were soft. His ears, German Shepherd, didn't have the uniform rigidness that he usually held them at when he was in public. They were slackened with the left one flopping. He was giving them all a fond smile that made Tim feel even guiltier. 

As Bruce approached, both Dick and Jason tugged at his magic. It was a greeting rather than a physical pull on a familiar's lifeblood. It was so effortless and so quick that Tim didn't even have a chance to respond and both of the witches' pulls went to Bruce. 

Bruce didn't seem to mind, if anything his smile got fonder. 

"What are you talking about?"

"Nothing." Jason bites, quick and fast and sharp. Mean, if you didn't know that he was the one who pulled softer than his brother. Jason could turn from kind to cruel in a switch. Tim had gotten both from him. He had curled up next to Jason on the couch, tucking his head into the boy’s side as a horror movie he was definitely too young to watch crashed around him. He had received the boy’s kindness in small moments when no one else was watching.  

"About how our spells are going." Dick says at the same time.

Bruce's ear lazily flicks, idly curious. His eyes slide from his older two to the younger one. 

"If you're discussing Tim's ability to do spells again, then I've already had a discussion with him about it." Bruce had previously sat Tim down and told him that it was okay to use Bruce for spells, that it was okay to form an attachment, a vow, and start pulling at his magic stores to boost the spells that Tim wants to cast. That Tim should feel okay to cast whatever spells he wants to down here, while in the manor. 

Tim had agreed with Bruce, nodded along, and promised Bruce that he feels comfortable enough here to be himself. 

Tim never doubted that Bruce would allow him to pretty much anything, 

But Tim isn't going to tell anybody anytime soon that he's not the witch that they want, and no spells are going to come out of him without some serious preplanning. 

"We weren't talking about your pet fuckup." Jason mumbles, mostly to himself and Dick. 

Bruce's ears are sharp, however, as any familiars are, his eyes narrow at the accusation. His ears lower. His tail flips from being idle to still and down. "Jason, I know that you've been feeling unstable since you came back-" 

"Nope!" Jason decides, for all of them, that he's done with this conversation. He stood up, putting the clothing back onto the desk he was standing next to. He walks out of the cave with an irritated wave and a grumble of curse words.

They all watched him go, lurking back up to the Manor where he would probably would sulk until the next day. He lumbered up the uneven stairs with only a slightly stiff gait, not saying a single word under his breath because Bruce would be able to hear. It wasn't a completely uncommon circumstance for Jason tu be running away from a topic of conversation. Even though it had been just a little over a year since Jason died and was resurrected, he hated talking about it. 

Dick sighed next to Tim when Jason was fully gone. The witch looked suddenly older with more burden between his shoulders. 

"I'm sorry Jason said that," Dick said with a forced smile. "You're not... what he said. We just haven't found the type of magic you excel at."

Tim nearly snorted and maybe he would have if the tone was lighter.

They had tried to get Tim training in all of the standard types of magic. Bruce had spent hours upon hours and thousands of dollars consulting with experts, talking to counselors, and trying to find more fields that Tim could excel it. He knew at this point, Bruce was talking to magic practitioners across the world, searching to see if Tim was maybe prone to a rare and highly specific method.  

Tim was touched by his commitment and Tim would have been happy as anything. Alchemy, Divination, potion making, hedgewitching, wayfinding - he would take anything, literally anything, to be a witch and belong in this family.

But Tim isn't a witch, and he won't ever be. 

His mother told him, when she was alive, that he was going to be important, that he was going to be a very, very good familiar one day and Tim, like an idiot, believed her. He knew that being a familiar was going to make sure he was set for life, that he was able to have his pick of the litter as he got older, he had imagined life with a witch as an equal, he had worked hard on expanding his magical stores, being able to withstand and endure anything. He had worked hard to be the best he could be- 

He had looked up to Batman, because Tim had thought- 

Tim had thought that maybe there might be another bat-type familiar. Had thought that maybe somebody out there was exactly like Tim and a hero for it. There was no registered bat-type familiar in America, the last one had been in Asia and had died in 1906, so Batman had represented somebody that Tim could directly look up too. Robin was speculated to be at least a bird familiar, if Batman was a witch, and those were uncommon as well, another familiar who wanted to jump up into the air and fly, who wanted to land where they landed and have a big family.

Then Robin had done a quadruple flip and that fantasy had crumbled. 

Bruce Wayne had witches for children, a witch for a butler, and had only hung out with witches during his famous trysts. He did not want to be in the company of his fellow familiars. 

Most familiars did not share. They might be able to hold multiple witches in a vow, but there were only two or three examples out there of a vow having more than one familiar. It was unstable, to have more than one, it made the magic strange and unresponsive or too responsive or a mixture of two flavors that didn’t make much sense. 

Bruce didn’t want the company, or the home, of another familiar that could cause his family even more upset that it had already gone through. 

Dick Grayson was shaping up to be the best witch on the east coast, strong and showy and easily casting spells that make other people sweat and trip up and pass out. Dick Grayson was everything a witch wanted to be, and everything that a familiar should have wanted in a witch. 

Jason Todd had been following in his footsteps. He was young, barely 14, and he had proven himself deft in a magic that most people overlooked. He was able to draft runes well beyond his age and he had a patience with the methodic craft that most children couldn’t hold. Bruce had said that high-level magical tailors were already inquiring about taking Jason in as an apprentice. They were eager to impart their knowledge onto the rare young mind that wanted it.

But all that ended when the second Wayne Witch was beaten to death by the Joker. 

Bruce- Batman- had gone off the deep end. He jeopardized himself, git himself hurt and threw himself into danger. The man had needed a Robin and he needed a witch.

He needed a witch and Dick Grayson was the best witch around. 

There had been screaming, cursing, yelling, throwing things. Tim had sat on the fancy couch in the parlor room and had listened to the two of them just rip into each other, harsh words and harsher accusations. 

Dick had left the room, throwing a chair at his father's head, and it was just two familiars in a room. 

Then Bruce had stormed off, face red and ears pinned back and claws out, gnashing his teeth and furious with his tail tucked up ready for another fight. 

Just Tim then, alone on an uncomfortable yellow stupid fancy couch in a room nobody liked. 

It had been Alfred who found him, crying, and who had talked with him a while. Had talked with a gentle voice and an understanding tone, had asked Tim about himself, had told Tim that Bruce needed a witch to take care of, that without one he was hurting himself, that it was unfair, but if Tim was here, and already knew, then would Tim be the witch that was needed for a while? 

So Tim was. 

Or at least he tried to be. 

He tried. He tried so hard. He tried to connect to Bruce’s magic but he just didn’t fit. He tried to focus on Alfred’s lesson and memorise the spells that the man taught him over and over again. He tried to be the little brother that Dick wanted back. 

He tried. 

He tried. 

But he just couldn’t do it. 

Jason had left a hole in the family that he simply couldn’t fill. No one could fill it but Jason.

And so Tim had whispered the idea of resurrection into Dick’s ear. 

*

"I'm sorry to ask this of you," said Dick Grayson as he adjusted the raincoat on Tim's body. His hands were fiddling with the clasp at the base of Tim's throat, nervously checking the tied-together strings. He kept glancing outside of the car to the storm raging around them. Their bodies were pressed together, like Dick was shielding him despite the metal surrounding them. "And to bring you here right after your parents."

Tim could tell he was trying to sound like an adult, even though he was still a kid himself.  

"It's alright," Tim mumbled, trying to keep his eyes from going out the window. He knew what he would see. Gravestones piercing the earth like dull and jagged teeth. The rain pelted down so hard that it created a sleet of grey. Names dozens of them and his parents would be in the congregation somewhere.

It had been four months and their death still seemed both impossible and sealed into stone. 

He tried not to think of this. He knew that he would be coming back to the cemetery when he had put his plan into motion and began to make Dick think that he had thought the resurrection was his idea. 

It had been surprisingly easy to manipulate Dick.

Tim waited until one of Dick’s crying sessions, when his older brother was at his weakest and most emotionally vulnerable (as according to the Internet). He wore an oversized hoodie to appear the most small, and he had silently slotted himself into the curl of Dick’s body as the older boy sobbed on the bed.

Dick didn’t refuse him and he hadn’t hesitated to clutch Tim close.

“I’m sorry,” he had whispered, his voice thick with tears. “I just… suddenly missed him a lot.” 

Tim had nodded like he knew what it was like to feel the loss of a sibling. He… he wondered if it was a different feeling than losing a parent. If it came with the same, endless trench taken out of his he–

He stopped, not the mission. Not the goal.

“It’s okay,” Tim whispered back, letting Dick’s tears dampen his hoodie. The boy’s hair tickled against his face. Now it was time to set his trap. “I wish I could have met him. I wish there was a way.”

The first hint. The first of many.

Tim worked at it for months, slowly because of how vehemently Bruce had dismissed the idea the first time he brought it up to Bruce. Bruce had said it was too dangerous, he wouldn’t put his other son in danger when he had just lost one. 

But Tim knew that Bruce was a powerful enough familiar and Dick was a skilled enough spellcaster. They could do it. His calculations had given him the confidence to say it fully. 

All he had needed was time and eventually Dick had come to the conclusion that Tim had months ago. 

So now they were here, sitting in a car together as a storm raged around them. The spell had to happen tonight and some water wasn’t going to stop Batman and Robin. It was going to have Bruce tell them that they could wait in the car while he dug the grave. It was a little mercy and Tim didn’t look forward to needing to go out in the rain. 

Dick's bit his lip, his hair shaggy and longer than he usually had it, fell in his face. He kept glancing over his shoulder, towards the storm and the direction where Bruce had lurked off to with a shovel. Dick was a caged animal, filled with nervous movement and the constant glance towards somewhere else. 

"I was hoping it was going to let up," Dick mumbled, only partially to Tim. "It's bad luck to perform dark magic during a storm."

True, but they didn’t have a choice. 

Tim could feel Dick's heart hammering in his chest, the panicked pulse beating steadily against Tim. 

He was trying not to let the older teen's fear bleed into him. He tried not to think of everything that could go wrong tonight. He didn't want to think about what Dick had to do, what Tim had set him up to do. The situation had seemed so cut and dry when he was doing the research in his bedroom but now…

Now, it was truly dawning of him that messing this ritual up could kill Dick and Bruce. It could put them into the ground right next to Jason and Tim would be left in another echoing manor. 

He shifted against Dick and tucked his head in closer, nose to the older boy's throat. He didn’t want Dick to die. He didn’t want Bruce to die. But he couldn’t live with Jason being dead anymore.

"Don't be scared," Dick whispered and Tim wasn't sure who it was for. "Don't be scared."

Lightning cracked overhead and they could just barely make out Bruce's hulking form, driving a shovel into the earth. His back was bent and the spade pierced the ground. He looked like a creature, gnawing into the black earth below him.

"It will work," said Dick and Tim knew that this wasn't for him. Dick was hugging Tim to his chest like a stuffed animal now, clinging onto him. "It has to work." 

He doesn't know how long they cling together in the car. Breaths quiet. Storm howling. Heart beats quick. Nothing let up. Not the panic, not the rain, not the mirage of his parent's names on the tombstones surrounding them. 

It's only broken by a knock to the window that makes both of them jump. Dick's arms go tighter, but it's just Bruce, lurking outside the window with rain streaming down the sharp angles of his jaw, his ears flat and hair wet.

"It's showtime," Dick's voice trembles slightly. His brave front is cracking. 

He turns to Tim and gently pulls the hood of the raincoat up over his head. "Just stay close, baby bird. Nothing is going to happen to you."

To you . 

They both know that Tim will be fine, but what Dick is about to do might very well kill him and his father.

Magic is a push and a pull, the more you ask of it, the more it asks of you. The greater the ask, the demand, the greater the strain against yourself, your body, your soul itself. 

Magic sometimes wants blood, sometimes it wants your voice, sometimes it wants your very life itself. 

Bruce had a lot of energy stored in his banks, he would be able to give up a lot before the magic started to take things you didn't want to give up. Dick himself was good at making the magic want less of them. 

But this? This was dangerous and they knew it. This had killed nearly every single person who attempted it. There might be theory after theory after theory about raising the dead, but there's a reason it was not at all common practice. 

Tim presses harder into Dick's chest, the warmth of another human is comforting, is gentle compared to the rumble thunder of the storm outside. The heartbeat of Dick is too far, too full of fear, but Dick's breathing is even, steady and his warmth is constant. 

They separate to get out of the car. The rain is heavy, hard, and it has turned the gravel roads into a dusty mud. Dick picks Tim right back up, protecting Tim's face against the hard winds and the cold rain. Tim makes sure his arms go around Dick's neck, squeezes his middle with his legs, and tries to support himself. 

(Tries to find the words to tell them that they shouldn't do this. Tim was wrong. Tim shouldn’t have put this idea in his head. He didn’t want them to die. He didn’t want anyone to be dead. He didn’t want anyone to be–)

Bruce has a flashlight, more of an old fashioned camping lamp than an actual modern day flashlight. It's been spelled to be brighter than it should, it illuminates the isolated plot of Wayne family land. 

The new moon above them makes sure that the only light they're getting from the skies is the scattered stars that peak through Gotham's smog. 

The shovel is discarded, the pine coffin is exposed. 

The magic they've been researching for the couple months has been pre-written on a sheet of transfer paper, just to make sure they could check, double check, triple check it before they were ready to activate the spell. Bruce's blood has been dried and crushed and made into ink for it, Dick's blood makes the finer details of the overly complicated circle, where the details needed to be. 

They did not allow Tim to contribute, just in case. They did not know that he had already contributed plenty. 

Dick sets Tim down, allowing Tim's little duck-themed rain boots to get wet with the dug up grass. It's much less warm without Dick's hug.

"Are you ready?" Bruce asks his son, giving them both one more way out of this. No matter how much he had begged, how much he had pleaded, the only witch in the world willing to go through with this was the one standing in the cemetery now. 

"I've been ready." Dick's hair is plastered to his face, the rain has already soaked it through. "I won't fail." 

Tim squeezed Dick's hand, trying to chase away the sharp spike of fear through the bond of their vow. 

Dick startled, looking down at Tim. The age gap between the two seems so far. 

"I can't fail, not with this little witch beside me."

Tim’s guts all twisted up and knotted inside him. Shames burns through him and the talisman, bought to hide all his familiar animal traits, burns with it. 

He doesn’t say anything as Dick releases his hand, the witch needs both hands free for what he’s about to do. 

*

Dinner is a quiet affair that night. Jason is still sulking and he spends about ten minutes eating and giving long, pitying looks to Bruce. Bruce has obviously noticed and keeps giving Jason inquisitive eyebrow looks. It’s almost hilarious if Tim didn’t feel so bad about it.

They eat in the breakfast nook near the kitchen, not at all near the formal dining room. Their food is what Alfred had cooked from the leftovers of the week's meals, cleaning out the fridge for the next week. It was plentiful, the entire table small in the little nook, the windows dark outside, showing the shimmering light of Gotham in the distance. Tim sat next to Bruce, and Jason sat next to Dick on the other side. Alfred is finishing up cleaning the pots. He’ll eat after everyone. The meal is almost silent with just the sounds of eating, of knives against plates, of a sponge in the kitchen sink, and the shifting of weight in a seat. 

But then Bruce coughed, turning to cover his mouth with his napkin, and Jason is standing. 

“I’m full!” He practically shouted, gathering up plates and silverware. “I need to finish warding Bruce’s suit anyway.” 

Bruce barely has time to thank him before he’s bounding away from the table pointedly avoiding the familiar’s eyes. 

Bruce actually looked hurt by this, the fine lines of his face creasing with his expression. 

“Is he avoiding me?” Bruce asked across the table to Dick. The witch, always able to remain cool and collected, nearly chokes on a bit of broccoli. 

“What?”

“Jason, he’s acting strange. Is it me?” Bruce’s gaze is skewering into Dick and Tim sees the boy visibly resisting the urge to squirm. 

“Why would you think it’s you?” 

“Because this is weird even for him.” His eyes narrow on Dick. “It’s weird for you too.”

Dick gave a forced laugh, his face red and eyes skittering around. He was making it hard to believe that he was a professional vigilante, flawlessly cool and able to keep a secret identity. “Aren’t I always weird though?”

“Richard Grayson, stop answering my questions with questions.”

Dick, ever the careful, calculated, suave individual, laughs painfully awkwardly, and asked, "Why do you think I'm answering you with questions?" 

A beat of silence goes between the dining room occupants, Bruce cocks an eyebrow, knowing that his child was being truly, wildly ridiculous. 

Dick, wincing, stands and just leaves. 

That traitor!

Tim's eyes shoot to his own almost empty plate, begging the universe to please, don't ask, please just make Bruce skip right over his wondering questions- 

"Tim." 

No. 

Bruce's whole body language is half exasperated father, half detective on the case, and half extremely worried mother hen. Ignoring how the man is somehow adding up to more than one person, Tim knows how Bruce looks when he's baffled, when he's sad and when he’s anxious about his children. His ears are flat back, but not low, they're perked at attention. The man's not showing his teeth. He would never display his fangs to a child, but his lips are tight and thin. 

"Tim, why are the older boys being evasive?" 

Should he come clean right now? Should Tim spill everything out to Bruce, telling Bruce that it's all Tim's fault? Where would Tim go when they kicked him out? Where would Tim end up with no parents? With nobody to fight for his rights? He didn't want to be sold off to the highest bidder, used as a power source by the witch who could afford it. 

"Tim?" Bruce's voice is distant in the heart of Tim's own panic. "Tim, I know that our relationship got off to a rocky start, but I'm worried. Can you tell me what's going on?" 

"They think that you're dying." Tim can't hold it back. It'll be revealed now, and everything will fall apart. Bruce is too smart to not figure it out immediately once everything gets explained. They're all too smart to not figure out that Tim's been lying.

"I'm... what?" Bruce's face does a complicated dance between confusion, disbelief and offense. His ears were swiveled back, but not pressed down to his head like they would have been with true anger. One of them, the left one (it's always the left one) was flopping over as he tilted head in an extremely doglike motion. 

Tim could see him still trying to figure it out, trying to figure out which question to ask next.

"Is... this a joke? Because we celebrated my 40th birthday two weeks ago."

Tim does remember how many jokes Dick and Jason made about him 'seeing the light', 'getting ready to kneel over', 'needing life alert before going up the stairs'. God, they must be feeling terrible right now and all because of Tim and his lies. 

Shame rolled in Tim's stomach. It was growing and ballooning upward. Up through his stomach, up into his throat, choking him and pushing up...

His lip wobbled. His eyes burned at the corners. His breath was catching in the center of his chest. 

His last dinner here had been awful , they weren’t even eating one of his favorites.

In the few seconds before his eyes flooded with tears, he saw Bruce's offended face descend into complete horror. 

And then suddenly, he was crying with heavy, ugly sobs that stole his breath and clouded all of his thoughts. 

This was it. It was all ruined now. Crying right in Bruce's face was just going to be a nail in the coffin, proving that Bruce was just a useless crying baby . He had his real son back, he didn't need Tim anymore especially when he was just a crying idiot. 

"Tim! Tim, sweetheart, what's wrong?"

Bruce must have teleported because all the sudden he's at Tim's chair, curling Tim towards his chest. 

Tim is too big for this. He's nine, all grown up. Bruce can't be holding him like he's a toddler. 

And yet, Bruce does, like Tim is meant to be nowhere else but in Bruce's arms.

Bruce holds onto Tim, Tim feels it when the man begins to move, begins to walk out of the dining room, definitely knows it when Bruce shouts for his children. 

" Richard John Grayson! " Bruce shouts, walking up the stairs to the family wing. " Jason Peter Todd! " 

The noise makes Tim flinch, his ears are sensitive . Bruce puts a hand over Tim's head, comforting him, holding him close, covering where ears would be if Tim was a normal witch and not a familiar . 

" Boys !" Bruce shouts again, his voice has gone from confused to angry parent, which is never a good thing in this house. " Boys !" 

Tim sobs hard into Bruce's chest, the pain from the shouting, the pain from the knowing he's about to be thrown out, it's all a jumble of emotions and of overwhelming feeling. 

" Boys !" Bruce is at their rooms now, knocking hard on doors. "Boys! This was a cruel trick to play on Tim! Come out here right now and apologize!"

Neither of the older witches answer and Bruce practically snarls. Without another knock, he's opening the doors only to find the rooms empty. 

"They're hiding," Bruce growls to himself under his breath. Tim can only hear it because he's a bat-type familiar and his hidden-by-magic ears are so close to Bruce's lips. There's only a few inches between Bruce's mouth and where Tim is dampened Bruce's shirt with tears and snot.

Bruce seems to have about enough of this because Tim can feel a small change in the magic that flows between their familial bonds. It lasts for a second before Bruce yanks on the vow between him and the older boys. 

Tim nearly gasped, not because he really feels it, but because it's so rare for a familiar to pull instead of a witch. Magic generally travels in only one direction on a bond, it's like going against the fur on a cat to pull it in another. 

There's a muffled yelp, that gives away the hiding spot of at least one witch. 

Bruce storms in that direction like a hurricane. 

They end up being in the upstairs study, both crammed into a reading nook by a window that's really only meant for one. They are bickering to each other, an angry hushed whisper that’s giving away their hiding spot. 

“I can’t believe I raised you from the dead just for you to betray me like this.”

“It felt weird!”

“An now he’s gonna kill us, Ja–” Dick’s voice is cut short as Bruce yanked back the curtain and revealed them both.

Jason is bright red, looking absolutely mortified at the sight of his dad. Dick, at least, is attempting a placating smile. 

"Hi, dad," he said weakly and Bruce's furious expression didn't change. 

"Don't you 'dad' me," he rumbled, his anger seething into his tone. "I want you to immediately apologize for what you've done."

“What I’ve done?!” Dick’s confusion now is almost fake in how heavy it lays on his expression. 

“For tricking Tim.” Bruce rubbed a hand down Tim’s, who is desperately trying to get his tears under control. 

Dick’s expression falls, confusion morphing into aghast fear. “Did you tell him?”

“He did !” Bruce jacks up Tim a bit farther on his hip, settling the boy a bit more evenly. “He told me you’ve been telling him that I’m going to die! That is not a nice prank to play on your brother, boys, I thought it was fun to during my birthday party but this has gone too far-“ 

“You snitch !” Jason shrieks himself. “You weren’t supposed to tell Bruce!” 

“I’m glad he did!” Bruce snaps at them both, running another hand down Tim’s back. “What made you even think this prank was a good idea? This was very mean of you both-“ 

“You think we’re lying ?” Dick’s aghast fear went right back to anger. “You think we’re lying ?!”

Bruce’s anger slips for a second, oscillating between confusion and fury. He’s watching Dick and Jason’s faces expecting them to break, but they don’t. 

“Of course you’re lying,” he’s speaking, not shouting or snapping. He’s watching Dick and Jason’s expressions very very carefully. Looking for the lie and not coming up with it. 

Tim can see the moment when it dawns on Bruce that perhaps they weren’t lying or playing tricks. Bruce’s eyes keep searching them because he simply cannot believe this. 

“You… surely you both know I’m not dying.” 

No one says anything. The study is quiet, awkwardly so, they’re all cramped too close together in a book nook built for really no more than one.  Bruce’s confusion grows deeper. 

“Why would you think I’m dying?” 

“Because you’re getting old,” says Jason, the first one of them to speak. “You need reading glasses. Your knees crack when you stand up. You get winded going up the stairs sometimes.”

Bruce looks like he’s trying really, really hard not to be outright offended, not to get mad at his sons for being ridiculous and scaring their little brother. 

“Boys.” 

Bruce’s voice has no anger left in it, his words are soft and gentle and warm. His posture relaxes, making himself not Batman anymore, but Dad again. 

“Dick. Jason. I’m not dying from old age anytime soon. My grandparents lived well into their nineties. I’m still right in the middle of my life. I’m not a grandpa just yet. That’s Alfred.” 

Bruce opens the arm that’s not holding Tim, inviting them in.

Jason falls into it, slamming himself into Bruce’s side with all of the force of a little mad man. He knocks Dick off kilter in the small space. Clinging hard onto his dad, even if Jason’s beginning to get tall, fill out into a more mature late teenager, he still fits into his Dad’s embrace. 

Tim’s tears begin to lessen, hitching off softly as they do so. 

“But your magic…” Jason mumbles into his father’s neck, soft and sad and watery. 

Bruce’s ear, the left one, the droopy one, flicks to the sound. “I promise to only pull on it during emergencies.” He swears, making sure to make eye contact with Dick as he says so.

So many times in Tim's life, Dick felt like a huge, grown up figure. When he saw Robin perform a quadruple somersault, when he saw the witch stain himself in blood to raise his brother from the dead, when he saw Nightwing keep fighting and pushing past the point of exhaustion. He had seen Dick Grayson battle against rogues, foes and death itself. 

And yet, huddled in a reading corner and faced with the belief that his dad might be dying, Dick Grayson looked incredibly small.

He was just a child. Just like Jason. Just like Tim. 

"It's not that," he said, his voice wobbling. His eyes were locked upon Bruce like the man might crumble away if he blinked. "It's not the pull. It's..."

His voice was so tight, cracking a bit in the middle. 

Bruce was frozen, caught between all of them and unsure who to comfort and why. He was so clearly desperate to know how to fix this.

"We know you're... losing control of your magic."

Tim feels Bruce's body jolt against him. 

Dick keeps speaking, words coming out of him in a panic. He had suspected Bruce was slipping long before he had confronted them about it, and all his thoughts about it came out in a rush. 

"You're losing control. I know it. I can feel it in my spells. They don't go right anymore. And if... if you die... what are we going to do? Where are we going to go? Would we go to foster care or a new family? Would they split us up? Could I adopt them? But where would we live? What would we do? I don't know what we would--"

"Dick." 

Tim is being put down and Bruce is in front of Dick, squeezing his hands. The boy is gasping, but his frantic words have stopped. Jason looks like a ghost beside him, eyes wide and looking at Bruce like he's actively passing before him. 

Both of them are staring at their father when he takes a deep breath.

"If something happens to me," he starts slowly. "I've made it so that custody passes to Alfred. And if something also happens to Alfred, the Kents are willing to take you boys in. There are actually many individuals in the Justice League who have offered to house you if needed. There would be no separations and no going to live with strangers."

Dick's breath got more even, the normal colour returning to his face. 

Bruce was massaging Dick's knuckles, his thumb swiping around skin. "But that won't happen, because I'm fine. My magic is strong and stable. I've never felt anything concerning about it. I don't know where you got this idea that I'm losing control of it."

Dick leans in close, hands trapped between himself and his father, resting his head on Bruce’s chest. 

He breathes. 

Bruce smells like his cologne, leather and woodsmoke and copper coins. He smells like sleepless nights spent on the couch watching terrible movies and protection during patrol and like dad does. 

Words are hard, it’s much easier to show him. 

The spell is simple, it’s so simple Dick doesn’t even have to say any words. It’s a simple light cast, a slightly blue tinted orb of magic that can be cast as a flashlight to see in low light. Dick’s cast it a million times, both at home and during nighttime escapades. 

Bruce is well familiar with the spell, it’s a good one when you can’t get enough light to read or when you need to distract a bunch of goons. He’s familiar with the way Dick’s personal flavor makes it perfectly spherical, the light ebbing and flowing, the gentle color- 

The explosion? 

The light held steady for almost ten seconds before popping !

A flash grenade of disorientation, an error that should not, could not, have happened. 

Tim can feel Bruce tugging all over the magic in himself and shared with others in the vow, shaking his head lightly. 

“Again?” He asks, watching closely this time, Bruce is tracking every ounce of exchange between himself and Dick. 

Sure enough, it lasts about ten seconds, perfectly formed, before shattering like an overly excited lightbulb. 

Bruce, frowning, says “That wasn’t me.”

He turns to Jason, not needing to ask. Jason performs the spell with less ease, but still brings a blob of light into existence. It’s strong, fully formed even if it is a lopsided wavering pink tinted oval and should hold. 

But it doesn’t. 

Bruce hums, his fingers tapping a beat on his child’s shoulder. His ears were perked up on his head, piqued in interest as he tried to solve a problem. 

“What are you thinking?” Jason whispered to him. 

“That we have a leech,” said Bruce and Tim jolted at the name. A leech was something that tried to steal many. It could be a rune, a curse or even an entire person. They burrowed into existing vow bonds, subtly diverting magic away without the witch or familiar knowing. They were thieves and parasites and was that… was that what Tim was? 

“But that doesn’t quite make sense though,” continued Bruce. “Leeches usually steal from a familiar. They don’t give extra magic to them. It’s almost like… it’s like the leech is a familiar.” 

Jason’s face twisted. “Why would a familiar want to be a leech?” 

“I don’t know,” said Bruce and then he gave a heavy sigh. “The best way to exterminate a leech is to cut the bonds and re-establish them.”

No , the word repeated in Tim’s head over and over. 

“But Bruce,” Dick cut in. “We’ve spent years finetuning our bonds. All that work would be destroyed.”

The strongest bond in north america, the vow that people dream about when they first discover their magic. The vow only got stronger the longer that a familiar was paired up with a witch, the more the magical transfer became second nature, the easier it was to traverse pathways that passed the magic back and forth. The longer you had a vow, the more powerful you became, as both a familiar and a witch. 

Bruce and Dick have been a family for ten years, when Bruce took Dick in after that unfortuante night at the circus, they had been in a magical vow bond for nearly the same length. 

The word was repeating, becoming white noise. They were going to destroy their connection? Tim was going to make them destroy their connection?

“I know,” said Bruce heavily. “But we will get it back. We will make it even better. I promise you.”

Tim couldn’t let him do this. 

“I have something to tell you,” his voice was stronger than he felt. All three pairs of eyes rounded on him.

It's not hard to know that Tim's admitting to something. 

Jason's hands go to Tim's shoulders, gripping them. " Tim " 

"I didn't know it was messing you guys up!" Tim tries to defend himself, really truly. He can feel his own ears standing straight up, hidden by the talisman he wears. "I just wanted-" 

"It's dangerous for a witch to try and give another witch their magic, buddy." Bruce cuts Tim off his voice and posture serious. Bruce squeezes Dick's hands twice before letting go to move to try and comfort all of them at once. "You should really leave that to me, okay?" 

Tim doesn't say anything, he just sticks out his skinny wrist to the party at large. 

The talisman sits tight against his skin. 

A bracelet, thin leather string and two carved stones. His parents had paid a lot of money to get this fashioned for him, they had gotten it from India from a lady who handmade them and put in charms to change your appearance. Illegal in the United states, for various reasons, but they still hadn't been outlawed in Asia and you could get them from somebody who could do the right magic and knew what they were doing. 

Jason's hands move from Tim's shoulders to his wrist. "Your bracelet?" 

Runes, carved into the stone, heat up minutely from Jason's examination. fingers twisting the face of the stone to see the whole charm that's been embedded into the sides. 

"Concealment charms?" 

Jason's question makes both Dick and Bruce move forward, questioning, still trying to put all the pieces together in their own heads. 

Tim reaches up, slowly, to the small metal latch on the underside of the talisman, he apologizes once again, to everyone, before yanking the charm off.

Releasing the concealment gives him a full-body tingle like jumping into cold water. One thousand pins and needles, pricking all over him and raising up what had been hidden. 

It also felt like taking a weight off his chest, suddenly being able to take a full breath for the first time in days. Concealment wasn't painful, per say, but it was uncomfortable. It gave him a constant itch under his skin, a strain in muscles he couldn't flex, and a discomfort with his own body. 

He couldn't help a small sigh as the familiar weight of his wings fell back onto his back, correcting the balance in his body. His tail, small and hidden in his pants, wiggled happily. And finally, his ears popped back into existence with a soft * phoomph *.

Oh, how he missed his ears and being able to hear fully without the dampening of the concealment charm. It felt like his black and white world was suddenly gaining colour. 

The first thing he heard was Jason's soft, "oh my god ,", followed by Dick's gasp and Bruce's thunderous silence. 

Tim's wings hunched protectively close to his body. "I'm sorry, but I'm a familiar."

Everyone was staring and no one was saying anything else. Tim's insides trembled and his anxiety burbled up his throat, making him feel like he could barf up the dinner he just ate. He had expected angry yelling, maybe immediate expulsion from the Wayne household, but somehow this was worse. This makes him feel naked on a table, getting observed with silent judgment.

Jason's hand was still wrapped around his wrist and Tim suddenly had the urge to shuffle closer to him, just to avoid everyone's gazes.

Jason tightens his arms around Tim when Tim’s head hits his chest. Jason’s eyes can’t stop looking at Tim’s ears. 

“An overload of magic,” Dick’s words are soft, like he’s talking to himself, his eyes are wide, amazed, and looking at Tim all over like he’d never seen Tim before. 

Tim closes his eyes, he doesn’t want to see what expression Bruce is looking at him with. 

“You’re not a witch,” 

Bruce’s voice is emotionless on a good day, but now you’d have more luck oceanfront property in Utah than trying to discern the expression that filters through Bruce’s voice. 

“Tim, why did you lie?”

That almost makes Tim start crying again. 

Isn’t it obvious? 

Robins are witches. There’s only room in this family for witches. Bruce, a powerful familiar, has taken all the necessary steps to make sure he’s surrounded by people who can effectively use his power. 

Alfred wards the home making it a fortress. Jason sews protection into their clothes. Dick literally raised his brother from the dead. They can do those things because they are witches. Because they can take Bruce’s raw power and make it something useful. 

And if they had been familiars? If it had been Tim in their place? It wouldn’t work. The house would be unprotected. Their clothes would just be cloth. And Jason would be dead. 

The world swam around him and he tried desperately not to start crying again. 

“You only need witches,” he said, fighting to keep his voice logical. “Another familiar is no use to you.” 

He sniffed and gave a self deprecating smile. “I tried to be useful and… well look where it’s gotten us. I messed up everyone’s spells and convinced Dick and Jason you were dying.” 

No one says anything and it’s as damning as a verdict. His stomach flips in his belly and he swallows his emotions down.  

“I’m… can I have an hour to pack my things?”

That seems to shock Bruce out of whatever strange silence he’s fallen into. “What?” 

Tim scrambles to amend his statement. “I Can be quicker!” He promises. “I just would appreciate some time.” 

Dick and Jason are giving him an odd look. 

“Where are you going?” Dick and Jason say almost at perfect unison. It’s strange to see them in complete agreement. 

Tim feels so small when he answers. “I don’t know? An orphanage I guess.”

A sound breaks the awkward tension. 

A strange sort of sound. Tim knows this sound, but he hasn’t heard it in a good, long while. Not since Jason came back to them healthy and whole. 

Bruce, eyes wide, is looking right at Tim- 

And he’s whining. 

A pitched sound, from deep in his chest, it makes Tim’s ears prick forward entirely, focused on the large predator's half howl, it makes him step a half a step back in instinctive fear. 

Wrong move. 

Bruce clearly didn’t like it when Tim stepped away from him, oh no, because with a blur of motion suddenly Tim finds himself locked in Bruce’s arms, pressed hard against his chest, a mockery of their more comforting pose from earlier. 

Bruce presses Tim close, chuffing, sniffing, and not letting him go. 

Bruce is rubbing his cheeks into Tim’s hair, the smell of Dad mixes into the stale scent of strawberry shampoo. Bruce is vibrating; he's holding Tim so hard, tail wagging a million miles an hour and frantic to get his scent over his baby. 

Tim can’t help himself. 

The scenting, the wash of feelings and the prodding between their weak bond, the affection that hasn’t been given to him in forever . 

He chitters back, bumping his forehead into Bruce’s chin.

It's a move that completely takes him by surprise. He hasn't done that... not since his parents...

He sniffs and Bruce just holds him tighter. 

"You're not going anywhere," Bruce says, his breath tickling the fluff in Tim's ears. "That isn't why I asked. I'm not mad."

He squeezes Tim and Tim can almost physically feel the bond between them getting stronger. 

"I'm the opposite of mad. I'm so, I'm so-" he couldn't finish whatever he was going to say. He just focused on rubbing all over Tim's face so much, Tim can feel his cheeks going red. 

Jason snorted, and the sound is affectionate. "What Bruce is trying to say is that he's happy to have another familiar around and wouldn't have kicked ya' out if you told him."

"Also Robin never had to be a witch," Dick tacks on, giving them a goofy, toothy grin. "It was just a coincidence that it worked out for me and Bruce. He wasn't ever not going to adopt because of my magic status."

Bruce huffs as if to agree. Apparently words are beyond him at the moment. 

"I think it's good for Bruce actually. He needs more familiars to interact with. He's started to go feral" said Dick, his smiling turning more devious. 

"There's too much witch energy here," Jason jumps right in to tease Bruce. "He's becoming desperate. Speaking to stray cats like they are going to answer him back."

"I just know he's going to ask to play fetch one of these days."

"Boys," Bruce cuts them off and they just smile at each other evilly. 

It calms Tim a bit. His brothers teasing their dad feels so familiar, a known act in this day that's become so topsy-turvy.

Tim feels safe, feels protected, in the arms of Bruce, he feels good , after shedding the glamour and concealment charms and stretching out for a bit. 

Bruce's magic has changed it's tone, has gone from trying to shove something into Tim's core that Tim was already overflowing with to opening up, butting against and allowing, f inally , Tim to let go of his own overflowing stores. 

Tim didn't realize how bad he had been feeling until his magic starts to get dissipated into the bonds, pulled, knowingly, and carefully by Bruce and saturating over the drain of both Dick and Jason. 

It was finally unleashing a dam after a storm. It was torrential downpour in a desert, it was magic that had been building up and souring finally being given to the black hole that was the two witches that were his brothers. 

Bruce coaxes Tim into releasing the hold, moves their magic to pool in the same place, converges the rivers together into one massive gulf stream. Tim goes boneless with pure relief . 

It's not seamless, not right now, with the magic churning against each other, cold meeting hot, but it could be, when the flow had smoothed out. 

Tim's ears flick against Bruce's face, he's happy, he's so, so, happy, they told him that being a witch didn't matter, it didn't matter, that Tim could still be here even if he was a spare battery- 

"Ew!" Tim jerks back, laughing, as Bruce tries to make his baby smell like him with a lick to the forehead.

Jason giggles and Dick is smiling widely. He’s speaking quickly his voice joyous. “Omg, now that you’re one of familiars and a bat. You’re like a literal bat-tery!”