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Did you know that silk moths don’t have a functioning mouth? They eat and eat, only to emerge from their cocoon without it. They starve to death within 10 days.
~•~
When Tim had been younger, a child, he had longed for touch.
His parents didn’t show affection like that. Their affection came in the form of praise and smiles and the absence of anger. The most they ever did was his mother fixing his hair and his father fixing his tie. Tim had never quite been able to help lean into it, but his parents didn’t much appreciate such things.
When Tim had been younger, a child, he had learned that touch was bad.
Touch only came in the form of large hands wrapped around his wrist, bruisingly tight, pulling him to his room because he had been bad and bad kids were better when they were out of sight and out of mind. Touch also came from being shoved to the ground and kicked while down. What else could he expect? No middle schooler wanted to share their classroom with a nine year old.
Later, when Tim was still a child, but less of one, more grown up, training had joined the mix.
Bruises from Bruce being harsh on him because Tim had tricked his way into being Robin and Batman needed to make sure this Robin survived. Long cuts from Lady Shiva. Blood was a simple consequence for not being fast and strong enough.
Then, patrol came.
Tim learned that strangers were far less careful than his trainers and that he had no reason to complain about Bruce’s method, because Rogues were worse. So much worse. Tim learned to associate touch with concussions and sprains and being held down as he drowned in a shallow tub and being benched because he wasn’t good enough.
Tim started having nightmares about it.
~•~
The first time Dick tried to hug Tim, the boy froze. The touch was overwhelming, sending electricity over his skin and Tim flinched away from it so hard that it made Dick’s mouth do a little, devastated tilt.
The first time Dick ruffled Tim’s hair, his breath hitched and his shoulders tensed and he couldn’t help but pull away, because it was so, so good and he loved it, but it was overwhelming and he felt a little bit like he was dying.
The first time Dick clapped his shoulder in congratulations, as Nightwing to Robin for a job well done, Tim startled so hard that Dick’s hand slipped away. They had stared at each other, mirror images of unblinking white lenses, before Tim had turned and had grappled away.
Dick didn’t try to touch him after that.
~•~
When Tim was younger, a child, barely old enough to stop using a booster seat, they’d had to hold a presentation about an animal.
It wasn’t supposed to be a big thing, just a poster. Most of his classmates brought between one and three facts next to drawings that had clearly been made by their parents and then coloured by them.
But Tim didn’t really have an adult in his life other than his nanny, a disgruntled old woman who solved the issue of watching over him by locking him into his room whenever he was at home, so he had nobody to tell him that he wasn’t supposed to research all that much.
He was an unsurpervised, overcurious, hyperintelligent child who loved bugs, so was it really surprising when he went on a deep-dive about moths? His poster had thirty-seven facts about silk moths. Some went into such concerning detail about their mating cycles that the teacher had him talk to the counselor.
Nothing ever came from it.
But little Tim was deeply disturbed by the fact that silk moths didn’t have mouths. It seemed so tragic, for them to die so quickly after only just being reborn. It was made worse, in his opinion, because they couldn't fly either. They had been bred that way, which was also a new word Tim learned too early.
It was humans’ fault.
Silk moths starved to death without ever knowing the freedom of flight.
The moth presentation haunted Tim for a very long time.
~•~
The first time Bruce frantically patted Tim down after a fight to see if he was injured, the boy had gone completely and utterly still. He wasn’t even sure he was still breathing.
After that, Bruce only asked for reports, a little more gravel to his voice.
~•~
Whenever his parents were in town, they went to dinners and Galas and charity events, Tim always by their side.
Tim was fitted for the events, a tailor moving his limbs to take measurements as Tim stood still, a doll for them to dress up.
He knew his job well enough by the time he was allowed to accompany them. He was to smile politely and say ‘Yes, ma’am’ and ‘Thank you, sir’ and laugh at the appropriate moments. He wasn’t even required to think, he could just follow the scripts.
When he’d been younger, a child, more of one than he was now, because teenagers were not children, he had occasionally messed it up.
Sometimes, he’d said the wrong thing in the wrong tone or smiled in the wrong shade or eaten the wrong hors d'oeuvre. One, very memorable time, he’d had shrimp and had an allergic reaction so bad that an ambulance had to be called.
His parents made sure he never slipped up like that. They had conditioned him well. Tim knew that if they said to be in his room and think about what he’d done, they meant fix himself and he did.
One didn’t need touch to be the heir to the Drake empire.
Sometimes, he wondered if his parents knew that Tim was incapable of being normal about human touch. Nature hadade him faulty, just like silk moths, condemning him to eventually starve. It was fine though, because he didn't need to be able to hug someone to perform as he was expected to.
It was probably why his parents never worried.
After all, why worry with his lack of inbuilt functions when they didn’t serve a purpose?
~•~
When Red Hood came for Tim, he had been ready to die.
Sure, he wasn’t exactly happy, but there were worse ways to go. He adored Jason, that was his Robin, his, his, and in his opinion, that meant his death would at least be worth something.
“Why aren’t you fighting back?” Jason asked, infuriated for some reason as he kicked Tim again.
“You’re Robin,” Tim replied simply. “I trust you’re doing this for a good reason.”
Red Hood stopped and stared. He pulled his helmet off to stare some more. “What the fuck?” he muttered and then he turned and left.
Tim knew that he was hard to be around, but that didn’t mean that it hurt any less.
~•~
After that, Jason started showing up.
He came for dinner sometimes and he joined them on patrol occasionally and one day, he followed Tim to his room.
He reached out and Tim blinked, expecting a blow and freezing when Jason instead patted his head. A current ran through him.
He needed Jason to stop right now.
He never wanted it to stop.
“I’m sorry,” Jason said and Tim blinked again, this time in confusion as opposed to resignation.
“What for?” he asked.
“Beating you up,” the teenager replied.
“Oh,” Tim said.
Jason looked upset by that for some reason, but after a moment of awkward silence, the crime lord turned around and disappeared.
~•~
A hand shook him awake and Tim whimpered. “Don’t hurt me,” he pleaded and the hand retreated as if it had been burned.
Tim blinked blurry eyes open to find Alfred standing over him, face pinched.
He was woken up by Alfred calling out to him and opening the blinds the next morning.
~•~
“Why do you have so many creepy moth pictures up?” Ives asked the first time Tim actually invited a friend over.
His parents had signed over custody to Bruce with such a little amount of fight that Dick had actually been mad at how easy it was. Tim had just laughed. It was following a close call with an infection that had left Tim in the hospital with his parents unreachable. Of course they wouldn’t put up a fight. It wasn’t good for their reputation. A drawn out custody battle? The scandal.
“They’re pretty,” Tim replied.
They were.
Moths were stunning, misunderstood creatures. Fearless. Tragic.
“Mmh,” Ives made, adjusting his glasses. “If you say so.”
“Did you know that silk moths don’t have functioning mouths? They can’t eat,” Tim said in the tone of someone nursing a well loved poem.
“How do they survive then?” Ives asked with wide eyes.
“They don’t. They starve.” Tim’s face was made of stone.
“That’s pretty morbid, dude,” Ives stated, eyes shifting back to the posters. He looked disturbed.
Tim laughed. “Yeah. Yeah, I guess it is.”
~•~
The thing was.
The thing was, Tim had seen other people hit by cuddle pollen.
He’d seen Dick desperately clinging to Bruce, whining every time the man so much as shifted. He had seen Bruce, flat on the couch with Selina draped over him, neither of them moving as they just breathed. He’d seen civilians, stumbling around, hoarsely begging for someone, anyone, to please, please hug them.
So intellectually, Tim knew what was happening when pain spread across his skin like fire and he knew what he was supposed to do.
But Tim was a moth without a digestive system, so when he clicked on his comm, nothing came out but shaky breaths nobody heard. Maybe his hand had never even reached his comms.
Tim stumbled into Crime Alley, world hazy.
~•~
A week after Jason had apologised, him and Tim had sat on the roof, eating a hotdog.
Apparently Dick had decided that his little brothers should bond and the crime lord, while reluctant, didn’t seem opposed to it, so Tim, ever desperate, ever pathetic, ever lonely, was more than happy to oblige.
“Uhm,” he’d started, but had aborted the words. Instead, he took another bite.
“What?” Jason had snapped, eyes green, but not hostile, not yet.
“I just had a question, but it was stupid, nevermind,” Tim had replied, too quickly, between breaths and bites.
“You can always ask me questions,” Jason had replied, exasperated.
~•~
Tim had a question now.
He wasn’t fully sure how long it took for him to get into one of Red Hood’s safe houses, but it took predictably very little time for Jason to show up as if he’d been summoned. Which, in some ways, he had been.
“Jason,” Tim breathed and the crime lord stopped drawing breath, undoubtedly to scold Tim for breaking in. “How do I initiate a hug?”
“What?” Jason asked, blinking.
Oh, Tim should probably explain.
“You know, hugging. How would one go about starting one?” he asked, voice tight with pain and wavering.
“Kid, what the fuck? Are you alright?”
But Tim didn’t reply. “It’s just, I’ve never really had a proper hug, I think and I scared everyone off so now they won’t touch me, but I wouldn’t even mind the electricity right now, because it hurts really badly and I think touch would make it stop.”
“Are you under the influence of cuddle pollen?” Jason asked, already moving towards him, alarm in his eyes. “That shit has brought grown men to their knees, kid, you shouldn’t be alone right now, why are you here?”
“Did you know that silk moths don’t have digestive systems?” Tim asked and Jason briefly faltered. “Do you think that I’m like that? I don’t have any tolerance for touch because I don’t need it to be a perfect gentleman.”
Jason moved again, now close enough to pull Tim into a hug. “What the fuck, kid?” he said, but his touch was like cool water and Tim was pressing himself against him, needing the relief.
His older brother hummed and shifted, moving them somewhere. Tim wasn’t computing, basking in the way the pain was receding. He could breathe again, so he did, sighing contently when Jason settled them on something soft, completely wrapping his arms around him.
“I like that,” he mumbled.
“Yeah?” Jason asked and suddenly there was a hand in his hair, scratching his scalp and Tim was ready to melt.
It was still overwhelming, but he never wanted to live without this again.
Jason shifted and Tim whimpered when the pain increased. “Shit, sorry. I just need to call Dick for when you’re lucid again. I’m not having this talk alone.”
“What talk?” Tim asked, even if he kind of couldn’t care less right now, too busy burying his face in the other’s soft hoodie.
“The one about touch starvation,” Jason replied.
“Oh, cus I’m a silk moth,” Tim mumbled.
That made sense.
“No,” Jason replied, voice sharp. Tim wasn’t sure what he’d done to get that tone and he felt a little bit bad, but Jason didn’t push him away, so Tim just closed his eyes. “Because you aren’t.”
“Mmh, kay,” Tim muttered.
There was a dry laugh above him, teetering on the edge between upset and amused. “Go sleep, Timmers.” Then there was a hand in his hand again.
So Tim did.