#mockingbird!verse

His wrists were shackled, the unforgiving metal biting deeply into his skin. An oily, noxious black vapor, thick with the aroma of sandalwood, threatened to suffocate him with every breath of it he inhaled.  The toxic fumes burned his lungs and throat as it permeated his body from the inside out. That woman and her body pressed flush against his... coaxing his own treacherous body into betraying him... plundering the last precious thing that had been his alone to possess... even as she whispered into his ear all the ways she wished to kill him once she was done getting what she wanted. ***** Tim woke up with a strangled gasp, his body drenched in a cold sweat.  It had been a long time since the nightmare plagued his dreams.  He sat up in his bed and almost immediately regretted the movement.  The massive amount of alcohol he’d ingested the night before had taken its toll.  He’d told Dick several hours earlier that it was only on the tomorrows that he hated rum. It was officially tomorrow. And Tim remembered with a pounding migraine, a massive wave of nausea, and a painful clarity, that he really, truly despised rum. Tim gingerly laid back onto his bed, moving very little as he closed his eyes and kept a hand pressed against his mouth.  Mentally, he tried to will his roiling stomach into some semblance of calm.  It mostly worked.  However, as soon as he wasn’t distracted by the demanding desire to empty the contents of his stomach, Tim realized that something was off. Old sleeping habits died hard in Tim, and when he first moved into his home in New York, he had his windows adorned with light-blocking drapes.  So when the door was closed and the curtains drawn, the entire room was comfortably pitch dark.  However, that was not the case. The bedroom door was slightly ajar, and a sliver of light was cutting through the darkness, weakly illuminating the room.  Only then did he notice that he wasn’t alone. Glancing around the room, Tim managed to zero in on the one small shape near the foot of his bed that he knew didn’t belong there.  Up until that point, the figure had been trying to creep slowly and quietly back toward the door, but froze when it was spotted.  He squinted his eyes slightly, inwardly cursing his failing eyesight.  He could tell someone was there, but he couldn’t see who they were.  Without moving his gaze from his target, Tim reached over to his nightstand and grabbed his glasses.  Once he slipped them on, though, and got a good look at the intruder in his bedroom, he was the one who was frozen in place. It was a girl. She looked no older than six or seven, with straight black hair that ended just below her shoulders and wispy bangs that skimmed her delicate eyebrows.  And her eyes... Even in the weak light, Tim could see that her that her wide, startled eyes were the same shade of blue he saw in the mirror every day. From the hallway beyond the barely open door, Tim could hear Donna’s worried voice calling from the stairwell. “Nessa?  Vanessa, where are you?!” The little girl whipped her head around at the sound of the Amazon’s voice with a slightly guilty expression.  Without even thinking, she moved around the corner of Tim’s bed and ducked down to hide.  All the while, the startled man who was still occupying the bed continued to watch her in stunned silence. As Tim watched the child, the bedroom door hesitantly opened several more inches.  Additional daylight from the hallway spilled into the room.  “Nessa?”  Donna whispered softly.  “Are you in here?”  Her voice reached into his room from the other side of the door.  Her voice caught Tim’s attention, though he couldn’t drag his eyes away from the sight of the girl. “Donna?” Tim murmured back thickly, his mouth still feeling like it had been lined with cotton. “Oh?  You’re awake, Tim?” The dark haired Amazon peered in cautiously.  “I’m sorry.  Did I wake you?” Tim shook his head, noting with a slightly raised eyebrow her appearance.  Clearly, Donna had just woken up herself and hadn’t even had a chance to look in a mirror yet.  Her long black hair was suffering from a horrible case of bedhead, and she was still dressed in her sleepwear, which consisted of a red tank top and white drawstring pants.  “No.  I was already up.” Donna bit her bottom lip uneasily as she glanced around the dark room, her eyes not yet adjusted to the relative lack of light compared to the hallway she was still mostly standing in.  “Just wondering, but you haven’t seen a small girl around here, have you?” Just as uneasily, Tim turned his head.  Donna followed his gaze.  Under the new source of visual focus, the young child shrank behind Tim’s bed so that only her eyes and the very top of her head were visible from the doorway.  Donna’s eyes widened momentarily before narrowing as she took on a more stern maternal visage.  She stepped a little further into the room, straightened her spine, and crossed her arms over her chest. “Vanessa Renee Troy.  Get your little tail out here this instant!” she hissed in a commanding motherly whisper that broached absolutely no argument. Quite reluctantly, with all the outward guilt of a kid who’d gotten her hand caught in the proverbial cookie jar, the little girl stood up and slowly walked toward her mother.  Her eyes were downcast for most of the journey across the bedroom, but a voice from the bed attracted her gaze. “Her name... is Vanessa?” Donna nodded slightly, her face pensive.  “Yes.  Most of the time it’s Ness or Nessa for short.”  She reached out for the child, who was now staring at Tim curiously, and touched her shoulder.  “C’mon now, Ness.  Let’s go downstairs.  Let Tim have some privacy.”  Then, as she gently herded the girl, Donna glanced back into the room.  “I’m really sorry about her slipping in like that.  We’ll talk later, ok?” Once the door was closed, and his bedroom was wrapped in perfect pitch darkness once more, Tim swallowed hard.  A lump had risen uncomfortably into his throat. “Vanessa,” he said, wrapping his tongue around the name experimentally.  “Her name is Vanessa.” ***** As her daughter explored the fenced in backyard in the early afternoon air, Donna watched from the window over the kitchen sink.  She’d made herself a cup of coffee and stirred it absent-mindedly as she leaned against the counter.  Though she made certain to keep one eye on Vanessa, who was carefully studying a large oak tree that sat in the middle of the yard, Donna was otherwise lost deeply in thought about the night before.  ***** “He can’t touch any woman?”  Donna stared at Dick in bewilderment. Her best friend nodded.  “That’s right,” he said as he poured the remaining bottle of rum down the drain.  It had been about thirty minutes since Dick had helped Tim to bed.  Once he’d returned downstairs, he made two cups of coffee and began to explain his younger brother’s violent reaction earlier on the stairs.  With a sigh, once the bottle was empty, he looked back at Donna. “At first we thought that the aversion to female touch was because...” Dick’s expression grew pained. “...because of the rape.  He’d just react so violently whenever it appeared that he was about to be touched.  Most of us thought that it was just PTSD.  So did he in the beginning.” “What made you realize it was something different?” “Up until a month before we found Nessa, Tim was still avoiding being touched by practically everyone.  His depression had gotten pretty bad at that point, so he went to see Leslie Thompkins to get medication for it.  During their visit, she tried to hold his hand to comfort him.”  Dick shook his head.  “He said later that her touch felt like fire, and the pain was excruciating.  It actually left a mark that looked a lot like a chemical burn and took over two weeks to heal.” Donna stared at Dick.  “A woman’s touch actually burns him?” she asked in disbelief. “For some reason, yes,” Dick explained.  “Leslie thinks that it has something to do with the powers of the woman who raped him, and how she tried to kill him.  Simply put, whatever she did has made him violently allergic to female human touch.” “And there’s no cure?” Dick shook his head. “But what about Ness?  He was able to hold her just fine when she was a baby.” Dick shrugged.  “Not sure.  Maybe it’s because she’s his biological daughter?  Maybe it’s because of her biological mother and what she did to Tim?  Back then, with the way things were going, there just wasn’t time to look deeper into it.”  He sighed and stared deeply into his coffee.  “If it had anything to do with that woman or his daughter, Tim just didn’t want to be involved anymore.” ***** The sound of the doorbell caught Donna’s attention.  She gave a glance out the window at her daughter and was debating on answering the door herself when she heard quick footsteps coming down the stairs. “I’ve got it,” Dick said as he tugged on his t-shirt while walking to the foyer.  From the kitchen, Donna heard the front door open, and there was the muffled sound of warm greetings.  Then a familiar comforting face appeared in the doorway. “Alfred.” The kindly old man smiled at Donna as he set his suitcase down by the stairs and fully entered the kitchen.  “It’s a pleasure to see you again, Ms. Troy.  It’s been far too long.”  Alfred reached over to shake her hand, but was instead greeted with a hug.

“What are you doing here, Alfred?” She asked with a smile. “I called him after you went to bed last night,” Dick said as he came into the kitchen himself.  “Originally, the plan was for Alfred to come in on Monday and stay here for the week to help you two get settled in while Tim’s at work.  However, after seeing the state Tim was in last night, I called him up and we decided it’d be better if he were here with you two as soon as possible.” “Sorry you had to change your plans because of me.” Dick, Donna, and Alfred turned their heads to see Tim.  He was showered and dressed, though his hair was still damp. The bloodshot gaze behind his glasses softened as Alfred walked up to him.  “Good morning, Grandfather.” Alfred reached into his pocket and pulled out a small medicine bottle.  “I believe you mean ‘Good afternoon,’ Timothy.  Last I checked, it was nearly 1pm.”  He pressed the bottle into the younger man’s hand. Tim looked at bottle, read the label, and grimaced. “Drink it,” Alfred ordered firmly. “What is it?” Donna asked curiously. “Hangover remedy,” Dick explained, a small smile playing on his lips as he watched his brother sigh before twisting the cap off the bottle and raising it to his lips.  “Alfred’s special blend.  It works, but it tastes absolutely vile.” “Medicine should never taste good,” Alfred said as he watched Tim drain the bottle with a wry expression.  “Especially for hangovers.”

*****

Sitting on one of the lower limbs of the tall oak tree in the back yard, Vanessa Troy watched the gathering of adults inside the house through the windows.  Of all of them, the one she was most curious about was the one her mother had called "Tim."

She'd never seen eyes as sad as his before, and yet they were so hauntingly familiar.

Though she knew that he was just a normal mortal man, not at all like the strong Amazon women she'd grown up with for nearly her entire life, there was something about him that made her feel safe for the first time since she'd left Themyscira.

Ness sighed and leaned against the trunk of the tree as she fiddled with the silver charm bracelet she wore on her wrist.  She was so tired of constantly moving.  She really hoped that they'd finally come to a place where they could truly be safe.

Author's Note: I've finally gotten around to finishing this chapter to a point where I am comfortable posting it.  It took a long while to finish this piece because it does reintroduce Tim to his daughter, who he hasn't seen since she was a baby.