Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

Tim Drake was not a sentimental person. So would say many people who knew him—or of him, for there were far more of those.

But Tim Drake himself was inclined to disagree. Take for example his relationship with math. He considered it something more than just a tool—it was an ally. One far more reliable than many made of flesh and blood, and even now, it was something he leaned on and took comfort in.

Math? It was real.

It wasn't something abstract and removed, to be done at one's desk with a pen and a pencil case and stacks of paper arranged in tidy lines.

It was for moments like this, where the trash blew by on the street and slammed brakes screamed in the distance and the blood flowed from your body in rivulets mixing with rainwater to leave glossy pools on dirty pavement.

Tim knew his average heartbeats per minute at this rate of activity (his current rate had slowed a little below that, but that was just inactivity. Probably).

Tim knew the blood volume of his body.

Tim knew how long it would take to go hypovolemic and pass the hell out at the estimated beats per minute.

All of which were why Tim knew that, despite the hiss he bit back as the hemostatic granules did their work…having been shot was really a bigger problem for his opponents than for himself.

After all, he could've held back more before. Almost certainly would have held back—he had really wanted to interrogate a couple of them if possible. Maybe he even still could.

But with over three-quarters of the goons already left decorating the pavement before the gunshot wound had forced him to regroup, his options were already increasingly limited.

Sometimes a partial success brought on more problems than a complete failure.

But for now, he simply had to operate on the assumption that he would be the only one conscious sometime in the next four minutes.

Three if he wanted wiggle room. That was always good.

It was a short leap from the shadowy overhang to the shoulder of the next goon, the man's spine kindly offering shock absorption as Tim springboard-ed away from him with a spin that brought Tim's leg into a graceful arc that connected solidly with the face of the next guy. A flick of the bō staff caught Springboard as he fell, and that was one, two down.

Three came on the descent, Tim letting gravity and inertia take over and drive his full weight into the man's chest. His thick layers of jacket and coat would do little to protect the back of his skull from the pavement.

A forward roll carried Tim onward from his landing spot, his feet finally hitting the grimy Gotham pavement again for the first time.

He was back in the game.

The staff whipped out as he emerged from the roll, striking the fourth opponent in the side of the knee and using the momentary stumble to reach his jaw with the other end. Tim stayed low with a dancer's grace, ignoring the burn in his leg with the knowledge that anyone armed would be aiming higher, and the extra moments to adjust would win Tim valuable seconds.

All those dance practices with Cass had paid off.

Also contrary to what folks believed, Tim was in fact perfectly capable of following directions. He simply chose not to do so often, because he could nearly always find a better way of doing things, and the rewards for compliance rarely provided enough motivation.

…That said, he did not try to argue with ballet teachers. Ballet wasn't very logical anyways, and he trusted Cass to accurately explain what she needed from him.

And ballet may not have been logical, but it was certainly useful.

Case en pointe: The well over a dozen unfortunates currently decorating the pavement and definitely doing their civic part to enhance Gotham's reputation as a top-ten city to never, ever visit.

It never ceased to amaze Tim that his professional contacts—from both nighttime and daylight exploits—were willing to travel to the city at all for meetings. If Tim had been in their places? Skype. …Metaphorically speaking, because honestly, screw the rivals; Waynetech's platform was exponentially more feature rich and secure. And the API? A thing of beauty.

The crack of a gunshot from nearly point-blank range didn't shake him, even as he felt the nagging weakness in the leg that had taken the hit earlier. As Tim expected, the shot was off by several feet, giving him the opening he needed to push forward without adjusting his own trajectory. He darted forward with a vicious snap to the assailant's kidneys with his weapon, Tim's off hand coming up to seize the firearm as the man was staggered by the pain. Staff's end against the ground coupled with a foot on the man's opposite knee provided leverage to gain height, Tim bringing his left elbow up to slam into the man's jaw without ever letting go of the pistol.

The combination of force and the shift in weight sent the man reeling backwards and Tim finally disentangled himself with a twist to let the man fall solo—the weapon removed in that same moment as Tim's body completed its rotating arc over the man's extended arm.

Tim wasted no time adjusting his grip, bringing the firearm up to bear against the opponent now furthest away. The man had a hand on the heel of his own weapon but faltered now, as if trying to wager whether or not this Bat was one who'd pull the trigger.

"You're not—"

Light reflected off of glossy black.

"—arggh!" The man stumbled, twisting to and fro to cast a confused glance around himself as blood spurted out onto the ground from a clean slice through his forearm.

A second Batarang separated the man's cheap holster from his leg with a hairsplit margin and the man jumped as his weapon clattered to the ground.

And now Tim brandished the weapon visibly, letting the bladed instrument whirl around his finger. "Want me to make it three?" he asked calmly.

The man let go of his injured arm, raising his free hand in surrender.

"Didn't think so," Tim noted with a shrug, taking his eyes off the man so that he could unload the pistol he'd picked up from the last assailant he'd knocked to the ground.

Of course, the moment both Tim's hands were full and his eyes were lowered, the man seized his chance and darted for his own firearm now lying on the ground. In the same instant that he straightened, an explosion from the man's right threw him several feet and he hit the unforgiving concrete with the wheeze of air being slammed from his lungs.

Tim finished field stripping the weapon before looking up. "Oh. I think I counted wrong?" He walked over to the man, extracting a Batarang from his belt again as he kicked away the dropped gun. "This would've been Number Four." Number Three had hit the holster. And Number Two was the explosive one he had sent out in the same moment as Number One, taking advantage of the blood-slicked distraction of the moment. Not that he was gonna explain that to Goon 6B. Why give away his secrets? Tim instead just tilted his head to the side with a grin. "Sorry about that. I kinda suck at math, I guess."

The man's head finally fell back against the pavement as he lost—or simply gave up—the battle for consciousness, and Tim took a quick moment to assure himself of the man's pulse and breathing before turning his attention to collecting the firearm the man had made the mistake of going for.

It would've taken a certain amount of speed to complete a gambit like that. And most Gotham goons? Not up to the task.

Oddly enough, a niggling in the back of Tim's brain as he surveyed the scene warned him that he actually had managed to forget something, outside of any ploys or feints or Vegas-flavored misdirection ("Now you see me…now you see stars!").

It was almost as bad a distraction as the dull but growing ache from the wound. Experience noted that if it hurt this much now, it was gonna be a real bitch later…but that was most definitely a Future Tim problem.

Present Tim had priorities like figuring out the missing piece before he ended up the missing piece.

Vehicles from GCPD were a few blocks away, but otherwise occupied.

If the goons from this meeting had called for backup—called for backup successfully—it would already have arrived.

And Tim could spot no immediate threats to civilian safety—a methodically distributed array of broken bones and bruised skulls was currently ensuring that much.

The problem couldn't have lain with any of the most visible options.…

So then, what?

Chapter Text

"Red Robin."

Oh. Yeah.

That.

"B," Tim replied evenly, ignoring the flint in the man's voice.

"I told you to wait for backup."

"You advised me to wait for backup," he retorted, but calmly, striding past the looming vigilante to retrieve the spent Batarang that lay near a goon's head. Another was wedged into a wall nearby, the sharp tip embedded into the worn bricks. The glimmering blade almost seemed decorative there—holding fast at a 90-degree angle like tiny, pristine signage announcing that this was the place to be.

Naturally, Batman didn't seem amused. "It was incredibly reckless for you to proceed against this many, especially without letting us know you intended to do so."

I did let you know, if you were paying attention, Tim gritted internally.

He felt Batman come to stand behind him as motion caught the corner of his eye, a flash of black with the briefest flicker of blue breaking through the darkness.

Wonderful. Now they arrived.

Which, frankly, was his exact point.

Red took a deep breath in, finally straightening and squaring his shoulders as he turned to look up at the man addressing him. "If this is going to be a lecture, can it wait? The pellets are holding pretty well, but I'd rather not push my luck?"

"Pellets?" Bruce repeated, eyes scanning Tim's torso briefly before darting to his upper thigh.

"Other leg," Tim replied patiently, drumming his fingers as he waited for B to catch on. He didn't really blame him, though; it was bad lighting.

"Agent A," Bruce said. Tightly. "Send the Batmobile to our current location. It's Red Robin. We'll be arriving at the Cave with a GSW. Upper leg, possible arterial complication. Blood transfusion will be performed en route."

Red Robin resisted an irrational urge to slump in relief.

It was far too soon to celebrate; he hadn't technically completed the mission just yet. Wouldn't have until he had safely delivered his real quarry.

And…he didn't feel comfortable doing so. Not just yet.

Besides, he could probably have made it back just fine on his own two wheels—he'd done so with worse damage before. He simply figured it was better not to push his luck with this. If Bruce got too pissed, he might stay zeroed in on Tim even after he'd delivered the package, and wouldn't that be a waste?

So Red Robin just nodded solemnly instead, bracing himself when he sensed more than heard Nightwing dropping down from the rooftop. No sign of the brat, so he was probably lingering roofside still.

"Nightwing. Take Robin back to the Cave."

A stretching pause and then, "You okay, RR?"

Tim gave a small nod, inclining his head in the man's direction. "It's pretty much a crawl right now. Arterial would've been worse from the get-go, so it isn't that. And unless you're offering a piggyback ride, I don't think there's much you can do either way until the Batmobile arrives." I should probably sit down, though, he thought absently, his insides starting to wince even if his face wasn't allowed to.

Nightwing seemed to hesitate a second longer, before sighing.

"I'll take care of him," Bruce finally said quietly, allowing his voice to soften ever so slightly as he laid a firm hand on Tim's shoulder and gave Nightwing a nod himself.

The blue-clad vigilante finally yielded then. A little salute, and a moment later he was gone, vanished in the gap between shadows and light.

Leaving Tim able to focus on just how woozy he was actually starting to—yep, nope. Not a good idea.

He allowed B to steer him over to a nearby crate, and checked his wrist gauntlet while the man knelt at his feet, doing what he could to check the wound without dislodging the layers of gauze and medical tape currently binding it.

Tim could feel Bruce seething, but he also knew he probably wouldn't say anything yet. Not even in the relative privacy of the alley junction.

No, emotional breakdowns were for the privacy of the Cave, the vast, empty echoing that made every word double and triple back on itself, like the recoil of a mile-long whip.

Yay.

But for now, Red checked his wrist computer, logging the latest geographic data and watching the numbers flicker across the display.

His eyes tracked the sprint of data across the screen, mind whirling just as fast as he found points of interest, paused, processed, highlighted, connected.

He could still feel the simmering tension in the background, but as long as Bruce didn't stop him, it was fine.

This was fine.

He was aware in the peripheries of his mind as Bruce completed his tense inspection and rose to his feet again.

He didn't go far, though; Red's gaze flickered to find Bruce inspecting the downed goons, checking cuffs and ties, making sure no stray traces of evidence were left behind.

He suppressed the urge to roll his eyes. It never hurt to have a second set of eyes, and he was feeling the very edges of fog creep in now.

A wave of nausea nearly sent him tumbling off the crate and it took all of his considerable willpower to keep himself still and solid against the wave of vertigo that turned the world to chlorhexidine gel beneath his seat.

Okay, so maybe he was getting more than just the edges of the expected symptoms.

Narrowed eyes then from Bruce, which Tim met equally with his own, expression sculpted from the Bianco Antico that the foundations of the Drake line comprised. He tilted his head in question. Innocent, curious.

Thoroughly full of shit, but even Bruce had trouble telling, these days.

Then again…when had Bruce ever been good at reading him? Really?

Better than the average person? Of course. But that was a painfully low bar. Especially for the Batman.

Of course, there was always the possibility that Tim's success in deception had come not because his mask was nonpareil but because Bruce rarely looked long or hard enough to see the cracks.

The rumble of the car was soothing as it broke against his thoughts like breaching waves, the thrum filling his frame with a murmuring vibration he could feel down through his bones before even stepping foot into the vehicle.

The speed demon in him regretted being relegated to the back seat, but this was the best spot for the transfusion setup. And he could admit to being a little tired.

Plus cold.

And unfortunately the ever present rain seemed doubtful as a sole explanation.

Still. "I can do this myself, B," he protested, as Bruce shuffled after him into the car and began setting up the transfusion.

"I already trusted you to monitor your well-being."

The This is the result rang pretty loud and clear in the ensuing silence.

Okay. Point.

Sighing, Red leaned back against the window, head tilted to watch the trails of water stream down the blackouts in the front.

The inside of the car was blessedly warm, even with the chill from outside still creeping in.

And the chill from inside creeping, too.

There was a lot of creeping tonight, really.

"Stay awake," Bruce ordered, prompting Tim to grimace lightly.

"Trust me, I'm not sleeping any time soon at this rate."

"No," Bruce agreed tightly, tying and taping the needle in place with finality. "You're not."

Apparently this was the one time he could actually get Bruce to agree out loud to the no-sleep thing.

Kinda roundabout.

…But still definitely a win.

The trip back to Bristol wasn't a long one, fortunately, though it still afforded plenty of time for the tension to roil and churn within the close confines of the car. Tim was gladdened, not for the first time, that he was pretty immune by now.

The little details—the creak of Bruce's gloves as he grasped the steering wheel, the hard set to his jaw, the pinch around the edges of the eye cut-outs—were just more information to be taken in and filed away. Consistent with everything Tim had come to expect by now, no real departure from standard.

Although it was true that Bruce had been hovering more in recent months, and Tim could guess well enough that this would probably apply to his anger, as well. Worth it, for what he'd gained, but…well, suffice it to say that while focus on the fight had distracted him from Bruce's actual arrival, Tim had made his plans for this stage of the evening before ever leaping back into the fray.

Maybe he was foolish. But he wasn't a fool per se, and this, too, would pass.

Hopefully quickly.

Bruce had taken manual control of the steering; Tim could tell from the subtle differences in the sway and slide and acceleration of the car. They were that much harsher, the corners taken that much tighter. If all that could be saved were milliseconds, Bruce would slice off every last one he could reach.

Tim snorted, not surprised when Bruce then twitched somehow at the sound, even over the roar of the engines. Tim…should probably stop poking at the more metaphorical of the wounds. He wasn't Jason, after all.

He was a Drake, and Drakes only did such things strategically. Or with the veneer of it, at least.

A final tear through the oasis of urban-dipped countryside, and the Batmobile was roaring its way through the depths of the Cave, somehow still decelerating into a stop that seemed absurdly smooth for all the prior speed and aggression.

Almost before Tim could loosen the restraints, the door was flung open and Bruce was at his side, unhooking the equipment with grim determination and pushing Tim's hands aside to do a final inspection, as though Alfred wasn't going to perform his own exam in mere moments.

"Timmy!"

Tim peered over Bruce's shoulder to see Dick watching him from across the Cave. Even with only a sliver of his older brother visible, the tense anticipation was evident, and Tim tried for a small smile. "Hey, Dick."

The equipment disconnected and Bruce finally giving him room enough to maneuver, Tim found his feet, carefully sliding across the seats to exit the Batmobile.

Damn, his leg was finally starting to burn for real, the adrenaline having begun that inevitable taper where the sharp and bright and loud gave way to a dull weariness and soft trembles.

"Are you okay? Your leg—"

"It's fine," Tim said, quick to interrupt that train of conversation. "Just a through-and-through."

"And yet—"

Tim couldn't fully hide a wince this time.

"—as Doctor Devabhaktuni^2a would no doubt remind you, an exam is still required to ensure that there is no fragmentation left behind. Never mind other particulate matter." Alfred stood by the exam table, nitrile-attired hands clasped neatly as he waited for Tim to limp his way over.

Tim was going to avoid eye contact as long as he damn well could. He glanced back over at a fidgeting and unmasked Dick, who was clearly doing all he could to restrain himself from vaulting a few tables and sprinting across the Cave outright. To his credit, he held steady, maintaining his vigil next to the youngest member of the crew.

Who was currently doing his best impression of a mummy sulking over having his embalming ceremonies interrupted.

"What happened with Damian?"

"None of your business, Drake!"

"Mm, mostly sprains, but I think he got a few bruised ribs that last time around, too," Dick answered, his concerned frown turned back to Damian as he ignored the child's outburst and leaned down to continue his examination. "Doesn't seem too bad, though."

"Of course it isn't, Grayson. I have fought with far worse injuries than this." The kid somehow made the last word sound like some particularly vile and obscene sort of creature that civilized people hardly dared glance upon.

He always had had that talent.

Sighing, Dick didn't hide his exasperation. "I know, Dames, but you shouldn't have to. It's not healthy.

"And that goes for all of us," he added, pointedly looking back at Tim, who by now had made it to the examination table and was patiently waiting as Alfred cut apart the leg of his uniform and Bruce set about fussing with various items in the background, though Tim was pretty sure Alfred had already prepped everything that he would actually need.

Tim closed his eyes and counted the thrums of his pulse as the sharp chill of metal bit against his skin, a precursor to the work likely needed to clean the wound itself. When his heart rate felt under control, he finally let himself remove the cowl, the brisk rush of air a relief to his skin. He raked a hand through damp and tangled hair before wordlessly holding out a hand to Bruce, who with similar yet more forceful silence handed him the solvent.

Another way Tim differed from his older brother—the mask and cowl were only for purposes of identity; he could hide just as well without them.

Maybe better, because his face allowed him to simulate emotion in a way the less organic mask could never hope to match.

"It would have been incredibly foolish of you to jump into that fight alone if you had not been injured, Tim."

And release the wolves. "I didn't go into that fight injured," Tim pointed out. "That came later."

"And you didn't retreat once it happened."

"You're right—I didn't retreat. I regrouped. And it paid off."

"B's right about this one, Tim. I get time wasn't on your side, but you can't take risks like that."

Ignoring the kinds of risks you take— "You were at Miller Harbor," Tim replied, keeping a steady gaze on Dick, who'd already had his mask gone from the time they had pulled in. "Damian, too. Bruce was busy hopscotching between the Diamond District and Dillon Avenue."

…Which was honestly weird. None of Bruce's erratic movements across the map had been in the plan, and these days he normally kept his patrols subtly closer to Tim's own routes.

He made a mental note to look into it.

"Nobody active tonight was going to reach my location before those guys dispersed."

"Because of course there was no chance that any of the miscreants might escape if the great Timothy Drake decided to proceed solo," Damian replied, the typical sneer coming through in his tone.

Tim raised a brow, taking his time as he spoke. "How many of them do you think would've escaped if I'd had to wait for the two of you to show up?

"How many on your side might have escaped if you'd had to split focus between there and my location?

"And, for the record? None of them did escape the great Timothy Drake-Wayne," he finished tartly.

"You're right," Dick cut in quickly, voice almost entreating. "You did get them all this time, and you made it out…okayish. But you can't rely on that kind of luck, Little Bro," he finished with a shake of his head.

Bruce nodded. "I've learned that lesson myself, Tim. Many times. And I've tried to pass that on to all of you."

"Many times," Dick chimed in with a smirk.

"It wasn't luck," Tim snapped, beginning to get genuinely angry for the first time that night. Luck. Like he hadn't managed his every step after that injury had torn its way through his leg, timing his strikes and giving himself enough leeway to breathe without passing out full-stop in the middle of the battle.

And worse, like it was lucky that he'd needed to fight solo in the first place. Heck, he was pretty damned sure any sense of luck had fallen out of the window from the moment he'd been hit with small-caliber gunfire, but sure, let's ignore that little detail.…

Tim drew a breath in. "You're right. I fully agree. I don't have that kind of luck, so no, I don't rely on it at all. Why try to rely on things you know won't be there half the time?"

"I doubt Father's point here is for you to have a pity party about your lack of good fortune."

Tim bared his teeth. "Father can speak for himself, Brat."

"And believe me, I will," Bruce finished, placing a quelling hand on Tim's shoulder.

Shit, deep breaths. Don't let yourself lose control of the situation.

"This isn't just a one-off, Tim; it's become a pattern of behavior—one that cannot be allowed to continue."

And what, exactly, are you going to do? Fire me? Been there, done that, got the surgery. "I was actually hoping we'd have time to talk," Tim said quickly, careful to keep the acid in his internal monologue from leaching out into his spoken words.

"Oh?" Bruce tilted his head with slightly narrowed eyes, curiosity and suspicion in an evident war.

A snap of Tim's wrist flicked the USB out of a compartment in his gloves. He handed it over to Bruce, shrugging. "Recovered this from one of the suspects at the scene. I've already done a preliminary, and so far the pattern I'm seeing seems to indicate that Contreras may be making overtures at this point with some of the gangs on the Upper West Side."

Bruce hummed.

"I know you've been in that area a lot for the past month or two—more than I have—so I thought maybe you'd have some opinions on it?"

"Hn. You should've come to me sooner. I could've saved you time if you were looking to track Contreras' movements."

…And exactly zero thanks given for sharing. Cool.

"Well, for my own part, I am please to report that the round appears to have only struck one of the lesser blood vessels."

Tim's slight ease in tension was followed immediately by a sharp frown from Alfred.

"Mind, it came grievously close to damaging the femoral. We are fortunate, indeed, that it did not."

Tim sighed and did his best to look appropriately chastened.

"Still, Master Timothy should make a swift enough recovery."

"Thanks, Alfred. I can finish the stitches myself."

"Which you will not," Bruce said emphatically, the hardness to his tone leaving no space to argue. "And yes," he added, tone lightening to something slightly more gracious, "thank you, Alfred."

Alfred merely hummed, beginning to thread the needle to close the last layers of the wound as Tim raised an eyebrow and a grim Bruce strode to the Batcomputer to add Tim's contributions to the nexus of other relevant files.

Thankfully for Tim, Alfred, at least, seemed to have gotten any urges to lecture out of his system with the initial scolding, and now worked with studious and silent speed to complete wound treatment.

"Can I hit the showers now?" Tim asked the moment the thread was snipped and fresh bandages had been tied off. "My skin is itching like crazy from the sweat," he added, though he carefully refrained from using a wheedling tone; that was always counterproductive with Alfred.

Alfred raised an eyebrow. "It would be best if you stayed off that leg as long as possible, but yes." He turned to one of the cabinets and quickly extracted a waterproof covering for Tim to wrap around the bandages. "I highly recommend you use the benches, however."

"Noted. And thanks," Tim answered with a nod, already unbuckling the twin bandoliers that crisscrossed his torso and pausing to toss them onto a nearby workbench. He could feel Alfred's frown on his back (probably more due to the injury than the messiness) as he hobbled the rest of the way to the showers, top sections of the protective plating briskly stripped away and arms rid of the secondary layer's sleeves by the time he made it there.

Still, nobody actually tried to stop him—or rush over and help him like he couldn't manage even bathtime without the closest of supervision—so Tim counted it as a complete win all the same.

The shower itself felt a little less triumphant, the fresh injury locking Tim into the constraints of a glorified sponge bath. But it was still enough to get the sweat and grime off just fine, and maybe he needed the extra time to breathe (and for Bruce to get thoroughly ensnared in the case). With any luck—

Tim was promptly reminded that he didn't have luck when he exited the showers and found Dick waiting right outside, arms folded as he leant against the wall nearby.

Tim raised an eyebrow expectantly.

"Whatcha got there?" Dick inquired, a small frown overtaking his features as he took in the dark bundle of fabric Tim now held in his hands.

Tim shrugged noncommittally. "Left a few things down here earlier. Need to take them to my room." And it was all, very technically, true. He had left his costume here mere minutes ago. And he did indeed need to take it with him up to his room. Where he went after? Nobody's business but his own, really. Not like Dick had asked that.

Dick sighed, and Tim returned it with a frown of his own, wondering why the man suddenly seemed so put upon by Tim's answer.

"Tim, you don't have to worry we're going to start picking at you over every little thing. We know you're messy, and we love you for it."

An unreasonably loud Tch came even though the Demon Brat was literally nowhere in sight.

Really? This is what I get?

"Look, I know Bruce can be a little.…" Dick twirled his hand around as he trailed off. "You know."

Yes. Tim very much knew what Bruce could be like. He'd gotten a front-row seat for years now, actually.

"But he's your dad, and that means he has responsibilities to you; he knows that. And say what you will about B, but he takes responsibilities seriously. Getting him to back off is the hard bit, right?" Dick flashed a grin.

Tim didn't return a hint of it. "Funny. Hasn't really been a problem for me."

"O-kay, well…he also has the whole team to think about. All of us do, actually. We have responsibilities to each other. And you already know part of that is coordinating to make sure that everyone can work cohesively and our operations have the best chance of success."

Tim wondered where running away to another city sat on that scale, but then he really couldn't talk. And, he supposed, the newly christened Nightwing had no longer been on a team with Batman back then.

"Tim, you're old enough to be out there solo; I get that. Heck, I encouraged it. You have cases of your own, and I'm the last person who'd expect you to ask permission every time you have to make a decision in the field."

Encouraged. Encouraged. Tim felt his breaths pleading to pick up. He did not allow them to. "I know," he replied evenly, meeting Dick's eyes unwaveringly. He told himself not to search for anything he wouldn't find there.

Like remorse.

"But that just means more responsibility, not less. If you're not going to be shadowing me or B as Robin, then it's up to you to keep everyone informed of what's going on. And it's not just tonight; it seems like you could've brought this case to us a while ago, and that might've made all the difference here."

"Is this you asking why I didn't?"

Dick blinked at him before nodding slowly. "Yeah. I'd like to know that."

"Then can we talk about this later? My leg still hurts like a complete bitch and I really just want to get upstairs right now. I already have B slated for a talk, so." Tim trailed off, rolling his eyes. He considered bringing up sleep, but even though it would actually be an honest claim this time, it'd ironically make his story sound less credible.

Dick snorted. "Sure. We'll talk later, then, no hurry." He turned to leave, before hesitating. "You know I love you, right? We love you—all of us."

Partly true. Mostly a lie.

But, again—Tim wasn't really one to talk. "I know," he said, allowing himself a small smile.

Partly true. Mostly a lie.

It seemed to do the trick well.

From there, it was little matter for Tim to slip out from under their watchful gazes, emerging from the elevator to drift down the hallways like smoke. Three doors down. Back when Tim first began staying at the Manor, it had seemed…presumptuous to take the room sandwiched between Dick's room and Jason's. As though he were closer to Bruce. As though he had precedence here. But he'd wanted to be close to Jason's room. And not too far from Bruce's (he needed to know when the man had nightmares, or was simply neglecting his sleep again). So he'd picked the room directly across from Jason's: three doors down from the master bedroom, and opposite side of the hallway (he'd learned only recently why Jason had wanted that extra room as a buffer. Jason…had not had a happy childhood. In ways very different from Tim. Mostly).

Damian now occupied the same buffer room that Tim had foregone.

Tim had forced himself to be rational about it.

He'd managed by a hair.

It was that same cool logic that led him to his bedroom now, his cut-legged uniform now bundled in his arms. Tim could've replaced it in a heartbeat; even before he'd been emancipated, access to funds of his own had never been a problem, really. He'd made sure of it. Why give someone else the ability to clip your wings?

The emancipation had only made things simpler, secrecy no longer paramount. Still employed, but not paramount.

Either way, he didn't require Bruce's funds any more than he required Bruce's support in other areas.

…None of which, of course, made a difference to the benefactor he was saving this costume for the sake of. Tim could've thrown a suitcase of money on the table to make a point, and it wouldn't have made a difference to the man. He just would've gotten a combined interrogation and lecture about his use of the suitcase on top of one about how wasteful it was to discard the costume when he had a willing (if perpetually cantankerous) repairman available.

And Tim had gotten enough lectures to last a while, thanks.

Some days Tim got a little nostalgic (okay, maybe not so surprising for someone with a comicbook collection as extensive as his) and found himself lingering in his old room, letting the ghosts of memory whisper their stories.

This was not one of those days. And all he saw was the cold reality of the space: a neat, tidy room sparsely arrayed with personal items—here a picture frame (his biological parents, as befit a dutiful son), there a poster (a generic print of a location Tim didn't actually care about). It was all perfectly pleasant, curated to be as inoffensive as a hotel room. A hint of personality without enough solidity that anyone could figure out a reason to dislike him it^2b.

Tim riffled through the back of a closet filled with old school uniforms, dug out a bag filled with old gym clothes (washed, of course. He wasn't that bad…and he wasn't trying to draw attention to himself. Being the subject of a murder attempt from Alfred would very much draw attention to himself).

Now, if it were Damian trying to kill me…heh. He could picture it with ease—had, many times. "Tim, what's gotten your brother so upset?"—because it wouldn't have been Damian who'd be up for questioning.

Buried under the sportswear was Tim's goal: a tightly bound roll of nylon. He unlooped the quick-release knots on each end, and into the dry-bag went the damaged costume he'd managed to smuggle out of the Cave, the pieces arranged around each other in a practiced assembly that allowed the costume to be stored and transported in minimal space. Each member of the family had learned the same trick for his or her respective costumes, and then drilled the motions until the breakdown and storage could be done with that same economy in terms of speed and movement.

The costume safely stored, Tim packed it into the secondary go-bag that was hidden in his room (useful when dealing with folks who knew to look for the primary one).

The last item to be collected was the folding karambit secreted away in a compartment of his bed frame. Honestly, that was more for the weapon's security than Tim's. Minus a certain Gremlin, Wayne Manor was still the most secure place he knew, and given the natural state of chaos Tim lived in…well, he preferred not to risk having to explain to the bestower of the gift that he may have lost track of the weapon.

No worries of that this time, for the blade would be on his person tonight, hidden under one of Dick's old hoodies along with a few smoke pellets and a miniature flashbang (a definite fave).

Dressed down but kitted up, Tim grimaced slightly as he felt the full weight of the bag settle onto his shoulder. He was good to walk, even with this, but that didn't mean it wouldn't suck.

Still. He took a deep breath and set his shoulders. He still had stairs to get down; no sense being dramatic about things now.

Freaking ouch. By the time Tim had made it down the stairs and to the massive, brightly lit macro-showroom that passed as a garage at the Wayne Manor, he'd decided that he had indeed earned a fair bit of drama. But just because he had earned it, that didn't mean he planned to cash in just yet.

…At least not fully.

Secure in the fact that luck, as a concept, did not exist in his life, Tim was aware he had little time to lose; sooner than later, someone in the Manor was definitely going to come after him, and it was only a matter of time before they either got lucky or actually managed an educated guess as to his whereabouts.

That in mind, he quickly snatched a set of keys from amongst the dozens hanging on the gleaming rack near the door.

Now, Tim wasn't an idiot; he knew all the cars in the complex had multiple trackers attached in case of theft, hasty tactical retreats, or ill-advised juvenile delinquency. Tim decided to class tonight's situation as the second—though the third sounded tempting.

No matter which vehicle he took, it would be the work of seconds for Bruce to pull up the system and find out which vehicle was absent. He could even shut them down remotely with the touch of a finger.

Every vehicle except, of course, the Infiniti M35X.

You see, the Infiniti was Tim's car.

Bruce just didn't know it yet.

He would after tonight.

Black, sleek, and beautiful, it didn't have a forced-induction system or all the fancy baseline features of some of the others, but it was powerful and it was understated, and that was the exact combo that resonated with Tim. He knew what this car could do if you knew how to work with it, and even if Bruce had been the one to initially pick it, that didn't mean he or the others actually appreciated it enough to give it the attention warranted.

Which was just fine by Tim. The Infiniti hadn't actually had most of its trackers working for months. And nobody had fucking noticed.

Tim had taken them offline slowly, gradually, knowing that knocking them all out at once would've created an obvious absence on the surveillance grid. He had left the two most accessible ones—most likely to be checked by the others, easiest to be reached by himself—activated, tapering off the presence of their siblings one by one.

It had made for a surprisingly interesting project, actually. Because the trackers operated from the same software and only slightly different hardware from their vigilante tech, all Tim had needed to do was take home a few spare tracking bugs from the Cave itself and stash them away in the Nest for practice. At certain points he'd even brought them back to the Cave if there was tech there he needed to use for modification or experimentation. If anyone asked, he simply explained that he was making upgrades to the trackers. Which he was, actually.

He was just also working on how to countervail them effectively.

And he'd done it. He'd done it and he'd known well before he completed the project which car he was going to apply it to second.

Second because only someone with a severe lack of tactical understanding would risk sacrificing his best option with a test run, unless circumstances truly called for it.

And now Tim was here, the blood rushing through his brain and a feral grin splitting his face as he pulled a small set of tools from his go-bag and worked on overriding the control system and rewiring the two remaining trackers. He could've just disabled them outright, yeah. But it was way more fun at this point if he also used them to interfere with the signals being sent by the other vehicles.

Especially handy should anyone wish to pursue him in a civilian vehicle—which was the most likely option, as Batman surely had little reason to be seen pursuing young Timothy Drake-Wayne.

Holding a screwdriver between his teeth, Tim found himself wondering which of the vehicles Jason would've laid claim to had he been in this position (he should probably give Jason the good news on the tech progress).

Tim had been thinking about this, actually.

If Jason were gonna make a statement, he was going to make a statement…especially if that statement essentially amounted to Screw you, Bruce. And Jason absolutely loved some of the classic sports brands that Bruce collected—old and new models alike.

His favorite from the most recent buying spree seemed to be the devastatingly pretty Arancio Argos Aventador Coupé, and Tim could hardly blame him for being enamored with the newcomer. The lines on the vehicle were gorgeous, and it had run like an absolute dream when Bruce gave it a test run after a few of his usual modifications (when you had access to some of the best tech and equipment on the planet, you used it. And neither Tim nor Jason was complaining).

Tim watched as first one, then the second tracker flickered offline and then back on in modified form on his phone, which had been sitting propped up on the dashboard, security feeds on display as he worked.

Bingo.

Tim quickly tossed his tools back in the bag; he'd pack them away more neatly later on. But right now? Jason'd probably say it was time to get the fuck outta Dodge. And that, Tim could do.

The familiar hum of the engine sent a shivery thrill of happiness through Tim's aching, bruised, and bloodied frame, and all those stupid stairs were totally about to be worth it. So worth it.

The garage door began its rise sequence easily with another press of the key fob, and Tim smoothly pulled out from the parking slot, maybe pushing just a little harder than was advisable as he shifted back into drive from reverse and steered the vehicle to the edge of the building. The door whispered shut behind him as he sped down the driveway, watching without worry as he approached the unhurriedly opening gates at what was definitely a faster speed than would look sane.

To anyone who hadn't watched Bruce Wayne do the same thing a hundred times, maybe.

Tim only smiled, letting a window down and enjoying the cold prickle of a drizzling rain on his skin as the countryside sped by and the city lights grew larger in the horizon. The cold and the renewed adrenaline chased away some of the fatigue that had settled in, and Tim found himself feeling just a little bit safe and settled for the first time that night.

He flicked the radio on, fingertips drumming the wheel as he surfed the channels and cruised his way into the night.

Chapter Text

10 minutes later found a shaking Tim standing in the hallway of a dingy apartment building, absently taking in the chipping, yellowed paint, and popcorn ceiling and stained—okay, yeah. Right—never look at the carpet. Even he had better self-preservation instincts than that.

The door in front of him creaked open a sliver, the sound of grumbling emanating from within, before opening more fully. The bright glare of light spilled out, and Tim squinted for a moment before being cast in shadow by a very large frame.

"Replacement," the older boy drawled, leaning against the doorframe. He was dressed in basketball shorts and a gray tank top that had probably been closer to black in its earlier life. The faded Neon Knights logo was still just visible. "You know, for a society kid," he commented, giving Tim a lazy once-over, "it's amazing how rude you are."

Tim gave him a little smirk.

"No, I mean, really—here I was, set to have a perfectly nice, Bat-free night, and here you show up looking like a drowned rat." A glance downwards. "A drowned, bloodied rat," he pointedly amended, wrinkling his nose.

Tim only grinned, and then grinned even wider as the reason for Jason's distinct lack of actual heat showed up like a desert summer in the middle of Jersey.

"Tim!" the woman nearly shouted, hanging from Jason's shoulder now. "I did not think I would have a chance to see you this day."

"Honestly, same, but.…" He shrugged. "Glad it worked out this way, I guess."

Kori tilted her head at him for a moment, performing the same scan that Jason had, but her eyes focusing on Tim's own rather than the increasingly evident wound that he probably should've secured a little more before making like a ghost.

Kori turned to whisper into Jay's ear, murmuring something that prompted an eye roll from him.

She poked at his shoulder then, long fingernails helping drive home the point—albeit carefully so.

"Fiiine," he said in a tone that definitely counted as whiny, no matter what he might want to argue later.

Kori smiled, looking self-satisfied as she gave Jason a little nuzzle before heading back into the apartment.

"All right, Replacement," he said with a put-upon sigh, though he couldn't fully hide a smile. "Apparently you're welcome here. For some reason."

"It's one of the greater mysteries of the universe," Tim amicably acknowledged, one hand still gripping his go-bag and the other stuffed into his pocket as he shuffled into the apartment.

Jason summarily snatched the bag from him as soon as he was inside, launching it onto the couch before he locked up.

Still shivering a little from the cold and damp, Tim took a moment to examine his surroundings while Jason disappeared down the hall.

Sporting jean shorts, bare feet, and a blazing smile, Kori now reclined in one of the dining chairs, the remains of an elaborate dinner for two set in front of her. Chinese or Thai, going by both appearance and scent.

A towel came whipping towards his face and Tim almost missed catching it. "Thanks," he said dryly.

"You're fucking welcome. Now stop dripping your depression all over my floors."

Tim looked down at the spotless but worn linoleum, before slowly looking back up at Jason. "They're thanking me for the upgrade."

"Fuck off, emo. You eaten yet?" he asked a moment later, grumbling to himself as he pulled a plate from the cabinets and set it on the island.

"Uhhh," Tim began, with all due eloquence.

"Please," Jason said, snorting as he set a large skillet on the stove and let it start to pull heat. "You should know by now I'm fucking with you. We both know you haven't had shit yet."

Tim folded his arms. "You have no way of knowing that."

"I can smell the hunger pheromones wafting off you. Underneath the angsty-teenager stench."

"Bull."

"Oh, believe me…it's awful."

It was always a little hard to tell exactly how much Jason was ever bluffing when it came to his enhanced senses.

"So, how long exactly you planning on staying here?" he asked, glancing back over his shoulder as he pulled a bag of frozen green somethings out of the jam-packed refrigerator.

The humor of before dissipating, Tim sighed and raked a hand through his newly ruffled and still slightly damp hair, turning to track Jason as the latter headed to the kitchen table himself to take a seat. "Just need a place to crash until morning."

Jason lifted an eyebrow. "Uh-hunh. And why can't you do that at the Manor?"

Tim matched his expression. "Because I have work in the morning and I don't need Bruce up my ass until after then?"

Jason snorted. "Quotes like that, I see why the tabloids stay employed, boy genius."

Tim rolled his eyes. "Like you have any room to talk," he grumbled.

Jason gave him an appraising look. "You know I can still smell the blood on you, right? Try again."

Tim tried for a cheeky grin. "I'm pretty sure there's blood on us most nights."

Jason scowled, climbing to his feet with a dangerous grace.

"Okay!" Tim squeaked, raising his hands in placation. "I got hurt tonight and everyone's on my case about how I handled it. But I don't have time for this. I've got W.E. meetings in the morning!"

Jason snorted, taking a seat again. "When don't you? Also"—here he narrowed his eyes—"define 'everyone.' "

"Bruce, Dick…Damian."

Jason scoffed. "The demon brat doesn't even count for stuff like this…kid stays on your case like he's trying to make detective." He regarded Tim a moment longer, tapping his fingers against the table top. "What about Alfred? He on your side here?"

"He was…not happy. He's not gonna get involved—"

"But if he did, it wouldn't be against Bruce. Damn," Jason muttered. "The king has spoken."

"And it is not for us mere mortals to question."

"Smart answer," Jason replied, nodding sagely.

"Plus Alfred had to pretty much bisect the right leg of my costume, and I figured you'd want a look before I did anything else."

"Correct."

Tim folded his arms. "So, are you going to help me, or…?"

"Yeah." A toss of his hand. "Just try not to bleed all over my sheets."

"Like you do?" Tim pointed out, lifting both brows this time.

"Again, smartass: My sheets. Just be glad I ain't making your waifish ass sleep on the couch."

"Thaaanks, you're the best!" He skipped over to the table, approaching Kori. "May I?"

When she nodded, Tim snatched up the small container of mustard before squirting a sizable amount straight into his mouth.

Jason cringed. "That. Is horrifying. You're horrifying."

Tim swallowed. "Hey," he said, between licking his lips, "you don't complain when Kori drinks it."

Jason gave a huge eye roll in response. "Kori is an indigenous Tamaranean. You are a human, with human physiology."

Tim shrugged. "Allegedly."

"Uh-huh," Jason drawled, leaving the table again to check on the pan. "Kori?"

"Yes, Jason?"

"Get him warm. …Sit on him, if you have to," he added, with way too much cheer. Dude had definitely been hanging out with Roy too much.

"Hmm, I accept this challenge; someone should ensure he stays warm and rested if he will not do these things himself."

"Uh-uh, nope, I'm fine; I have a hoodie in my bag." Tim walked over to the couch and extricated the referenced item in proof.

"You little shit, that's mine!" Jason exclaimed when he saw it, catching the garment with a growl as Tim flung it at him.

"Fine, I'll get another," Tim replied, shrugging. Before snatching up the red hoodie that conveniently lay next to his bag on the couch.

"Just for that, I'm making this shit extra spicy."

"Oh, nooo, whatever will I do?" Tim returned, pausing to stick out his tongue at Jason before tugging the garment over his head and wriggling into the sleeves. Naturally, the article of clothing all but drowned him—just the way he liked it.

"Gremlin," Jason declared accusingly. "Clothes-stealing little gremlin."

"That's me," Tim replied gamely, hiding a smile in the sleeve and breathing in the scent of smoke and gun oil and Nomex even as other aromas began to permeate the air—ginger and garlic and bell pepper—as the skillet sizzled, oil popping and snapping at a low volume. "Stir fry?" he queried.

"Yep. Be done in a minute." Jason traipsed over to the refrigerator again, pulling out a large sheet pan full of steamed rice.

Tim flopped down in the seat Jason had previously occupied, striking up a conversation with Kori while Jay continued his culinary endeavors in the background.

He didn't miss the glances Jason kept casting his way throughout, but studiously ignored them all the same. If Jason really wanted to know, he'd ask.

He probably wouldn't. At least not until tomorrow. Bat-free days were to be honored.

…Present extenuating circumstances excepted.

In the meantime, Tim kept the focus firmly off of himself by asking Kori about the Outlaws' latest (mis)adventures, which quickly prompted no shortage of commentary from Jason, as well. Including some particularly pointed comments that left Tim more than a little longing to see exactly what happened when you combined Zytirian tech with explosives hailing from Earth.

He made a mental note to do some further investigation. And find out whether Earth held any moderately easy-to-obtain substances that were considered valuable on Zytir^3a.

It didn't take long for the food to be finished, and Tim actually found himself looking forward to it. He was tired as hell, yeah, but for some reason his stomach had abruptly come to life during the conversation (maybe Kori's questions about whether he'd ever had daylily^3b blossoms?), and eating didn't sound like as much of a waste of time as it had earlier.

When Jason finally dropped off the plate piled high with rice and veggies, Tim accepted the offering without further protest.

"Here," Jason said brightly, topping off the delivery with a dramatic flourish before switching tones, voice falling into a flat disappointment as he dropped a familiar bright-yellow condiment bottle in front of Tim, "now you have a little rice to dip your mustard in."

Tim blinked, looking up to see a mild grimace on Jason's face. And he couldn't help it: he wheezed.

Jason rolled his eyes and started back towards the kitchen.

…And Tim kept wheezing, truly unable to stop. It wasn't even that funny.

"What the—" Unfortunately, Jason seemed to agree with that assessment, staring at Tim for one frozen, wide-eyed moment before exploding towards him in a fury of motion. "Oh, hell no!"

Between one moment and the next, Tim suddenly found his jaw caught in an iron grip and Jason's face unnervingly close to his own.

Tim instinctively grabbed Jason in response, hands coming up to grip the elder's wrists. A late thought came shrilly: Did he just jump the fucking counter?

Yet despite the palpable anger and firm grip, Jason was still careful as he turned Tim's face first to one side and then the other, and it gave Tim's brain a few extra beats to put the pieces together.

Angry words from Jason confirmed it a moment sooner than Tim could say anything. "I know your little ass didn't show up here high. ¡Chale^3c!" he hissed.

Oops. "I'm fine, Jay," Tim insisted, attempting to pry Jason's fingers away.

It was highly ineffective.

"Yeah, you don't fucking sound fine," Jason retorted harshly. "Believe me, Timbo—I know I'm fucking hilarious, but that wasn't even B-list material for me."

"Yeah, well, add that to like three hours of sleep in forty-eight hours, plus a little hypovolemia and—"

"What."

Tim held his tongue, unsure precisely where his misstep had been.

"I am aware hypovolemia is a serious condition for humans, Tim," a voice said behind him, sounding unexpectedly stern. "If you are currently experiencing that—"

"I'm not!" Tim insisted, glancing at Kori from the corner of his eye. "I already had a transfusion. And it was really only a pint or two at most."

"Maybe," Jason began slowly, finally relinquishing his grip on Tim's face as he straightened to his full height, "you oughta tell me exactly how this mishap everyone's so upset about happened."

…Maybe it was just a trick of the light, but the flare of green that seemed to glimmer from his irises as he loomed over Tim did not look promising.

"You do realize…what you did…was stupid as shit, right?"

Tim blinked. He had anticipated Jason might be a little…unimpressed by his choices—or maybe just by the fact he hadn't pulled it all off more cleanly—but he hadn't expected this level of anger and distaste over it. He stiffened, feeling his own anger flare in anticipation of a fight now.

"You were bleeding out. You knew you were bleeding out. And you decided to keep bleeding out so you could complete the mission."

"Okay, I was bleeding out; I get it."

"No, I don't think you fucking do," Jason hissed. "If you did, you wouldn't have pulled a stunt like this in the first place."

Something in Tim chilled at the words. He'd heard the words—maybe in different tone, maybe in different wording, but always in same sentiment—a hundred times.

Silly little boy. You should have known better. I'm so disappointed in you, Timothy, really.

"What I understand," Timothy began slowly, testing the weight of each word like an Acejet Stinger before he released it, "is that I took care of the only two things that mattered tonight for that mission: getting the data off of Contreras's men, and making sure there weren't any fatalities in the process."

"Uh-huh." Jason gave a slow nod then, jaw working for several moments before he spoke again. "Yeah, Bruce needs to bench your ass."

Tim felt his fists clench. "Are you kidding me?"

"Do I fucking look like I am?" Jason replied, arching his brows. "Shit, if I were part of governance for the costume club, it'd already be a done fucking deal."

Tim was absolutely seething and he knew Jason had to sense the level of fury, but the elder boy remained unbothered, calmly flopping down on one of the dining chairs as he regarded Tim with a steady gaze.

"Look, Replacement: Believe it or not, I have a pretty good idea what I'm looking at here—and right now you're not even trying to hide it. You're turning into a walking disaster zone—again—and there's a thin fucking line between the kind of shit you're doing now and getting yourself killed."

Part of Tim wanted to leave right then and there, never mind the time that it would cost him to find another place to crash. He still had margin. Not much, but some.

Some.

"You do realize how bad it is for me to be the one saying that, right?"

"Never expected it of you," Tim said with a saccharine sort of brightness to his tone.

"Oh, stop making it sound like a grand betrayal or something. This is me trying to keep you from painting the rest of the city a very anemic red. Speaking of which.…"

Tim watched in brief puzzlement as Jason snatched the forgotten plate of food from the table and stalked back over to the counter, adding additional helpings of broccoli and asparagus to the already packed plate.

Kori took over then, halting any thoughts of trying to slip away unnoticed or come up with a quick excuse to depart. "Tim. You are exceptionally good at strategy. I have witnessed this in your missions with our team. I would not hesitate to have an individual like you on my council of advisors.

"But your actions tonight were reckless and did not provide enough strategic value to justify them. It was needless."

As if that weren't enough to process, Tim found his immediate retort cut short by Jason's none too quiet grumbling in the background.

" 'Oh, I'm fine,' he says. 'Just a little pint or two,' he says. Este pinche pendejo^{[This fucking idiot/asshole]}…"

Kori favored Jason with an amused partial smile before soberly turning her attention back to Tim. "I agree with Jason; were you a part of my council as mentioned, you would be facing disciplinary actions for this incident."

"The Outlaws do reckless crap all the time!" Tim protested, incredulously glancing from Kori to Jason and back again. "You're basically known for it at this point!"

"Within limits," she replied, her eyes glowing more brightly now. "And with the knowledge that it is our mutual responsibility to keep each other in check."

Yeah, in between enabling each other, maybe.

Kori narrowed her eyes as though she had read the snark straight from his brain. "Your behavior is like Jason when he first came to live with us. When he did not think he was worth it," she added, voice growing softer.

Jason cleared his throat loudly in the least subtle move possible, apparently not so eager for his turn in the limelight as he stalked back to the table with the refilled plate and firmly set it down in front of Tim. "You're gonna need iron for all that missing blood. Not to mention brain matter."

"Still have more than you," Tim said with a shrug, prompting Jason to cuff him upside the head.

"Dunno, feels pretty empty in there to me. Think I heard something rattle."

"I understand dehydration and chronic malnourishment can also impair cognitive functions for your species."

"Yeah, that'd account for a whole hell of a lot with this one," Jason agreed.

"You know as well as I do that I haven't been malnourished in months, Jason."

"Your earlier bout of hysteria was not reassuring, Timothy Drake-Wayne," Kori noted airily, clearly unimpressed by his brilliant rejoinder.

"I'm fine," Tim groaned, though already resigning himself at this point to being under observation for the next several hours. "My blood sugar's probably still a little off, too, but see?" He shoveled a bite of steaming-hot rice into his mouth. "I'm eating."

Of course, the pair couldn't just leave it at that; Tim found himself summarily dragged over to the couch and Kori settled down next to him while Jason sprawled out on the armchair to his other side.

To his relief, though, they didn't actually seem to expect further socializing from him; they were content to instead let him eat in peace while they picked up in the middle of a totally separate conversation about the education provided to Tamaranean royalty. What they'd been discussing before Tim had shown up, if he had to guess.

"So Ga'inza was your history teacher, right?"

Kori nodded, her fingers absently carding through Tim's hair as she propped her elbow on the backrest of the couch. "One of them, yes. She handled the segments focused on the governments Tamaran has had over the centuries, as well as the failures and triumphs of their military leaders and royalty. Another of my favorite teachers was Izra'za; he was assigned to handle cultural history, and possessed a great love of the arts."

"I remember when we were on Chytopsis, you mentioned…General Oska'aune? That's where you got the strategy for the operation from, right?"

"Yes. Him, and several others Ga'inza taught me of. I was in particular thinking of his approach during the Battle of Zurith, though much of our own strategy needed to be adapted to steeper terrain."

"Yeah. Good thing none of us are afraid of heights," Jason noted with a grin.

"That would've been sad indeed," Kori nodded. "My skills of flight afforded an excellent view." The way her eyes narrowed sent a tiny chill down Tim's spine, even as he couldn't resist leaning into her hand.

Kori was unapologetically fierce in her defense of her people, her family, anyone she had chosen to shelter under her protection. And she didn't mind celebrating, either, when victory was obtained. It was simply the way of things.

Tim ate his stir fry in silence.

"I should send for 'Inza the next time we leave Earth. She should be able to provide you with copies of the books I studied. The collections of paintings from the Nassine & Sciambrahd Eras by Ki'err and the biographies of General Os'kaune & Royal Advisor Arda'an by Davi'tien are amongst my favorites."

"Really? You could—you'd actually be able to get those?"

"Of course. You don't think they'd respond to my call?" She pointedly lifted a brow.

"Yeah, but…they've been pretty…busy over there. Not sure they'd have time to—"

"You're a valued and trusted friend of myself and my people both," Kori said, voice and expression both turning stern. "It will be done. We have whole libraries collected, and you think we will miss a mere shade of those? In fact, you will not be depriving us of anything; it will be the work of moments to have copies requested and created so that we may continue to guard the original works. A simple matter." She leveled Jason with a narrow look.

Jason absolutely beamed at that, not even attempting to hide his excitement. "And that, Timbo, is why she's secretly a queen. Don't let the formal title fool you."

Kori's eyes sparkled in restrained mirth, fingers casually drawn through her long mane in a show of tidying it. "And beyond that, I doubt giving one of the foremost warriors I know materials further instructive in his endeavors would be considered a poor use of resources. You will honor our great ones well."

Jason blinked before blushing furiously at that. "Dunno about that," he chuckled lowly, scratching at the back of his neck. "Not exactly your standard military leader over here."

"So?" Tim piped up, ignoring Jason's arched brow (probably at the fact he still had a mouth full of food). "Some of the greatest leaders we have records of didn't lead formally organized armies. Back when I was still gonna do the whole college thing—"

"What do you mean, you were going to?"

"—I had this research project I was working on—"

"No, hold the fuck on!"

"—about the Maroon and Indigenous communities and resistance efforts across^3d…"

And then they were both on a roll.

Of course, the peace couldn't last.

When did it ever?

Tim was just getting to a part of Puerto Rico's history he found particularly enthralling, when something in Jason's whole aura changed.

A subtle shift in energy rippled across the room.

The hairs on the back of Tim's neck lifted in tandem.

"Bedtime for little birds," Jason said, his announcement abrupt but quiet, his voice a murmur. He rocked forward to his feet in an unhurried way, movements smooth and easy, but someone who knew him well would spot the changes in his stance and the way he carried himself now. The deliberation, and how he kept his weight centered in a way so casual it almost seemed coincidental.

Tim knew Jason very well. And it was no coincidence.

Bats really didn't do—

"What are you waitin' for, old man? Engraved invite?"

—coincidences.

"Jason. Tim."

"Asshole. Kori. Kori? Asshole. Whaddya know, all caught up. We're out of food for you, by the way. Since ya didn't RSVP."

Still in full Batman regalia as he emerged from the shadows, Bruce gave a pointed look in the direction of a kitchen island still covered in plates before turning his gaze back to Jason. "It was my understanding that this was your 'Bat-Free Night,' " he noted dryly.

"So?" Jason retorted. "Didn't stop the rugrat." He jerked a thumb in Tim's direction.

"You're two years older than me," Tim grumbled.

A grinning Jason tilted his head before sweeping his arms wide. "And what a difference those two years make," he said, addressing the room like a down-home sort of preacher.

"Yeah, well not all of us have been juicing with off-brand Nickelodeon slime."

"It's cute that you think that's what I meant. My point stands uncorrected, Timbo."

"Tim, we need to talk."

"No, we don't," Tim replied.

At that same instant, "Go right ahead," came from Jason. "I'll just be over here playing referee so your collective three brain cells don't crash together too hard.

"Tim has two of those three, for the record."

Bruce turned back to Tim, who was having absolutely none of this shit, thanks.

"We don't need to talk about tonight, unless it's about the data packet I gave you. Did you find anything about Contre—"

"Don't try to deflect this."

"At least he knows how to," Jason commented from his spot leaning against the couch. "You pivot like a tractor, old man. Trust me, I would know. The Kents—"

"You severely endangered yourself today, picked a fight with allies—"

I'm sorry—what?

"—and then compounded the situation by vanishing before the debrief."

Tim pressed his fingertips to the bridge of his nose. "Bruce—"

Bruce stepped forward, voice growing sterner. "If your intention was to convince me that you are not in need of supervision, running off after agreeing to talk—"

"I never agreed."

Bruce paused for a moment, jaw clenching. "Running off when you were aware that I intended to speak with you, and while you were injured, is a poor set of choices."

"Bruce." Tim let out a small sigh. "I have meetings in the morning. Which is basically now, and soon going to be yesterday. I need to have these meetings, like, yesterday."

Bruce held steady, clearly unimpressed.

"Look. Fine. My performance in the field sucks right now, I guess. It should make you feel better to hear I don't plan on patrolling tomorrow." He gave a listless shrug. "Too much stuff at W.E."

"You always have things at Wayne Enterprises."

"O-kay," Jason interjected, pushing off the couch and positioning himself partway in front of Tim.

Who was sorely tempted to just let himself fall forward and take a standing nap against the towering wall of undead teenage angst standing before him. Jason was undead, Tim was nearly dead—they were definitely a good match. Very compatible.

"Apparently the one brain cell you have is only half firing, so you need a translator instead of a referee. Alas, I am a man of many talents."

" 'Alas' is used for regret," Tim mumbled…not entirely sure why he decided to open his stupid mouth then.

Jason craned his neck to look down at him, a look of mild disbelief on his face. "You're telling me you don't regret this entire conversation?"

Tim blinked. And gave in to the impulse to just bury his face in Jason's back. "Tired. Come back later."

Jason snorted before turning back to Bruce. "What the barely functional gremlin child is trying to say here is that he's gonna be up at ass-o'-clock in the morning because he's a CEO and that is, theoretically, what CEOs do. And he's trying to keep your company from imploding."

Tim lifted his face just enough to get in an, "Again."

"Right. And as one of the heirs to that vast fortune, I consider it a very personal attack when my inheritance is in any way jeopardized. All that to say: Fuck off now; try again later."

Bruce held silent for a few moments, his grappling visible even in his stillness. "He needs to come back to the Manor," he said at last. "I want Alfred to be able to keep an eye on him."

Jason immediately folded his arms. "Oh, 'cause I can't? Please, old man. You have any idea how many times I've had to provide my own medical care? Seriously, you ever try patching up your own carotid after some crazy motherfucker slices it open?"

Bruce went very, very still then.

Tim could hear the feral grin in Jason's voice as he continued. "Yup. All by my lonesome. Believe me, I can take care of this one."

Kori stepped forward then, coming up behind Tim to encircle him, arms laid across his chest. "Even if Jason would agree to relinquish Timothy, I would not. I promised to help Tim rest, and he and I are going to bed now."

Without further warning, Tim found himself swept off his feet and hauled into a bridal carry.

So he did the only thing left to do under the circumstances: fold his hands across his stomach like a good corpse and steadily focus on the ceiling instead of the looming figure in black cape and Kevlar.

"Damn, I'm proud of the kid." Jason again, naturally.

Tim followed what he could of the conversation even as Kori carted him off to Jason's bedroom and shut the door behind them.

"Look, I'm not gonna throw you out. Yet. Kid told us what he did and I ain't happy with how tonight went down, either—and neither is Kori. That's really the only reason I haven't tossed you yet. But if you don't get why showing up here and doing whatever the fuck that was isn't helpful, you're already on thin fucking ice.

"So! You. Me. Rooftop. Now. …Don't make me bring my guns, Bruce."

"You always bring your guns."

"Oh, good, you're learning. But don't make me bring the good guns, mmkay?"

A lingering moment passed.

"Touch that doorknob and I will."

Figuring either all would be well or the deafening sound of gunshots would be alerting him otherwise, Tim decided to cooperate and hobbled off to the bathroom once Kori gently set him on his feet, grateful Jason always kept a supply of disposable toothbrushes in his safehouses.

By the time he came back, the bed was covered with a veritable nest of spare pillows, and Kori was calmly floating upside down in a way that very much reminded him of Kon.

Lingering in the doorway, he tried to soak in the quiet of the moment. But he still found his mind drifting and his ears straining, even though he knew he couldn't really expect to hear the rooftop conversation from so far away.

Kori's eyes were closed, but evidently she noticed his hesitation—and the reasons for it—all the same. "Perhaps if you were an actual chiropteran^[bat], Tim, but I do not think you will hear them from here."

Tim didn't even have time to answer before he found himself swept off his feet a second time, Kori fondly wrapping him in a floating hug like a mother otter with a pup. "Enough, Tim. Be at rest."

He sighed and let himself tune out after that, eyes shut against his racing mind.

Kori did make it easier, at least. He turned his face towards hers and felt a tickle against his nose as she leaned down to nuzzle him. Satiny curtains of hair drifted across his face, a caress of peppers and mint and cinnamon drifting through the air.

"I sense much fear in you," Kori murmured, gliding over to the bed. "But Jason will be fine. Your father came to argue, but not fight. And he cannot fight the both of us without more trouble than it's worth."

Tim decided not to mention the fact that she really needed to do a recount of their numbers, but— "Did you just quote Master Yoda?" His face flushed as soon as he'd asked it, but he couldn't just ignore what he'd heard, right?

Kori smirked, sparkling eyes dancing with silent laughter as she gently laid him down in the soft lighting of dimmed bedside lamps. "And if I did quote this master?"

Tim propped himself up on his elbows even as he hit the mattress. "How many have you watched?"

"It is my understanding that, of the ones done in live action, there are six numbered ones—"

Tim was going to buy whoever had explained that a damned house. Or Ferrari. Or really expensive gun using multiplanet technology.

"—and a lone one set before the first we were given. I have seen those."

"And which is your favorite? Actually, no—which order did you watch them in?" He barely registered the dull ache in his leg as Kori began arranging pillows to prop up the injured limb.

She laughed. "Tim. If I answered your questions, I believe we would be here most of the night. Doing things very much other than sleeping."

Tim groaned as he flopped back against the pillows. She was obviously right but he needed to know certain things. No one had even given him a heads-up about it! "Okay," he tried, propping himself back up, "so what if I promise I'll sleep?"

Kori tossed her hair. "I have already made that promise. You have no power here."

No. No. Damn. Way.

Tim's wide eyes must've given him away, for Kori bit her lip mischievously. "Roy and Jason use the meme often. I have not seen the films yet. I hear they are very worthwhile, however."

"Holy shit. Okay, I'm getting you my copies of the director's cut. Not like the copies for collecting, but I have the full set on digital and I jailbroke it so I can send it—what?"

"I know what a director's cut is, but the phrase always reminds me of how drugs are said to be cut."

"It's exactly like that," Tim replied with no hesitation. "Directors have the purest cut of it." He paused, head tilted as he decided how to clarify the next part fairly. "That's not always a good thing, for sure, but it's how you get real insight into their minds. You get to see their visions for the films, with fewer constraints. It's like you're sitting in the theater of the artist's eye and—" He cut himself off as a comforter was tossed on top of him. He pulled down the haphazardly thrown blanket and squinted up at one perfectly unapologetic princess.

"You should remove the hoodie. These will work better for us."

Tim pursed his lips. He knew she was right, but. And he knew it was stupid and he was being way too dramatic (even in the privacy of his own mind. …Although, to be fair, telepathic metas were always a thing and the stealthy ones were just. So fun. To deal with).

"You can still take your revenge hoodie later."

Okay…valid, right? He could deal with that. Satisfied with the plan, Tim shrugged off the garment, tossing it onto the foot of the bed. The holsters underneath, he parted with as well, the karambit bestowed by Roy joining the smoke pellets and other auxiliary weapons on the nightstand nearby.

He'd only been free of the armaments and outer layer for a moment before he found himself rapidly surrounded by a nest of blankets, Kori deep-diving Jason's apparently endless supply of them.

While she continued tossing spares onto the bed, Tim took a moment to surreptitiously wrap the main comforter around his shoulders, relieved to find that it wasn't so different from the hoodie: still that brisk scent of mint and mace and the same detergent Alfred used and a hint of smoke and fire. It was a strange brew, and even more so than average with Kori's own perfumes now settled into the fabrics, but remained a comforting one all the same. The scent of safety. He wondered how Jason would feel if he knew. Probably think Tim was weird for it, but then he already thought Tim was weird, so did it really matter?

Besides, as sensitive as Jason was to scents ever since emerging from the Pit, he probably had favorites of his own that he'd picked up on, right?

And given how much of his blood volume Tim had had to lose tonight to make it to this point, he hoped he had earned a little safety for a bit.

He took his time arranging the comforter across his legs, unable to fully stop himself from straining his hearing to see if he could catch any more of the argument. He knew Kori was right, but—

"Tim." A soft hand over his own halted his movements and interrupted his thoughts.

He looked up to find Kori knelt on the bed almost nose to nose with himself, her gaze so intense that it seemed to burn even without the trademark glow that came when her powers were active. "Tell me about Star Wars."

Tim's brain may have suffered a minor stroke at that exact moment. Just a tiny one.

Kori took advantage of the reboot to climb over behind him, squeezing between Tim and the headboard, and then wriggling her way down until she was lying on her back, sprawled at an angle across the bed. She tugged Tim down into a hold much like she'd had in the living room, only this time Tim was able to recline against her, his head resting just beneath her breastbone and his back pillowed against her in lieu of the actual pillows she had just expropriated. It was a good trade.

The fingers of her right hand wound around the fingers of his left, leaving them intertwined, while her left hand she let rest squarely over his heart instead, her thumb brushing slow patterns against the thin cotton of his shirt.

Everywhere they were in contact, Tim could feel the ambient heat radiating from her skin, and he found himself rapidly pulled down into a haze that made it incredibly difficult to string coherent thoughts together. Unfortunate, since he needed to stay sharp for this. "Okay! Star Wars!" he said, talking a bit louder than needed in hopes of jarring himself awake. "Where do you want me to start?"

"I wish I could be in Gotham more often."

Tim blinked at the non sequitur.

"We do not know why, but the energies I emit appear to help Jason with the headaches he gets that other remedies will not work for."

Tim's first suspicion was that it had something to do with how Jason had come back…except Tim remembered a time a few months prior where he'd joined the Outlaws for a mission. He'd been left with a massive migraine by the end and had all but passed out on their couch.

He'd awoken twenty minutes later to find his head pillowed in Kori's lap and his headache gone, which was an insanely fast time frame for him. He was lucky at this point if the stupid things only lasted hours instead of days.

"I think we should start with A New Hope," Kori announced without preamble.

At this point, Tim was half-convinced she was doing this on purpose—extra mental energy drained with each abrupt shift of focus.

"I have seen the film, but I am aware that there are many stories of how it was conceived and created. I would like to hear about them."

This was a trap. This was totally a trap.

…But any good Star Wars fan understood that some traps were absolutely worth springing. To the spoils must go the victor and all that, right?

"Okay, well, to start off, it's important to know that A New Hope wasn't George Lucas's first film. I think there were elements of…"

Tim later stirred in his sleep to the soft press of lips against his forehead.

"I am sorry I cannot stay longer," came the whisper. "But Batman has departed and Jason is with you. On the seal of the Tamaranean Renewal^3e, you shall be safe as you rest, dear friend."

Footnotes:

Chapter Text

Tim had gotten good at navigating in the dark. Which was pretty handy. Especially if you wanted to, say, opt out entirely when it came to using eyesight and stumble your way through a semi-familiar living room with your eyes fully closed on the way to press the coffee pot into noble service.

Which was actually kinda weird, since Jason didn't even like coffee, so why did he have—

"Oi. Brat. The fuck are you doing?"

Tim realized he should probably open his eyes now. Maybe. "Coffee," he replied eloquently, opening his eyes just enough to squint at the owner of the voice.

Said owner was currently sitting on the couch, slumped against the backrest—with positively atrocious posture. And his eyes were still closed. Rude jerk. Rude, lucky jerk.

"And why, might I ask, do you need coffee?"

"Office," Tim answered, maintaining his earlier energy of Quiet, please—patrons near death.

Jason opened his eyes at that…which in hindsight was probably a warning all on its own, but Tim didn't even have time to read the actual look in his eyes before he found himself dodging an arm drag. And any other time he would've been able to evade better, even with his eyes closed, but he'd forgotten to account for how crap his leg now felt the morning after and he hadn't had any coffee—which, come to think of it, was probably all part of Jason's devious plan: Lull him into sleeping longer than he'd meant to, and then keep him away from his most valued and trusted source of energy (sleep being a very, very distant second).

…Damn him for sending in that green-eyed siren to lure Tim with talk of Hobbits and Jawas. He was off his game now.

History would of course record that Tim had fought valiantly and held his assailant off for crucial seconds. But an unfairly well-aimed kick to his one uninjured leg (Gee, thanks) had then struck home and Tim's face was probably about to become very well acquainted with the glossy finish of that refurbished coffee table (a Roy Harper Restoration, if he was remembering right. Dude did good work in between destroying stuff down to a subatomic level).

But before he could smash his brains out on anything (goodbye, sweet Death; we barely glimpsed thee), he found himself snatched off his already disappointing feet—they'd failed him for the last time, damn—and slightly crushed, face first, against a wall of hard muscle.

Which was almost as much an impediment to breathing as being boa-constricted by two unfairly fucking massive arms (seriously, what had Talia been thinking, giving this guy magi-steroids…).

Still, it was admittedly a better landing than "Face, meet Wood." If only slightly. Also…for all the apparent carelessness with which Jason had literally snatched him off his feet, he'd also avoided placing undue strain on the injury, Tim's right leg left semi-hanging over Jason's left and the edge of the couch, any real weight shifted to Tim's left leg instead.

At least this gave Tim time to contemplate his options for escape.

"Timothy?"

Or not. Tim knew that eerily cheerful singsong tone. It was like Dick.

"I think…"

Dick as a psychopathic serial killer, to clarify. …Or sociopathic? Honestly, he wasn't sure which Jason was trying to do an impression of.

"…you're misunderstanding the terms of our deal." …Still that pleasant tone and oh, he was screwed.

Tim tried to very subtly shift more weight to his left leg to better facilitate escape if he found an opening. Which was maybe a stupid move when he was pressed right up against his opponent and said opponent could feel everything but his thoughts.

Again: no coffee. Plus, the universe just generally hated him?

Tim was generously rewarded for his stupidity with the feeling of Jason's tightening one arm just beneath Tim's shoulder blades while the other hand began a lazy trail up-up-up his back and towards the base of his neck.

"Something wrong, Timmy?"

"…No." He figured a bluff was his best bet at this point. He didn't know what kind of mood Jason was in today, and if he decided to go for fricking hair pets—Tim clenched his teeth, barely suppressed a shudder. He had meetings today, and he couldn't afford to be melted in a dramatic puddle of emotional starvation/relief like the Wicked Witch of the West End (London theatre? oh no, Jason was already getting to him…) just because his big brother somehow was more tactilely affectionate (and, y'know generally affectionate, despite the nonstop ragging) with a sweaty, angsty teenager than the woman who'd literally carried Tim's body inside her own for months had ever been.

"Good," Jason replied, "because I think we're in need of a little discussion."

Okay.

Bad. No, like, bad. Tim had multiplicities of evidence by now that hearing that phrase from Jason Todd-Wayne was only marginally better than hearing it from Red Hood. If the percentages were any freaking smaller they would've been statistically insignificant.

"The point"—and at least he'd finally shifted to normal tone here, with his fingertips tapping thoughtfully as he paused just below Tim's nape—"was not for me to go up against the oversized Furrycon attendee just so you could get up at fuck-this-o'-clock after three hours of sleep."

Three hours? Tim almost snorted. As if—

"If that."

Shit, a tiny voice in Tim's head whispered.

"I already told you last night," Tim argued, his voice coming out a bit muffled since, you know, face still semi-squished? Thanks, Jason. Awesome. "I have meetings."

"No, you do not." And on the last word his idle fingertips pressed down sharply, forcing Tim to just barely hold back a startled gasp.

Absolutely screw his life. He'd been a good son, a good leader, and this was what he got? No, not hair pets, thank the Maker, but something almost as bad: stupid pressure points.

Since when did Jason even know pressure points that weren't used for, say, paralysis or torture? Although maybe Tim could argue that this counted as torture? Sadly, he didn't think he'd be able to find many juries sympathetic to his plight here. Like yeah, cool, he could just buy one probably, or maybe use some anonymous blackmail if he wanted to be creative. But the media would definitely pick up on the results, and showcasing pictures of how his muscular system looked when it was not snarled into tangled masses of tension wasn't exactly the Perry Mason moment he needed. Kinda the opposite probably. Like sure, the case would be decided by then, but the likelihood of prompting DOJ investigations into jury tampering was—

"Your meetings"—and here Jason applied pressure to another part of the tangle—"don't start for another 3 hours. You just want to show up early so you can get a head start on superfluous bureaucratic bullshit like a good little office drone with a classically shit boss."

Okay, that was not true. Not entirely true. Yes, Tim could probably have delegated more and yes, some of this stuff probably didn't need to be sent to his department even…or at all. Tim had been trying to get the board to approve additional streamlining to—

"And I don't see that little stunt turning out well when you're this tense before you step foot in that oversized pressure cooker."

Tim's brain had finally woken up just enough to keep him from pointing out that he felt like he always did. Jason…would probably not appreciate that answer. Well, Tim didn't appreciate the comment, so there.

"Damn, when's the last time anyone actually helped you with this, kid?"

…And he really didn't appreciate the question. Like, ouch?

"Hell, did you wake up like this? You've been up for all of two minutes—after spending the night with Kori, no less—and already feel like you're in fucking rigor mortis."

He eased up a little on the massage and Tim took the occasion to look up, doing his best to send a defiant glare his way (and ignore a very mild desire to cry). "You would know."

Jason only met him with a grin. "You know it, Timbo."

Tim huffed and rolled his eyes, turning his head away so that his cheek rested flush against Jason's heart. Which. Didn't really help, because it just made the whole thing feel even more like everything Tim had longed for last night, in the cold and the rain and the dark.

It didn't help his case any, no, and he barely wanted to admit to it even in the shelter of his own mind. But.

For a detective, Bruce could be really, really clueless sometimes. And it wasn't fair. Tim wasn't being fair. He knew he was way too old for all of this and of course he didn't actually expect Bruce to think he needed (he didn't) or want any of this (he really, really did), but was it so hard to think maybe Damian wasn't the only one who ever needed a hug? At least Tim never tried to stab people for it!

Tim hadn't even processed what was happening until he felt a calloused thumb brush the tears off the ridge of his jaw, a feather-light touch from the same hands that could've crushed his trachea in a heartbeat.

Maybe if the past few years hadn't already been on permanent topsy-turvy, it would've felt more bizarre to know that the same man who'd hurt him so badly before had somehow become his safest somewhere to be.

Tim sniffed, bringing up a wrist to dutifully scrub at his eyes.

Jason didn't ask. Just quietly sent his fingertips traveling again along the winding paths of nerve and muscle alike, easing the dull ache that had become so constant that Tim hardly even noticed anymore. Knowing Jason, if he knew how to do all of this, he had also taken time to learn the quirks and nuances of it. When Jason studied, he studied; chances were he knew already how sometimes contact with different centers of energy could prompt an emotional release along with physical, lowering the carefully maintained barriers between bottled-up emotion and the outside world.

Maybe that'd even been the plan.

Whichever it was, Tim was grateful for the silence.

Secure in that space of quiet, Tim found his mind turning to lessons with the Rahul Lama. He remembered what the man had said about the prisons we build for ourselves with the insidious tool of habit.

Tim could probably hijack a country with his own industrial complex of prisons if that was how it worked. Betcha can't have just one. He'd be one of those love-to-hate rich guys who didn't even know anymore how much non-commercial real estate he owned.

…Pretty sad living, though.

Tim almost laughed in spite of himself, even as his tears refused to stop. He wasn't sobbing, wasn't making noise. He was just…being. Feeling. Weeping?

It was still annoying, though. Especially since that meant he couldn't even try getting out of the one metaphorical prison he could maybe try to put on the chopping block. He'd finally worked up the nerve to ask, but now he was crying, and if he asked now it would just be being manipulative and Jason hated stuff like that from the family and he could sniff it out a mile away anyways. So Tim waited. He could do waiting. He was—had been—Robin.

Heck, he was good at waiting before he ever donned the Kevlar and Nomex in traffic-light colors.

When time with your parents is marked in days and weeks and the time apart measured in months, you learn.

So he bided his time and let himself find Jason's heartbeat and follow the sound of his breaths, actively tailoring his own inhales and exhales because the whole syncing-up-unwittingly thing was cool when you were going to sleep but Tim absolutely was not going to sleep and he didn't have time for that shit.

"You never did answer my question," Jason said after what felt like a long time, though Tim's internal clock insisted it had only been minutes.

Traitor.

Tim considered playing dumb, but realized there was a much better strategic option available. "I can tell you if you go on patrol with me tonight?" Did Tim actually remember the last time, not counting Jason? No. Could he remember it? Almost certainly yes, but he didn't exactly see the point of digging that far back through his memory, down not particularly fun paths, if he didn't at least have some assurance of a payoff for him; answering the question was just for Jason's benefit here.

…The response he got was not the one he was hoping for.

"Thought you told Bruce you weren't patrolling tonight?"

Tim snorted. "Uh, yeah? He wasn't going to let it go otherwise, right? I know you saw it, too."

"…Idiot."

Tim…wasn't exactly sure which of them Jason was referring to. He decided to go with Bruce. That seemed like a good enough idea. Satisfied with that decision, he cleared his throat lightly after a moment. "So, um…?"

Jason gave a small laugh that was already halfway a scoff. "Fuck no, Timbo."

"Oh." And that was when Tim realized how stupid the wager had been. He'd skipped emotional manipulation for obvious extortion (okay, probably more like bribery, really) that Jason didn't even have to hunt for?

Great job. Totally great.

The heavy arm around Tim's ribs felt like barely the weight of a pillow, compared to the crushing pressure of disappointment and failure as it settled over him like the worst kind of weighted blanket, constricting its way up from his diaphragm and all the way up to his (closing) throat.

"I'll patrol with you tomorrow."

And hope sprang up in his chest, a giddy thing that fluttered and zigzagged like a Hesperia. Tim crushed it under his heel. Better not to let it get the better of him.

"And that's if Leslie or Dev gives you the go-ahead for it. Before you ask, yes, I will be escorting you to that little visit, Draper^4a."

See? Summary execution was the correct decision; hope was just too dangerous a thing to be left alive. "No fair," Tim protested, largely having given up on any further attempts at subtlety at this point.

"Oh-ho," Jason chuckled, "you musta forgotten where I'm from, kiddo. Crime Alley doesn't do 'fair,' fresa^4b".

Tim snorted, dryly noting, "Trust me—neither does Bristol."

"Point."

"How'd you even know when my meetings are?" Tim grumbled. At least maybe if he changed the subject, that'd give him extra time to figure out a way around Jason's completely unnecessary insistence on accompanying him for the consultation(s). Maybe a minor chemical attack could do something here. "Everything related to my schedule is kept behind quadruple encryption that's relayed—"

"Oi. Nerdbird. There's this really advanced piece of tech a few of us in the biz know about."

Tim blinked, immediately curious at the prospect of new development in the scene, and its potential implications for their work.

"It's called a phone."

Tim…kinda blanked out. "Wha…?"

"A phone. Un teléfono. Telefon^4c.

"You have Lucius' number?" (He figured he would've felt the consequences sooner if Jason'd had Tam's number.)

Jason scoffed. "I oughta be offended you sound so surprised. Have his number—please. Pretty sure he's almost as fond of me as he is of you by now."

"But…you don't even work there."

"Exactly. Major points in my favor—he doesn't have to go after Tam to go after me about taking breaks like I'm a functional human being juuust sane enough to stay out of Arkham."

Tim had stopped himself from gasping earlier. But that time the warmth hadn't seemed to gutter in his chest, replaced by a spray of ice that spread out from his sternum and stabbed its way through his lungs. He couldn't stop the small, choked noise that escaped his lips now.

Jason froze then, too, like Tim's ice had spread to him. He lifted his hands away cautiously and it was with slippery hands himself that Tim kept a lid on his own panic—of course he'd managed to screw this up; he was having the best morning he'd had in ages, and literally no one else would've been so bothered by a tiny joke like that and Jason of all people shouldn't have to walk on eggshells for Tim right now. Especially not in his own apartment! "Sorry," Tim whispered, simultaneously wishing he could find somewhere to run and hide (never mind his stupid leg) while having to stop himself from physically grabbing on to the older boy's garments as though that could actually stop Jason from prying him off.

And maybe throwing him out of a window. He'd seen Jason do that to people. Only when they deserved it, yeah, but he was pretty freaking sure he was on that list now so—

"Oh, my God, kid."

Tim held in a wince. He knew he deserved it, but that didn't meant it didn't still hurt. If he were strong enough for it not to, he wouldn't have been stuck here in the first—

"This shit is exactly what I mean. You literally do everybody else's fucking job for them."

Tim was…confused.

"I'm pretty sure I'm the one who was supposed to apologize just then. …Uh, for the record, this is me apologizing."

Tim really didn't get why someone who'd been giving him a hug and a massage at the same time, after also playing chef, hotelier (or at least motelier?), and personal security blanket, felt the need to apologize.

"You don't think I should."

Tim was 90% certain he hadn't given off any actual tells, so maybe "really annoying psychic" was also on that job list. "Jay, I am fed, watered, and so comfortable I probably can't move anymore." A highly dangerous admission, but he was one for tactical risks when necessary. …And occasionally when unnecessary, too. He could admit that.

"Doesn't mean you don't still deserve an apology."

"Sounds fake, but okay."

"…Did you just Pawn Stars me, you little shit?

"No, that's, 'I don't know, Rick; it looks fake^4d.' "

Jason snorted. "All righty, then. Also. Sorry. …Asshole."

"…I guess I can live with an apology like that."

A scoff then. "Dumbass."

No doubt this time whom Jason was referring to, unfortunately.

"Hey. Just so you know, that outlet to Hell's sewer is still a sore spot for Yours Truly, so, y'know. I get having the urge to go scream into some Ming vases now or some shit."

"Qing."

"…What?"

"We didn't keep Mings. Bruce does, but my parents kept Qings. More variety."

"Oh, my God. See, this is why you need a friggin' break, you little geek."

"Says the guy who read Lord of the Rings, and all the histories, and the Tolkien letters faster than I did."

"And fuckin' proud of it. You should all be as cultured as me. And speaking of culture—"

Weird segue, Rick, but okay.

"Conner's already on the schedule for pickup so you can get to your ass to the office on time. After you sleep," he clarified, his tone of voice inviting zero argument.

Which had never stopped Tim, so he really should've known better.

"Jayyy. I told you I can't—wait, how do you—"

"Again, genius—"

And Tim could hear the eye roll. He returned it with one of his own. "No, I know. Phone. But I mean how do you have his number?"

All the Titans' stuff was encrypted well—even their "civilian" devices. And Jason was a damned good hacker (no matter what he tried to argue. He'd infiltrated Titans' Tower, the jerk), but even for him it would've taken an obnoxious amount of time.

"The fuck else am I supposed to keep track of all my idiot siblings? Unofficial ones included^4e. Bart says hi, by the way. And some shit about a missing cartridge. I dunno, ask him. And no, I don't have his number. The dumbass broke his phone—again—but he used Conner's to talk. Don't have a phone, snatch one, I guess." Jason scoffed. "I can respect the initiative, but dunno why he didn't just buy one. Take him, like, three seconds?"

"Mmm, more than three," Tim hummed, finally letting himself relax again now that he was sure he hadn't ruined his whole day because he had to have a stupid overreaction again. "He used to just take it and leave the money with a note for the cashiers, but it ended up being a whole security thing, especially since cameras can't really pick him up well. They started leaving notes for us, and, well. It saves more time just to buy it at a normal pace so we don't have to have an even longer normal-speed convo later. Better R.O.I."

"Fair enough, but why the fuck am I just now hearing all of this?"

Tim gave a lazy shrug before burrowing under Jason's arm more securely. "It was a while back? I don't think you were even talking to me back then." Other than to insult me. At least at this juncture, the thought was more eye roll inducing than painful. Being curled up on a dude's chest for an impromptu session of massage therapy had a way of doing that, weirdly enough.

"Hunh. Sorry 'bout that, too. Just, by the way, I guess."

Tim rolled his eyes. "You've said that one already. More than once." It was weird, but also just…Jason. An apology from him could sound anything from stilted to terse to flip, yet mean more than a dozen flowery screeds overflowing with detailed expressions of remorse and penitent acknowledgements of harm. Jason didn't do insincere apologies, unless it was for blazingly obvious sarcasm, and he was incredibly unsubtle in refusing to apologize at all if he didn't believe one was owed. One apology from the Red Hood was worth more than a Bentley's worth of publicist-approved mea culpae.

"Yeah, well. I said the other shit a lot, too. Might as well get the numbers up. Anyways," he tacked on before Tim could protest, "Sandsmark said she's got your six if the team gets called in today. And Kon'll take you back to your apartment an' shit if you need anything else before the office, but pickup ain't gonna be free either way."

"Of course not. He's a lord of darkness."

"Oh, Timmy. It's cute that you really think anyone but you could be Lord of Darkness in any Titans lineup that doesn't already have Rach^4f."

"Do I look like a lord of darkness to you?" Tim asked, raising his head again to level Jason with what he knew was a perfectly sleepy glare.

Jason snorted. "I like how you've just given up now."

Tim replied by burying his face again and surrendering to relative empty-headedness. Mmm, soft shirt. Nice pillow. Mean, but nice. Warm. Have a ride to office. Is good. "On life," he muttered with a vague sense of self awareness. "I've given up on life."

"And ain't it grand?" came the smug reply. "But!"

And here there was a pause—ugh, a dramatic pause; Tim could feel the drama, okay?

"Have you given up on work?"

"Never. Also. I hate you."

"You're just mad I know your loopholes, Tim-Tam."

"Yes," Tim deadpanned. "That's literally exactly what it is. Glad we're agreed. Yay."

Jason gave a soft laugh, the quiet rasp of his voice a soothing sound, and the quick rise and fall of his chest something that brought a smile to Tim's own lips then.

None of which changed the fact that he was a really annoying jerk. Those two things could occupy the same space at the same time, thank you very much.

"Speaking of loopholes, if you're gonna keep me here, I might as well ask how much sleep you've been getting. Your teeth were already brushed by the time I got up, and you definitely stayed up later than I did since you hadn't come back by the time I fell asleep."

Jason scoffed. "Like you would've noticed. You were probably halfway between Yavin and Snoozeland by then. Thank you for noticing my superb hygiene, though. Maybe you'll take some tips and stop looking like you dug your clothes out the bottom of a week-old laundry basket."

Tim nearly responded to the insult…until he realized what Jason was doing. "Wait." Tim lifted his head again, narrowing his eyes at the possibility that had just come to mind. "Have you gotten any rest since I got here?"

Jason raised a brow at that. "And what do you call this, exactly, Rin-Tin-Tim?" He raised the arm bracing Tim's back, to gesture briefly at the room and then at the two of them in a grand sweep of motion.

"…False imprisonment?"

"God, and everyone thinks I'm dramatic."

"A: You are. And B: I meant like sleep. That thing everyone keeps yelling at me to get?"

"And yet." There was that dangerous cheer again. "You don't listen. Seems like imprisonment with probable cause to me, Timbo."

Well. Damn. "Okay…point conceded. For now. But what about you?"

"Meh. I can keep runnin' for a while. Doesn't really matter anyways since I'm not patrolling today."

Again? That…seemed odd. Oh. Oh, shit. If this was because of last night, because—

"And calm the fuck down, geez. I have a resting heart rate of dead, Timmy. The whole 'racehorse on crack' tempo's a little much."

"But—! You had yesterday off!"

Jason blinked at him. "Damn. You really do sound like Bruce sometimes, holy fuck."

…And there Tim got a nice second wave of panic to just wash over the first. Like primer. Well, technically the first wave was the primer, so hopefully this would be the actual paint and Tim could be done wanting to throw himself out of the nearest window (hey, at least Jason wouldn't have to do it himself, then, right?). "No, I wasn't trying to say—like, it's totally okay if you want to—"

"Okay, since you like to do the whole point-by-point thing," Jason said a little loudly to interrupt him, and adding a little jostle for good measure, "let me just bring you up to speed here."

Tim stilled himself. And remembered to, yeah, breathe, because Jason would probably notice that, too. Downsides of being chest-to-chest with someone and all.

Jason cleared his throat with all due ceremony. "A: It woulda be fine if I did take a day off. Exactly how many vacations do you think I've taken this year? B: I was off last night. That's after working most of the rest of the day. Had to check on progress down at the greenhouse. And beef up security again, thanks to You-Know-Who."

"Oh," Tim answered in a small voice. Jason had indeed called him up for consultation earlier, wanting a second opinion on a couple of seemingly random chemistry questions earlier that very day (which really shoulda been against the rules for a "Bat-Free Day"), but Tim had been too busy connecting other dots to keep close track of those particular ones.

A snort. "Yeah, Tarasov: Oh^4g. Anyways, I'm off today because Roy's dropping Lian off."

"Mission?"

"Nah, just quality time with her favorite uncle."

"Okay, but what's Lian gonna be doing."

"Smartass. Knowing him, I assume Roy's gonna be blowing shit up somewhere. Definitely literally, maybe metaphorically. Lian and I have a full day scheduled of food, fun, and maybe some minor explosive factors. In case she gets a little homesick an' all."

"Hunh."

"Might be a little shocking to hear, but not all of us need to be exsanguinated into taking a break, Timothy."

Well, yowch. Who'd given him permission to bring that up again? And just when they could've moved on to making fun of Roy instead! "I thought we were done with this," Tim grumbled.

Jason scoffed. "Hell no. Not when I'm still trying to decide how much of this is your unhealthy attachment to martyrdom and how much is your damn brain being so fried you can't even remember to use the same kind of tech you just spent months working on."

"What are you even—"

"Let me explain something, Timbo. Gonna blow your mind here. We have—wait for it—trackers.

"We know how to use trackers," Jason continued, clearly enjoying himself entirely too much now. "Which means you could have used…?"

"…Trackers." That was…yeah…a very unfortunately valid point. Tim didn't even try to hide the groan this time.

"Exactly."

"Also, what is it with you and saying things in triplicate all of a sudden?"

"It's a stylistic choice, Timbo. Keep up."

"And how am I the weird one, again?"

"Says the kid who somehow uses a genius-level intellect to come up with the most stupid approaches known to man. Fuck, it's like I'm dealing with the old man all over again!" he exclaimed, the hard-edged and rapid-fire Crime Alley brogue becoming more pronounced by the moment. "You're telling me Red Fucking Robin wouldn'ta been able to tag a group like that without them even knowing what hit 'em? That option shoulda been screamingly obvious for you, insteada defaulting to kamikaze bullshit like a Disneyfied lemming^4h. Your default is fucked, kid.

"And I still have half a mind to tell Abuela Alma about this shit," he added sharply, before snorting again. "If I don't get to bully you, you sure as Hell don't."

Tim winced. Ohh, not good. "Is that who the blanket is from?" he tried, reaching down to finger the thick crocheted blanket patterned in bright pinks and yellows that still lay sprawled across both the couch and Jason's legs.

" 'Whom.' And yeah. She gave it to me a few weeks ago. Said she had one she was working on for you, too. I'd hate to have to give her bad news in the middle of that, Timmy."

"Low."

"But effective!"

It was Tim's turn to scoff. "Unnecessary." Having given up on escape (what even was life before captivity?) Tim found himself pondering ways to hide while being right on top of someone. It was particularly unfortunate that Jason wasn't currently wearing one of his beloved hoodies. Or even a sweatshirt. Either of those would've been way better to—ahh, and Tim made a mental note to stuff extra hoodies in the go bag before Kon showed up. It would be a bold step, but sometimes bold steps and sacrifices were necessary. For comfort revenge! For science! For hiding his eternal shame at how this morning had gone. He had used to be stronger.

Now he was probably screwed if any of Gotham's true villains learned of his weaknesses: hair pets, neck massages, hugs, and tiny Latina grandmothers⁴ⁱ. Probably grandmothers period, but he hadn't been able to test a good sample size of those yet. "Kori's gonna be sad she missed seeing Lian. Or mad, maybe? Kind of a toss-up, I think."

"Hunh. Probably is for a lot of stuff with her," Jason answered, tilting his head in acknowledgement as he trailed off into a thoughtful hum. That soon abruptly cut off. "She already saw Lian before she hit my place, though. Also. Don't think I don't notice you trying to distract me with another tiny, adorable child. For shame, Timothy."

"Again: Bristol? Galas? This is a highly regarded disreputable tactic."

"Pretty sure that's an oxymoron."

"Last I checked, you agreed with me that high society is a walking oxymoron, so."

A short huff. "True."

"So," he began again, voice quieted in his caution, "that's the only reason you're not going on patrol today, right? …Right?" he pressed more urgently when Jason didn't answer.

"That's not the real question you want to ask," Jason said at length, his voice going strangely toneless. "Spit it out, kid."

Tim clenched his fist, hand tightening around thin ripples of Jason's gray tank like he could somehow scrape up courage if he held on hard enough. "It's not because Bruce is mad at you, right? Skipping patrol," he added to clarify, when Jason merely blinked at him in response.

"Kid. I am so far out of fucks to give, Bruce is gonna have to call a team of archeologists to excavate that field for traces^4j."

"Now who's lying?" Tim retorted with a glare, his voice a whisper but the challenge crystal clear.

Jason sighed at that, tilting his head back to rest against the arm of the couch again as his fingertips brushed lazy strokes down the back of Tim's neck, touch much lighter than when he was busy untangling the snarled tension sewing Tim's muscles and tendons into knots.

And he didn't seem as focused now on pinning Tim into place, either, his grip more of a simple embrace and less of a blatant restraint.

Like the experienced former Robin he was (present-day Damian could never), Tim quickly recognized the tactical advantages of his current position, seizing upon them to attack: He wriggled his way forward until he could tuck himself right under the chin of a way too startled Jason who clearly hadn't expected Tim to ever initiate anything. Joke was on him—Tim was totally capable of initiating affection. He just had to have a tactically sound reason for it. Information extraction? A very sound reason.

And despite the intimidating figure he cut at six feet, one inch, and two hundred & forty pounds of devastatingly capable vigilante, crime lord, and trained assassin…Jason was also what would generally be described as a "touch-starved bean." And two could play at the weak-to-physical-contact game. Jason had Tim's number? Cool—Tim knew Jason's weaknesses, too. Checkmate, bitch.

To be fair, the whole tactile-deprivation issue seemed to be doing a lot better these days, now that Jason had the Outlaws around. Plus threatened to shoot Dick way less than he used to (thus, more hugs!).

Still, the problem hadn't fully been resolved, and Tim was entirely shameless enough to make use of this fact. A good hacker didn't let such readily accessible vulnerabilities go to waste.

"Jay…?" Tim cajoled, pointedly nuzzling against him.

"Damn, Bristol. Interrogating me when I'm all vulnerable and shit? Fuck, maybe you would make it in the Alley."

"I made it as Robin," Tim reminded him. "I have prior experience in dodging cops, getting shot at, and really hoping I get ignored by crazy people. Sure, there's way more to it than that, but I should at least pass the entrance exam so I can start learning, right?"

Jason hummed in thought. "Yeah, I think I can vouch for you. We'll put you on the honors curriculum."

"You know, I'm hearing compliments but no answers. Pay up. You're supposed to be rewarding my ruthlessness right now."

"Geez." Jason laughed. "Remind me to give you some lessons on how street-level extortion and non-custodial interrogations are supposed to work. Your banter game is weak."

"Jayyy. I'm not gonna sleep until I get answers."

The raised brow was audible. "You didn't want to sleep anyways."

"Still don't, but I can cut a deal."

"Tsk. Fine, I guess." Jason sighed, tilted his head back down to fully rest his chin against Tim's still-mussed hair. "Me and the ol' man are fine, Baby Bird. Promise."

Tim closed his eyes with a frown, listening for the lie. The tempo of breath, the space left between heartbeats—that kind of math was valuable, too.

Truth be told, the Bats rarely even showed the same tells as regular folks; they'd been rigorously trained in not only how to conduct interrogations but also how to resist them, down to knowing how to artificially slow and stabilize their own pulses in fairly rapid order. But that same extensive education—plus years of working together through high-stress circumstances and uncertain interpersonal dynamics—also meant they were good enough to catch each other's tells more often than any of them would wish.

Tim suddenly felt devastatingly glad he'd never been able to figure out the Drakes' tells. He'd been able to actually believe them on the rare moments he was gifted with a small word or gesture of fondness. He didn't need to lose that, too.

Jason's tells were less of a mystery, however. And Tim had also learned—how much easier it was when you could literally feel the other person and the way their words rang from not just the mouth but the whole body. The harmony of truth, the discordance of deception.

Tim was good at it, too…it was a shame he couldn't actually use the method more. But most people would never get that close. And never be safe enough for him to even try. There were a few, though. It was Dick whom Tim had first learned this type of reading with. In the days when Bruce was still bleeding out his anger and grief across the city, Dick had been there for Tim to shelter under his wings. Dick had been safe. And Tim could read him: The truth when he tried to ease Tim's pain, the lie when he hid away his own behind a bright smile and jokes that flowed all too quickly and easily a moment after he realized his audience.

But maybe Tim had been more audience and less player than either of them had realized back then.

"Promise," Jason repeated, prying loose Tim's fingers from where they twisted in his shirt and using the opportunity to interlace their digits, one hand from each now laid palm to palm. " 'Sides…if he did try to start a whole thing over it, A: Dick and every other Titan ever would get pissed at him for messing with Lian's day. B: Roy. Fucking. Harper. Need I say more?"

Tim could hear the wolfish grin come through in Jason's voice, and he was inclined to agree with the concise assessment. "Why do people not get how scary he actually is?"

"I think it's the hat," Jason answered without missing a beat. "Or maybe the hyperactivity, too. But mostly the hat."

"Mmm, Bart gets the same reaction," Tim offered, humming in agreement.

"Watch him shoot three arrows in a row through the same eyeball at 115 yards, though, and it reallllly starts not to matter^4k."

"Ew. …But awesome. Wait, human, earth animal, space animal, or—"

"Human."

"Awesome," he reiterated. "The accuracy part, I mean."

"Oh, really? I thought I was finally pulling you over to the fun side and awakening your inner killer."

Tim decided not to correct Jason on the fact this his inner killer was very much awake. George Harkness had very nearly met it, too. If Jason still thought of it as asleep after that, Tim really don't know what to say. "Bart can vibrate his hand fast enough to stick it inside your chest at will and squeeze your heart. Works for CPR, actually, although it's not fun. Handy if you're underwater, though."

"Oh, word? Cool. …Wait, is this you empathizing with me or trying to flex that your friend is cooler than mine?"

Tim paused, considering. "Yes," he replied with a grin of his own.

"Oh, it is so on, rugrat. After you go the fuck to sleep."

Tim whined. What? If Jason insisted on treating him like a kid (which was definitely preferable to being treated like a threat, as Tim had discoverer recently), he might as well try it on for size.

"Don't make me pull out the hair pets, Timothy."

Or not.

Well, maybe. What could one hair pet hurt?

Footnotes:

Chapter Text

"Don't forget our deal, man!" a retreating voice called after him, prompting Tim to roll his eyes.

"I know, I know: One Mario Kart battle royale, at least fifteen pizzas each for you, Bart, and Cassie, and"—here he wrinkled his nose—"I'm not allowed to leave until I've had at least five hours of sleep."

"Six hours of sleep, man. That wasn't even subtle."

"Be glad I didn't negotiate down to four," Tim grumbled under his breath.

A snort from Conner. "Like you could. You have no power—"

"No, I am not getting that quoted to me twice in twenty-four hours by people who haven't read the books or watched the films yet."

"Oh, yeah. You definitely need more sleep!" Kon called after him.

Fortunately, even in a suit and tie and immaculately groomed, Tim only needed one hand to make it down the fire escape. The other was thus free to make the appropriate gesture at his dear friend.

The sound of snickering was the only response he got as he made it down to ground level of the alley and began wending his way through the network of paths until he could find a place to slip out discreetly into the crowds that formed the lifeblood of the city. Construction workers and shop owners mixed with businessmen and women in their tailored suits and skirts, thermoses and briefcases and lunch pails all clattering a layer of percussion beneath the rhythmic flow of murmured conversation.

No paparazzi would be looking for him in this part of the district, and all it required was a quick cab ride and he'd be at headquarters with time to spare.

Tim had always favored this part of the mornings. Maybe no one would ever accuse him of the secret (albeit thinly veiled) romantic streak Jason possessed, but there was something in the contrast of the smoggy, dimly lit mornings and the irrepressible thrum of a determinedly polished humanity writhing beneath the atmosphere.… Despite the city's best efforts to compress its own arteries and choke out all attempts at life well-lived, Gothamites forever carried on.

And if Tim was going to spend the next five (or ten) hours secreted away in the rarefied and purified spaces of corner offices and breezy open layouts, he needed to feel the pulse of the city first, get at least an inkling of what would be lying in wait for him as day faded to night and a languid, heavy darkness prowled its way to the forefront.

A few minutes of hunting gained him a cab to bring him the final few blocks to the building—fewer questions than showing up on foot while still too put together to believably have hoofed it the entire way.

Obviously it would've been quicker to have Conner drop him off closer to the building, but they had developed this protocol for a reason. And whatever the others thought of him, there were certain risks Tim didn't need anyone to talk him out of taking. And so far the approach had worked just fine; he could cut down his travel time by 90% without excessive worry that his close friendship with a vigilante might draw undue questions from the media.

The cab ride gave Tim just enough time to review his schedule for the day. Today held another major meeting with Sylvan Technology regarding the D.O.D.^{[Department of Defense]} project both were individually being tapped for.

Either corporation could've taken it on solo, but making use of their mutual infrastructure would provide the most efficient route to production and give them an edge over competitors. Such an arrangement would obviously bring some financial compromises into the mix, but the timeline acceleration was too substantial not to make it a tempting prospect.

However, there had already been some disagreements about the scope of the potential project, with Wayne Enterprises adamant about ensuring that their work could be used for non-combat benefit and only non-combat benefit, with any changes to this plan requiring a thorough renegotiation process that gave W.E. the right to walk away—with their work product—should the two sides not be able to find sufficient common ground.

Sylvan was far more flexible, having done military contracts with much greater frequency than Wayne Enterprises, and for precisely the reason of said flexibility. From their standpoint, it was already inevitable that combat application(s) would eventually be found for any projects either company agreed to accept from the D.O.D.—or even federal agencies that were supposedly discrete from the military (and they had a point there, unfortunately)—so trying to make a point of objecting was something they considered empty posturing. And, worse, a waste of time.

However, this was a matter that Tim would not make concessions on.

Not only was it his prerogative as C.E.O. to take a strong stance in representing the company and its policies, it was also in line with strong beliefs he was possessed of on a personal level—as both a private citizen (whose own contributions had already gone into developing this technology, no less) and as the vigilante who'd be stuck cleaning things up when the government inevitably fucked up and found a way to wreak absolute havoc with something meant for peaceful purposes.

It wasn't that Tim didn't see the value of certain applications. He just knew exactly whose hands he didn't want them to end up in.

And there were always extra players ready to join the game, as well; no telling what would happen when the next power-mad, kid-killing despot with a silver tongue—or just a copious amount of blackmail (Ra's favored both)—charmed some hapless politician into a "partnership."

The vehicle eased to a stop and Tim wasted no time in departing, a few murmured words and a generous tip the only things he left in his wake. Enough to be appreciated, not enough to cause too many ripples in this woman's day.

When you're swimming with sharks, you learn not to make a splash.

(Fortunately for him, Gothamites were insane but also pretty pragmatic in some respects. And, frankly, hard to impress. That wasn't always a bad thing.)

Even the lower levels of the Wayne Tower reliably stayed brightly lit.

A fact Tim was quickly reminded of as he punched in a numerical code and brandished a keycard to slip in through one of the service entrances (unlike many other businesses in Gotham, Wayne Enterprises had actually learned from the countless security breaches, hostage situations, and various other crimes that had plagued corporations in the city).

Tim found himself even happier than before that his usual morning headache was mysteriously absent today. If pressed, he could have offered up a theory as to why, but something stubborn in him was quite inclined to avoid that conversation with himself. (Sleep, it was sleep. He needed sleep. But he didn't have time for sleep, so sleep could fuck right off).

There was no hiding to be done here in the lower levels, not unless you knew the intricacies of the tunnel. And there were people who did: the maintenance staff, the security. The Wayne family—both the actual and those who only counted on-paper, happily for Tim. Various other Wayne-adjacent entities like Oracle, who could never really be kept out of a place like this either way—permission was merely symbolic. And, of course, Lucius.

Lucius, like Alfred, seemed to know everything.

But for those hostile individuals, the sundry people Wayne Tower had been forced to withstand assaults from on more than one occasion over the years, the lower levels offered no refuge, no convenient, dimly lit corners to hide away in while you checked your weapons and radioed your buddies and asked the latest megalomaniac whether he'd like his Wayne heir of choice electrocuted or perforated.

Of course, the brilliant, eco-friendly lighting that was now standard in no way precluded being able to shut off every fucking light in the lower levels, too. Not to mention the primary levels. Perks of being upper upper management. Or just a damned good hacker.

Tim, conveniently enough, was both.

He could have caught an elevator quickly if he'd wanted to, but he found himself wanting to linger in the lower levels today—just a little longer. He jogged his way up the stairs, at times stopping to caress the meticulously polished brushed-metal railings with a mournful eye. There were much quicker ways to traverse the stairs here, and Tim had never gotten over the joy of it, that spark tingling under his skin giving him a tiny jolt almost like caffeine (almost, but not quite. He still needed his java alongside his JavaScript). And back in the old days, he could've done it with little thought (everyone made fun of him when he talked like this, but live enough life for forty 40-year-olds, and you'll talk about the old days, too). The Wayne kids had all established "eccentric" reputations that meshed nicely with Bruce's own, and mixed in with the explanations for their constant absences were explanations for their unusual skills. So Tim—daredevil, parkour fanatic, brother of an acrobat, and accomplished skateboarder (most of these were even true)—had a perfectly good explanation or three handy if he chose to vault the fucking railing and start scrambling his way up the stairwell like a mountaineer on crack. Oh, yes—he even had documented mountaineering vacations with Bruce. Father-son bonding time and all that. With a side of biological-warfare prevention that had never quite made it into the headlines or even the celebrity-events pages. Shame, really. That one virus had been absolutely fascinating. People were really missing out on some research opportunities. The possibilities that could've unfolded if they'd ever taken it to the in vivo, in vitro phase had haunted his brain for months.

Another flight of fancy that reality had neatly binned, though.

But he had, in the end, succeeded in convincing Bruce to keep samples of the virus rather than destroying it wholesale. Because Tim knew Bruce. And Bruce was a collector. A hoarder. Allies, threats. …More often, threats.

The papers would've been in turns horrified and amused (or maybe just horrified and Tim would've been amused) if they had known how much truth there was to the idea of Bruce Wayne as an eccentric, Howard Hughes type, in one turn putting on lavish spectacle and in another turn haunting his pale way through the hidden depths of an expansive house that seemed far too big for so few people.

Alfred would never have permitted the accumulation of filth (even Tim's natural propensity for chaos had made compromises in the end out of not wishing to upset the old man or add to the burden Tim had already brought to the Waynes' doorsteps: a human hermit crab wedging himself into the Jason-shaped cracks in their lives and ever expanding his presence at a rate that would have made kudzu jealous). But Bruce was still a hoarder; the things Bruce hoarded were simply more rare and unusual than outdated newspapers and old take-out containers and expired milk (well, he did have a rather extensive collection of newspapers—some dating back many decades, even. But they were all neatly organized, labeled, and stored).

And fortunately for Tim, wickedly potent viruses that hijacked the human body with all the ruthless efficiency of a mercenary outfit staging a coup…yes, those were very much on the list for someone like Bruce.

Hoarding, distrust…a need for control. They all went hand in hand. Tim knew it intimately.

He was pretty sure Cassandra was the only Wayne heir who didn't have those issues. He wasn't sure why; his best and really only guess was that maybe she was the only one who ever felt safe enough—capable enough—not to need it.

The rest of them seized upon their respective corners of the world, their domains of life, and held tight.

Linda, Head of Security, gave Tim a brisk but warm greeting as she passed, her pace nearly as quick as his own. She refused to work in an environment where getting to the most granular parts of ground level wasn't welcome, and after their previous head had retired, she had proven to be exactly what Tim was looking for. She'd pushed back aggressively during the interviews, drilling him with an intensity that had probably made it more than a little difficult to even find willing employers prior, but Tim had sensed where she was coming from. Known it wasn't about his age and that she would've given Bruce the exact same treatment if he'd been there instead.

She was maybe a little biased against clients in their income bracket, but Tim didn't mind, really; most of the people in positions of power here hadn't liked him anyways (many still didn't, after everything he'd done. It should've changed. Should've and hadn't and Tim was too tired and too jaded to even recall why he'd ever expected different. Maybe he really wasn't as mature as he thought. …But he was still more mature than they thought. And he was still more mature than fucking half of them were themselves on a very good day, let alone their regular). And regardless of the minor difficulties it might have caused him, Susan's biases had meant she was typically the opposite of impressed when someone showed up with shoes expensive enough to buy a car and a suit pricey enough to buy a house.

Given the prominence of people like Lex Fucking Luthor, Tim thought a little unearned resentment in return for getting a security head who wasn't starstruck at the shine and glimmer of blinding wealth was a pretty sweet deal.

Tatiana and Andrev, Tim bumped into a minute after. Tati was showing now, but Tim knew better than to even comment on her condition as she paused in pushing the broom down the hall. Andrev gave him a reassuring nod behind her back, though. Tati had been like an older sister to Andrev, and she could have a soft spot for him that she'd lived too dangerous a life to feel safe giving to someone who counted as her boss, no matter how young or unassuming he managed to make himself look. Even now, she was cautious in her pause from work, a faint wariness lingering behind her eyes as she waited for Tim to maybe snap at her and note he hadn't paid her for pleasantries and she wasn't doing anything with that mouth worth paying for. …Jason would've been just delighted to be introduced to some of her former employers. Tim was still deciding a way to handle the matter that wouldn't result in Tati's wanting to flee the country. Even Tim had enough self-awareness to know that the Wayne clan looked, walked, and bled a little too much like a mob for comfort sometimes.

In the meantime, Tim was relieved Andrev had all three of their backs. Or all four, to be accurate. He'd been able to convince her that the extensive maternity, paternity, and caretaker leave that Wayne Enterprises granted its employees was not a catch and that Tati could at least take on a lighter work schedule without fearing the company would demand the missing work back later, when her infant was in the cradle rather than her womb and she and her husband were already running on too little sleep and too much stress.

She didn't know yet whether she was having a son or daughter, wanting the doctors to hold the surprise until later on in the pregnancy, and Tim jotted a note to check in on that later. Wanting to know the sex of the baby was a classic question and for good reason, but Tim had a tendency to forget the obvious when it came to his genuine social interactions and not the ones he'd meticulously schemed over and plotted through and assessed angles on and gathered blackmail for, so…notes it was. Ask about that (but not too soon), keep an eye on her work hours to see if Andrev had fully succeeded…send a gift basket to Andrev because he was the latest M.V.P. now and Tim had already sent a gift-basket to the happy couple.

Tim also made a note not to send the same gift basket to Andrev; that would have been wildly inappropriate…if amusing for the four seconds before it devolved into utter domestic chaos.

As it was, Tim comforted himself in knowing Tati was already on one of the lighter jobs, cleaning-wise; this was much like some of the work Alfred did where nobody but him could even detect anything to clean but he insisted that it was there, perfectly obvious and an offense to his steadfast dedication to the maintenance of Wayne Manor.

Tim could take comfort in knowing that should he ever get shot and find himself with open wounds in the lower levels of the Tower, he and his AWOL spleen would really only have to fear the bullets.

Tim's mind shifted between that surprisingly reassuring thought (infections really were annoying to recover from. Bullets mostly didn't spread quite so viciously in the same sort of time interval) and the matter of social niceties as he continued his trek towards the upper levels.

Truth be told, this sort of thing was—had always been—a mixed bag. Some social conventions were pretty cool, and had the side benefit of being helpful for people like Tim, whose endlessly whirling thoughts had a tendency to crowd out everything else; he'd been accused more than a few times of being selfish, self-centered. He thought the labels were fair enough for a lonely little kid who'd forced himself into the space a dead boy had left behind, like forcing the Waynes to accept a changeling but with the added curse of sticking around even after the rightful child had returned.

That, Tim could have accepted condemnation for. But he didn't think it was fair that thinking of almost everything and everyone at once, all the time, should be what got him the label instead. But that would have been such a foolish, petty thing to squabble over, wouldn't it? Ungrateful, really.

That was another thing his parents had always called him. That, too, he could concede.

And what did it matter why he was given the labels if they were, in some manner, accurate?

It was silly of him, really. A needlessly fussy thing.

As needlessly fussy as many of the protocols he was now expected to follow while in the public eye.

And most of them lacked even the fun to be found under the banner of "eccentricity"; they were just frustrating and confusing and seemed almost entirely a waste of everyone's fucking time.

But they were still expected—even if almost no one else liked them, either—and the world of business was one steeped neck-deep in tradition and ritual.

Along with a dash of vaguely pagan superstition.

And more than a dash of contradiction. People wanted you to put as much effort as possible into creating the illusion of effortlessness, from how you crafted your personal appearance to the way that you ran your business. They expected you to have fine-grain knowledge of the smallest details while delegating all but the most important work (or whatever they deemed to be most important, at least; the gulf between the two could often put the Gorges du Verdon to shame). And you were meant to stay immaculately groomed while hiding any actual efforts to do so, lest you be accused of vanity by those more concerned with your appearance than you actually were.

It was this that found Tim slipping into a bathroom to assess his condition before he took an elevator up to expedite his journey.

He permitted himself a sigh at seeing that his hair had mostly made it through his early(ish)-morning journey intact; the gel had done its job, holding his thick jet-black hair neatly in place. He carefully dampened his fingers beneath the touch-free faucet, just enough water to re-moisten the gel and let him smooth down the few pieces that had come undone. He considered leaving just a few strands out of place—"artfully"—but in the end decided against it. He was already pressed for time and didn't want to waste it further in deciding if Hair #138 should be in front of or behind his ear. The whole point of that particular style was to look neat and tidy, after all; this was his "Shit's hit the fan and nobody but me can know" hairstyle.

Tim had worked out some time ago the balance: he could either be neat and frazzled, or slouchier but in tight control. He could not, however, wear a relaxed look while also being in a state of panic; that just looked like the Negligence Collection. Debuting this spring!

Tim already missed his Keds and his jeans and letting his hair hang free, but he was on thin ice already with the high stakes of today's meetings and how much his schedule (yes, he did have a schedule. He just…had some compliance issues) had been thrown off.

And he could always treat himself to a wardrobe revisit later in the week if he played his cards well enough today to earn it.

Besides, wearing a suit may not have been his favorite, but it also wasn't so bad, really.

Especially not when that suit was a bespoke one from Giovanni. The old man had been clothing the Wayne family since Bruce himself was a kid, and even if he was a Wayne in name only, Tim saw no need to break with that particular tradition^5a.

In truth, it had happened more by happenstance than anything else—accident, almost; Tam had asked if Tim wanted Giovanni to fit him for an upcoming event, and Tim, elbows-deep in sorting out the code for a suspiciously well-tailored virus he'd discovered, had absentmindedly agreed.

He'd have said the same thing if she'd suggested a meat dress at that point.

But when the preliminary samples had actually arrived by courier and it was time to take a look, Tim had had no choice but to sheepishly admit to his distraction and then ask Tam where the hell it all had come from, because fuck, this was good quality, and Tim was a good-quality sort of guy.

And thus had begun what quickly evolved into a love affair with all things Giovanni and a determination from Tim to patronize the shop as often as possible without seeming too clingy. Was that a thing with clothing fitters? Feeling clingy? Actually it sounded like a fabric joke that Gio might've enjoyed, even. Tim had rapidly discovered the old man had a sense of humor, and all of the patience needed to deal with generations' worth of wealthy scions trying a little too hard to live up to—or down to—their peers' and the public's expectations.

The one he had on now was one of his favorites: a midnight-black blazer and pant with matching tie, set off by the deep-crimson button-up shirt he wore underneath. He never missed an opportunity to show off Giovanni's work for top-tier clients, and Tim wasn't coming to play today. It was a bold choice, this color combo, but that was exactly what he wanted here. Aggressive colors, yes, but that would just make the even keel with which he actually wrangled the meeting all the more noticeable. It was an important rule of life: You didn't let people's attention wander; you directed it.

Tim smiled in the mirror, sharp and hungry now, all prior grogginess gone.

The smile softened to something less bloodthirsty as he reached down and carefully adjusted the delicately crafted pendant that lay just below the knot of the tie, dangling from the fine-caliber chain encircling the pale skin of his neck: the Eye of Fatima. It was a gift from Cass, purchased during a mutual stint in Morocco for a mission. "Seeing the sites," he would always say to anyone who asked about it. And it was absolutely true.

Besides, few people bothered asking exactly what sights^5b had been seen. Assumptions really were a bitch sometimes.

And Tim took full advantage of that.

The tender memento, purchased at a small, family-owned artisan business, had often enough become its own object of conversation.

To the uninitiated, it was often indulgently waved off as a trendy trinket from a heir with an abundance of time and money but scarcity of impulse control or a grounded sense of self.

Apparently Tim gave off certain I lived in an ashram for, like, two months, and it was radical, dude! vibes that probably landed him somewhere between the ping-ponging eccentricities of a Silicon Valley neo-hippie and the banal trend-chasing and ouroboric conformism of the nouveau faux-enlightened bourgeoisie.

To those who recognized it, however, it often sparked a warm sense of recognition and a curiosity at something that was all Tim's, part of his story before he'd ever fathomed setting foot in Wayne Manor or even chasing the Bats around Gotham (had anything ever changed?). While Janet Drake had treated their background the same way she treated everything else—with a cold opportunism—Tim was perfectly used to not relying on either her or Jack for anything of value, and had delved independently into learning about everything from the writings of Naeim Galadi to the advocacy work of Neturei Karta to the linguistic intricacies of Krymchak. Any conversations in a work context, of course, had to be kept carefully light and surface-level, but he'd managed some enjoyable conversations over time nevertheless.

There had, of course, been far less pleasant conversations, as well, but those were equally useful for taking the measure of a woman or man, and Tim would always prefer having himself in the firing line when it mattered over having those who worked under him being the ones out in front and bearing the brunt of others' unjust discrimination and hostility.

He wondered if Cass had anticipated as much when she had given him the gift.

Even knowing that her unique abilities were something wielded with cutting efficacy across the board, he couldn't help but think there was still something special about the bond between him and Cass. He'd never been able to pin down how or why, but she'd always felt less like his elder sister and more like his twin soul; there was something seamless and instinctual in the way they worked together, something that couldn't be explained purely by their training from either the Bats or the League.

He'd understood better after joining the Outlaws for a few missions, seeing the dance of how they blended into each other's shadows and moved to the rhythms of each other's heartbeats. They were all so wildly different, yet kept time to the same clock, exact as the Nomos that adorned his wrist.

I wonder if the New Shandao Restaurant is open this time of the year.

He'd promised that they'd get a meal there sometime. Cass would be thrilled if they could finally make it there, but probably just as happy to see him at all and grab a questionable meal at the nearest street cart.

Steph would…well, she'd definitely be happy that Cass was happy.…

As long as Tim didn't give either of them food poisoning. All bets were off if he did, though.

Things with Steph were…complicated now. They always had been, actually. He just hadn't noticed. Or had, but had brushed by it because he was smart but also stupid and thirteen and excelled as a vigilante but always felt out of his depth as a person.

And his and Steph's bond with each other had brought into even sharper relief the dies cast by their respective upbringings.

She had taken her cues from all the wrong sources. He'd had few cues to take.

He iced and ignored and controlled (or tried to). She screamed and threw things and provoked. Neither of them really knew what the hell they were doing.

They were best friends somehow anyways.

They'd held each other's jagged edges, breathed the mist of blood from each other's wounds. Not always figuratively, either.

She'd shared his life in ways no one else had, and you didn't forget things like that.

They'd both deserved better in the end, and that was another thing Tim was determined not to forget.

When it came down to it, Tim understood well enough how to be an heir. He understood far less how to be a son or a brother. And friend? That was still a toss-up.

He was okay at being just a friend sometimes, he thought; he'd managed to have a few of those even before becoming—or at least figuring out that he was—a Wayne or meeting a certain firebrand vigilante clad in purple. Hanging with Ives and Bernard? It was the closest he came to feeling normal sometimes. He wasn't the Drake heir or even the Wayne heir, and he definitely wasn't Robin or Red Robin to them. Just Tim. And he could talk about computers or comics or girls or skateboarding and not worry and wonder whether he sounded together enough, whether they'd think less of him for not having all of the answers.

But Steph was different. Steph and Bruce and Jason and Damian (not that they really had a relationship) and Dick and even Alfred.

It figured, probably, that one of the only simple relationships Tim had managed to have in his life was with someone who couldn't be around that often. Even so, there was no mistaking the glow in his heart as he grazed fingertips down the fine silver chain and let the polished surface of the pendant lie cradled in his palm.

Satisfied at last, Tim slipped from the bathroom and continued down the corridors, taking the stairs up through several more floors along with a single quick elevator ride that took him to the top of the mid floors. It was here that he could take the opportunity to check in on many of the W.E. employees who wouldn't get a chance to interact with him directly in most cases.

Marcia Westcott—he remembered that name from some of the accounting files. If he recalled correctly, she had left an extra note concerning how the allocations for R&D's latest project—still in its very infancy—were being organized. He'd already been meaning to speak with her, in fact, but she wasn't in her office as he glided his way past.

No matter, though—Costas, who seemed to have an uncanny sense for when he would show up, was already waiting for him. "Good to see you in today, Boss," the man said, joining Tim's side at a brisk pace that he still somehow made appear casual.

Tim nodded with a small grin, already reaching out a hand for the U.S.B. the other man had waiting. Costas liaisoned between Accounting and Legal, and always seemed to have a scattering of gossip and interesting notes from various other departments to top it all off.

"Interesting sh—stuff happening down in Security." A lift of the brows. "Thought you might have some opinions on the ideas floating around down there."

" 'Ideas,' " Tim repeated pointedly.

A folding of the arms now. "Too informal still to be called proposals, so yeah—ideas."

"I just saw Linda in the sub-levels earlier."

Costas snorted. "Prowling the depths again, is she?"

"Should I be worried?" Tim asked it with a smirk.

"Not…just yet. Think the feralness from that incident with the LexCorp plants is getting to them, though. They were already a ruthless lot before then, but now, well…let's just say I'm happy to be on their side and out of their line of fire for the foreseeable future." Costas gave a wave before breaking off from Tim to head back in the general direction of Accounting, though there would probably be a few (or more than a few) side stops along the way.

Tim watched until the gray suit of characteristic non-descriptiveness had melded into the sea of similar others.

Tim largely received more waves than hand-offs as he continued his way through the floor, cutting through the massive central lunchroom at one point to scan the menu. (Not that he especially planned on getting lunch here. Or at all. But he figured the vibe-check was important; he'd figured out by now that food tended to affect other people's moods and outlooks the way coffee did for him.)

Benson gave him a wave with what looked like a chocolate-dipped spatula as he passed, and Tim slowed down to check in. "Dessert?" he asked with a tilt of his head.

"Chocolate lava cake, if you can believe that. Got another message from our mystery benefactor."

Tim raised a brow. "Ferrous Ferret?"

"That's the one, Boss."

Tim raised both brows. "And he wanted you to do chocolate lava cake? Isn't that…messy?"

"Nahhh, I'm a pro." A beat passed. "Oh, you meant for the employees!"

Tim rolled his eyes as the man broke out in a grin at his own joke, eyes sparkling with mirth.

"Hey, we have free laundering around the corner for a reason, as far as I'm concerned. This is the place to go a little crazy."

"Si tu lo dices^{[If you say so]}," Tim said with a shrug.

"Hey," Benson said at the last second as Tim departed, "I'll save you a slice. Gonna be singing a whole new tune, birdie."

It still nearly made Tim stumble sometimes, hearing that nickname. He'd already come dangerously close to having a breakdown on the spot the first time, convinced he had somehow managed to do something enormously stupid and give away his—and by extension everyone else's—secret identity.

It turned out Benson's own family simply had a history of its own with bird-based nicknames. Which…well, it wasn't like the Waynes had some sort of monopoly on that. And if they had, that itself would've been a security risk.

Still, Tim didn't think he'd ever quite get all the way used to it.

Head filled with images of gushing chocolate and busy launderers (and thus money laundering and D-List villains like Sweet Tooth, naturally), Tim found his mind half-occupied with a recent case he'd been investigating alongside Contreras' as he transitioned from the upper middle to the truly topmost floors, which were where the real gauntlet began.

Never let it be said Gotham didn't have plenty of foliage around, because a fair bit more of it seemed to be burying Tim under its weight with each additional step.

"Mr. Wayne!"

There was only one person there who called him that on a regular basis, and even without that Tim would still have recognized the voice calling out to him.

"Good morning, Stephen," he said formally, giving the slightly older man an easy smile as though he'd fully expected to see him there.

Which was, strictly speaking, not false.

But it wasn't quite true, either.

"So we've got the first meeting with the Sylvan group, then Beshar & Co for your 10 o'clock, but it sounds like the reps from Lindale's are facing some delays and I wasn't sure if that was worth rescheduling for after Aram & Associates or if you just wanted me to push them back to next week. The earliest I can get them in—"

"Next week. I appreciate the position they're in after that last board meeting, but they need to be aware that we have timetables of our own to be mindful of and we need to be part of the factors they're taking into account in the first place. We can give them some cushion, but we're not a cushion; that's not our job, and they're not making enough for us for that to become our job."

"I'll pass it on. Don't think they'll be happy to hear that, though."

"Good. We can be unhappy with the delays together, then," Tim said, smiling slightly as he adjusted the cuff of his sleeve.

Truth be told, he really wasn't bothered about it. At all. On a day like today, he was extra watchful for those smaller meetings and easy tasks that he knew would slowly siphon his energy away, bit by unassuming bit.

In fact, he was more than happy to hear that he'd be relieved of some of his workload for the day, with none of the fault being turned back to W.E. or himself. Perhaps he could express his gratitude with a nice gift basket. He would officially mean it as thanks, but they would more likely take it as condolences.

Perfect thing, really.

Emily shoved a folder into his hand and he wondered, not for the first time, why so many people seemed dead set on using physical files when they could just as easily have emailed him the relevant information. This would have also made for easier sharing in cases where he needed to relay things to another party within the company. Or even outside of it, on occasion. The Kinetic Investigations, CARVER Knowledge, and Special Services (K.I.C.K.A.S.S.) firm^5c was one frequent recipient of communiqués from within the company.

Perhaps people assumed that if they had something physical to put in front of him it had a greater chance of being noticed and taking priority, versus the vague detachment of receiving yet another email.

This was only partly true.

While he did appreciate the effort of a physical hand-off, the electronic communications tended to actually get responses more quickly, and he could get through more of them in a given period of time.

Having dark mode was rather nice, after all.

Or maybe they all just liked the contact, the reassurance of knowing he'd seen and touched their message and that he'd seen them.

That, Tim could understand a little better.

Tim waited. This part was the easiest, after all. It only felt like torture. The hard part had been staying up night after night, reviewing the files for each individual homicide in their latest case, comparing each note to the summaries provided in the master file for the series of murders. They'd only just reached the point of agreeing that the cases were most likely related, part of something larger and more dangerous still. A cult? Some new venture by LexCorp? A run-of-the-mill serial killer? (And only in Gotham would a serial killer of any type count as run-of-the-mill.)

It was in the discrepancies between initial and summary, the variations that came with repetition of the same set of facts on different occasions, that Tim had searched. Hunted.

His own intellect was no small thing; Tim knew this. And he had every intention of examining the raw data in order to form and collate files of his own a second time (he'd already gotten the initial round of work out of the way, needing to form at least vague opinions of his own before they could be slanted even subtly by his consumption of Bruce's opinions). But now, at this stage, the greater value was in using his intellect to examine the work already done with eyes fresher than Bruce's could ever be in viewing his own work. Maybe one day Bruce would even find it worthwhile to offer the same back to Tim, review his notes not with the critical eye of a teacher and mentor but with the respectful intrigue yet bracing curiosity of a colleague.

For now, though, he waited. Watched as Bruce paged through the handwritten notes and scanned the rough diagrams Tim had sketched out. Watching the way the man's fingertips moved across the page, scrolled up and down margins because those, too, had been filled with annotations and stray thoughts (he hoped Bruce could—would—pardon the messiness Mother had yet to successfully purge from either his brain or his fingertips). Paused, skipped to a point earlier and then swiftly back again.

He could've simply scanned it all directly into the Batcomputer and had both photocopies and plain-text versions added to the database with withering speed, available to browse at Bruce's leisure.

And he would definitely do so. Just…later.

Bruce tapped a blunt fingernail against the desk, brow furrowed more deeply than before. "There were no signs of disease when I tested fluid and tissue samples from McCorsky against our database in the Batcomputer. And there were no substances found in her system beyond a mild antihistamine. Easily explained by her well-known and thoroughly documented history of seasonal allergies. What makes you think she's connected to the drug trials that were sabotaged recently?"

Tim brightened, the energy buzzing from his forcibly stilled fingertips and down to the tips of his toes. "Oh! Here." He twisted to grab one of the sheafs born from his earlier flurry of scribbling. "After I spotted that discoloration in the iris, I realized that it reminded me of something I'd—oh, not that your own conclusions about injury weren't well-founded, of course, but—"

"And why didn't you include this with the rest of what you gave me to look at?" Bruce interrupted as he flipped through the papers again, lips pursed as he leveled a critical, almost suspicious look Tim's way.

Tim felt his face heat, stomach dropping at the thought of how easily his complexion was probably giving him away right then. He willed his fingers at least not to crinkle the papers already clutched in their grasp. "I didn't want to clutter things up with too many asides before you'd had a chance to finish the initial review."

"Hnn." Bruce's lips tightened slightly as he regarded Tim a moment longer.

He reached out a hand all the same.

And Tim gladly reached back.

"So what do you suggest we do about the meeting with Fenrich?"

"Sir?" Stephen frowned, licking his lips. "That's still on, isn't it?"

Tim nodded. "Of course. But things have changed with Lindale's and I have it on good authority that the same Fenrich rep we were scheduled to meet with afterwards is already in town and has some time free." He turned to face Stephen with a slight arch of his brow.

"You're talking about moving the meeting ahead."

"I am, yes."

"Sir…with all respect, I think that's too risky."

"How come?" Tim asked breezily as they made it to another elevator and Tim finally set his own office level as the destination.

Stephen frowned slightly, hands shoved into the pockets of his neatly pressed dress pants as the elevator began to ascend. "I understand that moving up the meeting could send an additional message to Lindale's."

"But?"

"It's true Lindale's position is worse." A small breath inwards before he spoke more firmly, volume lifted—though not past deference. "But that doesn't mean Fenrich's position needs to be marked as any better. If we do that, they might start getting cocky about their chances, take the contract negotiations for granted."

"True."

"Besides"—and now he was picking up steam—"there's always Option 3."

Murder? Tim's brain chimed on cue^5d.

"We could bring in Schaeffield."

The elevator opened, Tim and Stephen having both been scanned by discreet security protocols during the course of the ride. "I seem to recall a strong dislike for Schaeffield," Tim noted with an almost absentminded neutrality. Not that it would fool Stephen by now.

Stephen let out a small huff. "Costas told me Accounting and Legal would've run them from the building, and Security would've helped them do it."

"So what's changed?"

"Well, I dug into some of their arrangements with other firms. I know the terms they proposed to us originally wouldn't be particularly favorable, but they actually have a lot more flexibility than most of the candidates we've looked at, as long as you know their sweet spots. And once they're hooked in, they don't let go."

Tim turned to face him fully as they stepped into the reception area where the up-and-comer did most of his work. "You're thinking they're worth the trouble."

"Not yet," Stephen admitted with a quick shake of his head, licking his lips for a moment. "But I think they could be, and I think they're in a strong enough position that Fenrich should be worried if they mess up, and Lindale's should be worried about them now. We're in a good position to deal with any of the three when it comes down to it.

"The meetings should stand as they are."

"Works for me," Tim answered casually, not missing the slight widening of Stephen's eyes, the eyes of a man still unused to having his ambitions met with any real regard.

…An expression that was quickly followed by a slightly exasperated sigh. "That's exactly what you planned, isn't it?"

"Mmm, not quite. I didn't plan on changing the meeting times for Fenrich or opening up other slots for them. But I did decide not to dig into Schaeffield"—he turned back at the entryway to his own office now—"I just trusted you to."

He huffed. "Guess I should be honored, then. Did I pass?"

Tim nodded. "Keep looking into our other options. I think we can cut expenses this year without quality being a worry."

"Any chance the budget for the cafeteria might reflect that? Because I do believe I'm slightly addicted to Chef Benson's cooking now and the man's gonna need a larger staff and a few equipment upgrades at this rate. God's sake, did you see what he had on the dessert lineup today?"

Tim snorted. "I'm informed this is why we keep in-house laundering services. Maybe I'll add those to the budget updates, too."

"Is that a yes, then?"

As though the cafeteria was ever not a priority. Especially with a certain nosey mustelid hanging around and reporting back to his zombie overlord. He would use his gamer tag as a codename here.

"You'll just have to figure it out, I guess," Tim threw over his shoulder as he moved to get settled in his own office. "You seem to be pretty good at that. Ne pas la gaspiller^{[Don't waste it]}."

"Right, Boss." Stephen smiled and gave a nod the moment before a phone rang, neatly drawing him back into the flow of the workday.

Tim settled at his desk and added the newest sheaf to the stack of papers already adorning the clean but cluttered surface of his desk. It probably looked like a nightmare still to most people who saw it, but for Tim it was a welcome sort of chaos that he could navigate like second nature. Just one amongst the several cryptid companions now in his life.

Time to get to work.

Tim sighed softly as he enjoyed a brief respite in his office, taking a moment to loosen his tie a little before fixing it back into place. The relative lack of tension in his shoulders and neck as he took a moment to work the soreness out found him smiling unexpectedly. There was still some, of course, but far less than average. That pressure-point stuff really did work. Hunh. He could already picture the smug expression on Jason's face at the news. Hmm…Tim probably wouldn't tell him, but he made a mental note to stay over more often; it was kinda nice not to be craving death before 5 o'clock. And it wasn't like Jason would object more than perfunctorily—not if he thought he was successfully "convincing" Tim to eat. Tim didn't really consider it to be a matter of convincing when it would in fact be a trade that Tim himself had planned and initiated, but he certainly wasn't going to argue the finer points here. And, well, he probably did need to eat at least a little more, so it wasn't like Jason was wrong. Technically.

Anyways…it looks like I have Sylvan's interest now. The only thing is that if I try to move him forward at this point, Connelly is just going to dig in her heels. And Sylvan could override her, but I'm going to have to convince the hell out of him to get that, and fragmenting things like that is just going to be a pain in the ass for me later. Tim sighed yet again, but this time it was with a calm sense of resignation as he absently straightened the cuffs of his sleeves. He needed to meet with Connelly.

Even if she still disagreed with the proposal by the end and had that noted on the final records, she'd appreciate his willingness to deal with her directly as Sylvan's right-hand woman, and there'd be no mistaking his intent when he addressed himself to Sylvan again. Connelly seemed pragmatic enough that she wouldn't hold a grudge for that much; she knew the same rules as he did, after all: the gloves are off after peaceful overtures are made.

And she was definitely ready to spar.

Heck, in all likelihood, Connelly was the one he'd be dealing with most often any—

"Tim?"

Tim bit back a vicious string of curses as his predecessor appeared in the doorway.

Oh, no, not Jason.

"I asked Stephen not to announce me. It seems I was right that I'd have a better chance of catching you that way."

Bruce.

And this. Was why he preferred having Tam around.

"I did try to call, but you haven't been answering your phone."

No shit. Tim let out another string of internal curses even as he kept his face relaxed into an expression of slight warmth, as though he were pleasantly surprised to have the former C.E.O. show up in his office. Unannounced.

Stephen…was great. Stephen was fantastic, in fact. Little wonder, what with Tam's having taken such a personal interest in both his recruitment and training. In fact, hiring him to begin with had been Tam's idea—as had the practice of addressing Tim strictly as Mr. Wayne: a pointed reminder to those who refused to be swayed by a subtler approach. All that said? Tam Fox would've already drop-kicked the elder Mr. Wayne back to reception by now. First-floor reception.

The younger Fox more than deserved the time off, and Tim refused to begrudge her that for even a nanosecond. But he could definitely be pissed at Bruce—and himself—for managing to pick the worst time possible to have a…whatever this was now. Fight? No, not a fight.… Disagreement? Spat. Yeah, that seemed right. It almost sounded like something Jason would insist upon, probably stemming from one book or another. Tim shuddered a little, though, because the term also sounded like how his parents used to describe their disagreements (somehow they'd found plenty of time to fight in the very rare times they were home at all).

Comfortably seated now in the plush chair across from the desk, Bruce was leveling a steady gaze his way while Tim silently wished for backup.

Still, Tim met the look with a measuring one of his own. "Business or personal?" He kept his tone a little too muted to be labeled "chipper," but pleasant enough to sound genuinely inquisitive and almost happy. Almost.

"Both."

Bruce was a tricky bastard and they both knew it.

No matter, though. "I'm afraid I'm booked through most of the day, Mr. Wayne," he said breezily, "but I may be able to find some time after this meeting with Aram & Associates." Poised now to rise from his desk, Tim began stacking a few last papers, mind already running through options for further delaying the meeting with Bruce now that he'd bought some time.

"I've already rescheduled that."

"Rescheduled." Tim repeated the word evenly, allowing his pace to slow even as he kept his eyes largely on his desk, only sparing Bruce a glance here and there from under a slightly arched brow as he continued working.

And he still saw enough to catch a halfway-there smile from Bruce.

"Trust me—they didn't mind once they found out that I'd be the one handling their new meeting." There was a blend of amusement and satisfaction in the older man's voice, and it was all Tim could do not to visibly clench his jaw, knowing Bruce would pick up on the muscular tic. "I figured it would be a win-win," he continued. "You have less on your plate for the day, and they get a meeting directly with me."

"Instead of with the C.E.O." Finally setting aside his file folders, Tim slowly sat back in his chair and stared Bruce dead in the eye. Calmly, of course. "If you're going to punish me for last night, it might be prudent to do it in a way that doesn't screw over everybody in Legal." The advice was offered dispassionately, as though either possibility would be fine enough, really, and he merely supposed Bruce might appreciate the tip.

Bruce blinked, the jovial demeanor he had entered the office with abruptly melting away into what appeared genuine confusion. "Tim, this is not a punishment. I offered them a chance to have a meeting directly with myself instead, and they accepted. The cancellation won't reflect poorly on anyone here."

Except me, Tim thought, still almost too stunned to be angry. He leaned back in his chair, idly flicking a pen betwixt his fingers as he studied the man now sitting in his office. Tim's office.

"Clearly there are some things going on that need to be addressed, and I can promise my only intention here is to acknowledge and address that fact."

Really, bitch? You realize there are things going on, and your benevolent response to that is to come in and undermine the authority that I still have challenged on a regular fucking basis because people here already see me as a kid hanging on your coattails and are still waiting for the "real" boss to come back? Tim could already hear how Conner would've summarized Bruce's idea of handling the situation: "Dude, that was a fucking violation." And Tim would be fully in agreement with such an assessment.

But of course he couldn't say as much—at least not in that manner—because who knew how much more it'd cost him if he actually started sounding like the kid everyone, Bruce included, already saw when they looked at him?

No, he wasn't giving up an inch more of ground beyond what had already been taken from him that day.

Bruce would have to pay in blood to get any more.

Fine. Fucking damage control it is, then. "Sounds like I have some time free after all," Tim agreed pleasantly, rising to his feet and making his way to the office door with quick but smooth strides.

Tim poked his head out and made a quick gesture to Stephen, letting him know to hold any further calls or unannounced visitors.

On the phone already, Stephen acknowledged with a thumbs-up and grin that today had Tim holding back a snort. Normally he wouldn't have had to suppress the reaction at all; even amidst the struggles to be taken seriously, Tim was still committed to fostering as casual an environment as was reasonable for the company, and it was something he could indulge in some himself as well. But the space to indulge a more relaxed vibe was no longer present.

Not with Bruce here and reminding everyone who the real C.E.O. was.

Whether or not he meant to do it. And the chances that Bruce hadn't at least considered that side effect of his moves were very, very low.

…Actually, Tim was going to extract a price for this no matter what Bruce had planned next.

He had become C.E.O. in order to protect this company and the people working within it, everyone who depended on it, from the thousands of employees to the Bats themselves. And no one, not even Bruce Thomas Wayne himself, got to stand as a threat to that.

Bruce was going to remember that.

Shutting the door and smoothly sliding the lock into place, Tim stuffed his hands into his pocket and ambled back over to the desk. Oh, he could be a little casual now that it was just the two of them.

Reaching the far side of his desk again, Tim leaned down and hit the button to activate Alpha Protocol: full soundproofing, tamper alerts, and enhanced surveillance of their floor and the adjacent ones. "Clear."

Tim resumed his seat smoothly, hands clasped atop the desk in a pose of calm readiness. "So, what are the new leads on Contreras? Did the crew on King Street—"

Bruce frowned, shaking his head. "I'm not here to talk about that, Tim."

Tim paused, folding his arms with a slight tilt to his head. "No? You said you were here to talk about last night. I assumed that would involve talking about the data that I acquired for this team. At—as you have very astutely pointed out—great personal risk."

Tim chuckled. "I'm aware that you don't consider me to be the actual C.E.O. here, Mr. Wayne, but I'd still be a pretty poor stand-in if I let this discussion continue without acknowledgement of what I accomplished for the mission last night. If you object to my methods—"

"The intel isn't the problem."

"No, I think it's exactly the problem, Bruce. You say you want to talk, and I know you want to talk about me, but you don't want to talk about what I contributed or hear my perspective or anything that might possibly impede the negative narrative you clearly want to lay out here. You say that I'm not acting like I'm part of a team. Well, a failure on your own part to treat me like part of a team would have to be part of the problem here, then."

Bruce heaved a short sigh. "Tim," he said, his tone going a little pointed, "I fully intend to address both at the proper time, but for now I'm trying to avoid having this become a primarily work-focused discussion."

Tim blinked and let one eyebrow make a slow climb upwards before flicking his eyes up and down Bruce's suit, then throwing a glance at the pictures hanging framed on the wall—images of Bruce at various galas and events, ones here and there of his predecessors in the family business.

And a glance at the floor-to-ceiling windows letting in the cloudy, filtered light of a late Gotham morning.

And then back at Bruce again. "I see." Tim tilted his head, face cradled in his palm as he leant an elbow on the armrest and languidly eased back in his chair. He could just as well get comfortable if this was not to be a work-primary discussion.

All appearances aside.

Bruce pursed his lips, waiting until Tim had settled in again before he began speaking. "Tim. It's come to my attention that you feel my handling of you has been…unfair, at times."

Fingers kept braced against the armrest, Tim refused to let himself even twitch as he processed the words, allowing himself only a passing awareness of the knife that seemed to sink deeper into his chest with every beat.

13 years old, battered and bruised, walking home to an empty house where he'd been the sole occupant for months, and would be for months yet.

13 years old, in a strange city, in a strange country, fighting for his life against an assassin Bruce himself had been bested by.

15 years old, his throat slit by the lost hero Bruce had lectured him never to become. The same lost soul who'd soon be roaming the halls of the Manor. Freely. With Bruce's full blessing.

16 years old, another small, dark-haired boy grinning maniacally as he flashed the colors that had defined the only years of Tim's life he had actually felt alive.

16 years old, sandpaper hands on his shoulders and an ancient voice creeping near to whisper in his ear, the words oozing like oil infused with anthrax, promising power, influence, the very world—for just a small price.

16 years old, chains wrapped round his wrists as thin, bony fingers tugged down the zipper of—

16 years old. Watching a thin, frail Bruce muster new strength to greet the children he'd made himself stay strong for all those months. Watching as one by one, he hugged each member of his family.

Wondering how it would feel to be one of them.

And instead becoming the new phantom, derealized and apparating into the background. A tradeoff.

17 years old. Watching this bastard look so assured and at home in an office he never worked out of anymore, minutes after canceling—usurping—a meeting Tim had worked his ass off to arrange.

And saying he didn't want to talk about work when that was all Tim had left. All Bruce had left for him.

Oh. Tim recognized that knife now. It had a named carved into the handle—Kharokh.

Rage^5e.

Tim responded in the only way appropriate. He asked, in the most bland, unaffected voice possible, "Do you think your handling of me has been unfair?" The perfect notes of a mild, genteel curiosity while he graciously gave Bruce the chance to consider his actions. Beat the bastard into the ground with his own weapons.

Damn, maybe he really was spending too much time with the other black sheep of the family. He could almost hear Jason bitching about Tim stealing his shtick. Well, suck it, asshole. You don't get a monopoly on being petty.

Bruce's nictitation rate had increased by a level of approximately one per minute now. Enough for Tim to know he was thrown.

The ever so slight squint that followed as his eyes then searched Tim's only confirmed it.

"Just in case a greatest-hits montage doesn't start scrolling across my face in the next few minutes, maybe we should talk about George Harkness."

Something immediately shifted in the air then, Bruce's posture becoming straighter. Stiffer. "Boomerang."

"Mm, yes, that is still the name he typically works under," Tim replied, letting his voice trail off absently as though he was only vaguely aware of the man's activities at any given time. "Last I checked, at least."

Of course if Bruce had any sense of the actual situation, he could probably guess that Tim had precise enough knowledge of the man's whereabouts at any given moment that he could've had Slade contracted before sundown.

Starting from a Gotham winter…at 4:00 p.m.

Tim pulled out a blank sheet of paper and chose a black K400 Souverän from the array of pens littering his desk. "We've both dealt with him at this point, so I don't think we need to belabor this. So, just—off the top of my head—

"Psychological profile: Lack of empathy and remorse. Financially motivated, no consistent political or social affiliation. Which I acknowledge"—he tipped the end of the ink pen in Bruce's direction—"is the sort of thing with potential to be beneficial. However, subject also possesses pathological dislike of authority figures and particularly ones in roles such as law enforcement and vigilantism. Will even go against his own interests in order to inflict damage on parties in those categories. And thus far there has not been a single case where he was contracted to work for heroes or hero-affiliated-slash-adjacent individuals and did not betray them at earliest possible convenience."

Bruce took in a deep breath. "You don't have to argue with me about this, Tim. I don't believe he's a good man, and you don't have to convince me of that."

"Oh, I know. I wouldn't be bothering right now if I thought I had to convince you of that," Tim answered lightly, punctuating the words with a small shrug as he leaned back from his work to regard Bruce. "In fact, that's actually immaterial because I don't care whether he's a good man—and for the purposes of this exercise, I assume neither do you."

Bruce frowned, but the look spoke more of puzzlement than disapproval.

Though the disapproval was of course there.

"My question," Tim continued calmly, "is whether he's a beneficial man. So far, the answer is no, so maybe let's try another angle here." Tim leaned forward again to outline further columns on the paper in front of him. "Is he…a detrimental man? I mean, maybe he won't help us, but that doesn't mean he's a problem. Of course, second-degree murder, grand larceny, manslaughter, first-degree murder, domestic terrorism, international terrorism, corporate espionage, kidnapping, aggravated assault, conspiracy to commit murder—those would probably count as detrimental."

"And he's guilty of all of that," Bruce stated, the weary sobriety held in his voice mirrored by his posture as he rested in the chair across from Tim, his hands loosely clasped in front of his lap.

Broadcast, clearly…but there was some truth to it, as well.

But wait! There's more! Tim played his part, nodding thoughtfully. "Yes…but I realize it's not that simple."

A slight lifting of dark, bushy brows at that.

Tim merely gave him a saw-toothed grin in response, a Prionace glauca in his natural element. "After all. We commit a lot of crimes. Practically every day. In fact, every single one of us could go to jail for life in this state on the B&E^{[breaking and entering]} charges alone, never mind all the actual thefts themselves.

"And those are the nonviolent crimes. So I really can't condemn him just on the charges."

"You can on the murder charges."

Will that be ziricote or coromandel for your coffin, asshole? As Tim recalled, it was in good form to allow for small indulgences before one buried a man.

Mother had taught him that.

"Actually, Bruce, I really prefer a more holistic approach to that question. The good news is, I've already done the research—as I'm sure you have—and I can confirm that well over 85% of his living victims and 95% percent of deceased were innocent individuals who simply had something he wanted or were barriers to him getting something he wanted. Now…here's where it gets a little trickier.

"Jack Drake."

The grim press of Bruce's lips indicated that he was looking forward to this far less than Tim was.

A shame, really.

"Mr. Drake's history is admittedly complicated. Child neglect, emotional abuse—it's unlikely that he would've been prosecuted, but such crimes are genuinely considered serious in the eyes of the law, due to their impact on the victims. I have my own opinions on that, but let's not digress just yet. The unfortunate thing for Mr. Harkness in this case is that those crimes seem to have no connection to the killing itself. Once again, it was financial motivations that led to this crime. Now, you'll recall I mentioned the matter of detriment earlier.

"In this case, one Jack Drake's death further destabilized a company that was already reeling in the aftermath of Janet Drake's death. Not the best news with how many people worked for the corporation and how many families depended upon it. But there was also an individual cost. Some might argue that removing Jack Drake should count as a positive choice in this case because of his history of abuse."

Tim held Bruce's stare, fully trusting that the unreadable look in Bruce's eyes was easily mirrored by his own. "I personally disagree with that assessment," Tim stated softly, finally letting his pen trace off the edge of the paper and setting it down on the desk. He picked up the paper with careful hands and began folding it as he spoke. "Jack Drake…was the father of someone who had been and still is an instrumental member of the hero community in Gotham, and a not insignificant player in international vigilante work, as well. Observable and documented fact," Tim noted briskly, "not ego." You're right. So be confident, but never defensive; use just the right touch of briskness. You're the not the one who has to sweat here. "You, of course, are one of the best individuals to verify this, given that you have records of many of my missions." He tipped his head in Bruce's direction, smirking internally at the slight tensing of the man's jaw at being praised in one breath and scorned in the next. I'm sorry, did you think I gave you everything? My gravest apologies, of course, but why the fuck would I do that? So you can add them to your list of things to berate me about?

The missions left undisclosed also simply…weren't Bruce's business. Not anymore.

He gently set the paper down on the desk, keeping it nearer his own side still as he relinquished it. "And I've examined my behavior and thought processes in the time following his death enough to state, with a high degree of confidence, that Jack Drake's murder was detrimental to my mental health."

"Then you understand my worries."

Tim gave him a small frown, index nail tapping a quick staccato on the desk. "Yes, and no, I think."

"Oh?" This time Bruce made no attempt to mask his surprise.

Good move—conveys vulnerability, Tim thought appreciatively. He nodded slowly in answer, leaning back into his chair with an ankle thrown over his knee. "Bruce. I'm not naïve enough to believe that the rules would or even should change on my behalf. I understand that you don't believe in killing. And I understand that you don't want me killing. What I don't understand is why you would be on any level shocked that I might still be inclined to remove him from the board after everything he's done. Or why you seem unduly disconcerted by the discovery that someone with a desire to kill might also possess an actual willingness to kill.

"And, given both the manner and the extensive degree to which his continued existence has proven to be a grievous, persistent source of harm to both the civilian and hero population, how the hell you came to the conclusion that my refraining from killing him speaks to a lack of self control. One that necessitates monitoring, no less. And clearly you're not questioning my mental health for not having gone after him sooner, so I think the most reasonable explanations are squarely off the table here."

"Tim, you still nearly killed the man."

"He nearly killed himself, actually. He had"—and here he leaned forward, eyes narrowed and voice dropping into a dangerous hiss—"every opportunity not to end up there. Not to take the bait. Not to keep chasing the damn thing like an absolute lunatic, but he just…couldn't…resist. It's not just the greed, or even the arrogance, Bruce. It's the stupidity. He should've stopped half a dozen different times before it ever got that far. He is literally too stupid to live—"

"Tim!" Bruce snapped, clearly having reached the end of his patience. Still, he carefully lowered his voice before the next words. "Enough." Softer, but loud enough that no mistake would be made about his authority. The full weight of which was evidently about to come down on Tim. "I will not have you justifying the murder of this man based on his intelligence or lack of the same."

"Attempted murder, and according only to you," Tim responded, tone coated with boredom. "I will fight you on this, for the record. …I'm willing to work with a hypothetical, though. With the proviso that this is only to be taken as hypothetical, I'll concede for the purposes of our discussion here that I attempted to murder Harkness. I'm listening."

Bruce closed his eyes for a long moment, the most he'd let his true level of frustration show thus far. "Tim. You are…one of the most brilliant young minds I've ever met. One of the most brilliant minds I've encountered, period, and I cannot say a thing like that lightly."

Tim viciously snapped off the stray tendrils of himself that stretched out for that acknowledgement, reaching out like a vine seeking the sun. If Bruce had such faith in his mind, how did he spend so much time doubting his judgement?

Tim had learned from his mother to recognize the pretty glint of a poisoned blade. It had taken him much longer to understand that Bruce wielded some of the same weapons.

"You are a truly gifted detective, as well, and it has been my honor and privilege both to be able to mentor you, and to find myself in the position of being your father."

Tim steeled himself, holding to the back of his throat the poisonous words aching to throw themselves Bruce's way. He ignored the urge to let them loose, knowing that rashness here could cut himself as easily as injure Bruce. He needed to hear the rest of this.

"There is a great deal I've learned in my time with you as part of the family. About you, and about myself. The more I watched you—the drive, the mindset, the stubbornness," he added with a half smile, "the more I saw myself.

"And I think that's the part that worries me the most.

"I won't deny I often fall into the trap of tunnel vision, and unfortunately you seem to share that…vulnerability. You have a tendency to pull back. Isolate. Not only from other people but also from parts of your own mind. Both of those traits can work towards a dynamic where it becomes all too easy to rationalize things. Talk yourself into going down paths you shouldn't."

"Like revenge?" Tim asked, deploying again a bland absence of tone but this time lacing in enough disdain for someone like Bruce to notice. "That thing you've spent, conservatively, the past two decades of your life pursuing?"

He saw Bruce's hands clench at the words.

Which for Bruce, amounted to the slightest flex of his fingers before relaxing once more. "Perhaps you're not aware of this," he began, in a tone Tim recognized from when interviewers had overstepped their bounds, "but I've known for many years now who killed my parents. And.

"I apprehended him eventually. Alive. Unharmed. Our mission is about justice, Tim, not revenge."

"Which is why you let the courts dictate how many broken bones you leave suspects with?"

Bruce's nostrils flared, but Tim wasn't done. "You didn't let Joe Chill go—of course I know his name—because you let go of revenge. You let him go because you realized there were bigger fish involved than just him. And then because somewhere along the way you decided that a whole city was a better target than one man."

The storm clouds now gathering in Bruce's expression only spurred him onwards. Tim had always loved a good downpour.

"And maybe because if you let him go, then you could keep telling yourself that what you were doing wasn't about revenge every second of the fucking day. Lucky for him, I guess," Tim added, a brief lift of his brows taking the place of a shrug. "Honestly, what I had planned was a lot less dramatic than the life you live already—and I didn't even go through with it."

A line of tension ran through Bruce's jaw, his posture growing more rigid than before as he somehow seemed to take up more space in the room while barely moving a muscle. When he spoke, it was with an even, controlled pace, each word landing like a footfall from Bane. "If you sincerely expect my commendation for refraining, at the last second, from committing premeditated murder—"

"No, I realize, of course, that I've fallen way short of the hopes you had for me," Tim cut in, and wasn't this quite the familiar conversation? "I did a good while ago, I'm pretty certain. I'm sure you've counted more screw-ups on my part than I could ever think of, and I certainly wouldn't expect praise for that.

"That said"—and here he frowned down at his lap thoughtfully for a moment before meeting Bruce's gaze again—"I seem to recall that I currently am the only Wayne heir who has not taken a life, so I honestly think I'm still doing pretty well." He let the slightest curve of a smile touch his lips.

"That's more reason for me to be worried, Tim, not less." He'd recovered from the blow with an immediacy that almost had Tim nodding in respect, but there were lines of stress pulling at the corner of his eyes.

Blow recovered from, not sidestepped, Tim confirmed to himself, quietly coiling up for the next strike.

"I would be failing both you and myself, as a mentor and as a parent, if I watched you struggling to this degree and didn't take that as a cue to become more proactive."

A scoff held back by pursed lips and an adamantine will. " 'More' implies prior action on your part, Bruce." He glanced down for a minute to tug at his sleeves, the suit squeezing around him in a way that felt more stifling with each passing minute. If he hadn't known the office was climate-controlled (and that the current sensations had nothing to do with external physical temperature, he supposed), he might have been tempted to check the current read-outs. Glad I went for the extra-hold gel today. "I pulled myself back from the edge, Bruce," he corrected in a tone just shy of chiding. "You were there and I still had to save myself anyways."

"I wanted to give you a chance—"

"Like you've been doing for the past four years, you mean?"

Bruce opened his mouth to protest, but Tim cut him off quickly. "No, honestly, that's not a criticism, I promise. It's a gamble, obviously, but it works; I pulled myself back from the edge just fine. Have plenty of times before. Will again, I'm sure. You wanted to see if I can do it on my own and I can.

"And that's the goal, right?" He stood then, finally shrugging himself out of the jacket and laying it on the back of the chair. The tie, he loosened and unwound, slipping it off and then draping it back around his neck. "If this conversation is you turning over a new leaf, Bruce, that's really not called for now.

"Not with me, at least. I agree that proactiveness is a wise approach," he conceded easily enough. "But I would also hold that—according to your own logic—your newfound fervor would be better directed towards the others. Don't waste your worry on someone who doesn't need it." He took his seat again, neatly folding up first one shirt sleeve and then another, just barely registering the scars scattered across his forearms and wrists. "I do fine on my own," he added, glancing up at Bruce here and there. "That's what we've always agreed in the end, right?" A deep breath, and a sigh. Tim clasped his hands together, fingertips tapping against his lip. "Actually…" he murmured, "…you might want to hold off on the others, too; given that your idea of what constitutes a problem historically hasn't worked out so well for them—"

Bruce raised a palm to stop him, and Tim complied, perfectly willing to see where this went. "I understand your anger, Tim. At Boomerang. At me."

That seems fucking unlikely, but okay, I guess.

He swallowed, gaze briefly traveling down as he furrowed his brow in thought. "I've made…a great deal of mistakes over the years. I am aware of that." His eyes darted across the face of a Tim who was politely restraining either brow from curving up. "Profoundly aware. It's not an exaggeration to say that I've failed all of you. Jason probably the most."

Tim felt his focus sharpen to an obsidian edge. He saw where this was going now and he was not. Pleased.

"When he came back…I should have worked harder to reach out to him. To talk with him and not just to him. If I had approached things differently—"

It was Tim's turn to hold up a palm. "I agree with the premise, but explain to me what this has to do with anything. Jason wasn't even patrolling last night. If this is you deciding to take my advice and actually pay attention to your kids, B, great, but I don't think singling out one is going to have the impact you're looking for here."

"I think you know exactly why I'm bringing up Jason here," Bruce said, meeting his gaze more steadily now. "I know the two of you have been getting close in recent months."

"Which is a problem."

"No, not at all," he said quickly. "After the way things started, I didn't, well"—he cleared his throat—"I'm glad the two of you have been able to move forward so effectively."

Tim snorted a little. "Effectively" would be how Bruce would choose to put things. Glad we can all celebrate so effusively.

"But I also realize that Jason still carries a great deal of anger."

"…Regarding?"

"Me," Bruce answered simply. "He's never been able to understand why I made the choices I did, or the ones that I have continued to make. Consequently, he's never been able to forgive me for those choices. I've never been able to help him forgive me.

"And I'd be naïve myself to think that his perspective hasn't had any effect on you after so much time together."

Tim had thought he'd known where Bruce was going. He hadn't. "You think"—and he almost didn't finish the words, because surely they couldn't have been right—"I went after Boomerang because of Jason?"

"I know you did. And I refuse to become so mired in my failure to help one son that I ignore the one who's disappearing right in front of me."

Tim licked his lips. And slowly leaned down to open the top drawer to his left—secured, as with all of them, by an array of biometric data. The process was designed to be seamless, however, a few seconds later finding him with the desired item: a semi-joking gift from Steph that was now well-worn and much loved. And much more socially acceptable for in-public fidgeting than the karambit given to him by Roy or the balisong he had received from Jason (the fact that Tim rarely fought with blades had never meant he didn't find them useful).

Bruce raised his eyebrows at the amorphous lump of jagged and jumbled plastic. "A Ghost Cube. Impressive piece, Tim. I didn't realize you owned one of those."

Tim nodded, feeling his throat close up like it had used to sometimes when he was little, the words feeling too much like little shards of glass ready to cut and slice anyone who came too near. He ran his fingers along the edges, a twist at one angle and then perpendicular to it bringing one of the edge pieces a little closer to its correct middle space. "Maybe"—and, still, Tim had to take a deep breath here—"I should explain a thing or two about Jason." The words came out with a slight coating of grit all the same, but that was good enough for now. "I don't need to outline a psychological profile for this one, Mr. Wayne, so I'll be brief. Though I think it would be incredibly beneficial if you did get feedback from a qualified expert from outside of Gotham. I'm sure Dinah would be willing to talk to you…if she thought you were serious."

Bruce arched a brow. "Mr. Wayne is my father."

Mr. Pennyworth is the only father of yours I can talk to. Also…dad jokes? Guess you're really committing to the bit now. Huh. Regardless.… "Jason doesn't kill for enjoyment. He doesn't kill casually. He doesn't even kill for himself. Do you…have any idea how many times he's forgone taking a crook's life under circumstances where he absolutely would've been considered justified in doing so as a matter of self defense?"

"That's part of the job, Tim," Bruce rejoined, a chiding exasperation coating the edges of an otherwise calm tone.

The long-suffering act only pissed Tim off more.

"It's not a job, Bruce! That's why you're not obligated to kill Joker! It's not any of our jobs! It's just shitty volunteer work we do because we're all crazy enough to. And it is nobody's job to just let folks try to kill them and not respond in kind. And all of us have still done exactly that. But I would never ask, never expect, someone else to do that on my behalf. And neither would Jason."

"But I would?"

"But you do."

"I want for you to do the right thing, make the right choice. Not the easy one."

Tim could have cried until he laughed. "You think we ever get the easy choice? For anything? Really, Bruce? That's what it sounds like to you? Killing is the easy thing?"

"Up until a few months ago, you wouldn't have disagreed about that, Tim. You've never considered killing an acceptable way to solve problems. You don't believe in handling things that way. Or at least you didn't."

"So? Apparently I still fucking don't," Tim snapped. Unless I somehow sleepwalked my way into homicide and Boomerang has a grave somewhere I don't remember digging.

"Yet you set up an elaborate plan—"

"To get Boomerang to either choose to be a slightly reasonable-acting human being or get himself killed in the least surprising sequence of actions having consequences ever."

Bruce pursed his lips.

"I know," Tim added, scoffing. "Operating under hypotheticals." He frowned as his fingers continued working their way across the cube, his speed picking up. "I'd like to point to what we both witnessed that night: despite his own efforts to the contrary, Boomerang didn't end up pancaked on a Gotham street, and there is currently no brain matter leaking out of his nose or pieces of skull lodged into his vitreous humor. As far as I'm aware, anyways. Consider those a sign of good faith, maybe?" He grimaced openly this time. Not at the mental picture, though. At its status as mere imagination.

"The fact that you came so close to the edge and don't seem disturbed by that fact now doesn't give me much room for faith, Tim."

Tim tilted his head a little, eyes still fixed upon a cube that was looking increasingly more cubic. He wondered, absently, how much faith Bruce would have if he knew Tim was not only at the edge but had a ladder carved into the fucking hillside already should he ever want down. Jason would kill for him. Which wasn't the indictment it might have sounded like, because Jason was willing to kill for complete strangers. Did so frequently and with a frightening sort of pragmatism—even with the self-imposed rules that kept the bloodshed levels far lower than they might have been otherwise.

And he killed not because he was brutal. But because he was compassionate. Because he knew what it was to bleed with the streets and to not have even the barest hint of a safe haven to return to when everything went to shit. As it did nightly in Gotham.

Tim had never had to understand a dynamic like that for most of his life. But he had still managed to respect it.

And he had understood it after time spent abroad in places where there were no safe havens to retreat to and rarified halls to roam alone.

Maybe that's why he and Jason had grown so unexpectedly close in the time since Tim had returned. Maybe Tim had that look in his eyes now that Jason had spoken of sometimes, the look you have when you finally understand that safety, as a concept, is not something that applies to you.

The look of the haunted.

"Can't be haunted if you're already dead," Jason had said once with his trademark grin. But that was bullshit and they both knew it.

…Or maybe it was less that they understood each other and more that Jason had simply realized what a pathetic sack of crap Tim was and somehow found it…endearing was probably not the right word. Entertaining? No, maybe it was endearing, if only because seeing how Tim had ended up by the time he returned to Gotham had drained away Jason's taste for any further revenge.

Tim recalled a comment Cass had made about how Jason had inherited Selina's habit of saving rain-soaked kittens out of Gotham's storms and bringing them into the warmth of an apartment.

It was hard for Tim to see himself in that picture, though.

Regardless, Tim had been firmly moved from the Enemy category to the Kid one finally (the irony of his having been emancipated was not lost on him), and there were very definite perks involved in being someone Jason Todd-Wayne deemed worthy of protection.

Regardless, though…none of that was for Bruce to know. Oh, yes, Tim was tempted. But he'd already made a tactical mistake earlier, trying to redirect Bruce's attention back to those who might actually benefit from it at this point. Maybe a few would even welcome it.

Instead Tim had inadvertently shoved them right in front of the bus wheels, and now he had to be savvy in how he played the rest of this game, lest more backs end up with tire tracks.

…And his own ass likely end up with boot prints.

"Faith?" Tim let himself give a confused squint, lifting one hand from the cube to shrug innocently. "I always had you pegged for a man of logic, Bruce." A feint. Every gritty act Bruce partook of in this city found its roots in faith—faith in the city, in its people, in himself.

Also, more metaphysically, given the better statistics for those who believed in a higher power versus those who didn't, it was actually more logical on multiple levels to operate by a measure of faith than not to. Still, depression didn't exactly operate by logic, and while Tim had seen and admitted to too many uncertainties in this world to embrace anything more militant than the stance of an agnostic, he really didn't need further uncertainty and disappointment. His own statistics with authority figures had been decidedly unpromising.

Regardless, Bruce chose to take the bait. "And what would logic dictate in this case?"

Tim hummed. "Well…I think logic would note that despite the…extensive"—and here another piece fell into place with a satisfying click, guided by his own hands—"reasons I presented before in the form of the psychological and behavioral data for Harkness, in the end I still chose to save his life.

"Logic…would note that this is the first time you've become so concerned that I might actually take a life.

"And logic…would likely observe how many far better targets I've allowed to continue unscathed over the years."

Bruce favored him with a narrowed look. "By your own words, it sounds like Boomerang is not the first individual you've considered taking lethal measures with."

So, we're pursuing thought crimes now? My, my, what a one-track mind. The narrating voice sounded like Janet's. Tim probably should have been more unsettled by that fact. "Should he have been?" Tim replied, an innocent lilt to his voice. "I mean"—his fingers began to speed along in their travels again—"I realize I have some obvious personal biases at play. And I know I don't have a reputation for being one of the more…emotional members of the team. Or"—he shook his head with a rueful smile—"I didn't until everyone decided I was being crazy and irrational for believing you were still alive. Funny how that worked out. And did you know almost no one's actually apologized for any of that? 'Sorry, Tim, maybe we should've taken a closer look before we decided that one of the most reliable detectives we know had completely lost the plot and couldn't possibly have bothered to collect actual evidence to back his hypothesis.' No, now that would've been crazy, I guess."

Cease this behavior at once, Timothy. Haven't you lost control of this conversation enough times already? That was definitely Janet's voice.

"Tim." Bruce looked pained now. "I am sorry about that. About what you went through, for my sake. For what it's worth—"

"Of course I've considered whether other people should die."

Bruce's mouth snapped shut, something flickering through his eyes before his expression smoothed out. He sat back slowly and regarded Tim for several long moments, hands clasped calmly. "Is this an attempt to bait me?" he asked with a slight tilt of his head.

No, but it would work if it were. Janet would probably scold his frivolity here, but she of all folks certainly understood taking satisfaction in something like this. And it was just so easy to get him to follow down the path Tim wanted. All concern about the other kids, or about the minor bit of blood loss overnight, was easily cast aside with the touch of a trigger point. Tim could work with that.

"Bruce. You can't honestly tell me you've never considered whether the world would be better off without people. The Rogues?" Tim lifted his brows pointedly.

Bruce clenched his jaw. "Not to the point of planning it."

"Then maybe we're not quite as alike as you think, I guess. And no," he added, raising a palm in placation, "still not baiting. Explaining." Truth be told, Tim highly doubted that a personal appeal really would have that kind of impact on his Official Adoptive Father (O.A.F.) anyways. He only preferred the man not pretend otherwise. Tim had been around long enough to understand their relationship, and they both knew the score by now.

Now, their professional standing was another question, and he admittedly was risking a few things by presenting himself as an alternate target in place of his…of the team. Still, he didn't really think Bruce would get rid of him entirely at this point. And if he did…would it really matter? Tim had already found his operational area on the peripheries of the Bats: just close enough to technically be considered part of the team by both insiders and outsiders, but distant enough that he was really a free agent for most things. So long as he didn't break any major rules, of course.

Harkness had brought him dangerously close to THE rule, yes, but he had still managed to stay just inside the line.

And if he hadn't? Well, Bruce's sense of tunnel vision when it came to Gotham might prove decidedly handy. Bat though he may still have been, Tim was not beholden to the city in the same way. He'd developed numerous connections outside the city, outside the country. And unlike Bruce, he felt no real compunction about spreading his wings and setting up shop further afield.

He'd never believed in Gotham. He'd believed in Bruce. He'd believed in the Mission.

Gotham needed Bruce, needed the Bats…but the same could undoubtedly be said for countless other cities; Tim could name a dozen or three off just the top of his head.

And while Bruce had been traveling the globe for more years than Tim had even been alive, his attachment to the City of Nights meant that his horizons would only ever expand so far.

Tim had a freedom that Bruce never would.

And in that same vein of freedom, Tim also had no remaining need for Bruce's approval or Bruce's money.

He hadn't for years now.

What was more, Bruce still had a public image to maintain. They all did—and Tim would gladly remind him of as much.

Even if Red Robin were unofficially barred by Batman from operating in the city as a vigilante, Bruce Wayne certainly couldn't bar his son from visiting the city on personal matters.

Even if they couldn't find time to come and visit him, Tim could still come himself and see Steph. Jason. Cass. Well, Cass would almost certainly come track him down. He could count on seeing her, at least. The thought brought a small smile to his lips.

And Tim always had his team. The Young Justice team would be his first stop if he left Gotham.

He…could admit that perhaps he'd gone too far in the whole "giving them space" thing after Bart's and Kon's deaths, but they hadn't seemed to hold it against him, and it felt like they'd finally started to find their groove together again (of course, Cassie would definitely say that she'd never lost hers and had just been waiting for the other three to catch up. Which was probably true).

And there was still a standing invite Tim had from another crazy trio, though he'd have to ask Jason about how serious they actually were. Or maybe not. He'd probably die of embarrassment if it was a joke and he had just been gullible (and desperate) enough to take it seriously.

But even without that, Tim had enough contingencies in place that he wasn't afraid to gamble now. He'd never had much interest in gambling just for the sake of it, betting money and hoping not to lose it. But this kind? The considered risk that came with strategy and the clear feedback of a stunning success or devastating failure? This, he appreciated. It was why, even with fairly average luck with his pulls, he'd still managed to flourish playing the gacha games most of his friends had already sworn off ages ago.

"Bruce." Tim kept his voice quiet but his tongue sharp. Precise. "I believe in the use of lethal force. I don't believe in eliminating the death penalty or disarming the military and police forces that exist."

"Neither do I," Bruce rumbled. "But we are none of these, Tim."

"I don't know," Tim murmured, glancing up at Bruce as he traced his fingers over the Ghost Cube, letting the edges softly press into his fingertips. "I've heard people throw around the term child soldiers."

"Who do not kill."

Tim shook his head gently. "I wouldn't be so opposed to that, either." Another flicker up to Bruce's eyes. "You can tell the Demon that."

"And yet this entire time, you've never once taken a life."

Literally what I've been saying this whole time, but thanks for noticing. Tim openly rolled his eyes. "I was calculating the costs and benefits of that before I ever met you. I don't believe in killing the innocent, but that doesn't mean I have a problem with killing the folks who deserve it. My objection to killing is not philosophical, Bruce. I'm not exactly a Jainist, and no one in this family is a pacifist, either."

"If it's not philosophical, then why?"

Tim leaned forward with deliberation, reaching out to set the cube on the desk. The crooked lines connecting. The jagged edges aligned. A perfect cube set in stark white and deep black. He waited until Bruce's eyes had left the solved puzzle and returned to his own. "Because I had to set a good example." Tim smiled. Sweetly.

Bruce floundered in front of him, the stoic façade doing nothing to hide him from Tim's sight.

He knew the little shifts and twitches and changes in breathing that signaled the real impact of the moment. He'd made it his business to know.

And damn, the moment couldn't have been more satisfying if he'd had it planned from the beginning. He wished he'd had it planned from the beginning.

"Explain," Bruce finally gritted out, leaving no doubt that he understood what Tim had left unsaid in the sentence.

Tim reached forward and plucked a pen off the desk again, idly twirling it in his fingers as he settled back in the chair once more, ankle thrown across the opposite knee. "Do you know why I decided to become Robin?" he asked softly.

"Perhaps not. Enlighten me."

Tim let his gaze flicker up in surprise, the pen momentarily halted before continuing its revolutions from one finger to another. "I'm not going to claim it was some kind of pure, unfiltered altruism." A shake of the head. "I'm not that good, Bruce. Some of it was for me. I wanted—needed—to belong." He swallowed. "To be useful." To be loved.

"Because that was your way to be loved."

Tim suppressed a wince at the statement. And its accuracy.

He couldn't afford to let himself slip. Not yet. Not until Bruce left this damn office and he could leave the damn office and find the space to process. Maybe a nice, dark corner somewhere.…

He brushed aside the thought, steeling again. "Most of it, though, wasn't for me. It was for the Mission." That was easy. "For Robin." That was harder. "For you." Tim refused to think about how those words felt now, but it turned out it wasn't easy ignoring the scrape of glass against the tender insides of your throat, no matter how disciplined—or stubborn—you might be. "Batman needed Robin. Full stop. Robin was there to bring light. Balance. And after what the Joker did, he needed it more than ever. You needed it more than ever."

He thought about some of the things Jason had said. Yelled across rooftops back when the man still seemed to be one bad day away from killing him where he stood: How messed up the whole thing was. How unhealthy it was for a kid to have the job of curbing the violence of a grown-ass man. Ironic, to have that yelled at him by the seventeen-year-old who'd nearly killed both him and Bruce outright.

Bullets, Tim would acerbically note, had proven plenty hazardous to his health already. And at least the grown-ass man had been willing to be curbed. The teenaged assassin? Not so much.

Being fast as fuck was a very, very good trait for a Robin. Not that Tim really needed the reminder, but Jason had been glad to give it anyways.

"I thought about killing the Joker back then. Thought maybe it would help." Tim didn't look up. Didn't need or care to see the disappointment in Bruce's eyes. Or the horror. "But I saw what you were doing back then. When I was following you as Tim still, not Robin. I…remember this man you stopped. Mugger. Snatched a lady's purse while she was walking home. Didn't attack her otherwise, but took everything she had with her.

"Once you had knocked him unconscious, beaten him unconscious, you called the cops.

"I'm the one who called the ambulance."

A glance up at Bruce revealed all the appropriate emotions. Guilt. Grief. Maybe even a little disgust? …Hopefully at himself, not Tim.

But it was premature either way, really.

Tim stilled the pen in his hand, bringing it up to chest height with the tip and end pointed East to West if his body were counted as North^5f. (He hadn't survived this long by pointing sharp things directly at himself.…)

The end came up to rest at the base of his throat. "Crushed cartilage in the larynx."

He slid the pen a little lower and then towards his left. "Collarbone shattered in…two places."

He switched the pen to his left hand, using it to prod the pen up and down the length of his forearm and bicep. "Comminuted fracture of the ulna. A transverse and a compound present in the radius and another transverse evident in the humerus."

The pen traveled inwards from his arm. "He also had breaks present in the six and seventh ribs on the right side of his body. Not that bad, really. Except that Lucky Number Seven had managed to pierce through his right lung.

"He made it, of course. Gotham P.D. wasn't exactly a fan of yours then—even less so than usual, I mean—and you would've heard it if you'd finally crossed the line, trust me." Perhaps a lie, perhaps not; odds were even that Tim might very well have chosen to hide a body before ever turning Bruce in or even just confronting the man himself with his crimes. Bruce Wayne had already been broken, and Tim would've had no desire to break the Batman, too.

"And I still considered killing him. Joker, I mean. He deserved it. Taking him out would send a message, too, that the deaths of child vigilantes wouldn't be tolerated. Even some of the villains thought Joker had gone too far. A lot of them were already scared of him as it was.

"And I thought maybe punishing him would finally keep you from punishing yourself and everyone else to make up for it."

Bruce visibly swallowed. "Then—"

"But how could I put someone in the morgue on purpose, when you were almost putting them there by accident?" He shook his head, lips pursed. "I couldn't pull you back from that edge if I'd already gone over it myself, Bruce. Besides," he added, taking a deep breath and letting it out softly, "I don't think that would've turned out well for me…I wouldn't have survived those kinds of injuries."

"What?" Bruce asked, his voice soft and hoarse.

"I was pretty small back then, Bruce," Tim answered softly, his lips twisted in a rueful smile. "Malnourishment's kind of a bitch. And you weren't exactly being proportional. Just the amount of force you delivered to that mugger's torso—that would've been enough to stop my heart. Easily. And that was for a purse snatching. I doubt you would've gone much easier for murder."

"I would never—Tim!" And he looked stricken, truly. "You were a child!"

"So was Jason.

"And we both know I could never rate higher with you than your real kids do."

"Tim!" Bruce snapped, the wave of sound crashing through the room and emptying the space of everything else before withdrawing like the tide. A brief moment, and the man collected himself. "Don't you ever say that," he whispered, jaw trembling. "You are just as much my son as Jason is."

The laugh that came in answer was pure Drake, all sharp edges and cutting notes and slick condescension. "When have I ever been as much your son as Jason is? Back when you decided the whole refraining-from-lethal-force thing didn't apply to him? No, that's not quite—ahh, back when you decided to choose his murderer over him? Okay, I can think we can agree on that characterization of events. Then again, you did invite him to come stay at the Manor after that. And at no fucking point did you ask me what I thought about it.

"He broke into the Tower, beat me with my own weapon, and slit my fucking throat. And you wanted me to live with him." He turned his gaze away for a moment, quieting his voice. "If you wanted me there at all.

"You wouldn't have treated a son like that, Bruce. No matter what you did to Jason, you didn't expect him to actually live a few rooms down from Joker.

"How long do you think it took for the nightmares to stop?"

A clear gaze quartered in eyes of slate held Tim's own, his tone unnervingly knowing as he simply countered, "Did they?"

At this, Tim gave him a game smile in return, shook his head. "I made a few attempts, but…I'd already figured out by then it really wasn't the best use of my time; on the occasions I have been able to reduce the frequency of a particular dream, it's simply been replaced by others following a short period of reprieve. It seems the most effective method is to reduce the overall frequency of nightmares as a whole."

"I understand you often overnight at Jason's safehouses now."

Tim hummed in wait, smile fixed firmly on his face still.

"I'd be very interested to know what he does when you have nightmares surrounding him."

"More than you ever did," Tim responded easily. A simple truth, and entirely enough.

Any lingering traces of amusement fled then as Tim turned his gaze again to the window. "If that Manor had really been my home, you would have cared whether I felt safe there."

"Tim." Bruce looked pained. "You could have—said something. You could have come to me."

"And said what exactly?" he asked, each syllable bitten off to leave a sharp edge. He raised his pen quickly. "And that's ignoring the fact that being overlooked in the first place told me exactly what I needed to know: I. Didn't. Matter.

"Not when it came to him," Tim tacked on, shaking his head. "Not when it came to Damian, either."

Bruce frowned slightly, looking almost puzzled. "Tim. Damian is a child, and he came from an extremely difficult background. You know this."

The faint chiding present in his voice made the words land like a scream, rake across his ears, and Tim felt his teeth going on edge. "Nearly all of your children came from an 'extremely difficult background,' Bruce, so yes. I'm aware."

"Then what would you have me to do, Tim? That kind of trauma and its effects don't simply go away because of a new environment."

"And they don't go away at all if you don't find it in yourself to do shit about them. See: Exhibit A." He gestured almost carelessly to a spot on his side, knowing Bruce would recognize it immediately, would remember the course of events that had begun with a minor argument and ended with Alfred having to staunch a frankly worrying amount of blood flow while Damian pointed to the almost comically grotesque scene as proof of his being in the right. Losing an entire spleen had really put that kind of thing into perspective—small mercies—but Tim now made doubly sure to avoid the Demon when he was caught up in a case and might be distracted enough to do something stupid. Like make a vaguely snarky comment while within stabbing distance.

"As I said, he's a child. Some degree of sibling rivalry was always going to happen, Tim. Even if he's a bit…awkward about understanding where the lines are."

"What lines?" Tim asked with a bitter chuckle. "No, really, what lines? Telling me how worthless I am? How I'm just a pretender to the role? Really fun getting that from two members of the household, by the way. How I was just a placeholder until the real heir could take over? Take his rightful place in the team?"

"And none of those things are true. I'm puzzled why you chose him to listen to when you've never been that eager to listen to anyone else. Not even your field commander." He lifted one brow slightly. "And when your older brother has said some of the same things, from what I understand."

Tim settled comfortably back into the chair, the thick cushioning on the armrests soft and plush as he just barely held on. He tilted his head. "What makes you think I didn't listen? It wasn't like they didn't have evidence; Jason said I was a worthless pretender and you invited him to come stay. He slit my throat, Bruce, and you still invited him to move back in. I was just the collateral damage in your guilt, I think. You're not really good at keeping within our rules and lines, though, so I guess it makes sense that it would go that way.

"Damian? He said I was a worthless pretender and got to take my Goddamned job along with what remaining sense of safety I managed to have in that house while living with someone else who had nearly killed me.

"And Jason at least didn't try to hurt me anymore when he was staying at the Manor. Took him way too long to apologize, but I'll take the asshole over the assassin. How many apologies do you think I've gotten from Damian?"

"Tim. Dick told me that he had talked to you about Jason moving in."

Tim nodded. "Later on, yeah."

"And you told him you were fine with having Jason there. That you were just glad he could be with the family again."

"I was, Bruce. That was part of my job, too…even if that wasn't one of my more successful missions."

"Tim, it was not—" Bruce shook his head, seeming to clear the thoughts away. "You're angry with me for not having spoken with you first, which I understand. But if I had, all indications are that you never would have given an honest answer anyways. And frankly, you have a history of lying to us—about both your work life and your personal well-being, not to mention any situations where the two cross over."

"Well, yeah. Why the hell wouldn't I?" Tim accompanied the question with a shrug.

Bruce blinked at him slowly. "I see."

"I have never had an adult in my life who I trust to both care about me and have the time and energy to do shit about it long-term. Dick had Blüdhaven to take care of, and he was juggling being a vigilante with being on the police force. He was half-dead and he still made time for me, but I wasn't going to put any extra pressure on him like that. Why, so he could feel even more guilty about it?

"You didn't want me there in the first place, and I was there to take care of you, Bruce. Not the other way around.

"And you have met my parents. I learned how to get along with adults, Bruce, and it wasn't by wasting time telling them crap that'd just make everyone feel worse—or just me, because feeling bad presupposes caring in the first place."

"Putting aside…how unhealthy it was for you to assume responsibility for the emotional health of adults in the manner you did, you can't deny that Alfred was present throughout all of this, and that he had both time and energy to address your needs—or at least make an attempt to. Why didn't you go to him?"

Tim rolled his eyes. "Please. Alfred doesn't take sides—other than yours. He has to cover mediation in the household since, well, the usual candidate doesn't. And he has to juggle that with not wanting to undermine you as a parent. If Alfred actually had his druthers, none of us would be vigilantes, including yourself. He mostly patches us up and tries to keep us alive, but he's your kids' grandpa. And he's your dad. I don't blame him for not stepping in and raising me when nobody else wanted to anyways. Alfred might be around, and I know he cares, but that doesn't mean he actually had time or energy for that, either.

"By the way"—and here Tim grinned—"I'm sure you're aware that Alfred has an entirely different stance regarding the use of lethal force. Are you sure pointing me in his direction is wise? He might be an even worse influence than Jason."

"Do not speak about—"

"Wasn't a criticism."

Bruce sighed roughly, scrubbing a hand across his face and leaving it to rest over his mouth, for a moment masking the tired lines that framed his jaw. "Tim. You tell me that you want to be heard, but every time I point out the possibility of that, you have an answer as to why it won't work." He shifted again, interlaced fingers coming to rest at a crossed knee. "I'm inclined to think you're past wanting to fix this and more inclined to hold on to it as leverage instead. And again, with your history…I have doubts that you ever would have been willing to share if I or Dick or Alfred had inquired after you more.

"The reality is that honesty has not been a strong point of yours, Tim."

Tim graciously forewent pointing out the irony of that particular statement, figuring a single arched brow was enough to fill in for him. "If you're going for the Invoke Guilt strategy, you'll need to pick something I actually feel guilty about. Maybe start by finding something that wasn't the most logical choice I had under those circumstances. I can give you some prep time if you need it.

"You'll recall that I had to fight you on being Robin nearly the entire time back when we first started out. If I had ever actually admitted to needing help…to having gotten hurt, to showing any sort of vulnerability, anything that could even be perceived as weakness? Ammo, Bruce. That's what it would have been; that's all it would have been. And God"—the laugh that escaped his lips then held both the contempt and the cruelty that had always felt most natural when aimed at himself—"how stupid would I had to have been to bring up emotional hurt as an argument? You think I was going to walk up to a man who was grieving so hard he was tearing the city apart, who didn't think I had what it took to begin with, and talk about what, exactly? An empty mansion?"

(He didn't mention the days he played music so loud that it hurt his skin because the silence felt like it would drown him.)

"A few bruises?"

(He didn't talk about curling up on the bed and staring at the screen through blurry tears as he tried to figure out if something had finally ruptured this time.)

"You thought I was fragile back then and you were wrong.

"You thought I was naïve, too, and you were probably right."

The nominal C.E.O.'s brows lifted in surprise.

Tim's lip curved up into a subtle snarl, though you still could not find it in his voice. "But even back then I knew enough not to give a tenuous ally an opening like that."

"An opening," Bruce repeated, dully, each syllable hollow and flat and collapsing down into itself like cardboard.

Tim nodded, just a small, angled dip of his chin.

"That's what you saw it as—thought I would see it as."

Tim smiled pleasantly. "This is where you imply I would've been wrong, isn't it? I'm really not sure how that would help you sleep at night when we both know it isn't true, but then I don't do a lot of the whole sleeping thing at night myself, so I guess I'm not qualified to judge." Tim turned a contemplative eye to the clock that presided over the office. The numbers already seemed false, displaced, with how much he'd slept that day. Maybe he could stretch patrol by a few hours longer now.

"Tim."

The single word drew his focus back, something different in Bruce's tone than it had been for the duration of the argument, conversation—whatever their discussion could be labeled at this point. "My son"—and here Bruce must have seen the steel setting into Tim's jaw at the words—"or any other child in my care telling me that there aren't any adults around who are able and willing to care for them properly is not an opening. Not to me."

Tim tilted his head to the side slowly, taking in the pinched corners of Bruce's eyes, the tension in his jaw. And he'd heard the tone to his voice—there was something rare there, raw and fragile and utterly authentic in a way Bruce only ever was in private. It left Tim in a little awe, actually, as he leaned forward to softly ask, "And now who's the liar?"

He wondered, sometimes, watching Bruce give assurances to his children or make rare expressions of gratitude towards his allies, if Bruce fully realized himself just how far the compulsion went.

That need, frantic and hungry, to grab the future with bloody fingers and bend it to your will, to steer every possible piece into its place, adjust each available angle and make the cards fall just so like dominoes.

Was it mere habit by now or a true addiction?

Whatever it was, the sheer irony of being controlled by a need for control was nothing if not a scathingly poetic piece of commentary on the kind of people Gotham tended to produce. Or draw into the folds of its own cape.

"You don't lose, Bruce. You're not capable of letting it happen. If someone killed you, you'd still make it a draw.

"You, fundamentally, are not the kind of person who is capable of leaving opportunities like that on the table—not when they'd be that useful."

"Tim, your welfare is not something for me to win at—it's something I have a responsibility to maintain and protect."

"I'm pretty sure you were taking every possible measure to make sure I wasn't your responsibility," Tim shot back idly, picking the tiniest bit of lint from the cuffs of his sleeve.

"At the beginning, yes. I can admit that," Bruce acknowledged.

The instant concession sent an array of red flags flaring in the back of Tim's mind and he felt his focus sharpen again from where it had slowly been drifting into hazy resignation as the argument had wound down from its earlier crests.

"But it wasn't long before I began to see—you made me see—"

Good move, Bruce. Play to ego, give your opponent the illusion of control.

It likely would've been more effective had Tim not already swallowed a bitter pill regarding just how little influence he'd actually had on Bruce all this time.

"—that you were as much a part of the family as Alfred, or Dick, or myself."

Tim arched his brows, a carefully tailored expression of mild surprise rather than saw-toothed disbelief. "As evidenced by…?"

Bruce quirked a small smile. An actual smile. An actual smile. "Maybe we could start with all those hours you spent in the Batcave, working on cases."

Tim furrowed his brow as Bruce continued.

"Or how you'd never miss a chance to ask Nightwing to join our patrols. I always saw how disappointed you were if he didn't."

Tim ignored the slight sting of pain summoned by the memory. He and Dick were well and truly past those days, he knew; Dick genuinely saw him as a little brother by now, not an almost maniacally determined interloper with too much staying power.

Besides. They had other, much more recent baggage now. (Plus, there was the irony of ironies: Dick's first impression of him had probably been the more accurate one all along).

Still, if Bruce was going to pursue this angle, Tim might as well commit. "Bruce, I meant your actions, not mine. What evidence do you have to show for this."

"That's fair, Tim." Bruce nodded before sighing, fingers interlaced in his lap. "I realize now that I have…a great deal to fix here between us. More than I ever really understood."

Fix? Fix? It took almost more trouble than it was even worth not to laugh in Bruce's face at that. It was a beautiful sort of non-answer—it really was—but why the fuck would Bruce want to fix something that was exactly the way he wanted already? Tim wondered if Bruce had always been like this, though. To get exactly what he wanted and still deem it not to be enough…alongside the laughter, Tim had to hold back an acerbic comment on the sheer Pascalian tragedy of it all.

Bruce was watching him still, something tentative in his expression. Maybe he was unnerved by the continued silence. Had expected Tim to just light up with delight, call City Hall and organize a parade at the idea that Bruce would for once in his almost 40 years realize that he didn't know everything.

Problem was, Tim had never had much taste for tacky parades thrown for stupid reasons.

"If I ask you a question now, can you give me an honest answer?"

"Sure." Tim shrugged, the question only taking a half moment to consider; after all he had lain bare today, there was little he could imagine discomfiting him. Knowing Bruce, it'd probably just be more questions about Tim's plans.

And Tim? Tim was feeling a little more reckless today. He liked it, really: a nice break from the restrained confines of his corner office, the suit and tie and veneer of civility to be put on while people tried to bleed the company dry and he made sure it would destroy them to get even a stone's throw away from giving it a nick. Mosquitoes were some of the deadliest creatures, after all; Tim knew better to underestimate their human counterparts.

"You've been a part of not only this team but also this family for years now. And I assumed you understood how we"—and here he frowned and shook his head before continuing with a renewed surety—"how I felt about you."

Now, really, wasn't that touching? Nearly half a decade, and Bruce could admit that he—specifically—had a sense of personal investment in Tim. Tim wondered what the cue would be for him to collapse all over Bruce in helpless sobs. Hopefully this wasn't it.

"But I'm realizing how wrapped up I've been in my own perspective on this. And there are some things you've said in this conversation that.…" He shook his head once more, sighed before meeting Tim's gaze firmly. "I know how I feel about you—what you are to me—and I can promise that will never change, no matter what you do or don't do. Tim, you are my son.

"But, seeing how many of my assumptions have clearly been…off-base, I think it would be unfair of me not to get your perspective on this, as well.

"Tim. I'd like a completely honest answer here, if you can give me one."

Tim let a flicker of amusement show then. Perhaps he'd become a bit too habitual at it, but lying was still a strategic matter for him—not a compulsive one. Why not play to the ambiguity, though? "I most likely can, yes."

"Even though I of course consider you my son regardless, I've never had the sense that you truly wanted me as your father, or would have accepted me as one if you hadn't been forced to by circumstance."

There was a sound of breaking glass and Tim couldn't pin down where it had come from. It probably would've helped if he had been able to move his head. Or hands. Or anything else.

But all he could do instead was stare into the eyes of the man whose life had swallowed up his own, so little left of Tim himself that he'd had to find a way to make drowning a way of life.

Tim swallowed, licked his lips. "Was there a question in there somewhere?"

Bruce was worried now, he could tell. But he forged ahead anyways. "Do you actually want me to be your father, Tim? I didn't think you wanted another father after Jack. And knowing what I know about him now"—a thundercloud lay shadow over Bruce's mien—"I'm not certain you'd want a father at all anymore. I've had to learn to respect Jason's feelings on the matter, and…it would be difficult, but I could certainly do that for you, as well."

"Every time I thought you would pick me," Tim began shakily, "had picked me, it wasn't about that. There was always some other reason, and…I realized how stupid I was to think anything different."

He'd wanted a dad when two people with decidedly blue sensibilities about the value of children would leave for months at a time without prior warning, let alone notice of when they'd be back.

He'd wanted a dad when he went to get water in the middle of the night but couldn't because there was a green glow in the middle of the room and the phantom pains in his throat were making it too hard to swallow.

He'd wanted a dad when Demon Brat had come along and decided that a Tim-shaped punching bag was just the thing to ease his transition to two new cultures.

"You didn't want another son after Jason, and you didn't need another son after Damian. And then you even had Cass. I'm just the one who came along because there wasn't anyone else to fix things. You don't hold on to a stop-gap once you have a real replacement. Jason thought that was me. But it was really Damian. And then Jason came back anyways, so you had the original restored and you had a new one, so what else did you need? Do you know how that feels? No, of course you don't. Someone like you can't begin to comprehend what it is to be in a position like that. You're the Prince of Gotham by day and Dark Knight of Gotham by night; you're essential. Central. Me? I'm just the telephone book under a table leg."

Bruce's eyes widened and Tim chose to assume it was the phonebook comment that had done it. "I do read comics, you know." He heard himself laughing, felt a grin drawing itself onto his lips, even as it seemed strange and foreign. An alien expression, forcing him to play convivial host. "I mean, I even know what a Rolodex is." Actually, Tim had a Rolodex in his possession now, gifted by one of Jason's friends after some teasing about Tim's being an old man before his time.

He hadn't bothered to disagree; faking it wouldn't have been worth the effort that time, and Tim really did prefer to be more strategic than that in his use of deception. People only gave you so many tries, after all.

Most people.

"Tim—"

"You were the man I wished could be my dad, Bruce. And I tried to convince myself that maybe it could work, one day—that someday it would work—but I found out something funny…it turns out even I'm not that good at lying."

The hit landed. He could see the storm of indecision in Bruce's eyes, the instinctive denial dragging at the corner of his mouth.

But silence settled into the space between them instead, thick. Choking.

"I.…" Bruce took a breath. Deep. Even. "I'm beginning to question many of the decisions I've made over the years. Even more so than before, that is.

"Tim…I always got the sense that we were so much alike, you and I. I see myself in all of my children, of course."

Of course. That's the only way you could love us at all.

"You and your siblings," he added, as though Tim could have missed the implications of the sentence prior.

Overselling it. Tim almost gave Bruce a sympathetic wince as he pictured what Janet's reaction would have been. Disdain, at very best.

Pity, she wouldn't waste time on; the emotion was a contraindication against itself. To have earned pity was to have earned a place well beneath her very notice at all.

"But you in particular, Tim…when you would get hurt and I would do things like stay down in the Cave instead of coming up to see you…I did that because I thought that's what you would have wanted. It's what I would have wanted, had I been in your place."

Because Bruce, of course, could understand what it was to be in Tim's place. Right?

He hadn't heard a word of what Tim had just told him. But maybe that was his prerogative as Prince.

"You were always so focused on the Mission, and I didn't want you to feel guilty for my not being focused on it more entirely. I thought I was doing it for you. It wasn't that I didn't want to be there, by your bedside. But I thought what you needed from me was different, and I wanted to do the best I could by you. By my son."

Tim laughed weakly, caught somewhere between incredulous and exasperated as he pressed his fingertips against his eyes. "Bruce."

He would never understand how a man so good at chess could be so damned simplistic in how he saw people.

"It was never that binary for me. I wanted both. I wanted you to catch the bad guy and then come and sit by my bed. You didn't even have to talk to me! You could've worked on the case files with your tablet and I would've been happy. I just wanted you to be there, once you could. Instead it was like once I messed up, I knew I wouldn't see you again. Like you couldn't even stand to look at me."

"I never meant to make you feel that way."

Once upon a time, that would have been enough.

That once upon a time was too many broken bones and shattered promises and empty nights alone ago to mean anything here and now.

Tim frowned in consideration, gave his head a brisk shake. "Wrong time to play to incompetence, Bruce." And bad move to waste that card here. "You were able to do it for the others. I know, because they've told me. Talked about it. You were Batman for them, but you were Bruce, too. So why couldn't you do that for me?"

Bruce paused for a moment, lips pursing briefly as his hands lay clasped firmly together on his lap. "Your brothers"—slowly, he shook his head—"I've made so many mistakes with them. Not just Jason, but Dick, as well. I tried, but I know I've failed. Many times over the years. Maybe I don't understand the full extent, and maybe I never will, but I have enough of an inkling now.

"I tried to do things differently with you, because I didn't think the job I had done before could possibly be good enough. Not when things…turned out the way they did. Dick.…" Here, he winced. "Dick hated me for a lot of years. He came around again because of you, but that still didn't mean he had forgiven me. He had reason not to—I don't deny that. And Jason…I don't think he'll ever forgive me. For making him feel unwanted. For not getting him help sooner when I should have known he needed it. As much as I would like to, I don't think we'll ever be able to move past that."

Tim shook his head. "You need to talk to Jason. If you really believe what you just said, you need to talk to him."

"I've tried—"

"You've tried lecturing him about your stupid fucking rule that you don't even enforce as hard for people who aren't family? Yes, I know; we all feel just terrible about it. I also know you've been so busy yelling at him you don't even know what he really thinks."

The muscles in Bruce's jaw clenched lightly, but he moderated his tone to ask, "Such as?" with relative calm, even if there was a note of acerbity lacing the question.

Tim narrowed his eyes. "I'm not mediating this for you, Bruce. If you care, ask him. You've always been free to, I should note.

"But you're right."

The admission forestalled whatever else Bruce had been about to say—argue. He paused, slowly resettled in his chair as though merely getting comfortable for another round of discussions. "About?" The hope bleeding through his tone belied the caution present on his face, wound into the tense lines of his body. He would've been gripping the armrests were that not such an elementary tell for all of them.

"I'm not Dick. And I'm not Jason." He looked up at Bruce, piercing him with a look. "And I'm not you, either. Maybe you gave them both Bruce and Batman, but I know you also treated Jason like he was still Dick. So maybe you never could have given me what I wanted there. I mean, you were always warning me not to be like Jason, and still managed to call me by his name." He made a breathy sound too empty to be a laugh. "Okay, let's just chalk that one up to a misunderstanding of epic proportions and say you tried." He interlocked his fingers atop his lap and gave a small, quick shrug. "What else?"

Bruce arched a brow slightly.

"That can't be the only thing."

Bruce nodded slowly, rubbing his thumb and forefinger together idly as he slowly shifted in his chair, settling into a more comfortable position like he was steeling himself for the long haul.

He looked Tim straight in the eye before saying three simple words: "The gang war."

Tim gazed ahead himself, idly wondering if the sound in his ears was the rush of blood or the soft crackle of icicles formed under pressure.

"You. Your brothers. Your sister. I've always wanted for my children to reach their full potential. It's why Dick and I fought so much over the college question."

Tim tasted blood at the edge of his lips. He didn't feel anything. Couldn't. Maybe he'd bitten through. Or maybe he'd just forgotten his Chapstick again.

Bruce didn't seem to notice.

"You never finished college yourself."

Bruce seemed to hear the words, so he must have managed to say them out loud.

"As Alfred often reminds me, yes"—the revenant of a smile here—"but that's my point," he continued, leaning forward just slightly as if to entreat him, or let him in on a secret. "I didn't want him—or any of you—to make the same mistakes I did. I know you all can be so much better, so much more, than I ever could be. It's why I don't want Jason to go down a path—"

Killing isn't keeping Jason from going to college, Tim thought, maybe more incredulous than he should have been that Bruce was tying even this back to the endless argument between the two. He was tempted almost beyond words to tell Bruce how wrong he was. That Jason had already been picking up online classes here and there, not sure yet if he wanted a full degree, but hungry enough for it to test the waters when he could.

But he couldn't betray Jason's privacy like that. Just knowing Bruce had wind of it might have been enough to stop him cold, and Tim would never have forgiven himself for stopping this small attempt to reclaim some of the things that Gotham—that Joker—had stolen from him.

And it was bad enough that Tim had set Bruce on the others by accident already.

So he didn't say any of that. "Dick already is better than you," he said instead. The words fell from his mouth like bloodied teeth. "Back when you were fighting. He was already working as a solo hero younger than you had. And he co-founded and led a team at a younger age than you'd become a hero at all, let alone co-founded the League."

Bruce nodded. "I realize that."

"And he does a better job at actually using the team and knowing how to call for help when he needs it. …When it's not for himself, at least. If it is…you and him are about the same, I guess."

Bruce sighed. "I've begun to understand that. He shouldn't have tried to take on so much by himself while I was gone."

There was a note of accusation in his voice that Tim couldn't stomach, and he wasn't sure whether it was directed at Dick for not asking or Tim for not helping. Maybe both.

It was wrong either way. "I'd like to know how the gang war plays into all this," Tim said with the distant politeness of one person granting another an unearned but sorely needed out.

Bruce seemed to catch as much, judging by the small nod of appreciation, a barely perceptible lowering of his head.

Don't thank me yet.

His opening to the restarted conversation was brisk. Bracing. "Tim, when you quit as Robin, I felt you were throwing away so much potential—too much."

It hit Tim with the dizzying whiplash of the backhanded compliment it was. "I guess it's good to have confirmation you actually had some faith in me as Robin by then," he replied, almost wry in the acknowledgement. The amusement gave way to ice not a second later. "But I didn't quit. I was made to. And I know you're aware of that, Bruce."

"Tim…you've always been an incredibly strong young man, and the entire time we've known each other, I've seen that you were willing to go against both myself and your parents if you felt it necessary. I was never under the impression that Jack could have made you do anything."

Tim had a sudden, very distinct urge to reach up a hand—or maybe both hands—and pull his fucking hair out. Or Bruce's. "Bruce. You weren't going to let me help even if it literally killed you not to.

"And my parents never would have understood—or at least, I didn't think so back then—how important Batman was, is, to Gotham, or how important Robin is to Batman." Even if he wasn't all the way right, Tim knew he wasn't all the way wrong, either. Two people who barely felt affection for their own flesh and blood couldn't have fathomed a bond that didn't even have that to argue for it. "But I didn't need them to understand. All I had to do was keep them from finding out, and everything would have been fine. For a while, at least," he added, before Bruce could question how realistic he was being.

"But then my mom died," Tim continued, voice dipping to that same place it always seemed to when he had to say the words aloud. "And Jack nearly did. And then he found out about Robin, and I—I didn't want to fight, Bruce. Not with him. Not after everything we had both had to go through, and when he said he wanted to try being a better dad. Being a dad at all, you mean, an inner voice reminded him with a scowl.

"And I didn't want to fight with you either! I lost my mom, Bruce." He felt the cool trails dripping from his chin as he clenched his fist against the polished wood of the desk. "And I almost lost Jack, too. I thought you would understand. I thought you, of all people, had to understand!"

Bruce reached forward as if to touch his shoulder and Tim jerked back.

"Don't touch me," he snapped.

Bruce pulled back slowly, as if waiting for Tim to change his mind. His body language slipped into something lost and unsure as his hands had nowhere to go. The look on his face was stricken.

Good for him.

"I apologize for not giving you the kind of support you were expecting back."

Expecting.

"For—for misreading the situation so completely. I genuinely believed that you had…given up on Robin. That you didn't appreciate the responsibility that came with—"

"I'm the one who fought you so I could become Robin, you asshole!! I tried to get Dick to come back before I took the job! Then I tried to get Jason—Jason, who hated my guts—to come back after I took it! You think I understood how important it was before I even started, but didn't by the time Jack took it away? After I'd actually had the job? After we'd saved the city, the country—other countries!—so many times? After I'd saved you?" he added in a whisper, rage scraping the words raw and letting the fury drip from underneath their surface. "I have never…lost sight of that."

"I realize that now. And I'm sorry for thinking otherwise."

His head hurt now. And he just wanted Bruce to stop talking. Just…stop all of it.

A wish that was granted with unexpected promptness, for nothing more was said for the next minute, then two. Nothing more passed between them until Tim himself finally said, "My parents"—and he grimaced as his throat croaked; he stopped to snatch a now-tepid sip of water from the over-worn thermos on his desk. Another thing to be replaced soon, probably. "My parents were always like that," he ventured calmly when his throat was finally clear. "It didn't really matter when I did well; that was just…expected, I guess. And that would've been okay I think, except when I messed up or disappointed them somehow, then it had to have been on purpose; I was just lazy, or trying to spite them. I was rebellious. I was a bad son.

"I could never just make a mistake or not be perfect." The final word was whispered, something frightening in even saying it aloud, like it drew to itself a curse. The word only ever reminded him of what, of course, he could never be. And suddenly Tim laughed, salt dancing down his face and trickling onto the edges of his tongue, because God, it had been in front of him the whole time and he'd somehow missed it. If he hadn't been sitting, the sheer vertigo of it would've thrown him from his feet.

"I"—the spasm of a laugh again as he keeled forward against the desk, something coming loose in his chest. It felt dangerous, but so, so freeing he was almost giddy with it—"I think…maybe I owe you an apology, Bruce. I wanted you to be more of a parent, but all this time you were. You did the same thing."

"Tim, I never—"

"You did the same thing! How could you ever think I wanted to let you down? I thought you would help me. With my dad. I thought I was worth that to you, not as your son, maybe, but as Robin. I thought you would help me but instead you punished me!

"You punished me, and you got Steph killed to do it!"

"Stephanie wasn't—"

"Don't you dare," he snarled, palms stinging where they'd collided with the desk. In the back of his head he wondered just when he'd regained his feet. "Her heart. Stopped. From torture. We all know that now."

Bruce was on his feet as well now, and tried once more to reach out—literally.

This time Tim didn't move. Wouldn't allow himself to. "I already asked you not to touch me, Mr. Wayne. Please believe me when I say this is my last time saying that."

He waited until Bruce had fully removed his hand before finally straightening. Not bothering with the tie, he calmly tugged his jacket from the back of his chair and shrugged it back on as he made his way over to the wall of windows, meandering in path but steadfast in destination. A few shafts of light were peeking through the gray and Tim closed his eyes at the slight touch of warmth.

"After all those lectures about Jason, you were the one who started sending an untrained kid into the field all just as some kind of game to make me come back—I'm still fifty-fifty on whether you were counting on me wanting to protect Steph or just on me being fucking jealous and petty and egotistical about Robin—and when the game went wrong she got tortured to death.

"I've heard it said that life is a game^5g," Tim added as an afterthought, knowing the flinch that would come at hearing Jason's much-maligned words now come to malign Bruce himself—and this time the condemnation was apt.

"Maybe you thought death was a game, too. Maybe you thought you could control it, like with everything else. You couldn't, Bruce. Can't. We both know that's never worked, not really. I learned that with Kon," he added softly, watching the spectral image of his own reflection in the mirrored surface standing in front of him.

"But you didn't even try with Steph. Not for real. You didn't protect her like she needed.

"And Bruce," he ventured softly, words hitting the glass an inch away from his lips, "who do you think I blamed when Steph died?"

"Me," came the answer at once. "It was my fault and I've never denied that fact. I never would." The pronouncement was solemnly made.

Solemnity could never make up for how fucking inane it was.

"No," Tim rejoined, the words almost snarled. "Try again, Mr. Wayne. Don't tell me that in all these years you have never once pulled your head out of your ass long enough to take a breath and actually think about that.

"You told me earlier that you always thought I was like you. So"—his jaw tightened, and even to himself he looked vicious, eyes cold and empty as an ocean at storm as he spoke through gritted teeth—"who…did…I…blame?"

The answer was long in coming. And when it came, it came at nearly a whisper, but it rang loud anyways in the broken-gray stillness of afternoon light. "Yourself."

"That's right," Tim said, his voice almost as soft as he turned to face Bruce now, letting the cold of the smooth surface behind him seep through the back of his jacket, fill up his chest. "You got her killed, and you made it my fault. I thought it was my fault. I couldn't figure out the case fast enough to save my mom. I wasn't fast enough, period, to save my dad. And Steph"—he tilted his head back to rest against the glass, eyeing the steel beams that spanned the ceiling—"I always thought maybe if I'd come back sooner, or been better at helping her, or known how to just talk to her in a way she could hear.…" He trailed off, chest thudding painfully with each heartbeat as he fought to pull in air. He buried his face in his hands as he felt the spiral threatening to pull him in again.

It was a few minutes before he could hear anything but the blood rushing in his ears, but he'd staved the worst of it off, so figured that must have counted for something.

"I never really made up my mind how I failed with Steph, actually." He shrugged, as though he hadn't almost had a panic attack in his own damned office again. "I just knew that I had.

"Your plan did work, you know," he noted, a wry almost-smirk on his lips as he turned finally to look at Bruce, who had moved to the near end of the desk but seemed hesitant to come further. "Using my feelings against me like that? Sure, it was total crap and I don't think I'll be forgiving you"—I can't forgive you, Bruce—"if you pull another stunt like that. …But you did make sure I could never leave Robin on my own after everything that happened."

Bruce started to speak but Tim held up his hand in a quiet bid for silence.

Bruce pursed his lips as though considering his options, finally leaving his place in front of the desk to join Tim at the windows finally, still standing a good armspan away.

"I already told you, Bruce—I never wanted to leave Robin. Not then, and not since. But after that, I realized I couldn't. Not after the way you trained me, and not after the way you didn't train Steph. I knew if there was ever going to be another Robin, I had to be the one to train her—or him—or at least make sure that they were trained, and that they could work without having to rely on you." He turned to face Bruce head on. "Steph trusted you." He said it simply, the words themselves enough without accusation needed in his tone.

"Tim, she didn't trust me, and that was why—"

"Not as much as you wanted, no, but just enough to take the job. Which was still more than she should have, apparently," he added with a cool note as he narrowed his eyes, chin canted upwards. "Hmph. Maybe I owe Talia some thanks," he noted after a moment more. "I think she took care of both parts. Training, and at least getting started on independence."

Bruce's arms were folded as he leant against the glass. "You've never seemed very pleased with having Damian serve as Robin."

Tim let his own shoulder fall against the window as he peered down into the city below. "Is there a reason I would be?" he inquired blandly, the question still coming out pointed somehow despite an unshifting tone and expression both.

"If you didn't think he was the best candidate—"

"I was the best candidate," Tim snapped, cutting Bruce's argument off at the knees before he could run with it. "And I never agreed to anything. I was never given a choice with Damian."

Bruce's next question was a wry one. "Just like I was never given a choice with you?"

Tim slowly lifted his eyes to look at the man in front of him, holding his gaze for a moment that seemed to stretch across time. "I didn't replace you, Bruce." There was no inflection to his voice as he said it. None. "And I wasn't trying to replace Jason, either. For you to even try to compare the two, though.…" Tim sighed. "I really do wish sometimes you'd just say it instead. How much you hate me for stepping into his role."

He watched dispassionately as the horror began to creep across Bruce's face.

And it wasn't like Tim even truly blamed the man for it; he'd lost a funny, bright kid with a passion for both literature and the real-life stories of Gotham, and in his place gotten Tim. A cold little chameleon with a barbed-wire tongue. If his bio parents could barely muster any love for him, why would Bruce?

"You've never forgiven me for it; I can tell. I think you keep hurting me for it and telling yourself that you've forgiven me. But maybe you would feel better for real if you said it. Maybe we both would, and then we could move past it. That's what you want, right? For us to move past this?"

Bruce opened his mouth to answer but seemed to think better of it, brow furrowing as he addressed a slightly less heated point instead. "If you don't see yourself as replacing Jason, why are the rules so different for Damian?"

Again—slightly.

Tim shoved his hands into his pocket. "You know…Jason likes to say I took the suit while his body was still warm, right? And I guess that's true. I can acknowledge that even if I don't regret it. Just the fact that it was necessary.

"But what I didn't do was step into the suit while his body was still wearing it."

Bruce narrowed his eyes, a rigidity to his shoulders now despite the easy lean against the panes. "It was my understanding that you chose to give up the role and take on the identity of Red Robin when you left Gotham to find information on my disappearance."

And to stay out of Arkham, Tim reflected wryly, fending off the temptation to say it out loud, just to see how Bruce would react. He didn't plan on elaborating, anyways.

"Are you saying that this isn't the case?"

Tim merely watched him. He'd spelled out so many things in this conversation. If the Master Detective didn't even put these pieces together, it would be for a lack of trying. And at least Tim would have his answer then.

"Maybe I need to talk to Dick."

"Not without me," Tim countered briskly. "I don't trust you two to not turn it into a brawl about a hundred other things that don't have anything to do with me or Damian. I'm not going to be a weapon for another war of yours, Bruce. Either of us," he added pointedly, startling even himself a little bit now.

Bruce raised his hands, accepting the rebuke for what it was.

Tim stuffed his hands in his pockets then, taking a small step forward. "You know, what I said earlier still applies. And it's pretty obvious by now that Damian still can't count on you, and he's too young to be on his own, either. Plus he doesn't understand Gotham, or the work, enough to." A deep breath. "So I'm not leaving just yet anyways. I may not get along with him, and I may not want him to be Robin, but that doesn't mean I want him to die as Robin, either. I think the Dead Robins Club is big enough already."

"I've been spending more time in Gotham again," Bruce offered.

"And the sheer generosity of this is noted, Mr. Wayne, but that isn't good enough. Damian counts on Dick, and Dick is trapped in No Man's Land because you're there. You're not around enough to be his dad for real, but you're around enough to keep Dick from being that.

"I saw how you've been different, since you came back from being lost in time. Making an actual effort? Just not for me. So I don't think you want to lose him, Bruce. And you haven't yet.

"But I think you will. You're going to lose all of us. You've already lost me and Jason. I don't think Dick or Alfred will leave unless everyone else does, but…Damian isn't far off. And Cass…." A tiny smile crossed his lips in spite of everything and he blew out a small breath. "I think Cass has always been smart enough not to really let you have her anyways. Not to where you can hurt her the same way you have us. Maybe it's the whole girls-mature-faster thing."

"At this point, I'm not sure I ever really had you, either."

"Bruce." And Tim could feel something broken lodged at the back of his throat, creeping into his voice. He forced it back. "You had everything. You just didn't know it.

"You could have had Steph for real, too. But you never gave her a fair chance. You just made her think she had one, and then threw her away for doing the same crap every last one of us has. We don't just follow orders blindly, Bruce. You want us to be smart? To stay alive? That's part of it, too, because you can't always keep us alive. You can't always keep yourself alive, either. But Steph never knew that was the real deal. Maybe that's why she went along with that crap you came up with later. Testing me," he spat, nose wrinkling at the thought of how much audacity it took for Bruce to even come up with a plan like that. "I always thought that'd be the kind of thing she'd just yell at you about and refuse to do. Probably tell me as soon as you asked and then we'd turn it back around on you.

"But maybe after Sionis…even before then, you always blamed Jason for how he died. To me, to Steph. And I know you told Steph that she was too emotional, that she'd get herself killed like he did. And then, after Sionis, she thought you were right. And she wanted to prove she could follow orders, and make tough decisions instead of being 'emotional,' because you've got most of the world convinced somehow that your eternal fucking quest for vengeance isn't emotional.

"You've always been good at the whole guilt thing, you know. I think Mom and Dad might have liked you more if they'd known that. It worked on me and I don't even feel guilt about the same things some people do. Of course it worked on Steph."

"Then I'll work on it. I'll work on it with all of you. You, Damian, and Stephanie, and Jason."

Tim regarded him for a long moment. "For the record, I'm waiting with bated breath to hear where Dick and Cass are in all of that." A grimace. "You're doing it again. Already. Taking them for granted. You need to be a parent to all of your kids, Bruce, and they shouldn't have to ask."

You haven't even started and you're already failing. An unfortunate paradox.

"Then perhaps that means it's my turn to ask."

Tim tilted his head, the curiosity a genuine one this time.

"And I think maybe I should start with you." He straightened from against the wall of windows, hands demurely tucked away in his pockets this time as he took a few ambling, steady steps forward. "I don't think I can fix this, any of this, without you, Tim." He stopped half an arm away.

Tim just looked up at him serenely. And didn't shift.

"And you deserve to be the one I fix things with first. Because you do matter to me. As Red Robin, and even more as Timothy Jackson Drake-Wayne."

"Bruce.…" It was Tim's turn to furrow his brow. "I don't see why I should help you at all. Not any more than I already do." He pushed off the glass now, shoulders square but body loose. "And before you say anything, this isn't a tactic. I'm happy now. As much as I have been for a while, anyways. Why should I mess that up to give you another chance?

"Also. You're in my office in the middle of the work day. And make no mistake—it is my office now. You could ask a lot of the people here." He made an easy gesture towards the door. "Ask the board, too. They know I spend more time—on and off the clock—at Wayne Enterprises in a month than you spend in a year. And you don't have time to assess where my support is and root everyone out. Not unless you plan on cutting back your hours at the night job, of course.

"Oh you could still take care of it en masse—attempt une campagne de la terre brûlée^{[a scorched-earth campaign]}—and absorb the losses, sure, but all that would do is stir up the shareholders and prove the exact point of why Brucie Wayne shouldn't be in charge.

"So, for the time being…my office.

"Besides, you were already planning to do business today, right? That Aram & Associates meeting you lifted from my shoulders? I'm sure you didn't take on something like that without intending to make your own case to them.

"Probably not on such short notice as this, but we both know the importance of adaptability in our line of work."

"Tim, what are you saying?"

As though he didn't already know.

But Tim indulged him anyways, turning to amble a few steps away again and gain some breathing room; he'd waited long enough that the move would not be counted as retreat. "I'm saying…convince me."

Bruce didn't rush his answer, gaze eventually falling to the floor before he finally huffed out a breath and a pair of slate-grey eyes were tracking Tim once more. There was a lightness to him now that only read off-kilter after all the tension just moments prior. "I think you've given me a far easier task than I even deserve here. You've already made all my arguments for me, Tim: You've given so much of your life to this team, this family. To me. And you still are.

"You deserve to have something back. What you should have had for years now."

What he deserved. A question that had haunted his existence since his conception to parents who saw him merely as incarnation of their own legacies. He'd spent a lot of years assuming that he didn't deserve even the little his parents gave him of themselves, out of the ever so deep and abiding goodness of their hearts. To actually internalize what Bruce was trying to tell him now would've been a bit much, but it had already made for a good thought exercise over the years. And theoretical was all he needed for a business discussion, after all. "And? What else?" he asked, finding a comfortable rhythm in it now after having argued for such a long stretch of time already.

"Jack. No matter the difficulties you had with him over the years, he clearly meant a great deal to you."

Tim cocked a brow, intrigued at the delve into waters quite so risky. "And your point is?"

"I think it's safe to say that for all our problems, you and I have had a closer relationship than that. A better relationship, even."

Speaking ill of the dead? Janet Drake probably would have found the move too crass, scorned the desperation it unveiled. Tim Drake was more…surprised by the boldness, yes, but he could also appreciate Bruce's willingness to take the risk. The honesty as well—it was charming, almost. "I concur," he agreed amicably enough with a smooth dip of his head.

"I think you'd regret not giving me the same chance you gave Jack when he asked to try again."

…Perhaps the strategy was crasser than he'd gauged after all. "I've given you plenty of chances, Bruce. I gave you a chance when I brought you back from the Time Stream." An impatient click of his tongue, Tim finding himself less willing by the minute to restrain his irritation. "And I'm pretty sure you actually paid less attention to me after you almost died, so I really do hope your next argument isn't going to be how much I'll regret things if you die for real and the two of us haven't made up by then."

"I'm not saying I deserve more chances, Tim. I don't. Not at all. But, Tim…you do. You always did. I want you to have a father. It isn't right that you have that chance and it keeps being taken from you anyways."

Tim sat back on his heels just a touch, head tilted to the side. "Being taken?"

"By my own actions, yes," he answered, dropping the slant of passivity quickly enough that Tim could actually believe it an accident. "And inactions," he added.

"I'm already 17, you know." Tim's voice sounded cloudy, distant even to himself.

"And Jason's 19. And I'm almost 40. I don't think Alfred much cares, and I don't think I'll much care whether you're 20 or 30 or 50. You don't stop being a parent when your child turns 18."

Tim looked at him, then out the window, lips pursed. I wouldn't really know. I don't think most of us would.

He read Tim's mind. "But then, I can't really stop what I never started, can I?"

Tim turned to look at him again, long and clear and piercing and intense. "And how do you intend to start?"

"Does…this mean we have a deal?" He didn't disguise the hope burgeoning in his voice now.

"No." The distance between asked and answered was a flash of lightning. In the past, Tim might've said yes. In the past, Tim only could've afforded to say yes. Now.… "It means I'm still listening to your pitch. And doing the bare minimum of offering to be a dad isn't a gesture of good faith, Bruce.

"That actually has to cost something." Everything for nothing was no longer a trade Tim was willing to make.

The returning agreement came almost as swiftly as the denial. "You're right," Bruce said. And then, more hesitantly—"Is there a particular…cost…you had in mind?"

Tim shut his eyes, savoring the remaining moment he had here. And Tim found to his own surprise that the breaths that had nearly broken into full panic earlier were as slow as Bruce's now, the ache in his chest finally easing just a little as he reminded himself what he would still have at the end of this day, regardless of what passed between him and Bruce in these next moments. "I want you to tell everyone what really happened with Jason and the Joker."

Bruce stiffened subtly even as he did an admirable job in suppressing any further tells. "Tim…I don't understand what I could tell them about Ethiopia that they don't already know. They already know what happened wasn't Jason's fault in the least. And I was wrong to ever suggest as much. Even if it had been true that he'd gone after the Joker—"

"No one ever gives me crap for not wanting to hang out with Jason. That's because they know what he did to me. How I got this scar on my throat." Even as he said it, he felt a phantom trace of pain along the ridge where skin and muscle alike had knit themselves back together. "They know…I don't owe him shit, even if he is family. Even you and Dick…living with him wasn't on my terms, but making friends with him still was.

"What position do you think everyone would take if they knew why Jason has a matching scar?"

And there it was. The dice cast from his hand now to fall where they would.

However stunned Bruce may have been, he did well in returning it to Tim; he tightened his grip rather than quitting it. "Tim," came the hoarse whisper, "whatever else you believe, I promise you—promise—I was never attempting to take your brother's life."

"Neither was he—point of fact," Tim answered with a hard-earned nonchalance that now came easily. "We both know I wouldn't be here if he were. It took enormously more precision to make that wound non-fatal.

"I don't mean it's the same, Bruce. But it's enough. Jason being around you should be because he actually feels safe and wants to be around you. Not because everyone else is guilting him over it.

"And no matter what happens, no matter what you do, you've still been Batman to everyone. A hero.

"And you've always chosen that over us.

"Nothing"—and he felt the word resonate painfully in its truthfulness—"is going to change until you can make a different choice, Bruce!"

"Tim—"

And he could feel Bruce scrabbling for purchase here, a mountain goat trying to summit with a broken leg.

"—you're right. You are. But Batman is about more than just me. If people lose their faith in—"

"No!" Tim snapped, seeing red now as he took a step towards Bruce. "You don't get to use that anymore! You don't get to put the burden on us after all the choices you've made that could've destroyed Batman over the years. You're still Batman now because we've kept your secrets. Because people don't know what you did to Steph. Or to Jason. They don't know you would've killed people if I hadn't stepped in. They don't know how close to the edge you've always been!

"And for the record, I'm not suggesting we tell them all of that…I'm demanding that we tell them this."

"And if Jason doesn't agree?"

Tim scowled, chin lifted as he peered at Bruce. "I'm not entertaining that question until you give me reason to. Make the ask first—in my presence—and then we can talk alternatives."

"Tim, I doubt he'll agree with this plan. He'd be giving up too much leverage against me."

Tim shrugged in dismissal. "We have other leverage," he said simply, knowing Bruce wouldn't miss his choice of words.

"Tim…why is this so important to you? Enough that you'd stake our personal relationship on it."

"We don't have a personal relationship, B," Tim answered with an easy shrug, despite the light glower he was still leveling Bruce's way. "We could, though. But I'm not going to choose it over the relationships that I already have. And you're not going to be a good father unless you can be a good father to all of your kids. Not make some asinine choice about which of us you're going to neglect this year and which ones actually get to be your kids for a while."

Bruce winced openly then, the mask finally peeled down all the way.

Or as near as it ever got, maybe.

"I'm just looking out for myself."

"I disagree," Bruce said. "And"—his voice stayed hoarse even through a cleared throat—"I'm incredibly proud of you for it."

Tim smiled. "I am, too."

He lingered at the window, watching the motion of the city below. And above. There was no sudden shaft of light peeking through the clouds; the cloud cover hovered in place as thickly as ever, and anyone who doubted the sun was there at all could honestly have been forgiven. But the grays that Tim had never been scared by anyways looked a little warmer now, and he could almost feel the briskness of the wind as he watched the birds coast along on it, swooping and diving between the narrow valleys of the cityscape.

He'd be taking to those skies again soon, and he wondered how it would feel to fly with the spectres of the night at his side instead of dogging his steps from afar.

"I really do hope this works out, you know," he murmured to his reflection, sensing Bruce still hadn't moved away the whole time. "I always hated fighting with you. I just knew I could take it."

"You shouldn't have had to."

Tim shrugged. "Maybe that's why my parents never really did the family thing," he noted wryly. "Way too much work."

"Your parents—"

"Mm-mn, nope. No additional unpacking of familial trauma this late in the afternoon on a weekday. We've already run over time as it is, so now we put it in the Bad Vibes Box and don't poke again until the weekend. Or never.

"Of course, if you really have your heart set on talking about it, I hear Dinah offers family sessions three days a week now. I'm sure she'd be happy to see us."

It was pretty entertaining to watch someone give the impression of a hasty retreat while still staying rooted to a single spot.

"Since I'm doing the whole P.B.S. thing, though—"

"P.B.S.?"

"Pro-Bono Son. I'm your kid on a trial basis so maybe you can learn how not to fuck it up. Unless you've changed your mind about the deal?"

"No," he said quickly. "I'm fully committed."

"Good. That means it's time for a multiple-choice question. Your kid is experiencing a headache in the middle of the workday. Do you…grill them about personal traumas? Express sympathy and offer comfort? Or demand that they abandon all important items for the rest of the day and throw their schedule out of whack for the next three days?"

"I assume a hug would count as comfort?" Bruce asked, a wry note in his voice.

Tim turned a blank look his way. "Are you offering a hug as comfort?"

"I am."

"And is that your final answer?"

"It is."

Tim nodded almost imperceptibly and Bruce strode over, opening his arms until Tim came close enough to be fully enveloped.

Tim didn't let himself fall into the embrace. Couldn't, as much as he wanted to. But he took the final step that stood between them and then he was in Bruce's arms, one shaky hand coming up to cling to the back of his jacket while the other pressed a heel against his eye, his skull already aching from too many tears in too little time.

His head hurt, but there were cool fingers coming up to card through his hair, calloused fingertips scraping pleasantly along his scalp in trails that sent a shiver of warmth through his nerves and loosened the tensely held muscles that had been holding him up all this time.

Something in Tim cracked at the contact because this—this was what he had wanted, wasn't it? What he'd whispered to Jason enough angst and avoidance and arguments ago that it felt like days rather than hours.

"You're messing up my hair," he mumbled into Bruce's immaculately pressed jacket. It smelled like his cologne, a surprisingly light scent with subtly floral undertones, and underneath were the hints of iron and Twaron that never quite washed out of their skins.

It was fortunate that more of their enemies didn't have particularly powerful senses of smell. Tim made a note to consider scent-blocking augmentations to their gear anyways.

"Do you want me to stop?" There was a chuckle in his voice, but Bruce paused all the same, taking the question itself seriously this time.

Tim shook his head again, gratified just a little when the material wrinkled in response. Not as perfect. He fit against it better now.

Bruce resumed, fingers sifting through the gelled clumps of hair and thoroughly ruining all the effort Tim had made to style it.

So much for maintaining a professional image.

No one outside the office would have known about all the yelling, but all the soundproofing in the world wouldn't do a thing to hide how much of a mess he was in person.

But this had always been the kind of trade he was willing to make. Had longed to.

Bruce finally broke the silence a few minutes later to ask, "Does this mean we have a deal?"

"Provisionally," Tim agreed, voice muffled as his face remained half-buried in the expensive fabric of Bruce's jacket.

"We'll revisit in a year, then?" Almost not a question at all.

"Six months, first," Tim answered, unbothered but finally pulling back just to speak clearly. "It shouldn't take a year to see progress. And I'm too old to lose that kind of time anymore. Too much living I could be doing then."

"That sounds more than fair. And after?"

Tim laughed a bit, wetly, and said, "I think we should get through this week without driving each other crazy—or one of the Outlaws not-killing you—first. They owe me a few favors, you know."

"I'm sure they'd be happy to help even without the debt."

A point scored but Tim shrugged noncommittally, finding neither a need nor an inclination to confirm Bruce's suspicions.

"You know…as a third step," Bruce ventured slowly, as they both amble back to the desk, "I was thinking maybe we could have a late lunch together. Or perhaps an early dinner."

Tim hummed idly as he fished around in one of the drawers. Got it! "Can't." He didn't know at that point who had left the scrunchie in his desk, but it was clean and he needed a spare so he didn't really care. It was even a surprisingly subdued maroon color that wouldn't draw the eye too much. "Meetings scheduled for then." He finished what Bruce had started, breaking the gel cast on the rest of his hair so it would fall more naturally in the short ponytail he tugged it into. He left it more intact still towards the front to let a few tendrils hang free while staying relatively neat. It was nice having his hair long enough for a fix like that to work; he'd have been roundly screwed if it were still short again.

"So cancel." Bruce looked at him with a smirk when Tim snapped his head up to shoot him a glare. "I hear having a meeting with the C.E.O. makes for a pretty good excuse," he added conspiratorially.

The glower didn't waver as Tim lowered his hands and stood straight, feet planted as he stared Bruce down. "You're not cancelling another one of my meetings. Not today, and not after this."

Bruce blinked and opened his mouth.

"And you're not making me cancel any, either. I do that enough for the Mission already."

"Of course," he said as though Tim hadn't just had to warn him off from exactly that.

The phrasing set Tim's damned teeth right back on edge again.

"No, I shouldn't say.…" Bruce sighed, sounding almost as exasperated with himself as Tim was, and tried again. "You're right—I overstepped and should have already known better from how my decision earlier went over. Would lunch this weekend work instead?"

The tension was still there and Tim wouldn't dare let it go fully now, but he released some of it. He demurred all the same, though. "I'm hanging out with Ives and Bernard on Saturday—I'm helping them practice for Dodge Citadel's next match—and then with YJ on Sunday."

"Dodge Citadel?"

"Yeah. They're actually pretty high-level," he said, a note of pride shining through in his voice. "They promise they won't forget me when they both get pulled for the OMEGA League^5h."

"That's…good of them?"

Tim grinned for the first time in what felt like ages.

"Well"—he cleared his throat, hands shoved into his pockets as he tried to look more certain of himself—"I'm sure we can find another time soon, then. I'm glad you're spending time with your friends."

"I am, too," he said, and meant it fully. It was not alone that he'd found the strength that had gotten him through the day, gotten him here, to some kind of understanding far better than the false resolution Bruce would have halted them both at.

They weren't ready for absolution.

Bruce wasn't ready to earn it.

And Tim wasn't ready to give it. But he could give something, though. "Stephen's been doing a great job here, you know," Tim offered, giving a nod in the direction of the waiting room. "The research he did the last few weeks has saved me a lot of hours at W.E."

Bruce raised his eyebrows. "He managed to keep you out of the office? I'm impressed."

Tim snorted. "Yeah, I think Tam and Jason like him even more than I do."

"High praise."

"Maybe you should get him a gift basket. I could help you pick it out," he added with the cadence of an afterthought. "I do actually have some time free tomorrow afternoon, so we could do lunch. If you don't want to just wait till next week."

The smile that came to Bruce's face then was a small one but somehow lit up his whole face. A genuine Bruce Wayne smile. One that meant far more than the vast grins Brucie Wayne tossed out like beads at Mardi Gras to string people along. "That sounds perfect."

"Your treat?" Tim asked, perching on the corner of the desk as Bruce took the visitor's seat in front of it again, knees audibly creaking just a little as he sat down.

"Of course."

Tim nodded thoughtfully. He was definitely going to order enough food to make Jason & Conner proud. Even if he didn't actually eat much of it himself.

The Wayne Enterprises staff members weren't going to turn down the chance for another Tiramisu Tuesday, after all. "Sounds like a date," he said at last. "And maybe we can finally discuss your education properly."

"I'm sorry?" This time not an actual apology, thank goodness.

Tim grinned a little once more. "Well…if you really think not finishing college was a mistake, you could always finish it now. You have way more leeway than the average person to do that kind of thing. You have enough money and you have enough pull that you could probably get back into Yale or Princeton without too much hassle. Or both, if one doesn't seem like enough to juggle." He gave Bruce a shark-toothed grin.

Bruce sighed. Loudly. "I think we're getting a bit off track here, but…I suppose I should take it under advisement after everything I've said today."

"Consider the grace period over, Bruce. After all, you do know having kids is supposed to be annoying, right?" Tim asked, grinning wider.

"So Dick has informed me," Bruce answered, looking skywards. "In as many ways as possible."

"Good," Tim replied before checking his watch. "I'm told you have a meeting to get to?"

Bruce nodded in acquiescence. "Maybe we can also stop by a bakery after," he added as he lifted his huge frame from the chair with his characteristic uncanny grace. "I believe I still owe you a birthday cake."

Tim's answer was drawn forth by instinct alone. "The cake is a lie⁵ⁱ."

"…Pardon?"

Tim shrugged. "You've got six months. I think you can figure it out."

"I…look forward to learning, then."

Tim smiled, just a little bit. "Yeah. …I think I do, too."

The journey isn't an easy one, but Bruce stays true to his word.

Tim finally begins to feel a part of the family once more rather than just hanging on its fringes.

And of course, he can't accept that position without very firmly pulling a certain 6-foot-1, 240-pound sibling along with him. Travel-sized or not, Tim knows how to throw his weight around. (Of course, it helps when a pair of redheaded adults are also helpfully shoving Jason in the same direction. With no shortage of threats about what will happen should Bruce resume the Lord Fauntleroy Fuckleroy act.) Also, Bruce finally gets the story about that karambit.

And the privilege of being yelled at by a certain red-headed sniper before then being dressed down by Abuela Alma.

Kori? Oh, she doesn't yell. She and Alfred really don't need to.

Because I forgot to tag the ambiguous ending I had originally planned (and decent tagging is really fvcking important to me—though I don't actually consider ending tags a must. I already was very cautious in how I wrote some character and relationship stuff I had also not originally tagged), I chose to make an epilogue confirming a fully happy ending where Bruce steps up to the task and doesn't just fall back off the wagon and revert to type. He has his hiccups, but he corrects things quickly rather than forcing his children and family to go through absolute crisis and then starting the whole pattern all over again with false apologies and promises.

However, something I thought would be fun, in the spirit of my original plans, and just a fun excuse to promo works (because hello, it's me) was to offer you some options both of what the journey might look like if things do improve with the family members Tim is most struggling with (Bruce and/or Dick) and what things would look like if they stay closer to his current status quo.

Tim's gonna be okay either way, though, y'all; he has Jason, he has the Titans/YJ team, and even the Outlaws have taken him as part of the family.

By the way, even the fics here where he mostly doesn't reconcile with the Wayne family will still generally be more or less Jason friendly, because those are the kinds of stories I read and that's basically the one relationship I need Tim to have with the Bats. (And as should be obvious by now, I absolutely mean in a platonic sense. They bros.)

I can only vouch for material up to the point where I last read it, so my apologies if the information you find here about either series or individual fics as you're reading this is no longer current. Most of these works and series are finished, though, so you should be mostly safe from getting ambushed in terms of ships and such.

Most of these are Gen, but:

—The Phobias series has very background Tim/Steph in the first book and then more foreground Tim/Steph in the second book, plus one-sided Jade Nguyen/Roy Harper
—The Cor Et series has some Bruce/Selina through the series, plus some material in one-shots featuring Tim/Steph, Kon/Cass (Cain, not Sandsmark), and mentioning one-sided Kon/Tim.

• Extant, by Kgraces
• How We Heal series, by Huntressundone (technically can go in either list)
• the way it goes, by pennneminem
• Why So Serious?, by Huntressundone & Lulu_Rythmea [A/B/O but still Gen/Platonic]
• are you okay tim? i’m fine thanks. series, by Allwalkfree
• Catch You, Help You Heal series, by Bisexual_Bean

• The Return, by lurkinglurkerwholurks
• Broken Hands and Boys in Danger series, by maychorian
• Cor Et Cerebrum series, by audreycritter
• Emotional Motion Sickness series, by Batbirdies
• A New Beginning, by Lulu_Rythmea [Gen/Platonic A/B/O once more]
• Phobias, Soulmates, & Bats series, by Lulu_Rythmea

[By the way, feel free to ask regarding what I said earlier about characters and relationships that weren't actually tagged in Seeing Red initially or currently are not. Now that AO3's enabled the spoiler feature in comments, I can answer that stuff off of Discord without messing things up for people who preferred the more ambiguous readings and wouldn't really enjoy having their picture of the story disturbed by outside stuff. Trust me, I know how that feels.]