Chapter Text
One weird thing about Tim, Bernard had noticed, was that he paid for everything, no matter the price, in cash.
Bernard genuinely wasn’t sure he’d ever seen him pay for something using a card.
This is what he was currently thinking about as he watched Tim pull out several dollar bills to pay for their drinks, handing them to the barista in the cafe they were in. He pulled out a few more to drop into the disgustingly empty tip jar.
Tim’s brow furrowed when he noticed just how empty said jar was. He pulled out a few more dollars and dropped them in it before turning back to the barista.
“Where are you sitting?” The barista asked tonelessly, clearly tired of dealing with customers.
Bernard wondered how long they’d been working for as he squinted at the name badge wonkily pinned to their dark blue apron. ‘Kal, She/Her’ was scribbled on it in handwriting just as wonky as the badge itself.
Tim pointed to a small table in the back corner of the cafe with a couple of large bean bags unceremoniously dumped next to it, one purple and one dark red. Their stuff had been thrown over the table to reserve it while they ordered.
Kal nodded, disinterest, annoyed, and still exuding a general aura of I’m-on-minimum-wage-and-you're-wasting-my-time-and-I-want-to-go-home. She was tapping one of her fingers against the glass counter top in time to the music playing through her earphones, “I’ll bring your drinks over when they’re ready.”
“Thank you.” Bernard smiled brightly at her, not disheartened when she didn’t smile back and merely rolled her eyes instead, turning to deal with her next customers as Tim and Bernard made their way over to their table.
There was a large black doberman slumbering under the table nearest the counter and Bernard almost tripped over it on his way past. The dog briefly lifted its head to give him a disgruntled look before returning to its aloof people watching.
He privately thought to himself that if the theory about dogs being like their owners were true, then this was probably Kal’s dog. (This theory was supported by the fact that the dog had a collar with a handmade, laminated piece of paper attached, with what was presumably contact details for if it got lost, written in crooked handwriting that matched the one on Kal’s badge).
They slumped in their respective bean bags (Tim in the red, Bernard in the purple),
Bernard noticed Tim wince as he sat, eye twitching slightly as he tried to hide his pain.
He narrowed his eyes at his boyfriend, wondering what excuse he’d come up with in a (weak) attempt to explain away his injury if he called him out on it, but chose to stay silent. There was no point in purposefully ruining the mood of their date.
This was another thing he’d noticed about Tim. He always seemed to be injured in one way or another, although he generally hid it well. Bruises and scrapes appeared to be a part of his average day-to-day life.
Bernard put a mental pin in that to return to at a later date when he’d had more time to observe.
Right now, he had a different mystery to solve.
The Mysterious Case of Tim’s Never Ending Supply of Cash.
The Mysterious Case of Tim’s Never Ending Supply of Honestly Quite Concerning Injuries could be Future Bernard’s problem.
Current Bernard needed to do some research. He needed to observe… to do some sleuthing.
He cleared his throat.
Small talk time.
“So… how was that meeting you had to go to the other day?” Bernard asked, fidgeting slightly to get more comfortable in his beanbag (and also because he was worried Tim was going to suss him out with his superior detective skills).
Tim stared at him for a second while a minute expression of confusion flitted across his face. He clearly didn’t know what meeting he was referring to, “Meeting?”
His eyes zeroed in on Bernard’s finger, which was tapping a gentle, irregular rhythm against the edge of the table in anticipation of Tim’s answer. He got the distinct impression that his body language was being catalogued and analysed.
Bernard squinted at him suspiciously, stilling the tapping of his finger. He tried not to sound sulky (and failed) when he explained, “Yeah, the meeting you abandoned our roller skating date for.”
The skating rink near Tim’s flat had been hosting a special 80s themed, couples only skating day the other day. Naturally, as soon as he’d found out, Bernard had basically dragged Tim there. He’d been excited… and then Tim had ditched him.
They’d been halfway through their date when Tim received a loud notification on his phone. This was unusual for a few reasons, the primary one being that he always had his phone on Do Not Disturb mode every time he went out with Bernard, because he didn’t want to be distracted by his annoyingly busy life.
He’d pulled his phone out of his pocket with a frown on his face.
Whatever it had said caused a mild look of surprise and panic to settle on his features, a poor excuse to be fumbled out about having to cover a Wayne Enterprises meeting for Bruce due to an unforeseen emergency, and him to rush off at about one hundred miles per hour, barely pausing to give Bernard a quick peck on the cheek in farewell as he flew by on his skates.
Bernard had been left on the skating rink by himself, clinging to the wall (he wasn’t as good at roller skating as he was at skateboarding, unlike Tim, who seemed to be naturally talented at both somehow), and surrounded by other couples whizzing past, laughing and giggling and tugging each other around the rink, having the time of their lives.
He was a little salty about it, but only a little.
Maybe ten minutes later, when Bernard was sat on the floor just outside the rink with his back against one of the benches and scrolling mindlessly through his phone, some of the Gotham updates Twitter accounts he followed tweeted.
The notifications flooded in at the top of his screen one after the other, making his phone vibrate violently in his hand.
Bernard absentmindedly spun the wheels on his rented skates with his hand as he loaded up twitter.
@GothamUpdatesOfficial ✓
Poison Ivy spotted in Robinson Park. Suspected hostage situation. Civilians warned to steer clear.
@GothamUpdatesUnofficial__
Large explosions and gunshots in the Warehouse District. Suspected gang violence.
@GothamUpdatesForTheCuriousGothamites
Explosions in the Warehouse District. Poison Ivy holding civilians hostage in Robinson Park. The Signal and numerous police have responded to the hostage call. Batman, Robin, and Red Robin have been sighted, presumably on their way to the scene.
Click the link below for livestream footage from brave civilian trapped inside.
Huh. Apparently shit was going down outside the roller skating rink right now.
Then again, was there ever a time where shit wasn’t going down in Gotham?
The song faded from Girls On Film into Boys Don’t Cry. A whoop went up from a group of teenagers on the rink who were performing tricks in pairs.
Bernard thunked his head backwards onto the bench behind him and decided it was probably best to go home and spend the rest of his day sulking in his room, listening to Taylor Swift songs on full volume and very much not thinking about how Tim had received a suspicious text and abandoned their date just as the Gotham Updates accounts started flipping the fuck out about gangs and explosions and stuff.
Another thing for Future Bernard to investigate: The Mysterious Case of Tim’s Suspicious Disappearances.
Tim's eyebrow twitched slightly and his eyes widened, as if remembering the terrible excuse he’d rushed out before sprinting off to blow up warehouses or whatever it was he did when he abandoned Bernard on dates, “Oh yeah. The meeting. Yeah it went well, boring though.”
Bernard found his thoughts drifting from their small talk to every time he’d seen Tim pay with cash, which was every time Tim paid for what they were doing… which was, well, always.
Look, Tim was a nepo baby and Bernard was decidedly not (as demonstrated by his depressingly empty bank account)… Tim could afford it.
It had been a good few months since the Chaos Monster and cult disaster, and since then they had been on many many dates. But throughout them all, Bernard wasn’t sure he’d ever seen Tim use a card to pay for anything. The man just had endless amounts of cash on him, it was honestly ridiculous.
He’d paid for their cinema tickets with cash.
He’d paid for their museum tickets with cash.
He’d paid for their roller skating tickets with cash.
He’d paid for that fancy dinner that he took Bernard to (he’d insisted it wasn't even that fancy, but it definitely was) with cash, even though the total had added up to at least a couple of hundred dollars (and had made Bernard’s stomach flip uncomfortably) and the waiter had looked at him funny when Tim had handed him the bills, like he was expecting Tim to laugh obnoxiously and shout “Just kidding! Ha, got you!” and pull out his card to pay.
When they’d visited the mall together, he’d insisted on buying Bernard anything he looked at for longer than five seconds, including an expensive looking dark red suit that Bernard was uncertain he was ever going to have a chance to actually wear, several brand new vinyl records, and a brand new pair of Doc Martens. And then he’d proceeded to pay with cash. It had amounted to more money than Bernard had ever owned at one time, let alone have it all in cash.
So really, the point is that Tim paid for everything, everything, in cash.
At this point, Bernard wasn’t sure he even had a credit card. Or… maybe he had one and just didn’t use it for some unknown reason?
But that would be weird. Why would someone prefer to use cash over card unless they got their money from a dodgy source or something?
Plus, who carried a few hundred dollars of cash on them everywhere they went?
…Tim.
Apparently.
It was weird.
He tried to remember if Tim had always used cash, even back when they were in High School. Gotham High canteen didn’t accept cash so Tim would have had to use a debit or credit card of some sort, and outside of that Bernard honestly couldn’t remember. It had been too long.
“Tim, do you always pay for everything in cash?” Bernard suddenly asked, cutting Tim off in the middle of his complaining about some stuffy old investor he had to deal with at Wayne Enterprises the other day.
Oops. He hadn’t meant to be as blunt as that.
His filter between his brain and mouth has failed him.
Tim blinked at him as his brain processed Bernard’s seemingly random question, “...I guess?”
“But why? Is it not inconvenient?”
Tim shrugged, “I don’t know. Not really. I just don’t really carry a card with me, cash is easier.”
Bernard frowned and opened his mouth to inquire further, because Tim’s explanation wasn’t cutting it, only to be cut off by a hot chocolate with a tower of whipped cream and marshmallows balanced on top being slammed down in front of Tim and a black coffee being placed (equally as aggressively) in front of him, liquid splashing over the side of the blue mug.
Kal cursed colourfully and flapped her hand around in their air where the hot liquid had spilled on it.
“Are you okay?” Bernard asked, while Tim subtly switched their drinks so that Bernard had his hot chocolate and Tim had his black coffee.
“Fine.” Kal groaned, still flapping her hand in the air.
“Are you sure?” Bernard asked again.
Kal glared at him, “I’m fine.”
She stalked off.
Her dog glared at Bernard from under the table as if it was Bernard’s fault Kal had spilled scalding hot coffee over her hands.
Tim and Bernard moved on from the cash conversation, instead turning to how much Bernard wanted to slam his manager’s head into a wall sometimes and if Tim would help him hide his body if he murdered him. (The answer was yes. Mildly worryingly, Bernard didn’t think he was joking).
It wasn’t until later on, when he was lying in bed that night and scrolling through his phone, smiling like an idiot in love at the photo Tim had just sent him of the two of them on their date earlier, that he remembered his Tim’s Suspicious Amount Of Cash dilemma.
Huh.
Tim’s explanation would have been believable, if the amount of cash he carried was maybe… fifty dollars, instead of the few hundred he seemed to keep on his person at all times.
No, Tim’s explanation was weak.
There was a mystery here that needed to be uncovered and solved.
Bernard Dowd is on the case.
He rolled over to the edge of his bed and leaned over the side, grabbing his battered old laptop from where he kept it hidden under his bed (like a sensible person, he didn’t want it getting nicked if someone broke in).
He rolled back over to the middle of his bed with his laptop clutched to his chest.
He logged in and opened a Google Doc.
Suspicious Things About Tim: An observation by his Very Loving Boyfriend, Bernard Dowd.
- He carries too much cash (doesn’t have a credit card???) Note to self: Never trust a rich man who only uses cash.
His hair is always perfect no matter what and it’s really annoying:Solved. He has expensive hair products.- Abandons dates to go blow up warehouses (???) Note to self: Major red flag.
Possible reasons for Suspicious Behaviours Tim exhibits
- Money: He’s just weird // He gets his money from a dodgy source that only deals in cash // He’s really paranoid about getting mugged and getting his card stolen.
Hair: He’s a government clone/robot designed to make people fall in love with him // He has expensive hair products.- Blows up warehouses: Unfortunate timing? The meeting was real and Tim wasn’t lying // Is in a gang, probably leads the gang because he’s rich, that’s where all his cash comes from //
Is secretly Batman.
His phone pinged with a message from Tim.
Bernard paused, sparing a second to reply to Tim's wyd message (his answer: conspiracy theories), and then opened PowerPoint.
Tim, if you’re in a gang you really should have told me and also that’s super not cool, especially with my history with cults: A presentation by Bernard Dowd (p.s. I don’t like being lied to xx)
The title was a work in progress.