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Bernard was a product of the Bridges, not the Heights. He was born among the two-story dream homes of the upper-middle class Gothamites, complete with a reasonable backyard and pleasantly acquainted neighbors on each side of the street. The Heights and its interlocking districts were for the Upper-Upper class and their ritzy entertainments, the things his parents liked that Bernard avoided like the plague. So by all rights, Bernard had no business being this far into territory that was struck with new rogue villain drama every other hour.
Yet here he was, on this dreary day in November, driving up to Bristol on the trail of his classmate.
Drake had been strange for days now; that is, strange even for him. Absentminded yet kinda clingy, like he couldn't bear to have Bernard more than five minutes out of his sight - while on school grounds, anyway. Because the moment the bell rang, Drake would be out the door, saying how he had a train to take up to Bristol. And it had been like that for half a week now.
"Sorry, Berns, can't do video games tonight"
"Nope, can't help with homework"
"Go ask Darla; you could make a study date out of it"
Did he honestly think Bernard was still following Darla around? She'd kissed Drake in front of the whole school and Bernard had been nothing but happy for them!
…Well, um, maybe not…that happy. But still!
Darla was worried that that same "kissed him without consent" event was what had Drake running to the door when she tried to talk to him too, but Bernard knew better. He had done a little investigation and realized that there was a very different event that might be the cause of Drake's mood swings. A tragedy - one of many - that had taken place in Drake's past that had just had its anniversary. And he was willing to bet Drake's continuous trips up to the Heights were in honor of that event and the days-long investigation that followed it; a pilgrimages of sorts.
If all of that was true, the best course of action was to play dumb until Drake worked it out on his own.
And Bernard had been doing that. Until today. When a collision of minor points of interest led him to think that playing ignorant was perhaps not the best thing he could do for his friend anymore.
(Evidence 1) Drake was clearly in a very strange place mentally and running across Gotham when the days were getting shorter. Meaning he might be coming home in the dark, which was kinda nuts.
(Evidence 2) The weather forecast for today was exceptionally rainy; the roads could end up flooded and the trains would be extra packed. Previous discussions with Drake said he hated that about public transportation and it made him miss the days he had his own car.
(Evidence 3) Drake had forgotten his jacket in their last class together - which was also really not like him - so he was going to be making this trip without any protection from the elements.
So with all of this in the mix, Bernard believed it was his solemn duty to his best buddy to head over to the Heights in his car and pick up his wayward friend. He could then deliver him to the Drake condo in a dry and safe manner, which would earn his brownie points from Mrs. Drake, who would then invite Bernard to their house more often. It was a perfectly well-motivated action of mutual benefit between men like themselves.
Not at all because the thought of Tim Drake stuck out in the rain in just that thin turtleneck made him feel like crying. Not because the idea of Tim Drake running through the dark streets of big-money Gotham and being attacked by a mugger made his stomach twist up in anxiety. Not because…not because he might sort of…like liked him. A little.
Okay maybe he did. But that factoid was for Bernard to deal with and had nothing to do with Drake's current state of well-being, so it wasn't relevant to this mission. Not like the other boy even knew about it.
The Grey Rose Cemetery was just like he was expecting: eerily high-class and with an ambience of so much money thrown into something so macabre that it felt creepy. The gates alone looked like they were 18th century and meticulously upkept. Must have bene perfectly recreated after the Quake.
Bernard parked his car on the first spot in the row, thankful to get a view of the path that led from the parking lot down the hill to the graves. He double-checked that Drake's jacket was in the passenger seat, draped across the back just so for maximum visibility, and went over his plan again: he would wait until Drake was finished with his visit, then honk his horn when he was coming up the path. The dark-hair teen would definitely recognize Bernard's little punch buggy - he had made enough jokes about it before - so he would realize Bernard had been an exemplary friend by coming to pick him up. And he would be so impressed by how dashin- helpful he had been, he'd let Bernard copy of his homework for the next month. Yes, perfect!
Feeling quite proud of himself, Bernard opened the music app on his phone and settled back into the driver's seat to wait it out. Visions of Drake's surprised and grateful face dancing circles around his mind.
…
Drake couldn't be at some gaming arcade instead. Right?
Of all the mistakes Tim had made since becoming Robin, he was sure this one wasn't the biggest. He hadn't directly caused the death of a villain, he hadn't blown up a planet or brought an alien invasion down on the country. But even as the tiny hopeful part of his mind offered this up, gasping for air among the mire of dark thoughts, Tim's moralist side snuffed it out like a dying ember. The scale of a mistake doesn't alleviate the failure of making it. That was one of the lessons Batman had drilled into him; you had to be 100% perfect every time because even in small doses, failure was never an acceptable outcome in this work. A work of saving lives.
That was the real mistake then; that Batman had ever trusted Tim with the lives of Gotham. In the most common situation on the planet, with Tim right there on the front line, he had let his duty fall to the wayside, let justice slip right through his fingers then scrambled to pick up the grains afterwards. He had told himself he wasn't Robin at that moment, that he couldn’t do anything, but that was a lie. He saw that so clearly with his now civilian eyes; he'd been Robin down to his very bones and still failed.
He was a disgrace to the name. A disgrace to Jason's memory. The ghost of the second Robin had haunted him less since he'd given up the mask but every now and then, it would return to remind him of the mistakes he'd made while in his costume. Remind him that even now, living like a regular person, he couldn't erase the scars of his own inadequacies.
Tim shifted in his seat, leaning back into his discarded schoolbag while his muscles buzzed in protest for letting them fall asleep in this position. With his crossed legs and hunched back, he probably looked like a boy in mournful prayer, sitting beside such an ornate headstone. The memorial vase was full of fresh flowers, maybe from family or other well-wishers who remembered the date just as Tim did.
Did Ives ever come out here? Probably not, which Tim wouldn’t think badly of him for. Ives really was just a civilian, someone who grieved like any friend would grieve but not to the same obsession that Tim did. Ives wasn't stained with the same guilt Tim was, he'd known the limits of his own strength and stayed away from the obvious danger. That probably did save his life, so Tim understood his avoidance even now.
This was a vigil he had to maintain alone. He owed it to his lost friend, this and so much more.
Philmont Denlinger
Gone but Never Forgotten
Those were the words etched into the stone, right beneath the golden-glass picture window that showed an angel's face. Tim couldn't help but feel those words aimed right at him, a despicably self-centered way of thinking.
Footsteps approached from his 3 o'clock, but Tim ignored them. Philmont's spot wasn't far from many other graves, so there had been people walking past him without a second glance. That was one nice thing about a cemetery: people never question things like a teen boy in just a thin sweater sitting by a gilded plot with storm clouds rolling in overhead. It was a stupid move to forget his jacket but Tim couldn’t be fucked to care about that now. With the way he was feeling, he might just linger here all night. He'd deal with Dad's scolding and suspicions of betrayal later.
Until…
"Those flowers from you, Drake?"
Tim's breath caught, his whole body freezing solid. That voice was not supposed to be here, he had left it behind on the other side; on the streets where Today lived, not Yesterday. Nonchalance gripped from each word, wrapped in a teasing tone that smashed like a wrecking ball into the crystal glass of this sorrowful place. Two worlds colliding.
"What- are you doing here?" Tim asked, not turning to look at the approaching footsteps. He fearfully tracing back through his memories of being out here, trying to recall if he’d cried at some point which would be too humiliating to show. He couldn’t just brush his face now or it would look like he had been.
The footsteps stopped right beside of him and Bernard was silent. Tim could just picture his eyebrow raising up, expression smug and screaming "I am all knowing, Grasshopper". God, of all the people Tim thought didn’t belong near a graveyard, Bernard Dowd was at the top. He probably didn’t even know what reverence meant, though he sometime spoke like he’d swallowed a thesaurus.
Tim was prepared to hear something so very like his high school friend. But he wasn't expected the soft way he said, "I read the news article when it came out, about what happened at Gotham Heights High School. And I took a guess that this guy, Philmont, was your classmate. I’m sorry, Drake"
"…Ah." If there was one thing you could count on from Bernard Dowd aside from his usual behavioral patterns, it was him having an ear to the pulse of Gotham News, even things he really shouldn’t know about. And while usually his information was capped with conclusions of shadow governments or werewolf sleeper agents, he'd hit the nail on the head this time. Just like that saying about a broken clock…
"And, like, I guess this puts a lot of stuff into perspective, you know?" Bernard continued, as if he felt compelled to fill the conversation gap Tim was leaving open. "For all the horrible shit you can run into in this city just by stepping out of your front door, it's the individual things like this that just…really make life kind of scary. Just…humans doing scary stuff to each other, just for the heck of it. It's awful."
"Yeah."
Bernard was right and he was wrong. The human condition alone didn't make one violent and murderous by nature. That was a trait that scumbags like Stanzland and Meachum cultivated with years of escalating asocial behaviors that were never properly curbed. His background, his social education, his physical ability and his status among his peers; all those things were just the steppingstones that allowed Stanz to do as much damage as he could think to do and never face correctional consequences. Juvenile Detention Centers weren't that effective in Gotham City, taking in school bullies over petty crime then letting out serious offenders after a week of "dedicated social reintegration courses" or whatever that stupid program was that the mayor was pushing last year. That kind of shit was just a bad as Arkham with the goddamn Joker…!
A warm hand landed on Tim's own, breaking his train of thought. He glanced at Bernard's hand draped over his own and realized, as he slowly released his tensed fingers, that he had been digging his nails into his arms. The sweater prevented him from breaking the skin but his grip left divots in the material. Tim trailed his eyes up the army-green jacket sleeve until he could look his friend in the face, seeing a staggering amount of concern written across his countenance. Bernard was the type to play off a tense situation with a dumb joke, distract and redirect to avoid any awkwardness. Seeing how he pinched those jaunty eyebrows and flattened his mouth into a serious expression, Tim felt like he was looking at a stranger. One that was being concerned about him and that left a bad feeling on his skin.
So he turned away, back to the only thing around that was even partly noteworthy: Philmont’s tombstone.
Bernard took the hint and dropped his hand, but he didn't move away. Instead, he inched closer, to the point Tim could almost feel the heat he radiated. From the corner of his peripheral vision, he could see the green blob drop into a sitting position.
He wasn't going away any time soon.
From most people, this refusal to fuck off when Tim was clearly not in a mood to talk would have been aggravating. But this was Bernard; he made being aggravating into an artform, a part of his very character. He was so skilled at winding Tim up that even when he was being a pain in the neck, it didn't even feel like he was being a pain in the neck. He was just…being Bernard. Just like right now. He pressed but never forced a conversation, yet he lingered so comfortably on the sidelines as if just waiting to have it anyway. To give his two cents or to listen then swerve the topic elsewhere. An open offer to an open ear.
And perhaps it said something to how tired Tim was after all these days of silent grief because he was willing to take that offer now. Willing to let the words finally escape his broken heart in the simplest way that he could. "I was there when he died."
The green blob shifted, the air around them screaming with a sudden tension of the wrong conclusion being reached.
"I mean, not there there," Tim clarified, "I…I was with him right before it happened. I watched him leave with the mur…the guys." Even now, using those words to describe the situation around his friend was too hard. Too raw. He'd had to repeat this story so many times in its barest details - for the police, for the principal, for Bruce. But this…this was the first time he was going to tell it to someone without a background in criminal studies.
He was going to tell it to a regular schoolboy, just like Phil had been.
"We were in PE class together, me and Philmont…and Ives." No point in leaving Sebastian out of the narrative, though Tim couldn't withhold the touch of bitterness that clung to his memory of Ives holding him back. "Phil was always picked on a lot at our schools, but he got it a lot worse when all those transfer students enrolled. It was all the rehousing after the quake; people who lost everything trying to readjust their lives." Bernard made a noise of understanding. Grieves had a similar thing happen with them. "The teachers weren't great at keeping the bigger population under control and a lot of bullying was just let to slide. Josh Stanzland and Mark Meachum were some of the worst of them. And that day, during our class, they…they called Philmont to come with them. Into the woods. Didn't say why but... God, it was so obvious!" Tim punched the ground in disgust. "What the hell was I thinking would happen? They were pulling him away from witnesses! I shouldn't have stood there like an idiot and let him go!"
Tim clenched his teeth, trying to breath deep to keep from screaming. That would just disrupt the other people in the cemetery, less now that a light spritz of rain was starting to show. But he could see bobbing umbrellas, so there were a few still holding on.
Which made it even stranger that Bernard was sitting at his side, looking perfectly unconcerned about the threat of rain even as he kept his strangely serious face. After a moment elapsed without Tim saying anything, Bernard asked, "What did the teachers say when they noticed Philmont wasn't there? When did they notice Stanzland and Meachum weren't in class at all?"
"…" Tim didn't have answers to that; if he'd ever known he'd forgotten them now. He only had two perspectives on the situation and he was struggling to decide which one to tell Bernard. That Tim and Ives turned their back on their weak friend, left him to whatever fate the bullies had chosen for him? Convinced themselves it was smarter to let Phil take a beating alone than to put themselves in the same boat? Or, in Tim's case, claim that protecting his identity was more important than protecting his friend, putting the idea of Batman's disapproval above the thought of someone in trouble that Tim could have stopped?
Or should he talk about what the police could extrapolate from the scene, the theorized escalation from a common behind-the-school beating of face-slapping and gut-punching, into a wild and unrestrained mauling. Kicks to the spine, broken bones, the final realization that they had taken their powerplay too far to hide if Philmont finally squealed - or maybe Philmont had found the strength to threaten as much with a hope to save himself. Then the hypothesized moment when the glass bottle had been found and the bullies decided they could save themselves another month in juvie if they did the unthinkable…
"They killed him. They killed my friend and I was…I was in class. Telling myself he was just getting beaten up and that that was okay so long as I wasn't the one out there." So long as it wasn't Tim's problem to fight off those bullies and either be forced to play weak like he hated doing or quietly incapacitate them without showing too much of his training. Either scenario had felt bad enough to avoid so he made his choice: take the coward's way out and do nothing. And his friend had died because of it.
"You wimped out on him. That's what you're saying."
The blunt statement, even without any judgement in the tone, made Tim quake from the depths of his heart. "Yeah. Yeah I did."
"Do you think you could have stopped it from happening? If those guys were going to hurt your friend, and even your teachers couldn’t keep him safe, then I don't really think there was anything you could have done differently that would have saved him. You might have gotten the same ending he did."
And again, Bernard was wrong. If Tim had suspected The Stanz of murderous intent, he could have planned around it, caught him making moves, reported him to the police before anyone got hurt. The defense lawyer had tried to spin the story as "accidental manslaughter" but of course, their attempted murder of that witness left no doubt in anyone's mind that that was bullshit. If there was one silver lining in this shitstorm it was that that incident led the boys to be tried as adults, sending them to a facility outside of Gotham completely. A warning to anyone one else who tried to do what they did and hide behind minor status.
But even if legal justice had been served, there was no taking back the destruction that had been done to reach it.
Tim looked up at the tombstone and remembered the face of his friend, the pictures of him tacked on memorials around their old school, forever frozen at the age of 15. He'd never grow into an adult, never go to college or start a career. He would forever be that scared boy, who had been left to his demise by the people he called friends. By a person who called himself Robin.
"I don't deserve…"
"Drake?"
"I don't…I don't deserve the title. I don’t…"
"Come on, man."
"I should have gone with them, not him. It wouldn't have turned out like this."
If Tim was the target, he could have made the right choice. He could have fought back, turned the tables, made the aggressors feel fear like they'd inflicted on so many other kids, terrify them into never hurting anyone again. So what if he was exposed to be Robin? Surely Bruce had some sort of contingency plan for that, even if he was mad at Tim for letting it slip. Batman's disappointment should never have been weighed against Philmont's life.
"Don’t say shit like that!"
The volume and guttural tone of that exclamation broke Tim's thoughts for a second time, jerking his attention to the boy beside him. He had never heard Bernard raise his voice that way; he'd never even seen him get properly angry before.
But he was angry now. Bernard was up on his knees, clenched fists quivering at his sides, and glaring into Tim with eyes that sparked with the flash of lightning that crackled overhead. And all of that would have been intimidating if not for the gleam at the edge of his eyes, a sparkle of tears not yet shed. "Don’t ever say something like that again. Never."
"But it’s the truth!" Tim shot back, unwinding himself so he could meet Bernard eye to eye. The soft grass beneath his knees sank like mud. "He'd still be here if I had just-!"
"Tim Drake!"
The use of his full name took hm off guard almost as much as the wrecked sound of that voice, so unlike the confident and laidback asshole he called his classmate.
"Just…just…" Bernard whipped his head around, frantically looking at all side of them. At some point, the rain had begun to trickle harder, driving out the few remaining visitors that would have been in earshot of them. "Just…ugh!" With that exasperated noise, Bernard ripped the jacket off of his own body. Tim pondered why he would take his clothes off with the rain but didn't get a chance to theorize as the jacket was being draped over his head, plunging Tim's world into darkness. Half-buried Robin instincts flared, wanting to lash out in case of a surprise attack, while his ingrained sense of restraint around civilians pressed back harder. The collision of both left Tim paused for the half second it took for something solid and heavy to coil around him, constricting his arms to his sides. The Robin side surged and Tim's hands flew up to grab what they could, finding a half-soaked sweatshirt, with boney elbows and lightly-muscled arms trembling beneath it. All this information wouldn't have stopped Robin from flinging someone over his head, but the half-constrained sob that jerked the chest pressing into Tim's own quieted every bat instinct.
This wasn't an attack from some bad guy. It was a hug from a boy trying not to lose face in front of his friend.
"Just shut up, Drake. Shut up and let me say something." Bernard was trying to be forceful, but he sounded like he could barely get the words out. Even so, he was a stubborn guy. "You are not the one who failed Philmont Denlinger. It wasn't your job to figure out if your new classmates were would-be murderers. That’s on their own parents. That's on the school and the councilors and the teachers. That is not on you or Ives or...or Philmont, either. Don't blame yourselves for not seeing into the future.
"If you want an objective look at the situation like you always tell me you do, then yes, you're a bystander. And- and yeah, you acted like a bad friend for not even telling a teacher or anything. But it doesn't make you a bad guy if you were scared of Stanzland and Meachum too and it doesn't make you guilty that he hurt your friend. If Philmont knew what was going to happen, he wouldn't have gone with them. If you knew what was going to happened, you would have stopped him. But you're not clairvoyant, Drake, even if you want to act like you are. Philmont died because of those psychotic asswipes and the people who should have been keeping kids like him safe. Not because of the choice that you made. You. Didn’t. Kill. Your friend. And you sure as hell don't deserve to be dead in his place, either. No one should have died that day. Period."
The arms keeping him locked to Bernard were tightening to the point of breath restriction. Tim often wondered, when Bernard would put his arms around him so casually, if the contact was for his own sake or Tim's. If he was trying to convey without words that he considered them friends and that he, being new to the school, could come to the “Roving Ambassador” for all his woes. Or was Bernard one of those people who needed physical contact just to function and found Tim to be one of the few who didn't give him shit about it?
This hug had the same feeling as that. Tim couldn’t tell if it was an attempt to comfort him or comfort Bernard. He'd even gone the extra mile to cover Tim's face, like he didn't want to show…
Another sob burst from Bernard and the way it rattled through his chest made the tears Tim had pushed back before start coming back. Begging to fall.
"I…I gave a false statement," Tim admitted, clenching the shirt material under his fingertips, the only outlet he had. "When they found the…the body, I said I didn't see Stanz take him away. I was the only witness they had then and without my testimony, the sheriff couldn’t pin Stanzland and Meachum for the crime even though everyone was sure they did it. I was just trying to hide from my own guilt; if Stanz wasn't the culprit, I wasn't at fault. They would have gotten away with it! All the evidence was right there and I would have swept it all off the table and there would have been more victims!" Rage at his own stupidity had him dragging Bernard closer, pressing his nose into the gap beneath his friend's collarbone in a way he knew would hurt but didn't care. How could Bernard even think that Tim wasn't a bad person?!
"But they were arrested anyway; the false statement didn't make a difference because their own natures go them busted in the end. So your testimony was inconsequential." A chin dug into Tim's head through the jacket cover, the perfect counterstrike. "Why are you so determined to take the fall for this? Why do you want so badly for me to call you the bad guy?"
And that wasn't something Tim had consider before. He knew why he couldn't let go of his own guilt: because he was guilty. Like Bernard said, he'd been a bystander and for someone in his position, that was just shameful. But…why did he feel like he needed to make Bernard see that, too? Like he had to taint Bernard's perception of him as someone who only made the right choices; show him the dark truths of his own past and character? Was he just looking for someone else to hold him accountable, now that Bruce wasn't around to do it? Was he trying to warn his friend not to trust him too much because he could be the next one Tim let be hurt?
Both of those ideas sounded right, but both made his heart twist just thinking of it. Picturing Bernard turning away, taking his smug grins and his friendly touches to someone else. Tim didn't think he could handle that, losing one more constant in his life.
Bernard could tell he'd genuinely stumped him with that and pressed on. "I'm not, like, an expert on stuff like grief or anything. I know that survivors can sometimes get all this guilt about things they could have done differently. But Drake, my man, that’s not going to change the past or the present. You're here and he's not but the dickwads are in prison and Philmont's story is out there. Those are the hard facts, even if they're bittersweet.
"And I think," he continued, holding on to Tim when he tried to pull free, "that Philmont would be happy to know you still think about him and visit his grave. But I don't think your friend would want you to say it should have been you who died. If the roles were reversed, would you want that from him? Or Ives?"
That thought passed across Tim's imagination against his wishes, playing out the bloody scene with him in the place of the victim. A world where he wasn't Robin and he couldn't fight back, and he was led to his death while people who knew him turned away. Dying alone, just like Jason Todd. Like Philmont…!
The tears finally escaped, cutting rivers down his cheeks. He couldn’t stop them now, not with all the images of people who had died so young flashing through his mind. Ones he knew by name and many more he'd never even spoken to. Lost to violence with no excuses, powerless and unprotected. Not even Robin, not even Batman, could protect everyone all the time. But it still hurt like it was his fault. He knew Bernard could feel the tears as they soaked into the front of his shirt, how Tim's body was the one shaking now, but he didn't care about that either. There was nothing more to run away from, he had just shown it all to the other boy. If this was the end of their friendship, then it wasn't like Tim should be regretful. He'd have finally done what he'd set out to do.
But even with those defeatist thoughts, the moment he felt Bernard tense up and push Tim away, his blood turned freezing. Panic took over, flooding through his veins until his toes went cold. No, no he couldn't leave too-!
"Shit, why now?!" Bernard's voice was muffled, half drowned out by…oh, it was raining. Really hard. Tim moved the jacket away from his eyes to see that their surroundings were obscured by a curtain of water, unleashed on them with the sudden power of a typhoon. Bernard's hand clenched around Tim's forearm, pulling him up to his feet, then moved to his wrist so he could pull him along through the storm. In his other hand was Tim's long-forgotten backpack. Tim's free hand kept the jacket over his hair in place while he found himself laughing at the sharp turn of this situation. This was not how he expected to end his visit to the cemetery, but it was better than how it had looked for a second there. Much better than watching Bernard's back as he walked off without him.
While Tim would never admit he loved being in Bernard's spaces - like his car or his bedroom - he couldn't deny how comfortable he felt when he got to be in one. Being a 1960 Volkswagen Beetle - the Bern'mobile as Darla called it - the car was on the small side, but very well taken care of. Bernard bragged about it being a restoration of love, inherited from one of his older cousins, and that was why he could ride it around the bougie neighborhoods with pride even while being passed by all the nepo-babies in their shiny convertibles. Tim went more for the power machines, but he could appreciate a good classic and this was one of them. Faux-vinyl seating, roll windows, and just two doors which meant you had to let down the driver's seat just to access the back. Tim and Darla - the only people to frequent the vehicle, preferred to slip between the front seats, which Bernard hated because it left dents in the shoulders where they'd wriggle their way through. He never stopped them, though.
This was a space reserved for teens only, from the spiral notebooks hidden in the glove compartment to the various snacks stashed under the seats. It made it feel warm and lived in, not like any of Bruce's civilian vehicles. More like one of the Young Justice bases. That was part of what made Tim fell less exposed in his current condition.
"Here." A packet of tissues was passed his way and Tim reluctantly took one, blowing his nose while trying not to curl into a ball of embarrassment. He tucked the spent item into the plastic grocery bag used for trash then reached for one of the brown fast-food napkins Bernard had placed between them, the best they had for towels. Bernard took another himself, trying to dry his hair and the soaked-through parts of his clothing. Seeing the state of him made Tim equal parts guilty and grateful that he had had Bernard's jacket to protect him a little. That jacket was now draped across the back seat, kept company by Tim's own forgotten jacket which was hilariously ironic.
Tim ran a clean tissue around his eyes, trying to demand his body stop crying but getting no cooperation. He had been trained by Batman and Nightwing and Lady Shiva, for God's sake. He had more self-control than this!
"You're being a good friend now."
Tim looked over to Bernard, trying to hide behind his tissue even though he knew his eyes were red rimmed. Bernard wasn't looking at him, he was digging around in his own backpack he'd snagged from the backseat. "It's just, like - when you cry for people who are gone, you're being a good friend to them. Means you haven't forgotten him and what he went through. And- yeah."
A sob tore out of Tim's chest before he could tighten his teeth against it.
Bernard looked over, reading something in Tim's broken state, then pushed the bag into the backseat to join Tim's. He moved himself over the gap between their seats, ignoring the break handle and gearshift that disappeared beneath his leg. Then, with all the subtlety of a teen on a movie date, he draped one arm behind Tim's headrest but left the other hanging in midair. He wasn’t forcing Tim into a hug this time; he was making a very blatant invitation.
Screw it. Tim was too tired to care about pride right now. It was just Bernard here.
Tim scootch over the last half inch to bump his own thigh against Bernard's, both sharing his seat, while he leaned sideways until his head touched the other teen's shoulder. It was the lamest attempt at a noncommittal hug on the planet, but Bernard didn't even mind. He hummed, acknowledging his avoidance, which sent a vibration through his chest that was as soothing as a cat's purr. His arm crossed in front of Tim to clasp his open shoulder, then returned his chin to Tim's hair. Every point they were touching felt as warm as summer sunshine, breaking through the clouds if just for a moment.
Befriending Bernard had been different from his other relationships right from their very first meeting. Not just because Bernard threw himself into Tim's path with no outside prompting or a mission to complete, but that he was just so unique from anyone else he'd met before. His audacity, his unfaltering confidence, and his self-proclaimed worldliness were the sort of things that should turn Tim off. It brought back thoughts of annoying kids he'd known before and avoided at all costs.
Except that all of those things faded into the background once Tim came to enjoy other parts of Bernard's character - his empathy, his silliness, his refusal to be categorized. The stupid things he said but the heart-deep way he acted. His ability to just know what a person needed in order to feel comfortable and his dedication to helping them, no matter how much work it took. Tim was just one of the many people Bernard had reached out to when school started and seeing how easily the freshman were accepted with his help was one of the many things Tim admired about the other boy. There was no person beyond his gaze, no one he wasn't willing to lend a hand to if he could.
Just like right now. How he'd driven all the way to Bristol, sat in a graveyard, listened to Tim's confession of his sins, then told him point-blank he wasn't responsible for them. Tim still didn't fully believe that, still felt a swirl of guilt in his stomach, but he didn't feel suffocated by it anymore. For the first time since he'd looked at the calendar and remembered what that date meant, Tim felt like he wasn't just a walking zombie stuck in his past. Bernard had dragged him back to the here-and-now by simply being as he always was - steadfast, empathetic, and genuine in his fumbling kindness.
Tim shifted in Bernard's hold, trying to get a little more comfortable, but the grip on him slacked as if prepared to let go. Yet again, just the threat that he might be abandoned here sent Tim's mind into full gear, though his body was already springing into action. He twisted to press his own chest into Bernard, wrapping both of his arms around the other boy's waist. Desperation coursed through him as his brain reasoned "If you hug him back, he knows you appreciate his efforts and he won't leave. Right?"
Bernard moved again and Tim's heart was ready to drop into his stomach, until he felt the arm once behind the headrest now wrapping around his shoulders. In a single move, the shorter boy was pulled so tightly into his friend's chest, not even air would slip between them. They fit together like puzzle pieces.
This was a hug like Tim had never known before. The closest he could think of was getting a hug from Dick Grayson, capping off a weekend visit to the manor before he returned to his own city. But even those precious moments pinched at the edges sometimes. Tim could never shake the feeling that while Dick might be hugging him, calling him his 'little brother', there was someone else on his mind he missed infinitely more. Tim never blamed him for that. Other people in his life had similar hangups when they held him: his dad preferred one-armed hugs, Tim's relationship to his stepmother was still a little awkward, and the metahumans in his life had to be careful not to break his bones if they wanted a spontaneous cuddle-pile.
Bernard's hug could do what none of the others' could. His was as strong as it was tender, and left no uncertainty that it was Tim he was thinking about.
"It's okay, Drake. Being sad and regretting things; that's all human stuff. But you're still a good guy, still a good person. And if…if you feel like you aren't, then…let's be better together." The grounding pressure of Bernard leaning his weight into Tim felt like heaven. He could hear the other boy becoming more confident as he spoke, validating his own words with sheer willpower as his soft voice rumbled like warm thunder. "I've had things I wanted to be better at too, times I wished I'd been a better friend. So if you want to, then let's work on it. We'll be 'accountability buddies' and…we'll both be good guys. We'll be the best guys in all of Gotham; I promise."
That was another part of Bernard: for all the silly things he let fly off his tongue without much thought, one thing he never took lightly was a promise. He didn't make them, he didn't ask for them, he didn't seem happy when someone offered him one. A promise was binding; dangerous, even, to people who put faith in them. But he was making a promise for Tim; a promise to help him be better, to hold him accountable if he slipped up again. A promise to work on it together.
Tim clenched his hands tighter into Bernard's wet shirt, forcing his face into the other boy's neck where all his warmth and kindness seemed to live. He couldn't help the delight that coursed through him when Bernard let him, pressing one hand to the space between Tim's shoulder blades to bring him in even closer, granting permission to hold on tight. Bernard's cologne flooded his senses: Glow-Man Spicy Pine, from the bottle he kept in his gym locker. Tim sank into this scent like a warm bath, letting his muscles relax and trusting Bernard to hold him up.
Bernard's hand rubbed up and down Tim's back, and the action made his chest muscles shift beneath his wet shirt. Tim breathed in time with the motion, so grateful to Bernard for his warmth, his voice, his scent…
Tim's heart stuttered, which made him freeze.
A wave of something agitating took over his gut, like beating wings trying to escape. He heard Bernard say his name and shivered, not sure why when every part of him felt beautifully warm. His heart was beating really fast, though, and it felt like his mind was slowing to a crawl. Thoughts were running into each other, looping back to sounds (Bernard's steady breathing) and smells (Bernard's cologne) and textures (Bernard's 45% cotton shirt). His body felt so relaxed yet a burst of adrenaline was rushing through him, commanding he leap from this seat and run a mile through the streets of Gotham. Scream into the rain and laugh at the thunder.
But he really didn't want to move. When Bernard tried to pull back from their hug, Tim held on, not willing to let go of his friend or this moment he'd been gifted in Bern's rain-beaten car.
Bernard still managed to wriggled free and moved his hands to Tim's shoulders, putting some space between them. His usually bright gaze was smoldering now as it tried to pick apart what had suddenly gone wrong with Tim. Tim wanted to know as well but he was a little too distracted watching Bernard's mouth move, flexing pink lips over bright teeth that caught the light of the streetlamp. His voice settled over Tim like a weighted blanket, but the words were hard to pick out with how loud Tim's heart was beating. Could Bernard hear that, too? Was that why he looked like he was panicking?
And it was so dark in the car. Either the clock on the dash was lying to him or the storm clouds were blocking out the last of the sun. They couldn’t have been in here that long, right? The lamps in the cemetery cast just enough light through the window to set half of Bernard's body aglow - glinting off the golden threads of his hair, highlighting the soft curves of his cheekbones and narrow chin. He looked otherworldly; too pretty to be just a normal schoolboy.
"Drake, you're freaking me out a little. Is it a panic attack or something?"
"…maybe."
The signs seemed kind of the same. His breath felt kind of shallow and he was a little bit dizzy.
"What should I do?"
Well usually one would…uh… "I have no idea," Tim responded, his voice sounding strange to his own ears. Like he wasn't all here anymore. He looked out the back window, trying to figure out what time it was. The clock was too dubious.
"Do you need water? Or-or food or something? …Did the hug set you off?"
"No." That hug had been the best thing he had felt all day. The only reason he wasn't still on the ground of the cemetery in a puddle of self-loathing. Tim opened his mouth to say as much but as he turned to Bernard again, their eyes locked.
Tim's gaze immedietly skittered away again. He…he couldn’t meet those eyes right now. His cheeks and neck felt like they were burning up just thinking about it. God, was this a delayed embarrassment or something? That was so stupid, Bernard had hugged him! And on top of that, Bernard was his friend. His second-best civilian friend. Not - not someone he got embarrassed around!
And also...
He kind of wanted Bernard to hug him again. He wasn't Robin in this car, he wasn't a teammate or a third addition sidekick or a substitute little brother. He wasn't a son or a stepchild or any of those titles that defined Tim Drake in any other point of his life. He was Bernard's friend, someone he had driven all the way out here to see and to comfort in his car outside of a rainy cemetery on a dark Gotham evening.
A hug was a reasonable response to all of that, surely. If Bernard wasn't going to hate it, then…
Tim turned his face back to Bernard's, ignoring the uptick of his nerves as he forced his eyes to meet his friend's. Except something had changed for Bernard, now looking back at Tim like he was a stranger. Shit, had he messed this up anyway? Why was Bernard avoiding him now? Why was his face turning red? The hands he had on Tim's shoulders were still there, so at least he wasn't trying to leave him alone.
"Umm…" Tim kept still, trying not to spook the other boy if there was something important he wanted to say. Bernard looked so unsure of himself, another face Tim had never seen on him. "You, uh…y-you got something to say, Drake? Tim?"
His name…Bernard never said his name like that. He should answer "Uh…I…I wanted to…thank you?" Why did it come out like a question?!
"O-oh?"
"Yeah. Yeah, thanks for coming all this way for me. I appreciate it."
"It's no sweat, man. Anytime."
"Ah, cool."
"Cool."
The silence that followed felt strangely awkward. Tim scrambled for something else to say but he was grasping at straws here. The panic attack was really throwing him off.
"So, did you want to head home now? I don't have plans tonight - shocking I know - so it's your call."
That little slipped-in comment made Tim smile; classic Bernard. But when he contemplated going home now, having to pretend everything was okay for his parents, he felt even more anxious.
"Actually…" he swallowed, digging deep for the courage to be honest. "If you don't have plans, then…can we stay out? For just a little bit longer? My parents won't mind." Technically, he still had a curfew to keep but that was just to be sure he wasn't out being Robin. If he was with Bernard the whole time, his dad wouldn't get mad at him.
"Sure, if that’s what you want. Got a place you wanted to visit up here in the Heights?"
"No, not really. I just want to be…"
with you
"…right here. Away from…stuff."
Bernard nodded, understanding what that phrase was getting at. There was no one who empathized with the intricacies of Tim's "mundane" homelife quite like this boy. "Yeah. We can take our time."
That was not how Bernard had envisioned his trip to the Heights to go but he could safely say he did not regret it. He was, however, a little shell-shocked by where it ended up: once more in his Bern'mobile, the patter of rain on the metal roof mixing with soft jazz from his phone app, and his hand interlocked with that of another boy.
This boy, especially. This Tim Drake.
They weren't talking anymore, letting the sounds inside and outside of the car serenade them into a dreamlike moment. Bernard had anxiously kept his gaze forwards, focused on the flooded streets out the front window, but after what felt like hours he dared to sneak a sideways glance.
Drake had slipped into full-relax mode, his seat reclined for maximum comfort as he kept his eye closed. Bernard secretly thanked past-him for tucking that box of ibuprofen into the glove compartment so he could offer it to his friend after all the crying had left him with a pounding headache. Been there, done that. Unfortunately, the only beverage he could offer to wash the pills down had been the bottle of Zesti he'd bought on the way up, which was definitely hot by now. Drake didn't mind in the slightest, accepting the drink and all its glorious caffeine with gratitude. He did not, however, accept the snack bar Bernard had also tried to give him when his stomach growled.
"That's for Darla," Drake had declared with a slight twist of disdain in his voice. Bernard asked what that had to do with anything but the other had just turned up his nose to it and gulped down half of the soda. It made no sense to Bernard; it was just a regular granola bar, from a box that he'd bought from that gas station when he'd last taken his friends out in his car. Darla had wanted a snack, so Bernard had bought the whole box for her and left the extras in his car for the next time she rode with him. Why wouldn't Drake want one?
He couldn't possibly be…
Nah. No way. Not even a possibility.
But Bernard's brain wouldn't let it go, flashing back to that terrifying moment: thinking Drake was uncomfortable with how long their hug was lasting, he'd pulled away to check in with him. The look that had been on that handsome face was going to haunt him forever. The red tint on those moon-pale cheeks, the half-lidded eyes that made his heart quake.
The dilated pupils.
God, it was like a Cold War had broken out in Bernard's head. The Observant Investigator part of his brain was analyzing the evidence and coming to its own conclusions while the Pragmatic Negotiator (who sometimes had nihilistic tendencies) insisted that Tim Drake could not be showing the key internet-proclaimed signs of…of attraction to Bernard.
Like yeah, he was 90% sure Drake was partly interested in guys and too deeply closeted to realize it, but that was for different guys! Guys like Andy with the conventional good-looks and Brian with the biceps that the cheerleaders giggled about. Guys like Nashawn and Alex and those dudes from the swim team that treated him like one of their own!
Not Bernard. He wasn't enough for someone like Tim Drake.
He was misreading the evidence.
"What are you looking at, Dowd?"
Bernard startled at that totally confident voice, rough from the previous teary moments in a way that made him shiver. He hated it when Drake did things like that, just knew what Bernard was doing even without looking. It threw him into a scramble to appear like the unflappable one!
Say something normal, his overtaxed brain screamed. Something witty, something stupid; say anything. Anything except-
"You."
Shit.
Drake's eyelids fluttered open like butterflies taking flight while he tilted his shaggy head just enough to strike Bernard down with his gaze. Even in the shadows of deep space, those piercing eyes could catch a stray moonbeam and look right down into someone's soul. Goddamn this good-looking boy.
Work, brain, work! "I was looking at…those eyebags you got there. When is the last time you slept, Drake?" Safe another day!
The other boy sighed, then reversed his previous movements to return his upturned face to the roof. "Like…three days ago? I've been having nightmares, so it's been kind of rough."
"Sorry to hear that, man." Though he was kind of happy with how candid Drake was being now. "Want to take a nap while I take you home?"
"Mhm. But not yet. Don' wanna go back." And he punctuated that sleepy statement by tightening the grip he still had on Bernard's hand. Like this entire situation was the most natural thing in the whole world. "I would appreciate getting food, though. If you're willing to make a detour."
"I suppose I can, if you're buying." That got a smile from Drake, the first Bernard had seen from his friend in days. Knowing why it had disappeared and that he was the one to bring it back, sparked a familiar warmth in Bernard's chest. A beating thrum of delight that he had only ever associated with girls he'd had crushes on, but nowadays only happened around his very male best friend.
"I guess I can afford that, since you saved me the train fare back."
"Always glad to help you out, Grasshopper." Always.
He wasn't sure why that comment made Drake blush, but he couldn't care less as he marveled over the beauty of his tired laughter.