"Timothy Jackson Drake," he heard bellowed from upstairs. "You get up here and clean your room right now, young man!"
Tim cringed. "I'm kinda busy," he called back, glancing down at the trigonometry textbook that was spread open on the table next to his sandwich. Upon hearing a set of feet start stomping down the stairs, he scribbled down the rest of the answer to the question he was working on.
"I don't want to hear any excuses from you, Tim. I will not have a room that filthy on my conscience as your housekeeper," the woman said, hands on her hips and glaring fiercely at him from the doorway to the kitchen.
"Aw, c'mon, Mrs. Mac, can't I do it tomorrow? I have plans tonight," he tried, plastering on his best bashful teenage boy smile. Mrs. Mac's expression didn't shift a millimeter.
"Now, boy," she said and Tim would swear she had been taking classes in menacing glares from Batman. After a last bite of his jilted sandwich, he sighed and closed his textbook before trudging up to his room.
When he got there, he had to admit he could see her point. His room was a mess. But it was nothing Robin couldn't handle - and he had to, because he had a date with Steph that night and he didn't want to skip out on her because his maid was ashamed of his slobbiness. She'd never let him hear the end of it and though he liked making Steph laugh, his complete lack of cool wasn't usually how he tried to accomplish it.
Tim sighed again and surveyed the damage. There were clothes everywhere, piled on the floor and even strewn across his bed, making his room a rainbow of dirty cloth. He shoved the nearest pile and the garments inhabiting his bed into his hamper and lugged that off to the washing machine to free up the space. But when he came back, he realized there were still too many clothes to fit in his measely hamper. I really need to get a bigger hamper, he thought. Or actually do my laundry sometimes.
Giving up, he threw the rest of his clothes into his closet and moved onto his desk. The papers were easy enough to put into a drawer with all the pens and pencils, and he did find a can of Zesti hiding underneath a blue scarf. Score. He couldn't remember how long it had been there, but when he popped it open, it tasted good enough. The rest of the miscellaneous knick-knacks that were on his desk were stuck in a box that he carefully placed behind the piles of clothes in his closet. Moving his attention back to his floor, he thought long and hard about all his shoes, sports equipment, notebooks, video games...
Sighing, he uncrossed his arms and began the exhausting task of transferring everything from his carpet to the inside of his closet. Soon enough, the pile reached the top shelf of his closet, so he switched to kicking the rest underneath his bed. Seeing that the floor was finally clear, he hastily made his bed, checked his watch to see that crud, he was almost late already, and turned to get dressed.
Then he realized the Robin suit was in the back of his closet, hidden carefully underneath the contents of his entire room.
Crap.
When he finally made it to his and Steph's predetermined meeting place, she only looked a little ticked off. "Sorry I'm late, Steph," he apologized.
"Yeah? What held you up?" she asked, her dark mask scrunched up in annoyance. Robin hesitated.
"...It's confidential."