Tim had been reading the same line for the last ten minutes. It was a nice summer afternoon, or so it seemed from inside the castle. Tim wouldn't know. There was nothing for him out there, not like he could go too far, though. There was work every day for him at the castle, specially not then, with the summer harvest, and he never got any visits. Who was going to visit, though? The Drake's lands were the ones farther away from the Royal Court in the kingdom, the relationships with the border were completely neutral, and not even the Lord of the Manor wanted to spend time there. Why else would be Tim in charge of everything? He was the youngest person living in the castle by far, the most important, and the only one who couldn't leave it without negative consequences.
Tim also needed new books. Even if everybody considered them a ridiculous luxury, it's not like he spent money in anything else, he didn't even had a horse, And you could only read the analysis of Gotham's archaic architecture so many times. He'd soon need to send someone to the capital to get him more ink, too. Tim was the only one who ever needed to write anything in his parents lands. Possibly the only person who could write, too. Sometimes Tim wondered why had he even bothered to learn, but he didn't have any other way to pass his time while he was still living there
With a sigh, Tim left the book on the table and stood up. He would check the gate. Maybe a merchant from Krypton would arrive -it was the season, and those often had interesting products. Or maybe get something to eat from the kitchen. Anything but staying in there, with his old books and his parchments full of numbers, feeling more trapped with every second that passed.
He greeted all the servans he saw on his way to the gates, but nobody said anything besides a respectful "Good day, Master Timothy." Tim knew that he was well liked, but Lord Jack had always wanted them to keep a distance, and they kept doing so while he was away. They were all good people, and there was no risk for them to start being disrespectful to Tim, so at the end this only served to deprive Tim of any chance at starting a conversation about anything that wasn't supplies and harvest. Tim walked across the courtyard as fast as he could and reached the open gates, sitting in front of them in a spot in the shade.
After a couple of minutes just staring at the road his eyes started wandering around the landscape. There were some people walking around the fields, most people were hiding from the heat. Tim's eyes, in fact, had started hurting from the brightness of the sun, and he soon resigned himself to get an apple and go back to his books. As he was reaching the kitchen, though, somebody called him.
"Master Timothy! There's a group of horsemen approaching the castle!" Tim turned around and found himself facing one of the guards at the gate. For a moment he feared that the guard was just laughing at him, after seeing him looking so desperate for some entertaiment, but he dimissed the thought inmediately and smiled at the guard just a tad bit too eagerly.
"That's wonderful! I-" Tim fidgeted for a moment. It had been so long since they had gotten any visitors, he went blank for a moment. Horsemen! Maybe soldiers? Merchants didn't have horses, Tim was sure that whoever they were, they'd want to talk to the person in charge. "Give orders to prepare the sitting room! I'll go get ready!" and without even waiting for an answer, he turned around and ran upstairs.
-
Of course, Tim didn't had any good clothes at hand, so when he finished and walked down to meet the visitors they were already waiting for him inside. There were at least three soldiers with Kings Bruce's emblem in the room, not that Tim managed see them much, because as soon as he arrived someone jumped from his seat and ran to hug him.
"Tim, it's been ages! How are you?"
"Dick?" Tim looked up at the other man, wide eyed. "I- how are you here?"
"You don't seem too happy to see me."
Dick pouted at Tim, but the effect didn't last long as neither of them could keep the smiles out of their faces. The older man had always been taller than Tim, but he seemed even taller with his armor and bright insignias. He was also one of the main reasons why Tim had missed living in the Royal Court so much.
"Heavens, Tim, you've grown so much!"
"I could say the same! I see you finally joined the army?"
"Ah, that's right! I have so much to tell you!"
They took a seat next to the window and Dick jumped into an explanation of everything that had happened to him since the last time they had talked, around the time when Tim started living on the castle.
Tim had always admired Richard Grayson, King Bruce's protegé, for all that they had only met a dozen of times on their lives. Dick had always been protective of Tim whenever they had spent time together on the capital, he was intelligent and charming, and Tim had always thought that he would inherit the throne one day.
Of course, as the years passed and Tim spend more time submerged in books about politics and history, he realized that Dick wasn't fit to be King, he wasn't even of blue blood, but that didn't make Tim admire him any less. As Dick kept talking about all the cities he had visited, the tensions between Gotham and the League, Tim drank each and everyone of his words, wishing Dick would never leave, or at least that he'd take Tim with him when he did. Tim had never wanted to join the army, but if he could go with Dick, he was sure it would be wonderful. After so long isolated from the world, he'd follow Dick anywhere. Dick only needed to ask.
"Ah, that reminds me-" Dick cut himself off abruptly, breaking the charm, and Tim suddenly noticed that the sun had started to go down. They had been talking -more like Dick talking and Tim listening enraptured- for longer than Tim had thought, but it seemed like Dick had just appeared on the sitting room a couple of minutes ago. "There's something important I have to tell you."
Dick's bright smile had melted away, but the determined look in his eyes seemed as enthralling to Tim as the easy talk from before. Dick motioned for the soldiers to go away as he got closer to Tim.
"You'll see, the ambassador from the League... there's a rumour in the court saying that he might be Bruce's son."
Tim's breath caught in his throat. That was... well, given the things that happened in the court, that was actually believable. Still, it was the kind of information people would kill for, and Tim had been away for too long to be able to just shrug it off.
"Is he?" he asked, scooting closer to Dick without even realizing.
"I don't know." Dick started biting his lip, and Tim needed a lot of concentration to listen to the next sentence. "But there has been some assassination attempts, and it's not like Bruce can send him back to the League."
"I see." Tim fumbled with the edge of his sleeves, feeling nervous. "But Dick, why are you telling this to me? If there's any way I can help, I'd love to, but, well..." He trailed off, realizing that Dick was suddenly beaming at him.
"I knew you'd say that, Tim!"
Tim looked warily at Dick, who had stood up and was walking towards the door. The guards were still outside the room, and Dick said something to them before returning to Tim.
"Alright, Tim, so as you can imagine, we needed some place for Damian to stay..."
"Damian?"
"The ambassador."
"No way."
"Eh?" Dick hadn't expected Tim to reject his petition, clearly, at least not before he made it.
"No, Dick, there's no way we can host an ambassador here! This is a small castle, and oh my God my parents are going to kill me."
"Oh, you don't need to worry about that, they don't have to know. Bruce has decided to consider him a prisoner of war until everything gets solved. So he's a servant now." Dick smiled like he was asking Tim to take care of a stray kitten he had found.
"Dick, that's not going to work..." but before Tim could finish the sentence, the door opened again and one of the soldiers pushed another person inside.
"Unhand me, you bastard!"
"Damian!" Dick had turned around, still smiling. "Look, this is Timothy Drake, you'll be serving in his house from now on..." Dick was standing between Tim and the ambassador, so Tim stood up and peeked from behind the older man's back. Damian...
Oh.
"Like hell I will!"
Damian was... he wasn't how Tim had expected an ambassador to look like. He couldn't be much older than Dick was. Though, of course, King Bruce was still young, but there was no way Tim could have been mentally prepared to see something like him. It was fortunate that Damian had started a shouting contest with Dick -it gave Tim time to just stand there and gape at him. He was wearing only a pair of black pants and a chain around his neck, and drops of sweat were trickling down his tanned skin, probably from waiting outside on the sun. He looked unlike any person Tim had ever seen before, but damn, Tim wanted to see more. Up close and personal. What had Dick said, servant, yes, Tim could definitely deal with having Damian as his servant. Please.
"Master Tim! What's happening?"
The commotion had attracted some of the guards of the castle to the room, and they were all standing at the door, staring at Damian just like Tim. Tim composed himself and grabbed Dick's arm. Dick looked at him, and sighed, patting lightly the hand that was touching him.
"I'm sorry, Tim, as you can see he hasn't taken too well his change of status."
"'Change of status'? You make it sound like it is mere bureaucracy, when this whole situation is an outrage!" Damian didn't have any right to keep looking that attractive with a scowl on his face. Dick waved a hand on Damian's direction, making Damian's scowl deepen, and kept looked at Tim.
"You think you can do it, Tim?"
Tim avoided looking at Damian, scared that he wouldn't be able to keep a straight face if he spent another second following the trayect of the drops running down Damian's abs. Instead, he pasted on his face something that he hoped would look like an innocent smile and looked directly at Dick's worried eyes.
"Of course, Dick, I really needed a personal servant anyways!" Had he said that out loud? He totally had. He could just hope that Damian's yells had drowned the last part of the sentence.
"Like hell I will be your servant, it is you who should be cleaning my chambers. Who are you, anyways? Some useless third rate noble, in some miserable part of the kingdom that nobody ever wants to go to-"
Damian's attitude had room for improvement, definitely. Tim looked around the room and his eyes found the guard who told him about Dick's arrival. The man was talking with another two and one of Dick's soldiers, and finally he spoke, interrupting Damian's tirade.
"You can't talk like that to Master Timothy, boy. You are coming with us to the dungeons."
Damian turned around to face him, and Tim had a hard time taking his eyes off his backside. Damian seemed to doubt for a moment what to do, but he didn't fight when the guards approached him.
"Well, given the state of this castle, I bet I will not find any difference between the dungeons and any other room." He batted one of the guards' hands away, instead walking towards the door without any prompting. When the door closed after them, Dick left out a long sigh.
"I'm really sorry about that, Tim. He's usually nicer, I promise."
"Don't worry about that, Dick, it's not your fault." Tim realized absently that Dick was clasping his shoulder, his eyes still fixated on the door. "I'll manage."
"Thanks, Tim, you are the best."
When Tim looked at Dick, he was smiling again, and the tension in the room seemed to lift somehow. Dick's smile was contagious, and Tim found himself mirroring it.
"Hey, will your parents be here for dinner? I'd like to pay my respects. Though I'd prefer if you didn't tell them much about Damian. The rumors, I mean..." Dick trailed off.
"Oh, you don' have to worry about that. They won't be back until after the New Year." Dick's expression froze when he heard that.
"What? But that's like, six months away!"
"Yes, I'm the one who takes care of all the administration since a couple of years ago so they spend a lot of time traveling lately." Tim frowned slighty. "I think they were visiting Krypton, but I'm not completely sure."
"Oh, God... How can they...?" Dick huffed and grabbed Tim's shoulders, looking at him directly. "Tim, are you sure you can deal with Damian? I have complete faith in you, but I don't want to put you in any danger. He's not an easy person, you know, and he's really upset about this whole thing."
"Don't worry, Dick, seriously." Damian, even with all this attitude and the cursing, was still the best thing that had happened to Tim since he and his parents left the Royal Court. And Tim wasn't going to let him get away just like that. The smile he gave to Dick this time was genuine. "I'll manage."
