For Alycia (InfectedScrew): The Timmiest Timmy who ever did Tim.

Dick had failed his last brother. No one would tell him that, no one would even hint at it, but he knew it. He accepted it. Quietly and far from Bruce, he nursed the acceptance past the frozen guilt that so frustrated Babs and past the aching depression that even the Bruce-in-Dick's-head disapproved of. Driven to the point of insanity was an acceptable response to the deaths of loved ones. Mourning was not. Welcome to the ways of the Bat.

Second brother, second chance, he figured. And at first it stayed that way. Buzzwords being atonement and apology. Buzzwords being Jason. And if Dick was in outer space last time he should have been there for his brother, this time he would be present to a fault. He swore it. Not to anybody, Dick didn't know anyone who would understand. (A lie, Bruce would understand. Bruce would disagree. Bruce, who had the opposite take away, who distanced himself even further from everyone he cared about following the death. Bruce, who hurt his own second chance with the weight of his own inevitable disapproval.) It was a promise he made to himself and for himself.

It didn't remain that way.

Tim wasn't a second chance. Dick realized that an hour into their meeting when Tim proved to be just about as different as was possible from Jason. So not a second chance, just another chance, and Dick was taking advantage of it. Not for himself anymore. Not for himself, but for the nervous boy who never seemed to believe someone could take an interest in him.

And Dick was interested. This was a boy who didn't smile, so Dick put on elaborate performances for him, just as he had the night they met. Showing off on patrol, conversations doing handstands, lip syncing to girl bands, speaking in voices and doing terrible impressions. Every smile was a victory and every bout of laughter could carry Dick for hours. With Tim, he put himself in center ring. The most challenging audience, but also the most forgiving.

Which was probably why Tim didn't get up and leave the moment Dick stuck the chopsticks in his nostrils and declared himself Walrusman in his best (poor) rendition of the batvoice, in the middle of Chen's Family Dining. "Stop your blubbering, Orca fiend! Your pathetic weapons can never get past my defensive layer of fat. Have at you!" He stole a third chopstick from Tim's hand and thrust it at his chest with all the enthusiasm and sound effects of a small child play fighting.

"Wait, am I the orca? How does an orca even use weapons?" Tim asked as he batted the chopstick away.

"Your defenses are admirable," Dick cried, ignoring the question. Several patrons of the restaurant and one exhausted looking waiter turned and stared at the two of them. Tim's face turned a deep red and Dick added that to the list of things he was ignoring. "I must call my trusted allies to the iceflow. Nightflipper! Puffin!"

Success. Tim's red face broke into a grin just as embarrassed as his previous expression and while he was clearly laughing at Dick, rather than at the obvious wit and cleverness of his routine, he still counted it as a success. "Am I," he managed through bouts of laughter that only Tim could have managed to keep quiet, "am I Puffin?" He lowered his voice on the last word to a strained whisper.

"And Orca," Dick replied seriously, dropping the batvoice. "Think you can manage both?"

Tim looked down at his plate as the same waiter approached them and for a moment Dick worried they'd be reprimanded. He could take. But Tim, well, Tim might just melt into the chair from shame. It had happened before.

Not the melting. The shame.

But the waiter just refilled their water glasses and moved off to the next table, leaving Dick an opening as he splashed his extra chopstick into Tim's water glass. "What will you do now, Orca? Your waters are mine!"

"You're the one sounding like a villain," Tim pointed out.

"I must take you to tusk for the injustice you have inflicted upon my marine mammalian brethren."

"Orcas are marine mammals too."

"I'm-vory disappointed in you!"

"Oh, god."

This must be hell for a fourteen year old, Dick thought unsympathetically as Tim sank lower into his seat. Being taken out to eat at a cheap restaurant while his older brother stuck utensils up his nose and shouted in strange voices and poor imitations of foreign accents? Dick knew he should probably feel bad, or at least stop. But one grin and one bout of laughter wasn't enough. He wanted more.

"Tie him up, Puffin!" Dick looked expectantly at Tim who only stared back at him. He'd regained his earlier air of I'm unimpressed, Dick, you can stop now. "Puffin!" No response. "Puffin."

"Yes, Dick," Tim finally said, indulgence written across his features.

"No names on the tundra!?" Tim closed his eyes. Dick figured he'd just offer him some advil later.

"Yes, Walrusman?"

"Tie him up. This killer whale has just become a killer won't."

"That. . . that doesn't even. . ." Tim looked pained and Dick finally took pity on him as he reached out and patted the top of his head.

"I couldn't have apprehended him without your help."

"Her."

"What?"

"Orca's a she. Remember? Batman fought her?"

Dick stared at him blankly. Orca. . . Orca. . . was there an Orca? There must have been an Orca.

"You forgot." Tim didn't look surprised and Dick wondered if he should be offended. Maybe later.

"Did not."

"Did too. Were you trying to make someone new up?"

"No," Dick answered convincingly. How was he supposed to keep track of everyone any of them had ever fought. He wasn't Tim, Boy Modem.

"Uh huh."

The waiter approached them again and Dick held out Tim's water glass, now half empty from the water he had spilled with his attack. When it wasn't refilled, he looked up at the waiter. The man did not look happy. "Yeah?"

"I must ask you to remove your chopsticks from your nose, sir." Tim clapped a hand over his face as Dick did as he was asked and set the chopsticks delicately down by his plate. "Thank you, sir."

"No problem." Dick extended his arm along side the back of his chair in a casual movement and he turned a bright, toothy smile up at the waiter. "Hope I didn't inconvenience you," he added as he checked his nametag, "Charlie."

"Not at all." Charlie returned the smile with a tight one that denied any truthfulness to the statement. "I'll bring you another pair."

Dick turned his attention back on Tim. Tim who was scooting his chair back and glancing around the room. He snapped his foot forward and hooked it around one of the legs on Tim's chair, dragging it back. "Where do you think you're going? We're bonding."

"Bonding," Tim echoed quietly. His face had been red before, but now he just looked pale, almost sick. He must not have enjoyed the run in with the authority figure.

"Yeah, bonding," Dick said firmly and for once his face was serious. "With or without anything up my nose." There it was again. A bit of a smile. One that looked almost out of place on so serious a face. Dick pressed his advantage.

"Obviously, the circumstances are less than ideal, now that Walrusman is out of commission." Rolled eyes, close, but not quite what he was going for. "But I'll always have Puffin." The smile grew and Dick felt elated. Later, in a few years, he'd realize he was trying to give Tim a bit of a childhood. The Drakes hadn't, and he knew Bruce wouldn't. Fourteen years old and almost as serious as Batman himself, Tim was too adult and Dick kept trying to bring out something younger. Something he knew existed, something he had seen the night they had met. Four year old Tim had been as solemn as fourteen year old Tim, but Dick had seen it in the almost smile he'd prompted then, and he saw it in the almost smiles he prompted now.

This was his mission. Dick had been an only child until he was seventeen, but even he knew that older brothers taunted their younger ones, teased their younger ones, noogied and tickled and mentored their younger ones. And he'd do all that for Tim but that wasn't quite why. This wasn't a role or duty or even just a pleasure, this was a bond. Brother to brother, Robin to Robin to Robin, Dick to Tim and Dick would make any scene in any restaurant as any marine mammal if it meant Tim got to understand what that meant.

As chatty as he was, Dick was no good with words, not when it was something serious. And he knew that. He worked with it. He touched and laughed and jammed things up his nose instead. Dick reached out and flicked Tim lightly on his forehead.

"And you'll always have Nightflipper."

"Always?" Dick couldn't tell if Tim sounded long suffering or hopeful so he decided on the latter.

"You're stuck with him."