Disclaimer: I do not own DC Comics, Batman, nor these characters.
Steph sits on the rooftop, staring out at the city, trying not to fidget. Will he actually show up? Does he ever want to see her again? Maybe she shouldn't have asked him to meet her, but she wanted to see him again so much...
A noise behind her makes her spin around and there he is: Tim, walking towards her. She knows he made noise on purpose, to alert her of his presence, but she is so glad to see him that she doesn't care. Maybe he still loves her after all!
She gives him a nervous smile. "Hi."
His face remains blank. Even without a mask, she can't tell what he is feeling. She wishes she could do that or that she had thought to wear a mask tonight. It feels so vulnerable, when she knows he can read her ever emotion on her face, in her stance, and he is a cipher.
Finally, he speaks. "You asked me to meet you?" His voice is cold, professional, as though they were never anything but colleagues and he had never cared at all.
"Yes. Robin, I -"
He interrupts. "Don't call me that. That's your name now."
Steph is taken aback by this. "Y-yes, that's true, but... I don't know what I should call you. You didn't want me to know your name, so..." She has to look away from those cold eyes, that emotionless face. Well, maybe not completely emotionless; she sees flashes of anger in it now.
"Might as well call me Tim. We both know you know it and it is the only name I have now."
Steph winces. "I didn't mean... I never did any of this to hurt you. I didn't want..."
"So what did you want? Why did you call me here?"
Her voice is choked with the tears she is trying not to cry when she answers. "Because I missed you, stupid!"
She can't tell what he's thinking. He seems so far away, and she wants him to be here. She wants him to see Stephanie Brown - not Robin, not a rival, just a girl who cares about and needs him. So Steph does the only thing she can think of. She kisses him. And Tim responds to her kiss in a way he hadn't to her words and she knows he still cares. She had suspected, when he actually showed up, but now she knows. Tim never was much good with words, anyway.
When she breaks the kiss, she looks in his eyes and he is there behind them, finally. Tim is here, right now, with her. "I love you," she says, and wraps her arms around him, holding him so he won't leave her again.