Doubting Gets You Places
A Word: I think this is the end of the main arc. Just a bunch of Asides left now.
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It takes Tim a week to work out an off switch for the cameras in his room. A program that switches them off at the press of a button when Jason's face gets that intent look that leads to one of them losing their pants in the next three minutes.
Tim gets to use that button a lot.
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Tim has made the top floor of his home as self contained as possible. Made it so that he only needs to go downstairs to leave and nothing else. He has a small kitchen in one of the rooms that was probably meant to be a guest bedroom. A college fridge, microwave, and a plug in stove range. Just for the times when he's too tired to stop by a diner or restaurant on the way home.
He doesn't use it too often but he notices when things start appearing in his fridge and the shelves he uses as cabinets. Boxes of granola bars that have fruit and chocolate in them which makes Tim grimace. Bottles of various fruit flavored water also appears in his fridge, and disappears regularly enough for Tim to appreciate the full variety of flavored water that is on the market.
It's not Jason. Jason leaves clothes and gear behind. Tucked away so skillfully that Tim almost misses half of the things Jason's leaving with him. He doesn't ask Babs to review the feeds from his house because he already knows who it is even before he comes home early enough one night to catch her on her break.
"Your boyfriend is a douche," Stephanie, no, Robin says as Tim enters his room. She's perched on the chair in front of his computer. A solitaire game open as she eats one of her awful granola bars and drinks one of the kiwi flavored bottles of water.
"Hello Robin," Tim hangs his bag off the knob of his closet and places his camera on the other side of the computer. He fights the pleased flush that wants rise up in him. A little, excited voice going on about how Robin is in his room. He's not nine anymore. He shouldn't be this star struck. Especially since he's known Stephanie for a few years now. "How's patrol and life in general treating you?"
"Douche," Robin repeats as she drags a red six onto a black seven. "Grade AAA asshole. A bastard. A complete and raging dickhead. How could you choose such a-"
"I could say some very pointed things about your taste in boyfriends," Tim cuts in. He's not mad. Not really. He can't blame her for this. Jason really hasn't done anything to endear himself with his family, and especially not to the new Robin. "But I'm not."
"No, you never do except to give me that 'I told you so' look," Robin grimaces and clicks on a few cards. She looks over her shoulder at him as he settles on his bed. Probably glaring though it's hard to see through the mask. "I'm just saying something now so I won't be a hypocrite later when I return the favor."
Tim doesn't like the track this conversation is taking. Doesn't like thinking too hard about the future. Mostly because he's sure his own views on that will be even more pessimistic than Robin's. Which is why he doesn't do it all that often if he can help it. "I thought you were only allowed to use preapproved stops for breaks?"
Robin sniffs and turns back to the computer. "Eh, who's going to notice a block or two difference?"
"Uh, Batman?" Tim points out because he has a hard time imagining the man missing anything. The only person more informed than him in the entire city is Babs. For obvious reasons.
"Psh!" Robin flaps a hand over her shoulder as she blows off his perfectly reasonable disbelief. "If he minded he would've said something before now."
Which is true. By his estimate, she's been breaking into his house for two weeks now. Maybe three. It's always possible she'd started the night Babs broke his secret.
"Alright, I just want the records to show that I protested and pointed out the obvious flaws here," Tim lays down. He's not tired, too used to being up late, and he looks at his school bag. Contemplates the essay he has due tomorrow for all of five seconds. His History grade is good and can absorb the hit. Bring his GPA back down enough for him to not be remarkable.
"Noted," Robin intones. Making her voice deep and kind of gritty. She's making fun of Batman, obviously, and Tim wonders if she's as bugged as Babs has him. Which brings up a whole other topic that's been worrying Tim for a while.
"So," Tim grimaces and picks his words. Fully aware he's probably inviting this on himself. "Am I going to wake up one night and get threatened or something?"
Robin's head tilts to the side but she doesn't look back at him. She sounds curious when she asks, "You mean that hasn't happened yet?"
"No," Tim admits and feels his stomach sink, because he was right. Asking is just inviting it. He's going to wake up pretty soon and find Batman looming over him. It's a terrifying thought, because Batman's a terrifying man. Also, Tim's not sure if he'd be able to restrain his more fannish tendencies if faced by the man.
Tim still wrestles with the urge to focus on Batman when he runs across the man while scouting for information. Even now that he's older and knows more. Now that the idealistic image he had of heroes isn't so pristine anymore.
"Well, hope you weren't looking forward to sleeping anytime soon," Robin spins in the chair. The window closed and she's crushing the empty bottle down into a tiny wad that will fit in one of the compartments on her belt. She's grinning. Wide and mean like she only gets around Nightwing.
"I don't get much sleep to begin with," Tim grumbles as she goes to his open window and perches on it. One hand going up to grab the roof above. "O will step in if I get even less."
Robin shrugs, completely unconcerned with his worries, "It's been a while since she had a proper reason to yell at him."
She rolls out and up with an ease that makes Tim wonder, again, how no one ever notices exactly how muscular the girl is. Tim sighs and rolls his head to look at the camera on his computer, "Feel free to save me at any time."
His phone is silent and Tim rolls his eyes. Great. He turns over onto his stomach and closes his eyes. He won't sleep so soon, but maybe if he pretends he can get this over with.
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Tim wakes up as the mattress shifts, and he doesn't bother opening his eyes because he can smell Jason even before the man sprawls out over him. Squirming under the blanket and burying a very cold nose in Tim's neck. "Hey, babe."
"Cold," Tim grumps and then hisses as Jason immediately shoves his equally cold hands up under his shirt. "Jason!"
"Need to warm up don't I?" Jason asks with a laugh and holds on tight as Tim tries to squirm out of his hold. Keeps his hands right where they are until Tim gives up and goes limp. Jason places a soft kiss on the back of his neck and settles in even closer. "Go to sleep."
Tim grumbles a little but closes his eyes and lets himself be eased to sleep by the heat of Jason wrapping around him and the sound of Jason's heart under Tim's ear.
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Batman doesn't wake Tim up in the middle of the night. He waits for Tim to isolate himself on a roof. Another political aide and another scandal that's slowly gathering steam. Tim's fairly sure it's the same woman he saw making deals with the mayor's aide a few months back just under a new dye job. It's something he's going to have to look into more closely, because seeing a repeat face in this business is rarely a coincidence.
Tim gets a few good shots in before the lights go out, and he's immediately aware that he's not alone anymore. Probably hasn't been for a while. Tim licks his lips and contemplates ignoring it, but he tensed when he felt it and there's no way he can pull ignorance off now. Tim turns slowly. Keeping his camera up, finger on the flash, and totally isn't surprised to find Batman looming over him.
"Hi," Tim says cautiously, and the man doesn't even twitch. He's doing that thing that they all do. Using his mere presence to put pressure on Tim, and it's working. It's working, but Tim's not really sure what the man wants so it's probably not working as much as he wants it to. "Uh, can I help you?"
Oracle is conspicuously silent. Both in the earbud she's pressed on him and through the phone that's still his primary means of contact with her.
Batman is silent for a pointed few seconds and he doesn't shift at all when he starts talking, "When did you find out?"
"O didn't tell you?" Tim blinks and sits down. Getting some pressure off his knees, this could be quick or long. Either way, he might as well be comfortable. He's a bit surprised. He thought she'd told everything. Batman doesn't move but he seems to swell to a bigger size and his looming gets heavier. "Uh, seven years ago?"
Tim can hear the wind blowing over the roof, the sound of cars driving blocks away, faint sirens far in the distance. Even the faint creak of armor as Batman, slowly, kneels down into a crouch that looks very uncomfortable given the man's size. "How?"
"Nightwing," Tim nearly trips over the tangle of names for Dick and shifts uncomfortably under the wide glare of the man's mask lenses. "Uh, Robin then. He's got a distinctive way of moving? I recognized it."
"Seven years is a long time," Batman eventually says after a minute long stare off. "You never told anyone."
Tim can't tell if that's a question or not and answers it anyway. "No. Why would I?"
Batman stares at him again. Looking for something maybe, and Tim starts to get the urge to take picture of him. He's never been this close to the man before while in uniform. He's fairly sure trying will end with his camera in pieces though.
Batman grunts and stands fluidly. Looming over him again but there's no weight to it this time. Apparently that's it. The whole big talk. Tim wonders how much he owes Babs for the ease of it.
"Red Hood," Batman starts a sentence and doesn't finish it. The potential to how it could end hangs in the air and Tim can fill many different things. None of them are things he likes.
"Yeah, no. Good talk though. Thanks for stopping by," Tim gets back onto his knees and turns around pointedly. Bringing the camera back up and watching the room for the flicker of light.
There's no indication of Batman leaving, but when Tim turns around after the transaction is complete the roof is empty.
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Tim doesn't panic or freak out. He just hops a series of buses and lets himself into Babs' place. He steals a mug of coffee and goes into her workroom. Ignoring the flickering feeds on the various monitors and curls up under one of the desks. Leaning against a bank of humming towers. Out of sight and unable to see anything going on as Babs works her magic and answers various calls.
She ignores his presence and graciously allows Tim to gather his thoughts. Most of which are screaming, gibbering variations of, 'Oh, god, that was Batman,'
"You did good, kid. Most people can't hold it all in," he gets his head patted like a dog when he eventually rolls out. "And at least he didn't ambush you in your sleep. Say, thank you."
"Thank you, Babs," Tim dutifully says, and he is thankful. He's still just a little shaky. A little.
"Go home," Babs pushes him away from the coffee pot in her workroom. "I'll have something really nice for you to work on tomorrow."
"Yay," Tim says and trudges out. Listening to Babs go back to feeding information to people.
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There's a parent/teacher conference night at school. It's not mandatory and the only parents who seem to show up are for the freshmen. The only students gullible enough to show the announcement of it to their parents. All the other kids are smart enough to hide all the evidence of it.
Tim hangs out on the second floor and watches the parents milling in the main hall below him. They're all bright and happy looking people. Shaking hands with other parents and teachers while they drag their clearly embarrassed children around behind them.
There were meetings when he was in private school. Usually at the beginning of the year, and never as social as these gatherings are. He remembers sitting on a seat between his parents in the uniform of the year while whoever was in charge -sometimes a principle, other times a headmaster, and once a professor- assured them that Tim would learn only from the best.
He's not entirely sure what was ever gained through those meetings or what can be gained from the ones he's seeing now.
"Hey, creeper," Steph collapses next to him neatly. Her elbows going just wide enough on the railing to nudge annoyingly at him. She looks down at the hall with the same confused apathy Tim has. "Man, this sucks so bad."
"Well, it's not like-" Tim starts to say something about neither of them having to worry about it as he shifts to accommodate her elbow, but a sharp nudge from his other side cuts that off fast. Tim jerks as another body crowds him, and he's effectively pinned.
Between Steph and Dick Grayson.
"Aw, too embarrassed that your big brother's here to see your teachers?" Dick teases with a wide grin, and doesn't seem to even acknowledge that he's leaning on Tim to look at her.
"Yes," Steph says. Blunt and cruel in her honesty. "I'm embarrassed by you on principle. Forget being seen with you in public," she turns to look at Tim and jerks a thumb at Dick. "He flirts! With every teacher. Every single one of them."
Tim can believe it. He's seen enough of Dick Grayson to know that even before he went to Babs. Even before she got comfortable enough around him to get. Well, it's not bitter, maybe wistful, when she's tired or drunk enough and talks about before. "Even-"
"Yes!" Steph says with exasperation that she really doesn't feel. "If any of them start holding me back to ask stupid questions about you, Dick, I'm going to give them your real number and let you deal with your own mess this time."
An arm steals around Tim's shoulders and he puts more energy than he should into not doing something embarrassing. Like squeaking or blushing. Though from the smirk on Steph's face he's failed horribly on one of those accounts.
"Do you hear this? This is the gratitude I get for being such an awesome big brother that I take an interest in my little sister's school life. Giving up my day off to come in and support her," Dick squeezes and Tim kind of wants to curl up in a corner because he thought he was over this. Years ago. Definitely should be over it now that he's got Jason crawling into his bed nearly every night.
Not a thought to have when Dick's got him under his arm and is nearly plastered all along Tim's right side. From shoulder to ankle. It's common for Dick from what Tim's been given to understand, but it's just not the sort of contact he's used to getting from anyone besides Jason.
Steph snorts and punches Dick in the arm around Tim. The force of it goes through Dick and into Tim making them both flinch. "Whatever, stop molesting my friends."
"Why do you always accuse me of that?" Dick's amused but also puzzled even as he lets Tim loose. And Tim knows about this from many rants from many different people. He leans away from Dick, almost crowding Steph off the railing, but doesn't actually step away.
"I, uh, think the term 'octopus' has been used to describe you?" A lot. Mostly by Babs, but he's heard it from plenty of other people too. 'Friendly' is another word, and that's used with varying levels of a leer.
Dick laughs and goes back to leaning on the railing. Looking about half a second away from flipping over the railing. "And who would use such a slanderous word to describe me?"
Dick's smiling but there's the hint of a brittle edge to it that Tim's used to seeing in Babs. Usually after he pretends not to have heard her ignoring requests to drop the voice synthesizer and hologram. So, Tim doesn't blurt out the first name he thinks of, "Roy, usually."
Dick's eyes go wide and shocked looking. His voice strangled as his whole body tenses. "Roy?"
"Uh, Lian too, sometimes," Tim thinks about moving to step behind Steph. "She likes repeating everything he says, you know?" Much to Roy's horror when the girl repeats what her daddy says when he stubs a toe to Dinah. For a hero, he does it a lot.
"Tim's friends with Connor," Steph breaks in as Dick just continues to stare at him, and Tim blinks. He's not sure how she knows that, but he's also not sure how Dick didn't know it. He turns to look at her. Steph smirks at him and says, "Mia is on the Titans now and asked if I knew you. Said to tell you to visit them again soon. Something about the crazy reaching critical proportions."
Which, yeah, is kind of the vibe he'd been getting from the few words he's been able to pry out of Connor the last few weeks through email. "Yeah, I'll see what Dinah's schedule is like."
Dick's smiling again when Tim looks back. Broad like his smile from before wasn't big enough, and Tim has a nice view of the man's very white teeth. They glint a little in the light. Almost as much as his eyes, and cold fear rushes through Tim because Dick's got a kind of manic look to him. "So, Timmy, you ever thought about working with a team?"
"Uh," Tim does squeak, and Steph just cackles as Dick starts going on about the importance of support positions.
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It's not a bad idea.
Tim gets the text mere seconds after he manages to squirm out of the recruitment speech and head out on his first task of the day. Getting himself something vaguely nutritious and greasy enough to last him through most of the night.
"Says who?" Tim mutters, because Babs will hear it even as he types out a response. Don't I have enough to do here?
His phone vibrates and Tim accepts the call even as he avoids the crowds bustling along the streets. He keeps his head up and eyes open. Looking for the shifting body and long stare of pickpockets looking for distracted marks.
"No, you really don't," Babs says, and Tim can hear feeds in the back ground. One of which he knows is the one he'd planted the night before from the faint music that filters through the phone. "Besides, a big part of this job is networking. You can't get anything if you don't know people, Tim. You know that."
"Yeah, but," you manage just fine, is a shade too bitchy and just on the wrong side of wrong to get a serious verbal smack down. Babs had a history behind her that she built into the empire she presides over now.
"Just think about it," Babs says when he fails to come up with a reason more valid than panic and plain just not wanting to. "Dick will press, but if you say no he'll back right off. Alright?"
"Alright," Tim says and his eyes catch on a diner that serves burgers that drip greases with every bite.
"It'd also help if you said it as a statement and not a question," she says, back to being all sorts of amused that Tim just can't deal with at the moment.
"I'll text it to him then," Tim says and hangs up before he has to listen to Babs laugh in his ear at him. He needs grease and fries. He'll think about it. All of it. Just later.
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Jason seems to go out of his way to bump into Tim at night on jobs. Dropping in with the mask on while Tim's meticulously gathering visual evidence, or dropping into step next to him when he's pacing territories off in civilian clothes. Or as close as Jason gets to civilian clothes anyway. The only difference between Red Hood and Jason most of the time is the presence of a mask or domino.
Tim gets used to it and isn't surprised anymore when he leans back from recording a deal and finds himself leaning into an armored chest. "Hey."
"One of these days I'm going to stretch and hit you on accident," Tim says as arms fold across his chest and lips find the skin of his neck. Making the last words a little breathless.
"I can take it," Jason's voice is low and makes Tim shiver. "You off the clock yet?"
"Um," Tim has been officially done for an hour now. He's just been following up on some leads on his own. "Sure. Why? You got something planned?"
"Yes," Jason turns Tim around and he's not wearing the mask despite the armor Tim can feel through his shirt. He's not patrolling then. Jason steps back then instead of going for the kiss Tim expects. "Come home with me?"
"You have a home?" Tim asks even as he feels himself flush, because that's not a phrase that Tim's heard Jason say before. He's sure that's deliberate.
"Several of them actually, all throughout the city, but I don't really have a plan," Jason admits with a grin that fades just a bit. He reaches up to rub at Tim's lips. "Just want to lay you out on a bed right now."
"Ok," Tim agrees, mouth going dry as he leans into Jason's hand. Reaching out to curl his fingers into Jason's belt. Pinky finger brushing against the holster hidden under his jacket. "Sounds like a good plan to me anyway."
Jason's grin is full of filthy promise and Tim swallows hard as he follows.
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Jason leads him to an actual apartment. It's not in the roughest building Tim's been in, but it's also not nearly as nice as Tim knows the man can afford. It's a safe house that can be used and abandoned easily. Tim wonders if Jason ever stays in one spot longer than a week. Probably not. Tim's home is probably as close to a steady address the man has, and that should be a sad thought that doesn't warm Tim's heart the way it actually does.
There's a couch that looks like it may have come with the place. A kitchen in the corner of the one room place, opposite of the corner where a new looking mattress has been placed on the floor. Familiar looking duffel bags and boxes line the opposite side of the room. Open to show hints of their contents and Tim wonders if Jason's lucky it's all still there or if people just know better than to try and rob him.
[Obvious cut for stuff not allowable. See profile for link to unedited fic.]
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It takes Tim an extra half hour in the morning to figure out how to get to school from Jason's place. Twenty of which is spent being pinned to the front door making sure that no one who sees him will not know what he was doing last night. Tim buries himself in his hoodie and focuses on not thinking about it.
Instead he thinks about how he's going to get through the day with none of the materials he needs for classes, and how he's going to avoid Stephanie at lunch. He's not entirely sure which he's looking forward to the least. Her inevitable teasing about his walk of shame to school, or the recruitment speech Dick has no doubt been lecturing her on giving him since the night before.
He gets a seat to himself on the bus for the moment and half dozes as he thinks and plans. Breathing in the way his hoodie smells like smoke and gun oil.
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