TIM AND DAMIAN BONDING BECAUSE I JUST CAN'T GET ENOUGH OF HOW PRECIOUS IT WOULD BE IF DAMIAN FOLLOWED HIM AROUND LIKE A LITTLE DUCKLING (quackquack). Enjoy! :D
Gotham City: October 27th, 2151
"Where are we going?"
Tim's hands are tucked in the pockets of Dick's pants, bracing against the chill of October. His clothes had not been salvageable (except for the sneakers), so Dick had brought a shirt and a pair of pants of his own. The pants were made of something that could have been cotton, but not really, and they were most certainly not denim (because, of course, that had gone out of style a long time ago).
"We're going to find a friend of ours."
"'Friend' is a term I hardly ever use, so I have no idea who you have in mind. Why did you not stay at the hospital to be there when Todd awakens? Isn't that what the other half of a couple does?"
"Jason and I aren't exactly a couple."
"That is a lie and you know it. I know it, and I have the social graces of a brick wall." Tim snorts and almost chokes on his laughter. Tim remembers saying that exact thing ages ago and Damian had puffed out his chest in an indignant fashion. It had been hilarious then but it was a keel over and die laugh. In fact, this was almost as good (or, bad, rather) as one of his jokes. Oh. Man. "I am being serious."
"I'm sure you are, Damian." Tim's voice box wants to split because the laughter is there, just stuck. Stuck behind all the sadness and things he should say. But it's most certainly there. "But I was being serious too. We aren't a couple. Not right now. We were—"
"—more than once, if I may remind you—"
"We were, but now we're not. He doesn't want to see me. I'm not being seen. So. I'm accommodating, you see."
Damian opens his mouth to retort, but Tim shushes him before his vocal cords can tremble out a response. Tim had just been going off of a hunch. He and Damian had seen him on this level when they had been disagreeing. But there he is, Alfred Pennyworth, entering a bar (it is called God Save the Queen, and Tim wants to kick himself because, duh.)
Tim grabs Damian's hand (what would he do if Damian got lost?) and pulls him after him. Damian is sputtering and spitting about being manhandled.
The bar is dim on the inside and rather nice, though Tim can't exactly rate bars (though there was that one time in the strip club and he never, ever, ever wants to relive that moment, because cross dressing for justice had been bad enough, but ugh.) But, then again, Alfred has never been one to work in a classless place. (Alfred is high class, after all.)
"You two look a bit young for alcohol." Alfred says when they get up to the bar. His eyes crinkle with his smile (of course he knows, Alfred knows everything). He does look swell in his bartender's garb, bowtie included.
"I'm a lot older than I look," Tim replies. Alfred smiles a little wider.
"I believe you."
It takes Damian a couple minutes to realize what they are doing there. It is only after Alfred puts a Coca-Cola in front of him that Damian's eyebrows go up and his face is a masterpiece of confusion.
"Pennyworth?"
"Indeed, sir," Alfred says, grabbing a couple glasses to clean. "How are thing at home?"
"Dick's a mess," Tim says, "and there are a lot of microwavable meals in the freezer." He wants to leap the table and hug Alfred. A bartender. Really? He had just had no idea. (But here Alfred is, moustache and all.)
"How is Master Jason?" No one seems to notice Alfred's odd use of the word. Tim wouldn't have cared any if they had noticed. It makes Tim feel. Happy. A little. And that happiness is located somewhere near the middle of his chest (close to the hollowness where Jason ought to be) and pulses with warmth. Jason's place shivers with cold, and Tim grips the wooden bar hard.
"He was." Tim let's go, or he will splinter the wood with his fingers, anti-grav units or not. "He was beaten. By the Jester. With a crowbar."
"But he is alive." Damian says around the straw in his soda. "And Tim here refuses to stay at the hospital. Be the voice of reason. I believe we have been severely lacking it since your... departure." Damian inhales about half the glass in one gulp.
"Thank you for the complement, Master Damian." Alfred grabs another glass to rub, "And why aren't you at the hospital, Master Timothy?"
"What Damian forgot to mention is that Jason and I aren't together."
"What Tim neglects to mention is that he saved Todd from the Jester, a proverbial knight in shining armor if you will, and that Todd may or may not have recollections about the past." Damian looks over at him and Tim wants to shrink down and slide into the floor. "Tim is very good at withholding information from those who would readily receive it."
Not this again. Tim is very sorry for not telling Damian, he had just had no idea that he would be receptive at all (because, honestly, Damian hates him whenever Tim shows up the first time. It gets harder to read people with every incarnation).
"It would seem to me, sir," and Alfred looks pointedly at Tim, "that your argument is unsound if Master Damian can take it apart as he seems to be doing. It isn't exactly my job to tell you what to do anymore, Master Timothy," (tell me what to do, that would actually be great, because I can't seem to ever make the right decision—) "but I do recommended, highly, that you see Master Jason at your earliest convenience. While he is thick-headed, he is not stupid."
Tim runs his hands through his hair (his synthetic, not-human hair, would Jason even put up with this this time?) and sighs.
"Is this the only reason you came to see me? To bicker like old times?" Alfred is smiling. There is no sting to his words.
"I came to see you because." Tim. Tim had needed it, needed to at least make sure it wasn't Alfred. But it is and Tim is glad. "I wanted to say hi."
Alfred chuckles. "Well. Hello then. Feel free to stop by at any time. I am almost always here." He places the last glass on a rack. "How is Master Bruce?" Alfred asks this hesitantly. He misses him, Tim can tell.
"Father is fine, as always." Damian replies, working on the vestiges of his second soda. "I make him go to sleep on time." He sounds proud of this. For a moment, Tim pictures Dick cuddling Damian because this is a moment that Dick would be cooing Damian you're just so wonderfully adorable, ohmygoodness.
"That is good." Silence. Pause. Alfred looks between them. "Well. Are you going to go?"
"Well, of course." Damian pushes his soda glass away. "Tim needed to hear it from someone reasonable. Now that he has, we are going back."
"We are?" Tim asks. Why is he never informed of these things?
"Naturally. Come now. Places to be, and all that." Alfred chuckles and waves them off.
"Tell Master Bruce and Master Richard that I said hello, would you?"
"Of course Alfred," Tim smiles, waving, as it is now Damian's turn to tug him down the street by the sleeve of his shirt. He doesn't have it in him to protest that much. Alfred's word is Law. Who was Tim to argue with that?
(It was what he had needed to hear. How did Damian get so smart as to point that out? For once, Tim is feeling as if he is the one doing the catching up. The feeling is strange.)
"Walk faster. Todd will be on painkillers and could be awake right now and here you are just taking your precious time as he falls back into a painless stupor."
Tim walks faster, hiding a tenuous smile behind his free hand.