Chapter 4

As soon as they had crossed the threshold of the Drakes' downtown Metropolis penthouse apartment, Tim was dragging a willing Conner straight to his bedroom without a further word to his father, kicking the door shut behind them.

"Agghhh," Tim groaned into his pillow as he flopped face down onto his bed.

Conner hummed sympathetically.

"At least let me take your jacket and tie off before you totally collapse," he said to the sounds of removing his own leather jacket.

Tim rolled his head to the side and saw Conner neatly hanging his intimidating work of art over the back of his computer chair, followed by his tie, before coming to sit down on the edge of the bed and rubbing a hand over his soulmate's back.

"C'mon, Timmy, sit up, babe," Conner said gently, grasping one of Tim's very pliant hands and pulling him upright with a surprising ease.

"What?" Conner said with a soft smile playing on his lips at the sudden sparkly glow in Tim's eyes.

He tugged Tim's uniform jacket off of his shoulders and folded it in half on the bed before reaching up to loosen Tim's tie.

"I like when you call me 'babe,'" Tim mumbled with a little bit of embarrassment as his stomach flipped like it had done the first time Bruce had done a tandem jump with him off of a Gotham skyscraper, letting them fall stories and stories towards the pavement before shooting the grappling hook and swinging them through the air, far above the bustling streets below.

"I like you being my babe," Conner replied with a twinkle in his eye, leaning forward to boop their noses together.

He lifted Tim's tie off of his head and stood up to drape it, with his folded jacket, over the top of his leather jacket already hanging on the chair.

"Shoes," Conner grinned, reaching down to unlace Tim's very ordinary shoelaces on his very unremarkable brown shoes such as the male population of the student body wore en masse with their uniform khakis.

"Your boots are awesome," Tim said in awe when Conner started unlacing his own, very out-of-uniform footwear.

"Doc Martens," Conner grinned, showing off the red plaid in-lays and the yellow contrast stitching and the studded heels.

"They come in Oxfords," Conner said suddenly, looking up at him from where he was wrestling with the laces. "I could get you a pair and we could match," he offered with excitement.

"If you wanted to," he suddenly tacked on, blushing and looking back down at his boots that he determinedly finished kicking off.

Tim couldn't stop the smile that creased his face and the warmth that began to radiate through the hole in his gut where Steph had once lived.

"I'd love that," Tim said shyly, crawling up behind Conner and wrapping his arms around his shoulders from behind.

"Yeah?" Conner said, all smiles again as he turned his head and looked at Tim hopefully.

"Yeah," Tim whispered, leaning into the lips that were oh so close to his.

His heart fluttered as their lips touched, no more than a gentle press at first, but then Conner tried experimentally sucking the edge of Tim's bottom lip into his mouth, so Tim tried to do the same to Conner's top lip, and then Conner was twisting sideways and sliding his arms behind Tim and hugging him close and Tim's arms were going around his neck and suddenly they were two boys kissing each other a little more boldly, despite their inexperience.

Tim didn't know how he could feel so bad and so good all at once, because his heart was still bleeding out for Steph, but it was turning somersaults for Conner, and as he and Conner kept kissing and pressing their bodies closer and closer together, Tim felt a deeper sense of belonging settle into his being than he'd ever felt before; stronger than he'd felt even as Robin or with Steph.

And tiny balloons of happiness were floating around his chest somehow, in and around the smoking carnage, despite the fact that his tear ducts were still battling sorrow.

Tim found himself smiling and tucking his face into the side of Conner's, who took the opportunity to squeeze him even tighter around his waist.

"I've had a crush on you for so long," Conner mumbled into Tim's hair.

"Really?" Tim gasped, pulling back to look into his favorite pair of eyes.

"Yeah," Conner said, "but you know we're not supposed to date anybody except our soulmates, so…" he shrugged. "My dad's really cool about most things but I think that would've made him mad. And you never really talked to me anyway, so."

Conner bit his lip.

"I wanted to," Tim said, blushing a little bit and looking down.

"Yeah?" Conner said, his eyes lighting up. "Why didn't you, then?"

"I -" Tim started to say, and then he stopped.

Shit.

He didn't think Because your dad's a super-villain, would go over too well.

"I, um, I was scared of your dad," Tim mumbled.

It wasn't untrue.

"Oh," Conner was laughing. "You and the rest of the world. He's really cool, though. You're gonna like him."

"I hope so," Tim said.

"You will," Conner easily promised.

"So," he said, drawing back from Tim a little bit. "Was Steph from Gotham? Do you need to pack for the funeral? I could help you," he said.

"Oh, sure," Tim said, blinking.

The funeral. Right. Excellent excuse to get back to Gotham. And once he was there, he'd simply stay. Jack or no Jack.

"Yeah, she was from Gotham," Tim sighed as he got up and went over to his closet to pull out a duffel bag.

"Will you come with me?" Tim asked Conner with slightly vulnerable eyes. "Back to Gotham?"

"Hell, yes, I'm coming with you, Timmy," Conner said in surprise. "Of course, babe."

The duffel bag hit the floor and Tim was in Conner's lap kissing him again before his soulmate even realized that he'd used Tim's new favorite pet name, but Conner didn't mind one bit. They could pack later.

"Jack!" Lex boomed as Tim's father opened the door and welcomed him into their pre-furnished Metropolis home that still smelled like new carpet and fresh paint.

"What a fantastic turn of events, huh?" Lex was smiling, engulfing his barely-former competitor into a giant bear hug, to Jack's great surprise but deep pleasure.

"Except for your boy's friend, of course," Lex added suddenly, pulling back and looking grim. "Damn shame that had to happen."

"Yes, yes," Jack agreed. "Very tragic," he said without feeling.

"How'd she die?" Lex asked curiously.

Jack paused.

"You know," he said slowly, scratching the back of his head, "I'm not exactly sure. The school didn't say when they called me and then Tim and Conner turned out to be soulmates, so we got sidetracked."

Lex grunted.

"Let's get the boys in here and get all the details," he said. "We might need to run interference on the media. What kind of girl was she?" he asked as Jack moved them along into his modern living room, the white area rug and white leather couches gleaming in the afternoon sunlight that was streaming through the large floor to ceiling windows of the penthouse suite.

"Oh, she was a problematic one," Jack said with disgust. "Daughter of one of Gotham's D-rogues, Cluemaster. You probably haven't heard of him," Jack snorted dismissively.

Lex made a non-committal noise but his eyes sharpened.

"Had a baby when she was fourteen or fifteen," Jack went on with a derisive scoff. "Real winner Timothy picked there as a friend, let me tell you," he huffed. "I knew this would come back to bite me one day," he growled, unstopping the brandy and pouring them each a snifter.

"We can spin it," Lex said mildly with a carefully neutral expression on his face. "Why don't you call the boys in and I'll figure out how we can frame it."

"Sure, sure," Jack said. "I tell you what, Lex, I'm glad you've got experience with this kind of thing," Jack said, shaking his head. "The press, I mean," he said as he walked down the hallway towards the bedrooms.

Lex watched him go with a thoughtful expression on his face.

A few seconds later Tim and Conner were following Jack into the living room, and Lex was standing to his feet.

"Tim," Lex said warmly, with a kind look in his eyes. "I'm very glad to meet you, son," he said, reaching forward and pulling the surprised teenager into a genuinely affectionate hug as Conner stood by and beamed.

"Um, thank you," Tim mumbled, looking slightly embarrassed as Lex let him go. "It's nice to meet you too, sir," he said.

Jack straightened up and smiled behind him, pleased as ever with his son's public manners, but Lex was chuckling and saying, "No, no, no, call me Lex."

"Or Dad," Lex beamed in a smile reminiscent of Conner's, gripping the tops of Tim's arms and giving them a friendly squeeze. "You're family now," Lex smiled.

"Oh," Tim said as an unwanted smile crept onto his face, too.

He felt oddly flustered by the super-villain's kindness.

"Thank you," Tim said again. "Maybe, um, maybe I'll just call you Lex for now," he said, turning a little red. "If that's ok."

"Of course," Lex said. "And," he added, suddenly getting serious, "I am so terribly sorry about your friend's death," he said, and Tim was startled to see actual flecks of sorrow in Lex's eyes.

"You're far too young to have to endure such a loss," Lex was continuing to say in a heavily sympathetic voice, "especially after losing your mother last year."

"Yeah," Tim said in shock, his eyes starting to fill with some tears.

His dad hadn't even mentioned his mom since learning of Steph's death. Or offered any real sympathy to Tim, for that matter, except for show. Tim swallowed.

"Conner and I are here for you now, son, in any way we can be," Lex said, pulling him into another hug that Tim found himself returning fairly tightly.

Lex smiled at him when he let him go and Tim found himself smiling back, as a happy Conner took his hand and got a kiss on the forehead and an affectionate neck squeeze from Lex before they all sat down on the Drakes' rarely used couches.

"Pour some brandy for the boys, Jack," Lex grinned. "I'm sure they could both use it."

"Oh," Jack said, quickly trying to hide his discomfort at that notion. "All right," he said, busying himself with the decanter as Lex pulled out two cigars and clipped the ends before lighting them both in his mouth and offering one to Jack once the boys had been served.

"Cuban," Lex said with a wink and a grin. "Naturally."

"Naturally," Jack preened, reveling in both the attention and the casual luxury that Lex threw around so easily.

Not that Drake Industries wasn't a major corporate player, and even a competitor of LexCorp in the pharmaceuticals field in particular, but, well, very few people in life were Lex Luthor rich, even if they were wealthy in their own right.

"Now, Tim," Lex said, getting right down to business and taking control of the conversation - much to Tim's relief, in fact.

The less his father talked, the better.

"There's going to be a significant amount of press around you and Conner discovering that you're Premarked," Lex said matter-of-factly. "If you two boys had been anyone else, it would have been a fluff piece on a morning talk show that died down in a day or two. But seeing as how you're the heirs of LexCorp and Drake Industries, respectively, there will be a lot of attention."

"In and of itself, that would be tolerable," Lex said. "But, given that your dear friend has just died, and that her death was in fact the prompting factor for discovering your bond, and the fact that you discovered your bond at school where at least two staff members are already aware of the incident, we need to craft our own narrative to feed to the press that honors your friend's memory and paints her and you both in the best possible light."

Tim felt a cold vise grip his stomach.

"What… what do you mean?" he faltered as his heart began to beat faster.

Conner squeezed his hand in support.

"What was your friend's name?" Lex said gently. "Let's start with that."

"Steph," Tim said, and he hated that his voice cracked. "Stephanie Brown," he said, blinking rapidly.

"Stephanie," Lex said warmly. "Now, your father tells me that Stephanie's father was a minor criminal in Gotham, and that Steph had a baby when she was younger. Neither of those things are bad," Lex quickly stressed, "or reflect badly on her," he said, "but the unfortunate reality of the press is that they love nothing more than scapegoats and scandal."

Tim felt his panic start to rise just before Conner started to rub his back.

"It'll be ok, Timmy," Conner said confidently. "My dad can spin anything."

"Indeed," Lex smiled at his son. "There's no need for anxiety, Tim. We'll feed the press a story of such nobility and strength of character that Steph will become a veritable saint."

"I don't want her to be a saint," Tim protested, feeling his heart rip a little more. "She was who she was. Not perfect," he said, raising an arm to wipe his eyes.

"You know that, Tim," Lex said compassionately, leaning forward with his elbows propped on his knees. "But the press reports on saints or devils, and there's no in-between," he said. "I'd rather see Steph made a saint," Lex said gently. "Wouldn't you?"

"Yeah," Tim mumbled as another embarrassing tear leaked down his cheek. "If those are the only two choices, then yeah," he said quietly.

Conner slung his arm around his neck and kissed the side of his face.

"Maybe Steph would've found it funny?" Conner asked. "To be blown out of proportion in the press and praised for something she wasn't quite?"

A completely unexpected chuckle filled Tim's clogged throat. Lex and Conner met each other's eyes and Lex's got a little softer.

"Yeah," Tim sniffed, rubbing his nose on his sleeve. "Yeah, actually, she would have thought that was hilarious," he said. "We should really play it up," he said with a choked laugh.

"How'd you think of that?" Tim asked Conner curiously. "You didn't know her."

"She was your best friend," Conner said, "and you're my soulmate, so Steph and I must have some things in common. I would think it was funny if my dad exaggerated stories about me," he shrugged with a giggle for his dad, who shook his head in mild amusement.

"How did Steph die, Tim?" Lex asked very, very gently.

And time stopped.

Tim sat frozen, blinking like a timer on a disconnected bomb.

"Um," he said after a minute, his mind just as blank.

"I -" he hesitated.

Lex was watching him very patiently, but Tim swore he could see the gears turning behind Lex's eyes. Oh, shit. Oh, shitohshitohshitohshitohshit - what the fuck should he say? Tim thought in a panic.

Tim made the mistake of glancing over at his dad, whose eyes had narrowed into slits. Oh, shit. His dad must suspect. Oh, fuck. Don't tell Lex - don't tell Lex don'tellLexdon'ttelllexdon'ttell -

Jack opened his mouth and drew a breath.

"She was Spoiler," Tim blurted out. "A vigilante in Gotham. Well, sort of," he said, his words beginning to tumble out more rapidly. "She only became Spoiler because her dad was Cluemaster and she hated him."

"He abused her and her mom and he kept dragging criminals into their lives, they even kidnapped Steph once as a hostage to use against him, and Steph hated that Batman wasn't doing anything to catch her dad because he was too minor for Batman to care about, so she became Spoiler and ran around Gotham putting up clues to lead the police to her dad whenever he'd commit crimes."

Jack's eyes had started goggling out of their sockets as he stared at his son. Aside from a single raised eyebrow, Lex's expression hadn't changed, however.

"And, I don't know what happened exactly, but it must have had to do with her dad," Tim lied desperately, "because Black Mask got ahold of her somehow, as Spoiler, and he - he -"

And Tim found it was really fucking hard to say out loud what Black Mask had done.

"Hetorturedhertodeath," Tim forced out all at once, squeezing his eyes shut.

The blood was rushing in his ears and Tim felt himself sinking into the depths of the ocean again, but his head had barely dipped under the water before he felt splashes on his face as it broke back through the surface, and the splashes began to tickle and he opened his eyes and Conner was kissing his cheeks and forehead and face all over and somewhere in the background Tim's dad was muttering in horror and a strong hand was gripping Tim's shoulder that he slowly realized belonged to Lex.

"I'm so sorry, son," Lex was saying, looking absolutely aghast.

Huh. That was a funny look for a super-villain. Hadn't Lex ever tortured people to death before? Tim felt sure that he must have, at some point or another in his long and illustrious career. He'd certainly tried to kill Superman enough times, and -

"Batman did nothing?" Lex was asking in a funny voice, and Tim realized that the odd look in Lex's eyes was for Conner, not for him.

What -

Wait -

Bruce - Batman - Spoiler - Robin - Steph had been Robin. Where was Batman? What had Bruce said? Tim didn't know - why didn't he know - he hadn't been listening - so how did Tim know Steph died as Spoiler - and he did know that - why - how - oh, fuck.

No.

Please, no.

Steph's final text that he hadn't seen until he was frantically scrolling through his phone in the school courtyard.

B FIRED me. Back to being Spoiler.

A giant wave of numbness washed over Tim, sweeping away the feelings he couldn't process.

"I guess Batman didn't do anything," Tim said with sand in his mouth, "because Steph died."

Lex was growling low in his throat and Conner's body felt strangely rigid as it sat wrapped around him and Tim felt like an empty surfboard getting washed out to sea.

Tim blinked and there was Gotham, hovering in front of him, but being pulled further and further towards the horizon as Tim floated in place, bobbing up and down on their expensive white sofa that they never sat on except for when Lex Luthor came over.

Something cold and smooth was being pressed to his lips.

"Take a drink," Lex said and Tim obediently swallowed, coughing a little and making a face as the brandy went down.

"I am so sorry," Lex said gravely. "Don't you worry about a thing, Tim," he said. "My media team will come up with a draft tonight and we'll get your approval on it before we release it. Do you know when the funeral is yet?" Lex was directing this to Jack.

"No," Jack said nervously.

"My team will find out," Lex said. "Conner and I will come with you and your father to Gotham to attend, of course," Lex said.

"Won't that attract more attention?" Jack said, attempting to look befuddled yet wise.

Tim knew that his dad just didn't want to go to Steph's funeral, though. And truthfully, Tim didn't want him there.

"Couldn't me and Conner go by ourselves?" Tim found himself saying because his dad wasn't actually wrong.

Nobody would care that much about Jack Drake, but if Lex Luthor showed up at Steph's funeral? Tim would be hounded on the day when he most wanted to be left alone.

"Your father and I can run interference for the press," Lex said, though. "Think of us as your bodyguards," he said kindly. "The last thing you want is to get ambushed because your teachers talked," he said. "If we don't do this press release, that's what will happen. If we plan ahead for it, we'll be able to give you the peace you need at the service."

Tim sighed but nodded. Lex was probably right. He usually was, wasn't he?

And if Lex wanted to come to Gotham to attend the funeral of Batman's recently fired Robin? As the future father-in-law of Batman's recently retired Robin?

An evil spiral of bitterness danced its way into Tim's heart.

Batman hadn't. done. anything.

Because Steph was dead.

"I'd be glad to have you come, Lex," Tim said.

A/N - More to come! You can follow me on Tumblr as River9Noble. Come say hi!

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