The Joker was cackling madly as he swung the crowbar down again onto Tim's shin, the pain a white-hot flare as muscle tore and bone crunched. Tim bit back a scream and tried again desperately to make his body move but he could barely twitch. The Joker raised the crowbar and opened his mouth, letting out a blaring electronic ring.
BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP BE-
Tim shot up in bed and slammed his hand down on top of the alarm. He was breathing harshly and his shirt stuck to his back, damp with cold sweat. "Shit," Tim said aloud.
"That's no way for a polite young man like yourself to talk," said Mrs. Mac, bustling into the room. She stopped and looked at Tim. "My goodness! Are you all right Timothy? You look awful!"
Tim shook his head and ran his fingers through his damp hair. Game face on, Robin he reminded himself. "I'm fine, Mrs. Mac, Just a bad dream. No big."
She was still staring, but her face creased in sympathy. "Oh, Timmy. Was it about your parents?"
Tim bit back a bitter laugh at the knowledge that his mother's murder and his father's seemingly permanent coma were actually not the worst things he could dream about. "No. Um, gym actually. I, uh, fell off the rope we had to climb." Lame, lame, lame.
"Oh, poor boy, I do hate falling dreams. So awful to wake up from."
"Yeah. Awful."
ooooooooo
Stuffing his books into his bag, Tim slung it over his shoulder and ran out the door. He reached the street just in time to see the bus pull away. "No!" Frustrated, he threw his bag to the ground. "Unbelievable, it's like the morning from hell."
ooooooooo
"Tim! There you are!" Arianna hurried up toward him, frown lines creasing her forehead.
"Oh, hey," Tim said, setting down his sandwich, and wiping his hands on his napkin.
"I've been looking for you all day!" she kissed him on the cheek before sitting down at the table. "I wanted to ask you about Friday night."
"Um, Friday?" Tim picked up his Zesti and took a drink. The hell was happening on Friday? Besides his stakeout of Fairview Towers, that is. Rumor was, Blockbuster was expanding from his current haunt in Metropolis and the largely abandoned Towers had been showing remarkable signs of life lately—lots of heavily armed men moving boxes Tim couldn't identify into it.
"Ahh! Tim, I swear, you're the sweetest guy I know, but I think sometimes you've a worse memory than the cheerleaders!"
Tim just smiled at her, and she blushed. "Anyway, Friday is the party at Melinda Graves' house, remember?"
"It—is?"
"Yes. And before you say something I don't want to hear, you promised i/ to go with me and to dance at least twice."
Tim swallowed. Oh shit. He could not miss the stakeout. He'd promised Bruce, and there was no one else who could investigate. The information Oracle had gotten was too vague to be of use, Nightwing was busy, Batgirl didn't have the experience necessary for this, and Tim could easily picture the look on Bruce's face if he passed the job off to Huntress or Jean-Paul in order to go to a party. Shit.
"Um, Arianna… Look, you know I want to go, but—"
She set down her soda can with a loud clunk. "Oh, no. You are not about to say what I think you are."
"I can't go."
"Tim!"
"I'm sorry!"
"Tim you promised me two weeks ago that you'd be free for this night!" Arianna was red-faced and her eyes were starting to look a little glassy.
"I really do want to go, I just—I have—I have to go out of town," he said, improvising.
"Out of town."
"Yes!" Tim said, trying to keep the gratefulness in his voice to a minimum. "My, um, my mom's cousin, well, actually her mother's cousin, she's really old, and she's having some difficulties with her heart, which is why she's in the hospital, and I promised I go be a good… grand-cousin and visit her."
Arianna sat back in her seat. "Your mother's cousin," she said quietly.
"Yes. Ari, I'm so, so sorry, but I just—I just have to do this. If I'd remembered about the party, I'd have warned you earlier…"
"Tim."
"What?"
"You mother doesn't have any relatives. The family tree project for Social Sciences, remember?"
Tim was speechless, in addition to being irritated with himself. When the hell did I get so bad at lying? "I, um, well I mostly focused on my dad's side, because it—"
"If you didn't want to go with me, you could have just said," Arianna said quietly. Her eyes were more than just glassy, and her voice shook.
Tim swallowed back guilt. "I do! I really do, I love being with you, I—"
"Are you?" she asked quietly. "Because I really can't tell anymore." She got up and left, leaving her lunch behind.
Tim crumpled up his can and threw it at the tree, before sighing and slumping down in his seat. "Fuck, could this day get any worse?"
"Mr. Drake! Littering and bad language are against the rules, you know that. I'll see you after school." The lunchroom chaperone, Ms. Monroe, stalked off.
Yes. Yes it could.
ooooooooo
Tim shot his grapple line off into the air, hooking around the foot of a gargoyle. Swinging around the corner of the old McGinnis building, he flew across the street and landed in a crouch on top of the building next to it. He disappeared into the shadows of the broken air conditioners, and settled in for a long wait.
He could have been at the party right now, as opposed to stuck on a broken glass-covered concrete roof, sitting next to an air duct that smelled like someone's old socks, waiting, hoping, for a break in this case. Which would probably take hours, if it happened at all. And granted, so he didn't really like parties, but at the very least he could be out actually fighting crime. Tim knew the statistics for Gotham like he knew his own Social Security number. Average of 4 rapes per night, 2 murders, 7 muggings, 5 break-ins, and a drug trade that flourished ever more at night. He could be out stopping some of that if only Bruce was willing to do his own work—no.
Tim was not going to start thinking like that. Bruce gave him the suit, made him Robin. He owed the man his loyalty and respect. He picked up the binoculars and started in on a long evening.
ooooooooo
Five hours later he had a whole bunch of nothing. Only two men had come out of the building during that time. Tim took a chance and tailed them (largely because his ass was going numb and even his impressive patience was fraying) and then watched in disgust as they engaged dangerous and illegal action of buying chili dogs off a street vendor this late at night. That was the entirety of the night. Even if he could break in (and the shadows at the boarded-up windows suggested that doing so would be far too risky without backup, he was under orders to observe only.
Finally, Tim called it a night. He had at least managed to get tracers on the men's vehicles; Oracle would monitor where they went, and perhaps by the next evening he'd have something to do.
Tim was crossing over 23rd street, hooking his grapple on the top of an old building that housed a Wayne Enterprises subsidiary when he felt more than saw the shadow flit overhead.
Behind the mask, he rolled his eyes. He'd had four whole days free of that damned idiot, and now he was back? Might as well get it over with. He used the second line to cut his speed, and jumped onto the fire escape scaling the outside of the building. Ten seconds later he was on the roof, waiting.
"Um. Hey."
"Do you always start conversations like this?"
The Meta gave him a confused look. "Like what?"
"Never mind. What do you want?"
The guy shrugged. "Who says I want anything? I'm just—"
"Let me guess—bored?"
He laughed. "Yeah, pretty much."
Tim had already had a rotten night, on top of a rotten day, and just the fact that anyone could be feel happy enough to laugh at the moment made him unreasonably angry. "Well, I'm not your entertainment, so get lost."
The guy's eyebrows shot up. "Whoa! What crawled up you panties and died?"
"Nothing. I just don't have the patience to put up with you right now, so go find someone else to make miserable."
"Okay seriously, what happened to you?"
"I. Am. Fine. Now go away."
The Meta eyed him skeptically. "You're fine. Uh huh. That's why you're so tense it's making me hurt to look at you and if you keep up your going to grind your teeth down to the roots." He paused. "Look, maybe you should talk about what's bothering you."
"To whom?"
"Uh, me?"
"Yes, I'll just open up to you and we'll have a deep and heartfelt talk about my feelings," Tim said scathingly. "I don't even know you."
Kon looked at his feet. "You heard that phone call from my dad."
Tim opened his mouth and then shut it again.
"So… you already know something about me. And I ran away to no one, and the only person I hang out with is you—so c'mon man, at least you've got people to argue with at the moment. No way you're more pathetic than me." Kon shrugged and gave a half-smile that wasn't really a smile at all.
Tim swallowed. Just because he opened up to you, doesn't mean you have to do the same he reminded himself. You don't know him, you can't trust him, you wouldn't even be talking to him if he hadn't pulled off your mask and blackmailed you into lying to Bruce and—"I had a fight with my girlfriend," he said, choosing the simplest problem.
Kon's eyebrows shot up. "You have a girlfriend? Robin has a girlfriend?"
Tim cursed. "I—the person I am when I'm not wearing the mask has—you know what, never mind. I shouldn't have said anything."
"Whoa, whoa, you can't cut me off now!" Kon protested. "And here I was thinking you're so grumpy you must not be getting laid."
"Do you ever think about what's going to come out of your mouth?"
"Not really, and don't change the subject. Tell me about this girl."
"No."
"C'mon, is she hot?"
"I'm not discussing this."
"What, is she ugly?"
"N—I'm not discussing this."
"Okay, not ugly. So, um, she's fat. She's… older. She's… pregnant with Batman's baby and you're pissed that they were getting busy behind your back."
Tim's evil brain momentarily pictured for him what a meeting between Batman and Arianna would be like—him glaring, her fainting, and smirked slightly."
"Hah! I saw a smile, Robbie."
"I was thinking about something else."
"Yeah, right. So why'd you fight?"
"No reason."
"C'mon, man, who am I gonna tell, anyway? Give a little here, would you?"
Give. That was all anyone had been asking him to do lately, give and give and give and suddenly it was just too much and Tim snapped. "A little? How much more do I have left! I'm arguing with my girlfriend because I can't make time for her since being Robin takes priority. But I can't patrol because Batman's got me stuck on surveillance duty, instead of something useful!"
Kon blinked, shocked. But Tim ranted on.
"My housekeeper thinks I need to see a shrink because I'm not getting enough sleep, my girlfriend thinks I don't like her anymore because I never see her outside of school, and Batman… Batman isn't around. I'm supposed to be his partner, to work with him protecting Gotham. But I don't know where the hell he is these days. Huntress is with the Birds, so is Oracle, Nightwing's got his own city to worry about, Azrael isn't remotely dependable, and Batgirl does her own thing. I'm the only thing standing between Gotham and chaos and I'm worrying about how to finish my Trig before Monday's test and it's fucking ridiculous!" Tim threw his staff to the ground, breathing harshly.
Kon's mouth was open. Silence reigned long enough for Tim to begin to feel very stupid, before he spoke. "I'm sorry man. I didn't realize Batman was—a sore spot. Like really."
Tim closed his eyes. He would have to pick up on that, wouldn't he? "Yeah. Look, it's fine. I'm just—tired. I'll be fine."
Kon nodded slowly. "I don't doubt it man, but… you were right, you shouldn't have to do this on your own."
Tim shrugged. "I'm used to it. And there's no one else."
Kon fidgeted for a moment. "Well… there's kind of—me."
Tim stared. "Are you kidding me?"
"Wh—no I'm not kidding you, man," Kon looked indignant. "Why not? You need help, and hey, it's not like I've got anything better to do."
Tim forced down the hysterical laugh that wanted to emerge. "You—no."
"Why the hell not?"
"For one thing, Batman would kill me if I let a Meta work in Gotham."
"So, don't 'let me.' Just accept that I'm stronger than you and I'm gonna do it anyway. Just—point me in the directions where I can do good. That's not 'letting.' That's just making the most of a bad situation."
It was actually sensible. "I don't know you. I don't trust you."
Kon shrugged. "Yeah, well, call it surveillance on your part. What's the saying, anyway? 'Keep your friends close, your enemies closer, and your unknown wildcards closest of all?'"
Tim raised an eyebrow. "I hadn't heard that last part."
Kon looked embarrassed. "Um. Found it on the internet." He floated down to stand in front of Tim. "So. How 'bout it?"
I cannot seriously be considering this. "Fine. But you take all responsibility for your own actions. Screw up, and you don't get to blame me."
"Hey, no problem. Totally used to it, dude. So," he said reaching out a hand. "Are we, um, well, whatever the hell we are anyway?"
Tim hesitated, then nodded, and reached out his own hand. Gauntlet met invulnerable skin in a tight clasp. "Yeah. We are."
FIN
