The door to the darkroom still sat exactly as Conner remembered. Tim fumbled with the lock for a moment, and Conner looked away and tried to pretend he didn't notice. They were met with a rush of cool air as Tim opened the door and flicked on the lights.

He stepped inside and let Tim shut the door behind them. He sagged in relief, taking a a moment to close his eyes. He loved Clark, and in some way, he loved the Waynes and everything they were and everything they had brought into his life. But being at dinner had felt too close to lying. He looked up to catch Tim watching him warily. He grinned, something he'd been fighting since he'd first seen Tim, and lunged at the other boy before he could duck away.

Tana had always said he was the touchy feely type, and he had Tim pinned down in a hug faster than the other could have ever reacted, slayer reflexes or not. Tim felt real and solid under his hands and that reassured the small part of Conner that had gone through the week half convinced the boy wasn't real. He relaxed.

Tim stuttered something into Conner's shoulder and Conner snatched his hands back. Tim stepped back, looking around at everything that wasn't Conner. Conner winced. He knew, had known, that he was a bit much. And midnight excursions aside, Tim was decidedly not a touchy feely type. He stepped back, trying to give Tim whatever space he needed. Whatever they had he had no intentions of ruining it by pushing Tim too far. He tried to think of something to fill the space instead and settled on running his eyes over Tim, checking for new injuries.

"I'm glad you're ok," Conner said. "Are you feeling better? How's your side? Is everything alright?"

Perhaps it was one question to many. They came out in a tumble. But Tim smiled, ducking his head. If Conner had set him off balance before, then he seemed to be recentering now. Tim took a deep breath.

"Yeah. Yeah, it's all good. And I am feeling better. The week of mandated bed rest helped."

The way he said the last bit Conner knew he had to have fought Bruce on that point. He didn't say as much but was firmly on Bruce's side this time.

Tim looked around the room. The small workspace was messier than the last visit. Scraps of paper were scattered across the floor and the lightbox had become home to several new piles of unsorted photographs. Tim stepped up to the lightbox and ran his fingers over the stacks like he was counting them. Conner watched and tried to come up with a non-intrusive way to ask his next question.

"So, like, you stopped it, right?" He didn't try that hard. He didn't like how Tim pulled away either. All that pain and for what?

Tim shrugged. Here, in his element, he looked a lot less embarrassed, and a bit of the focused energy Conner had come to so closely associate with him returned as he started shuffling through the paper left out on his light table. Tim always seemed to need something to occupy his hands while he thought things through so Conner hung back and let him work. Tim sorted the haphazardly strewn photos into piles, shuffling things off the table into a filing cabinet as he went.

"Things didn't go well. Bruce didn't want to involve Zatanna." Tim still picked his words carefully, like each sentence was a revelation even though Conner still felt like he struggled to see the bigger picture.

"Because she's a witch?"

"Yeah. And because Kirkland is another case of magic gone wrong. We're going to...we will fix it, Conner. We always do. Bruce promised he'd try it our way this time."

"You're way?"

"Jason's way. Zatanna's way."

"Don't you have to trade something for that? She made it sound like…"

Tim winced, staring down at the light table instead of meeting Conner's eyes. "We'll be careful."

Conner sighed. Somehow this was all less cool than he had thought it would be when he first sat down and listened to Tim explain it all. The theory versus the reality of Tim's life left much to be desired. He didn't like the way Tim skirted around straight answers and how these extended repeat encounters with things like Dr. Langstrom seemed destined to end in someone getting hurt. He thought about going another week surviving on vague texts and scanning news headlines for signs that the Waynes had won.

Conner found himself circling the table so he could watch Tim's face while he worked. As if the secrets could be pulled from him that way.

"So what now?"

"We do what we always do. Stay alert. Stay prepared. Follow Bruce's orders. And if it comes down to it, we protect Gotham." Always so serious about everything. Conner smiled even as Tim frowned.

Tim Drake, hero of Gotham.

"But you guys are being safer now?"

"We're working with Bruce." Conner didn't miss the way that Tim's answer was a non-answer but he let it go. He had to. Trying to get Tim to give a straight answer was just going to wind him up. And he trusted Bruce would keep them safe. Or at least try. Even as removed and awkward as the man seemed it was becoming clearer to Conner that Bruce was very much like Tim. Well intentioned, but very bad at putting those intentions into words.

"Jason seemed like he was in a good mood," Conner said instead. There was a lot he wanted to talk about and if they spent the night dancing around

"Things are better." Tim agreed. "Jason is- well, was, trying to look out for me. For all of us. He just doesn't always do it in the most straightforward way."

Conner laughed and Tim grinned up at him before he finished putting away the last of the scattered photos and picked up one of the new piles he had made. He started spreading images across the unlit light table in the center of the room.

"This is Bruce's way of apologizing, you know," he said as he went, laying them out in neat rows of four by five.

"What, embarrassing family dinner?"

"Inviting you. Into our home. Knowingly. He's, ah, trying to be supportive of, uh- I think Jason termed it- healthy social relationships with peers our own age?"

"He did not say it like that."

Tim grinned again and gestured to the photos he'd spread out before them. "I was going to wait to show you until later. I didn't want you to think I was weird."

"Too late-" Conner stopped short when he stepped up to the table.

Tim had laid out an array of black and white photos. Gorgeous, high contrast shots of places and images Conner recognized, but as if pulled from someone else's memory. There was the school, on a sunny autumn day, with Stephanie and Cassandra sitting outside. They looked like they had been expecting it when the photo was snapped. Cass's hands were a blur, clearly having been caught mid-motion, and Stephanie was laughing openly at the photographer under a beanie. Conner remembered that day. It had been shortly after his return from Metropolis. He remembered Cass had been wearing the hat by the time he had met up with them in the school halls.

There was one of Bart sitting alone on a bench, the fairground rising up behind him. His wild hair sticking out every which way, and his eyes gleaming as he held a backpack in one hand and cotton candy in the other. Conner could almost feel the moment through Bart's eyes, could tell he must have looked up to catch Tim in the act, and had started to say something.

There was a picture of Jason smoking next to a No Smoking sign at what looked like the Burnely Mall. He was looking away from the camera, leaning, like something out of frame had caught his eye and he meant to go after it.

There was a picture of Conner sitting on top of a ferris wheel scowling at the world around him moments before he would turn and take Tim's phone from him.

"Whoa," Conner said because nothing else felt appropriate.

"It's for my AP Art final. It's not done yet, obviously. Teacher thinks it's too snapshot-y right now. And you know, she's been pushing me to do better-" Tim was running his hands through his hair. It was getting long.

But Conner liked Tim's snapshot photos. They looked like moments from his own life, from the past few months, reframed and shot at a different angle than before. It was like Conner was seeing all these people and places for the first time. He felt a weight lift that he hadn't even realized he was carrying. And for just a moment he felt like he saw what Tim saw every time he looked through the lens.

He paused though, as he scanned over one of them. "Is that Greta?"

Tim jumped a little. "Uh yeah. Homecoming."

Greta was laughing at the camera. Black and white looked good on her. Her hands were held up over her face like she didn't want the camera to know she was laughing. But she looked happy. He couldn't tell where it had been taken.

"I'd always wondered about that," Conner said. "Were you guys close?"

Tim's face did that thing it always did right before he was about to lie, and then he bit down on his reply and shook his head. "I-"

"It's ok. If it's none of my business-"

"It's not that. I mean it is that. But... Greta lives with her aunt outside of Gotham now. Her foster brother was a monster and she needed help getting out. We weren't close. Not really. But we talked a lot in art class and during homecoming."

"Right. Starting to really feel like I missed everything when I missed homecoming," Conner said, trying to keep the conversation light. He didn't miss the way Tim's voice darkened talking about Greta's situation. He could picture now clearly how things must have played out. Maybe the two had chatted during homecoming about Greta's brother, about her home life. About the bruises no one asked about.

And when she was absent from school he could easily see what Tim would have done next. The lengths Tim was capable of going to. Maybe he showed up at Greta's house out of the blue, with a fancy car. Or maybe he'd reached out to her aunt first. Maybe he'd asked Dick Grayson to make a house call in uniform.

But he wasn't surprised either. Neither with Greta nor with Tim's reaction to it. After all, when he looked through the photos that Tim had taken, the snapshots of their shared life in Gotham, it was beginning to grow painfully obvious how much Tim cared for people. How much he went out of his way to help them, even when it complicated his own life. How much the very quiet, serious boy in front of him could hurt or be hurt.

"You didn't miss that much," Tim said softly. "Just stupid kids doing stupid things. Jason caused a scene."

"I remember that. Stephanie told me you punched him."

Tim laughed but it sounded nervous. "He deserved it. He was being an asshole."

"Yeah, that's kind of his go-to move, I've noticed," Conner said, and he smiled at Tim, trying to gauge how the other boy might be feeling. Tim alternated between fixing his eyes on Conner's face and then scanning the photos spread out in front of them. He shifted anxiously and Conner desperately searched for something that might calm him down.

Conner shuffled closer. "I mean, admittedly it was kind of annoying at first. But it worked."

"What worked?" Tim laughed a little and Conner could tell he was too close. Tim wasn't meeting his eyes.

"I'm here. And your dad doesn't hate me." Tim's hair fell into his eyes at this length.

Conner reached out to fix it.

They both paused.

There was a lot Conner had been dying to say to Tim and he tried now, to find the best possible way to do it-

"I thought you hated me," Tim blurted out and Conner was so surprised he laughed.

"What?"

Tim blushed, fidgeting with his hair, the end of his shirt, anything but staying still.

"When we were at school you," Tim took a deep breath, "When we were at school you were always- you were always making fun of me. And I know I'm not the easiest person to get along with but I thought. I don't know. I couldn't do anything right. And I didn't mean to bother you, by the way. I know I probably did-"

"You didn't," Conner said immediately, reaching out to- he wasn't sure what, but he settled on gently resting his hand on Tim's upper arm, and the other boy stopped some of his fidgeting. "You don't. Bother me. Not at all."

But he could see how Tim would have thought he had. How his own behavior might have looked through Tim's eyes those first few weeks, and even after, when Conner had insisted on being difficult because that was just what Conner did. And it hurt a little to know this all could have been avoided if instead of mocking him those first couple days and luring Tim into conversation with the intent of proving what a jerk he was if Conner had actually meant it when he tried to get to know him. They could have skipped so much of the painful awkwardness. If that had happened, who knew how close they would be now, how much more Conner would know about the person in front of him who'd come to occupy such a strange and important space.

"Ok. Ok yeah, that's um. That's good." Tim still fiddled with the hem on his sweater. "Sorry."

"You don't have to be sorry. I didn't hate you. And for what it's worth I'm sorry. I was kind of an ass those first couple weeks."

"It's ok." Tim said, "You aren't that bad."

Conner grinned at him. "So we're cool then? I don't hate you. I actually kind of like you. Preferably alive, and not sleep-deprived, and not bothering me about my grades. But I'd settle for alive after last week."

Somehow his other hand had come up to frame Tim's face.

"Yeah, sorry about that too."

"About what?"

"The life in peril stuff. It…takes some getting used to."

"Just promise me you'll be careful? You being a vampire hunter is only cool if you're alive for me to brag about it."

"You better not be bragging to anyone."

"You know what I mean."

There was a moment then, when they were leaning into each other, where they were so close Conner could almost have reached out and…

"We should probably get going," Tim abruptly pulled away. "Wouldn't want the others to get worried?"

It was a weak excuse.

"Right," Conner said, feeling let down. But he swallowed the feeling for Tim's sake, and offered a reassuring smile as he followed him out of the room. It was selfish to expect anything. After everything he had learned about Tim and his situation, the last thing he needed was to throw Conner into that mix. Conner could understand that.

He had wanted an answer. And now he had it.

They needn't have bothered being considerate. Both Clark and Bruce were still nowhere to be found when they returned to the dining room. Even though nothing had happened, Conner still felt guilty, like he'd somehow misstepped and done something wrong. And the way Tim kept looking away everytime their eyes accidentally locked didn't help.

He was still reeling a little but Conner didn't want Tim to think this changed anything, so he tried to smile any time he caught the other looking. He remembered, vaguely, feeling irritated at Tim early on. Finding his silence and stilted way of correcting people annoying. But at some point, and he couldn't pinpoint exactly when, although he had his suspicions, those silences had bled into something more friendly, less unreadable than before, and he didn't want to lose that- stupid unrequited crush be damned.

They wound up finding Duke and playing fighting games in his bedroom while they waited. It had been a long time since Conner had had an excuse to play with anyone, and while it was fun it was also frustrating and tense. Tim still wouldn't look at him. But Duke didn't seem to mind or else was still the most socially adept of his siblings and chose not to comment.

It was well past ten by the time Duke turned to Conner in the middle of their Street Fighter game (Tim had, after being beaten twice, sought refuge on a beanbag chair on the far side of the room and was reading a book), and said:

"They're done."

"What?"

"They're done and...hmm that's not good." There was a hazy look in Duke's eyes and he put down the controller, frowning. Conner found it odd, but Tim's reaction was odder.

Tim, across the room, snapped up. "Duke?"

For a long moment Duke was silent. Then Duke jumped up and was across the room in seconds. "Tim we need to leave. Something's coming"

"What did you see?"

"The Court."

Duke was out of the room a second later and Conner looked at Tim, concern rising. "Tim?"

"Get your stuff."

"What just happened?"

Tim looked torn and for a moment Conner thought he was going to get the usual song and dance with the vague answers and half truths he'd come to associate with his time with the Waynes.

"The Court is made of the oldest families of Gotham. They're magical, powerful and they have pet assassins."

"Pet assassins?"

"And they really don't like Bruce."

Tim guided Conner out of the room. They grabbed his stuff from the main foyer and by the time they were at the door, Duke was rounding the corner with Bruce and Clark right on his heels.

"I really am sorry about this," Bruce said, not an iota of concern seeping into his voice. It was deeply unsettling the way Bruce seemed to be able to flip between emotional expressions on command and for a minute Conner could understand Jason's frustration with the man. But there was a curt, brief nod, from Bruce to Tim when he saw Conner already waiting to go by the front door.

"We'll have to do this again," Bruce said, "but in the meantime-"

There was a knock on the door.

The entire Wayne Clan froze. Conner wondered if it was just that he was looking for it now, or if they were being more obvious than they usually were, but Tim stepped surreptitiously in front of him and Duke, and he saw the shadow of one of the other Wayne kids slip into the hall before Bruce, who with a long look behind him at his kids, cracked a fake smile.

"Well now, I wonder who it could be at this hour?"

Bruce opened the door.

The man in the doorway was not human. His grin was too sharp, his skin too pale, and there was something unnatural about the way the light bounced off his eyes as he stood there, blocking their exit, as close as he could come to the threshold without crossing it.

"Mr. Wayne," the man in the door tipped his oversized hat. In fact, though he had a large, broad build himself, all his clothing appeared to be ill-fitting. And he dressed in a suit and long trench coat, the wide brimmed hat pulled low over his eyes. Conner made a note to ask Tim if all supernatural creatures had a penchant for old school clothes or if it was just the ones he kept running into.

"I didn't realize you had guests," the man lied. "My my, how very pleasant."

The man's voice was low and very quiet, like he was trying not to be overheard.

"Mr. Cobb," Bruce said, "what an unexpected visit. I didn't realize we had a meeting."

"Oh we didn't. I was just in the neighborhood when I got word that the Wayne's were having dinner and, well, I never could pass up Alfred's cooking…" Mr. Cobb trailed off as his eyes moved from Bruce's face, to Clark, to Tim, and settled on Conner. "Surely you will invite me in?"

Conner didn't think for a second Clark knew what was going on, but he certainly looked wary at the prospect of Bruce letting this strange man into the house and cleared his throat.

"I, uh, I think Conner and I were just leaving," he said.

"You were," Bruce said, and he stepped aside.

Mr. Cobb stood for just long enough that it became uncomfortable, before slowly stepping aside. Clark reached into his pocket and pulled out his keys, gave Bruce one last nod, and gestured to Conner to follow.

Conner could see from the look on Tim's face that he was worried. He gave his arm a light squeeze as he moved past him, and followed Clark outside. He passed by Mr. Cobb, and the man towered over him, skin eerily white up close and eyes unnaturally glinting in the dark.

"Be careful out there, Mr. Kent," Cobb said, "there's a lot of crazy people in Gotham."

Conner shuddered and kept walking as fast as he could. He looked back when they got to the car. Bruce's silhouette stood in the open doorway. He looked like he was talking. Cobb stood still and just watched as the Kents' car pulled away.

Conner hadn't been sleeping well since he arrived in Gotham but that night was the worst it had ever been. If the idea of Tim being a vampire had been a slight fancy he'd indulged in because he was bored and Tim made it easy, then the idea of the very real, very dangerous Cobb sitting outside his window was fueling an already paranoid fire.

He tried to just lay there, eyes closed, on his back, but his mind kept providing the image of nearly yellow eyes sunken in a pale face underneath a wide brimmed hat and he was jerking awake before he even realized he'd almost drifted off.

He finally gave up, kicking off his covers. He tried the light switch but found that with the lights on, he couldn't see outside his cramped window, and the thought of not being able to see the things outside scared him more than having the lights off. He opened his laptop and tried to get away with just browsing social media instead of indulging his conspiracy theories, but the siren song of Gotham's unmistakable magical underground called and soon he was knee-deep in an unofficial wiki about Gotham's founding families and how they were all vampires or necromancers. The article was a bit vague on that point. The important part was how every death of a prominent public figure appeared to be their doing.

He heard a quiet scraping coming from his window and he froze. Flashbacks to his night outside the hospital came to him unbidden. The feeling of knowing you were being watched.

He took a deep breath and told himself it was just the wind.

The noise came again.

"This is how I die," Conner said out loud, and laughed at himself when it sounded as stupid as he thought it would. He had no place in some grand story about magic, and good and evil anyways. Probably better he died early in the narrative so that the real heroes could do the work.

He pushed himself away from his desk and nearly screamed when he heard knocking.

While he managed to turn his probable scream into a stifled, awkward shout, his shock did make him jump, which, given his precarious place between the desk and bed, immediately sent him toppling to the floor. He scrambled to his feet, and when he looked up he caught Tim's face staring back at him through his bedroom window. He'd never been more relieved or angry at the other boy.

He threw open the window. "Timothy Drake Wayne I swear to God-"

Tim reached forward with both hands, grabbed him by the front of his shirt, and kissed him.

Conner's thoughts halted. His brain, which had been buzzing with a thousand thoughts a minute since leaving the manor went blissfully dark. The kind of dark that made him forgetThe shock of the moment was enough that he stared instead of doing the sensible thing and kissing back.

"I meant to do that earlier," Tim said, quite seriously for someone perched on a window sill, "but I chickened out."

"Sorry, I wasn't quite paying attention. You might have to run that by me again-"

Tim laughed and he kissed him again. This time Conner did react. He grabbed Tim around the waist, eager to pull him further into the room. It was awkward, and they tumbled, but he didn't let go. He could feel Tim smiling under his lips.

"Conner," Clark's muffled, sleep addled voice came through the door, "everything ok?"

Tim, bless him, could be quiet as a cat when he wanted and he slipped off of him into his room like it was nothing, crouching beside the bed, still grinning. He ducked out of sight while Conner moved to close the window.

"It's nothing Clark. I thought I saw something outside my window. I'm just spooked I guess."

Clark cracked the door open. He looked pretty much exactly like he'd just rolled out of bed. "Are you sure?"

"I'm sure Clark, go to bed."

Clark paused a moment, but at last, relented. Conner waited until he heard his bedroom door close before he knelt beside Tim.

"You're insane, you know that?" he said. And then he couldn't think really but he could feel that he was grinning like a moron. Tim looked at him with a grin to match Conner's own. They had to look like idiots.

"Can I…?" Conner asked, reaching out again, and it was so much like earlier that it made his head spin. Only a few hours ago he most certainly could not have and he still waited in case Tim ducked out of the way.

Tim nodded and Conner leaned in and kissed him. Kneeling like they were, it wasn't the most comfortable position but Tim moved so easily as Conner snaked his arms around him. Leaned into every touch and every movement in a way that sent a thrill down Conner's spine. Soon Conner was dragging the other boy closer and laughing between kisses because he still couldn't really believe it. Tim settled close to him, solid and weightless all at once.

He reached up to wind his fingers through Tim's hair because he could and it was as soft as it had looked in the darkroom .

When they broke apart, Tim was still smiling. He was flushed and now he looked almost embarrassed. Conner couldn't have cared less. He could have stayed there all night. He was positive this would only feel real for as long as he could feel Tim under his fingertips, that the minute the other boy vanished he would feel like this hadn't happened at all. That it was all a dream.

"I realize," Tim started, "that I am very bad at this," Conner huffed a quiet laugh in his dark bedroom, "and that I am not very good at expressing how I feel. But-"

Conner gently placed a warm, dry hand over his mouth. "I'm gonna stop you right there."

He leaned back and dragged Tim closer. He kept his voice low.

"Tim you aren't bad at it. You just do it differently. And I like you. And you've made it more than obvious you like me- you don't need to apologize for anything. I don't hate you, I'm not embarrassed by you, I have no idea how you couldn't be embarrassed by me but if you're the one who wants to let the whole school know, I won't stop you, I swear."

Conner hoped he'd said the right things. Picked the right words. He'd never wanted, never been caught up in something like this before. Every mark left by his previous relationships burned to remind him just how out of his depth he was with someone as young and gentle as Tim was capable of being. There was more, so much more he wanted to say. But he needed to say what Tim needed to hear first.

Tim buried his head in his shoulder and just breathed.

"What was that?" Conner asked after some time had passed and he heard Tim mumble into his arm.

"I'm so stupid."

"Beg to disagree."

"No it's fine. I am. But it's fine now." Tim looked up at him and shifted closer. He was practically in Conner's lap now but Conner was going to be the last person to tell him to move.

"Well still disagree."

"Not to kill the mood," Tim's face became incredibly serious all of a sudden, mouth shifting into a hard line. Conner was too overjoyed at the moment to find it anything other than cute. "I came to check on you. Because the man who came to the house works for the Court-"

"The Court of Owls?"

At Tim's petulant look, Conner shrugged, "I do my research."

"On what conspiracy boards? Anyways. Bruce told the Court in no uncertain terms you were off limits. But the court isn't exactly known for respecting the rights of mortals."

"That sort of implies they're immortal, Tim."

Tim remained silent. Conner sighed. "I am not going to get used to that."

"Sorry."

Conner just hugged him tighter.

It took a while for them to make it onto the bed. And it wasn't much more comfortable than the floor had been. It was too short for Conner's height and too narrow to lie comfortably side by side. But Tim just laughed as Conner had tried to give him an equal amount of space on the small mattress. He was able to slip into the bed, under the covers and burrowed into Conner's side. By some unspoken agreement, they managed to fall asleep like that.

Turned out Tim was a cuddler after all.