The Birds Who Smile: Calm Your Mind(rough draft), a Batman fanfic by Raberba girl

Inspired by breezy-cheezy

Author's notes: Like the Christmas vignettes, this might or might not fit with the continuity of the main story. The tone is right even though the specific details might not match up.

o.o.o

Tim had freaking cut patrol early for this, had come home a little after midnight and had everything set up for optimal efficiency and he'd been working for two hours but he still kept finding mistakes in the code and his computer kept beeping with alerts on one of the ten Number One Highest Priority cases he was working on even though he didn't have time to follow up because of the programming he was working on, and there were still three business meetings tomorrow to prepare for and of course the most important one would be the earliest and it DIDN'T HELP that Dick and Damian kept prank-calling him because it was a slow night and they were bored on patrol, calling through the Bat-comm when he blocked them on his phone...

"RRAAAGGGHH."

"crow!" Jack, curled up with Bear in a blanket nest on Tim's bed, startled awake at the thump of a thick file folder hitting the wall.

Tim blinked. He'd been the only one in the room two hours ago. He hadn't even heard his little brother come in, much less mess up his bed.

"Timmy mad?" Jack asked anxiously, clutching the nearest pillow.

"No. No one's mad at you, Jackie; I-" Tim sighed deeply and rubbed at his aching eyes. "Go back to bed. Here, I'll walk you to your room."

"Oh no, clean up!" Jack exclaimed, running to pick up all the spilled papers instead.

"No- Jack, it's fine, just leave it, I'll get it later; Jack- Uuugghh." Tim sighed and got down on the floor to pick up papers as well.

Once all the sheets were in a stack, Jack cheered, "Yaaayyy, good job, Jackie and Timmy! Good job."

"Yeah. Okay, let's put you to bed now," Tim said, dragging himself to his feet and picking up the little boy.

"Timmy sleepy, time to go to bed!"

"No, you're going to bed. I still have work to do."

"Timmy sleepy!"

"No, I'm fine, bud." Jack was a small child, but Tim wasn't very big himself, and he was tired. He put the boy down before he'd even reached the bedroom door, his arms feeling like lead. "Come on," he said, taking Jack's hand instead.

"No," Jack pouted, yanking his hand away. "Jackie sleep and Timmy sleep. It's nighttime, look!" He pointed at the window.

"I know, but I'm busy and have a lot of work to do, and you don't, so you're the one who needs to sleep, not me."

"Bad Timmy, go to bed!" Jack yelled, starting to push him.

Tim stiffened and held his ground, losing patience as he looked down at his younger self. "Fine, don't go to bed, but leave me alone. I'm busy."

"Very busy, forever," Jack signed, still pouting.

"Gotta live up to my name, don't I?" Tim said sourly, and went back to his computer.

Ten minutes later, he made a loud "GGGGNNNGGHHH" sound and slammed his face down on the desk, digging his fingers painfully into his scalp.

"Timmy sick?"

"No, I'm just...tired and I hate this and I need to concentrate on one thing at a time but my brain is all gragahnhurffleaaarggh!"

"Gagaurfaag," Jack imitated sympathetically, and trotted out of the room.

Tim slowly shifted, body sagging as he lowered his arms and pressed his face into them. He wanted to go to bed, but he couldn't, and feeling so trapped made him want to cry, but crying wouldn't solve anything and he was too old to be crying just because there too many things on his To Do List, what a friggin' moron...stupid baby, this is why no one wanted him around, because he was a wreck and no one wanted to be friends with a half-crazy wreck of a human bei-

"Timmy I cannot open it, help please!" Jack yelled, thumping something against him.

Tim moaned in annoyance at the interruption of his wallowing and grabbed the whatever-it-was before Jack could hit him with it again. He raised his head and peered at the lumpy object. It was a packaged set of stim toys. "You want me to open it?"

"Please open the scissors!"

"With scissors," Tim corrected, reaching to get a pair out of a locked drawer.

"Please open with scissors." Jack watched intently as Tim cut open the package, leaning so close at one point that Tim put a foot on him and gently pushed him back. "There you go," Tim said, gathering up the freed toys and holding them out to his little brother.

Instead of grabbing them all out of his hands, Jack started to divvy them up. "Piggy for Timmy," he said, putting the spinner ring on the desk, "piggy for Jackie." The spiral bracelet went into his pocket. "Piggy for Timmy, piggy for Jackie," he said again, setting the infinite rings on Tim's pile and keeping the flower-shaped chewable pendant for himself.

"Fidget," Tim corrected. "It's not 'piggy,' it's 'fidget.' "

"Piggy," Jack agreed. "Piggy for Timmy, piggy for Jackie!" He finished splitting the toys and beamed up at his older self.

"...Jack, these are all your toys. I don't need them like you do."

"No! Piggy make 'gwaah' bain be quiet!"

"I'm- I'm not anxious, I'm just frustrated. I don't need..."

"Hey! Timmy!" Jack pushed the cat-shaped squish toy into Tim's hand. "Pulllll!" he instructed, spreading his arms wide to demonstrate.

Tim stared at the cat toy for a minute, then gritted his teeth and dug his fingernails in, dragging his hands apart. The squishy material stretched wide, but as soon as he let go of one end, the toy popped back into its original shape, none the worse for wear.

"Haha! It's funny," Jack laughed.

Tim silently yanked at the toy for a while, anger seeming to bleed away through his fingertips as the toy's smile remained cheerful and nonjudgmental no matter what abuse he put it through. He finally sat back with a long sigh, feeling drained but in a good, more relaxed way.

Jack climbed into his lap and took hold of his head. "Timmy's bain, be good," he lectured Tim's forehead. "Do not go 'gwahgwahgwah' or you hurt him! Be good, okay? Good Timmy." He let go and smiled. "Better now?"

"...Yeah," Tim said softly. He put his arms around his baby brother and squeezed gently, holding him for a while. Jack snuggled into him, absently sucking on the 'Kryptonite'-shaped chew fidget he'd already been wearing. "You gonna go to bed now?" Tim finally murmured.

"Timmy go to bed?"

"Maybe...in another hour or so..." Tim set Jack on the bed and returned to his work. He temporarily gave up on the coding project, figuring he'd have an easier time tackling it after he'd had some sleep. He emailed his secretary about prep work for the two less-important meetings because it was honestly stuff she could handle, and put together a quick presentation for the more important one. He forwarded most of the case alerts to the Bats' shared drive, figuring someone would have more time than he would to make progress, and took care of the two most time-sensitive alerts.

By then, it was three in the morning, Jack had long ago fallen asleep again, and Tim was done with everything that couldn't wait. He crawled into bed and threw an arm around his little brother, falling asleep more quickly than usual because of how soothing it was to feel Jack's warm weight and hear his steady breathing. ...The absent rubbing at the spinner ring on his finger might have had something to do with it, too.

If anyone at WE the next day noticed the tiny cat face peeking out of Mr. Drake-Wayne's pocket or the whisper-soft, steady clinking sounds coming from under the meeting room table, no one said a thing.