Little Bird's Vengeance Chapter 11 Early Mornings

As was perfectly normal on patrol nights, the day had ended sometime around three in the morning. What was less common was for the night to be spent talking. Tim had managed to keep the Avengers from asking him questions by the simple ploy of asking Tony how he'd become Iron Man. He was fairly sure the two SHIELD agents had worked out his new tactic of using Tony's verbose nature to prevent anyone getting a question for him in edgeways.

Not that there was anything they could do about it.

By midnight, he'd heard the stories of Tony's clashes with the Ten Rings, Stane, Vanko, Hammer, Loki and the Chitauri. Then the exuberant industrialist had gone on to outline the origins of Captain America and the Hulk. It seemed that that was the point where everyone else decided to just go along with story-time. Tim ended up with a lot more data than he thought he would, even if Clint Barton and Tasha Romanov were somewhat cagey about how they'd come to work for SHIELD. Thor, Steve and Dr Banner had been willing enough to share their side of the various stories.

But there was one downside to all the war stories; the unpleasant memories…

Memories manifesting as nightmares, nightmares of blood and loss and pain.

It was not the first time Tim had slept little. Usually, he'd immerse himself in work after he woke up, but he didn't have any. He debated the merits of sneaking out and patrolling New York; get some fresh air, bit of exercise, a feel for the city. But he'd given his word not to slip away from the SHIELD agents. Considering he could be stuck in this world for quite some time, antagonizing the locals wasn't necessarily the best idea.

He sighed, rolled out of bed and reached for his suit. "JARVIS?" he asked to the air.

"Yes, Red Robin, sir?" the presence-less voice said.

"Are Agents Barton or Romanov, or Captain Rogers, awake at the moment?"

"Yes, sir. Captain Rogers woke some ten minutes ago."

"Is there a communications channel I can use to speak to him?"

"Indeed, sir. Connecting you now."

"Hello?" came Captain Rogers' voice.

"Captain? Red Robin. I, uh, couldn't sleep, and your Director Fury doesn't want me wandering around unsupervised…"

"I'll be over in a few minutes," the Captain said.

"Thanks."

He finished dressing, took his pills and waited. In only a short time, a knock on the door announced Rogers' arrival. Tim opened the door, seeing him in exercise clothes and looking newly awoken. "Sorry to disturb you so early," he told him sheepishly.

"I usually get up around now anyway," he shrugged. "Normally I'd have a workout before breakfast."

"Mind if I join you?"

"Sure, if you want. Or how about a spar, if there's two of us?"

Tim grinned. "That sounds wonderful."

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Captain Rogers was strong, and fast. His fighting style made use of that, pushing to land hard, swift blows. But he'd never needed to learn the advanced martial arts Tim and his people relied on. Adapting Dick's particular habit of flips and vaults to staff-combat suited Tim very well against him.

Rogers would probably win in a prolonged fight, he was a meta with increased speed, strength, stamina, but he called a halt after Tim over-extended and pulled his strained shoulder.

"Tony told me you hurt that," he said. "Shouldn't you be more careful with it?"

"Tony can't keep his mouth shut," Tim grumbled. "It's fine; I've fought with worse. It's just a matter of compensation."

"Uh-huh," Rogers said, unimpressed. "And…you're sweating quite a lot, breathing really quite heavily, and you do seem rather flushed."

Tim sat back against the gym wall, scowling. "Yeah, fine, alright," he grumbled. "I guess I'm not quite at my best yet."

Rogers grabbed two bottles of water from a cabinet, and sat down next to him. "It's a very interesting fighting style," he said. "Never seen anything like it."

"Try sparring with Agent Romanov," Tim suggested. "I think she's got a fairly active style. You could do with more experience in complex martial arts."

"You think?"

"Your preferred style is boxing, right?" Rogers nodded, so Tim continued. "That works very well against people of equal or less strength than you, and because your serum stuff made you fast and strong, it's a good style for you. But when I was starting out, pretty much everyone I was up against was stronger, and a lot were faster, too. So my style's much more versatile."

Rogers looked curious. "Do you always use so many flips?"

Tim shrugged. "Yes and no. That's closer to the style favoured by Nightwing- he's kind of like my older brother," he explained. "I imitate his style when fighting our mentor, who's a lot more grounded, more like you. But I use his style when sparring with Nightwing."

Rogers stared at him. "It feels really wrong to be talking to a kid about comparative fighting styles," he said at last.

"It's my life, almost literally," Tim replied. "If I don't know how best to fight anyone I come up against, I'm in trouble."

"You certainly worked out the best way to fight me."

"Not necessarily. I'm not entirely sure what the best way to get round that shield is." Rogers looked sceptical. "Seriously, you'd have won fair and square if we'd kept going. I'd have got sneaky if I wanted to win."

"If you say so. Who are those other people you mentioned; Nightwing and your mentor?" Rogers asked casually- too casually.

Tim raised an eyebrow. "That sounds like a question your Director Fury would be asking. How about we wait until he does?"

"You're going to insist, aren't you?" Rogers asked, sighing.

"Yes, actually, I am. I like to keep a lid on sensitive information." Tim was acting very serious, then completely ruined the effect by sneezing loudly.

Rogers looked startled, then concerned. "I forgot you're still sick," he exclaimed. "You should probably go back to bed after breakfast."

"Breakfast sounds great," Tim said, slowly standing up, and feeling unaccountably woozy. "But no bed."

"What? Why?" Rogers asked, standing out as Tim started towards the kitchen. "You need rest."

"Can't sleep. Said so earlier, remember?"

"Why can't you sleep?"

Tim shivered involuntarily at the memory, hoping Rogers would pass it off as a momentary chill. But no such luck.

"You have nightmares, don't you?"

Tim looked side-long at him. "You're a soldier, you know how it is," he answered shortly.

"Yeah. The roar of guns, people dying, fighting. Memories. Fears of what may have been."

"Blood everywhere. Bodies piled up. Powerless. Laughter…"

"Laughter?"

Tim shivered again. "You wouldn't get it, Captain."

"Call me Steve."

He chuckled. "Sure. I'll answer to either Red or Robin, whatever makes you comfortable."

Steve smiled. "Alright. Can we think of something less morbid to talk about?"

AN: The usual, guys, please review, etc. A few of you had been asking for a sparring scene, honestly can't remember if I was planning this before or after. But, hey, here it is.

New chapter next week. See you then.

Katara