*PLEASE READ THIS STORY ON AO3
There's Something For Everyone at the Public Library: All We Want For Christmas Is You
(rough draft)
A Batman fanfic by Raberba girl
Summary: Tim's first Christmas with the Wayne family. Sequel to his installment of the main story.
Part 1
Dick was excited, because Timmy was finally coming. After hearing Bruce talk about him for so long, after seeing all the pictures (because Bruce was a creeper who liked to watch people when they didn't know he was), he was FINALLY going to get to see the baby in person. Jason was a good younger brother, but Tim would be their little brother, which was gonna be awesome.
"One dollar he'll like my cookies better than yours."
Dick was tired of betting with his money-obsessed brother (Jason actually liked helping Uncle Alfred make the monthly budget and calculate coupons, he was crazy!). "You know he's gonna like Uncle Alfred's best."
Jason pouted. "That doesn't count."
"Come on, Jay, let's go get some movies ready."
Ten minutes later, Dick heard the car in the driveway. He ran to the door, and his first glimpse of Tim was amazing. He was so tiny, like a walking coat with one itty bitty hand clinging to Bruce's and only his little face peeking out from under his hat. "Squeeeeeeee!" He glanced back to yell for Jason, and they ran to grab their baby brother and bring him in from the cold.
The front hall was a great bustle of activity. Dick grabbed the child's backpack so he could toss it aside and get Tim's coat off, but Jason yelled, "Don't steal his stuff, D(d)ick!" and grabbed it back.
"I wasn't stealing it, I was just getting it out of the way," Dick huffed, moving to work on the buttons of Tim's coat.
"It's going to be right here, okay?" Jason assured the child, taking great care to place Tim's backpack where he could still see it.
"Are you cold, Timmy?" Dick asked as he tugged the coat off. "You're shivering. Don't worry, we can cuddle under a blanket and you'll warm up quick."
"Why would he want to cuddle with your stinky butt?" Jason teased, helping with Tim's hat and gloves.
"Hey, I showered! Sit down so I can get your boots off, Timmy."
"You showered today, or last week?"
"You heard Uncle Alfred telling- AAHH!"
Tim flinched and Jason jumped. "What the hell, Dick?! HECK, what the heck, I said heck!"
"His FEET! Feel his sad little baby feet!" Dick demanded, pointing dramatically.
Tim looked like he was about to cry, but he kept his feet still for Jason to gently squeeze them. "Holy cheese balls, they're ice cubes."
"To the nest!" Dick declared. He grabbed Tim under the arms and lifted him up, carrying him like a toddler would a longsuffering cat. Jason ran around grabbing blankets, and they bundled Tim onto the couch. "This one's really soft and fluffy," Dick said, tucking the edge of a blanket under the smaller boy's chin. Jason was carefully sitting on the child's feet so he could warm them without squishing them.
"Do you want to watch Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer?" Dick asked. "Or something else? We've got lots of movies! Oohh, and we've got snacks, too! What's your favorite, Timmy?"
Tim opened his mouth and appeared to be trying to answer the question. Instead, he burst into tears.
"WHADJA DO TA 'IM, DICK?!" Jason screeched.
"Nothing!" Dick cried, aghast.
"I'm sorry!" Tim sobbed. "I'm sorry!"
The older boys stared in bewilderment.
Bruce eased down on the couch. Tim scrambled around to hide his face against Bruce's shirt, and Bruce rested a hand on the little boy's head. "Boys," Bruce said to his sons, "Tim's had a trying day, and he might be very tired and wrung out. Let's give him some time to rest and process, all right?"
"Aww, Timmy, I'm sorry," Dick said earnestly, contorting half off the couch in a failed attempt to meet the smaller boy's eyes.
Jason slapped his leg, not maliciously, but firm. "Leave him alone."
"I'm just trying to apologize!"
"I'm sorry!" Tim wailed.
"I meant me apologize to you!"
"Seriously, leave him alone," Jason growled.
Dick looked at Bruce, hurt.
"Why don't you pick a movie, Dickie," Bruce said. "No one's angry at you, we're all just tired and worried."
"Jay can pick the movie," Dick said, climbing onto the other side of the couch to drape himself over his father.
Bruce comforted both boys as Jason messed with the video player and then sat back to watch. Alfred soon came in to set a platter of snacks on the coffee table and then settle in an armchair with a book.
It was quiet for a long time, except for the sounds of the movie and Tim's attempts to suppress his tears even though Bruce assured him he could cry. Jason courteously ignored the upset child, and Dick stole longing glances at Tim but didn't try to speak to him again.
The boy gradually quieted, until Dick suddenly sat up and exclaimed, "Is he asleep?!"
"Ssshh," Bruce murmured. "I'll take him to bed." It had already been decided that Dick, who least minded being relocated, would sleep with Bruce that night so that Tim could have his bed.
"But we didn't get to play with him at all!"
"Dickie, Tim is under a lot of stress. He was all by himself when I came to his house, there wasn't even a babysitter. He wasn't sure if his parents would even call him on Christnas, or if I would come to pick him up like I'd said I would. He's been terrified of meeting you two because he thinks he'll make a mistake or disappoint you and you won't like him, and the first thing he does when he gets here is cry and ruin all your plans."
"But-!"
"That's what he thinks."
"Treat him like a beat-up stray cat, Dick," Jason said.
"Aw." Dick reached to stroke Tim's hair so softly that the child did not even stir.
"I'm hoping to be able to foster him," Bruce said. "Even if it doesn't work out, I'm sure we can arrange play dates. You'll get another chance."
"Sleep sweet, Timmy," Dick murmured. "Santa will come by the time you wake up, okay?"
o.o.o.o.o
Tim opened his eyes and panicked when he had no idea where he was. This wasn't his bed, the bedroom was so small, none of the furniture or toys or books were-
Then he remembered. Mr. Bruce had come. He'd gone to Mr. Bruce's house and he thought he'd be kicked out for acting like a stupid baby in front of Dick and Jason, but...he must still be here. They'd put him to bed when he fell asleep, maybe because it was too much of an inconvenience to drive all the way to Bristol in the middle of the night. They would take him back home first thing in the morning.
Maybe Mother and Father had left a message on the answering machine. They probably hadn't, but he really, really hoped they had. He really wanted to hear their voices. If he'd been good, he could have heard their voics when they called, but he'd been bad and sneaked out with Mr. Bruce, and then he'd been an idiot and made Dick and Jason mad at him, so he'd failed at everything.
'I'm really bad at Christmas,' he thought sadly.
He should stay here until someone came to tell him what to do, but it was still hours before morning and he wasn't sleepy at all. He was hungry, too... And- And this wasn't a guest room, this was someone's room, it was his fault Dick or Jason weren't able to sleep in their own room...!
Horrified, Tim scrambled out of bed. He had to get out of here, go home before anyone saw him and got mad at him for messing everything up and causing so much trouble. He could take the bus... He knew the number for customer service, he just had to find a phone and call customer service and they would tell him what buses to ride from Mr. Bruce's house to home.
He would need money for the fare, though... He would have to steal it from Mr. Bruce. The thought made him want to cry, but if he could leave before anyone saw him, he could get home and take some money from Father's secret stash and then he could put it in the book drop at the library, when it was still closed and no one would be around to see him. He wouldn't ever be able to see Mr. Bruce again, but he could give back the money and never bother Dick and Jason again.
He needed to find the house number, though. He had seen the street sign when the secret policeman drove him here, but he'd been worrying about meeting Dick and Jason and too stupid to look for the house number. It was easy, though, he just had to step outside, and it would be on the house or on the sidewalk. Besides that, all he had to do was steal the money and call customer service.
o.o.o.o.o
Jason woke up when he heard a noise. He tried so hard to stay in bed, because all the stupid noises in this house were always acorns falling on the roof or the ice cube maker in the kitchen or Dad or Dick getting up to pee or something, not strangers breaking in.
But it always nade him nervous, and tonight there was Tim to worry about, too - a few times at his old apartment, Jason had found crying children wandering the halls (one girl had woken up alone and confused and scared while her mother was out working; one boy had escaped when his kidnapper fell asleep after hurting him but was too dumb to know what to do next). If Tim woke up in a stranger's house in the middle of the night, he might be scared and wander around.
Jason got out of bed. Everything was fine upstairs, but downstairs, the first thing he saw was little Tim backed up against the front door like he was cornered in an alley. He stared at Jason with a deer-in-headlights look.
"You okay, Tim?"
"I don't know the security code," the kid squeaked, glancing up briefly at the red light on the panel.
"Why d'ya need to know the code?"
"So I can..." Tim trailed off and just stared at him.
'He's as jumpy as an alley brat. I thought he was supposed to be rich.' Out loud, Jason asked, "You hungry?"
Tim didn't answer. Then his stomach growled and he looked mortified.
"Come on." Jason held out his hand. After a moment, Tim put his into it. The smaller hand was shaking, so Jason squeezed it reassuringly. "You're safe here, Timmy. I won't let anyone hurtcha."
"You're very kind," Tim whispered.
They went to the kitchen and Jason made them both sandwiches. When he set a plate in front of Tim, he realized the little boy was too short to reach his sandwich comfortably.
"Hold on, I'll getcha a phone book to sit on."
Once Tim was situated, the boys ate their sandwiches in silence for a while. After about five minutes, Jason noticed that Tim was looking more and more anxious. "What's wrong?"
"Wh-What do you do?" Tim burst out desperately.
"Do?"
"For...work..." Tim suddenly brightened. "School! What school, which school do you go to?!" He sagged slightly in relief.
"Uh...Gotham Academy."
"Oh, really?" Tim said in a polite, detached tone that made Jason want to hit him.
'You can't hit him, he's six,' Jason told himself firmly. It was just that Tim sounded so much like those horrible stuck-up rich guys who always talked trash about poor people, and like the snobby kids who made Jason's life hell at school. "You got a problem with what school I go to?"
"No!" Tim yelped, and now the lost puppy Jason wanted to protect was back. "I just-! I..."
"What school do you go to?"
"I am progressing through the Brightstar Academy's online curriculum," Tim said in a reciting sort of way.
"What the heck, you don't go to school?"
"I mean...I do lessons on the computer. I thought that was school..."
"Wait, so you read and study and stuff, but you don't have to GO to school?! I want in! Brightstar Academy, you said?"
"Yes," Tim said cautiously.
"Don't tell Bruce or Uncke Alfred, I gotta play my cards right for this!"
"All right...?"
Jason finished his fourth sandwich. Tim's plate was empty; he had not reached for another after he'd finished his first one. "Are you still hungry?"
"No, I'm full. Thank you for making sandwiches, they were delicious."
"They were actually delicious, or are you just being polite?"
Tim got the deer-in-headlights look again.
"Sheesh, they're not that bad," Jason pouted.
"They weren't bad at all! They were good, just not...good enough to be 'delicious.'" Tim swallowed and then whispered miserably, "I apologize for lying to you."
"Geez, it not a big deal, I was kind of teasing you." Jason hadn't expected the child to take it so seriously. "So you wanna go back to bed now, or you wanna play?"
"I thought...I thought I was supposed to go home."
"At two in the morning?!"
"No one has to get out of bed, I'm going to take the bus as soon as I find the house number."
"You wanna take the BUS home?!"
"So that...Mr. Bruce doesn't have to drive me...?"
"Wow. I thought you were supposed to be smart."
Tim flinched.
"I didn't mean you're dumb! I just- Dude. We want you here. And even if we didn't, Dad would never make you take the bus all by yourself. Okay?"
Tim looked like he did not know what to say to this.
"Come on, I'll show you my Mario game." He led Tim to the living room and unwound the video game controllers.
They were on their third race when Dick came downstairs. "Ah! I thought it was Santa, but this is even better!" He swooped to give Tim a bear hug.
"Dick, you're making him lose!" Jason yelled.
"It's okay," Tim said immediately.
"Santa's not even real."
"He is so!"
"You didn't even have Santa on the commune!"
"That's because Bruce and Uncle Alfred weren't there!"
"You think Dad and Uncle Alfred are Santa?!"
"Duh."
Tim frowned in confusion. "Santa Claus is folklore."
Dick gently tapped his nose. "Santa Claus is getting presents on Christmas morning from people who love you."
"Santa Claus is an a-mal-ga-mation of Saint Nicholas, Father Christmas, and Sinterklaas. People used to give children gifts on December 6th for Saint Nicholas Day, and they still do in some places, but now it's the 25th because when Henry VIII was-" Tim stopped and turned red when he realized the other boys were staring at him.
"You know what, forget Santa," Jason said. "Let's play Monopoly."
"Noooo, that game takes foreveeeerrrr!" Dick whined.
They ended up playing, though, because Tim looked like he wanted to even though he refused to say he did. Jason sweetened the deal by saying Dick could have a cookie whenever (and only whenever) another player landed on one of his properties.
"Timmy, why don't you use your Get Out of Jail Free card?!" Dick exclaimed after they'd been playing for a while.
"Because you and Jason own too much property over there, I don't want to land on them!"
"Sound strategy," a deep adult voice remarked above the boys' heads.
Tim startled so badly that he knocked the gameboard halfway off the coffee table; player and property pieces went flying. Tim stared at the wreckage, aghast, then choked out half an apology before fleeing upstairs.
"DAM-! DANG IT, DAD, WE JUST GOT HIM TO CHILL A LITTLE BIT!" Jason shrieked.
Bruce sighed and rubbed at his face. "I'll go talk to him."
Upstairs, he found Tim in Dick's room, curled over his backpack and sobbing into it. As soon as Tim saw Bruce, he hurried to zip up the bag. "I'm s-sorry, I'll, I'm ready to, I j-just have to get my b-oots...!"
"Everything's okay, Tim. It was just a game, no one is angry at you." He picked up the little boy and carried him back downstairs, sitting down on the couch to cradle him in his arms.
Dick crawled to snuggle beside them and pet Tim's hair. "It's okay, Timmy, I was bored, anyway. Thanks for saving me!"
"You're just saying that because you were losing so hard," Jason said, coming in with two mugs of hot chocolate. He carefully set them on the table, then lightly slapped his brother's hand when Dick reached for one. "Don't touch Tim's."
"There's two of them!"
"The other one's Dad's."
"Where's mine?!"
Jason finally smiled a little. "In the kitchen with mine. I only have two hands, dummy, and I'm not Uncle Alfred, I'd drop a tray."
"Bring a straw for Tim's," Bruce suggested. Jason nodded, seeing that the younger boy was still crying and wouldn't be able to sip steadily from a mug.
The four of them sat quietly for a while, except for Tim's tearful attempts to apologize and Bruce's gentle shushing.
Then Jason, gazing out the window, started singing slowly. "[*censored because FFN is stupid*]..."
Bruce joined in, and his deep, rich voice seemed to cover Tim's distress like a blanket. The little boy rested against his chest, and Dick's cheerful voice chimed in with the song. "[*censored because FFN is stupid*]"
When the song ended, there was a long pause. Then Tim said in a clear, weary voice, "I'm tired of getting things wrong."
"Do you know what happened the day after I came here?" Dick said conversationally. "I climbed up on the roof."
Bruce groaned in remembrance.
"Bruce was so mad, he-"
"I wasn't angry, I was deeply concerned."
"Yeah, well, Mr. Deeply Concerned here yelled at me until I came down, then yelled at me more because I jumped to the tree and climbed down before he could get a ladder. Then he gave me a lecture on safety-" The eyeroll was clear in his voice. "-and hugged me and then it was over. Bruce doesn't stay mad, or deeply concerned, for long."
"They don't like it when I cuss," Jason volunteered, "even though saying things like 'Holy cheese balls' and 'Frick' is dumb."
"I like 'Holy cheese balls,' it's fun."
"Because you actually mean 'cheese balls' instead of s-h-i-t. Anyway, they think cussing is wrong and make me put money in the swear jar all the time-"
"You've put a grand total of $1.25 in the swear jar during the past six months," Bruce pointed out.
"-ALL THE TIME, because they think it's wrong. They think it's a punishment, which is hilarious because where I come from, punishment means grabbing a belt and beating your kid with it 'til your arm's too tired to swing anymore."
"That's child abuse," Tim whispered.
"Whatever. Point is, all of us screw up, and if we got kicked out for doing things wrong, there'd be no one in this house anymore except Uncle Alfred. And no one's gonna hit you when you do screw up, and..." Jason squirmed a little. "An' they still love ya even when you screw up, even when they're mad, they still...don't hate you."
Bruce, still holding Tim in one arm, reached to tug Jason closer, and felt the boy relax. "That's right. I will love Jason and Dick forever, no matter what they do or don't do. We all care very much about you, too, Timothy, no matter what you do or don't do. Your place here and our respect for you do not depend on how well you perform."
"...I'm sorry for messing up your game," Tim mumbled into Bruce's chest.
"It's okay," Dick said, petting him.
"And falling asleep during the movie..."
"It's okay."
"And...Mr. Bruce..." Looking utterly miserable, Tim sat up and fished a handful of coins out of his pocket, cupping them in his hands, his head hanging. "I stole your money. To take the bus. But Jason caught me before I could leave, and then I couldn't put it back because they were watching, and...I stole it."
Jason barked out a laugh, sounding surprised but genuinely amused. Bruce made no move to take the money. "That's okay, too."
"It can be your first allowance!" Dick said.
"That's what Bruce told me when he caught me stealing money, my first week here," Jason said, having the grace to look sheepish. "Then I got so guilty I didn't even want it anymore, but he wouldn't take it back. I had to donate it to Dr. Leslie's clinic before it stopped bothering me."
Tim, looking more uncomfortable the longer no one made any move to take the money from him, finally leaned to place the pile of coins on the coffee table. After a long moment, he eyed Jason, then Dick, then Bruce.
"We like you even if you're bad," Dick assured him. "I still think you're good, though."
"...Mr. Bruce said you like to watch movies when you go to bed on Christmas Eve," Tim finally suggested tentatively.
"Yeah! Stay here and watch with us, Timmy, it's okay if you fall asleep again!"
"That's kind of the point," Jason added.
The boys made nests for themselves and settled in with snacks and the original How the Grinch Stole Christmas! Bruce kissed them goodnight and retreated, not wanting to intrude on their sibling time but also not quite comfortable going up to bed. He settled in his study to work and read.
When he heard the disc's menu screen looping, he went to check on the boys and found all three of them fast asleep. He turned off the TV, laid another blanket over Jason, gently worked a half-eaten candy cane out of Dick's hand, and stood for a long time gazing down at Tim, who was curled up tight in his blanket nest and looked troubled even when asleep. Bruce finally turned out the last lamp and went away.
TBC
A/N: This was supposed to be a one-shot, but I've been having so much trouble writing the second half of it that I missed the Christmas deadline, and just when I thought I was nearing the end, Jason suddenly threw a tantrum and now I have a lot more stuff to write to get everyone happy again. *facepalm* So I decided to split this into two parts and at least post the first part today!
Even though buses in New York City run later than they do in my hometown, they still don't run all night, and customer service isn't available all night, either. Tim doesn't know that because he's never tried to ride a bus so late.