Patchwork Siblings, a Batman fanfic by Raberba girl
Chapter 5 - Plus a Zombie [rough draft]
The night that everything changes (yet again), it starts normally enough. Tim gets home from school, takes a nap, and does his homework while eating dinner. He and Talon get ready and leave the house. Talon passes well enough as a normal-ish human that they're able to take the bus together now. (Tim's next goal is teaching Talon how to drive.) Once they reach the city, they slip into an alley so that no one will see Talon scooping up Tim and scampering up the side of a building with him.
They camp out there for a while, Talon drawing one of his endearingly childish pictures as Tim digitally hunts down the Bats. Once he's narrowed down a likely location, they head back to street level, catch a rideshare (so much easier now that Tim has an accompanying adult), then continue tracking their prey on foot.
"There," Talon says softly. He's clinging to a windowsill and wall with nothing but his fingers and toes, Tim hanging onto his back. Tim peers over his shoulder into the warehouse. The place is dark but filled with humming equipment; he can just about make out Batman, pacing slowly through the room, inspecting things with a flashlight.
"It's Batman," Tim murmurs back in acknowledgment. "Do your fingers hurt? Is your body stressed?" He's pretty sure that he's figured out Talon's limits by now, but he wants to make sure. Talon is bad about speaking up if he's in pain or discomfort.
"No. I'm very strong, little buddy."
Tim hides a smile and keeps watching. Batman keeps investigating for several more minutes, then is ambushed by minions. As the fight moves around the warehouse, Talon deftly swings from window to window, keeping Batman in sight. Tim grabs what photos he can, though the distance, bad lighting, and constantly moving subjects make it difficult to get any decent shots.
Batman eventually takes out all his attackers, stands still for a moment with a hand to his cowl, then lurches out of the building. Talon keeps up with him until he takes off in the Batmobile, at which point they start over again.
"Let's grab a snack while I look," Tim suggests. They emerge onto a busy street and walk down it hand in hand, trying to look like a father and son or brothers on really good terms or something. (Talon likes to hold Tim's hand, and Tim finds it pleasant enough that he can't bring himself to refuse even though he sometimes worries about it being weird.) They buy snacks at a convenience store and then sit on the edge of a fountain to eat them, Talon keeping watch and Tim tapping at his phone. It's really, really nice to have backup so that he doesn't have to either hide while he searches or be tense the whole time for fear that he makes a tempting target.
A police officer stops by them at one point. Tim glances up, pretending to be casual, and continues holding the phone in one hand as he uses the other to subtly tap a code on Talon's back that means "Don't overreact, we'll be safe if you stay chill."
"Evening," the officer says.
"It is evening," Talon agrees cheerfully. Tim rolls his eyes as if Talon meant it as a joke.
"You two heading home?"
"Why?" Tim jumps in, sarcastically enough to sound unbothered but not enough to sound like he's picking a fight. "Is it illegal to sit on fountains or something?"
"No, but just wanted to let you kids know that Bats was sighted in the area, fighting some costumes. Be safer to leave this part of town, or go home if you live around here."
"I keep Tim safe," Talon announces. "He's my treasure. Like Andy is Woody's treasure." They watched the Toy Story movies recently.
"He's got a condition," Tim says quickly. That sometimes makes people stop giving Talon dubious looks whenever he says something odd. "Stop looking at him like that."
The officer raises his hands in a conciliatory way. "That's fine. Just be careful, folks." He continues on. A patrol car with its lights flashing but no siren pulls up to the curb; the window lowers, and the driver exchanges a few words with the officer. The car pulls back into the road and speeds up again, heading toward the warehouse where Batman was, and the officer on foot continues walking, pausing to warn other pedestrians away from the area.
Once he's far enough away, Tim tugs Talon to his feet. "Okay, no mention of B, but the other clues point to the warehouse being Penguin's. If we stake out the Lounge, B might show up there eventually."
They never make it to the Iceberg Lounge. They're taking a shortcut through an alley when they hear someone being threatened by what sounds like a mugger. Tim freezes and flattens himself against the wall, Talon instantly following his lead. They creep closer until they can see what's happening. Three people with knives loom threateningly over a single victim, probably a minor. Maybe a runaway. Tim opens his mouth to order Talon to take out the muggers, but before he can speak, the teenager is suddenly in motion.
A kick, beautifully precise. A punch and a throat strike, in such quick succession that Tim is barely able to parse the moves. Then all three muggers are groaning on the ground, and the teenager who put them there with such ease and speed turns away and slowly shuffles off without a word.
Tim shuts his gaping mouth and hurries after him. He keeps pace diffidently, and out of striking range. "Hi," he squeaks. There's no response. "Um...that was amazing. I'm Tim."
The teenager gives no sign that he's even aware of Tim's presence. Tim swallows and is on the verge of just leaving, but...there's something wrong with the way the teen's moving. Tim glances at Talon, who's following close behind them, then very carefully reaches out for the teen.
When grasped, the older boy halts. He still doesn't acknowledge Tim, but he doesn't resist or react violently to the hold on his arm, either. "Are you okay?" Tim asks. No answer. Tim looks over the other boy under a streetlight. Something is...off. The boy is barefoot, feet filthy and callused; his fingers are badly scarred and noticeably crooked; a couple of his limbs don't seem quite straight, and his eyes are completely vacant. He also seems weirdly familiar, but Tim can't quite place him.
"Um...what do you think about...maybe going to see a doctor?" Tim suggests warily. There's still no response, so he calls a rideshare. While they wait, Tim takes a photo and feeds it into some facial recognition software.
The teen gets into the car without protest. By the end of the ride, his photo has been identified as matching that of Jason Todd, Bruce Wayne's dead son.
Tim stares at his phone. Then he stares at the teenager (Jason?) sitting next to him. Then he looks to his other side and stares at Talon for good measure.
Talon reaches to gently tap him on the nose. "Boop."
"Oh my gosh," Tim says, and changes the rideshare destination.
Instead of paying to go all the way to Wayne Manor, he directs them to the usual bus stop in Bristol so that he has time to make a phone call and prepare Mr. Wayne for what's about to happen.
"Hello?" says a voice on the other end of the line.
"Hi, Mr. Pennyworth?" Tim says, trudging along the road with Jason's hand grasped in his free one and Talon wheeling his bike along on the other side.
"Ahf," Jason says. Tim squeezes his hand a little to soothe him.
"May I ask who's calling?" Mr. Pennyworth asks.
"I- Uh, well, I need to speak to Mr. Wayne."
"I'm afraid he'll be out of town for at least a few days. May I take a message?"
Tim frowns. He just saw Batman an hour or two ago. "He's out of town?"
"Yes. I'm afraid you just missed him. May I ask what this is regarding?"
"Just a moment please." Tim lowers the phone and taps at it as quickly as he can with only one hand. The first thing that blares across his news feed is a notification about an attack on Atlantis; there's some huge sea battle raging near New England at this very moment. The Justice League has been deployed. There's aerial footage of, among other things, Batman riding a shark (which would be super cool if Tim didn't have much more important things to preoccupy him at the moment).
Tim returns to his call. "Well - what about you, then? Can I come talk to you?"
There's a pause. "How old are you, young man?"
Tim loses his composure. "Look, this is really important! If I can't talk to Mr. Wayne then I have to talk to you, I'll climb over the fence if I have to-"
There's a deep sigh. "It will do you no good. There is no one home at the moment, though I assure you, the manor is still well-guarded against intruders."
Tim blinks. Mr. Pennyworth must have set up calls to the landline to be redirected to his cell phone, which he probably wouldn't have bothered to do if he planned on returning soon. Maybe he wanted to be there to help Batman after the battle. "I...I guess I'll...wait until you get home, then. Um...goodbye." He hangs up.
"Bruce," Jason says suddenly.
"Bruce? Bruce Wayne?"
"Bruce."
"Yeah. Um, I wanted to take you home to him, but it looks like he's...gonna be out of town for a while, Jason. We'll have to wait," Tim says helplessly.
Jason says nothing, staring off into the distance as he trudges beside Tim.
"Um, this is my friend, Talon. Talon, this is Jason."
"Hello, Jason," Talon says. Jason doesn't reply. "Is he a Talon?" Talon asks.
"What? No. He's - sick, I think."
"Am I sick?"
"No," Tim says, getting a little confused. "Are you?"
"Talons don't get sick."
"So why'd you-?" Tim slaps a palm over his face. "Look, let's just get Jason home for now and figure out what to do with him later."
"Bruce," Jason says.
"Later," Tim repeats. "Bruce later, okay? Jason?"
Jason pats his own stomach.
"Are you hungry? I'll get you some food as soon as we get to the house, okay?"
"Bruce."
"Bruce later."
o.o.o
They get back to Drake Manor. Tim makes a sandwich, which takes Jason almost an hour to eat. Tim soon gets bored and does research on his laptop, but Talon watches Jason in apparent fascination the entire time.
Once the sandwich has been consumed, Tim coaxes Jason upstairs. "No offense, but you kind of need a bath. Actually, you really need a bath."
Jason doesn't react until after the tub fills with warm water and Tim tugs hesitantly at his clothes. Then Jason suddenly strips naked (Tim uncomfortably averts his eyes) but continues clutching the red hoodie in his hands. He stands there as if waiting. Talon watches curiously from the doorway.
"Okay, so," Tim says awkwardly, "if you could just...sit in...just step in..." It takes some wrangling, but he eventually gets Jason sitting in the tub. He tries poking a shampoo bottle at the older teen, but Jason just sits there, clutching the now-sodden hoodie and very gently splashing it in the water. Tim finally resigns himself and starts shampooing Jason's hair.
"You're cleaning the Jason," Talon remarks.
"Just Jason. Yeah, I'm- He has to get clean, and he's not doing it himself, so..."
"You're using your own hands. Why don't you make servants clean him?"
Tim blinks in confusion. "I don't have any servants...?"
Talon cocks his head. He's the one who now looks confused. "You have me."
Tim is horrified. "You're not a servant!"
"...Are you my servant?"
"No!"
"I didn't think so, but I asked because I'm confused."
Tim huffs out a breath and reaches for the shower head so he can rinse out Jason's hair. "I don't have any servants. You're not a servant, you're my...friend. I'm not going to make you do something just because I don't want to do it. That's not your job."
"Friend," Talon whispers. Then, louder, "What is my job?"
Tim pauses. He's almost certain that Talon is glad to not be an assassin anymore, but he's still not really sure how Talon will react to realizing that Tim isn't an Owl and that Talon doesn't have to waste anymore of his time with Tim. "What do you want your job to be?"
"Protecting you," Talon says promptly.
Tim relaxes. "Well, you're already doing that. Good job."
Talon's eyes brighten, and he actually smiles, a small, almost hidden thing. "I'm doing a good job. And you're doing a good job of washing the Jason."
"Thanks," Tim says dryly. "Just Jason."
Jason clumsily lifts up the hoodie. "Mine."
"That's fine," Tim says, "but we have to dry it before you can wear it again."
Once Jason is clean, Tim dries him off, gets him dressed, and wrings the excess water out of the hoodie while Jason insistently holds onto the end of it. Then Tim leads him down to the laundry room and wrestles the garment out of his hands to put in the dryer.
Jason cries when he loses his grip on the hoodie. Talon, unprompted, puts his arms around Jason, and sits there holding him during the entire dryer cycle. At the end, the dryer makes a loud beep, causing Jason to jump and Talon to tense. Tim sets aside his laptop and pulls the hoodie out, helping Jason put it on. Jason sniffles and rubs his face against the warm fabric.
"See? It's nice and clean now," Tim says. "Well...it's dry, anyway." He didn't actually have a chance to wash the hoodie properly, but it did come into contact with soap and water in the bathtub. "Can we please go to bed now? I didn't think we'd be up this late."
He doesn't quite trust Jason alone, so Bruce Wayne's not-dead son ends up joining the nightly Drake cuddle pile. Tim puts Jason in the middle so he can't wander off without alerting anyone and lies down close beside him, feeling awkward. Talon, not acting awkward at all, snuggles up against Jason's other side and puts his arms around both boys.
"Is this okay?" Tim whispers.
He meant the question for Jason, or maybe just rhetorically, but Talon answers in a decisive tone, "It's very okay."
Jason doesn't object. That doesn't mean much, but Tim can't help smiling a little. "Okay."
o.o.o
Talon is very happy. 'Drake Manor' is a good place to live, even when the older Owls were home and he had to stay silent and out of sight. He watched very carefully, but even though his Tim did not seem very happy with the older Owls, they never hurt him or ordered him to be punished.
Talon wishes that his Tim had more authority like he did when he was older and bigger, but maybe when he grows up again, he'll go back to being Grandmaster. For now, Talon will continue to protect him, and will be ready to slaughter his Tim's enemies when the time comes, just like he did last time.
But there has not been any slaughtering since his Tim became small and young, and Talon likes that very much, too. Instead, they stalk the Bat Man but don't hurt him, which feels more like a game than reconnaissance. His Tim also doesn't make Talon stay quiet and still when he's waiting like the other Owls did, unless his Tim is trying to hide, too. Getting to move and dance while he waits is very, very good.
Now his Tim has acquired another being. Talon is pretty sure that the 'Jason' is a Talon, except that his Tim said the Jason isn't a Talon. Talon doesn't know what else the Jason could be. The new not-Talon is not very smart, but he is good at fighting for a Talon who hasn't been filled with electrum yet. And he is precious to Talon's Tim - his Tim was very gentle and patient when he cleaned the Jason, just like he is gentle and patient with Talon. The Jason must be very valuable.
Now Talon has two treasures to care for. It's extra work, but he's not bothered. He hugs the two warm bodies in his arms and watches their faces for signs of nightmares and listens for sounds of potential danger. He is a very good Talon and will keep his Tim and his Jason very safe until morning, and forever.
TBC
