Chapter 19
Maybe, Tim begrudgingly realized, he could understand what people thought was so special about mornings.
He tipped backward into the cool steel of his kitchen barstool and brought a freshly filled mug of coffee to his lips. He sighed as the nutty aroma wafted to his nose, his back releasing tension with a scatter of pops that traveled down his spine with his stretch. Early sunlight filtered through the kitchen window, highlighting dust motes reflected in the air. They were perpetual residents in his little townhome, especially since its recent renovations.
Tim sipped on his coffee, frowning a little when he detected the tell-tale sweetness of the decaffeinated blend. He'd chosen it in a moment of uncharacteristic self-preservation, but that didn't make him any less disappointed in the fraudulent liquid that it was.
He wasn't usually up this early. In the aftermath of his disastrous mission to Santa Prisca, his repeated concussion had caused some rather unfortunate lingering side effects. Namely, raging headaches that tended to spring up whenever he was the slightest bit sleep deprived.
Tim had initially found a dark sort of humor in the karma of it all. He'd pushed his body to breakpoints for far too long, surviving on short bouts of sleep for weeks-long missions, compensated by days spent sleeping afterward. He'd thought this sort of mettle gave him an edge. He'd believed that despite being ordinary, at least sleep was a trivial obstacle that even a non-meta human like him could overcome.
But his hubris had finally caught up with him.
Tim now operated on a strict sixteen-hour schedule, eighteen if he felt particularly daring. And considering most of his routines were based around night activities, being awake for hours that boasted morning sunrises had been the first on the chopping block.
It was ironic, really; people always referred to him as "one of the Bats." Maybe now living on a primarily nocturnal schedule, he'd finally embraced that moniker.
Given the rarity of the occasion, Tim knew what Diana would tell him to do. She'd tell him to appreciate the moment. Take in the smell of the freshly painted kitchen cabinets or the slightly acerbic new carpet scent from the attached living room. Observe all the work that he'd put into making the place his. Plastered over bullet holes, Fin's new meticulously organized tank in the corner, a brand-new couch that he didn't feel the impulse to burn…
Tim smiled ruefully to himself. Look at him, being a good therapy client and doing his homework like his counselor told him to. If only Diana could see him then. She'd be proud.
Diana Lance, better known by her alternate name, Black Canary, was the unofficial therapist of the Young Justice squad. And just as Tim had predicted before his rogue mission, she hadn't let go once she got her talons into him upon his return.
To be fair, Tim really hadn't put up much of a fight. He was at least self-aware enough to know when he was playing a dangerous game with his mental health, and that mission had been his final act of defiance before he gave in to getting help.
It was for the best. They'd been working together for months now, and honestly? It helped. Diana had tackled his use of avoidant thought as a coping mechanism and had shifted it into something more constructive. It was good, she said, to use avoidant thought when it didn't benefit a situation, like a high-stakes mission. But it wasn't an indefinite solution. Sooner or later, it had to be addressed… as painful as it was.
At least Tim could now think of Connor's death without his mind short-circuiting. That was a start.
And that's who they focused on mostly during those conversations. Connor. Obviously, Tim had lost more people in his life than that, his mom, his dad, Bart Allen… Jason Todd. And although his relationships with all of them had been drastically different, boiled-down "grief" was ultimately a nonunique emotion. And sometimes, when he talked about his grief in conversations about Connor, he was really thinking about someone else.
It was a cheap tactic, a disservice to Connor, and Tim probably wasn't getting the full bang for his buck with those twice weekly hour-long therapy sessions, but at least it was something.
It wasn't like he could talk about the death and resurrection of Jason Todd with someone like Diana Lance.
Thankfully, he had someone else for that. And she just happened to be why he was up this early in the morning. Tim set down his mug as he heard the tell-tale stomp of her feet on his front steps, followed by an obnoxiously loud rapping on the door.
"Tim!" Stephanie Brown shouted between irritated bangs on the innocent wooden barrier, "Open up!" She felt no need to introduce herself; she frequented Tim's place nearly as often as her own apartment these days.
The thing about college housing was that while they were conveniently located near campus, landlords didn't always find it necessary to provide amenities to their young and fiscally vulnerable tenants. Amenities like air conditioning. And in a place like Gotham, where upper 90◦F days could feel greater than 100◦F from the city's blacktop surface, sometimes even a portable AC in an upper-level apartment couldn't cut it.
So when Stephanie found out that Tim's place boasted central air, any hope he had for spending a quiet summer solo in his bachelor pad was quickly squandered. Not that he minded one bit.
Tim's chair screeched on the lacquered vinyl tile as he pushed back from the kitchen counter, watching as it fell into its usual tilt that he hadn't quite gotten around to fixing yet. He briefly thought about taking his time to let Steph in, just to be a bit of an ass for her abuse to his door but thought better of it. It was unwise to piss Stephanie Brown off this early before she had her morning coffee.
He was instantly thankful he'd hurried when he threw open the front door and was greeted by a stack of books thrust toward his face.
"Christ, Steph," Tim breathed, immediately reaching out to grab some of the massive textbooks precariously balanced in Steph's arms, "Have you ever heard of a backpack? Or eBooks?"
Stephanie, visible now that the stack of books was halved, sighed exaggeratedly before turning around to show off her roughed-up shoulder bag, "Unlike these, eBooks aren't allowed in the cadaver lab. And the last time I tried to stuff all these in my backpack, it busted up the zipper." Stephanie took in Tim's expression and how he gingerly shifted the books away from his body and laughed. "Relax, Tim; I keep those books on designated tables. Far away from dead bodies, I swear," she winked.
Tim still washed his hands anyways once he was back in the kitchen. He warily eyed his coffee table, where Stephanie was organizing her books with an abundance of colored pens and sticky notes. He'd be sure to wipe it down with a strong disinfectant later.
"I can feel your judgment from across the room, Tim." Steph dropped her last textbook onto the table loudly before turning to glare at him with a hand on her hip. She stood up and went to the kitchen, stopping on the other side of the counter. She wrangled her bag open in the process. Tim saw a flash of checkered blue and white wrapping, and his stomach grumbled.
"Is that…?"
Stephanie pouted and closed her bag, the patterned paper disappearing out of sight. "You know you're giving me such a hard time; maybe I don't feel like being generous. Maybe I should feed this to Fin and leave your sorry ass hungry."
In the aquarium, Fin fluttered his fins, totally unaware of the conversation but happy to have company so close to his tank.
Tim smirked, pulling a newly filled mug from his coffee machine. "And maybe I'll drink the last of this coffee. Let you study without it." He'd switched out the last blend for a caffeinated version and glanced down at it somewhat enviously. He'd only made enough for one person, not wanting to be tempted away from his abysmally decaffeinated cup.
Stephanie narrowed her eyes, her lip quirking up. "Fine. You win this round, Timothy Drake. Now get over here. I can hear your stomach grumbling a mile away."
Smiling at his victory, Tim joined Steph in the living room and slid the mug across the old, watermarked coffee table. In exchange, Stephanie slid what Tim knew was a freshly wrapped breakfast burrito toward him.
Being an adult in Gotham City was a different experience than growing up in it. Before leaving for Rhode Island to join the Young Justice squad, as a kid, he'd only ever eaten at places his parents deemed socially acceptable.
A hole-in-the-wall place like the Gotham Grub and Grits Diner was decidedly not one of those places.
The Drakes would've been horrified to be seen at a place that boasted cracked teal vinyl seats and aged checkered floors so worn out by foot traffic that the tiles blended in areas. But Tim loved everything about the old diner that was as much a Gotham institution as the Wayne family.
Unlike Tim, Stephanie had grown up in a middle to lower-class family (as was common given the ever-burgeoning gap between the rich and poor in Gotham City) and was no stranger to late-night meals at Grubs. Those were the nights when her mother got home from a late-night double shift and couldn't bring herself to make dinner for herself, let alone her kid.
Steph had shared with Tim after grabbing takeout for one of their sleepovers that she liked Grubs because it reminded her of better times with her mom. Things were tough, of course, but at least at that time, Crystal Brown's dependency on pain medications had been a little bit better hidden. Eating breakfast for dinner had been their little family tradition.
After visiting it only a couple of times, it became clear that the 24-hour joint was a tradition for many Gothamite individuals, all gathered from their different walks of life for one greasy and decadent meal. And soon, it became Tim and Stephanie's tradition too.
Tim unwrapped the checkered paper and nearly moaned at the sight of the overstuffed burrito. He'd been out late and hadn't had the energy to make himself anything when he got home, and he was starving.
"You're looking a little rough there, Boss," Stephanie commented as she settled into her claimed corner of the couch with a textbook balanced on her lap. She pulled her long blonde hair up into her usual studying ponytail. "You out late again?"
Tim knew what he must look like through Stephanie's eyes. His hair was cut short and unruly without the gel he used to hold it down. His shirt and shorts were clean but wrinkled, having grabbed them straight from the hamper. He also knew he probably was sporting some bags under his eyes; even with his better sleep schedule, those never seemed to entirely go away.
He nodded, sinking into his favorite oversized armchair and throwing his legs over the armrest. "Another dead end," he answered. His tone was frustrated but unsurprised. "Only a bunch of Falcone goons all over the place. It took me a while to get out of there without alerting them."
Stephanie hummed, her eyes darting between her books and back to Tim. Clearly, she was torn between the immediate need to study for her pre-med course finals and her desire to dig into Tim's investigation.
Ultimately, the vigilante won out.
"I could hop over there tonight with Cass, dead-end or not; Falcone could probably use some checking."
Tim shook his head, "Pretty sure Oracle's already on it. Neither of us could get ahold of Bruce, so she just went ahead and sent Cassandra the coordinates this morning… I think Babs didn't want to bother you with your exam coming up," he gently reminded.
Stephanie pursed her lips but didn't argue. Tim's mention of her exam had the intended effect of reminding her that she wasn't in any place to be offering her help right about now. Pre-med courses were challenging in college, and accelerated summer courses were even more demanding. She knew that if she wanted to be an obstetrician-gynecologist, it wouldn't be the last time she was passed up for a mission.
Stephanie's leg bounced under her textbook, betraying her restlessness. "I need these summer classes to be done already. Bab's been sending all your follow up to Cass lately, and I'm starting to get a little jealous," she mumbled.
Tim's lips twitched in annoyance. It wasn't directed at Steph, more so at the situation itself. The truth was, he was also restless… had been for almost three months.
By the end of week one of his probation, he'd gone totally stir-crazy, and in a moment of desperate need to do something, he'd decided to investigate the scrap of the shipping label he'd found in Santa Prisca. He'd thought he'd find some distant distributing location and alert the nearest vigilante for them to take care of it.
How could he have guessed that that scratched-out label, reconstructed with the bat computer's technology, would lead him straight to Gotham's harbor? Was it a reach that the new arms dealer supplying the League of Shadows was from his hometown? Tim didn't think so. All of the world's most nefarious villains seemed to originate from his neck of the woods after all. A new arms dealer would hardly be news.
Thus began Tim's search into the nearly eight hundred warehouses that dotted Gotham's cityscape. The dealer had to store his stock somewhere, and if he was shipping it out of Gotham City, he wouldn't risk losing his expensive cargo over long transport routes.
Personally, investigating eight hundred warehouses in a sprawling city like Gotham would have been impossible. But thankfully, he'd been able to cross-check recent Justice League and Batman raids and eliminate a fair number of suspect locations. Wayne Enterprise warehouses could also be safely ruled out for obvious reasons.
Which left him with five hundred warehouses. It would've been a massive undertaking to do by himself, but for better or worse, his investigation had been discovered by Oracle early on. She'd been watching him like a hawk, and of course, she'd told on him to Bruce in what could only be described as an infuriating older sister moment.
Bruce had been a little less cordial for that conversation, but at least Tim had come out of it relatively unscathed. Additionally, he was allowed to continue his investigation with the caveat that he wasn't allowed at any warehouse with any known ties (current or previous) to any of Gotham's crime rings. And, whenever he encountered any trouble, he was to get his ass out of there and leave it to the other Bats on duty. Any and all activity that could result in further head trauma was to be strictly avoided.
So… that left him with about two hundred warehouses.
Most of the time, Tim's nights were boring. He spent his precious awake hours perusing aisles filled with mundane exports like agriculture or textiles. Occasionally, on an exciting night, he got to snoop around through storage units. That at least offered some entertainment; Tim was both baffled and horrified by the things that Gothamites decided to store away from prying eyes.
But, on the off chance that Tim did stumble on something truly exciting, he was a good little Robin and handed off the cleanout to someone who hadn't gotten their head rocked multiple times.
That member typically ended up being Cassandra Wu-San.
Tim's life wasn't the only one that had changed in the three months since his fateful trip to Santa Prisca. Not even two weeks after his mission, Orphan was kidnapped by Lady Shiva for totally unknown reasoning until it was revealed that Orphan was, in fact, Cassandra Wu-San, Shiva's own daughter.
At the time, Tim had still been mostly confined to his townhouse; the headaches had been springing up on a bi-hourly basis. But on the day Orphan was kidnapped, he'd felt sick for an entirely different reason. He couldn't shake the feeling that he was partly responsible for Shiva's inspiration to take back her escaped daughter. And that day, he'd slept hard not to shake off the headache but in an attempt to shake off the guilt.
It hadn't worked.
"—Boss. Hey, earth to Tim." Tim hadn't noticed Stephanie waving her hand from across the table, and her eyebrows were tilted in both question and concern. "How much sleep did you get last night?"
Tim shrugged, already knowing this wouldn't go over well but simultaneously knowing there was no use in lying. Stephanie Brown could always tell. He calculated in his head, "I don't know; I woke up about an hour before you got here. So maybe four hours?"
Stephanie winced. "You know that's not enough… but I guess it's my fault for coming so early," she amended apologetically. Her eyes suddenly brightened with an idea, "Get over here, and I'll scoot over," as promised, Steph shifted her butt to the edge of the couch and balanced her textbook over the large armrest. She tapped her thigh invitingly, "Lap's all yours."
Tim had planned on getting a nap anyway, and napping with Stephanie had become a favorite pastime. So, of course, he didn't object. Having already scarfed down the burrito, he placed the trash on the table's edge, away from all the schoolwork, before lying on the couch. His head rested perfectly on Stephanie's lap.
He relaxed instantly; his body's need for sleep outweighed every other function. Stephanie's fingers played absentmindedly through his hair, and Tim nearly hummed at the sensation. He didn't have to look up to know that Stephanie wouldn't even be paying attention, that she'd be fully absorbed in her texts in the way she got when she was focused. The simple gesture just came naturally to them.
And that's what they were. Natural. Easing into friendship with Stephanie Brown had been like easing into his favorite red hoodie, warm, comfortable, and intimately familiar. In three short months, Stephanie had surpassed any friendship Tim had made in his entire life, and he knew the feeling was entirely mutual. Tim thought it had surprised both of them, but neither had questioned it. Aside from Cassandra, who always came as a package deal when it came to Steph, Tim was the only person Stephanie let her guard down around. And there was a delicious pleasure in that exclusivity.
He didn't know precisely how long he slept, but it had to have been closer to noon because the light was no longer directly filtering through his windows.
"Look who's looking better already."
Tim turned his head to look up at his friend. At some point, Stephanie had readjusted herself to sit cross-legged, but Tim's head was still firmly planted on her thigh. Her hand rested on his chest with highlighters uncapped and held between each of her fingers.
"You get much studying done?" he asked, entirely too comfortable to move yet.
"Cass kept me honest," Stephanie nodded her head to the other side of the coffee table. That got his attention, and he twisted his head in that direction. Sure enough, Cassandra was sitting in her own self-proclaimed armchair.
At some point, her visits had become as frequent as Steph's, but the awkwardness of his involvement with her kidnapping prevented Tim from getting close to her. He didn't know how to reconcile the child Cassandra, who'd built her mother a perfect little puzzle box in desperation for her approval, with Orphan, the stoic and always confident member of his team. It was as if Tim had become privy to a deeply intimate part of Cassandra that he was pretty sure he hadn't been given permission to see.
He also didn't know what to make of the fact that he'd been able to sleep during Cassandra's arrival. He wasn't sure if that spoke to Cassandra's stealth, fatigue, or comfort around Stephanie, but it must have been a combination of the three. Either way, his time away from vigilanteism had made him rusty, and he thanked above that in only a week, he'd hopefully be given the all-clear to return to work.
Tim stretched his arms and yawned, sitting up as he blinked back the last few remnants of his sleep before focusing on his new guest.
Since her identity had been unveiled during her kidnapping, Cassandra no longer went to the effort of wearing her uniform in front of her fellow vigilantes. Cassandra was a fearsome person with cropped black hair and a tan complexion that starkly contrasted with the pearly white scars traversing her face. The most notable was the circumferential scar around her neck that had been inflicted upon her by her mother in a successful attempt to destroy her vocal cords.
She was a fearsome person, and even among vigilantes, all of whom sported their own scars, she never failed to draw attention. Tim knew that must have been an unwelcome change, and he had to bite back the surge of guilt that rose like bile to his throat, as was common whenever he was in Cassandra's presence.
Whatever discomfort he was feeling, Cassandra ignored it. Going all serious instantly, she uncurled herself from her chair, paused what was undoubtedly one of her favorite fuzzy rom-com audiobooks playing in her headphones, and sat up straight.
Babs said you have an assignment for me, she signed.
"I do," Tim sighed; they were always business with each other. "Nothing exciting, but I came across a couple of Falcone thugs over in West End." Tim technically didn't need to also use sign language when speaking with Cassandra but did so anyways. Cassandra read body language even better than he could, and sometimes he felt like she focused more on his expressions and gestures than what he audibly said anyways.
Nothing related to your dealer? She asked. Three months and I would have thought you would have stumbled on something already. Her gestures were sassy, and her eyes narrowed in judgment.
Tim bit the inside of his cheek but decided to be the bigger person and ignore the harmless jab, though his eyes narrowed right back at her. "Nope. And you asking about it isn't going to make the process go by any faster either."
It would if you let me help you search. If we worked together. We could split up tasks. Meet up at the end of the night to debrief. Like old times, her gestures were more adamant by the end.
"Orphan, don't push it. I said no." Tim cringed. Sometimes, he fell too easily back into the leader role, as he had been on Batman's covert team. Cassandra had been one of his team members then, and although she didn't seem to care about the slip, she did slump back in her chair with a scowl on her face. They'd had this argument before, and Tim's answer had always been the same. Cassandra had questioned his logic, but Tim had dodged her efforts so far. He had a feeling that he'd have to come up with some other excuse soon because Orphan's patience was running thin. He wouldn't be surprised if she followed him one of these nights just to see what he was up to.
He couldn't let that happen. He still had some secrets he wasn't ready to share.
"It's not a bad idea, Boss," Stephanie interjected, "You, Cass, and I could split up the rest of the list; we'd cover way more ground than—" Her voice got faster in the way that it did when she was excited about something.
You, Cassandra, slapped her hands together before sternly pointing at Stephanie's abandoned textbook. Study.
Stephanie responded by flipping Cassandra off and sticking her tongue out childishly. "You squares never let me have any fun around finals."
"Us, squares, are trying to get you through these worthless classes so you can get into some medical school and become a fancy doctor and take care of all of us eventually," Tim reminded her as he gently nudged her shoulder.
"I'll be an OB/GYN, so you'll be shit out of luck, Tim."
"You'll be an OB/GYN," Tim stressed, "a.k.a. a surgeon. Pretty sure the skills of stitching up cuts transfer to whatever surgical field you choose. We just have to get you through finals first."
Stephanie's lip quirked up, which Tim answered with a smile. Sometimes grades were harder for Stephanie Brown. She was fucking brilliant, but that didn't always transfer over to things like standardized test scores. Tim knew that self-doubt wore on her a little, especially among the perfectionist culture of other pre-meds. But that's why he and Cass spent every moment when they were all together reminding Steph of just how smart she was and how much Gotham needed a doctor like her. For all the awkwardness, at least, they shared that one unspoken pact.
"Just promise me that you'll be careful tonight," Stephanie pleaded, "You're so close to the end of your probation; I'd hate for something to mess that up. We've missed you out there."
And Tim missed being in the action more than anything. Stephanie's warning was appreciated but unneeded. He wasn't about to fuck up his last week off official duty by taking any unnecessary risks. He was more aware than anyone that he had some unfinished business to settle and that it couldn't be done while wearing the shackles of a concussion protocol.
"I just hate you going out there alone. It's not how we did things. Who's gonna save you when you attempt some crazy stunt?" Stephanie mumbled.
Tim was thankful that Steph's eyes were locked fully on her textbook, lest his quickly schooled expression tip her off that he was hiding something. Because so far, that was one secret that Tim had managed to keep from his best friend.
He wouldn't be alone. And he wasn't ready to share that with anyone just yet.
Tim's eyes caught Cassandra's shrewd ones, and he inwardly cursed. Thankfully she didn't press him but still. It took one knowing look from Cassandra Wu-San for Tim to know with absolute certainty that his "secret?" wouldn't be a secret for long.
A/N: Hello my phantoms! I have returned *ducks from thrown lettuce and tomatoes*. AND I come to you all with a bran-spankin new doctorate degree (that I have no idea what to do with) and a whole bunch of fancy letters to go after my name (that were far too expensive than what they're worth) but I digress...
Hopefully this Tim feels both familiar but a little different from where we left him. And we have the return of some of our favorite characters! I adore comments and welcome your thoughts. This chapter was a little exposition heavy, but I felt it was appropriate given that a lot happens in the YJ world since we left off, and not all readers are YJ watchers.
I also want to just take a moment to say that I appreciate all of you for still following along despite my long absence. I hope it serves as some reassurance that I am an entirely single-minded creature and am thusly incapable of working on two projects at a time. SO, as long as I continue writing (which I have done since my lil fingers could type and plan to continue to the end) you can be assured that this story will never be abandoned! Thank you all so much for your patience.
EDIT: For the sake of transparency, I just wanted it to be known that I recently removed a guest review. The tone of the review was relatively benign (neutral to negative. Which is totally okay; I know not all reviews will be positive because that's simply the nature of this site) but it lightly criticized another creator by name and that didn't sit well with me. So after some time thinking about it, I decided to take it down. This was something I could only do because it was a guest review, so please know if you are a member and are planning to leave a review, which I would be over the moon for, please please don't let it be disparaging to other creators! It makes me sad.
