AN: This honestly might be the first time I've ever updated the same story two days in a row? Like, wow. Please let me know what you think of this chapter!
"You," Tim says seriously, "are a little stinker."
The baby makes a gurgling sound as it peers up at Tim.
"Yup," Tim says, trying to wrangle the new diaper's snaps together. "You sure do smell. Man, I never knew babies could reek so bad."
The baby responds by kicking its left leg out to the side.
"Oh no you don't," Tim scolds, narrowly stopping that left foot from dipping into the old diaper over on that side. "Good grief, kid, it's like you're trying to get me to-"
Hate you?
Abandon you?
Completely give up on you?
Tim falters and doesn't end his sentence. Even in jest, those words don't seem right to say. Instead, Tim sighs down at the baby. He finishes getting the new diaper on it, then he gets the little pants and shirt on it. Once he puts the old diaper in the diaper bin, he's done.
At least for a couple hours. Maybe.
"Babies stink so much," Tim says in a sing-song voice as he comes back over and picks the baby up again. "Yes, they do. Babies are big stinkers, yes, they are. Babies- Ow!"
The baby tugs the fistful of Tim's hair that its grabbed.
"Yeah, you stink," Tim says again, carefully untangling his hair from the little fist.
Undeterred, the baby tries for Tim's hair with its other hand.
Tim sighs and sits down at the table, plopping the baby in his lap and leaning to the side slightly to swing most of his hair out of its reach. "What do you think? Do I try again today?"
The baby makes a little string of babbling noises.
"I'll take that as a yes," Tim decides. "Okay. I don't think Ra's is coming to give you any aging magic today, and we're probably right at the halfway point between my meals, so now is as good as time as any, right?"
The baby coos and goes for Tim's hair again.
Tim sighs again and twists his head away from the reaching fists. "You are a literal infant. Why am I asking your opinion?"
Standing up again, Tim bounces the baby in his arms a bit, then he brings it over to its basket bed. He sets the baby on its back and gives it one of the rattles sitting next to its bed, then he straightens up and walks away.
Fussing reaches his ears almost immediately.
"I'm doing this for both of us," Tim announces loudly. "The sooner I'm out of here, the sooner you're out of here too, and the sooner we never have to see each other again."
Tim valiantly ignores how saying that last phrase twinges at something painful in his chest. Instead, he heads for the cloning chambers.
None of the cloning chambers are in use at the moment. Ra's said something about evaluating the "primary attempt" before "continuing to other heirs." All that matters for Tim from that is that the magical and scientific components of the cloning chambers are currently ripe for the pickings.
Tim approaches the cloning chambers nonchalantly, thinking about Ra's and the heir experiments, very carefully not thinking much about anything else. He rubs his fingers absentmindedly over the metallic buckle of the collar, a habit he's started picking up when he's thinking recently. When he reaches the cloning chambers, Tim pries open the top component of the first cloning chamber and peers in thoughtfully. If he just can find the right combination to explode the column in the middle of the room, maybe he doesn't need to open the door there, and maybe he can finally escape or-
Agony sears through every cell in his body. Tim stumbles back from the cloning chamber, gasping for air and sitting down hard on the floor. Okay. Okay, yeah, bad idea.
"No breaking down the door that way," Tim rasps. "Not today, at least-"
The agony spikes again.
"I get it!" Tim yells through the pain. "Whatever! I'm not trying it again! Quit it!"
It takes several minutes, as far as he can tell, for the pain to go away fully. As the pain subsides, Tim scowls at the still-open component on the first cloning chamber. He decides to just leave it open. Ra's can deal with that whenever he gets back.
Slowly, Tim gets back to his feet. He stares at the cloning chambers for a long moment. Then he turns away and heads back to the baby.
"Good news and bad news," Tim says breezily, sitting on the side of his own bed and staring down at the fussy baby in its bed. "The bad news? We're not getting out of here any time soon. The good news? You get to spend more time with me. Hooray for you."
That's when the baby seems to notice he's there. It reaches its little arms up and murmurs up at him.
"Hi there," Tim says softly. "You missed me, didn't you?"
The baby reaches up more insistently.
Sighing, Tim picks up the baby. He seats it in his lap and turns it to face himself.
The baby stares up at him. Its eyes are wide, attentive, and very, very blue. Honestly, they look just like his own eyes. That shouldn't be surprising, probably. After all, half of its DNA was from Ra's, but the other half was from Tim. Makes sense it would take after Tim in at least some ways.
Hopefully not in other ways, though.
Tim takes a deep breath and holds the baby closer. What was his own life like at the baby's age? Ra's had said the baby was now about three or four months old. Where had Tim been about then?
"Probably in the penthouse with a nanny," Tim muses, idly swaying a little to rock the baby. "If I had to bet, Jack and Janet didn't have much to do with me at that age."
Not that their involvement would change much throughout the years as Tim aged. Jack and Janet weren't around to see him often, and when they did, it was mostly a "children should be seen and not heard" idea. His parents had never been much into the "parenting" side of things, more the "having a kid for an heir" kind of thing.
Tim shudders at the thought. Then he freezes. He looks down at the baby, pulling the little body slightly out from his own body.
The baby is looking up at him still, blinking wide eyes with what looks like hope.
"You're going to be more than an heir," Tim informs the baby. "You're… You're going to get to be a kid. You're going to have fun, and you're going to have support, and you're going to get to make messes and be silly and cry when you need to and laugh when you want to and-"
Tim blinks hard. "You're going to be loved."
Not like Ra's wants the baby to be treated. Not like Jack and Janet treated Tim himself. Maybe… More like Bruce treats all his kids, more like Bruce treated Tim. That's how Tim's going to treat his baby.
"You're going to be loved," Tim tells him again, more firmly this time. "And to start that off with? You're going to need a name other than 'primary.'"