Tim stares, unblinking, at his ceiling until tears run from his eyes and he has to leave his bed for a tissue. His head feels fuzzy, as if someone had sent an electric shock through a bag of cotton, and more than anything he wants to fall asleep. But he can't close his eyes. So. That's out, then.
He collapses back into bed and pulls the thin blanket over his body, ignoring the comforter. He should sleep. He needs to sleep. He needs to sleep before he has a psychotic breakdown in front of Dick and scars the child for life.
Heh. 'Scars Dick for life.' Like he - Heh, heh. Nope. No, no more laughing. It isn't funny. He needs to sleep. Things will be better after he sleeps.
Of course, Jason is an assassin who beat him half to death, and he's in his room down the hall, and Damian is an assassin who almost pushed him to his death, and he's in the living room with the little boy-man who gave away Robin like it wasn't the most important (only) part of Tim's identity…
Tim would stop thinking like this if he fell asleep. But he can't even blink, so that's probably not about to happen. Why not? Why no blinking-sleeping? Because he's in danger? Because there's too much to think about before giving up for a few hours?
Tim blinks, just to make sure he still can. He doesn't like the feeling. He doesn't want to do it any more. Poor Damian.
He's probably scared him half to death. He sure wishes he hadn't done that in front of Damian. What will Damian accept as an excuse… umm… hmm… are his thoughts saying 'um' and 'hm'? That's not very helpful, Tim. Think better. Damian will probably believe that Tim had a minor breakdown due to lack of sleep, stress, caffeine, and abrupt interdimensional travel.
Actually, that's probably right. Yes! An answer. Now, if only he could go to sleep. Jason might kill him. Damian might kill him. Dick might betray him. Jason needs him to get home (he's doing better, too). Damian has been reformed for so long. This will never be the same Dick.
Tim just needs to think true-things and stop being so silly. It's silly to think these things. It's silly to not close his eyes. He should really… really… really stop thinking.
"Sleep tight, Baby Bird?"
"..."
"Coffee?"
Tim grabbed the decanter from Jason's hand and moved deeper into kitchen territory. Functioning capacity 15%. Assessment: unacceptable. Functioning capacity of The Red Hood for comparison? 90%
"Oh, good morning to you too. Aren't you our favorite de-spleened ray of sunshine?"
Coffee. Coffee. Coffee. Coffee. Coffee.
"Why thank you for asking, I'm doing well, how are you?"
Coffee. Coffee. Coffee. Coffee. Coffee.
"Well, that's good to hear, glad to hear it, glad to hear it. Say, how do you think the Mets are doing this year?"
Coffee. Coffee. Coffee. Coffee. Oooh, Red Bull.
"Well, that's an interesting take there, Timbo. But how about that cold front moving in, huh? Think we'll have to stock up on long underwear?"
Coffee. Coffee. Red Hood is the most annoying creature on the planet. Coffee.
"If you ask me, I think we use too much polyester in those things. Pansies, the lot of you."
IF $coffee IS READY FOR CONSUMPTIONbr /THEN CONSUME $coffee IMMEDIATELY
"Has anyone ever told you you drink way too much of that stuff?"
"Usually right before begging for my help on a case." Functioning capacity increased to 57%. Functioning capacity of The Red Hood for comparison? 87% RUN
LOOKUP $redrobin FUNC CAPACITY
*NOTE (for comparison purposes)
LOOKUP $redhood FUNC CAPACITY
IF $redrobin FUNC CAPACITY $redhood FUNC CAPACITY
THEN $assessment = UNACCEPTABLE
IF $assessment = UNACCEPTABLE
THEN CONT INGESTING $coffee
Tim downed another drought of coffee.
gasp "He speaks! What witchery is this?"
"Has anyone ever told you you're the most annoying creature on the planet?"
"Kori's got you beat, Replacement. She called me the most annoying creature on 15 planets."
"It must irk you terribly to know that someone, somewhere, has you beat."
"Yes, well. I get by. You know, most people wake up needing a coffee fix in the morning. Not 11:45."
Tim started, and glanced at the clock. Huh. Tomorrow already. Well then. He glanced back down again. Coffee gone. Functioning capacity increased to 79%.
LOOKUP $redrobin FUNC CAPACITY
IF $redrobin FUNC CAPACITY;60%
THEN $redrobin FUNC CAPACITY = ACCEPTABLE FOR $noncombatuse
Restate functioning capacity? 79%. Functioning capacity of The Red Hood for comparison? 87.45% RUN
LOOKUP $redrobin FUNC CAPACITY
*NOTE (for comparison purposes)
LOOKUP $redhood FUNC CAPACITY
IF $redrobin FUNC CAPACITY ; $redhood FUNC CAPACITY
THEN $assessment = UNNACCEPTABLE
IF $assessment = UNNACCEPTABLE
THEN CONT INGESTING $coffee
IF $coffee = UNAVAILABLE
THEN PREPARE $coffee
Tim grabbed the coffee grounds.
"Well. I was tired."
"Yeah. Well, now that you can put your best foot toward being a functioning human being, we can talk shop. I'm going out tonight to get some perishable junk, alright? Keep the kid with you or the Spawn, I don't care. Just keep him in somebody's room. And if you could, I dunno, stop looking like a computer ate your brains that would be great."
Functioning capacity increased to 89%. Functioning capacity of The Red Hood for comparison? 94.20315% = unnecessary. Personal circumstance-based assessment: acceptable.
"Can we expect you to come back with this perishable junk?"
"Yeah. Of course. You're not getting rid of me yet."
"No one's making you leave, Jason. No one's asking for it, either."
Eyebrow raised + head tilted = subject expresses disbelief in assertion. "I'm not asking for it," Tim remarked.
"And Demon Spawn?"
"Who cares? He's a brat."
Huff of breath. Eye contact broken. Smile. Tension alleviated. Subject eased. "Yeah. Yeah, we can agree on that, at least."
"Seriously, though. Dick and I would like you to stay." Did he just say that? Him, making the first move. Opening up. Being mature. Dick would be so proud.
"Mph. Don't get your hopes up. I've got things to do. Someone needs to go to Tibet. Can't exactly google those guys. Maybe do some experiments. See if physics is the same here. Guys like Flash who got their powers all science-wise-"
"Speed force, Jason. But if you want to go, we won't stop you. I'll cover for you. Damian will too, if just to keep Dick happy. But I think things would be better if you stayed."
"Stayed at a distance."
"... Until we can find something better."
"Right. Until I stop being a psychopath. Can't risk me slitting Dickie's throat in his sleep, can we?"
"Stop making me the bad guy! You lose control when you're angry and we both know it. I want you here, isn't that enough? There are precautions we have to take to take care of the situation-"
"Well, maybe everyone would be safer if I wasn't here to cause 'the situation' at all!"
"We would be! But Dick wouldn't understand. He's attached to you, like it or not. Leaving would hurt him when we can't afford to hurt him. And what if something dangerous is here? What if we need the Red Hood's knowledge of the underworld? We don't know what's the same here, what's different, but your connections, what you know about patterns and the people you know… that's what is going to transition to this world. I know specifics but you see the patterns. If there's anything really dangerous here… losing that would be crippling."
"But if we dealt with who we know is here and dangerous…"
Jason stepped away, eyebrow cocked and hands spread, palms upward in a shrugging motion. "Food for thought, Little Wing."
Tim sighed and turned away, breaking eye contact before looking back. "Well. No one's making you do anything. Do whatever."
"There's the plan! Now if you'll excuse me, someone's gotta go check up on our resident mini bird."
Tim looked at his loyal cup of coffee. "He's impossible, you know."
The coffee rippled sympathetically, and Tim sighed in response. "Tell me about it."
"I cannot understand what possessed Father to make you his partner."
"Damian! Uh, hi."
"Hello. Did you find applesauce?"
"No."
Damian scowled and threw open the refrigerator door as if he suspected Tim was lying to him. When he discovered that applesauce had not manifested since yesterday night he spun back around. "When do we get real food? I am exhaustingly tired of preservatives."
"We have to wait for 'The Waynes' to be due to get back. And explain why Bruce and Dick and Cass and Alfred aren't back… and explain… you know, everything about Dick…"
"Well, as far as he goes, we can just disguise ourselves in public or something. And we don't have to let anyone know Richard exists. It's not as though I want to be flooded in the paparazzi anyway. When should our counterparts have returned?"
"From what I read in their press release… they should've been gone three weeks. Jason spent one week without us. That's two left. But they left a little over a week and a half before Jason got here… I'd say we've got a few days. Maybe three. Obviously, depending on what flights are available, or the weather on the way from there to here, the number of days could change."
"Three days, of course. I don't suppose we could simply order food delivered under guise of hiring someone to stock the cabinets…?"
"Oh, no. Too dangerous. We aren't risking blowing our cover over strawberry flavored applesauce."
Damian blinked and went rigid. "Ttt, I have no idea what you are talking about. And I have better things to do than converse with you."
Damian turned heel and stalked haughtily out the door. How could Drake have known?