Work Text:
Oct. 3rd, 2010
Tim waved down a Taxi, gave it an address he probably shouldn’t have, and accepted his fate. This was it. The girls were going to Kill Him. He couldn’t even be that mad. It was kinda fair, given the situation.
He left. He knew their issues and had promised to always be there, but he ran like a coward at the first sign of conflict. What was he supposed to tell Artemis? He knew who The Batman was. He knew who Robin was. He knew the most well kept secret of the hero world, was privy to information her and most of her team didn’t even know. How does he even begin to explain how? Or why he hadn’t told anyone?
There was no way this ended well. She was going to try convincing him to join the side of the Angels, but he couldn’t. There was so much more he could do from where he was. How did he tell either of them that?
If Artemis didn’t kill him then Rose would, and if Rose didn’t Slade would get around to it when he finds out that Tim was hiding in plain sight from the girls by staying with him for the past half month.
(scratch that, Slade wouldn’t kill him. Mother scares Slade a bit to much for him to fuck Tim up too bad. Slade would definitely give him the worst beating he’s had in nearly a month though. So, Tim had that to look forward to. He didn’t mind, really. He was well aware of the consequences going in.)
But he couldn’t miss their meetups. The third and the 19th of every month, they all promised. He was dead if he went, sure, but whatever was coming for him would be so much worse if he was the first of them to ever miss one of these meetups. If Artemis could keep it up through meddling heroes and Rose could keep it up through her jobs, Tim could be bothered to slink back with his tail between his legs and a half formed plan.
Besides, he promised.
The Gotham Taxi man didn’t so much s give an odd look as he dropped tim off in front of an empty warehouse. You don’t get far asking questions in Gotham. Tim pays the man and takes a deep breath, checking his watch. 11:55 pm. He smirked at the small victory (probably his last as well; the deal was to see each other on the third and nineteenth of every month, and he would be there for the last minute of the third. If he was gonna be dead by sunrise, he thought he was entitled to a bit of pettiness) and scaled the seemingly empty warehouse. Then ran across the rooftop and jumped, clinging to the windowsill of an apartment building. He dropped himself about half a story from the windowsill to the fire-escape below, then took the rusted path to Rose’s current window. He slipped in and landed in her kitchen just as his alarm hit 11:59, and he let out a laugh, sat on the floor, and waited.
Not ten seconds later, Rose appeared in the doorway with the wrath of god in her eyes. Tim smiled and waved at the girl because his survival instincts never were that good, and gave a mental sigh as he was suddenly passing out, pain throbbing in his head. He fucking knew it.
----
Rose let out an animalistic growl at the boy slumped against her kitchen sink, muttering something that sounded like a cross between ‘wow rude’ and ‘that’s fair’. Of Course this was how it would happen. Tim had a flare for the dramatics, so of course he’d pop up in her safehouse (somehow) seconds before he’d be past the point of no return.
She quite honestly didn’t give a single shit that he knew Robin’s identity. Knowing him, he’d have dug up everything he could about those kids Arty’s been running around with the moment she joined, if not sooner. He was a genius-detective in a way that only Tim could be, and probably The Light’s best hacker, and he would have the world eating out of his hand once he made it past 11.
If he ever made it past 11, that is. At the moment, she was debating his untimely murder, because she loved him, god she’d do anything for her ‘little brother’, but he also deserved certain death for his stunt. No meaningful contact for two weeks. She hadn’t heard his annoying, snarky, adorable voice for 14 days. The Nerve of this asshole.
She needed to call Arty. Arty was half-out of her mind with worry, slipping up, and her team was getting suspicious, and that just made her worry her perfect self even more and- and she needed to know that Tim was still fine enough to be a little shit.
Priorities, though. First she needed to make sure Tim wouldn’t run off. She hauled the kid like a sack of potatoes, dropped him in a chair already nailed to the floor. She took his gloves and boots and belt, then promptly duct-taped her bother’s arms and legs to the chair. Then she kissed his forehead, draped a blanket over his cold form, took a sadistic glee in ruffling his always-perfect hair, and muttered to herself about going soft as she locked the bedroom door behind her and stepped out onto the balcony to place her call.
The phone rang, and she took the moment of bliss before Arty answered to light a cigarette. She was gonna need it.
“Hello? You ok? What’s up?” The girl answered frantically, a little breathless. Rose had either just snapped her out of a panic attack or a nightmare, and she bit her lip painfully at the thought. Fucking Timothy.
“I got ‘im. The little prick showed up a stroke before midnight.” Rose gritted out, taking a drag as she finished the sentence and stubbornly refusing to sigh in relief as it really hit her that he was Fine. relatively. For now.
“God, what else were we expecting?” Arty breathed, and it sounded like she had just rediscovered what air was, letting out a forced laugh and an even more forced yawn. Ah, panic-attack-but-pretending-it-was-a-nightmare then. Spectacular. “Is he ok?” was the follow up question, the real question, and Rose mirrored Arty’s laugh a second ago.
“Who the hell knows? He’s not hurt, aside from the bruise I gave him when I knocked him over the head, and he seems no less skin and bones or sleep deprived then normal. Looks like he has a few semi-recent cuts and I wouldn’t be surprised if he was covering some bruises, but yea. Physically, he’s ok.” Was her dutiful response, reciting the information with only the slightest annoyed growl and allowing herself a smile at Arty’s sigh of relief.
“I’ll be over soon, Don’t have too much fun without me.” Arty signed off, sounding way too sickly sweet and making Rose laugh at the beautifully familiar tone in her voice. Tim was going to regret being born.
She stepped back into the room and out of the cold october air, smoke still floating up from her lips as she glared at the boy starting to come to and waiting for Arty Dearest to arrive.
----
Artemis couldn’t sleep. Could you really blame her? Who could sleep in these conditions? She hadn’t heard a peep from Tim aside from his bullshit ‘vacation protocol’.
She was mystified to be happy for the first time ever that Tim was Paranoia Personified (and she works with the bats). If Tim weren’t a paranoid little asshole, they’d have assumed him dead by now and Rose would be out for bloody revenge. As it stood, despite Tim refusing to answer a single text or call or radio or letter in braille or goddamn smoke signal, they knew he was alive.
A single codeword in text every day at 3 am (when neither of them are awake willingly) exactly, a new codeword for every day in the year and a new language alphabetically for every year they knew each other, but starting at the letter C, ‘just in case’.
Neither she nor Rose bothered to ask what, exactly, he thought could happen that would justify this. (He has an answer, and they probably won’t like it for one reason or another) They knew he was alive because he insisted on texting them a single word in Cantonese at three in the morning every day. He was otherwise non-responsive.
They still had no idea where he was. Or how he was feeling. Or what he was doing.
He had clearly underestimated how worried that they would get about him, because Artemis had been just about catatonic when the stress of the Tornado-sibling-conflict that she still couldn’t wrap her head around started happening on top of this. She didn’t even have it in her to be too upset with how gory some of Rose’s kills were getting.
She had gotten desperate to the point of asking Robin to try tracking Tim’s signal. Not even a minute later, the transmission disappeared, Robin claiming that the phone must have been destroyed for such a complete wipe. She dodged his questions about what the whole thing was about. Artemis couldn’t tell him about Tim and Rose, it’s her most closely kept secret, above even her parentage (she couldn’t help imagining the day Rose and Tim actually met the team. She couldn’t stop fearing it either. She could make the choice between her blood and her family; but the choice between family and family was unthinkable). instead, she had fled back to gotham and sulked in her room. Rose was too busy tearing LexCorp to the ground in search of Luthor’s vanished protege to go and comfort her. That night in particular sucked.
(Rose’s search was for nothing, anyway. Artemis saw news about her breakout. Considering Rose didn’t half ass things, and she hadn’t caught a glimpse of Rose pulling Tim out of the building by the tongue in the background, they could safely say Tim hadn’t holed himself up with Luthor. That much was confirmed when Rose came back to Artemis’s apartment the next day, ranting and raving about that Bastard Lex Luthor and how she knew he knew where Tim was, and he knew she knew he knew, but he refused to spill because it ‘wasn’t his problem’, growling that she nearly ripped the cyborg bitches arm off in retaliation, a bit proud that she ended up just leaving. There wasn’t much else she could do. They both sat and watched SATAM cartoons and ate the last of Timothy’s candy stash, to spite him.)
It felt an awful lot like Tim was abandoning them, without so much as a goodbye, and it was an awful sort of Dejavu for Artemis. At least her sister bothered to say goodbye. At least her sister gave her a reason. Tim had just let something slip, lit the fear of god in his own eyes, and fled into the night before either of them could tell what was happening. He left her and Rose in a lot for a drive-in movie showing of the recently released ‘Tim Burton's Alice In Wonderland’, and it left ‘I’ll disappear like the cheshire cat’ looping in her head like the worst broken record.
She couldn’t think about much else. They haven’t heard from Tim in any meaningful way since he ran off on the 19th. Tim was normally a nosey, obnoxious, devastatingly-genius pest that couldn’t go twenty minutes without checking in on them or just rambling at them or sending a cute or funny or cool pic he snapped. She had a seperate phone for texting Tim and Rose that she had to keep on silent when around the team because it never stopped getting messages. It had rung exactly once a day at three am for two weeks now.
So, Artemis couldn’t sleep, and could anyone really blame her? She couldn’t sleep, but she couldn’t go home either, because it was the third and she wasn’t used to being alone on the third.
(They’d known each other for just over a year, really, they shouldn’t be this attached to each other. That’s what happens when you throw three people who’ve never made a friend together though, she guesses. They cling to each other like nothing else matters, because how could anything else ever? They were all each other's first friends.)
There was the issue at hand, however. She was still expecting contact from Rose or Tim, because it was The Third. That had to mean something. Tim was always dragging one of them to the other’s house (or LexCorp, on the occasion), because they made the mistake of Promising. They all promised, herself and Rose tragically unaware what a Promise meant to a Drake. Memorably, neither of the girls took the promise at face value as another in an endless line of empty promises, and all but forgot about it. That was, of course, until Timothy Drake had her and Rose kidnapped by ninja (a favour Ra’s owed him, apparently) and dropped off in the most expensive guest room either of them had ever been in. They were barely conscious when Timothy Fucking Drake started a speech about how much a promise meant, and ended it with an unironic ‘I’m not mad just disappointed’, before starting a Disney Marathon (‘I’ve been informed these animated features are crucial to a happy childhood. I’ve never seen them, there’s no way Rose has, and Arty might’ve, so we’re watching them now. You guys promised.’). The Belle Reve fiasco was the closest any of them had ever gotten to missing a meet-up.
So she was spending the night in the cave because she couldn’t bear to be alone, but she had to be ready to leave at the drop of a hat, without questions from the others. Leading her to a movie night with M'gann. It was the closest she could get to The Third, and she liked M'gann well enough, like a little sister (give or take a century, apparently).
M’gann had fallen asleep hours ago, adamant about getting the proper sleep on school nights. Artemis couldn’t bring herself to follow suit. she’s watching Good Luck Charlie on Disney channel, an episode she had already seen when it aired when her and Rose got home the day Tim ran off. She was positive it was some higher power fucking with her, as the episode ran in the background and she stared at the clock as it counted down the last twenty minutes of The Third.
11:55, 11:56, 11:57, 11:58, 11:59. 12:00. 12:01.
It was the fourth, and she hadn’t gotten a call. Tim skipped it. Tim Drake broke a promise. What could she do now?
Her breathing got heavier as she thought on it, and she made her way from M’gann’s room as quickly and quietly as she could. She started spacing out, letting her feet guide her absently as she focused on keeping her breath under control. She couldn’t have a freak out in the Cave. someone would see her, and this wasn’t something she could explain.
That’s not how the world works though, and maybe it was her sleep deprivation or maybe it was old scars and ghosts or maybe it was the added stress of being in an unfamiliar setting, but inevitably something pushed her over the edge and she fell into herself, finding herself in Wally’s souvenir room. She fell to the floor and took deep but frustratingly stuttering breathes, arms wrapped around herself as she tried to get a hold of herself. She should call Rose.
Like an answered prayer, the sound of a phone vibrating cut through the unbreathable thick air, and Artemis was clawing through her jeans to get a hold of the device. She saw the Caller name for Rose, and answered the phone without a second thought, rushing to make sure Rose was ok because Artemis sure wasn’t.
“Hello? You ok? What’s up?” Artemis all but yelled, cringing at her own volume in the silence of the Cave. She was bound to wake someone up. Superboy had super hearing. She really needed to chill.
“I got ‘im. The little prick showed up a stroke before midnight.” Rose nearly growled, and in any other circumstance Artemis would laugh at her exasperation. As it was, she made some expression between grinning and glowering, before choking out a laugh. Seeing as Tim didn’t break his promise, and it was barely 12:05, she decided to tag on a yawn for good measure. She’s fine.
“God, what else were we expecting? Is he ok?” Artemis sighed, pinching her nose. Now her concern was dying down for the first time in two weeks, and she almost laughed again because she had to express her relief somehow.
“Who the hell knows? He’s not hurt, aside from the bruise I gave him when I knocked him over the head, and he seems no less skin and bones or sleep deprived then normal. Looks like he has a few semi-recent cuts and I wouldn’t be surprised if he was covering some bruises, but yea. Physically, he’s ok.” Rose recited, and Artemis could swear she heard the rasp that came with smoke, but she couldn’t bring herself to care just yet, because with the dying concern came a rising pang of anger. What did he think he was doing! Who did he think he was? Who did he think they were?
He was so fucked for this.
“I’ll be over soon, Don’t have too much fun without me.” Artemis nearly sang with her saccharine tone, biting back a growl of her own as she hung up and made her way to the Hanger. She couldn’t very well use the Zeta this late at night with how loud it was. Besides, it probably kept documentation on who used it and when, and she had no desire for anyone to have too much information on her movements tonight. She decided against taking any vehicle (trackers could be on anything), and just walked out of the mountain as covertly as she could, making her way to town.
She gave a light growl as she made her way to a large rosebush, and felt under it for a motorcycle Tim had mentioned stashing here the day after she joined the team. Seriously, she was going to have his head for all of this.
The bike was in perfect working condition, somehow, and without another thought she drove off, en-route to Gotham.
----
Tim groaned at the throbbing in his head, rejoining Rose in an apartment room, duct taped to a bolted down chair with the Looney Tunes running on a tv right in front of him. Rose is lounging on a red couch to his left (that he’s pretty sure He bought her), smoking and looking pretty relaxed to the untrained eye. Unfortunately, Tim’s eyes were trained quite well, and her posture had enough tension for a Henry James written short story. He didn’t even bother moving to try and escape, resigned to his fate at the hands of his vengeful sisters.
Tim rotated his neck and bit his cheeks, seeking some sort of movement. His hair felt out of place, messy on his head, and he shook his head vigorously in an attempt to fix whatever Rose did. He couldn’t very well sit still. He took it as a sign in his favour that he could still move his hands enough to strum his fingers and his feet enough to stretch his toes, seeing as his legs were too short to touch the carpeted ground. His gloves, boots, and belt have been removed, but as much is expected given how well Rose knows his tricks. He’s a little amazed that his mouth isn’t gagged ot taped shut.
Perhaps he isn’t quite a dead man walking. That was nice, because he hadn’t been able to refine the will he wrote. It was folded up under the soles of his left shoe, written in colored pencil and giving most of his stuff to the girls, the waynes, and Mother Dearest. Alexander can go fuck himself, honestly. He had been left with all of Tim’s expensive and extravagant hair products that Rose didn’t want, and his least favorite pair of dirty socks. It’s all the man deserved.
As the credits for the short he woke up to rolled, he attempted conversation with Rose. It’d be nice to gauge exactly where he stood before Artemis got there.
“So, heard Artemis’s team’s been having a rough week. How’d you fair during the giant plant attack?” He asked casually, pretending he didn’t know the answer. She spent the time in her seventh favorite safehouse, probably because it was the one closest to the Zeta artemis used to get to Gotham. Tim had checked in on her through the nearby security camera that he was certain she flipped off at least twice. She had fought one of the smaller giant stalk monsters, quite brutally chopping it to bits.
Whether he knew what happened or not hardly mattered, however, as Rose just ignored him. Tim tried for conversation again, gossiping and sniggering about the time he set up an april fools prank to make Alexander think he was growing hair, then mocking Kid Flash’s obvious crush on Artemis, which granted him a scowl from Rose. encouraged by the reaction, he quipped and snarked about the very maturely dubbed ‘Kid Crash’ until his rants earned a smirk from Rose. at least all hope wasn’t lost, then. Eventually she taps the duct tape beside her in an obvious warning to shut the hell up, and he decides not to test his luck, tapping whatever he wants to say out in morse-code on the chair.
Don’t get him wrong, he’s not stupid enough to think he’s off scott free. They’re still going to be pissed with him. He’ll have a lot to make up for. But, should he somehow survive the coming interrogation/scolding, it seemed their relationship was salvageable. That’s a relief.
He had a sneaking suspicion that he hadn’t correctly predicted their apathy to his absence so long as he sent assurance he was fine. If anything, he thought they’d be relieved to have him be much less clingy.
He still hovered though, still watched and listened in to security footage and bugs he planted, still ended up hacking into Mt. Justice footage to watch Arty. He enjoyed the few days that Robin tried tracking him or trying to figure ways to kick him out, and enjoyed them simply cutting Justice Leauge’s access to the footage much less. It was probably still wired to somewhere in The Batcave, and while he could probably still hack in to see the footage, he wasn’t as confident he could do so unnoticed. He didn’t need paranoid bats on top of everything else. He went and gave the hidden motorcycle in the neighboring city a check up for artemis, because what else was he to do? Any conversation they had would lead to questions he didn’t want to answer. The only reasonable solution would be to avoid conversation altogether.
Perhaps that decision was a misstep, he admitted to himself, as he asked for a cup of water, emphasizing the rasp in his voice, and Rose got him a cup of ice with an absurdly long straw to reach his stationary mouth and growled ‘Wait’.
What felt like hours and two cups of water later, there was a knock on the door. Or, what qualifies as a knock to people trained by evil ninja. It was more of a deliberate creak of a floor board and a slight tapping on the door. Rose smirked like christmas came early, the glare leveled his way holding no sympathy as she went to open the door.
Artemis walks in with two pairs of handcuffs and a worryingly sharp knife, and he held his breath as she approached, closing his eyes for effect. It wasn’t death by any physical means he feared, but it was still wise to react when one of the girls approached with something sharp, lest they end up using it on you just to show they would. He’s made the mistake before.
As predicted, she did not stab him (thankfully), merely cut his duct tape bonds and handcuffed his feet to the chair. He was thankful, rubbing his raw red wrists. It was a habit to talk with his hands to further explain himself, and gods above knew he has a lot of explaining to do.
Arty stared holes into him, and if looks could kill he would have burst into flame when he entered her sight. Rose went to the kitchen to retrieve snacks, because it was going to be a long night (morning?). Tim kept his gaze firmly on his two dangling legs, kicking them as far as the chains would allow.
The apartment was quiet. The TV had been shut off at some point, and Rose didn’t make sound in the kitchen. Tim really didn’t want to have this conversation, so he was fine with the quiet at first. Then it just seemed to make the air heavier and Artemis angrier, and the silence became nearly unbearable.
Rose returned, bowls of chips and cookies and sweets masterfully stacked and movement as silent as usual, not a sound being made as she laid them out on the coffee table. It was a little mystifying to watch, ceramic touching glass and plastic bags being set down but not a sound being made, and Tim would be more impressed if he didn’t know others who could do the same. If he couldn’t do it himself.
The silence weighed them down like a heavy blanket, and was cut promptly a few minutes after Rose sat down as she obnoxiously grabbed a container of Oreos and ripped it open with far less tact then they all knew she was capable of. Tim gave a light groan, Artemis gave some sort of sigh halfway between frustrated and grateful, and Rose had the gall to smirk, waving out with her arms towards him as she chomped on the oreo she had extracted from the case.
“So, Timmy. Plead your case.” She offered casually, speaking vietnamese. That made sense. Walls were paper thin in Gotham.
“In my defence, I didn’t expect such an extreme reaction from either of you.” He shrugged, keeping with the other language and trying to play it off as he folded his hands in his lap. “I didn’t die or anything, and I was still here on the Third.” That just seemed to make them angrier. Fuck. turn the conversation. “Besides, I was busy with training. And Alexander didn’t want me around where the giant plants were going to be.” Tim elaborated with a partial truth.
“Then why didn’t you say anything? Why haven’t we heard from you in two weeks?” Artemis demanded, and that wasn’t right because-
“I’ve kept in contact to assure you of my wellbeing!” He defended, biting his lip as his voice rose at the end of the sentence. So much for keeping his emotions under control. He took a deep breath. He could do this. Rose crunched on chips she had picked up at some point, and he nearly winced.
“You know what I mean.” the blonde retorted as her voice went stone cold, and well, that was fair. He knew exactly what she meant. Didn’t mean he had to admit it.
“Maybe I don’t. It’s awful bold to assume my prepubescent mind understands your hormone riddled thoughts.” He snarked, eyes darting up sharply to meet hers for the first time, a challenge she met head on. He really should have thought this through sooner, because one of the first things they both learned was to never be the first to break eye contact, so now he was kinda stuck. He was sure he heard Rose snort in amusement as she came to the same conclusion to the left of them. Very helpful.
“You-you!” Artemis sputtered, seeming to struggle with forming a sentence. ‘Good’, an unwelcome part of his mind that sounded distinctly like Alexander hissed, ‘if she can’t talk then she can’t ask anything.’ and it..had a point.
He really was screwed if that was the route his thoughts were going when talking to the girls. Rose’ll bite that thought in the ass as soon as she catches wind, and it never takes her long. But he didn’t want to play this game right now, he had missed them, he just wanted to skip this conversation. Maybe playing ignorant was the quickest way to end it. Maybe Rose would understand. Maybe he needed a therapist, because he was taking advice from his Alexander voice.
“You left!” Artemis finally decided on, nearly yelling. “You left, and we didn’t know where or why or what you were doing! You didn’t tell us, we couldn’t..converse with you! You ran off!” Artemis rambled, and Tim’s vietnamese was good but Arty was the only primary speaker, and if she got much faster he’d have trouble keeping up.
“You can’t just do that, Drake. We were worried. I nearly killed Luthor. Artemis was going mad.” Rose spoke up, clearly trying to be some sort of mediator, and nearly failing with the way her voice seemed to growl. “You can’t just leave.”
“I-I know all of that. Alexander had quite the stern call scolding me for not ‘reigning in my wild friends’.” Tim started, unsure what to say for the first time in ages. Alexander’s hiss faded away, replaced by the firm tones of Mother. ‘If you must love someone, do it properly.’ she scolded, spitting off tons of advice that wasn’t helpful at the moment. He was just recinting Lectures that his mother had given in his mind, scrubbing through them to find something useful. ‘There is no shame in coming clean, Timothy, as long as you put up a good fight first. There is no shame in honesty, as long as you don’t go to far.’ finally stood out to him, and he gave a sigh. Guess he was doing this then. Can’t very well disobey Janet Drake. Can’t very well lie to the girls.
“And Artemis’s team turned the camera’s off in their base because I kept hacking them to check in on her- just to check in, swear, first time I’ve ever done it, don’t get too mad- so it became harder to keep track of how she was doing.” He sighed, giving artemis an apologetic smile and breaking eye contact first as a peace offering. He heard her take a deep breath, which was hopefully progress.
“Yeah, the mole. You know anything about that?” Artemis asked half-heartedly, probably predicting his response.
“Sorry ‘Mis, that’s a secret.” He recited regretfully, and Artemis nodded.
The room was silent for a few minutes. There were only a handful of questions left to ask, and Timothy wanted nothing to do with answering any of it. Rose had been thinking hard about something for the last few minutes, and Tim held his breath because it’s when he realized she knew.
“Where’d you hole yourself up, Drake?” Rose gritted out, and Tim gave a resigned sigh. Welp.
“With your dad.” He admitted quietly, flinching at the much louder crunch of the chips she was still eating. “It makes sense! He’s too scared of my mom to tell anyone if I ask him not too, and it was obviously the first place I’d go, which you guys know, so it’s the last place you’d look, because It wouldn’t make sense for my retreat to be that obvious!” he rushed to justify, because yeah, it’s a shitty move, but it made the most sense. She had to get that.
Rose look conflicted, stuck between rapid anger and betrayal for his decision and a reluctant understanding because of course he did what was logical first and considered the emotional impact later if ever. Of course he did. Why wouldn’t he? She ended up growling and storming out to the balcony behind him, to smoke if he had to guess. The door didn’t slam shut in the traditional sense, but they heard it close, and that meant she was pissed.
Tim turned back to Artemis, and she had a question burning in her eyes that he had been waiting for. She opened her mouth to ask, and he gave a long, agonized, dramatic groan to shut her up and stall for time. Every second counted. Her face twisted into a scowl that made it clear how unwise it would be to do that again, and he was able to restrain himself from anything beyond a full-body sag and slight choking sound.
“Robin.” Was all she stated, and, like many other things that night, he resigned himself to the conversation.
“What about him?” He shot back innocently, eyes blown wide and curious and confused frown mangling his face.
“What do you know about him?” She asked boldly, regret flashing in her mind the moment she noticed the problem with her phrasing and he started reciting verbatim exactly what Alexander’s official file said on the boy.
“You know who he is.” Artemis interrupted before he got too far into the breifing, saying it slowly, like she was trying out the words to see how they felt on her lips. Her accompanying scowl made it apparent she wasn’t fond of them.
“Everyone knows who he is. Robin, the boy wonder, sidekick- sorry, Partner-” that mistake was so forced Tim could almost taste it “- to Gotham City’s The Batman. Rumored to be active for nearly half a decade, Rumored to be a fae creature in the same circles The Batman is rumored to be a vampire. Fighting style similar to The Batman’s, but based more in acrobatics and favouring his lithe form, and known as a trickster on the streets of Gotham. Infamous for his unsettling laugh, pension for falling or possibly jumping off of buildings seemingly for the fun of it, and his inhuman quadruple somersault.” Tim informed, proud he managed to keep the awe from his tone and eyebrows knitting together as if he was befuddled by her questions. He really didn’t want to have this conversation.
“You know something else, though.” She tried again, getting annoyed.
“I know a lot of other things, Artemis. I wouldn’t be a very good supervillain if the only thing filling my head was a basic rundown of a single child.” He scoffed, like she was the one being difficult. He could do this all day. He was glad they were still doing this in vietnamese. Discussing The Boy Wonder in Gotham tended to draw unwanted ears.
“His identity, though. His secret identity. You know it.” She accused, done beating around the bush.
“What brings you to that conclusion?” He inquires casually, letting loose a real yawn. It wasn’t real because he was bored, it was real because he hadn’t slept in a week, but she didn’t have to know that.
“You admitted it! You know what school he goes to!” She cried out, cracking her knuckles in her frustration.
“Perhaps I merely assumed. The Batman has to be quite rich to do what he does, it only makes sense Robin goes to a prestigious school.” Tim reasoned, biting the insides of his cheeks. That was a bit of a reach, because-
“Or he could be homeschooled. Or it’s too obvious for him to go to a rich school, so he goes to public. Or Batman isn’t rich, and just has a rich donor. Or they don’t live in Gotham, and just Zeta over to patrol every night.” Artemis sneered, decidedly unimpressed as she ran a hand through her hair, taking out the ponytail. “I Know you, Timothy Drake. At the very least, I know you enough not to fall for that shit. You don’t say things unless you have a planned lie or you are certain they are true. Seeing as you darted and hid from us right after, you clearly didn’t have it planned out, so it was a fact. Robin goes to my school. The only way you know is if he told you, or you know who he is.” She drawled, keeping a cap on her anger as she explained it and- well. She wasn’t wrong.
“Fine.” He says, monotone, taking a second to let his walls fall down, cause she won this one fair and square. “Fine!” he repeated, emotion leaking back into his voice with a whine reminding him annoyingly of Klarion. He should probably get that checked out. “Yes, I know the secret identity of Robin, The Boy Wonder, Gotham’s Golden boy in booty shorts-”
“Booty shorts?” she questioned and he made a low sound in the back of his throat because he was just digging his own grave here.
“Yes, booty shorts. First iteration of his costume.” He confirmed with a nod, fingers twitching at the thought of the familiar weight of his camera in his hands.
“Huh. don’t figure you have any proof to back your claim.” She challenged and, well, that’s fair. You can’t have friends without a little blackmail on them, and he doubted the birdboy was very good at providing material.
“Why, of course I do. I’ll dig it up and send it to you later, sis.” He chirped, aware she read the underlying meaning; ‘I know exactly where it is, but I don’t want anyone else to know so I’ll do it when no one is looking’. He was a bit uncertain tagging ‘sis’ onto the end of the sentence, but he needed to test the water. See where he stood now. She didn’t seem angry, if anything she looked a little sad at his hesitance, so he tried making it up to her with a smile. She shook it off and didn’t mention it again, cause she’s great like that.
“You gonna tell me who he is?” She asked slowly, like she wasn’t sure if she wanted him too, and his entire body went tense.
“No.” He admitted heavily, frozen in place as she studied him, giving a small nod.
“Does Luthor know?” She asked, acid splashing in her voice at the man’s name. He couldn’t stop himself from scrunching up his nose, mildly offended at the notion.
“No.” he repeated, disdain at the thought clear.
“Does anyone else?” she asks, almost as an afterthought. If Tim didn’t tell Alexander, there’s few, if any, people he would tell. Tim biting his lip and not answering, however, tenses her right back up. “Tim?” She demanded
“...someone else knows, but I didn’t tell him, and he knows I know, but he doesn’t know I know he knows I know or that I know that he knows that I know that he knows.” Tim admits. Artemis takes a second to figure out exactly what he said, then nods.
“Why not tell anyone?” Artemis asks hesitantly, fists clenched like she was ready for a fight, and Tim cringed. The Team was her family too. To a lesser degree then himself and Rose, but a higher degree then Jade and Laurence. She didn’t want to have to choose between them. That’s why they tried to avoid conversations about the team.
“They never asked.” He shrugs, a bit too casually, and Arty tensed up more. Tim considered what he said and, yeah, given The Way He Is, it's a fair reaction to take ‘they never asked’ as ‘I’m waiting for someone to ask and when they do I’m spilling the most tightly guarded secret in the world’. He should clear that up. “It’s really none of their business.” He amends, and that relaxes her somewhat, so it’s a victory. He doesn’t really know how to explain that he’d never reveal the Dynamic Duo’s identities. That he’d trade any other secret to keep that one. That he’d die before selling out the first person that smiled at him will no ulterior motives and the first man that demonstrated empathy. He couldn’t quite explain to someone else how much they meant to him even outside of costume, that they were some of the people he cared about most, below only Rose and Artemis herself.
“Is there anything else you wanna say?” She inquires cautiously, interrogation seemingly over for now but weary of last minute surprises. He starts to unwind from his defensive stance, contemplating an answer.
“Robin doesn’t know I know. Something to add to your long list of reasons to keep me in particular a secret, is he knows who I am, but he doesn’t know I know he knows that, and he and The Batman are kinda set on getting me to change sides.” He confesses, eyes dropping to his hands again as he waits for the inevitable inquiry.
“Well, why don’t you switch sides?” She probes, and even though he expected it, his eyes pop at the statement, glaring at her. She quiets her voice for his sake, but continues because she’s the worst. “Seriously, Tim. You don’t like Luthor. You feel bad about the things you do. You keep secrets for us, like Robin’s and probably everyone else’s identities.” she shot a glare at Tim, and he gave a guilty nod to confirm. “And Robin, the third most paranoid person I know, wants to help you. I could take you back to the cave. You won’t be in danger, from anyone. We’d be lucky to have you.” She said, searching his face for- for something. He couldn’t quite tell what.
“It isn’t so simple, Arty.” He lamented with a small smile. “I like Alexander well enough, He may be an utter asshole, but he all but raised me. That’s a loyalty that’s hard to completely sever, especially given how large of a resource I’d be losing. As it stands, Lexcorp is basically at my disposal, as well as a ton of other things from the rest of The Light, such as the entire LoA. If remorse outweighed duty, very few people would be in the business. Robin is, at his core, an optimist. The Batman is too. They have to believe everyone can change, otherwise their rogues gallery would be full of corpses. Robin wants to help everyone, I’m not special. For every secret I keep for you, there’s two I keep from you. I won’t tell you who the mole is, or anything about The Light that you don’t already know, unless they’re being fucking dumb and arrogant, like trying to summon aliens or cloning superman.” He shot her a look, and he swore her eyes nearly popped out of her skull, but he kept going. “Besides, I’m not built to be good. I’m not a good person. I admire heroes, I probably always will, but I have better things to do then work to impress a dozen god-like adults in Spandex. Heroes have limitations and expectations that I have no interest in meeting, especially with how limiting they are. I serve the exact purpose I need to from right where I am.” He concludes, and nearly shouts in relief as Rose walks back in, stopping the conversation in its tracks.
Rose would hear about the entire conversation from one or both of them in exasperated-but-caring rant form later, but she was very clear that she had no interest being included in their good-vs-evil squabbles. Last time they demanded her opinion, she said ‘I’m sorry, I can’t hear your meaningless ethics squabbles over the sound of all the money I make killing for whoever asks the nicest. Kindly fuck off.’, and they took her words to heart.
Thankfully she gathered as much, sitting down and still smelling like smoke, seeming to have come to terms with Tim being Logical to a fault. She really wouldn’t have him any other way.
“So, wanna tell us why you ran off?” Rose asked, though it very clearly wasn’t a question. After his last interrogation, this was much easier. She had switched back to english, which was a little startling, but it made sense. They got the confidential stuff out of the way.
“I really really really didn’t wanna talk to you guys about my...slip of tongue, so I booked it.” he shrugged. “From there, I remained adamant in my reluctance, and decided you guys would enjoy the break from my incessant rambling. That assumption proved..incorrect. The plan was always to be back by the third. I just..needed some time to think.” He rambled a little, unsure exactly what to say, but that seemed to do it. They nodded, and looked like they had more to say. Ramblings about how he meant more to them then that, that they didn’t mind his endless check ins and texts, that they loved him just the way he was, excetera excetera, but they seemed to take some notification from his face that now Really wasn’t the time for that.
He was just tired. Very, supremely, I-haven’t-slept-in-a-week tired, but also I-can’t-talk-anymore-it’s-emotions tired. He looked down at his handcuffed feet and looked to Rose, making sure he was free, before fishing a multi-tool hair clip from somewhere in his mullet and breaking the cuffs open. By the time he was done, arty was making popcorn and Rose was lounging on the armrest facing the TV as she looked for something to watch.
Tim was silent as he curled up beside her, slowly. He could admit to himself that he was touch starved, and his lack of human affection in his life is probably concerning to any professional doctor, but he still wasn’t sure what the general rules for affection were. He wasn’t really sure any of the three of them were privy to them, actually. Rose noticed him as he stole an oreo or five from the pack that started it all, and gave a wolfish grin as she gently pulled him closer, calloused hands cold but comforting. He relaxed fully for the first time in two weeks, pressing into the touch as Rose gave up on cable and flipped over to Netflix.
Arty returned with popcorn, joining their little cuddle pile (being a bit handsy with Rose, and vice versa, but that was nothing new). The popcorn was perfectly flavoured, a mix of their individual favorites (ranch, kettle corn, and white cheddar) with no butter, that really had no right tasting as good as it did given the unholy abomination of ingredients. Story of their life.
They watched cheap horror movies from the 80’s and laugh at them together, chatting through the whole thing.
Tim had no idea how he kept himself away from his family for an entire Fortnight.