Chapter Text
It had been an alright birthday, all things considered, in Timothy Drake-Wayne’s opinion. Sure, he might still have a few broken toes which made going bowling with Kon and Bart a bit uncomfortable, and his work for Wayne enterprises might have cut the day-out short, but all in all, he’d had fun. He’d Skyped with Dick and Damian, received a surprisingly sweet hallmark card with $30,000 inside from Bruce (serious overkill, but not unwelcome) and Steph and Cass would be coming over to his apartment before patrol to catch up on Game of Thrones. It was exactly what Tim would want for a 21st birthday - nothing too extravagant, plenty relaxed and not much missed from work.
Tim stretched out on his beige leather couch, his grubby socked feet resting comfortably on the arm, his overheating laptop whirring discontentedly from his waist. Perhaps he would use some of that birthday money to buy a newer model, Tim thought to himself. Tim was shovelling take out beef chow mein into his mouth with one hand and typing up memorandums with the other. It was a bit too salty (they’d overdone it on the soy sauce) and he beef was so overcooked it felt like eating tanned leather, but Tim was starving and the hot noodles filled the void. They would do. It was not long before he had finished the entire container, which he unceremoniously dumped on the hardwood floor beside him without a second thought. It was at the moment that he returned his full attention (and both hands) to the tasks before him that he heard an oddly rhythmed knock on his front door. Is that Feel Good Inc? He wondered.
Tim wasn’t expecting Cass and Steph for another few hours yet, but he had a funny feeling he knew who was at the door. With a sigh, he sat the laptop aside and stood up, stepping over his duffle bag full of sweaty gym clothes as he made his way over to answer the door. He was both right and wrong. Sure, Jason Todd, his weird estranged brother, was standing behind the door with an unusually wide smile and a full bottle of Jack Daniels in each hand, just as Tim had predicted. But he wasn’t alone. Beside him was Damian, looking irritable and leaning on the handles of a wheelchair containing a slightly buzzed Barbara Gordon. She had her mid length red hair in a purposefully messy wave, her eyelids painted with more makeup than was typical for her behind her glasses. She held a bottle of red wine and if Tim was not mistaken there was definitely another bottle poking out of the back of her handbag. Last but not least, the man pushing past her to pull Tim into a bone crushing hug was of course, Dick.
“Timmy!” He trilled into Tim’s shoulder. Tim gave Dick an affectionate pat on the back. “Happy birthday! I can’t believe you’re already so grown up I-” Tim cut him off as he ducked out of the hold “I know, I know, you said this already in the skype call. I’m surprised you’re here...” Dick smiled, looking down and ruffling Tim’s overgrown hair. Now that Tim was 21 he officially had just about no chance of ever growing taller than Dick, and Dick seemed to be cherishing every moment of reminding Tim of how short he is. Even Damian had now outgrown him, standing at 5ft 9, just a breath away from Dick’s 5ft 10...and he’s only 16. Brat.
“It was Jason’s idea to come actually!” Jason’s ears reddened significantly. Tim wondered to himself why Jason keeps his hair short when his tell is more visible like that. Jason kept shuffling his feet awkwardly in the doorway, the only one not to step inside (or in Barbara’s case, roll) after Dick had. “No I didn’t! I just asked Dick why you were patrolling tonight. Thought it was a bit weird you weren’t drinking on your 21st - that’s what 21st birthdays are for, dude. It was Dick’s idea to actually show up at your house.” Tim gave him a knowing look. “So you mostly came along because you felt like getting wasted.” Jason barked a laugh, clearly caught. “And to live vicariously through you. I spent my 21st in hospital after Bruce made me a new asshole.” Tim balked at the harsh words and it must have shown on his face because Jason just laughed at him. “Its okay, I probably deserved it. I don’t actually remember what I did but you know what I’m like. Oh, and happy birthday, by the way. Can I come in?” Tim puzzled at Jason’s odd behaviour. What is he, a vampire?
“Sure dude, it’s fine.” Goddamnit, so much for a quiet night in with Steph and Cass, Tim thought.
Damian was walking in circles around Tim’s apartment, drinking in the abominable mess that adorned every surface. “Good thing Pennyworth isn’t with us.” He remarked. “If he were he’d surely have a seizure.”
“Yeah, I didn’t take you for a slob, Tim. This is unreal!” Jason didn’t seem as judgemental as Damian though, just amused. “I thought you’d be like me, but like, ten times worse.” Tim hadn’t seen Jason’s new house in Gotham, but he remembered lingering in Jason’s room in the manor, trying to talk to a ghost that wasn’t listening. He remembered how Jason had meticulously organised his room. Though heavily decorated with posters and full of clutter, Jason also did things like organising every item of clothing, including his shoes and underwear drawer (not that Tim had been rifling through a dead boy’s underwear or anything weird like that), by the colour spectrum. White and red always to the left, Indigo and Black to the right. Or the way he organised his personal photo collection not only in order of date but also in alphabetical order by subject. First pictures of/with Alfred, then Bruce, then Clark, then Diana, Dick, Donna and so on...it was really over the top.
“Nah, you’d think so...but no. I think better in chaos.” Tim answered.
Without being prompted to, both Jason and Damian had started collecting Tim’s trash and putting it in the bin. When Tim cast Damian a surprised look, Damian scowled. “If I’m going to have to take care of you lot while you all deliberately poison yourselves, I’m at least not going to do it surrounded by mouldy food, Drake.”
Tim sighed. “Designated driver, I take it?”. Damian nodded in affirmation.
“Someone has to make sure these fools get home safely, and my father is far too important to pull away from his duties in Gotham.” Damian smirked before adding; “Knowing Todd, he’d try and drive himself home”.
Jason huffed indignantly. “I would not!” He tossed an empty can of cola and bounced it off of Damian’s head. Dick left Tim’s side to stand between the two.
“Hey! That’s enough. We’re here for Tim today, stop being jerks! Both of you.” Both Jason and Damian rolled their eyes. It’s uncanny how alike they are, Tim thinks to himself.
When Jason started cleaning the oven and Damian started loading laundry into the washer, Dick, Barbara and Tim resigned themselves to a long wait on the couch. “They are way too much” Barbara said fondly as she decorked her wine with her teeth. Spitting out the cork, she turned to Tim. “Have you got a glass?”
“Yeah, I do, hold on.” Tim said, rising from his seat and into the kitchen.
“Does anyone else need me to get them a glass?” Tim called to the house.
“Nah, I’m good! I brought beer!” Dick called back.
“Jay?” Tim questioned the beefy man at his feet who was currently scrubbing at his oven with wire wool.
“Yeah, with ice if you’ve got any.” Jason replied quietly.
“I would prefer a glass for my almond milk too, if you don’t mind.” Damian added. Okay. Three Glasses. No, four, he should probably get one for himself, right? What did Tim even want to drink? He didn’t have any alcohol of his own in the house. Could he really bring himself to mooch after some of Dicks? Ugh, but Tim hates beer.
“Hey Jay, would you mind if I had some of your bourbon?”
Jason’s laugh echoed around the oven. “It’s whiskey, not bourbon. And sure, go nuts. Why’d you think I brought two bottles? I want to party but it’s not like I want to die.” Tim abstained from remarking that technically Jason is already dead, but Damian did not. Jason just laughed though, which was reassuring. Its weird to think that just four years ago, the man cleaning his oven wanted him dead. He really had mellowed a lot in the last couple of years.
“Why are you cleaning my oven, Jason?” Tim asked.
“I don’t know.” Jason admitted with a shrug. “It looked pretty dirty, I guess.”
“TT. I think it’s overkill. We are not your maids or your butlers, Drake. I only started tidying because I can’t stand being surrounded by filth.”
“And yet you’re hanging out with me.” Jason joked. Damian laughed.
“Not by choice.” He said, nudging Jason’s exposed rump with his boot with fake distaste. Tim could tell that those two actually quite liked each other. The had a similar sense of humour, at least.
Oh shit, the glasses! Tim finally remembered why he’d come into the kitchen. Stepping over Jason gingerly, Tim made his way to the cabinet with the glasses and retrieved three short, wide tumblers. Those should work for himself, Jason and Damian, but Barbara would need a wine glass. And of course the wine glasses had to be on the top shelf. It’s a good thing Alfred got Tim a glassware set as a housewarming gift, as otherwise poor Babs would have been drinking her wine from a mug. But since Tim never used them, he placed them on the top shelf without even thinking, and now he would need to climb on the countertops to get them down.
Or...he could just ask Jason or Damian to get them for him, he was reminded by a chiding inner voice.
Either option would be undignified - especially if he asked Damian. The brat would literally hold it over his head for weeks. But Tim knew he would also be mocked senseless for climbing on the counter, too. Great, just great.
“Hey Jay, think you could do me a favour and grab a red wine glass from the top shelf there for me?”
“Sure” He said, emerging from the depths of the oven. He had the ashy remnants of some charred food smeared on his cheek. “Anything for the birthday boy!” Jason was sure to wash his hands thoroughly before effortlessly reaching for the top shelf and grabbing a wine glass. “It’s the ones with the wide, deep bottoms for red, yeah?”
“Yes,” Tim and Damian said in chorus.
Jason handed Tim the glass. Tim glanced at Damian, awaiting the mockery for asking for help, but none came. With a shrug, Tim then grabbed some cola and ice from his fridge-freezer and made to rejoin Dick and Babs in the living room.
Dick had his feet up on the coffee table and was sipping from a bottle of light beer. Tim hadn’t even noticed Dick carry the box in. When his eyes laid on Tim, he smiled. “Finally, he returns!” Dick exclaims, to which Babs looks over her shoulder to take the glass from Tim’s hand. “Thank you, Tim.” She smiles, filling her glass with the wine and taking a sip. “You and Jason have lot of catching up to do, so you had better get pouring those drinks.”
God, what am I getting myself into? Tim thinks to himself. Tim pours himself and Jason a Jack and Coke and fills the remaining glass from the carton of Alpro sitting on the table. “Can’t believe he’s actually drinking nut-milk at a party” Dick chuckled. Surprisingly, Barbara performed a very aggressive spit-take at the words nut-milk before she could stop herself, showering her nice white pale blue shirt in wine. “Oh damn it Dick, look what you made me do!”
“Look what you made me do, look what you just made me do, look what you just made me Oooooooooooh” Dick sang teasingly, dancing in his seat like a moron before pressing a kiss to her temple. “It’s a look Babs, Don’t worry about it.”
Just then, out of nowhere, Tim is nearly flattened by Jason as he leaps over the couch from behind and tries to squeeze himself into the tiny gap between Dick and Tim on the couch. It doesn’t work. He winds up putting at least 200 lbs of weight directly into poor Tim’s lap, from which he is unceremoniously dumped on the floor. Unlike Jason, Damian willingly takes a cross legged position on the floor beside him.
“Okayyyy, now that all that is out of the way, it's time for a game!” Jason announces, revealing a pack of cards from his pocket and an empty pint glass in his hands, both of which he slaps down on the now cleared coffee table in front of him. “Who here has played Ring of Fire?”
“Oh no no, Jason, that’s-”
“Oh hell yes!” Barbara shouts, surprising everyone. “I haven’t played this in years!”
Jason raises an eyebrow in Dick’s direction. “C’mon, goldenboy. Lighten up! Babs is game, why aren’t you?”
Dick had paled considerably. “This game never ends well for me.”
Jason rolls his eyes. “That’s the point, numbnuts. C’monnnn. Just one game. It’ll be fun.”
Dick, already seeming a little tipsy so presumably on his third drink, is weak willed. “Fine.”
Damian clears his throat, drawing everyone's eyes to his youthful face. “I haven’t played this game. How do you play?” He asks, moving a little closer to the table.
“I’m glad you asked.” Jason says as he begins setting up the game. Jason creates a circle of cards around the pink glass on the table. “So,” He says. “We each take turns to draw a card from the ring, and each card has a different rule. For example, if you draw a 4, that means 'whores', so all the women, or in this case just Barbie, drink. This pack has all the rules printed on the cards so we don’t have to worry about what they all mean. The only ones we need to be concerned with are Queen, which i prefer to change from ‘Questions’ to a best out of 5 ‘Never have I ever’ because that’s more fun, so we need to remember that. And we also have to remember to be careful with King, because if Damian, our dear sober soldier draws the last one, he’ll have to drink the ungodly mixture within - which will almost definitely have alcohol in it. Should that arise, Damian will be given the power to elect someone to do it for him.” Damian grinned maniacally at that, and Tim knew with confidence that either himself or Jason would be on the chopping block.
“Tim should go first, since its his birthday.”
Great.