Chapter Text
You said to me, "It won't be long now
You'll leave the world and you will join me here"
My flesh is afraid but I am not
'Cause love now is only the pain of needing
They took your smell, they took your shadow
And I'm searching through faces for someone familiar
I clawed and I clawed, but I couldn't find you there
You wouldn't wake, I couldn't sleep for years
The Waves Have Come by Chelsea Wolfe
“Can’t believe he’s gonna be forty-five.”
“I know, right?”
“Bruce’ll be an old man soon.”
Tim tutted, herding Stephanie down an aisle with the metal cart he was pushing, “Don’t tell him that.”
Stephanie scoffed, “What? Has he got a younger clone of himself in a giant egg somewhere ready to pop when someone utters those words?”
Tim stopped pushing the cart, turned ninety degrees, and gave Steph an indescribable look.
“I was being sarcastic, Tim.”
Tim said nothing, then slowly rotated back to push the empty cart, Stephanie trailing behind.
They’d gone to the garden centre because Stephanie was willing to look everywhere and anywhere for inspiration for Bruce’s upcoming birthday. Tim, ever dutiful, followed along. It was a rubbish time of year to go to a garden centre – late January – as the entire place was filled with on sale Christmas decorations and half dead flowers that would no doubt complete their journey to the grave if buried in the frigid soil. The poor choice of plants was reflected in the number of customers, of which there were maybe three others trailing up and down the greenhouse aisles.
“I guess that’s not fair,” Stephanie continued to voice to the relative silence, only the distant tinny music and the dodgy wheel squeaking as they rolled along filled the lulls in conversation. “That would make Alfred positively decrepit.”
“And that he is not,” Tim said very firmly.
“No…Oooh?” Stephanie became distracted. “Oh, Tim look at these!”
Heaving the cart round the corner after her with an almighty sigh, he found her standing next to small potted flowering plants. Stephanie was pilfering through them, looking for particular colours.
Tim peered at one of the little cards slotted in the soil and chortled.
“Roses? Really? Steph I’m not sure roses are gonna cut it for Bruce’s forty-fifth.”
“Oh, don’t worry about that you big baboon—”
“’Scuse you.”
“– I’m looking at these for us, not him.”
Tim gazed at Stephanie. Stephanie, in her bright blue hand knitted beanie that she had made for herself over the Christmas break to distract from finals. Stephanie, in an oversized fluorescent plastic jacket (the kind that belonged in an early episode of Power Rangers) that somehow managed to make her look twice as wide than she truly was. Stephanie, with her flushed cheeks from the cold and little pearly teeth showing off in a big grin, golden hair bunched up into two pigtails that fell down her back.
Tim couldn’t help it; he melted a little at the sight of her.
“You’re staring,” she murmured, not looking away from her task.
Tim sucked on his teeth. “Maybe I want to. That allowed?”
“Sure. You have my permission.”
“Gracious.”
Tim pecked her on the cheek, causing Stephanie to laugh like a snorting pig. With a little happy noise, she found the two plants she wanted. One lilac and one deep red bunch. They didn’t look like ordinary roses to Tim, not like the kind you would pick up from a convenience store in a small bundle for an anniversary. No, these roses were flatter and broader, and he could see a number of buds on both sets of plants.
“I want these,” Stephanie said. “Help me pick two nice boxes to put them in?”
“Do we have space on the windowsill?”
They didn’t have a garden. Not truly. Though Tim’s apartment did allow roof access, it was not really the place to be growing a little garden. They also didn’t really have a balcony to fill with plant pots. Places for greenery were limited in their home.
“They’ll fit.”
Tim nodded, and she sat them down in the cart. A moments silence passed, and she pouted.
Sighing, Tim breathed, “What is it?”
“Ask me why I want them.”
Nodding with his entire torso, Tim moved off, heading towards glazed plant pots and boxes.
“Why do you want them?”
“’Cause they’re pretty.” She skipped after him and saw as he ran his tongue along his teeth, amused at her glib nature. “Aaaaaand, I wanna do an experiment.”
“Experiment?”
“Yes. I gathered you like those.”
“Steph,” his tone was a gentle warning.
“’Kay, ‘kay. Sorry. I just thought…” she paused, tapping her nails against a terra cotta pot. The sound was nice to listen to. “Well, you know how people say you should live together before you get married? To make sure you can actually stand being around each other twenty-four-seven?”
Tim clenched his jaw and nodded, “Yes?”
Stephanie said nothing, gnawing her lip. Tim tried to comfort her, to reassure her, by smiling, but even he felt it come across more like a grimace. Setting the empty pot back down, Steph leaned over and selected two narrow glazed boxes, ones long and slim enough to slot on their windowsill.
“It’s the same with kids. You gotta do a test run first. A proper test run. And I don’t mean what I did when I was fifteen,” she laughed uncomfortably, then looked very sad. Tim went to grab her hand, but she snatched it back and snorted, bravado back in place. “It’s a challenge. We can’t have a kid until we can keep a pet –”
Tim couldn’t help it, he finally butt in, exclaiming, “Who said we’re having children?”
But Stephanie soldiered on, “—And we can’t keep a pet until we can look after a plant. Both of us.”
“I… I’m nineteen Steph. We can get a plant in ten years or so.”
Weird conversation.
Stephanie sighed, setting the plant pots in the cart. “I feel old. Much older than twenty sometimes.”
“We’ve been through more than what some people experience in a lifetime.”
She patted his cheek, “I guess so.”
“You can still be a kid,” Tim said later as they loaded up his car. No luck with finding anything for Bruce, but at least their living room windowsill would look nice. “There’s no timeline for this kind of stuff. Well, in your own head at least… society may side eye it but honestly –”
Stephanie slapped the trunk down with a loud slap and changed the subject. “I’ll think of something else. Don’t suppose he’d want a scarf or anything?”
“If you made him one Steph, I’d think he’d like that.”
“Huh.” They both got in the car, Tim in the driver’s seat, Stephanie googling nearby craft stores. “There’s a thought. I can pick up some nice wool round campus on Monday.”
Tim paused after he lit the ignition, eyebrows furrowed in thought. A moment passed, then he turned the car back off, and rotated to look Stephanie in the eye. Warily, she watched him.
“You mean it,” he asked, “about the whole plant thing?”
She growled, growing defensive, “I want to look after something and do it well. Sue me that it’s just starting off with a plant.”
“No, no. I get that. I mean do you not feel like a kid anymore?”
The bubbling anger melted away, and she cooed sympathetically, “Do you?”
“Did I ever?” Huffing, he tapped the steering wheel, then he looked distinctly guilt ridden. “No. That’s not fair. I did. Especially compared to you.”
“My childhood was mediocrely bad, Tim, but I did have one.” She tugged his earlobe. Tim frowned at her downplaying her pain, as always. It was impossible to get her to be serious about herself nowadays. Tim’s pain she took seriously. Cassandra’s pain she took seriously. Damian’s pain she took seriously. Her own pain though… “No comparing hurt. How does that help you or me?”
“I know, I know,” he conceded. Then he was silent, musing something still.
Stephanie’s hand moved from his ear to his jaw, cradling it. Lowering her tone, she asked,
“Where’s your head taken you?”
“I’m gonna be twenty this July.”
“Mhhmm! It’s a big one. The end of your teenage years.”
“I just… don’t know if we’ve got to do everything we should have done. I mean, so much of our adolescence was taken up with…” he trailed off. “And what makes an adult an adult anyway? I mean, look at Bruce.”
“I try not to.”
Tim actually giggled, “I just mean, he has the emotional maturity of a ten-year-old.” A sudden idea came to Tim, and he perked up in his usual manner once hit by his clever notions. “Hey, how about we travel over the summer?”
“What?”
Tim started the car back up and began the drive to his apartment on Park Row.
“It’s your final year at college, and you’ll be turning twenty-one in August. I’ve got my twentieth in July. Let’s do one last hurrah. Go to Disneyland.”
As they exited the parking lot Stephanie burst out laughing.
“Is that what childhood is? A trip to Disneyland?”
“No!” he exclaimed, face red. “No, that’s not what I meant… I just mean… I just mean…”
“Be selfish for a while. Forget all those responsibilities for a few weeks?”
“Yeah. You deserve that.” Breathing a sigh of relief, he smiled. Stephanie had a knack for cutting through to the bone of an issue. She understood what he was trying to say.
“So do you,” she smiled and tapped his cheek fondly, then settled in for the drive.
They got stuck for twenty minutes trying to cross from one island to another, but it didn’t bother either of them. Stephanie playfully being bad at singing at whatever nineteen eighties anthem came on over the radio. Tim knew she was just playing. She was as good a singer as she was a pianist – unpractised and a little clumsy – but it caused Tim to stop and watch every time. Her screeching to Take on Me was not her best effort, but it made Tim smile all the same.
She snatched the keys and rushed inside when they got back, leaving Tim to trundle behind her, balancing pots and flowers in his arms.
“I seriously have to look after this plant?” he moaned. With a grunt he got down on the floor by the window, setting everything out in place.
“Yes,” muttered Stephanie, throwing towels on the floor and reading instructions online of how to transfer plants from pot to pot. She had thought ahead – for once – and realised that maybe flinging dirt around would damage the living room rug.
Stephanie had moved into his apartment last August, about four months after they had returned to being a couple. For honest and goodness for real this time.
Dick and Babs had made many a teasing (but fond) comment. Cassandra and Duke had been happy, but largely unaffected by the decision. Damian had not been impressed. Jason really didn’t care.
Bruce had said nothing, which was somehow more worrying than his usual disapproving grunts.
So they had, for the most part, been left to it. Stephanie had swiftly turned the apartment (and the Nest) into as much her space as Tim’s. He didn’t mind, as she had a knack for clutter which made the town house feel less like a base and more like a home. Nothing made him feel more happy than coming home from Wayne Enterprises to see Steph sat on the floor, battered laptop on the coffee table, highlighted pages and mugs scattered everywhere, as she screwed up her face trying to write another essay on John Locke and Jean Jacques Rousseau’s theories on social contracts. The normality was an anchor, one he had so desperately needed in recent years.
Stephanie, meanwhile, had relished the chance to have her own space. To leave her mother had been hard, harder than she had realised at first, but it wasn’t like she wasn’t on the phone with her twice a week, and still compelled to attend scrabble night every Friday (Tim semi reluctantly in tow occasionally). She just hadn’t realised how difficult it would be to leave again. Even if it was, this time, under totally normal circumstances. Every kid has to move out, right? And it’s not like she’d never see her mother again, right? Stephanie’s mother was an adult, she could take care of herself. Steph wasn’t needed to watch her night and day.
But still, there were days when she craved her mother’s morning waffles, or warm shaky hugs.
Tim was a pretty good substitute though.
Speaking of, Tim crawled over to her, snuggle bug that he was, not so subtly looking for affection. He grabbed one of her pigtails and tugged the elastic off so he could braid her hair. She really had let it grow to a ridiculous length, long enough for Bruce and Babs both to chide her. One day it would get caught, or someone would grab it, or it would catch fire or something. The honest reason for letting it grow was…well it was embarrassing and shallow.
Steph sat quietly, letting Tim very carefully and methodically Dutch braid her hair, as she read. Even now, after several months reunited, she could tell he was still testing boundaries. Not just with what she was comfortable with, but also himself. Casual intimacy. Frightening stuff. Well, maybe for him. Steph adored the attention and giving attention in return. Tim’s affections were not to be tolerated, or even endured. They were something to enjoy and indulge in. They were something to grow obsessively fond over, especially after the dry spell of their late teen years. She had got it back and was not going to let it go again so easily.
So, she let him hold her hand whenever he reached for it. She let him lean against her during long hours of stakeout during patrol. She let him kiss her whenever he wanted. She wanted it too. Constantly. Like she was playing catch up with the last three years.
Tim finished one braid then shuffled around so he could start the second. Stephanie sat still until he finished his task, then signalled for him to pay attention as she moved her lilac roses into their new home. He observed carefully, as Tim never half-assed anything, then he cautiously began to pack fresh soil into his glazed box. Stephanie watched him and his concentrated face. Furrowed brows, chewed lips, unsure but steady fingers. Very slow. Very methodical. Textbook job.
He looked at her when he was done though, expectant of some sort of comment. Still desperate for approval.
“Good,” she said, raising her eyebrows. She sat the two boxes on the windowsill, slotting them into place. “Now don’t let it die.”
“Before you all head out for the night, I believe you have some gifts that require opening Master Bruce.”
Bruce peered over the half-eaten slice of cake Alfred had baked yesterday evening and swallowed dryly.
“Right.”
Tim could tell Bruce was just a little disappointed at the showing for his birthday. He would never admit it, no, no, but still. Dick, Jason, and Babs’ absence was noted. They had been good though and posted their presents ahead of time. Well, Dick and Babs had. Jason had sent a card. Which was both more than he had done some years and less for others, so the family all took a card as a good thing. Babs had wrapped up a large basket of bat memorabilia that would unironically get usage up and downstairs.
Dick had forwarded a photo album. Bruce’s lower lip had wobbled (once) on the first page, then he did not look any further into the album and shut it. Probably would cry over it at four am later this morning bundled up in bed. Or at least that’s what Tim imagined he would do.
Cassandra had made an actual teapot during her day classes. It was very cute, albeit just a little lumpy. Damian had done a painting. Duke had bought a pair of nice cufflinks. Tim had been as subtle as a brick to a glass greenhouse and had bought two vouchers for a fishing trip. Bruce had noted to check his diary tomorrow, hearing the pleading in the present for alone time.
Stephanie rested her present reverently on the table in front of Bruce. He eyed it and her a little suspiciously, which Tim tried not to get offended over on Steph’s behalf. He knew she had worked stinking hard on the present. Harder than anything she had ever made for herself. Not as hard as the gloves she had made Tim late last year though. No, he had seen her cursing up a storm trying to get those black and red fingerless mittens right, but she had – just in time for Christmas.
Point was, Stephanie worked hard when she sewed/knitted/embroidered, and Tim hoped Bruce wouldn’t do anything too callous when he opened the gift.
She had indeed knitted a grey-blue zig zag patterned scarf. It was thick, warm, and long. She had carefully embroidered the edges with golden thread. It was nothing short of a labour of love.
Bruce saw this, did the thing where his lip quivered, and quietly thanked Stephanie.
“Happy Birthday!” she replied, smiling brightly.
“It’s very well made.”
“I tried,” she teased gently. Tim squeezed her hand.
“Can I see?” Duke asked, to which Bruce handed it over. Duke whistled. “Can I get one too?”
“Sure,” Stephanie shrugged, still grinning. “It will cost you though.”
“Aw, no fair.”
The wind picked up then, howling louder than it had all day. The windows of the manor creaked, and even in the dark, everyone could see the sudden blizzard that had begun.
“Snow?” Cass asked. “Since when?”
“The weather does that. It changes,” Duke noted with a shrug. Even so, he seemed to regret speaking the more the wind screamed.
“No. Not like this. Rain sure. Sleet sure. Not a blizzard.” Tim peered out the window. “That doesn’t come from nowhere.”
Tim watched as there was already a solid layer of ice on the floor, the snow less like fluffy crystals and more like hail. The skies above churned rolled up clouds. It was harsh and ugly.
“No way,” Duke murmured, seeing the weather deteriorate.
Stephanie did not miss Bruce silently sigh at his pile of presents, the physical proof of how fortunate his life had become in recent years, despite the sometimes oppressive setbacks. It was just a moment, then the Bat was in place.
“Let’s head out. This doesn’t look natural. Split up and hunt for causes. Manmade or otherwise. Help anyone who seems stranded.”
Damian finally piped up, “Are we splitting into pairs?”
He crept towards Stephanie. Without Dick in Gotham she remained the person he was most keen (if Damian could be such a thing) to work alongside. Bruce notwithstanding.
“Damian go with Duke. Cassandra with me. Stephanie and Tim.”
Well never mind.
Stephanie pinched Damian’s cheek, and he groaned and twitched away, running downstairs.
They all made their way to the cave, Alfred opening up the clock, when Stephanie looked back, seeing Tim was still stood, still as a statue, watching through the glass.
“Tim?” she called.
His right hand twitched, hanging limp next to his thigh, at the sound of her voice. Almost reluctantly, he replied,
“…Yeah?”
“Ready to go?”
She held out her hand for him to take, though he was still looking out the window. Slowly he turned at the hips, head remaining still, staring at the storm. When her hand found his, he shuddered, like the warmth of her fingers and palm shot straight through his arm and up through his chest and head. He finally whipped round to look at her and smiled tightly.
“Ready. Sorry.”
Stephanie said nothing and pulled him away from the window.