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“Master Timothy,” Alfred says as he walks into Tim’s room, carrying a small pile of folded clothes, “I’ve found your various sweatshirts. Most of them in your sibling’s closets.”
Tim laughs, rolling off his bed and stumbling onto his feet in front of Alfred. He runs his finger along the stack of hoodie’s, “Which one did Damian and Cass have?”
“The original Wayne Enterprise, that I believe you stole from Master Dick, and the Spoiler one. Master Duke was in possession of your Red Robin jacket.”
“Oh.” Tim carefully pulls the hoodies that aren’t those three out of the stack, “You can give those ones back, I don’t mind if they keep them.”
“Spoiler’s?”
“I have like… five.”
“Very well,” Aflred says. He smiles at Tim as he starts to leave the room, “You should finish packing, my boy. Your departure time is in less than an hour.”
He leaves, and Tim is left standing in the middle of his floor with a pile of hoodies in his arms. He has to remind himself a few times that this is real, that he’s alive.
It’s not new, the knowledge that he is not, in fact, dead. He’s known it since he woke up in Oz’s prison.
Sometimes, though, he wonders if he really was alive in there, or if he was dead, and his heart was just too stubborn to stop beating.
Shaking his head, he turns and drops his hoodies into his suitcase. He has to brace his forearms on top of the lid as he zips it close, just to keep it shut. He collapses on top of it after, cheek pressed into the rough fabric.
“You’re sorely out of shape if that’s all it takes to wind you,” Damian says from the door.
Tim snorts, but doesn’t argue. A year in prison will do that to you.
He sits up, lifting his suitcase onto the floor. “Relax, Leslie gave me the all clear on physical therapy. I just need to keep up on exercise.”
Damian’s expression does relax a little, which means Tim guessed right on what he was really trying to say. He nods slowly, scanning the room. “So you are really leaving.”
“I’ll come back.”
“I know that.”
“Damian.” Tim smiles, dropping his hand on top of his little brother’s head so he can tilt it up towards him, “I’ll come back.”
A few seconds, and then Damian reaches up to cover Tim’s hand with his own. “You had better.”
“I’ll be fine, I’ll have the guys.”
“Forgive me if that doesn’t instill me with confidence.”
“Fair, but Cassie is one of the guys.”
Damian hums, “Very well. You have my permission.”
Dropping his hand, Tim rolls his eyes. “Thank you.”
He goes to pick up his suitcase, but Damian beats him to it, hefting it up into his arms with a determined expression. He marches past Tim and out the door before he can protest. Tim shakes his head and follows.
It’s hard not to get lost in the way the carpet feels under his feet. He’d forgotten what solid ground felt like, what things felt like that aren’t made by his own mind and the memory of feeling. The carpet presses at his toe, deflates under his heel.
“Timothy,” Damian says quietly.
Tim looks up, blinking. “Sorry.”
“Don’t apologize, idiot. Just don’t fall down the stairs.”
“Okay,” Tim says, fighting the urge to say sorry again when Damian shifts the suitcase under his arm, leaving one hand free so he can steady Tim if he needs it. He does take the stairs carefully, for Damian’s peace of mind, and so he can feel the way the grain of the banister rubs against his palm.
Damian is barely visible behind Tim’s suitcase, and he debates telling him that he could just drag it, but it’s kind of funny, so he lets it be. He even makes a valiant effort of looking innocent when Dick spots them from where he’s leaning against the banister at the bottom of the stairs.
“Need some help, Little D?”
“No.”
“He’s got it.”
“You know, you could have it.”
“No,” Damian repeats.
Tim blinks, eyes wide. “My muscles are weak, I can barely walk.” To prove it, he tips off the stairs, grinning when Dick jumps forward to catch him. “So weak.”
“You are a horrible, horrible person. I have gray hairs at twenty-four.”
“We all know those are actually because of Damian.”
Damian sniffs, still resolutely keeping hold of the suitcase. “It builds character.”
“Are you going to get up?” Dick asks, but he doesn’t seem like he’s intent on letting Tim go anytime soon.
Tim drops his head back on his collarbone. “No.”
He is definitely clingy lately, so sue him. He spent a year without a hug, he hasn’t been used to that since he was just a Drake. No one mentions it, and no one seems to mind, either. Dick runs a hand through his hair and kisses his temple. “You’re ready to go, then?”
“Please don’t tell me to stay,” Tim says, because he will. He knows he will. If any of them asked, he would.
Dick laughs, pulling him up so he’s standing again, but keeps an arm around him. “I’m not going to ask you to stay. It’ll be good for you, to get out of Gotham for a while, spend some time with friends.”
“Dick.”
“What?”
“I’ll miss you.”
Like he thought, that’s enough for the flood gates to open.
“Christ, baby,” Dick says, yanking him back into a hug. “I’m going to miss you so much. Do you have everything? A coat? Boots? Swimsuit? You have your charger and phone?”
Tim laughs against Dick’s chest, “I have everything. I promise. Alfred made me a checklist.”
“You have to call--”
“Every night. I know. Bruce already threatened to send Clark after us. Except Clark already threatened to send Bruce after us, so.”
Damian rolls his eyes, “Obviously the best choice would be Flash, considering his speed.”
“Don’t give them ideas,” Tim hisses.
“That’s all fine and good, but I’m going to send Diana.”
“No!”
“Remember to call.”
Shoving against him, Tim scoffs. “I will, jeez.”
Dick hugs him a little tighter, and then there are footsteps bounding down the stairs. Tim closes his eyes, trying to guess who by their pace and weight. He used to be able to do that.
He gives up and opens his eyes, jerking back when he finds Cass two inches from her nose. “We have…” she hums, and signs gifts.
“Gifts?” Tim repeats. “Why?”
Duke shoulders past Cass so now he’s two inches from his face. “Jackets. Or one jacket. Do you like forest green or dark red better?”
“Uh.”
“Green,” Cass prompts him.
“Personally, I think red. Cass does not have the superior opinion on this-- ow! Dick, tell her to stop punching me when I disagree with her.”
“Maybe you should stop disagreeing with her.”
“I hate you.”
Tim snorts, squinting at the two jackets hanging over Duke’s arm. After a second, he tugs on the corner of the red one, smiling apologetically at Cass, “Sorry. I’ve always liked red.”
“No,” Cass says sarcastically. Which is rude. That’s very rude.
Duke grins, turning to stick his tongue out at her before he chucks the red bomber jacket at Tim, and holds up the green one. “That means this one is for Damian.”
“Me?” Damian asks in surprise, tipping his chin to look over the top of the suitcase.
“Green is your color, dude.”
Dick coos, taking the green bomber and wrapping it around Damian’s shoulders, “You guys are going to match.”
Both Tim and Damian groan.
“Adorable,” Jason drawls, rounding the corner with his hands in his pockets. He raises an eyebrow at Damian, “You need a hand, pip squeak?”
“You are lucky my two perfectly capable hands are too full to stab you.”
Jason clicks his tongue, rounding Damian to pick him up from behind. Damian squawks indignantly, but he seems really set on not letting go of Tim’s suitcase, so he eventually sighs and lets Jason carry him, arms hooked under his thighs so it looks like he’s sitting in a chair. It’s a new thing, Tim noticed it the first week he was back. They were close before, closer than they’d ever been, but now they like, hug and stuff. It’s crazy. It’s awesome.
Rolling his eyes, Tim tugs the bomber on, pulling his shoulders forward a little and shaking his wrists to see how it fits. “This is actually really comfortable.”
“Obviously.”
Cass nods, “I… found.”
“Okay, yeah, but I chose the colors. It was like, fifty fifty effort.”
“Hm. Sixty five, thirty five.”
“Why are you so mean to me?”
Tim laughs, pulling at the cuffs. “Thanks, guys. Seriously.”
Stepping forward to cup his cheeks, Cass plants a kiss on Tim’s nose. “Have fun. Don’t stress.”
Well, if those four words don’t call him out on… his entire life. Tim nods, “I will.”
“And don’t die,” Duke adds, ducking under Cass’s arms to hug him. “Mostly because it would be sad, but also because it is insane here without you.”
“I’m so sorry my unintentional imprisonment inconvenienced you,” Tim says sympathetically, patting Duke’s back. He thinks he mutters something like “you better be”, and Tim laughs again.
“I can’t believe you guys are all doing the goodbye thing without me,” Stephanie says as she marches into the room. She stops next to Dick, putting her hands on her hips. “As Tim’s ex-girlfriend I reserve the right to threaten him first.”
“Bruce beat you to it,” Tim tells her. “Like, a week ago.”
“Shit.”
“You can still hug me?”
Stephanie shrugs, wiggling her arm in between Duke and Tim, then slowly sliding Duke out of the way. He doesn’t even protest, just lets his socks coast across the hard tile. She pulls Tim in by the front of his jacket, hooking her chin over his shoulder. “I better get pictures.”
“Of course.
“Embarrassing pictures.”
“Who do you think I am? You have all my blackmail folders from before I was Robin.”
“Your what?” Dick asks.
“Don’t worry about it.”
“I’m a little worried,” Jason says.
Stephanie ignores them both, leaning her head to the side so their temples are pressed together. “I’m glad you’re finally doing this,” she says, quiet enough so only he can hear. “No more postcards, okay?”
“Okay,” Tim agrees, kissing her cheek.
Stepping out of the hug, Tim trips on a wrinkle in the carpet, and stumbles a few steps back. It surprises him, because he’d never tripped easily before. He’d always been quick on his feet, agile. Bruce trained him better than that. It’s the stupid prison. No matter how many exercises he did, all he had was memories and a cell fabricated by his own mind. He can’t help but think if he’d just been someone different, if he was Dick or Barbara or Bruce, he would have been able to get it right.
He glances at Damian, then at Cass, and notes how their faces look older, just a little bit. Just enough difference to know he’d been gone, to know he could have been back sooner if he’d just been better.
He starts to say something, maybe an apology, but when he looks up, Jason is glaring down at him.
Jason narrows his eyes, “None of that, you hear me?”
“I wasn’t--”
“None of that.”
“Okay.”
He leans to the side until he’s against Jason’s chest, letting him circle his arm around him so he can hold Damian with both arms, sandwiched between his two brothers. Damian is still holding the suitcase.
“You can put that down until I leave,” Tim tells him.
“No.”
Okay then.
Dick is looking at the three of them with something like mischief in his eyes. Tim is about to ask why when the sound of a camera shutter goes off, and Tim turns to see Bruce standing in the foyer entryway with a camera. Tim’s camera.
“No,” Damian whispers.
Jason groans, “Come on, old man.”
“Group hug!” Dick shouts.
Tim doesn’t have time to shout a protest before he’s lunged on by the rest of his siblings like they’re the flying monkeys in Wizard of Oz. He wonders if that’s insensitive with everything that happened, and then he realizes he can totally one up Jason’s “I died” jokes now.
“Ouch, shit, my head hit the suitcase.”
“I hope you get a concussion, Stephanie.”
“Brat.”
“Pulling hair.”
“Oh, sorry Cass.”
“Why did I think it was a good idea to jump in first? I can’t breathe.”
“This is why I disowned all of you.”
“Bold words from the man holding a toddler-- ow! Damian, don’t kick me!”
Click.
Yep. Alfred’s definitely framing that one for the mantle.
Bruce is smiling when he lowers the camera, Tim can see the way his eyes crinkle over Duke’s head and past Stephanie’s hair. His eyes are bright, and Tim is squashed and uncomfortable and feeling.
The room slowly lapses into silence, even the shifting and squirming stops. Someone’s hand grips his shoulder a little tighter.
“I’ll come back,” he says again.
“We know,” Bruce replies, and everything is okay.
They untangle themselves with more pushing and shoving, Dick ends up on his butt on the floor, Cass falls haphazardly over his lap. Jason dropped Damian to the ground at some point, but the youngest Wayne is still somehow holding tight to the suitcase.
“Master Tim,” Alfred calls warmly as he steps up behind Bruce, pausing to give the picture an appreciative nod when Bruce tilts the camera to show it to him. “I believe you should check your phone.”
Tim doesn’t have time before a loud horn blairs outside, honking to the botched beat of Chopsticks. A smile tugs at Tim’s face and he jerks forward to wrap his arms around Alfred’s middle. “I’ll miss you. I love you. I have to go before Kon accidentally breaks the door down. Again.”
Finding out your best friend has come back from the supposed dead gets you overexcited, Tim doesn’t blame him.
“Indeed,” Alfred says, running a hand over his hair.
“You have everything?” Bruce asks, looping the camera strap over his head and setting his hands on Tim’s shoulders once Alfred steps away.
“Yep.”
“You’re okay?”
The horn beeps again, and Tim’s smile turns into a grin. “Yeah.”
“Alright, chum,” Bruce says with a laugh, kissing Tim right on his hairline. “Have fun.”
As he turns to the rest of his family, something inside him stalls. He’d gone through this already. Worked through the fear and told himself the homesickness wouldn’t get too bad. Tim wants to do this, he does.
For some reason, his feet won’t move.
“You had better get going before Damian decides to pack himself in your suitcase,” Dick says.
That’s all it takes.
Tim laughs with his family as Damian scoffs, and bends down to take the trunk from him. “I’ll see you in three weeks, bud.”
“Yes,” Damian says, hands still tight on the case. He hesitates for a few seconds, and then finally lets go, “Have… an enjoyable time.”
“I will,” Tim says, sends one more smile around the room, and races out the door before he can change his mind.
He stops short in the driveway, gravel shifting under his feet as his heels skid. Cassie is sitting behind the wheel of an open jeep, Bart hanging over her chair by his stomach, hand on the horn. Kon is half sitting, half hovering on the frame, feet kicking by Cassie’s face.
Alive. Okay and alive.
Kon grins when he sees him, “Hey loser!”
“Get in,” Bart finishes excitedly, “we’re going roadtripping!”
Cassie lets out a loud whoop, and Tim’s feet trip over themselves as he speeds to the car, vaulting himself into the passenger seat and tossing his suitcase to the back, a hand on the camera around his neck to keep it steady. He pauses to collect himself, and then nods at Cassie, “Captain.”
“Captain,” she responds with the same serious nod.
“That’s so unfair. Me and Kon don’t get cool nicknames.”
“Do you want us to start calling you ‘matey’?” Tim jokes.
Bart grabs his cheeks and turns his face to make eye contact, voice deadly serious. “Yes.”
“Aye aye,” Tim responds.
“Gun it!” Kon shouts, and Cassie does, without making sure their seatbelts are on, which is totally on purpose because she can definitely see Bruce watching them through the window.
Tim jumps up to wrap his arms around Bart’s waist as he pitches forward, and Kon tumbles into the backseat face first.
“I regret telling you to gun it,” Kon says.
Cassie just laughs.
The manor fades out of view as they all get situated, seat belts buckled and radio blaring some commercial about car sales. Tim looks back a few times, but he doesn’t regret it. Gotham’s skyline is gray as always, and ahead, the horizon is blue.
Get out of Gotham, have fun, be with his friends. Tim can do that.
Bart leans forward in between the front seats, reaching out to turn the knob, changing the radio station. He pauses for barely a second before he changes it again, and again, and again, and again--
“I brought mixtapes!” Kon announces.
Tim makes a face, “Mixtapes?”
“Yeah.” Kon holds out a stack of cd’s, “Dad said they’re what all cool kids listen to on roadtrips.”
“Aren’t you supposed to be punk? Like, popular? In the know how?”
“I am!”
“Dude.” Cassie snorts, flicking her blinker on as they roll up to an intersection, “Mixtapes haven’t been a thing since the seventies. Clark is ruining you.”
“Is that why Lois was laughing at us the whole time?”
“Yes.”
Tim laughs, taking the stack and flipping through them. “It’s fine, Kon. Vintage.”
“Prehistoric,” Bart corrects.
“Shut up, Imp. You technically don’t even exist yet.”
“Shut up, Supes, you live in Kansas.”
Tim wonders if it would be insensitive to make a Wizard of Oz reference now. He frowns, flipping a cd over to get a better look at it. “Hey, Kon. You said you made these yourself?”
“Yeah. Why?”
“Do we all have our own?”
Kon shifts to scoot up on the edge of his chair, leaning over Tim’s shoulder. “Yeah. There’s one for each of you, and there’s one for all four of us, and there’s one for the cry fest that’s going to happen at some point, and one for when Cassie does something really cool --that one has Eye of the Tiger on it--, and one for screaming at the top of our lungs.”
“All I brought is Cheezits,” Bart whispers.
“And your cute self,” Cassie adds. She swats at Tim’s face blindly, eyes on the road. “Play mine, play mine right now.”
“Okay, okay.” Tim bats her hand away, popping Cassie’s cd case open and feeding the disk to the dash. After a few seconds, “God is a Woman” starts blasting through the speakers.
Cassie slams her palm against the steering wheel. “I love you, Conner Kent!”
Apparently, Kon and Cassie know every word to the song. Bart stares at them, eyes wide with awe and admiration. Tim films it, and immediately sends it to Stephanie. She sends a stream of emojis he doesn’t understand back.
The car rumbles under him, and Tim gets whiplash trying to look at the window and at his friends at the same time. There’s so much to see.
When Bruce came into his room two weeks ago and sat down on the edge of his bed, looking hesitant and excited all at once, Tim didn’t know what to think.
Ten minutes later Kon crashed through his front door, Bart speeding in behind them.
He looks at Cassie, and she glances away from the road to smile at him.
Abba starts playing on the speakers. The sun is high. Everything is okay.
Kon’s phone chimes, and he falls back into his seat to pull it out of his back pocket, snorting at the message on the screen.
Tim is about to ask what it is when his own phone dings, the screen lighting up with a text from Damian.
“Father and Clark have Jon and I on house arrest and it is all your fault.”
“Damian?” Kon asks, leaning over the back of his seat again.
Tim hums, holding up his phone so Kon can see. “Yep. Jon?”
“Apparently Clark can only handle having one kid out of sight.”
“Bruce too.”
“Damn,” Cassie says, “I am so glad I’m an only child.”
Bart reaches forward to fist bump her. “No kidding.”
“No,” Kon protests. “No guys, they're so cute. Siblings are amazing, I love them. Right Tim?”
Tim makes a face, “You have one, very adorable, very goody two shoes, very sweet sibling. I have six almost assassins who stab people for eating the last cookie.”
“A moment of silence for Tim and his horrible oppressive rich person family life.”
“I hate you, Cassie. You’re the worst.”
“An ode to a sheltered lifestyle,” Bart says solemnly, bouncing in his seat to the beat of the song playing.
“Remind me who paid for this trip?”
That gets a chorus of coos and ‘no Tim we love you!’’s and ‘please don’t stop funding us, your allowance could buy my house’’s.
Tim smiles smugly and crosses his arms. “That’s what I thought.”
Cassie nods her head to the song as it plays through the speakers, tapping her fingers to the beat. She mouths the lyrics absently, flicking her turn signal once again. Her hair is short now, she cut it, after Tim died. It sits in a neat pixie cut around her ears, still bright and blonde and very much Cassie. She’s wearing a bracelet with a college emblem on it, and her eyes are bright in the sun.
Tim stares at her, and has to remind himself that they aren’t the broken kids sitting by the edge of the pool. They’re here and happy and complete and she is beautiful.
Glancing in the rearview mirror, Cassie frowns at their silence, “What is it?”
Kon stutters, and Tim looks away, and Bart whispers with all the awe in the world, “I think you’re infinity, Cass.”
“I haven’t even done anything!” Cassie replies, bright red.
And that’s it, isn’t it? That she doesn’t have to. Tim snorts, props his hands behind his head in a no care way he’d almost forgotten he could be, “You don’t have to.”
“Infinity, huh?” Kon says softly, clashing with the loud King Princess song playing through the speakers, “I like that.”
So infinity they are, and Tim looks out the window and thinks infinity they were, and infinity they will always be.
It’s by that logic that he realized he had them all along, and it gives him a little comfort that he wishes he could send back in time, but knows he can’t.
Shaking his head, Tim looks back at his friends, tuning back into their conversation. He’s spent enough time looking at the past, analyzing and regretting every mistake. He’s here now, and he’s starting to understand that that’s enough.
Infinity lasts forever, which means Tim has all the time in the world to spend right here.
They realize about forty-five minutes in that Cassie has no idea where she’s going.
“What do you mean, you didn’t bring a map?” Tim asks, digging through the glove department. “That’s like, road trip one-oh-one!”
“We have phones!”
“And no service!”
“Right, like your fancy Wayne Tech phone wouldn’t work at the bottom of the ocean.”
“I didn’t bring my fancy phone!”
“What— why wouldn’t you bring your fancy phone?”
“This trip was supposed to be relaxing! I didn’t think—“
“Got it!” Bart interrupts them, wind whipping through the car as he speeds through the window, holding a map.
“Aw, Bart, you should’ve waited,” Kon whines, slumping in his seat. “I wanted to watch Cassie and Tim duke it out.”
Cassie sticks her tongue out at him, “You’re a menace.”
“Thank you.”
Rolling his eyes, Tim takes the map from Bart, unfolding it in his lap. “Thanks, Imp. Okay. So we’re about eighty miles out of Gotham, in the opposite direction of Metropolis. That puts us here.”
“Are you sure?”
“What do you mean “am I sure”? You think Batman didn’t teach me how to read maps?”
“Well yeah, but it’s upside down.”
“Oh.” Tim scowls as Bart shrugs, flipping the map the right way. “Sorry. Neurological functions are only at sixty percent. Doc says I’ll be at one hundred again in a couple weeks.”
He scans the map, running his finger over the interstate line to find the dirt road they pulled off on. When he looks up, about to explain, he stops short.
Cassie’s eyes are fixed stubbornly on the dash, and Bart is looking at his hands. Kon is watching him with barely disguised sympathy. “Tim—“
“No.”
“But—“
“I said no, Connor.” Tim looks back at the map, eyebrows furrowed. “We’re on vacation. Leave it.”
Bart pulls at his shirt sleeve, his eyes pleading. “That doesn’t mean we can’t still talk—“
“Leave it,” Tim repeats, harsher than he means. Bart drops his hand.
After a few seconds of silence, Cassie turns the keys in the ignition. “Which way?”
“Left.”
“Okay.”
The car goes quiet. Cassie had turned the music down to a low hum.
Tim has spent the two and a half weeks since he got back convincing himself it wasn’t that bad. Seriously, if Jason could dig himself out of his own grave, if Bruce could get dragged through time, if Dick could survivie the talons, then a year alone should really look like a vacation to the Wayne family.
A year alone. Tim should be used to that.
But even when it was just him in his parents' old house, there was still the nanny once a week, shows on the tv, music on the radio. There was still watching Robin fly across rooftops, the epitome of hope.
With Oz, there was just… nothing.
Tim clears his throat, tries to dispel the memory of forgetting Kon’s voice, screaming himself hoarse, coughing up blood.
“I’m sorry for snapping,” he says. “I’m just… not there yet, okay?”
In the rearview mirror, Tim watches Bart’s hands fiddle in his lap.
“I get that,” he says with a shrug and a soft smile. Cassie and Kon look less convinced, but after a second, they both smile too.
“Yeah, no worries man.”
“Sorry we pushed.”
They turn the music back up and cheer when the “leaving Gotham” sign flies past the window.
It’s night by the time they get to the campsite, a dirt flatland with a man made reservoir and a few hiking trails, and Bart rolls out of the Jeep like he’d been stabbed, groaning the whole way. He drops, facedown, onto the dirt.
“Aw, is the speedster not used to normal people's speeds?” Cassie asks with a fake pout. Bart flips her off, still face down.
Kon stretches, a smile stretched across his face. “C’mon, Imp! Learn to enjoy the slow moments.”
Bart looks up, spitting out dirt. “Don’t TED Talk me, we could be in Paris right now if you all weren’t so lame.”
“We agreed on a normie trip, Bart. Speeding to a different country is not a normie trip.”
“For us it is.”
“Uh, Tim, watcha doing?”
Tim looks up to see Kon watching him. He looks down at his hand buried in the dirt up to his wrist. “Uh,” he says, “it’s cold? Feels weird?”
Instead of the pitying looks Tim is sure he’s going to get, Kon says, “Yeah?” and pounds his fists into the ground until it’s buried up to his elbow.
Cassie crosses her arms. “You probably just killed like, ten worms.”
“No!” Kon says, distressed. He yanks his arm out and leans down to look in the hole he made. “Worms!”
Bart snickers. “Imagine you’re a tiny little worm dude, and then bam! Giant fist.”
“I’m pretty sure that’s happened to Batman, once,” Tim tells him.
“He was a worm?”
“No, the giant fist.”
“Was he the giant fist or was he fighting the giant fist?”
“Both are plausible.”
A sharp whistle rings through the air, and Cassie gestures to the Jeep. “You gonna help unload, or are you going to make the woman do it?”
Tim and the others are on their feet in a second, pulling the tent back and chairs out of the back. In the end, Cassie doesn’t lift a finger.
“Works every time,” she says. Kon sticks his tongue out at her.
They set up slowly, partly because Cassie still insists on not using their powers but mostly because they realize pretty fast none of them have ever put up a tent before.
“You can’t seriously tell me Clark never took you camping,” Tim says, wiping sweat off his forehead.
“He did! I just probably wasn’t paying attention.” Kon puts his hands on hips, staring at the lump of tarp and rods in front of them. “This doesn’t look right.”
“No shit.”
“Like you’ve been any help, didn’t Batman teach you how to do literally everything? You’re like the vigilante boy scout, always prepared.”
Tim pauses, shrugs, tries to seem nonchalant. “I used to know how, but I’ve had to relearn a lot of things since… yeah.”
“Oh,” Kon says. “Yeah.”
Bart’s head pops up from the middle of the tent. Cassie’s pushes through a second later.
“What if we just sleep under all this and call it good.”
“The instructions aren’t helping,” Cassie says, tossing them to the side.
“We could facetime Bruce?” Kon suggests.
“No.”
“Oh my god, that would be so embarrassing.”
“Yeah, because I want to be the laughing stock of my family for the rest of my life.”
“Aren’t you already?”
“Shut up, Cass.”
They look up WIki-How.
Eventually, the tent does go up, even though Tim is pretty sure a too hard gust of wind would make it collapse instantly. They toss their stiff inside, and then collapse, out of breath, on the ground.
“Kayaks?” Bart suggests. Cassie falls over onto Tim, exaggerating her breathing.
“Give me a minute to recover, you hyperactive gremlin.”
She winks at Tim, and he realizes that she’d noticed how pale he was looking, and was taking the fall so doesn’t have to address it. God, he loves her.
Kon gets up, offering Bart a hand. “Come on, we’ll get them in the water while the beauty queens rest.”
“My hero,” Tim deadpans. Cassie blows Kon a kiss. He blows one back, but it somehow comes off as sarcastic. Cassie pretends to swoon, the hand on her head flipping him the bird. Bart watches like he’s never been more tired.
As they walk away, Cassie looks at Tim and says, “How much you wanna bet Kon’s gonna kiss you on this trip.”
Tim shoves her onto the dirt.
The water is freezing, and Tim sits in the boat rubbing his arms and glaring at Kon, who’s rowing.
“Come on, cheer up! We’ll challenge Cass and Bart to a race and you’ll get too competitive to be cold.”
Tim hums, agreeing, and looks around. He stops short. “Kon, where are Bart and Cassie?”
“What do you mean, they’re—” Kon stops, looks around. “What.”
“Use your super hearing, dumbass.”
Kon sticks his tongue out, but after a second, he goes bright red. “Idiots. They’re giving us “space”.” he says the last word with air quotes, and Tim raises an eyebrow. Kon shrugs.
“Oh,” Tim says, nodding. “Kissing.”
Kon almost tops the boat. “What? What do you mean kissing? WHo said anything about—”
“Cassie bet we’d kiss before the trip was over.”
“Why?”
“Entertainment? Bullying ammo? It’s Cassie, who knows.”
“Well, that’s stupid.”
“Yeah.”
Kon crosses his arms. “If I wanted to kiss you, I would just do it.”
Tim hums looking at the water. “Same.”
“Cassie’s dumb.”
“Totally.”
They sit there, silently, and then Kon says, “I mean, I’ve kissed Cassie before.”
Tim snorts, “Same.”
“What— seriously?”
“Yeah? Dude, Cissie has kissed Cass.”
“I don’t know why you say that like it’s surprising. If Cassie or Cissie ask to kiss you, are you just supposed to say no?”
“Touche.”
“Hey, Tim,” Kon starts. He stops going even redder. “Obviously you don’t have to, but if we’ve both kissed Cassie, then it’s kind of fair—”
Tim kisses him.
It tips the boat. Cassie and Bart laugh at them for ages once they drag themselves back to shore.
“For all your talk about tactile telekinesis this, and tactile telekinesis that,” Tim mutters, taking the towel Bart offers him.
“I was flustered!” Kon argues, crossing his arms with his hands in his armpits. “Not my fault.”
“Things that could have stopped us from getting soaked,” Tim says, counting them off on his fingers, “Kon’s tactile telekinesis, Kon’s ability to fly, Kon’s fast reflexes—”
“Hey! Cassie said no powers!”
“—Kon, who was the one holding the paddles.”
“Well you kissed me, so who’s fault is it really?”
Cassie’s eyes widen. She grins wolfishly. “Cissie owes me twenty bucks.”
“You made a bet with Cissie?”
“Don’t worry guys, I would never bet on if you kissed or not.” Bart holds out a hand. Cassie slaps a ten dollar bill into it. “I knew you would kiss, I bet that Tim would go in first.”
“I hate both of you,” Tim says through chattering teeth. Kon frowns at him, taking his own towel off his shoulders and adding it on top of Tim's. Tim sniffs. “I’m fine— fine.”
“Liar,” Bart says, pulling him down to sit in one of the chairs. He’s a blur of color before he’s back with a blanket, adding that to the stack on top of Tim. Cassie drapes herself over him.
“What the hell, Cass.”
“We’re cuddling for warmth,” Cassie says.
Tim doesn’t know what he expected. He’s on the ground in a second, the chair tipped, with Cassie, Kon, and Bart all stacked on top.
“Oh yeah, this is so comfortable.”
“I think I just broke my nose,” Bart groans. He grabs at Tim’s face. “Kiss it better.”
“Shut up, Bart.”
“No, me first, Tim, I think I broke my jaw,” Cassie whines, reaching for him.
Kon throws an arm out dramatically, “Aw, my lip, it’s… broken.”
“Idiots,” Tim wheezes. He does kiss Bart’s nose though, when he gets close enough.
It’s there, under the pile of his friends, pressed against on either side, the sound of the reservoir water and his friends breathing and birds chirping in his ears, that Tim is hit with the very potet realization that this is real.
He used to imagine it, curled on his side with his eyes squeezed shut. There’s Cassie sitting by the pool, but she’s smiling, there’s Bart and Kon having a cannonball competition. He would always open his eyes and they’d be gone.
When Bruce told Tim Kon and Bart were alive, Tim stood up with the intention to storm away, to make whoever tricked Bruce into tricking him bruised and bloody. His knees had given out. It took seeing them to convince him. Even then, he kept closing his eyes, expecting it to be a daydream.
He closes his eyes tightly. There’s Cassie’s elbow digging into his ribs. There’s Bart’s hair in his face. There’s Kon’s hand, warm on his hip.
He opens his eyes. They’re still there.
It’s the most embarrassing thing that came out of being imprisoned, really, that he lost the steady control he had over his emotions. It’s harder now, to keep them up his sleeve, only letting them show when it was convenient.
“What are you thinking about, Rob?” Kon asks.
Tim starts to cry.
Immediately, there's a flurry of limbs as his friends get off him, pulling him up in a panic. Cassie cups his cheeks, eyes wide.
“Did we hurt you? What’s wrong? Did we say something?”
Tim laughs, kisses Cassie’s palm. He shakes his head, but hiccups before he can make any words come out. Kon is gripping his knee, Bart is hovering between them, hands vibrating but not quite touching.
“Sorry,” Tim finally manages, rubbing his eyes. “Sorry, I just— man, it was solitary confinement, that's the only word for it. I tried to make myself— I thought I could convince myself it was like a break but it—” he’s not making sense. He grabs Bart’s hands, rubbing over his knuckles. “You’re real. That’s just— it just really hit me, I guess.”
Kon smiles at him, rubbing his knee. He stands, moving his hand to Tim’s elbow. “Let’s get in the car, yeah? We’ll pull the tarp back up and turn on the heater.”
“You’re shivering, babe,” Cassie says. Tim almost starts crying again.
Bart attaches himself to Tim, arms around his chest while Kon and Cassie pull the Jeep cover back on. He doesn’t let go when they get in, just sits in between Tim’s legs in the front seat and buries his face in Tim’s collarbone.
Kon gets in the back while Cassie turns the car on and cranks up the heater, but he scoots forward and sets his hand on Tim’s waist, rubbing his thumb back and forth gently.
Cassie watches them, her eyes are glossy. “This is so fucked up.”
“You’re telling me,” Tim says.
“Do you ever wish we just met like normal kids? Like, at school or at a club or something. No superheroes or teas or— or dying.”
The jeep is quiet for a minute or two.
“I wish that a lot,” Bart says.
Tim remembers, how Bart got out. How he didn’t go to Kon’s funeral because he blamed himself. How he left and swore to never come back and when he did it cost him his life.
“Me too,” Tim says, and maybe it’s just for them, because he wishes they didn’t have to do this. Maybe it’s because he wishes he didn’t have to either.
“I’m sorry,” Cassie whispers. They all look at her, confused, and she waves a hand before any of them can protest. “No, really. Because I insisted on no powers and a normal trip and I know we aren’t normal, but I was just sort of hoping we could be, for a little.”
“Yeah, I’m not getting why you’re sorry,” Kon says. Cassie laughs. It’s a light, sad thing, but it’s happier than when she laughed at the old headquarters. Tim calls it a win.
“I’m not dead,” Tim says.
Bart nods, “Me neither.”
“Ditto,” Kon says.
Cassie gives them a real smile then, but it slips. “You were, though. We can’t just skip over that, guys. I went to all of your funerals.”
Oh. Tim’s eyes sting.
“Cassie— I promised I’d…”
“Yeah, you did.” Cassie shrugs. “It’s okay. We promised a lot of things.”
“This is so fucked,” Kon mutters.
Bart raises his hand a little, like he’s asking for permission to talk. “Dying sucked. It hurt.”
There’s a second of stunned silence, and then Tim wraps both his arms around Bart and tugs him close. “I’m so sorry, Imp.”
“I couldn’t stop thinking about Ma crying,” Kon admits quietly. “It’s what I was thinking about, when I went. I didn’t want to make her cry.”
Tim sighs, “I tried to convince myself I was okay with it, but the last thing before the drones— honest to god, I was worried Alfred the cat would miss me.”
Cassie laughs, presses her face into her hands. “I just hated that I’d lost all of you.”
Tim buries his face in Bart’s hair.
Before You Go by Lewis Capaldi starts feeding through the speakers.
Tim looks up to see Kon with his hand on the cd player, finger slipping away from the play button.
It takes two seconds for Cassie to burst into giggles, followed by the rest of them.
“Oh man, that was supposed to add to the mood,” Kon says, eyes wet. “Like a teen movie with a sad soundtrack.”
“Can you imagine if life worked like that?” Bart asks, wiping at his nose, “Like, you drop your chicken nuggets and the sky goes ‘dununu’.”
Cassie shakes her head, “Oh my god, you guys are ridiculous.”
“Laugh tracks too,” Tim adds. “Nightwing misses a flip and falls off a building and the sky opens up and starts cackling.”
“That is terrifying,” Cassie tells him. They’re all smiling. They’re all alive.
Everything’s okay.
They do end up sleeping outside, since they need to save gas for the trip back. Their sleeping bags are Wayne Tech, so none of them are cold, but they scoot as close together as possible anyway.
Tim listens to Cassie and Bart breathe evenly, with the occasional snort or sleepy muttering.
“This is my favorite song,” Kon whispers. Tim smothers his laugh in his pillow.
Tim sits up halfway, laying on his stomach with his elbows supporting him, “Hey, Kon?”
“Yeah?”
“You think we’ll be okay?”
Kon hums, rolling onto his side and bracing his head in his hand. They’re close, close enough that if Tim leaned forward a little more, their noses would touch.
“You know what? Yeah. We’re tough cookies.”
“Tough cookies,” Tim repeats. Kon smacks their foreheads together gently. Tim leans into it, staying there, savoring the touch. “It’s gonna change a lot of things,” he says softly. “We’re different, now.”
“Yeah, but it’s like moving somewhere new. It’s different, but it’s not bad.”
“Like Oz vs Dorothy’s house.”
It takes a second for Kon to catch on, and when he does, his eyes go wide. “Dude.”
“I’m just saying.”
“No, you did that on purpose, how long have you been planning that?” Kon is laughing, even though his face looks semi horrified.
“Conner, we’re not in Kansas anymore,” Tim whispers, covering his hands with his face as he wheezes.
Kon collapses off his elbow and snorts a laugh, pressing his face into the ground. “That’s so not okay, man.”
Tim laughs harder, hands still over his face. Kon’s shoulders shake as he stifles his laugh in his sleeping bag. Cassie snores next to them. Bart’s foot digs into Tim’s side. Everything is good.
They’re all alive. It’s going to be okay.
“I love you,” Tim whispers, once even Kon has drifted off.
He’ll say it again in the morning, when they’re awake to hear it. Just because he can.
He loves them. It’s okay.