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Tim is late.
Bruce frowns at the clock. It’s always a guessing game, with his kids, as to whether or not he can turn pseudo-stalker (Clark’s words) when they’re not where they should be. He feels like it’s warranted faster than the rest of them think so, because they draw trouble to them—invite it in, honestly—and he worries. But they’re also very capable, and very proud, and they don’t like help for anything less than life or death. And sometimes even that’s iffy. In spite of what Alfred implies, he has no idea where they get that from.
“Where was Tim tonight, again?” he asks. If no one knows, he can track his phone, but Tim in particular is weird about his electronics being tracked. But they're all done for the night and hanging out in the living room, and usually Tim has made an appearance by now.
Damian scoffs and doesn’t answer, and Jason shrugs. “Out.”
Bruce sighs, rubbing the bridge of his nose. One word and the headache is starting already. “Thank you.”
“Ask stupid question, get stupid answer.” Jason lies down on the couch but doesn’t close his eyes. He must still be wired from his drug bust. “He’s going to be disappointed he missed tonight, though. Bet he was bored.”
Dick emerges from the other room, freshly showered and dressed, and rustles Damian’s hair so he goes into the corner. Like a disgruntled cat, Bruce thinks. “Who’s going to be bored? Alfred?”
“That will be the day,” Alfred says dryly, finishing applying the bandage to Bruce’s arm. “There you are, sir. And to answer your question, Master Tim is out with his friends this evening.”
“You mean this morning,” Jason corrects, just to be contrary.
“Thank you, Alfred,” Bruce sighs. He needs to remember that the only person who ever knows what’s going on is Alfred. “But if he’s not patrolling, I would have thought he would be back by now.”
Dick glances at the clock, too. “Huh. Then maybe he is patrolling?”
He’d better not be.
“You’re getting that twitch,” Dick says in warning. “He’s with Conner. He’s fine.”
Damian wrinkles his nose. “Ugh.”
“Don’t ‘ugh’. Conner’s nice.”
“He’s loud. And ridiculous.”
“So is Jon,” Jason calls, grinning because—
Yep. Damian bristles, drawing a sword. “Take that back.”
“No swords in the house, Master Damian,” Alfred says. “And it seems Master Tim has just returned.”
Both problems solved, Bruce breathes a sigh of relief as the door opens. “Hi, Tim—"
But he stops short, because something is wrong. Some of the others mock him, call it his ‘dad-sense’, but he knows his sons. He has to, in their work. He has to know if something is wrong, and what kind of wrong it is, so he can address it.
Tim is moving slowly—no visible injuries—in civilian clothes—so he wasn’t patrolling—and the look on his face is blank and unknown.
“Tim?” Bruce asks, crossing the floor quickly. “Tim, what’s wrong?”
Tim blinks, like he hadn’t realized he was home. The look gets clearer, and now Bruce recognizes it.
Shock. And fear.
“Tell me what happened,” Bruce says; without meaning to, it slips out in his Batman voice, and Damian straightens in his corner, and Jason sits up on the couch. Ready, even if they don’t know what for.
“I’m fine,” Tim says, but sits when Jason pulls him down next to him. “I’m fine, it’s just…” He exhales heavily and leans back to stare at the ceiling. “It’s… been a long day.”
“What happened with Conner?” Bruce asks. Tim tenses just at his name, which means that’s definitely what’s making him so weird.
Tim laughs under his breath. “Well,” he says, his voice cracking a little, his expression impossible to read. “He, uh… He kissed me?”
…Bruce is a little lost.
“He what?” Dick demands.
“Don’t say it like that,” Tim immediately snaps, and the look he shoots Dick and Damian is venomous. “He’s my best friend. I know you don’t like him but—"
“But he kissed you,” Bruce interrupts, trying for a tone of voice that conveys ‘I want to know what happened but I’m on your side’. “That’s what you said. Not that you kissed him. That he kissed you.”
“He did,” Tim repeats. He sounds like he might be in shock. “He just… did.”
Dick exhales. “You don’t sound happy?”
“I don’t know!” He puts his face in his hands and bends over his lap, hiding from all of them. “We were just talking, and I said something about… I think about hanging out with him? Something generic, but he just… didn’t reply. And then he kissed me.”
Damian scoffs. “You are not being helpful if that’s all that you can say.”
“Damian,” Bruce says, “Please.”
“What?” Damian looks genuinely thrown off. “Am I wrong? It doesn’t help if he gives no details.”
Unfortunately, he’s right—and it also tells Bruce how seriously he’s freaking out. Tim is, under normal circumstances, very detail-oriented. That he can’t remember what he was talking about with Conner, down to the exact words, means he’s really freaking out.
“It’s sweet that you’re trying to help, Dami,” Dick says—wrong word, Jason snorts and Damian’s fingers are itching toward his sword again—and sits down on the couch, pulling Tim into his shoulder. “And… I’m not sure what you want to hear, Timmy, but it’ll be okay. I’m sure he just… panicked.”
Tim makes a muffled sound that’s a cross between a groan and a whine. Apparently that’s not what he wants to hear?
“I mean…” Bruce tries, rubbing his shoulder. “I’m sure you can talk to him about it when you’re both ready. Conner is a good friend of yours—"
“I liked it, okay?” Tim snaps, burying his face in Dick’s arm. “I liked it. I… I like him.”
…Well that changes a lot.
“Then what’s the problem? You have a hot alien boyfriend now. Congrats.” Jason pauses when Bruce feels his brain go blank trying to process that. “What? I’m straight, not blind.”
“Because he didn’t say we were going out,” Tim says, and it’s a sign of how much he’s panicking that he’s not even commenting on what Jason just said. “He kissed me, freaked out, and flew away.”
Ah. So it’s not that the weird thing has happened that’s freaking him out—it’s the lack of answers. Tim is very much like Bruce in that way: he likes closure. Conner freaked out and left, and that’s like an open-ended case. Those drive Tim to the point of not sleeping for days trying to solve them.
But he can’t solve this quite so easily. Even the obvious things are only going to lead to more questions.
Dick sighs and rubs his back, and Bruce is impressed when the rest of them follow his lead and just give him some time. He had kind of expected Jason and Damian to be sharper than they were—coming back from the dead and being raised by the League of Assassins don’t really teach you social niceties—but they’re surprisingly silent, assessing what’s happening with slightly concerned looks. This is definitely unlike Tim, to panic. He’s usually in control of himself around them.
But then, this is brand new. And Bruce was… gone, for most of it, but he knows how much Conner’s death shattered Tim, and that gives him a good idea of how much he means to him. Tim attaches himself to people with an ease that he’s a little envious of, but letting them close is another matter entirely.
“It’s not like Conner would… would kiss you and then not do anything with that,” Dick tries, making a face at Bruce that pointedly says help, you ass. His glares are getting scarily accurate.
“Exactly,” Bruce agrees. “You know he’s not that kind of guy. You trust him.”
“I do,” Tim says, immediate, but he isn’t lifting his head. “But… He looked freaked out, too. I mean, we were just talking, like we always do, and the next thing I knew… we were… kissing…”
Jason laughs and kicks his leg from his spot on the couch. “Oh my god. Your face. You kissed, not slept together.”
“Shut up!” Tim snaps, but his face is turning all kinds of red before he turns to hide in Dick’s side even more. “It’s… It’s…”
“It wasn’t your first kiss, was it?” Bruce asks, because if that was Tim’s first kiss and Conner was it because of an impulse he’s having a chat with him for sure. Not that he wasn’t before. He’s probably going to call Clark as soon as he’s done with this—although the content of the call remains to be seen. Tim isn’t giving him much to work with.
Tim sputters as Damian laughs sharply from the corner. “Oh my god—No, Bruce, I dated Steph—" He starts to get up, but Dick’s hold tightens and pulls him right back down, and Tim shoves an unsportsmanlike elbow in his kidney that makes him grimace. “I don’t know why I tell you people anything—"
“Tim,” Bruce says, in the tone that gets him to listen, and fortunately he stops. Good. “We’re just trying to understand, okay? Help us out.”
Tim takes a deep breath. “I mean… he kissed me, randomly, looked really freaked out, and then left. That’s all I have to go off of!”
Bruce pats his back encouragingly. “So…”
“So I don’t know if it meant anything,” Tim says, his voice slightly higher pitched in a way that makes Bruce want to punch something, “And if it didn’t mean anything, my life is over.”
Damian makes a low growl. “I’m going to at least maim him.”
“Damian,” Dick says patiently, “We’ve talked about this.”
“I said maim, not kill! I wouldn’t want to make Drake cry for real.”
“That’s sweet,” Tim says.
His children. He loves them, he would die for them, but they concern him.
“Let’s not jump straight to that,” he says, relieved when it gets all of their attention. “But… honestly, Tim. I know that you’re worried about your rel—” Just the start of the word and Tim’s eyes widen, Jason makes a throat-slitting abort movement with his hand, good call—“Your friendship with Conner. But he is your best friend. You’ve told me that for years. Right?”
Tim nods, staring at him intently.
“So you’re good at a lot of things,” Bruce says, just to get him to roll his eyes, and ruffles his hair. “And one of those things is picking friends. He’ll be honest and straightforward with you, I know it.”
“Exactly,” Jason says, kicking his leg again. “I’m sure he just short-circuited and went to see his family while he figured it out. Right, Dami?”
“Jon does the same thing sometimes, when we argue,” Damian admits. “They are… more emotional than we are.” He says it like it’s a distasteful thing, which is kind of endearing. Also, Bruce had no idea that he knew that about Jon. It’s rather sweet.
“So just relax,” Bruce finishes, taking the opportunity to give Tim another hug. He can be odd about personal space, but right now he’s okay with it, even relaxing a bit. Unbelievably, they’re helping. Thank God. “And breathe. And we’ll find something to take your mind off of it until—”
Tim jolts upright, suddenly enough that they all jump, and fumbles for his phone. The screen is lit up, and his eyes widen. “He’s texting me,” he says, voice rising in pitch. “He’s texting me, he’s texting me—"
Jason snorts. “I’ve seen you disarm bombs calmer than this.”
“I haven’t made out with a bomb!”
Bruce jolts, trying not to immediately stand and run for the door.
“Bruce, sit.”
“You said he kissed you, not that he made out with you.” He feels like this is an important distinction.
“Oh my god.” Tim stands up, pacing in one direction and then the other, and then stares up at all of them like a deer in the headlights. “I don’t want to open it yet.”
Alfred clears his throat by the doorway; when they all turn to look at him, he raises an eyebrow pointedly. “It is breakfast time,” he says, holding out his hand. “And you know, as does Master Conner, that I do not allow electronics at the table. Perhaps you should use the time to think over your response.”
That’s enough to get the living room to clear out. Jason and Dick nearly run for the dining room—Bruce can smell the amount of syrup he used from here, it’s basically a lure—while Damian follows with more composure. Tim takes a moment to hand Alfred his phone, accepting a pat on the shoulder, before he runs after them. Just not having the phone makes him move easier, although he’s definitely still lost in thought. He runs through scenarios in his free time, but Bruce is willing to bet this isn’t one that he has an emergency plan for. Or at least, hopefully he doesn’t.
And now Bruce knows why that was left to the boys and him to fumble through. “You were finishing that in record time when you saw Tim come in, didn’t you?” he asks quietly. “That was only five minutes.”
“I had much of it prepared already, but I went to finish it when he returned, yes,” Alfred says primly, as if he didn’t just mastermind exactly what Tim needed right in front of them casually enough he didn’t even notice it. “Besides, I’m afraid my experience in romance is too formal for this situation.”
Bruce sighs. “I don’t know. You might have done better than us, at some points.”
Alfred is too polite to say ‘I know’ out loud, but he does look too amused. So he heard the directions the conversation veered. Great. “It seemed good practice,” he says under his breath. “Romance is not handled well in this house.”
“Please tell me you’re not talking about me.”
“If nothing else, when Master Damian begins to date, it promises to be interesting.” Alfred leads the way to the dining room. “And I expect you will want to talk to Master Clark about these developments, but that can also wait until after breakfast.”
No one argues with Alfred, he’s learned, so Bruce nods and keeps his phone in his pocket.
It should be an interesting phone call—but if the way Tim is laughing in the other room, feeling better already, is any indication, maybe not as bad as he had originally feared.