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49 hours and 37 minutes; that’s how long it's been since he’s slept. He couldn’t sleep now though, he had work to do. Tim Drake is practically the owner of Wayne Enterprises with how much of the paper work he does. He makes most deals, helps the advertising team from time to time, and makes sure the business stays steady and doesn’t collapse altogether.
8 cups; that’s how much coffee he’s had in those 49 or so hours. He’s not proud of that number, or how much he relies on coffee. But then again he’s not proud of anything he does these days. He could always be better, do better, nothing seems to be good enough.
He finds a lead, but he could have found it faster. He negotiates a good deal, but it could have been better. He saves someone from one of the many criminals in Gotham, but he could have done it more strategically.
With a small sigh Tim looks at the time, 4:49. He’s been doing paperwork for 5 hours now, and after this he has to try and find a lead for the missing kid’s case, and then attend a meeting for future advertising of the new product they’re releasing. To say his schedule is packed would be an understatement.
Right now the young boy is looking through a file with all the minor details of the new product. A phone, the first one they’ll release in four years and six months. The minor details tend to be the ones that make or break a product. Which is precisely why this is taking him so long, he has to look at every sentence and figure out what it implies for the rest of the product. Then evaluate if they really need that in there. It’s a tedious job, very boring and very draining.
Tim looks to the side and picks up his coffee mug only to find it’s empty. He looks around to find that his coffee supply is completely depleted. Tim saves his spot on the document just to be sure regardless of the auto-save feature, and turns off his computer. He gets up from his rather uncomfortable position on the chair and gets the mug to take down stairs.
He walked out of his room to the hall. Half of the family was on patrol dealing with a bunch of robbers who managed to get a hostage, while the other half rested. He would’ve heard all the rattling downstairs earlier, he would have seen the light earlier. But he was tired, sleep deprived, dare he say, what could he do?
He walked down to see Dick, Jason, and Damian sitting at the table. Realizing too late that he had probably just revealed his unhealthy, self-destructive habits to his siblings. Great. Just what he needed at a time like this. He’s never going to hear the end of it if Bruce finds out.
As soon as he gets to the bottom step he hears a sharp snarky voice address him.
“Drake, why are you here?” Crap. Why did Damian have to ask that out of all the questions? Why couldn’t he ask something like “How’s Your day?” Realistically, Damian would never ask that but hey, a brother can dream. But right now he doesn’t have time for dreaming, he has to come up with an excuse. His brothers are looking at him concerned and he doesn’t like it.
“I was just-“ Just what? He can’t lie to his brothers, they’d probably instantly see right through him! Might as well just tell them then. But make it seem less concerning, if that's possible. “-finishing up some important paperwork.”
His siblings looked at him, still looking concerned. Tim sees Dick look away, at the clock, and back at him.
“At 4:52?” Dick questions. Screw his brothers for being so goddam caring. Why do they even have a clock? Everyone owns a phone so why do they have a clock? Seems pretty useless to him.
“Yeah, it's uh- pretty important paperwork.” Technically he’s not lying. It IS important paperwork. And the sooner he gets back to it the better. So he should really hurry this interaction up. The sooner he’s finished the sooner he can move on to something else.
“Why don’t you sit down with us for dinner? You look… Well malnourished to say the least. Alfred is going to be back with the food soon too.” Dick says.
Does he really look that bad? Surely Dick is exaggerating, after all he had eaten some toast, even if it was barely enough to give him energy for 7 hours. It had to have done something combined with the Coffee that Tim seems to have been consuming all day long. Surely.
Should he say yes? He could use a break, but would it be worth it? Well… Only ten minutes or so should be fine. Tim could eat quickly and then get back to work. And if Dick wasn’t exaggerating then rumors would surely pop up about how “Bruce Wayne starves adopted child Tim Drake!” Or something like that.
So Tim silently sits down on the chair next to Jason. Pulling out his phone to scroll for a bit. He felt a glare pointed toward him and decided to ignore it. However when he still feels the gaze a few minutes later he finally looks up to see Dick looking at him. Dick’s eyes are filled with curiosity mixed with concern and he doesn’t break eye contact.
Tim squirms uncomfortably before asking “when is the food going to be ready again?”
“Its just finished heating master Tim.” A voice comes from the side. There stands Alfred, saving the day with his perfect timing. Their butler holds a tray with multiple bowls in it. “Classic beef stew. It seems that making extra was a good choice after all.” Alfred smiles, or at least Tim thinks its a smile. It’s so small he can’t really tell.
Tim smiles slightly toward Alfred. Their dear butler sets down the bowls and cutlery, then leaves the room to tell Bruce that dinner is ready.
“So, Drake, you look more dead than usual—“ Damian is interrupted by a kick to the leg courtesy of Dick. And he flinches. HE FLINCHES. Damian never flinches, like never, ever. Tim’s eyes narrow as he starts to notice the uncomfortable expression on Damian’s face.
“Yeah staring at a computer screen for hours will do that to ya.” Tim replies, still staring at Damian. He’s hiding an injury. Anyone could figure that out, so why hasn’t anyone else. As far as Tim knows Jason and Dick don’t know. And since when has Damian hidden injuries? Tim’s little brother would always pride himself on having some sense of self-preservation unlike the rest of the family, so what changed?
His thoughts are interrupted by Bruce seating himself at the table. Bruce smiles at him and says “Tim, you’re joining us I see. But why are you up so late?”
“Paperwork.” Tim replies flatly. Not wanting to get too deep into it. He is the head representative and heir to Wayne enterprises, of course he’s going to need to make some sacrifices. It comes with the territory.
Tim finishes dinner quickly, wanting to get back to the paperwork. “Go to sleep after the paperwork will ya?” Jason asks. It's more of an order than a question but oh well. Tim turns around facing his brother.
“Can’t, I’ll probably be working on a case after the paperwork for at least two hours. Then there's a meeting soon after that.” Tim pauses, thinking of something to lighten the air, or at least make his family a little less worried. “I’ll probably take a nap after the meeting though, before patrol.”
“That’s sixty hours, at least.” Damian says—that brat.
“What?” This time Bruce speaks up, questioning Dami.
“Drake here has been awake for around fifty hours. With all of the activities he’s listed it’ll be around ten more hours before he sleeps.” Everyone turns to stare at Tim. “Honestly Drake, if you had any self preservation instincts at all you would’ve been asleep hours ago.”
Okay Tim was a little pissed now “You don’t get to talk about my self preservation with that leg injury of yours.” Tim strikes back. Everyone’s heads whip around to look at Damian now.
“We will talk about this later.” Bruce says to Damian before turning back to Tim. “And you should go to sleep after the paperwork, you need to sleep Tim.” Bruce says, Firm. With That look on his face. It sent shivers down Tim’s spine.
“But Dad-“
“No buts, dad’s right. You need sleep” Dick intervenes.“Jason can handle the case—“ Jason nods to Dick’s words “—And I can appear at the meeting as a stand in for you.”
And just like that his family drags him upstairs. Jason decides to settle down in his room to make sure Tim actually sleeps after it's finished.
And so Tim does the only thing he can. He finishes the paper-work as quickly yet thoroughly as he can and practically leaps onto the bed.
Tim’s eyes get impossibly heavier and so, he finally shuts them. Taking a well deserved break. He starts dozing immediately. Only barely catching Jason saying “G’night Timbo”. Before turning off the lights, Letting Tim fall into a deep sleep.