Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

Since he was a kid, Tim remembers he always loved water, he loved the rushing feeling between his fingertips everytime he sit by the forgotten pool in tge empty Drake Manor, or how energized he felt everytime he was around the sea, or even how strangely calm he felt after simply walking by a beach when his parents used to take him to his digs.

It was something that always had been so present in Tim's life that he never really gave it so much throught. It came so naturally to him, like how he liked winter better than summer or how he had an ever present need to eat sugar, it was something so intrinsic, so instinctive that he didn't care to understand why. Not until he found out why, though.

Look, Tim didn't want to be a half blood. Being a half blood was dangerous, it was scary and most times got you killed. But he couldn't change his ancestry or DNA - he already questioned Quiron about that-, so he did what demigods did best, he lied, and, surprisingly, it worked!

Yeah, okay, maybe he did get a few close calls, like that one time Bruce walked in just after Tim wrapped up his call with his brother, or the first time he meet Thalia and Jason's sisters, but so far no one even he was a demigod.

Well, nobody knew until now, anyways.

"Oh, you gotta be kidding me! Come on!" Tim cries out in frustation, throwing his hands into the cold air of Gotham City, his boats scrapping against the snow covered rooftop makes him cringe, "Why does it always happen to me?"

"Holy shit! What the fuck is this thing?!" Jason curses as he recharges his gun and slightly twists his head to try and find Batman's shadow, "What the hell is happening, B?"

"I don't know what this creature is, but it seems to be targeting Tim." Bruce reply all the while throwing one of his Batrangs at the creature's directions and turns his attention to Tim, "Red Robin, you need to get to safety. Now."

"I'm fine, Bruce. Of fucking course, she's targeting me, they all can't- Fuck! Leave me a- AAAA SHIT," Red Robin yells, "Come on, I'm taking a break! You can try to kill me when I get back, Arachne!"

The monster's frown gets even deeper as Tim dodges every web she sends his way, "Where is she? I know you know where the brat is!"

"I don't know where Annie is and even if I did know, I wouldn't tell you!" Tim smiles mockling, jumps from the edge of the building and lands feet first in another comercial rooftop, dodging another blow for the monster, "What do you have against Annie, anyways? She didn't do anything to you!"

Arachne grins sadically as she flickers her wrists lazily. Dozen more spiders appear from thin air and Tim quietly curses as he gets trapped when trying to escape, "She may have done no harm to me, but her mother did,"

"Oh, for the love of Apollo, when are you people gonna understand that we aren't our fucking parents!" Tim prontly snaps at Arachne, the monster approaching with a dangerous spark glistening in her eyes , "They fuck up all the time, that's a fact, but we gotta nothing to do with it!"

"Someone needs to pay for their sins and wrong-doings!" She glares down at him, using a minha bony finger to lift his chin, "And if the Gods will not pay, then their filthy children will do!"

Trashing around violently, Tim wails, his face bright red from anger, "Not us though! We ain't responsible for them!"

"Yeah, not us," An autraged whine interrupts the conversation and Jason glances back from where he and Bruce were scooched down, trying to form a plan to free Red Robin, and spots a boy, almost as identical as Tim. The boy was wearing a worn orange shirt, 'Camp Half Blood - Long Island Sound' write in black ink with torn blue shorts, his hand was holding the hainding of a sword, his hair was a dark brownish color with gray bangs falling over his forehead and his icy blue eyes glared sharply at Arachne, "We just wanna chill, woman!"

"How lucky of me! I am going to have the honor of killing both Perseus Jackson and Timothy Drake!" The monster cackles an ugly thing, grasping her hand together in a mock of prayer, "Oh, how the Gods are good!"

Before the woman could do anything else, Perseus strut over them and uses his sword to cut Tim cuffs, sucessily freeing him. Arachne wails loudly from the abrupt chance on the fight and backs away, giving the opening both boys needed to set the battle at their favor. Tim grins, grabbing a weird pen and stooding. Before Jason and Bruce could step up and help them, Tim takes the pen's cap off and a sword appears in it's place, "You wish, Arachne!"

The three fall in a flow of attack and defense. Tim and Perseus advanced as one, they moved in syncrony as if they were clones of each other, tiring Arachne and making her blows start to waver, "What are you doing here, Percy?"

"Why, you know, I decided to be the amazing brother that I'm and left my comfy bed in the camp to come and to see how my baby brother was doing, maybe watch the last episode of The Last of Us, but to my surprise when can't find him anywhere, and when I finally do find him, he is fighting fuckin' Arachne!" Percy taunts, rolling out of the line of another blow and frowning at Tim, "And alone! What were you thinking, Tim?"

"Pff, I don't know if realized, but I was too busy kinda of trying to not die." Red Robin jeers ironically, throwing another Birdrang in Arachne's face, "And you say that as if you never ever fought a monster alone, you big ass hipocrite."

"You should've find shelter and then call for backup, stupid!"

"Well, maybe I didn't think about that, you know?"

Batman goes to shove off the grimy ground but Jason grasps his wrist. Glancing at his son's confused widen eyes, Bruce points at the fight before them, "I have a theory on what that thing is, you remember when Diana took us to Themyscera? The battle is drawing to an end. She is losing and she knows it. So what do you say to some throwing training, Jaylad?"

Realization draws upon Jason and the teen stands up, already grabbing his Birdrangs hid in one of his pockets. Side by side, Bruce and Jason aim their rangs and throw them at the monsters direction, the metal pieces strike in the freezing breeze and finally cuts the woman's arms.

Arachne howls as she turns to look at the culprits of her injuries, giving Tim and Percy the oportunity to slam the their swords in her torso. The monsters shriek loudly, reaching her hands towards the teenagers before dissapering in a wind of glow.

Tim jumps, turning towards Jason with a glare. Without looking up, Percy rubs his eyes as he walks towards them and leans against Tim, grining devily when Tim huffs, "Your friend like to scare people, huh?"

"Shut up, Percy." Tim scowls and pushs the older teen off him. Jason watches them with a sharp glare, his mind running in circles, trying to solve the puzzle of how Tim Drake could see past, what Diana calls, The Mist™, "Jason, where's Bruce?"

"Don't know. He was with me like, a second ago." Jason shruggs, still eyeing them suspiciously, "What I wanna know is what the actual fuck just happened."

Percy opens his mouth to reply, but stops precipitously when he glances up and sees Jason, or rather, Red Hood, in full uniform, "You're the Red Hood."

Jason awkwardly nods his head, a confused look painted in his face, and glances back at Tim, quietly asking for an explanation. Tim gives a weary sigh and brings his fingers to rub his temples tiredly, "He's a-"

"I'm a fan! Timmy here talks about you like, all the time. You know, you were his favorite Robin." The teen dissolved into giggles, pointing to a flushed Tim, who tried to hid his face while nudging Percy's ribs, "Anyways, I'm Percy Jackson, nice to meet you!"

"Okay, okay, okay, that's not bizarre. At all." Jason mutters to himself. It totally wasn't strange, yeah, totally normal behaviour here, nothing weird happening. It's not Tim fighting a greek mythological being was something unatural, they all fight weird people all the time. Shaking his head he looks at Percy, "Nice to meet you too, can you explain to me what the hell is happening?"

"Hm, we just fought a monster...?" Percy deadpans, weirdly glancing at the anti hero before them, and turning to Tim, he whispers lowly, "Are they always slow like that?"

"No shit, Sherlock!" Jason closes his eyes, trying to ignored the buzzing of an incoming migrane and sarcastically glares at the two other teens, "I'm asking why it was targeting only you two? Why wasn't it trying to B and me too?"

"Oh shit. Well, I guess the cat is out of the bag. Fuck this, who cares, anyways?" Tim chuckles tightly, avoiding the eyes of his kinda-off-brother, "Well, I kinda am a Demigod."

"You? Timothy Drake? You are a demigod?" Jason impassivelly narrow his eyes at him trying to find signs of amusement on his face, scanning Tim from head to toe, "Are you sure about that?"

Tim allows an offended sound escape his lips and turns to him, "Hm, yes I am, Jason Todd. And I'll let you know that I have been fighting even before YOU got out of your diapers."

"Wait," Percy raises his eyebrows, skeptism glistening over his face, "but we started fighting even before we got out of our diapers, Timmy."

Tim frowns gets even deeper when he spin his head to look at the older boy besides him, "What side are you on, Percy?"

"Okay, okay, I'm shutting up, no need to get your knickers in a twist, boss." Percy mimics a surrender move, and moans painfully when Tim's elbow makes contact with his ribs, "Ow! Mean."

Tim grasp Percy's forearm, ignoring the inquiry look thrown his way, and starting dragging him way, he mindlessly declares, "So, the job is done, everybody's safe, and everythings is in order, Percy and me weren't needed here anymore, we gotta go now."

"Red Robin, I think we deserve some more answers." A grave and intense familiar voice growls behind them and Percy stiffens, swiftly glancing at the hero by his side. A tense aurea falls over them as Tim and Percy turn to look directly at the tall man looming over them

"Holy shit, you are Batman."

Chapter Text

"Holy shit, you are Batman." Percy's icy blue eyes widen comically as he smiles excitedly and jumps forward to shock hands with the man, "I'm your fan too! Timmy's always talking about you. Can you carry more than 500 pounds? Tim said you can! Can you punch 2 people at once? Oh, can you teach me how to punch 2 people at once? Please!"

"Hm..." Bruce stoods awkwardly, engulfing the boy's much smaller hand on his. Percy frenziedly started to gesticulete while Bruce tries - and fails - to keep up with him, "I..."

Watching Bruce's suffering, Tim walks forward and gently taps Percy on the shoulders. The boy turns to him, frowning at him confusedly, "Percy, he won't understand if you talk too fast."

"Oh, sorry!" The older boy blushes and looks at the man, "I'm Percy. Percy Jackson. Nice to meet you!"

"Hm." Bruce mumbles, eyeing him up and down suspiciosly. Percy looked like a, slightly older, carbon copy of Tim. His blue eyes glistening with the same hope he found on Tim's, many years ago, his mannerism reminding him of numerous times where he listened to Tim's rants about the most random subjects, "I'm Batman."

"I know your secret identity, don't worry." Percy shrugged, stepping closer to Tim, an arm coming to rest lazily at his shouders. Tim felt another sigh escape his lips for the hundred time that night.

"Oh, you know," Bruce nods for a few seconds until "Wait, you know?"

"Yep. Was not that hard with Timmy here around."

"You told him?" Bruce turns to Tim, his lips in a straight line. Uh oh, B got his 'angry but I don't wanna scare you' face

"Tell me? Oh no, no, no. I was there when he found out!" The older boy exclaims,"You had to see his face when he put the puzzle together. That's why we say he's actually Annie's brother."

In all honesty, Tim was going to kill his brother

"Annie?" Bruce asks, always forwards, being followed by Jason, "Who is 'Annie'?"

"Annie. Annabeth Chase. She is Athena's daughter. Super smart." Tim replies him, his eyes stuck at the ground, "And you all call me Annie's brother because Arachne hates me too."

"That woman is weird. Thank the Gods we will be free from her for the next few months." Percy chuckles softly

"You mean thank us. I swear that one day I will go to Olympus myself to see what the fuck is wrong with these gods." Tim complains loudly, clasping his arms around his torso. Why was his life so complicated?

Chuckling harder, Percy puts his arms around Tim's shoulders, "We already did that, Timmy."

"We will go again!" Tim states, puffing out, "I'm still wondering which one of them had the amazing idea of putting literal 8 year olds with no training to save the world."

"I think it was Zeus," Percy pauses for a second, looking thoughtful for a moment, "Yeah, it's always Zeus, anyways, can we go now? We kinda need to do something."

"The something being watch a serie," Tim looks at Percy unamusedly, the other boy simply shrugging

"Actually, we need to know some things about... well, about everything." Jason explains confusedly

"Oh, shot then!" Percy smiles brightly

Bruce pauses for a moment, flicking his eyes between the boy and his second youngest, "We can't ask you here. We are going to the batcave.'

"Oh, okay, the batcave," Percy says, and not even a second later his eyes widen, "wait, wE ARE GOING TO THE BATCAVE?!"

"Yep, I told you about it," Tim smirks at the boy. He loves his brother so much

"Yeah! But I never thought I was going to be there!" Percy whispers excitedly

Shaking his head fondly at the boy, Tim speaks again, "Wait 'till you see the mecanic dinosaur."

Tim waits patiently for the information to sink into Percy's brain and he laughs when his brother turns to him with his eyes almost falling out his face

"THERE'S A MECANIC DINOSAUR? TIM, WHY DIDN'T YOU-"

"I didn't tell you because I knew you were going to freak out, you always freak out with these things," Tim smirks slyly, "Remember when you figured out I was Robin?"

"You can't blame me for freaking out! And of course I remember!" Percy puts a hand over his heart mocking exasperation, "It was the coolest day of my life..."

"Percy, we fought Gaea."

"Yeah, yeah, fighting Gaea was fun, but finding out my baby brother was the coolest superhero ever? That's the shit, Little Harp Seal!"

Tim is going to kill Percy, for real this time

Bruce let amusement bleed on his emotionless face for the first time as he asks, "Little Harp Seal?"

Laughing up, Percy shakes his hands "Oh my Gods! You don't know, right! This day was so-"

"Unimportant! This day was unimportant!" Tim cuts him off as a deep blush creep up to his ears, cursing Hera from whenever she was probably laughing at his embarrassement, "Look, can we go?"

"Hm, yes." Bruce inclines his head in agreeament as Tim quietly thanks the universe, "The Batmobile is waiting for us. Red Robin and Perseus are going with me, can you meet us in the Batcave, Red Hood?"

Nodding quickly, the other vigilante jumps from the edge of the building to the gloomy streets of Gotham, but not before Tim couldn't hear Jason mutter a 'What the fuck just happened?'

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Getting down the building was easy for Tim. One because he was used to it and two because Bruce insisted to help Percy get down in the cement pathway. Maybe he thought Tim would try to escape with Percy, Tim shruggs, the man's a natural paranoid.

Look, Tim understands why Bruce was acting like that. The man must be suspicious out his mind about Percy's sudden appearance. He seemed to have came out of thin air, not just that, he also may know not just Bruce's, but everyone's secret identities. And worse of all, it looks like Tim was the one to enlighten him.

Tim knew Bruce trusted him, of course he did. It's just, he wasn't Cass, or Dick, or even Damian, he was just Tim, the neighboor kid who forced himself into the Wayne's life without them even asking, much less wanting. He wasn't as trusted as the others and he was okay with that.

(Tim had already decided to ignore how his heart ache everytime he thinks about it.)

And now they all thought Tim was out there going up to people and telling them all about business.

But before Tim spiral further down the drain, he feels Percy nudge him in the ribs. Turning to look at his brother, Tim meets Percy blue eyes shining with awe, "Is that the Batmobile?!"

"Yep," Tim glances up towards where he knew the Batmobile would be, the shiny black paint gleaming into the moon lights, "It can go up to 230 km per hour and 350 km per hour when Batman uses it's boost thrusters. Pretty cool, right?"

"And you have the audacy of asking? Of course it is!" Percy peeps, exhilaration"I bet it's faster than the Gray Sisters Taxi!"

"The Gray Sisters Taxi?" Tim hears Bruce ask behind the two boys, "Like the Gray Sisters in the mithology?"

Turning around, Tim glances at Bruce, "Uh, yeah, they are pretty chill, actually. A bit crazy, but chill. They can take you anywhere you want, they mostly stay at New York, though,"

"They are... Safe?" Bruce question awkwardly, Tim opens his mouth to say they are, but Percy bet him at it, "Safe? Oh, no, no, we almost die everytime we drive with them, that's why we just call them when it's urgent!"

"... You could've called me, Tim." Bruce mumbles after a few minutes, making said boy stiff, "I could've helped you.

"Look, you don't have to say it." Tim responds quietly, ignoring his brother's confused gaze, "It's okay,"

Bruce frowns at the boy and stops, "What do you mean?"

Sighing, Tim struggles to to meet his father's figure eyes, but does it anyways, "I know how you feel about metas, Bruce, I'm not stupid. You even have that one rule of 'No Outside Metas In Gotham'. And I'm a Demigod, which means I'm basically one."

Tim sees the exact moment Percy seems to catch on, the olders boy hand lowering suspiciously near where Riptide is hid in his pocket. Percy quietly goes to stand in front of Tim, but the yourger just grabs his arm and shock his head.

"Diana's a meta, she's my best friend," The Dark Knight's frown gets deeper, " Why would you think- Tim, I don't care about that."

"It's different, she's your best friend and she's also Wonder Woman," Tim sighs again, Bruce was really going to make him explain why it's different, wasn't he? Leave it to the man to destroy the rest of self-estem he had left, "I'm just your nosy neighboor who forced himself into your life when you were grieving your real son."

Bruce stares at the boys and Percy burrows his hand into his pocket anxiously, "What are you talking about Tim?"

Tim looks at the floor and clasps his mouth shut before he could say more, Percy glances at him waiting for any signal and Bruce just stands before the two boys, studying Tim

"You really think that?" Bruce asks, sounding so heartbroken and it makes Tim confusedly peep up, trying to read the man's behind the cowl.

Sighing shakingly, Bruce takes one step towards them and Tim could hear how his brother grasped Riptide harder, "You are my son, Tim. I don't care that you are a meta, or a Demigod, God, I don't care. You are my son,"

As Percy let his hand fall and step aside, Tim finally glances up at Bruce and looks at the utterly shock and heartbreak on his face, whispering dumbly, some incoherent words fall from his lips "What? Why? I'm not-"

"You saved me, you saved all of us, multiple times, without even questioning how that would affect you, withou asking for anything in return. I admit our start wasn't the best and I apologize for how I acted towards you when all you wanted to do was help. You are my smart, amazing, genius son, and I love you so much. We all love you so much." Bruce claims, putting a hand over the boy's shoulder. Tim moves his glassy eyes over Bruce's face, trying to find any hint that Bruce is lying, but he finds nothing.

Sniffling loudly, Tim allow his arms to fall around Bruce, around his dad, and let the tears he had gathered in his eyes finally free to run across his face. Tim felt Bruce's arms circle him and pull him closer and suddently, Tim realized that he was going to be okay.

He was finally home.

After a few more minutes, Tim pulls back and Bruce wipes his tears away, "Okay, it's time for us to go, kiddo, up up you go."

"You sound like such a dad right now," Tim chuckles at the man, firmly standing to meet eyes with his older brother who startles and starts looking around awkwardly when he realized he got caught staring.

"I'm a dad," Bruce winks at his son as he starts walking towards the Batmobile. In a light voice he looks over his shoulders, "I'm going to go unlock the backseat for you boys. Come when you two are ready."

Going to follow him, Tim feels Percy clasp his hands around his wrist, pushing him to walk slower with the older boy, "What just happened? Batman is your father? Why didn't you tell me?"

"Calm down, Seaweed Brain. I didn't tell you about B being my dad because I thought he didn't see me as his son, he's way better at being a dad than Jack was, now that I'm thinking about it."

"Fuck Jack Drake, I'm still proud that I am the TDPS founding member and current president," The older boy proudly exclaims, puffing his chest

"Co-Founding member, Percy, Annie and you created it," Tim smirks slyly, "I still don't know why, though,"

"Because he's a bitch, but yeah, the 'Batman's your dad' thingy makes sense, with all your abandonment issues and shit," Percy nods like he figured the most well keepted secret ever.

Tim mumbles a weak, 'Hey' and nudges at the older boy, "My father is your father, Dumbass, so if I have abandonment issues, you do too!"

Percy decides to ignore his brother's weak attempt of a comeback to just continue nodding eargely, then out of the blue he stops at his tracks, "Wait, if Batman's your dad... Do you- do you think he would want to be my dad too?"

Tim glances at Bruce, who was waiting, standing between the curb and the street, one steel covered hand resting over the hood of the car and a soft smile painting his otherwise serious face, and then looks at Percy again, "I give two weeks 'till you become an official Wayne, Aquaboy."

Chapter Text

Going back to the Batcave was, surprisingly, a really calm ride.

No monsters tried to attack them while Bruce quietly drove through Gotham's dark alley's, Percy was so tired he freaked out only for a few minutes when they stepped into the Batmobile, but shut his eyes and leaned into Tim's shoulder when it started running, and Tim, well, Percy was comfortable and warm and Tim was awake for like, 54 hours already and he decided that nobody could really blame him, he just fought a monster and had a heart-to-heart with his father.

He kinda deserved that 10 minutes of rest eye, you know.

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Tim woke up suddenly and opened his eyes to see Bruce gently caressing some curls away from his eyes, "Hey, kiddo, time to wake up,"

"No, I wanna sl'ep," Tim mumbles, turning his head towards his brothers hair and frowning, Tim loves his brother but Percy was smelling like, really bad.

He hears quiet chuckling and feels caloused fingers run into his hair, "Come on, you slept for the entire ride, you didn't even stir when we went to get Selina. Anyways, you and Percy need to take a shower and eat something,"

Cracking one eye open, Tim glares at Bruce, "Do 't tomorrow,"

"I swear that you can go to sleep as soon as you shower and eat."

"Promise?"

"Promise."

"Okay." Tim mourns, sitting up and shoving Percy off him, the other boy opening his eyes with a glare from where his face fell against the leather seat, "Wake up, Seaweed Brain."

"The fuck you doin'?" The older boy asking rubbing his ocean blue eyes, "Where are we?"

"Batcave, we need to-" Tim starts, but is cut off when Percy shoved him out of the car, tumbling and almost falling in the ground.

"Holy shit we are at the Batcave!" Percy exclams, turning his head towards Tim, his widened eyes glowing with amazenament.

"That's what I said. We need to find you some clothes." Tim deadpans and bumps against Percy's shoulder, "Come on, Percy, I wanna sleep."

"How can you be so calm about this! We are in The Batcave, Tim!" The older boy says turning to berate him a little more, but widen his eyes looking at something behind him, "Oh my Gods, Tim. Timmy. Little Brother. Catwoman is here. Oh. My. Gods!"

spinning quickly, Tim meets Selina's brown eyes and mischivious smirk looking at him amusedly, "Hello, Kitten. It's been so long since we last saw each other that you're already replacing me with a brother?"

"Selina!" The boy cries out and runs, circling his arms against the woman's black clad waist. Sniffing and trying to hide his tears, Tim nuzzles his head at her, "I missed you."

"Hey, hey, don't cry, baby. I missed you too." She kisses the top of his head and brings him closer. Tim feels his tears soak throught her suit, and he knew she also felt it, but the woman he found out to be his mother did not seem to really care, " It's okay, kiddo, I'm here now. We are okay."

"Where have you been?" Tim mutters quietly, letting some of the anxiety and apprehension he had been bottling up surface on the wobbly timbre of his voice, "You just- dissapeared, out of nowhere and I- I thought you had-"

"Hey, hey, no, kiddo." Selina leans away just enough to bring a hand to caress his cheek, "I had some problems. Me and your aunts had to flee from Gotham for two weeks. I tried to find a way to tell you, but I couldn't. I'm so so sorry, baby."

Glancing down, Tim leans back and hugs the woman tighter, "I thought you were going to do just... Leave. Like them."

"Tim, listen to me," Selina says, resting her head on top of the boy's head, tugging him even closer, "I'm never, never going to leave you without an explanation. And even if a leave for a while, I'm always going to come back to you. Always. You're my son and I love you more than anything, kitten."

"Okay." Tim sobs, breathing heavily and rests his head in the crook of her neck. "Okay."

Kissing the top of his wild curls, the woman leans away and turns to Percy. The other boy glaring at the cave's floor, trying to hide his blushing cheeks from the woman, "So, you're kitten's big brother, uh?"

"Um, yeah, ma'am" Percy replies prontly.

"Ma'am?" Selina laughs, her hands motioning for him to come closer, "Oh, only boring, corporate people call me ma'am, you can call me Selina, kitten."

Stalking slowly towards them, still avoiding their eyes, Percy grips his forearms tightly, "Uh, okay, ma- Selina."

Leaning towards Percy, Selina tugs the boy towards them, hugging him securely, "Bruce told me what you did. I just really wanted to thank you for taking care of Tim."

Relaxing in the hold, Percy bring his arms to rest around Selina and Tim, "Timmy's my brother, I'll always take care of him."

"Even so. You're still a kid yourself. And if I'm being honest, I think even Batman would be scared about fighting a monster like that. You two are so brave."

"Uh, I-" The boy stammers, "Thank you, Selina."

"You're welcome, sweetie." Selina says, kissing both boys on the forehead. Leaning away, she grins, "Well, while you two take a shower, Bruce and I will go fetch some snacks. It's too late for something heavy, so I think some pancakes and milk will be enough, uh?"

"Pancakes are perfect, mom." Tim smiles, a mischievious grin growing on his face, "Oh, do we still have that blue dye? I think Percy'd love to eat some blue pancakes."

"Dude!" Percy shoves his arm, "Shut up!"

"So that's why I found you at 3 in the morning making blue cookies." The sound of Bruce's voice echoing in the cave makes the three turn around, in almost perfect syncrony. Snorting, the man shakes his head fondly, "Jason texted me to say he's gonna be kinda late. He wants to pick up the girls so they can meet Percy."

"Oh, uh, that's not really necessary." Percy manages to stutter out, averting his eyes to look at Tim, "I just- I'm gonna go soon-"

"Oh, but you won't!" Tim shakes his head exasperadly.

"Tim." The other boy replies, glaring at him, "I don't wanna bother you guys, it's fine."

"Hm." Bruce hums, stepping closer, "That's so unfortunate, Alfred already set up your room right next to Tim's. He even brought out the blue dye for your pancakes."

"That's- I don't-" Percy looks around, his graze setting on Tim yet again, "I don't wanna impose."

"You won't." Bruce replies, and brings his hand to squeeze Percy's shoulder gently, "Trust me, you would know if you are imposing, Jason'd be sure to tell you. Stay, at least for the night, it's too late for you to be walking around at this time."

Staring at Bruce, Tim watched with pursed his lips as Percy searched for any kinda of expression that hinted that the man was lying. The sigh that escaped the boy's lips told him that Percy hadn't find any.

A goofy grin paints Percy's face when he looks down at his feet and replies quietly, "I think I'd be fine to stay the night."

"Sweet!" Bruce says, squeezing the boy's shoulder again, "Now, you two go take a shower. Cassandra sent a billion variations of heart emojis on the group chat, so prepare yourself to drown on hugs and snuggles."

Nodding eargely, Tim grabs Percy's hand and starts to lead him towards the communal showers.

They entered the locker room side by side in a somewhat peaceful silence. The exaustion from the mix of occurrences drowing anew on their tired bodies. The brothers worked in sinc as they start to set up a drowsy pace.

Handing over to a towel, soap and some borrowed clothes from Jason to the other boy, Tim shows Percy how to turn the hot shower on, snorting when the older boy points out how weird the shower head was.

Tim lets out a sigh of relief when the warm water hits him, his mind finally slowing down. He dozes off a few times while he scrubs the grime and sweat away, his eyes a bit too heavy-lid for his taste.

The shower ended too quickly, and fifteen minutes later, Tim found himself engulf on one of Bruce's Nirvana shirt, sweatpants and socks that had little bats imprinted on them as he sat on one of the benches to wait for Percy, who stumbled in a few moments later, proudly dressed on Jason's Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles T-shirt and some sweatpants.

"Ready to go?" Tim asks standing up.

Percy nods, yawning, "I just wanna eat something and sleep for three days straight."

"You're going to love Alfred's pancakes. They are really good." The younger vouchs, sauntering out of the room, "They always make me more sleepy."

"That's because you're always tired, Tim."

"Shush, Seaweed Brain."

The confortable silence wrap them in a calming rhythm as they step onto the empty cave's floor towards the stairs that would lead both boys back to the manor.

But before Tim could start to climb the stairs, Percy grasps his hand hesitantly, "Hey, I know it's kinda off stupid but, um, do you- do you think your siblings will like me?"

Smilling gently at his brother, Tim glasps his hands tightly on Percy's and tugs him closer, "You're gonna be fine, Percy. They will love you."

"You think so?"

"I know so."