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Tim Drake sat with his knees pulled up to his chest as he stared at the two headstones, the names were seared into his retinas yet he still sat on the cold, stone bench, memorizing the shape of each letter. Memorized the shape of the gravestones, the dark color, and the quotes on each one. He took in each part and waited for a pang of grief to hit him. Grief that never really hit him the way he thought it should.
He grieved more for Connor and Bart when they had died than he really did for either of his parents. Part of him wondered if that made him a bad son. Too ungrateful to even fully mourn his parents who had provided him with everything he had ever wanted. Parents who were never there, parents that Tim really, honestly, didn’t even really know.
He stared at their graves, willing himself to feel some sort of grief for them and absolutely failing. His heart was racing in his chest, thumping furiously hard to the point that he could hear it in his ears. He really didn’t even know why the hell he was here.
One minute he was with his boyfriends. They were hanging out, eating pizza, and watching a movie at the Tower when Bart paused the movie to ask Tim the most life-altering question anyone could have ever really asked him.
And like the complete and total dumbass that he was, he did what Tim Drake did best. He ran.
He ran to the zeta tube and then he ran from his nest to the cemetery and he found himself sitting in front of the graves of his parents and he was feeling like a complete and total idiot. He had run away like a fucking coward and now he was sitting in front of his parents’ graves feeling even stupider.
Tim couldn’t believe he had done this, but the anxiety racing through his veins was strong and his mind was circling around and around.
He had been in a relationship with Connor and Bart for a little over a year. After years of dancing around one another, the three had finally decided to try a relationship and he was doing amazing. Honestly, there were days when Tim thought that it was too good to be true.
See, Tim Drake had known from a very young age that good things didn’t just happen to him. They never really did. The thing that Connor and Bart were offering? It just felt far too good to be true and Tim couldn’t wrap his head around the fact that they wanted him.
Connor and Bart wanted to move their relationship to the next level. They wanted to live with Tim. It just felt far too good to be true.
Jack and Janet Drake hadn’t even wanted to live with him. Why the hell would they?
Tim had spent so much of his time alone. Years of wandering around an empty Drake manor were solid, core memories in Tim’s mind. Then there was the brief stint where he lived in Wayne Manor that felt empty and hollow, days where he was reminded that he wasn’t quite family, not like the others were. Something that was obvious when no one batted an eye when he moved out of the manor at just seventeen and never tried to get him to move back home.
He had been living alone for four years now and had accepted that he was destined to be alone. That he was meant to be by himself in a large, empty building that never quite felt like home.
Maybe that was why he was here in the first place, surrounded by the gothic catholicism that was Gotham Cemetery. The large crosses and angels seemed to loom over him as he stared at the two sturdy graves. It was interesting to think that his parents had spent their entire lives roaming around the world, hopping from one dig site to another only to then spend their afterlife stationary and stagnant in one place. It was all Tim had ever wanted as a child but not like this. Not buried six feet in the ground.
He had spent years and years of his life trying so hard to be the perfect son, to do something to make it worth it to his parents to stay and he never had quite been able to do so.
“I had a feeling I would find you here,” a voice said from behind Tim.
The vigilante jumped and turned around to find Bruce standing behind him, a soft smile on his face before he took a seat beside Tim and let out a breath.
“Why were you looking for me?” Tim asked, glancing over at his adoptive father warily. Bruce shrugged his shoulders.
“Bart called me in a panic. Said that they upset you and didn’t know if you would want to see them. So they called me,” he said, leaning back into the bench.
“Of course, they would call you,” Tim said with a huff, crossing his arms over his chest. He gnawed on his lip as his leg bounced quickly with all of the pent-up anxiety.
“Would you like to tell me what happened?” Bruce asked, looking his son over. “You only come out here to glare at your parents' grave when something is really bothering you.”
Tim let out a mirthful chuckle and shook his head. “How would you even know that?” He asked as he looked up at his mentor.
Bruce gave him an amused smile before he stared forward once again. “Because you’re a lot like me, Tim, and I do the same thing with my parents,” he said with a soft laugh. “Now, what’s eating at you, kiddo?”
Tim furrowed his brow as he tried to find a way to explain his dilemma to Bruce without feeling completely silly. “Bart and Connor want to move to Gotham and live with me,” he said quietly, squeezing his biceps tightly. “And I just, I don’t get it. This last year in a relationship with them has been amazing and I’ve loved every single moment of it. But I keep waiting for the other shoe to drop, I mean why me? I’m nothing special. Not like them.”
“What do you mean?” Bruce asked, his brow furrowed.
The younger vigilante shrugged his shoulders. “I mean I’m nothing special. My own parents didn’t want to be around me. Why would they?”
“Timothy Jackson Drake Wayne,” Bruce said steadily as he turned his torso to face his middle son. “Look at me.”
Tim slowly turned to face his adoptive father and winced when he found the older man glaring menacingly at him.
“I need you to pay attention to what I’m about to tell you. Do you understand me?” Bruce told him and Tim found himself nodding once, his heart pounded in his chest even harder than before.
“You are an extraordinary young man. And I am so, so sorry that your parents never took the time to see that. You are so unbelievably kind and caring. You are the smartest man I have ever met in my life and you use that intelligence for good,” Bruce said passionately. “You are very funny and talented. I mean your photography is astounding and I have been to plenty of your skateboarding competitions to know that you’ve got a talent for that as well. Honestly, I can’t see a reason why Connor and Bart wouldn’t want to be around you all the time. You attract people to you with your kindness and your wit and your personality.”
Tim sniffed, his eyes burned with tears he refused to shed in front of his father. It felt as though someone had taken his heart and was squeezing it tight into a fist.
“Then why didn’t they want me? Why didn’t you want me?”
Bruce frowned and grabbed Tim’s hand and held it in his own calloused hands. “Tim, I have wanted you from the moment I saw you,” he said quietly. “I remember the first time your parents brought you to a gala. You were four years old and you were the most precocious child I had ever met in my life. You followed me around for most of the night and Janet and Jack were beyond annoyed because of it.” Bruce let out a quiet chuckle and shook his head at a memory that Tim could just barely remember himself. “By the end of the night, I was carrying you on my hip as I walked around and you fell asleep there. I tried to get Janet to give you to me then and she told me no. I should have fought harder for you then but I was stupid and didn’t know just how special you were.”
“I thought you didn’t want me,” Tim said in a small voice. He felt far too vulnerable sitting on that bench with his father boring holes into him. “When I moved out, no one ever tried to get me to come home,” he said quietly.
The older man gave him a small smile. “I told you before that you are a lot like me, and it’s true. You are very similar to me in a lot of ways. But sometimes I forget that you are not me,” he said and his smile turned sad, his eyes were filled with an unspoken regret. “When I came back and learned that you had moved out, I assumed you wanted to experience independence, the chance to spread your wings and find yourself. I never once thought that you wanted to come back home. With your older brothers, I fought so hard to keep them close and it was smothering them. I thought that if I allowed you to go out on your own, you would fly back to me whenever you were ready. I’m sorry to say that I was wrong.”
Tim let out a shaky breath and squeezed Bruce’s hand lightly. There were so many things he wanted to say, so many things he was feeling. His mind was racing far too fast for him to even begin to make a coherent thought, to voice how he was feeling to the man that Tim looked up to his entire life.
“But I’m telling you right now, you deserve this, Tim. You deserve to be happy and whole and loved,” Bruce said quietly, moving to cup Tim’s face in his hands. “When those two idiots came knocking on my door last month to ask for permission to live in Gotham, I had half a mind to slam the door in their faces. I realized, though, that it likely took a lot of guts to ask me that and they did it because they love you, Tim. They likely love you almost as much as I do and if I wanted anyone to be there to take care of my son, it would be those two. Even if they do cause me quite a few gray hairs,” he said with a soft laugh.
The younger man couldn’t help but chuckle as he shook his head. “They’re dumbasses, but they’re my dumbasses,” he said with a small smile. “I just can’t believe they would ever want me, you know?”
Bruce smiled and shook his head as he leaned back in the bench and stared at his son lovingly. “How could they not? You’re a wonderful kid, Tim. And I know, you’re in your twenties now but you will always be a kid, my kid. Those two, though, they see in you what I see in you and that’s how amazing you are,” he said. Bruce gave him a small smile and glanced over at the entrance of the cemetery. “Why do you think they’ve been awkwardly standing over there, waiting for me to give them the go-ahead to come over here and talk to you?” he asked.
Tim glanced over and smiled. Standing right outside of the gates were Connor and Bart. Connor was standing with his arms crossed over his chest and an annoyed look on his face. Beside him stood Bart with his hands pressed over Connor’s ears as if that would be enough to keep the super from eavesdropping on Tim and Bruce’s conversation. The young vigilante chuckled and waved his hand at them. Not even a blink of an eye and the two were at his side, Bart’s hands hovered over Tim’s shoulders awkwardly.
“Are you okay? We didn’t mean to upset you, Timmy,” Bart said with a frown as he looked Tim over with a critical eye before Connor grabbed him by the back of Bart’s shirt and pulled him away from Tim.
“Give him some space, Baby,” Connor said with an amused smile before he looked down at Tim. “Are you okay? We weren’t trying to scare you off.”
Tim gave Connor a small smile and shook his head. “I just got into my own head,” he said quietly, reaching out to take Connor’s hand and squeeze it tight. “Bruce helped me sort things out.”
Connor smiled and kissed the back of Tim’s hand. “I’m glad,” he said and looked over at Bruce. “Thanks, B, I appreciate it.”
Bruce grunted. “Anytime.” Bruce looked back at Tim and gave him a small smile. “I’ll let you three get back home. I think you all have a lot to talk about. But we are getting lunch together next weekend, understand?”
“Understood,” Tim said with a wide grin. “I’m looking forward to it.”
His father let out another grunt, his own awkward way of telling Tim that he loved him before he ruffled the boy’s hair and left him alone in the cemetery with his two boyfriends.
“Does this count as a fight,” Bart asked, quickly taking Bruce’s seat and pulling Tim into his arms.
Tim frowned and craned his neck to look back at the redhead from where he had smushed Tim’s face into his chest. “Do you want it to be a fight?”
Connor laughed and took a seat behind Tim, scooting close. “Because in Bart’s head, every time we fight, we have make-up sex and that’s his totally unsubtle way of saying he wants to screw you.”
The vigilante snorted and buried his face in Bart’s chest once more. “We’re in a cemetery,” he said, his voice slightly muffled.
“Mary Shelley had sex on her mother’s grave,” Bart said helpfully. “And there’s something sexy about all of these creepy angels watching us.”
“Bart. No,” Connor said in a whisper and shook his head. The speedster let out a huff and instead started to comb his fingers through Tim’s hair. “Tim, you wanna tell us what happened?” Connor asked, resting his hand on Tim’s back, a solid, warm comfort.
“It's just, I don’t know,” Tim said, his cheeks burning hot. “I feel like it’s all too good to be true. What if you guys move in and you get tired of me and realize you don’t actually want to put up with my shit?”
“Baby,” Bart cooed, moving around so that he could pull Tim’s face away and cup it in his hands. “We love you, Timbuktu. And sure, there’s going to be times where we get sick of each other but that’s normal. It doesn’t mean that we love you any less or you love us any less.”
“Yeah it’s normal Tim. But we want to live with you because we like spending time with you. Besides, Gotham is your home, we would never want to try to get you to leave here. So it just makes sense that we would move here to be with you,” Connor said, running his hand up and down Tim’s back.
“We aren’t your parents,” Bart told him and winced a little. “Sorry, we overheard a little bit of it. But we aren’t. We see you for you, and we love every single little part of you, even down to the weird overthinking part of your brain. Living with you would be so much fun. We can stress Connor out together and we can wake up in each other's arms and I can make you breakfast and we can make Connor pick up pies from Ma Kent when we’re having a bad day. It’ll be so much fun,” Bart crooned, kissing the top of Tim’s head.
Tim huffed and shook his head. “Well then, we should probably head back to my place. We can get you guys moved in tomorrow if you want,” he said, pulling away from Bart and smiled at his two boyfriends.
A wide grin spread on both of their faces.
“It’s going to be amazing, Tim,” Connor said, pulling the vigilante in for a deep kiss.
“We should christen the place,” Bart said with a sly grin. “You know, just to seal the deal.”
Tim let out a loud laugh, throwing his head back as he did. “Fine, Bart. When we get back to our place we can fuck,” he said, amusement laced his voice.
“Connor, do you want to rush Twinkle Timbs home, or should I?” Bart asked, wiggling his eyebrows.
Connor chuckled and grabbed both of his boyfriends in his arms. “I can take both of you dorks home,” he said with a shake of his head. “We’re going to talk about this more tomorrow, Tim. I think we need to discuss your feelings a bit more.”
Tim hummed and rested his head on Connor’s shoulder, his hand reaching out to take Bart’s from where he was on Connor’s other side. “Tomorrow,” he agreed. “I think my brain is still reeling from my conversion with Bruce. But just know, I love you two a lot and I think we’re going to have an amazing time living together.”
“It’s going to be great,” Connor said with a small smile. “Now we need to convince the bat to let us patrol in Gotham with you. Imagine how much trouble we could get into.”
Tim snorted and shook his head in amusement. “He wouldn’t agree to that,” he said. “But you can try.”
“I think he’s warming up to us,” Bart said happily. “He didn’t even glare at us for too long this time. I think by the time we get married, he’s going to be resigned to the fact that we’re in his life forever.”
Tim choked. “Marriage?”
“Bart, we agreed we were easing Timmy into this,” Connor said as he flew to the Monarch Theater that they all three were now going to call home. “We have a plan we have to adhere to, no skipping steps.”
“A plan?” Tim coughed, craning his head back to look at Connor in horror. “What plan?”
“Don’t worry about it, Babe. You’ll find out in due time. We’re on step seventy-three right now and getting married isn’t until step one hundred and ninety-six.”
“That’s a very detailed plan,” Tim murmured, his eyebrows scrunched up.
“There’s over a thousand steps,” Bart moaned. “We’ve been working on this plan for years. It’s called Plan Keep Tim and that’s all you’re allowed to know,” he said, reaching over to boop Tim’s nose.
The vigilante snorted. He couldn’t believe that these were the two dorks he was in love with.