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The books don’t disappear after they’re read. They just lay there, Tim remembers belatedly.
For anyone to find.
Which, in hindsight is a very, very bad idea.
Well, hindsight is 20/20, isn’t it?
-
Anita’s the one to go snooping. Walking around the Watchtower during a break from the reading of their old Young Justice days.
Anita’s not in the story yet. But it’s almost more entertaining that way. Bart never told the stories in their entirety and Tim was always squirrely with the chaos that was their early missions.
Anita’s also fairly sure that if Tim knew what would all be in this book, he’d have burned it before anyone had a chance to even take a look.
Though Anita’s enjoying the expressions of shock, confusion, bewilderment and all of the other emotions that the reading seems to inspire in the older heroes.
Serves them right, as far as she’s concerned.
Which translates over to her sneaking around the Watchtower in civvies, despite the fact that Tim had told her explicitly not to do that.
Anita never listens to Tim when it comes to this kind of stuff anyway. They’re equals. Strategists in their own rights.
Tim knows she can handle herself.
Though she probably should have expected Tim had something to hide here.
Subconsciously, of course, cause if he really wanted to hide it, Anita wouldn’t have found it.
The cover is glossy. Polished in the same way the YJ book is.
But the title is different.
“Red Robin, huh?” Anita muses, remembering everyone in the room flinch at some mentions of things she didn’t understand. References she wasn’t there for. And, Anita is starting to suspect, a reading they weren’t there for.
There’s another book on the table. Teen Titans, it reads.
But Anita is less interested in that. She knows about Future Titans. Bart had been sure to confirm with her when they got back that there was no chance of anything like that happening again.
Anita had promised that if any of them started to go off the rails, in her opinion, she’d call Cissie.
Bart had pointed out that she wasn’t exactly the best example of morals in general.
Anita had ignored him.
So she doesn’t care as much about that one.
She takes it anyway.
“Greta” She hisses when the blonde girl comes into view.
“Anita?” Greta asks, spinning around to face her with wide eyes. Her eyes fall on the books in Anita’s hands and her stealthy stance and she sighs “You aren’t supposed to be snooping. Tim asked us not to”
Anita raises a brow.
Greta sighs again “Fine, not like I can stop you. What’s up?”
“Where’s Cis?”
Greta’s head looks down the hallway they’re in, one way then the other. “She was just here”
Anita doesn’t see Cissie drop from the ceiling. But she’s gotten better at sensing things around her.
She dodges to the side before Cissie’s feet can make contact with her back.
“Nice try” she compliments, clutching the books closer to her chest. She and Cissie did this sometimes, after Anita had teased Cissie about being out of practice. Cissie’d made a point of it to outright attack her at times to ensure she doesn’t do it again. And it’s a great greeting, in Anita’s opinion. A lot less awkward than handshakes.
“Thanks” Cissie says with a smile before her eyes fall on the books in Anita’s arms.
She frowns “What are those?”
Anita shrugs “I’m fairly certain we missed out on some stuff before Tim deigned to call us in for the YJ story. And I think this may be what we’ve missed out on”
The three girls, well, Anita says three. It’s Cissie and Anita dragging Greta by the armpits, really. But nonetheless. The three girls find a room while Cissie messages Cassie to say they’ll be taking a bit of a longer break.
Anita doesn’t ask what excuse she uses. She trusts Cissie’s smirk to be truthful enough.
Anita closes the door after them and then drops the books onto the small coffee table in the middle of the room.
“You think this one’s about Tim?” she asks, waving the red and black cover in the air.
At that, even Greta stills, curious.
“They’ve been making comments” Cissie says, thoughtful “About things. And Tim’s been brushing over them. Avoiding things as he usually does”
Anita smirks cause yeah. That’s their boy, all right.
She shuffles through the pile, arranging them into order for a moment before picking up what she deems is the first Red Robin book.
“Yessenia Penalba was 15, the daughter of an outspoken Spanish politician…”
-
It takes a while to get through the books. Especially with how volatile the emotions within the room get.
It takes Cissie literally holding Greta back when it gets to Tim’s borderline suicide attempt to keep her from finding and affectionately smothering their friend.
Anita holds herself back as far as she possibly can but by the end, the pages of the book are dented, wrinkled from where she’d clenched her fists around the edges.
“So” Cissie starts, and Anita can see emotion in her eyes. Not any one, but a storm of many. “First thing’s first, I’m messaging Tim”
“Yup” Anita snips back, her temper rising at the idea of what they’d missed while Tim was gone.
Getting run out of his own family.
Assassins fucking everywhere.
A fight with Dick that looks like it left more than just a bruised ego on Tim’s psyche.
Damian, just, in general. Trying to kill Tim. Taking Robin from Tim. Anita knows that would have hurt, imagines someone taking Empress from her without her knowledge and her fingers spark bright enough that Greta sends her a worried look.
Tim, turning inward into his inside darkness by degrees, with assassins and killers. The Unternet and the Mad-men.
Anita doesn’t even want to think about Ra’s sister and what could have happened there. They are, after all, in a closed environment that, if breached, could kill them all.
She takes a breath and tries to calm her thundering heart. It only works for as long as it takes Tim to step into the room, despite the fact that it was locked from the inside. Anita feels her lips curl with impressed amusement before she remembers that Tim had explosives installed into the floor of his safehouses.
Anita doesn’t need to say a word. And neither do Greta or Cissie.
Tim’s eyes fall on Anita’s expression first and he winces, the looks over at Greta’s sad eyes and grimaces. Cissie’s expression is neutral, her arms crossed over her chest. Anita and Tim both know that that’s a bad sign.
Anita can see Tim take in the room. The clenched fists at Anita’s sides. Tear tracks down Greta’s cheeks. The way Cissie is swallowing like she’s trying to physically swallow her emotions.
His eyes fall on the table.
“Ah”
“That’s all you have to say?” Cissie bursts out “Ah?”
Tim winces, hand reaching up to rub at the back of his neck. He looks across the room again, takes in the table off to the side that Anita had accidentally set on fire when Tim held a gun to his own head with the explicit threat of pulling the trigger. Sees the broken pieces of glass that Cissie had crushed in her hand when Tim woke up in the catacombs under Paris with Ra’s sister.
There’s evidence of their bad coping everywhere.
And Tim takes it in with an expression that says he’s looking to exploit every one.
Anita steps forward before he can open his mouth and make his suffering seem any less than it is. Already knows what’s next to come out of his lips. A denial, because if it hurt Tim then he has to acknowledge that hurt. Though Anita hopes that the others didn’t let him get away with that during the reading.
“You absolute asshole” Anita says, voice thick with an emotion she won’t name, clutching her boy, her best friend, to her chest. She’s shorter than Tim is, now. Not by much, but it takes work now to rest Tim’s head against her shoulder and clutch him into her chest like she would have when they were smaller. “You absolute gremlin of a human being”
Her breath hitches and she tries to swallow around the lump that’s grown in her throat.
“Sorry, ‘Nita”
It’s the apology that does it. Tim, always unapologetic about doing things that need to be done.
That, apparently, hadn’t changed while he was away, given how he handled Tam and not telling her Lucius was alive. Him, apologizing to her like this, is enough for the tears at the back of her head to burst forth with a whine.
“Anita?”
Tim’s voice is alarmed in front of her before Anita feels 2 other bodies slam into her side. Cissie and Greta, she assumes.
It’s confirmed a second later when Cissie speaks “Tim, why didn’t you tell us?”
He’s been actively keeping this from us, Anita thinks, remembering the avoidance of certain topics during the reading.
Bart would make a comment and Anita would be confused before Tim changed the subject.
She really should have known it was bad.
Tim’s silent for long enough that Anita nudges him in the thigh with her knee, prompting him to answer.
He breathes out in reaction but Anita knows it doesn’t really hurt. They’ve hurt one another worse in sparring sessions. Just to make a point.
“You all weren’t around”
It’s a breath against Anita’s ear, a whisper that tells Anita it’s as honest as Tim can be.
When Anita hears Cissie breathe, to go and refute that, to say that just because they’ve left the game doesn’t mean they can’t be there to support their friends, Tim holds up a hand.
He knows all those arguments. It’s something he knows well. Something he’s seen happen to his own civilian friends with time. Anita knows because they’ve talked about this. The way Tim usually does, with circling and misdirection. He’d come to her for comfort, to ensure that just because they weren’t YJ anymore, they wouldn’t be leaving him alone.
“I know. I know. But Kon and Bart were...not around, in a different way. And Cassie…” Tim trails off and Anita suddenly remembers that Cassie also hadn’t believed Tim when he said Bruce was alive.
Anita’s fists clench around Tim’s shirt.
“I don’t blame her. Don’t make a big deal out of it. But…It was a lot. And I wasn’t Robin anymore. And…and I kinda wanted to prove everyone wrong, you know?”
Spite. A strong motivator. Anita knows because it’s something she uses often just to keep going. A strength in and of itself.
“I could have helped” Cissie whispers.
Tim doesn’t say what Anita already knows he’s thinking. You couldn’t have helped in the way you want to have helped.
They all know that Cissie has issues with killing. Losing control. Losing people. They’d seen it time and again. It’s why she left the team.
And losing not only Kon, but Bart?
Cissie hadn’t been in a place where she could have helped anyone.
It would have done almost as much harm as Cassie apparently had.
Greta doesn’t even ask. Doesn’t argue. Just hugs Tim tighter. They all know that while Greta would have done her best to help Tim, their relationship wasn’t like that anymore. Greta was her own person. And she’d grown without the team at her side. But Tim, in a state of mind where he’d kicked Steph in the stomach full force?
Tim would have torn her to shreds. And it only would have made him feel worse afterward.
“If you ever need help again, need to get away. Or want me to take a crack at bullying some vigilante family” Anita says, skipping past all of the “How’s” and “Why’s”. Digging right past the stuff of the past. Anita knows it doesn’t matter anyway. What’s in the past is already gone.
“And if you ever do any of that again, I can and will end you”
“What are you even talking about?” Tim asks, though there’s amusement in her voice. He knows exactly what she's talking about. Just maybe not which part.
“Also, I might have to go Al Ghul hunting” Cissie jokes.
Tim snorts loudly in the silence, seeming shocked by the joke, enough for him to lose his composure and choke on his own snort, starting to cough while Cissie starts laughing, Greta and Anita starting quickly after.
“Thanks. Why do I keep you all around again?” he asks after he manages to get his breath under control as he stares at the three girls leaning on him and one another.
“Because you love us” Greta manages through her giggles.
Anita sees Tim’s lips twitch in a smile before he says “Yeah, OK. Though that’s up for reevaluation”