Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

“I think I suck at making nests,” Robin mutters sullenly in his mostly-real voice, his arms folded on his knees and face buried in them. He apparently doesn’t care that the tattered feathers of his suit are getting everywhere, but Steph figures that’s his cross to bear or Rubicon to cross or what the frick ever. Robin is definitely the type of guy to smother himself in his own feathers instead of, like, lifting his head like half an inch.

“Oh my god, what does the Batman have you doing now?” she demands from her seat beside him, leaning forward on her hands. They’re both perched on the edge of a Gotham skyscraper in full costume–all the tattered layers and feathers and hidden secrets of Robin, and the trailing purple shadows and blank face and lamplight-bright eyes of the Spoiler, and also enough Batburger and mix-your-own froyo to make them both sick, as God and Gotham intended. “Or is this just another weird idea you got into your head about being a better Robin or something?”

“This is not about the Batman, okay?” Robin groans into his arms. “I don’t even wanna think about the Batman right now.”

“Why not?” Steph asks skeptically, wrinkling her nose.

“Because he’s embarrassing,” Robin grumbles, lifting his face just enough to sulk at her. He’s still wearing his mask, because he’s always wearing his mask, but the sulking is not subtle. Like, at all.

Actually, he might be pouting by now. Geez, that was quick.

Alright, then.

“‘Embarrassing’?” Steph repeats, still skeptical. “You never think he’s embarrassing, the only time you said that was oh my god you have a girlfriend. How did you not tell me you got a new girlfriend?! Asshole!” she fumes, thumping him in the shoulder.

“I don’t!” Robin lies protestingly, throwing his hands up in a cross between a defensive gesture and surrender. Steph thumps him again for good measure. “Ow!”

“You deserved that,” she accuses him. “You got a girlfriend and didn’t tell me!”

“I didn’t!” Robin insists, somehow managing to look mortified without an actual face. He definitely sounds it, if nothing else. “I just–I’m just bad at making nests! I tried really hard, but it sucked and it’s not gonna work and I’m the worst bird in the world!”

“. . . Robin,” Steph says slowly, lifting up her own mask to eye him. The Spoiler’s lamplight lenses will not do right now. “Did you not tell me you got a girlfriend, or did you lie to me about not being a weird cryptid thing like the Batman?”

She wouldn’t put it past him, considering, but also she really thought they were past that. Like, he’s not actually gonna let her see his real face even though he’s basically her best friend these days, fine, whatever, but she thought he had a real face and if he doesn’t and he lied to her about it for some dumb Bat-reason or even-dumber Robin-reason–

“Neither, okay?” Robin groans, hiding his face in his wings, feathers split just enough for him to half-see her through. “Just–last week Superboy kidnapped Catwoman for me and made me a diamond.”

“. . .” Steph says.

“A really big diamond,” Robin stresses.

“. . . . . .” Steph says.

“With his hands. While sitting in a volcano,” Robin says. “And, like, then he cut it with his TTK. Do you know what the TTK is, actually, he talks it up a lot but I don’t know how closely you follow any of the Supers so–”

“ROBIN WHAT THE ACTUAL HELL,” Steph yells at him. “Yes I know what friggin’ TTK is, literally half the girls in my school have a poster of that dude in their locker! Some of them have a poster of him in their regular locker and their gym locker, even! Some of them have him taped to their notebooks! I know one who’s got a heart-shaped locket with a magazine clipping of his face in it!”

“The diamond is heart-shaped too,” Robin says morosely, disappearing completely inside his wings. Steph thinks maybe she should kick him off the roof, like, just on behalf of half the girls in her school. Like, sis code or whatever.

“Oh my god,” she says. “How do you keep accidentally flirting people up while dressed like a spooky harpy plague doctor cosplay, anyway? Although I guess the X-ray vision probably helped in his case, huh. I’m gonna ask him if you’re cute, you know. I’m definitely gonna ask him if you’re cute.”

“. . . um,” Robin says, visibly full-body wincing. “He, uh. Doesn’t have X-ray vision. Or any super-senses or any of that stuff. At least not yet, anyway, I’m not actually clear on if his powers are still developing or–”

“Robin,” Steph says.

“–I mean he might just need more yellow sunlight, he’s technically still only like five months, three weeks, and five days old, so–”

“Robin,” Steph repeats.

“–and it’s not like he’s full-grown yet either so his powers might just be–”

“ROBIN.”

“Uh,” Robin says.

“Does Superboy still think you’re actually an actual cryptid city spirit thing?” Steph asks, staring incredulously at him. “Did he think that when he made you the diamond? The heart-shaped diamond?”

“. . . uh,” Robin says, still wincing. “He kind of just . . . showed up with it? Like. We never, uh, actually met before that? But uh, he knows the Bats kind of . . . stalk people, sort of, so I think he thinks it’s like our love language or something, so, uh, he was doing that? Apparently? And then he stopped Catwoman from robbing a museum and dropped her on me and, uh. Had the diamond. And, uh. Gave it to me. Along with, uh–Catwoman, again. She was really pissed until she realized what was going on and then she laughed so hard she almost fell off the roof.”

Steph stares at him a lot more incredulously. Then she grips his arm so she can shake him, just a little. Or a lot.

She maybe nearly knocks over their froyo, but not the point, okay?

“Robin, is Superboy a monsterfucker,” she demands. “Robin, you have to tell me if Superboy’s a monsterfucker. You can’t not tell me if Superboy’s a monsterfucker!”

“I don’t know!” Robin hisses at her, sounding mortified. “I mean, maybe?! But like, considering some of the people who Cadmus has made and employed over the years and the fact Supergirl is literally protoplasmic goop with a personality and he’s half-alien, I don’t actually know how to judge that, okay? Maybe he just doesn’t automatically expect people to look human, I don’t know! He looked right at the Batman while he wasn’t even bothering to pretend to have bones and didn’t get weirded out or anything! And he made me a diamond specifically because he figured birds like shiny things and he offered to make me a nest when he found out I sucked at it and he caught Nightwing and called him ‘ma’am’ when Nightwing told him he was a ‘ma’am’ and he stalked me because he thought I’d like it! And like, I managed to convince the Batman that he’s not a new Robin but I think now he maybe thinks he’s a stray cat or something? He called him a kitten. And like, scritched him. And Superboy still didn’t get weirded out!”

“Oh my god, what is your life,” Steph marvels, putting a hand over her mouth as she grins in disbelief. This is the funniest friggin’ comedy of bullshit errors that she has ever even heard of. “You and the monsterfucker teen idol superhero you pulled by being a creepy little fake cryptid weirdo. When I’m your best woman at whatever freaky X-Files-themed wedding you have at Area 51, I’m telling this story in my toast. Fuck that, I’m telling the tabloids.”

“Please do not,” Robin groans, hiding inside his wings again. “Look, he’s really–he’s nice, okay? He just has no idea what normal people are like and he’s also, like, trying to deduce what city spirit bird-cryptids would think was, I don’t know, romantic specifically so he can hit on specifically me and it’s just–it’s a lot, okay?! It’s just a lot!”

“Like you’ve never been hit on before?” Steph snorts. Robin lifts his head to stare at her.

“You smacked me with a brick and tried to weasel my secret identity out of me a couple of times,” he says flatly. “Superboy hand-made me a diamond and stalked me until he found a good time to give it to me.”

“I mean, it’s cute, but the dude’s not like a professional jeweler or whatever,” Steph says doubtfully. He probably just had to squeeze a lump of coal really hard or whatever, right? Like, not to diss the guy’s efforts, they’re cute and thoughtful, just Robin’s really obsessing over the whole “diamond” thing.

“I looked at it under a microscope,” Robin says. “It’s a D color grade, the clarity is FL, and it’s an excellent super ideal cut.”

“I have no idea what that means,” Steph says.

“It means it’s perfect,” Robin says. “It is literally perfect. I don’t think he could’ve made it more perfect. He’s five months, three weeks, and five days old, and he’s already learned how to make and cut a literally perfect diamond because he figured I’d like something shiny.”

“. . . um,” Steph says, her eyebrows raising up practically into her hairline. Holy shit. Just–all the holy. All the shit. Holy and, again, shit. “Wow, okay. So like . . . zero chill on this dude, huh.”

“It’s fifty carats,” Robin says despairingly, pulling his wings back over his head.

“. . . . . . look, if you don’t wanna make Superboyfriend an honest man–”

“I’m trying to!” Robin hisses at her, sounding mortified again. “I just suck at the stupid nest-making thing, okay?! It’s not like I made my version of Robin planning for a cute guy to show up with a–with a diamond! I would’ve figured something out sooner, if I had!”

“You flirted with me fine,” Steph snorts, then pauses. “Okay, no, I shouldn’t give you false hope here, you sucked at flirting with me too, I did literally all the work there. Hm. Maybe just follow his lead.”

“Fifty. Carats,” Robin says.

“I mean, does he like shiny stuff?” Steph asks. “You could probably convince him you just picked a ruby up somewhere or something.”

“I really don’t think it’s ethical to tell a five month, three week, and five day-old that it’s okay to just pick up random gemstones you find,” Robin says. “Even if he technically thinks I’m not a real person or whatever.”

“It’s incredibly weird how stuck on his age you are,” Steph informs him, since that’s about the billionth time Robin’s repeated the whole spiel down to the day and also Robin’s apparently done the math down to the day.

“His age is incredibly weird,” Robin mutters, putting his chin in his taloned gloves. “Just–I don’t know, he’s just so earnest and he gets so excited and he is so hot–I’m sorry, really, don’t take this personally but he is literally the hottest person I have ever seen, ever. And I’ve met Starfire!”

“Wowwwww,” Steph says, though obviously she isn’t gonna take it personally that a dude who was genetically-designed to look Super-perfect ranks higher than her on Robin’s “hottest people I have ever seen” list. Especially not since that dude also, like, is literally a teen idol and literally looks good professionally?

And like, also she has maybe had a locker poster or two of her own in the past five months, three weeks, and five days. Like, just possibly.

“You are gone, Bird Boy,” she says, because Robin very clearly is. He slumps forward and hides his face back in his wings again.

“Incredibly so, thanks for noticing,” he despairs. “I have never been this gone in my life. I didn’t even know somebody could get this gone! I was not even aware of the option to get this gone! Like, at all!”

“Hm,” Steph says. Wow, Robin is actually even friggin’ weirder than she thought. And she already thought he was real weird. “So like, why does the nest thing matter? Like, why’s that a thing?”

“He thinks I’m a bird, Spoiler!” Robin hisses. “He thinks I’m a bird so he expected, like, a nest or whatever! And then he found out I suck at nests and now I’m pretty sure he thinks I’ll like it if he makes me a nest, never mind he already made me a literally perfect diamond and technically kidnapped Catwoman for me, even! And stalked me, even!”

“Yeah, that part’s still kinda creepy, actually,” Steph replies frankly. Though she guesses it makes sense for a brand-new superclone dude who’s used to paparazzi and fans and a ton of publicity to maybe have a weird grasp of, like, privacy laws and personal boundaries and shit. And also, she’s not oblivious enough to expect Robin to be normal about privacy laws and personal boundaries, all things considered.

“He thinks it’s how Bats, you know, show they’re interested in people,” Robin says. “So he thinks I–you know, like it.”

Steph eyes him. Robin hides inside his wings.

Yeah, the little freak and a half totally does like it.

Of friggin’ course he does.

Well, lucky for him and also Superboy’s criminal record, she guesses.

“So like, when you say you suck at making nests, how did he find out you suck at–”

“I do not wanna talk about it."

Chapter Text

“Oh, baby bird,” Dick says sympathetically, trying not to laugh as Tim sulks at him.

“Robin . . . BUSY,” Tim mutters sourly through his vocoder, otherwise doing a very bad job of pretending to be ignoring him as he makes yet another valiant but fruitless attempt at getting the “nest” he’s trying to construct in this crumbly warehouse safehouse to stay together. The attempt is very, very fruitless. Almost aggressively fruitless, in fact.

Dick is having a really hard time trying not to laugh. Like, he wants to be supportive and everything, but yeah. It is really, really hard not to laugh right now.

“Didn’t Superboy say he’d make you a nest?” he asks pointedly, not bothering to use his own vocoder. No one else is around to hear; not even Bruce, right now.

He’ll hear anyway, obviously–there’s a reason Dick left Gotham–but not the point. And anyway, “hearing” isn’t necessarily understanding, when it comes to Bruce. Which is another reason Dick left Gotham.

Tim ignores him. Dick raises an eyebrow behind his mask.

“I’m pretty sure he did,” he says. “So you literally do not need to be doing this right now.”

Tim hisses at him, then snatches up a few sad, brittle little sticks in his talons. Basically all the sticks he’s working with look sad and brittle, in fact. Dick isn’t really the outdoorsy type, but he’s pretty sure nests need to be made out of sticks that won’t instantly snap when woven together. He doesn’t even know where Tim got all these sticks, because no way he was stupid enough to go around Gotham breaking down trees for them. Not unless he really wanted to get derailed from his nest plan by Ivy’s full and most brutal vengeance, anyway.

Plus they’d be better-quality sticks, if he had.

Also the actual weaving part is probably necessary, which Tim does not seem to have realized yet. So . . . yeah, that’s a thing.

Tim tries to prop his sad, brittle little sticks up against each other. He seems very frustrated, and way more invested in this totally unnecessary process than it actually makes sense for him to be. Just way, way more.

Alright then, Dick thinks, and carefully doesn’t comment when the propped-up sticks immediately collapse. Tim puts his face in his hands–well, his mask in his talons–and groans in frustration.

“There, there,” Dick says lamely, patting his feathered shoulder. Tim shoots him a dirty look he can feel through the mask.

“You suck,” Tim accuses sullenly.

“I’m still pretty sure Superboy would do this for you,” Dick says. “Actually literally positive, in fact, since a nest cannot possibly be as time-consuming or complicated to make as, you know, a literal diamond.”

“First of all, I can’t expect him to do all the work and just always be giving me stuff, that’s rude and disrespectful and would be taking advantage of him,” Tim says in exasperation. Then he cringes badly enough that it’s visible through his entire suit and hides his face in his wings. “Also if he actually makes me a nest I will lose my mind over it and I need to keep, like, some scraps of dignity here.”

“Right, of course,” Dick says, politely not mentioning anything he’s observed about the combination of Tim, his dignity, and any of his past crushes. It’s not gonna be helpful right now. “Okay, so what kind of nest are you trying to make?”

“. . . a bird one?” Tim replies, sounding bewildered by the question.

. . . Dick just . . . pats his shoulder again.

“Okay,” he says cheerfully. “Tried YouTube yet? They’ve got tutorials for everything on there. I found a guy who taught me how to change my oil and tie a Windsor knot.”

“Did you not know how to tie a Windsor knot?” Tim asks, both clearly puzzled and clearly a trust fund kid.

“Naw, Bruce or Alfie always just materialized one for me whenever it came up,” Dick replies with an easy shrug. “Also had to learn how to shave from Ollie, which was definitely an experience. But Dinah taught me how to smuggle a full bottle of Jack into a bar in fishnets at the same time, which is actually really useful knowledge so remind me to pass that one on later. Donna and I literally saved most of San Francisco and our favorite coffee shop that way once. Oh, and Harvey was the one who explained taxes existed. Did not know those were a thing ‘til I was like, twenty.”

Twenty-ish, anyway. Well, he’s twenty-three now, probably, so . . . eh, twenty-two at the latest.

“. . . your life experiences are not universal,” Tim says after a long pause, like getting wooed with telekinetically-handmade nests and giant diamonds by a half-alien superclone and knowing how to tie a Windsor knot at age fifteen are somehow “universal”. No one in this conversation has been even slightly “universal” in their life experiences.

“Are you telling Superboy about Robin yet?” Dick asks, and Tim–hesitates, a little.

“I didn’t think it was mine to tell,” he replies carefully. “Most of the Justice League doesn’t even know about Robin.”

“I told the Titans,” Dick replies with a shrug. “And Uncle Clark.”

“Jason–” Tim starts, and Nightwing’s sleek, flat feathers all instantly, involuntarily twitch. Tim cuts himself off, and Dick . . . doesn’t say anything, for a moment.

Jason never told anyone about Robin.

Though the Joker was pretty bored when he figured it out, apparently. A “real” person wasn’t as interesting as the mask. The mask being a mask wasn’t as interesting, maybe.

( Dick doesn’t think about how much RAGE it puts in him, thinking about the Joker cutting Jason out of Robin’s wings and finding him BORING. thinking he was LESS than, thinking he wasn’t even WORTH–

it’s not the time for that. for any of that.

it’s not. )

“You’re your own Robin,” Dick says. “It’s up to you who you tell what.”

“I did tell Steph,” Tim says awkwardly, looking away. “Well . . . I mean, not my name or anything, but . . .”

“You don’t have to explain yourself to me, baby bird,” Dick says. “Like I said: you’re your own Robin.”

“But you were Robin first!” Tim practically bursts out, gesturing sharply with Robin’s wings. “And it just . . . it feels wrong, to tell people! Like it’s someone else’s secret. I only even told Steph because I felt like I had to, if we were gonna–if we, you know–but Superboy doesn’t care whether I’m human or not, and she did, and . . . and I never felt right about telling her anyway. Just because I thought I was supposed to, not because I . . . sorry. Just . . . I don’t know. I’m sorry.”

( “I’M sorry,” Dick doesn’t say back, because he can never say that to Tim while he’s wearing Robin.

it never ends up as him saying it to TIM, when he tries to. )

“You don’t have to tell anyone anything you don’t want to,” Dick says, because that’s the best he can offer instead of the apology he can’t give to–Robin. Can’t give to the right Robin, no matter how much he wishes he could.

But if Jason were here to apologize to, Dick wouldn’t actually have anything to apologize for.

Or–not as much to apologize for, anyway.

“You also don’t have to feel like you can’t tell anyone anything you do want to, though,” he says, just watching Tim’s feathers shift and prickle. “At least not because of me.”

Tim doesn’t say anything; just curls in smaller on himself, visibly cringing even through Robin’s wings. His Robin is heavier than Dick’s was. Bigger and layered and armored in ways his Robin wasn’t.

Armored in ways Jason’s Robin wasn’t.

( it’s Dick’s fault, that Jason’s Robin wasn’t armored. Jason wore HIS Robin, so it’s his fault. he didn’t–he never–

it’s his fault.

his ROBIN’S fault. )

No one could cut Tim out of his Robin’s wings without consequences, Dick reminds himself. Not and survive Gotham after, anyway. Gotham is dark and cold and brittle, unstable and uncaring and perfectly, brutally unjust, but Gotham is selfish, too, and Gotham will break even her own rules when she wants to.

And Gotham loves her Robins.

Dick still doesn’t understand how Joker ever stepped foot in the city again without her eating him alive.

But he also doesn’t understand how she ever let him leave her for Bludhaven without eating him alive.

He’d really thought she would, when he’d molted his Robin and run away to Nightwing’s bright and burning shadows.

Gotham loves her Robins so, so much.

“Robin’s yours,” Tim says, and Dick doesn’t say anything about Jason. “I’m just . . . being what the Batman needs. Somebody has to do it. And if I go around telling just, what–everyone I ever hang out with the big secret, that’s just–I mean, I barely know him, the guy hasn’t even been alive long enough for anyone to be able to say they really know him, including himself, probably, and it’s just–I don’t know! I just don’t know, and this nest looks so stupid and he’s just really, really cute and he made me a diamond, Dick! Because he thought I’d like something shiny! And he stalked me because he thought I’d like that!”

“I mean, to be fair, I would also assume that about you and I know you’re not actually an eldritch city splinter,” Dick replies with a shrug. “Presumably literally anyone who’s spent more than five minutes with you would assume that, in fact.”

Except his parents, anyway, which Dick is pretty sure why things like someone paying that much attention to him are things that Tim would automatically appreciate even without the Batman’s influence on his socialization the past couple of years.

“That’s not the point, Dick,” Tim huffs, re-folding his wings sullenly. “The point is–I don’t even know what the point is. I have to tell him, don’t I? Like–it’s lying, if I don’t tell him. But it’s not–I only told Steph because I thought I had to, not because I wanted to. So I don’t know if I won’t, you know . . . resent him, if I tell him. Except he’s not even asking, so like–that’s not fair, if I resent him for something I thought I had to do.”

“Are you doing anything Tim Drake wouldn’t do?” Dick asks. “Aside from, like, the screeching bird noises.”

“Huh?” Tim says, turning his face towards him. The mask doesn’t change, but the confusion is obvious.

Even if it weren’t, Dick still knows how to read a Robin.

He’ll always know.

“I mean are you letting him flirt with you and follow you around on patrol because you think Robin would do that, or because you know Tim would?” Dick clarifies. “Just about everybody in the community’s got a secret name or face or both, baby bird. The important thing is if you’re honest about how you feel.”

“. . . I guess,” Tim mutters, his shoulders slumping a little as he wraps Robin’s wings around his curled-up knees. “But Superboy doesn’t have a secret identity. At least, I don’t think he does. So like . . . does he even get that kind of thing?”

“Eh, I mean, what, was Uncle Clark gonna invite the kid out to the farm five minutes out of the cloning tube?” Dick asks with a shrug. That already didn’t go great with Supergirl, for one thing, but for another–“‘Hey everyone who knew me when I was a teenager, don’t ask any questions about this random kid who looks exactly like me that just showed up five minutes after I and Superman were both missing and presumed dead for basically the exact same length of time and also Superman’s teenage clone who looks exactly like him very publicly happened’? Because small-town secrets are one thing, but that one would be a bit much for anybody to avoid noticing, I’d think. And the kid’d be just as recognizable in Metropolis, considering. Actually probably more recognizable, since at least anybody in Smallville would mostly just have their memories and old yearbooks to go off.”

“That is literally all about Superman,” Tim says in exasperation. “That is all completely and totally Superman. We’re talking about Superboy.”

“Yeah, but it means the kid does get the secret identity thing,” Dick replies reasonably. “Like, he clearly respects Uncle Clark’s, nobody’s seen him near the Daily Planet since Uncle Clark came back from being dead, much less Smallville, and he’s obviously been being patient about whatever the timeline is on getting him his own, right?”

“. . . I mean, I guess that’s a good point,” Tim says, his feathers shifting restlessly as he straightens up a bit out of the shelter of his wings, though he still sounds a little bothered. “Mm. It’s not like he’s been, like . . . pushy, or anything. I mean, he’s been invasive and all, but he thinks I like that–” which you absolutely and obviously do, yeah, Dick politely does not point out, given the blatant obviousness of that fact–“so he just seems to, uh–I think he just wants me to like him? Like–maybe?”

“Oh, yeah?” Dick “asks”, trying not to laugh again. Again: this kid showed up with a literal diamond and not only looked directly at the Batman without freaking out, he was actively trying to make a good impression on him. And him too, even. He called him ma’am, even! Didn’t miss a beat for either Nightwing or the Batman or getting a net made of Gotham shadows all strung up under him and scritched like a kitten.

“He did say he’d make me a nest,” Tim admits, sounding embarrassed, and Dick grins Nightwing’s grin and just pats his shoulder again. “And, uh–I’m pretty sure he cleared his whole weekend so he could hang out with me whenever I was, you know, available. For that. Uh. Like, last weekend and this one.”

“Did he?” Dick asks, grinning wider. Yeah, Tim definitely, definitely should not just “think” Superboy wants him to like him, at this point.

Actually, at this point, Tim should probably be preparing himself for whatever Superboy thinks bird-cryptids use for promise rings.