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It was rare for Tim to invite them to the Drake estate. Bernard can think of maybe once or twice that he crossed these hallowed halls. It was around the time Tim’s parents started letting him go to public school, a slightly awkward rich kid walking the halls next to Bernard, Ives, and the others. It was almost a knee jerk reaction to kind of hate him, as funny as it seems now. He had largely kept to himself with every attempt to talk to people seemingly met with stares like the boy had grown another head; and so, Bernard took pity on the young Tim Drake. Throwing his arm around the boy with a smile and convoluted speech that made Tim smirk and shot a comment back just as coy.
It only made sense for Bernard to keep him.
Of course, being Tim’s ice breaker meant more would come to pass. When he had gotten closer to Sebastian Ives, a strange feeling in Bernard stomach swirled. A fear of losing Tim came to mind, granted they had only really been friends for about a year so Bernard did what he did best. Laid it on thick and hoped Tim thought he was funny enough to keep around, it worked for him in the past. Until it didn’t… It helped when Tim would grab Bernard by the shoulder and tell him to come on when the boy formed his own little group, the blonde just naturally became apart of it.
He cares for them all, he really does even if he isn’t as close with them. They’ve gotten close in a way that makes Bernard feel like maybe he truly does deserve better than his parents… but if he has to sit through another six hour Wizards & Warlocks game then he might just start crying. The only silver lining is that Tim can tell good stories at least, makes funnier voices too, and to placate Bernard he lets him pick the monster their little W&W party fights. He also learned the sheer intensity his little pack of nerds get from a natural d20, and if he cheers with them when someone gets one… well, his parents aren’t paying attention to them anyway. It’s not like Tim gets to do much more with them beyond playing the game and meeting around town when they have time, and his parents plan either didn’t work or they started paying attention because it didn’t take long for Tim to be enrolled back into Gotham Academy.
Drake Manor had always been a sort of sterile environment that Bern can remember, and ringing the bell only gave way to that. All elegant sounds and modern. Tim opened the door with a toothy smile and welcomed him in. The boy had talked to him, and admitted to texting Ives, about the big news he had to tell them. What bigger news could the boy have to tell them aside from stopping his little night photography hobby, or maybe the fact that he was actually adopted. That cute toothy smile isn’t stopping the surprising fact that Bernard was the first of the group to know, first to really talk to him about it. It gave him some satisfaction, in a way, that the blonde will never tell anyone.
“Listen, I want both you and Ives here when I tell you both the news, okay?”
“Okay,” Bernard can’t help but return the smile. “I literally don’t know what else you could tell me at this point that could surprise me, Tim.”
Tim playfully scoffs. “Oh, ye of little faith.”
“Sure,” Bern rolled his eyes. “Next, you’re going to tell me I was right and Bruce Wayne is your dad because literally no one else in Gotham has black hair and blue eyes.”
Tim simply pressed his lips together, and interlaces his fingers.
Bernard pauses, a look that you could call disgust colors his features.
“Bullshit,” the blonde looks incredulous. “How long?”
“Almost the whole time…?” Tim’s voice is small, Bernard doesn’t like that but this is too much. “Pretty much the whole time…”
Okay, so: Tim let him build a whole conspiracy around his biological dad not long after his biological mom came in when he knew the whole time, while smiling at Bernard and playing coy. Now that he thinks about it. Tim has never even shown what his mom looks like to him. If he didn’t like him so much, he would’ve left the Drake estate already. Actually, he’s still holding leaving in his back pocket.
For now Bernard blinks several times, mouth hanging open as he looks at Tim in wide eyed shock.
“Bruce fucking Wayne…?” Comes out more breathless than the boy anticipated.
“Yeah,” Tim, at least, has the manners to look a little ashamed.
Both heads turn as Ives enters, not even bothering to knock - all wits that one - as he peers around the place for a moment before really looking at the pair standing right in front of him. He pushes up his glasses, looking sheepish.
“Sorry, running late.” He closes the door back behind him, looking confused. “What’s going on?”
“Tim’s adopted and his bio dad is Bruce fucking Wayne!” Bernard pointed towards the dark haired boy, beating the aforementioned boy to the point.
“Woah, Timmy’s adopted?” Ives looked around again. “Then why are we still here?”
“I mean,” Tim paused, face doing that little twist where he’s thinking hard on something. “We can all go to Wayne Manor, right now? If you guys want.”
“Just like that?” Bernard starts pacing, he does his best thinking pacing.
“How will this interfere with our W&W game?” Ives asked.
“Seriously?” Bernard’s voice went up a few octaves, hands in the air.
“Yes,” Ives looked serious, before turning back to Tim.
“My brother might join?” Tim nodded and shrugged.
“Brother?” Bernard says shocked, feeling like he’s not being listened to. “The kid Bruce Wayne took in from the streets?”
“Hey, he’s nice to me!” Tim defended.
“Finally,” Ives pulled his fist in. “Five players.”
“Sebastian,” Bern sighed. “Why are you so calm about this?”
Ives shrugs this time, moving to list everyone on his fingers. “I dunno, it doesn’t bother me. You don’t want to play W&W like me, Callie, Kevin, and Hudson. You’d rather listen and Timmy going to stay with the Wayne’s beats him being alone, like, most of the time.”
Tim holds his hand over his heart, dramatically. “Oh, Ives… I didn’t know you cared.”
“Shut up,” Ives chuckled, getting Tim in a headlock to ruffled his hair. “It’s only because I’ve heard talk about good rich people food is.”
“Uh-huh,” Tim pushed him off with a laugh. “I’m sure.”
Bernard stopped and looked over to Tim, his face no longer in disgruntled shocked. He realized something, Tim’s parents aren’t the best either. Maybe not like Bernard’s constantly breathing down his neck for perfection until something distracts them, but the Drake’s leave him alone in this house for the majority of the time, and maybe they don’t mean to. Maybe they think they’re doing something good for him. It doesn’t stop the fact that they still aren’t… here. So the boy relents, head hanging down. He joins the others.
“Are you done having your panic attack?” Ives asks, looking like he wants to laugh.
Bernard repeats what he says, mockingly. “Yes, you prick, are we going to meet the richest man in Gotham now?”
Bruce isn’t home, Tim knows that, and it is much easier meeting the Wayne’s piecemeal. Alfred is the easiest to meet so Tim sets his game plan on that one, to introduce his friends. He rings the bell at the gate, Alfred lets them in, and -- Jason greets them at the front door. All smiles, and Tim has already learned in the past few months that smile means trouble.
“Hey Timbo,” Jason greets, taking note of the others. “and guests?”
“This is Ives,” Tim points to his best friend, like a brother to him; he then points his thumb on the opposite side of him. “And Bernard.”
“Oh?” Jason eyes seemingly light up, before schooling his expression. “Nice to meet yuns.”
Tim can already tell this is going to be a fun visit.
They start with a tour. Which is strange when Tim really thinks about it because he’s only been here for like -- four-ish months at this point. Really, he’s only showing where the important things are. The bedroom wing, kitchen, sitting room, and the entertainment room as Bruce insists on calling it. Not that Tim will complain, no long confined to a room and a computer and now with someone to share. Despite wanting to throttle Jason when he hogs the controller, it’s bonding… or so he’s heard.
Of course, Ives - the sole minded 12 year old that he is - spoke up.
“Hey, where would be a good place to play W&W?”
“To play what?” Jason rose an eyebrow.
“Oh good,” Ives smiled. “I get to explain this to you.”
“You’re going to regret this,” Bernard sighed sympathetically, crossing his arms.
The next thing Tim knows is that the four of them are in Jason’s room with notes, diagrams, and suddenly Ives just pulled out a character sheet.
“You just have those with you?” Tim said, incredulously.
Ives simply shrugged. “You never know.”
Tim looked over at Bernard, lying on the floor with his phone in his hands.
“Holding down the fort on the message boards?”
“I’m going to dox this guy, I swear to god,” Bernard grumbles. “Fuckin’ Jaybin.”
Jason perked up at that, telling Ives to hold on a second, walking towards Bern and Tim. “ConspiracyCook?” He asked simply.
“Oh my god?” Bernard looked shocked from his position on the floor. “You’re Jaybin?”
Jason nods.
“You’re so wrong about everything, ever.”
The phone falls from the boys hands with a gasp to cover his mouth, tears nearly forming in his eyes.
“WAIT, that was so mean!” Bernard sat up, phone almost hitting the floor if not for Tim. “I’m so sorry.”
Jason simply looks at him and laughs. “This is the funniest thing to ever happen to me and I hit Bruce in the stomach with a tire iron once.”
“Twice,” Tim murmured.
“Okay, twice,” Jason laughed a little more. “But still small world huh, kid?”
“Extremely,” Bernard held his breath, not sure how to tackle this.
Tim decided to let him simmer until he seen that Jason wasn’t a bad guy, all things considered. He was nice, cared about others to a detrimental extent almost, and he has the strangest sense of humor.
“Can we get back to W&W?” Ives asked annoyed, breaking the pause.
“Huh?” Jason’s head jerked over. “Oh, yeah, sure.”
”So you can join us on the next game, once Tim plans it out.”
“Shut up, Sebastian,” Tim rolled his eyes. “It’s planned.”
Ives only hummed, unconvinced.
“Young Masters,” Alfred’s voice ran through as he opened Tim’s door. “Will your friends be staying for dinner?”
Four pairs of eyes jerked up from character sheets and Tim’s GM planning - Ives had him dead to rights, he was not ready - looking shocked as heads turned to the window in the room finding the sun started setting.
“Oh sh-no!” Ives whined. “My mom’s gonna kill me for staying out this late, and I have my appointment tomorrow.”
Tim patted the boy’s shoulder. “We can call her-”
“Not to worry…” Alfred hesitated.
“Ives,” Tim answered. “He lives on the other side of town, we can take him home.” Tim looked over to Bernard.
“Yeah, it’s on my way too.” Bernard stood not wanting to leave, but knowing he had to go.
“Woah, you are not walking across Gotham at this time,” Jason crossed his arms moving next to Alfred. “There’s no telling what might happen to you all.”
“It’s alright,” Bernard shrugged. “We’ll take the busses so far.”
Tim and Ives nodded. Not moving on getting a ride. Jason looked to Alfred as if having their own conversation with gentle eye rolls and wide eyed looks before he squinted at the younger boys and sighed.
“Me and Tim’ll be back later, Alfred.” Jason moved to help clean up some of the papers for Ives to packed back up. “I’m keeping this sheet thing.”
Ives, despite the stress, smiled. “Fine by me.”
“Then Selina brings Tim over the day I have summer school,” Jason explained from his point of view. “Like it was so normal to just have a whole child with you.”
Ives and Bern snickered.
“Selina?” Ives said, not really asking. “Pretty name.”
“Is she nice?” Bernard asked.
Tim and Jason looked at each other for a moment before Jason motioned that it was, in fact, Tim’s choice here. The boy pulled out his phone.
“Sorry I haven’t shown you guys yet. Here’s my mom,” Tim pointed the picture to them. “Selina.”
Bernard’s mouth works before his brain. “Woah, she’s pretty like you!”
Both boys look at each other wide eyed, faces turning red, before looking away. Tim can hear Jason chuckling, hands in his pockets. He takes the moment to flip him off.
“Wait, I didn’t get to see,” Ives complains, Tim is hoping it’s a means to distraction he shoves the phone in his friends face. “Oh, damn, Timmy is your mom single?”
“Dude, that’s my mom!” Tim laughs.
They get the boys home, safe and sound. Thankfully, Bernard is first. After that interaction, they both need a second away from each other. Bern is his best friend but there’s just something about him that leaves Tim’s brain spiraling, the weird part about it is how Tim doesn’t mind that. Plus Tim knows that with Jason, he won’t live it down for a few days. Next is Ives. His mom is happy that Jason - someone older - walked with the boys this time. He promised the woman that he would walk them when he could, but they were a “slippery bunch.” The woman chuckled, Jason winning her over easily. Tim felt a little envious over how charming the teen was, well, he’ll just have to learn.
By the time they made it back to Wayne Manor, it was oddly subdued. Tim half expected Jason to give him a hard time the whole way, but instead the boy looked deep in thought. Tim stopped him before they broke into the dining room.
“Are you alright, Jay?” Tim cocked his head a little sideways.
Jason hummed. “Yeah, yeah, I’m alright Timmy. Just… thinking about something.”
“Oh… like what?” Tim pressed.
Jason’s face turned pink, looking away. “Nothin’, just… after your little boyfriend called you pretty -- it’s just… don’t worry about it, Timmy.”
“Jay,” Tim said as a warning, interested now. “What?”
“You’re not going to be a… well, a dick are you?” Tim shook his head, crossing his heart. Jason sighed, long suffering. “So, there’s this pretty new girl in my English class…”
Tim fought the smirk on his face. “What’s her name?”
“Rena,” Jason looked down and rubbed the back of his neck. “I asked the teacher for her name… now I’m working up the nerve to talk to her.”
Tim smiled, thinking he would be gaining blackmail, but this was something different. Jason didn’t seem the type to be this nervous, far from it, but something about this Rena girl was making him nervous. Tim thought it was kind of sweet… His eyes went wide for a moment -- thinking: Oh god, is that what Jason thinks about me and Bernard? Tim pushes it away, he isn’t even worried about dating or girls or… boys like that anyway. He literally just turned 12!
Tim focuses back up to his older brother and smiles. “You’ll be fine, Jason. Just be yourself.”
The teen scoffed. “And what if that doesn’t work?”
“I dunno,” Tim answered honestly. “Pretend you're talking to Ives’ mom?”
Jason huffed a laugh, slightly pushing Tim. “Shut up, let’s go eat.”