Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

Between getting two classes he actually wanted, living solely on concentrated doses of caffeine the past week, and having to take a mandatory course on vigilante safety (like he doesn’t know all about that, despite how much he disregards the whole safety part), college life has pretty much been kind of a bust, so Tim feels like he is entirely justified when the party happening above him goes from a low hum to a roar of noise, and he throws down his textbook and marches up an entire flight of stairs, because the elevator is just too fucking slow for this.

He’s aware as he’s knocking on door 5F that his hair is a mess and probably too long and his sweatshirt is about three sizes too big and the circles under his eyes are the product of too many late nights, but honestly? He doesn’t care. What he does care about, is whoever lives behind this door, that’s decided to throw six (six!) ragers in a row that go on until about two in the morning, and completely negate any ability he has to study, despite how loud he blasts music through his headphones.

It takes five minutes of him standing there banging on the door before anyone hears it over all the noise, and a mess of red curls pokes through the crack of the hallway and wood. “Hey, did you need something? Because we have basically everything, just like be discreet about it, because no alcohol and all tha-”

“No, I just, uh-” Great. He spends six days planning what he’ll yell in their faces when he finally tells the jerks to shut up, but this kid’s managed to put in, like, seventy words per minute, and he’s just lost for them.

“You….?” One auburn eyebrow raises up, waiting for a reply.

“Are you in charge of this whole thing? I mean, can I talk to who is, or something?” What is he, asking for the manager at a grocery store? Another few seconds of this, and Tim’s sure he’s going to go the same shade of red as the costume hidden under the slats of his dorm room’s floor.

Red Hair is staring at him like he’s from Jupiter, but he opens the door wide enough for Tim to make his way in. It’s crazy. And that’s saying something, because Tim has seen a whole lot of crazy in his nineteen years, but this is a new level. He wouldn’t have thought you could fit this many people in these rooms, let alone the speakers and kegs and couches and just, wow. As much as he hates their guts, he can’t help but feel something like admiration at the fact that no one’s stopped this yet.

Red Hair, because Tim’s never met him before, is weaving expertly between people who are halfway between stoned and reaching a level of lucidity that only comes from substance use, like he’s almost too fast for anything to really get in his way. If Tim was anyone else, if he didn’t have his years of training, both his reflexes and how to navigate a party, he’s sure he would have tripped and fallen into some couple making out or something. It’s times like these where he wonders why he or Bruce ever thought college would be a good idea for his mess of a life.

He can hear Red in front of him, talking rapidly, because that’s the only way he seems to be able to do anything- “ Don’t know why you want to see Kon, but might as well once you’re here I guess, whatever…” And then they’re in a kitchen that is way bigger than any college kid’s kitchen should ever be- and no, Tim’s not jealous, except maybe he’d like to have the space to actually cook one day in the near future, when he learns not to burn everything but coffee.

Red fist bumps with a guy standing over by the counter, holding a red cup that could contain anything from Sprite to absinthe, who even knows anymore? Tim watches them talk for a few minutes, stands there completely out of place, until he sees Red Hair gesture vaguely in his direction, and the other boy turns around.

The guy reaches a hand across the counter, smiling mega-watts that are too bright for anyone, let alone someone functioning on three total hours of weekly sleep. “Hey, I’m Conner, Kon, whatever, man. Bart said you wanted to talk to me?”

And all of a sudden all the frustration built up over six days (which, for the record, he still finds hard to believe that a party like this has been happening above him close to a week) that brought him up here in the first place rush back up, and Tim is ready to tell “Kon, whatever, man”, that he can go to hell until Tim can sit down and have one night of peace to write his dumb paper.

“Yeah, Conner, I need to you to please shut the fuck up.” He says it with a mega-watt grin of his own, the one he flashes the cameras when he wants them out of his face but has to keep up his image.

“What?” The other boy retracts his waiting hand, (because yeah, Tim was really going to shake it), and the smile falters a little. “Care to explain?”

“I mean, if you wanted to have a party one night, then go for it, but six nights in a row? What the hell, man? Don’t you have homework, or anything, or a life? Or noise control, do you even realize how fucking loud you are? And like, you might not really care, but I have a million papers due and I’m just about dying with you blasting shitty pop music all night, six nights in a row-” He pauses to catch a breath, then realizes that everyone in the kitchen is pretty much staring at him like he’s crazy, and of course this is the one thing they all manage to hear over speakers that are still blasting Katy Perry louder than she should ever be.

 Kon is no longer smiling, and Tim is like ninety percent sure that any hopes of a hand-shake are gone now

“Next time, you could also just ask, you know, without the yelling or cursing.”, he says calmly, like some random kid from a floor down didn’t just blow up in the middle of his kitchen.

And of course Tim can’t just apologize now because that gets rid of everything he did just now, so he rolls his eyes and turns on his heel, “Ask me anytime we’re not in the middle of midterms, and I might even listen, Conner.” Maybe he’s being a bit of an asshole, but again, Tim feels pretty justified. Which is why he walks right past Bart, who’s eyebrows have shot into outer space by now, walks right past the whispers of wait, isn’t that Tim Drake ? Like, Wayne Inc. Tim Wayne?, (because what's a few more people playing right into the "entitled rich kid" persona?), and right past Kon, who is seriously rivaling Clark for a death-laser stare right now, straight through the door that he probably never should have bothered walking through.

Man, is he fucked.

Chapter Text

“Red. Are you there?”

Tim groans and pulls his blanket tighter over his face,as if it will block out the phone that’s going off on his bedside table, Dick Grayson’s voice an unwelcome visitor to his dark dorm room.

“Red. Respond!”

One of these days, he’s going to slowly kill every single member of this family. Figures the one night he decides to actually sleep for more than an hour at a time, something comes up. He’s going to scream if it turns out to be something dumb like there’s a cat stuck outside your university, Tim! Timmy, help the cat!, because Dick Grayson, savior to all small animals and children doesn’t realize that there is a time and place for that sort of situation.

“Tim? Are you okay?”

He closes his eyes tight and opens them after a long second, figuring he might as well get this over with. Reaches over to the table and slaps his hand around a little until it lands on the unmistakable shape of the Wayne Enterprises issued phone.

“Yeah. Yeah, what?” Tim scrubs at his eyes, blinking the sleep out of them.

“Oh, good. I thought you were dead or something for a second there.”

“Might die anyways if you don’t have a good reason to be calling at,” he glances at the clock, “four in the morning.”

“Please, like you were actually asleep, probably were messing around with campus security or-”

“Dick. Did you want something? Or did you just call to talk about the wild ragers I’ve been throwing every night under security’s nose?”

“Sure, yeah. Meet anyone hot? How’s that going?”
Tim is three seconds away from hanging up, and never picking up the phone from any former Robin ever again, ever. He lets Grayson know as much, adding in the fact that yes, he was trying to sleep for once in his life.

“Sorry, Red. Listen, Bruce thinks something weird’s going up at Lex Corp., something about clones and robots and weird shit like that.”

“Ok, nothing new there. Why am I involved?”

“You’re the closest to Luthor’s office building and stuff, and well, you know....” Dick lets the sentence trail off, trusting Tim to put the pieces together.

“Yeah, okay.”

“You won’t even have to do that much, like, an hour, tops. He just wants you to look for anything out of place, weirder than normal, you know? If you’re too busy, I can stick Damian on a plane over-”

Tim doesn’t want the hell-spawn anywhere near his campus, because that’s pretty much just asking for a city-wide fight to break out. And California is kinda nice this time of year.
“No, that’s fine, I’ve got it. Just- can I do it Saturday night? I kind of have a final in two days that’s important.”

Dick says something about how Tim didn’t need college anyways, and why would he want to get a stupid business degree when he’s basically running Wayne Enterprises from a shitty dorm room already, and Tim politely tells him to fuck off and get a life, because that’s how they communicate with each other, trading insults and sarcasm. Tim would almost say he misses Nightwing if the older man didn’t make it a point to call him at ungodly hours at least once a week.

“Saturday night sounds good, though. I’ll tell Batman and all that.”

“Okay.”

Tim’s about to hit the end call button when Dick’s voice floats through again, more hesitant this time. “And Tim, you should visit sometime, just ‘cause you’re out on your own now and all that, doesn’t mean you have to be a stranger.” The sentence ends on a bit of a question mark, like he’s waiting for Tim to tell him he’s booked the next flight back to New Jersey, because it’s not like Bruce was the one who sent him out here in the first place, to, in Batman’s own words, have eyes and ears across the country. And he gets it, he really does. He’s not Robin anymore. He’s not part of Nightwing-Batman-Robin that exists in Gotham, and while he still may be part of the Wayne family, there’s not much left for him Gotham anymore.

Plus, he has a life here, college and the Teen Titans, and Stephanie dropping in every now and then, with Cass or Harper in tow. So okay, he’ll be the occasional Intel guy for Batman Inc., and while Gotham is always a lingering thought in the corner of his mind, there’s more here.
It’s hard to put all of this into one phone call though, so he says, “I-I’m pretty busy right about now, but when I get a chance, yeah?”

Dick will be disappointed, but if there’s one thing Tim has learned in his time as a vigilante, it’s that someone is always disappointed. He’ll get over it, probably by the time Tim calls with information Saturday night.

“...Okay. Take care of yourself over there, Timmy, don’t party too hard or anything.”

Tim rolls his eyes, and says goodbye before he blurts something out about how the only party he walked into he spent five minutes yelling at someone who looked remarkably similar to Clark Kent.

And then, looking up at his ceiling, he realizes.

For the first night in close to a week, there has been no loud music or roar of voices leaking through from Kon’s room. Tim gets his first peaceful night of sleep, and decides that when he wakes up, he probably owes the owner of the room above him an apology of sorts.