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June in Jump City usually felt like a victory lap. The air was thick with the scent of blooming jasmine and the heavy, brine-rich salt from the nearby ocean, a combination that usually signaled the start of a peaceful season. The school year was winding down into a haze of final exams, summer plans, and the sweet, lingering relief of a world that wasn't currently ending. For the Drake-Kent family, it had been exactly one month since the high school spring formal—a milestone that still felt like a warm, flickering glow in their memories—and roughly four months since the "Luthor Incident," as they had deemed it.
It was hard to describe it as anything else. They couldn’t exactly say, “the time when Conner’s sperm donor somehow found out about their kids and was insane enough to kidnap them as some kind of attempt to get to know them.” That was a mouthful.
That incident was a shadow that still occasionally stretched across their sunny living room, long and jagged. It was in the way Thomas looked toward the front door whenever someone put a hand on his shoulder, his small body tensing like a coiled spring. It was in the way Caitlyn had started double-checking the tracker in her phone and making sure it was active before leaving the house and texting her fathers between every class and red light she stopped at. It was a phantom limb of anxiety that they were all learning to live with, a reminder that their peace was something fought for and fiercely guarded.
Every creak of the floorboards at night carried a weight it hadn't six months ago. Every missed phone call was a spike in adrenaline that tasted like copper in the back of the throat. They were a family in recovery, stitched back together with love and an unspoken agreement to never let each other out of sight for too long.
On this particular Saturday evening, the house was a sanctuary of domestic chaos. The windows were open to catch the evening breeze, which carried the muffled, rhythmic drone of a neighbor’s lawnmower and the distant, joyful shrieks of children playing three houses down. Tim was currently lying on the floor of the living room, sprawled across the thick, cream-colored rug that smelled faintly of lemon-scented carpet cleaner. He was surrounded by a chaotic sea of plastic bricks—primary colors clashing against the neutral tones of the room. He was helping Thomas assemble a particularly complex LEGO spacecraft, his brow furrowed in deep concentration as he tried to decipher the pictorial instructions for a three-hundred-step engine core.
"Daddy, I think the laser goes on the left side," Thomas whispered, pointing a small, slightly sticky finger at the diagram. He was sitting cross-legged, his brow mimicking Tim’s in a way that always made Tim’s heart ache with a fierce, protective affection.
"Actually, Tommy, I think this is a stabilizer fin," Tim replied, his voice low and patient. He reached for a translucent blue piece that had rolled under the shadow of the coffee table, the plastic cool against his fingertips. "But we can make it a laser if you want. In our house, physics are more like suggestions, and the blueprints are just the beginning of the story."
Thomas giggled, a bright, silver sound that Tim cherished more than any trophy or accolade. "Can we make it a laser that shoots bubbles? So it doesn't hurt anyone, it just makes them slippery?"
"A bubble laser? That’s advanced technology, Thomas. We might need to consult the Wayne Enterprises R&D department for that. It would require a very specific type of soap-based power cell," Tim joked, clicking the fin into place with a satisfying, high-pitched snap.
Just then, the comms unit hidden in Tim’s pocket chirped. It wasn't the rhythmic, high-frequency "city's on fire" alert that usually signaled a Titan-level threat or a cosmic invasion. It was the low, steady, urgent pulse—a digital heartbeat—that meant an emergency. It was the sound of duty calling him away from the smell of lemon and the sound of giggles.
"Red Robin, we really need you," Oracle’s voice crackled through the encrypted channel, stripped of its usual warmth and replaced by a cold, professional edge. "We got some intel from Hood and Arsenal. The Joker is in Jump City. Wondergirl and Impulse are not situated to handle a crisis like this. Jump City is going to be a playground for every lowlife with a crowbar. Nightwing and Signal are already on the ground, but we need your brain, Red Robin."
Tim let out a long, weary sigh, his forehead dropping against a plastic LEGO wing with a soft, dull clack. He looked at Thomas, whose eyes were wide, the pupils dilating as he caught the shift in the room's energy. That familiar, tiny spark of worry was there—the one that made Tim feel like a failure, as if his choice to be a hero was a debt his son was forced to pay in anxiety.
"Fine. Whatever. I'm coming," Tim muttered into the mic, clicking his jaw shut as he transitioned from 'Dad' to 'Detective.' The change was visible; his posture straightened, his eyes sharpened, and the playful softness in his face hardened into a mask of cold calculation.
Conner, who had been hovering near the ceiling dusting the top of the bookshelf with a micro-fiber cloth—a chore only a Kryptonian could make look effortless while defying gravity—drifted down to the floor. He landed softly next to Tim, the displacement of air ruffling Tim's hair. He placed a heavy, warm hand on his husband's shoulder, his grip steadying.
"Go," Conner said, his voice a warm, steady rumble that vibrated through Tim's chest. "I'll stay up and keep an eye on the kids. I've got the night shift."
"Don't do that, Kon," Tim replied, looking up and noting the faint, purple shadows under Conner's own eyes. "You were up at five with Thomas this morning for that 'dinosaur parade' in the backyard. You’re exhausted. Go to sleep. Phoenix can handle the house security. The program never blinks, and it doesn't need caffeine."
"But I will," Conner insisted, a stubborn, familiar set to his jaw. "Because it helps you. If you know I’m awake and watching them, you won’t spend the whole mission checking the cameras or hacking the monitors. Go. I'll be the world's best sofa-guard. I’ve already got the popcorn and a very interesting documentary lined up."
Before Tim could offer another protest, a yellow-and-red blur materialized in the middle of the room, accompanied by a sudden gust of wind that sent a handful of LEGO pieces skittering across the hardwood like colorful shrapnel. Bart Allen was suddenly there, vibrating so fast his features were a smudge, a half-eaten granola bar held in one hand.
"Oracle said you need a lift, Rob? I'm already halfway there in my head! I've already eaten three protein bars, a burrito, and I think a handful of gummy bears I found in the glove box of Uncle Wally’s car! Let's go, let's go, let's go!"
Tim didn't even have time to stand up before Bart scooped him up. "I'll be back!" Tim managed to shout, his voice torn away by the rushing wind as he was whisked out the door, the familiar walls of his home dissolving into a horizontal smear of gray and green.
Miles away, the mission was a descent into a specific, neon-colored madness. The Joker had turned the transport site—a massive, rusted shipping yard by the docks—into a funhouse of jagged metal and psychological traps. The air at the site was thick with the smell of ozone, rotting fish from the harbor, and that sickly-sweet chemical scent the Joker loved—a mixture of cheap greasepaint and high-grade explosives.
Tim spent hours perched on rusted girders that groaned under his weight, his fingers flying across a portable holographic interface. The blue light of the screen reflected in his eyes, a stark contrast to the sickly green glow of the Joker’s hijacked servers. He was deep in the code, a digital ghost fighting back against a chaotic, nonsensical logic. Every time he broke a firewall, a digitized version of the Joker’s laugh echoed through his earpiece, grating against his nerves.
The physical toll was high. He had to move through a maze of mirrors that distorted his reflection into monstrous shapes, fighting off goons dressed in clown masks who moved with a terrifying, jerky synchronization. His ribs ached from a twenty-foot fall onto a steel container, and his hands were cramped from the biting cold of the dockside air.
The worst part, however, had been the "Confetti Gun"—a modified industrial sprayer that the Joker had gleefully fired into the dark while singing off-key show tunes. It didn't spray paper or glitter; it sprayed microscopic shards of tempered glass, invisible in the air until they caught the light like deadly diamonds. They were designed to shred tactical suits and find every microscopic gap in a hero's armor. Tim had been caught in the periphery of a blast. He’d felt the stings immediately—a thousand tiny, white-hot needles sinking into his skin, a sharp pain that made his vision swim and his breath hitch. But he couldn't stop. He couldn't go home until the city's— the city his family resided in— was safe.
By the time Bart dropped a bruised, bloodied, and utterly spent Tim back on the patio at three in the morning, Tim could barely feel his legs. His suit was shredded at the shoulders, his cape was missing a large, jagged chunk, and his domino mask felt like it was fused to his skin by a cocktail of sweat, blood, and city grime. Every breath felt like inhaling sandpaper. The silence of the suburbs felt alien, heavy with a peace he no longer felt he deserved.
He groaned as he limped through the back door, not wanting to alert Conner on the couch, his boots thudding dully on the floor. The familiar smell of the house—lemon polish and laundry detergent—felt like a reproach. He wanted nothing more than a hot shower to wash away the Joker’s circus and twelve hours of dreamless sleep.
He made it as far as the hallway when a small, soft sound stopped him dead.
Thomas was standing there, a small shadow against the wall near Tim and Conner’s room, clutching his well-worn platypus plushie to his chest so tightly the stuffing was bulging. His eyes were wide, glazed with the remnants of a nightmare. He had been looking for comfort, seeking the warm, safe presence of his parents, but what he found in the gloom was a nightmare made flesh. He saw a shadowed figure in a tattered, dark costume, groaning in pain, with blood trickling down a split lip.
Thomas didn't see "Dad." In the dim light, he saw the violence that had stolen him away months ago. The boy let out a piercing, ragged scream that tore through the quiet house like a physical blow to Tim's heart.
"Papa— Help!"
The sound was followed immediately by a loud, splintering thud from the living room. Conner, who had indeed fallen asleep on the couch despite his promises, scrambled to his feet so fast he accidentally put a footprint into the solid oak coffee table.
"I swear I didn't fall asleep!" Conner shouted, eyes darting around wildly, his blue eyes glowing faintly with heat vision before he realized where he was. "I was up the whole time! I was checking the... the perimeter! Who’s there?!"
Tim hissed in pain, reaching up to peel his domino off with trembling, blood-stained fingers. "Thomas, hey, hey—it's just me. It's just me, buddy. It’s Daddy. Look at me. See? Just me."
But Thomas was already sprinting past him, a blur of pajamas and raw, unadulterated fear, diving into Conner’s arms. He buried his face in Conner’s neck, sobbing with a force that shook his small frame. Conner scooped him up, his expression shifting from panicked confusion to heartbreaking realization as he saw Tim standing there, tattered and broken in the flickering hallway light.
Caitlyn, meanwhile, remained dead asleep in her room, a testament to the heavy sleep of a teenager and the soundproofing of the house.
"It's okay, Tommy. It's okay," Conner whispered, his voice a low, soothing hum as he shielded the boy's eyes from the sight of Tim’s injuries. "You're safe. Papa's got you. It's just Daddy, he's just... he had a long night at work. He’s a little messy, like when you play in the mud after a big rain. Remember?"
"I scared him," Tim whispered, his voice cracking, the copper taste of blood in his mouth turning bitter. "I shouldn't have come inside like this. I’m a mess. I'm a walking nightmare."
Conner frowned, still rubbing circles into Thomas’ back. “Baby…”
"Take him back to bed, Kon," Tim said, his legs finally giving out as he slumped against the wall, the cool plaster feeling good against his burning back. "I'll just go sit in the living room. I don't want him to see me like this."
Conner shook his head, his eyes full of a deep, aching sympathy. He carried the sobbing Thomas back toward his room, murmuring soft Kryptonian words Kara had taught him that sounded like a lullaby. Tim slumped onto the couch, every joint in his body screaming, the silence of the room ringing in his ears.
Twenty minutes later, Conner returned. He found Tim sitting in the dark, staring at his tattered boots, a few silent tears making tracks through the soot on his face.
"He's asleep," Conner said softly, sitting on the edge of the coffee table. He reached out, his warm fingers gently tilting Tim’s chin up. "Why didn't you stay at the Tower to get patched up, Tim? Cassie and Bart would have had you sorted and in fresh pajamas in twenty minutes."
Tim’s eyes were glassy and teary, reflecting the dim light of the kitchen clock. "I just wanted to see the kids... I missed them so much out there. And I scared him. I looked like a threat in my own house. I saw it in his eyes—he didn't see his dad. He saw a monster, Conner."
"You are not a monster," Conner said firmly, his voice leaving no room for argument. He grabbed the first-aid kit, the plastic snap of the box loud in the quiet room. "You are a hero who went through hell to keep the city safe from an insane clown guy who can’t take a hint. Now, stay still."
"Can I have something to eat first?" Tim asked, his stomach giving a loud, pathetic growl that broke the tension. "I haven't eaten since we made Thomas eat midway through LEGOS earlier. My blood sugar is in the basement, and I think I might pass out if I don't get some carbs."
Conner smiled, a small, tired, beautiful thing that Tim could stare at for hours. "Yeah. I can do that. Stay on the couch. Don't move a muscle, or I'll tell Alfred you were being difficult."
Conner headed to the kitchen, and soon the comforting sounds of home returned: the rhythmic click-click-whoosh of the stove, the clatter of a spatula, and the sizzle of butter in a pan. The smell of grilled cheese—the "triple-cheese special"—began to waft through the house, acting as a sensory anchor for Tim.
The noise and the heavy aroma of melting cheddar finally did what the screaming hadn't: it woke Caitlyn. She stumbled out of her room, rubbing her eyes, her hair in twin braids. She stopped dead when she saw Tim on the couch, his suit half-unzipped, revealing the purple-and-green bruising across his ribs and the glittering, tiny cuts on his arms.
"What the hell happened to you?" she asked, raising an eyebrow. She moved toward him, her eyes scanning the damage with the practiced, clinical gaze of someone raised in a family of detectives.
"The Joker," Tim gave her a weak, lopsided grin. "He has a new confetti gun. Turns out, instead of colorful paper, it fires shards of broken glass. Very festive. Very sharp."
"Ouch," Caitlyn echoed, a shiver running through her as she sat on the floor by his feet, her hand resting near his knee. "That’s messed up even for an evil clown. Did you get him?"
"Yeah, Dick and Duke got him tranqed and tied up on his way back to Arkham for however long it takes for him to escape again," Tim sighed, leaning his head back into the cushions. "But you should be in bed, Cait. You have that study group tomorrow."
"But food," she countered, her stomach choosing that moment to join the conversation with its own growl. "And it's a Saturday night—"
"Sunday morning," Tim interrupted, gesturing weakly toward the clock. "Three forty-five in the morning. The 'curfew' ship sailed and sank hours ago."
"—point is," Caitlyn continued, unfazed, "I’ll live if I stay up another hour. I won’t live if I don’t get whatever Pops is cooking. It smells like life-saving cheese."
"Fine," Tim chuckled, the vibration hurting his ribs but warming his heart.
Conner appeared with a tray, handing plates to both of them. As they ate in the flickering light of a single lamp, the conversation drifted back to the hallway. "I scared the crap out of Thomas," Tim admitted quietly, picking at the crust of his sandwich. "He saw the mask and the blood, and he just... he lost it. I can't shake that look he gave me."
Caitlyn looked at her dad, her expression uncharacteristically soft and serious. "He’s six, Dad. And after everything with Luthor... he’s just sensitive to the dark. To shadows. He’ll understand tomorrow when he sees you in your nerdy sweater vests, eating cereal, and complaining about how you didn’t use to drink coffee. He knows you're the hero. He just got confused in the dark. He’ll see 'Dad' again, I promise."
Tim leaned back, the radiating warmth of the grilled cheese and Caitlyn’s steady, calm reassurance finally letting the last of the mission's lingering tension leave his shoulders. It was as if the mundane, beautiful reality of a suburban kitchen was finally replacing the cortisol that had been coursing through his veins for twelve hours. The silence of the house felt less like a vacuum and more like a safety net now, a soft fabric woven from the rhythmic hum of the refrigerator and the distant ticking of the clock in the hallway.
Conner moved around behind him, the floorboards creaking familiar greetings under his feet. The snap of latex gloves from the first-aid kit was the only sharp sound for a long moment. Tim felt the cool, damp sensation of a sterile wipe against his forearm, followed by the sharp, biting sting of antiseptic. He hissed through his teeth, his hand instinctively gripping the edge of the sofa cushion.
"Steady," Conner murmured, his voice a low vibration that seemed to calm the air around them. "I know it burns, but we have to get the residue off. The Joker's 'confetti' is coated in a mild irritant. If we don't clean these out, you'll be scratching your skin off by noon."
"He really was up all night, you know," Caitlyn said, her mouth half-full of grilled cheese, her posture relaxed but her eyes still tracking the movement of Conner’s tweezers. She gestured toward Conner with her sandwich, a small drop of melted butter landing on her pajama pants. "Every time I poked my head out to get water or check if the world was ending, he was sitting right there. He looked like a gargoyle. A very stoic, very tired gargoyle, just staring at the front door like he couldn’t see through the wood."
Conner huffed a soft, self-deprecating laugh, focusing on a particularly stubborn sliver of glass near Tim's wrist. "I told you. I don't sleep when you're out there. My brain won't let the gears stop turning. It’s a biological imperative, I think. I keep listening for the sonic boom of Bart bringing you back, your boots on the patio, or your breathing. If it falters even a little, my heart skips."
Tim reached back with his uninjured hand and squeezed Conner’s free wrist, feeling the pulse of a man who could move mountains but chose to heal instead. "I know. I'm sorry I was late. I underestimated him. The challenges he made were a mess—it was built like a series of nested Russian dolls, but each one was filled with evil clown shit."
"Just another day at the office," Conner murmured, carefully dropping a tiny, blood-stained shard of glass into a metal tray with a soft clink. He looked at Tim, his blue eyes searching. "You did good, Tim. The city is quiet. You're allowed to be tired now."
They sat together in the blue-gray pre-dawn light, a small island of warmth in the quiet house. Outside, the first birds were beginning to chirp—a tentative, hopeful sound that signaled the end of the night's terrors. Caitlyn leaned her head against Tim's knee, her eyes heavy with sleep. It reminded him of before retirement when they first adopted Caitlyn. She’d stay up and wait for Tim or Conner to come home, only sleeping when she saw them alive. He knew she was being brave for Thomas, but he could see the relief in her expression, even as she slept.
The transition from the deep, heavy exhaustion of the night to the bright, unapologetic energy of the morning felt like a fever dream, a sudden jump-cut in the movie of his life. Tim had finally collapsed into bed around five in the morning, his body feeling like it was made of lead and jagged edges, only to be dragged back to consciousness by a rhythmic, heavy thumping that seemed to vibrate through his very bones.
—
It was only four hours later when there was a rhythmic, thump thump thump on the mattress, which groaned under the sudden impact of a small, energetic weight that seemed to defy the laws of gravity.
"Wake up! Wake up! Wake up! The sun is winning!"
Thomas was a blur of motion, a tiny whirlwind in the same green pajamas. He launched himself onto the center of the bed with the reckless grace of a caffeinated squirrel, his small knees digging into the mattress. He landed squarely on Tim’s stomach, knocking the wind out of him with a soft, wheezing oof.
Tim groaned, his eyes squinting painfully against the bright, golden shafts of sunlight piercing through the curtains like spears. His ribs gave a sharp protest, a reminder of a mere ten hours ago, but as he forced his eyes open, he didn't see the wide-eyed, terrified child from the hallway.
Thomas was grinning, his face flushed with the kind of pure, uncomplicated excitement that only exists in childhood. His well-worn platypus plushie was discarded on the pillow, its bill squashed against the headboard. Thomas was wearing his favorite dinosaur pajamas—the ones with the glow-in-the-dark stegosaurus—and he was currently using Tim’s shins as a springboard to reach Conner, who was buried under a massive mountain of blankets on the other side.
"Papa said it's pancake day! He said the batter will be bubbling, and if you didn’t wake up, he's going to eat all the chocolate chips! Every single one!" Thomas declared, jumping again and landing with a deliberate sprawl across Conner’s broad chest.
Conner let out a low, mock-grumble, the sound of a waking bear. His arm snaked out from under the duvet like a golden-brown tentacle, catching Thomas around the waist and pulling him into a messy, laughing heap in the center of the bed. "I did say that, didn't I? And I meant it, young man. I’m very hungry, Thomas. My stomach is a bottomless pit, and chocolate chips are its favorite fuel."
Tim watched them, the sight blurring slightly as his eyes watered with a relief so intense it felt like a physical ache in his chest. The "monster" from the hallway—the shadow-drenched figure of violence—was gone, completely erased by the morning light and the sight of a man who was currently being tickled mercilessly by an six-year-old. Thomas scrambled back over to Tim, his small hands bracing against Tim's shoulders as he poked Tim in the cheek with a small, insistent finger.
"Are you okay, Dad? Papa said you were just really, really tired from a big project at work. Like when I had to draw all the states for school."
Tim reached out, his movements slow but full of intent, pulling Thomas into a tight, warm hug. He buried his face in the boy's neck, the smell of strawberry shampoo and morning-cereal replacing the lingering phantoms of ozone and greasepaint in his lungs. "I'm okay, buddy. I'm just a little slow this morning. My 'project' was a bit of a marathon. But I’m definitely ready for those pancakes."
Thomas beamed, his world righted by the simple confirmation of breakfast. He leaped off the bed with a triumphant shout, his bare feet slapping against the hardwood floor as he sprinted toward the door. "I'm going to tell Caitlyn! She says she's going to sleep until noon but I'm going to use the cold water spray bottle if she doesn't move!"
As the sound of Thomas’s pounding feet receded down the hall, followed by a distant "Thomas, don't you dare!" from Caitlyn’s room, Tim turned to Conner. His husband was propped up on one elbow, his hair a chaotic mess, watching Tim with a soft, knowing smile that carried a decade of shared history. The house was loud again. It was chaotic. It was full of light and the high-pitched demands for syrup.
"See?" Conner whispered, reaching across the expanse of the bed to lace his fingers with Tim’s. "Cait told you. You're just Dad again."
Tim squeezed back, the morning sun warming his skin and making the scars on his arms look like nothing more than stories. "Yeah. Just Dad. And I wouldn't trade it for anything in the multiverse."