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Tim had a secret.
Surprisingly enough, no one in his family seemed to realize that he had a secret, which was both a blessing and… well, a little hurtful if Tim was being honest. Tim knew that he was the one who did most of the stalking out of his family, but they weren't exactly known for minding their own business either. Someone would think that at the very least, Barbara would have noticed.
Then again, Tim had been able to make himself disappear for months when Bruce was thought to be dead so maybe he'd just covered his tracks better than he'd meant to.
"You're overthinking again."
The voice was heavy with sleep, assuring Tim that he'd managed to wake his partner up with his brooding. Again. He winced a bit, forcing himself to relax into the arms he was wrapped in.
"Sorry."
There was a quiet huff before a soft kiss was placed on the back of his neck, "You don't need to apologize, Corvus. I was just trying to get you out of your head."
Tim closed his eyes briefly, breathing out slowly, "You're right. Thank you, Danny."
Danny gave a quiet hum, squeezing Tim briefly before relaxing his hold again, "Want to talk about it?"
Tim blew out a breath, "I just… was thinking about how they don't know."
It was an old conversation at this point. Tim had been seeing Danny regularly for close to a year at this point and somehow no one had noticed. At first Tim hadn't told his family because it was new and special and he'd wanted to keep it all for himself. Then, as time went on and he got to know Danny better, he was worried about scaring Danny off with his family.
And now? Tim was afraid that it had been too long to say something.
And Danny had been a trooper through all of it. He wasn't offended that Tim hadn't told his family about him. Quite the opposite; he said that he understood complicated family relationships and said that it was up to Tim to decide what he did and didn't share with his own family.
Of course, it made sense given Danny's complicated relationship with his own parents and sister. Tim didn't know a whole lot of details about their falling out, but he knew enough to understand why Danny was very low contact with them.
"Do you want to tell them?" Danny asked after a moment, shifting a bit so that he could actually look at Tim for the conversation.
Tim shifted as well so that he could see Danny better in the predawn light that was coming through the bedroom window, "I don't know."
Danny gave a hum in response before pausing, "What if we told them without telling them?"
Tim's brow furrowed a bit as he looked at Danny, "What do you mean?"
"Well your family is full of detectives, right? Let's give them a case to solve."
Tim was very good at covering his tracks. It turned out, he was not great at purposely leaving clues. As it was, Tim wasn't all that surprised when Danny suggested going to Riddler for help with their plan.
It probably would have been surprising if Tim hadn't already known that Danny and Riddler had a strange friendship.
Eddie, as Danny cheerfully called him, was more than happy help them leave a trail of riddles. Once the riddles were made, Tim just had to ensure that someone in his family found them and contacted the others. It was easier than expected. Especially when he roped Lucius and Tam into helping.
Tam, of course, had known about Danny from the beginning. Not because Tim told her, but because Tam knew Tim's schedule better than Tim did. Lucius was just glad that Tim was finally setting healthy work/life boundaries.
So all it took was Lucius slipping a note into a stack of paperwork for Bruce and leaving it on his desk. Bruce could be seen leaving the office not even fifteen minutes later.
Tim watched his family run around Gotham from the tracking app on his laptop. Danny was absently rubbing his thumb along the back of Tim's neck in an attempt to soothe him. It was nerveracking, watching his family solve each clue and move onto the next without any indication of just what they were learning from the clues.
Tim, of course, had gotten the call from Oracle that Riddler was up to something. Tim had said he was unavailable to help at the moment and he'd try to join them later. Part of him had considered joining them, being there the entire time to see just how they were progressing, but just thinking about it caused his anxiety to spike.
He was half expecting another call. Waiting for one of them to suddenly put the pieces together before they made it to the end. But Riddler was good at what he did and he'd had Danny and Tim helping with the plan so it was entirely possible that no one was going to figure it out until they got to the last location.
The last location was where Tim and Danny were waiting.
It wasn't the penthouse or the Nest since that would be obvious to the Bats before they even got there. Instead it was Danny's apartment. Tim had tried on multiple occasions to get Danny to move into the penthouse with him but Danny had just said that it was safer this way for now. Tim could understand; Danny's place was somewhere only Tim and Danny knew about. It meant there was no chance of his family dropping by and having to explain who Danny was.
Tim wondered if Danny would finally move in with him after this.
"Looks like they're here," Danny murmured, pulling his hand away from Tim's neck and getting to his feet.
Tim closed the laptop and set it on the coffee table before getting to his feet himself. They had to know by this point. Had to have connected all the dots and come to the conclusion that Tim had been hiding someone from them.
He really hoped Bruce didn't give him the disappointed face.
The front door opened, having been left unlocked so that his family could come in without busting down the door. Bruce, of course, was the first one through. Dick was close behind him, followed by Steph, Cass, Jason, Damian…
There was a pause where Cass gently closed the door behind them and they all just kind of looked at each other.
Bruce paused a moment before pulling down his cowl, brow furrowed in confusion, "Tim?"
And Tim froze. He had planned out an entire speech, repeated it over and over in his head to make sure that he said all the right things and that this initial introduction went well, and now that he was in the moment, he couldn't form words.
Luckily, Danny could.
"Hey, I'm Danny," Danny said, stepping in front of Tim, physically putting himself as a barrier between Tim and his family, "Nice to finally meet you all."
God Tim loved that man.
The tension was broken when Jason snorted, "Did you really just lead us all around the city to tell us that you started dating someone?"
Damian, it seemed, agreed as he crossed his arms, unimpressed.
"Ah, my fault," Danny said with a grin, "Tim was having trouble coming up with a way to tell you guys about me so I suggested asking Eddie for help."
Bruce raised an eyebrow even as Dick echoed, "Eddie?"
The invisible line between the two groups was broken as Cass moved from her spot next to Steph and walked up to Danny, offering her hand, "Cass."
Danny smiled at her in response, taking the hand, "Nice to meet you."
That was all it took for Steph to run over and grab Danny's arm, "How on earth has Tim managed to keep you a secret from us?"
Danny gave a laugh in response and Tim relaxed. He could do this. It was going to be alright.
"Tim?"
Tim turned to see that Dick had come up next to him, brow furrowed and… looking a little hurt. Tim winced a bit. Of course Dick would take it personally that Tim hadn't told him about Danny.
"How long have you two been seeing each other?" Dick asked quietly and the group as a whole seemed to look at Tim.
"…about a year," Tim admitted once he got his voice to work again.
Bruce frowned a bit, "Did you think you couldn't tell us?"
"I uh, kind of just thought you'd figure it out on your own the longer we dated."
There was another awkward silence after that statement before Danny cleared his throat, "Turns out that Tim is better at covering his tracks than he realized."
"Do your friends know?" Dick asked and Tim shook his head.
"I haven't told anyone… until now."
Danny cleared his throat again, "I'm uh, partially to blame for that."
"Danny - " Tim started and Danny waved him off.
"My parents are kind of mad scientists and could probably be considered rogues so I wanted to make sure that Tim knew that I wasn't the same as them before introducing me to the rest of the Bat clan."
Damian looked at Tim in shock, "You told him?"
Tim gave Damian and exasperated look at that, "I didn't need to; he figured it out on his own."
Danny gave a careless shrug, though Tim knew that it was at least partially an act, "I did the teenage vigilante thing. Been retired a long time, but I can still see the signs."
Danny's time as Phantom wasn't a light subject and Tim knew that Danny still struggled a lot with the trauma that had happened to him in that time so he was proud of how casually Danny was able to make that statement.
Bruce had been oddly quiet and had one of those looks on his face that Tim was terrible at reading. Mostly because that look was usually directed at him, and not anyone else in the family. After a moment, Bruce reached out and placed a hand on Danny's shoulder.
"Nice to meet you, Danny."
Danny offered him a smile in response, "You too. Tim talks about all of you a lot."
"Only good things, I hope?" Bruce said with a bit of a teasing smile.
Danny didn't even hesitate to snort, "God no, nothing but terrible things."
Dick sputtered in response to that, but Bruce laughed. And Tim relaxed for the first time in a long time. His family was here and so was Danny. Everything was going to be alright.