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r e b u i l d i n g
It starts with a series of unfortunate events.
Everyone knows that Wayne Manor is an old building. Damian had been pestering Alfred and Bruce about it ever since he arrived, telling them about the cracks in the walls and the strange sounds coming from the old wooden doors and stairs. To no one’s surprise, those complaints had died off a few months after his arrival, thus renovations were never made. Every time something broke, Alfred or Bruce were there to fix it, temporarily. Doing an extreme makeover of the whole house? That was still in Alfred's endless To-Do List. The Waynes were busy people after all—
—until last week when a gigantic door almost slammed Tim into the floor Bugs Bunny-style. That’d been the final straw for Alfred, who declared war on the manor, closing off the left wing until further notice.
Then, unsurprisingly, the kitchen’s floor tiles of the right wing started to crack and became uneven, and Bruce realized that water was filtering through. So Alfred called some more handymen that had surely signed an NDA, and the manor was closed off for good, completely, because apparently rich people had plumbing problems too.
(Tim blamed their family’s obsession with being vigilantes and wearing masks instead of paying attention to the everyday civilian stuff.)
After that, the chaos truly started. Dick and Tim offered their apartments for Alfred, Bruce and Damian, but the first two were made of the same stubborn clay so they nicely declined the offers. Alfred argued that he needed to make sure everything was done like it was supposed to be done (AKA his incapability to let others take care of things he cared a lot about), and Bruce refused to leave because he insisted that everything he needed was in the Cave (AKA his absolute refusal to get out of his comfort zone). Damian was crazy but not that crazy, so he accepted Dick’s offer almost immediately. Tim had expected that. (If Cass had been in the city he knew she would’ve accepted his offer without thinking twice. Or who knows, Steph would’ve probably stolen her from him, like she often did nowadays.)
“Whew,” Steph had exhaled through the phone when Tim told her about all the rebuilding mess. “I’m glad I wasn’t there when it all went to shit. I would’ve offered my shoebox of course— but not for Bruce. God knows that man tries to control enough about my life, imagine having to live with him. God save us all.”
With the manor unavailable, and Bruce and Alfred both living at the Cave and making sure that the contractors were all doing their jobs (and not being nosy about the Cave or other weird Batman-y shit laying around), and with Damian living in Bludhaven with Dick, Tim found himself more alone than ever. Sure, they still tried to regroup at the Cave before almost every patrol, and Tim sometimes visited the Cave during the day just to check up on Al and B, but between online uni, hanging out, and his vigilante activities, time passed too fast and too abruptly.
It’d been almost a month before another canon event happened.
J.T. [03:48 am] where you at??
tim drake [03:52 am] ?
tim drake [03:52 am] duty
tim drake [03:53 am] (click real-time location)
J.T. [04:08 am] you should update your booby traps
tim drake [04:08 am] ??????????
tim drake [04:08 am] what happened
tim drake [04:10 am] hood
tim drake [04:15 am] whst happnd
J.T. [04:23 am] house burnt down
J.T. [04:23 am] tf man your fridge empty
tim drake [04:26 am] FUKC
tim drake [04:26 am] ON MT WAY
After making sure that his apartment wasn’t the one that had burnt down, Tim found himself with a new roomie. Yay. So exciting. If a few years ago someone would’ve told him that he was going to temporarily live with the second Robin, who had beaten the shit out of him multiple times after resuscitating, and who was now a Crime Lord, Tim would’ve laughed loudly at their face.
(He wasn’t laughing now.)
“How many times do I have to say it,” Tim grumbled at Jason a week later. “Don’t put the bread in the fridge.”
“But I do that,” Jason shrugged from his permanent spot on the sofa. Tim hadn’t seen him move from there in at least 10 hours.
“I don’t,” Tim stressed, turning around and finally putting the bread inside the cellar, where it belonged. “It tastes all weird when it's cold. I don’t like it. This is my home.”
“No, it isn’t.”
“Yes, it is,” he gritted, ignoring Jason’s big ass grin.
“No,” Jason shook his head. “It’s your landlord’s. You don’t own this place yet, so.”
Tim gripped tightly his cup of black tea, hoping that the tic in his eye wasn’t permanent.
“I need a favor,” he told Bruce much later that same day when they were regrouping in the Cave. Damian, who Dick had dropped off earlier in the day, had immediately stopped what he was doing to look suspiciously at Tim.
Bruce hummed, not really looking at him.
“Can you lend me half a million bucks?”
“The audacity.”
Tim ignored Damian’s comment.
Bruce finally dignified him with a look. “You have your trust fund,” he said.
“Half a million?” Tim repeated, not at all pouting.
And Bruce simply sighed in response, making Damian start to babble about Tim stealing all of his rightful inheritance, as if they weren’t going to split it by five in the end anyway.
Next day, at midday, the first thing Tim did when he woke up was slap his ownership form in front of Jason’s frankly delicious looking breakfast. Tim had to admit that ever since Jason became his roomie, his calories intake had increased favorably and his food was 99% nicer than when he lived alone (Tim didn’t know how to cook, okay, or more like he knew how but it tasted like shit no matter how much garlic he added to the stuff.)
“Wow, congratulations,” Jason deadpanned. “You’re officially rich scum.”
“Fuck you and your frozen bread,” Tim smiled sardonically at him before retreating to the kitchen. He heard Jason’s snort, and before he could keep celebrating his victory, Tim realized that the place where his dishwasher was supposed to be was empty. “What the fuck, J?”
“Oh, yeah, that,” Jason said out loud from the other side of the thin wall. “My bad, I broke it.”
“How?” Tim muttered to himself, instantly coming back to Jason’s side, feet stomping the floor in fury. “I want you out of here yesterday.”
“No, can’t do,” Jason had that look in his eyes he always got when he was enjoying making Tim suffer. Tim ignored the PTSD’s goosebumps invading his body. “My place’s still scorched and Dickhead refuses to give me housing.”
“You have like fifteen safe houses.”
“Not anymore.”
“How,” Tim stressed the word.
“None of your business.”
“You have a father,” Tim tried again, sneering. “Ask for his help.”
“Not all of us enjoy rich boy privileges, stupid,” Jason airily replied. “Now, can you pass me the maple syrup? I forgot it near the sink.”
Tim sputtered. “I—get over your daddy issues for once, for fuck’s sake.”
“Maple syrup, please and thank you.”
After that comment, which he totally ignored, Tim popped up some emergency gummy bears, ignored the sensible and rational part of his brain that sounded like a mix of Bruce’s, Dick’s, Alfred’s and his parent’s voices, and went to sit down on his balcony’s crappy beach chair. It took a few minutes before the gummies gummied his stress away, and he was finally breathing Gotham’s polluted air in relief when Jason opened the sliding door and sat down in the other crappy chair beside him.
Tim bit his tongue and kept looking at the grey clouds. It was going to rain soon. He side-eyed Jason. He had a book in his hands.
“Wunthering heights, really?”
“Shut it.”
Tim went back to looking at the clouds. His mouth did feel funny but he was glad that his breathing was even and that he felt comfortable in his skin.
“Does Bruce know you’re a junkie?” Jason asked out of nowhere a few minutes later.
There goes his part of his relaxation. “Does Bruce know you’re a fucking loser?” Tim snapped.
Jason snorted. “Says the one that has to pop gummies to feel something.”
“We can’t all be hippies that do yoga,” Tim rolled his eyes.
“Right, Woodstock,” and Jason kept laughing dryly.
A pause and then: “I don’t normally do this,” Tim found himself explaining even though he knew he didn’t have to. “Just when I spend long periods of time with insufferable people.”
“So everyday?”
“Yes, everyday since you’ve been here.”
“You shouldn’t,” Jason’s tone suddenly turned serious. Tim looked at him. He was doing that downside thing he always did with his mouth every time he was upset. Tim often wondered why he knew so much about someone that he didn’t know at all. (Cass would’ve congratulated him on his observation skills.) “You’re indirectly supporting organized crime while ruining your brain.”
Tim knew that. He wasn’t stupid, that’s why he kept it a secret. “Why do you care. Mind your own business,” he replied.
“I’m doing exactly that.”
“Yeah, right.” It was Tim’s time to snort. “I see right through you, J. I know you’re getting rid of the drugs while pretending to distribute them.”
“Of course, by giving them to the scum of the Earth and not to kids.”
“Natural selection,” Tim couldn’t help but mumble, earning an awkward laugh from Jason. Tim ignored the blossoming happiness that suddenly invaded his chest. It was always weird when that happened around Jason.
“Point is, I can teach you some exercises to keep your mind level-headed.”
Tim gave Jason a double take. “Out of your sincere and brotherly heart?”
“I fucked up your dishwasher and I’ve been refrigerating both the bread and the eggs so. I feel like I owe you.”
“And you’ve been using my streaming services, and my water, and my electricity without giving a single buck nor fuck.”
“And all that, yeah,” Jason seemed like he was smiling. Tim wasn’t so sure. “You look like you've never picked up a book in your life.”
Tim frowned, insulted. Of course he read a lot. Just not classics, or novels, or whatever the fuck Jason read. “Where did that come from?”
“Just thinking,” Jason raised his book slightly. “This is a classic. I’ve read it like twenty-seven times.”
Tim hummed, deciding to rest his head against the wall behind him. This felt nice. Weird. He closed his eyes too. “What do you think of the new movie with Margot—”
“Don’t even finish that question,” expectedly, Jason glowered.
After that, the silence reigned for nearly two hours. Tim thinks he dozed off like four times for nearly twenty minutes each round. By the time he opened his eyes again, one of his fluffiest blankets was over him. He quirked an eyebrow at the gesture, knowing that he’d survived these hours in an open yet enclosed space with Jason’s company just because he was high off his ass. Normally his nervous system wouldn't have been able to take it. The body keeping score and all that.
Jason had been surprisingly nice too, though. Human. Normal. It wasn't something brand new, either, but it didn’t erase the fact that both of them weren’t the closest duo of their weird little group.
Tim often thought about other universes. It was a fact that they existed, so he couldn’t help but think about those other worlds, those other Tim’s and Jason’s and even Bruce’s. He wondered if things had turned out different in those other timelines. If Jason had never died, or if Jason had died and things had gone differently. If Bruce had tried to be more open with one of his previously deceased sons. If Jason had tried more to be more open to different interpretations of the code. If they both had tried. If they had healed from the trauma. If Tim hadn’t been squeezed between the unstoppable drama those two got themselves into without intentions of ever letting it go.
If, if, if.
But Tim also knew that to wonder about it only made him look selfish. He was the least affected of them, not forgetting about Alfred, and even counting Dick.
Still deep in his thoughts, Tim walked past his living room, instantly taking on the lingering scent of homemade food. Without thinking too much about it, he relaxedly made his way into the kitchen, finding his biggest tupperware full of delicious-looking food. A post-it was over the lid.
Dearest Rat Boy, it read.
Steph gave me shelter. She isn’t a piece of shit like yourself. I told Dick about your gummies and the IDIOT started to yell at ME. Call him ASAP. Or don’t, I don’t care. One of my guys will come by tomorrow with a new dishwasher. He agreed to rebuild the churned spot and install the thing for free—ha, not really. I gave him your last bag of gummies. You’re welcome for curing your crippling addiction.
PS. Learn how to cook, it’s embarrassing. I’ll send you the links of the meditation exercises I told you about.
I hope you have a terrible, horrible rest of the day, week, month and year,
J.
Tim huffed at the mini-letter, trying to evaporate his amusement into nothing. (Jason obviously preffered to write a mini-letter instead of a brief and normal note, fuck him—also fuck his tiny and perfectly meticulous handwriting). He crumpled the little piece of yellow paper, threw it on the trash, grabbed a spoon, took the tupperware with him to the couch and put on the reruns of Parks and Rec. He had two hours to eat and binge-watch before going out to patrol, anyway.
Hours later, when he returned from patrol wincing and limping (he’d told Alfred he was fine while refusing to meet Bruce’s and Dick’s worrying gazes; Damian had only given him a slightly annoying look before hitting the showers—baby steps), Tim retrieved the crumpled little ball of yellow paper, groaning quietly because of his blatant defeat.
Nostalgia and hope were such annoying sentiments.
Jason Todd: 5, probably - Tim: 0.
Tim straightened the mini-letter as best as he could, cringing at the obvious line marks almost ruining it, and stashed it in his memorabilia box.
And, please, shut the fuck up. No one had to know about this.