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The penthouse was quiet.
Not the hollow silence of abandonment, but the contained quiet of a space designed for one person who preferred it that way. The AI systems hummed imperceptibly beneath the walls. The city lights bled through floor-to-ceiling windows, casting soft amber rectangles across polished concrete floors. Somewhere in the building's infrastructure, Endgame processed overnight data streams, but Bianca had muted its notifications three hours ago.
She sat cross-legged on a low-backed sofa, more of a lounge platform than actual furniture, upholstered in charcoal grey that swallowed light, and held a ceramic mug in both hands. The coffee inside had gone tepid ten minutes ago. She drank it anyway.
At 11 PM.
Because I want to, she told herself, which was a lie she allowed because no one was here to fact-check it.
Her sleepwear was... not what she would have chosen for company.
The black lace chemise had been a gift—gift being a generous word for something Tim had left on her pillow three weeks ago with no note, no explanation, and what she suspected was deliberate avoidance of eye contact the next morning. It was sheer in ways that served no practical purpose. The polka dot pattern beneath was visible, for god's sake. A satin ribbon sat at her sternum like a bow on something meant to be unwrapped.
She wore it because it was comfortable.
She wore it because no one was supposed to see her wearing it.
She wore it because—
"Bianca!"
The voice cut through the apartment's climate-controlled stillness like a blade through silk.
Bianca choked.
Coffee went down—the wrong pipe, the wrong everything, and she was coughing, sputtering, one hand slamming the mug onto the nearest surface (a side table, good, she hadn't just baptized the floor) while the other pressed against her chest as if that would help.
Through watering eyes, she watched Tim Drake materialize from her hallway like a particularly exhausted ghost.
No—not the hallway. The window. He'd come through the window. Of course he had. Because doors were for people who hadn't spent their adolescence scaling rooftops in a traffic-light costume.
He was still in his suit—the red and black one, not the old Robin colors, and he looked rough. Hair disheveled, domino mask pushed up onto his forehead like an afterthought, dark circles under his eyes that rivaled anything Bianca had ever worn in her stray days. There was something like ash on his collar. Something like someone else's blood on his knuckles.
But he was grinning.
"Guess who's back from jail," he announced, and then he was behind her—when had he crossed the room?—and his arms wrapped around her from behind, pulling her against his chest with the kind of casual possessiveness that said I'm not asking permission, but also I know you'll let me.
Bianca stared at the window he'd left open.
A draft curled through the apartment, catching the lace of her chemise.
"...Tim."
"Missed you too."
His chin dropped onto her shoulder. She could feel his heartbeat through the kevlar—fast, post-adrenaline, but slowing now. Regulating. He smelled like smoke and Gotham alleyways and something metallic underneath.
"You're wearing it," he said.
Bianca closed her eyes.
"The chemise." There was delight in his voice. Actual, unhidden delight. "You're wearing the chemise. The one I—"
"I know which chemise."
"You're wearing it."
"I'm aware."
"At eleven PM. Drinking coffee."
"It's a beverage, Tim. People consume them."
"At eleven PM." He pressed his face into the curve of her neck. His voice came out muffled, warm, unbearably fond. "You're such a disaster."
She was the disaster.
She was sitting in her safehouse apartment, her secured, unlisted, should-be-inaccessible safehouse apartment, wearing sheer lingerie, drinking coffee at an unreasonable hour, while her boyfriend hugged her from behind in a blood-stained tactical suit because he'd just broken someone out of jail.
Bianca exhaled through her nose.
"Get changed, Tim."
She didn't push him away.
That was the thing about control: she chose when to hold and when to release. And right now, with his weight warm against her back and his breathing slowly, incrementally syncing with hers—
She chose to stay.
"You broke Barbara out of jail."
"I didn't break her out. We extracted her."
"That's the same thing."
"It's really not."
Bianca had relocated to the kitchen island, partially because she wanted distance from the window Tim had left cracked open like a heathen, and partially because the counter stool let her pull her knees up in a way that made the chemise slightly less... everything.
Tim had changed.
He was wearing sweatpants now, grey, soft-looking, probably stolen from her drawer, and a black henley that he'd left unbuttoned at the collar because he knew exactly what that did to her. His domino mask was gone, folded somewhere in his utility belt. His hair was still a disaster, but a clean disaster now, damp at the edges where he'd splashed water on his face.
He was also making himself a sandwich at 11:15 PM, which Bianca supposed was fair given the coffee situation.
"I need context," she said.
"I need you to stop looking at me like that."
"Like what?"
"Like you're calculating my probability of survival."
Bianca tilted her head. "I'm always calculating your probability of survival. That's not a look. That's baseline."
Tim paused, mayonnaise knife in hand, and gave her a look that was equal parts exasperated and God, I love you.
"Barbara let herself get arrested," he said finally. "It was tactical. Savage has been using the Supermax to lock up political targets—people who can't just disappear, but who he needs out of the way. Judges. Journalists. Whistleblowers. Babs' dad had friends in there."
Bianca's expression didn't change, but her eyes sharpened. "She infiltrated."
"Deliberately. She let the GCPD find her, let them pin her as an accessory to the Bat-Family's 'crimes,' got convicted on trumped-up charges, and walked straight into the facility we couldn't breach from the outside." Tim shook his head, something between admiration and exhaustion crossing his face. "The arrest was the entry point."
"So the breakout was..."
"Planned from the beginning. Dad was running the legal side as a distraction—paperwork, appeals, the whole show to keep eyes on the courts. Meanwhile, the rest of us handled extraction."
"You handled extraction."
Tim smiled, small and sharp. "I picked the lock on her cell. She'd been waiting for forty-eight hours. Had the whole layout memorized. Knew every guard rotation, every camera blind spot, every locked door between her and the exit."
"And she just... sat there?"
"She brought a book."
Bianca stared at him.
"A book."
"Hardcover. Something dense. She looked offended when we showed up, like we were interrupting her reading time."
For a long moment, Bianca said nothing. Then her mouth twitched—not quite a smile, but close.
"That's terrifying," she said.
"That's Barbara."
"So you broke her out."
"We extracted her."
"Tim."
"Strategically liberated her from temporary state custody."
Bianca stared at him.
He stared back, unblinking.
"...How many Batfamily members were involved?"
"All of them."
"All of them?"
"Dick was on comms. Jason created a distraction. Cass disabled the cameras. Steph ran interference with the guards. Damian insisted on participating and then complained the entire time about 'suboptimal extraction protocols.' Duke handled the escape vehicle. Babs walked out the front door with her hands in her pockets and a smile that should be illegal."
"And you?"
Tim set the knife down. Turned to face her fully. Leaned against the counter with his arms crossed in a way that was definitely intentional.
"I was the one who picked the lock on her cell."
"Her cell."
"It was a holding room. Very dramatic terminology, Bianca, please keep up."
Bianca took a slow sip of her coffee—she'd microwaved it, because she had standards, sort of, and considered the man in front of her.
Tim Drake was, objectively, a mess.
He was also brilliant. Strategic. Capable of planning seventeen moves ahead while appearing to improvise. He'd rebuilt himself the way she had: from fragments, from necessity, from the understanding that control was the only thing standing between survival and chaos.
He'd also bought her lingerie.
She was still processing that.
"I'm surprised you came here," she said.
"Why?"
"Because you're supposed to be laying low. Breaking someone out of jail tends to attract attention."
"Babs is back at the Clocktower. Dad's running interference with the Commissioner after handling the legal side and paperwork. Everyone else scattered to their own bolt-holes." Tim pushed off the counter, crossed the kitchen in three strides, and settled onto the stool beside her. Close enough that his knee pressed against her thigh. "This is my bolt-hole."
"It's my penthouse."
"Our penthouse."
"Tim."
"You let me have a drawer."
"I let you have part of a drawer."
"The top half."
"Which is the smaller half."
"Quality over quantity, Bianca."
She should argue. She wanted to argue—not because she disagreed, but because the ease of this, the normalcy of it, still felt like something she hadn't earned. Like a trap dressed up as comfort.
But Tim was already reaching for her mug, stealing it from her hands, taking a sip of her coffee without asking. His lips touched the rim exactly where hers had been.
He did that on purpose.
She knew he did that on purpose.
"I missed you," he said quietly. Not a confession—just a statement of fact. Like he was telling her the weather. "The mission ran long. I was in Bludhaven for three days before the jailbreak thing. Couldn't call."
"I know."
"Endgame told you."
"Endgame told me you were alive. That was sufficient."
Tim set the mug down. Turned on his stool to face her fully. His hand found her knee—not wandering, not suggestive, just present. Warm. Grounding.
"You're wearing the chemise," he said again.
"You're wearing my sweatpants."
"They're comfortable."
"They're mine."
"Ours."
"That's not—"
"It's legally ambiguous."
Bianca laughed.
It was small. Barely a breath, barely a sound—but it was real. She felt it catch in her throat, felt her shoulders loosen, felt something in her chest unlock that she hadn't consciously locked in the first place.
Tim smiled like he'd won something.
"Don't," she warned.
"Don't what?"
"Don't look pleased with yourself."
"I'm always pleased with myself. It's one of my best qualities."
"Your best quality is that you know when to stop talking."
"I'm going to ignore that and kiss you now."
"You haven't brushed your teeth since the jailbreak."
"Strategic—"
"Don't."
He kissed her anyway.
She let him.
---
Later...
Much later, after the sandwich was eaten and the coffee was abandoned and Tim had been firmly directed toward the bathroom for a proper shower—Bianca stood by the window he'd left open.
The city breathed below her. Distant sirens, closer traffic, the hum of a world that didn't know it was being watched by someone who'd once picked through its trash for survival.
She closed the window.
Locked it.
Engaged the secondary seal.
Tim's voice drifted from the bathroom—something off-key, probably a song he'd heard on the radio three months ago and refused to forget. Water running. The sound of someone who felt safe.
Bianca pressed her palm against the cool glass.
Control, she reminded herself. Choose this. Choose him.
Not because she needed to.
Because she wanted to.
And that was the difference, wasn't it? Between the stray who'd died in Gotham's gutter and the woman standing here now. Between survival and living.
She turned away from the window.
The chemise rustled as she walked—lace against lace, a whisper of something delicate in a world that had never offered her gentleness. She'd worn it tonight because it was comfortable. Because no one was supposed to see.
But Tim had seen.
Tim always saw.
And instead of flinching, instead of weaponizing, instead of doing any of the things she'd trained herself to expect—
He'd hugged her from behind.
He'd stolen her coffee.
He'd kissed her with unbrushed teeth and post-mission exhaustion and the kind of certainty that made her want to check for traps.
Bianca stopped outside the bathroom door.
Water still running. Tim still singing—worse, now, like he knew she was listening.
She knocked once. Twice.
The singing stopped.
"Yeah?"
"Brush your teeth."
"Bianca—"
"I'm not kissing you again until you brush your teeth."
A pause.
Then: "...What if I brushed them and used mouthwash?"
"That's the bare minimum."
"What if I brushed them, used mouthwash, and admitted that the chemise was a strategic purchase designed to short-circuit your critical thinking skills?"
Bianca leaned her forehead against the doorframe.
"You're an idiot."
"You're still wearing it."
She looked down.
Black lace. Sheer panels. Polka dots, for god's sake. A satin ribbon tied at her sternum like a bow on something meant to be unwrapped.
...He wasn't wrong.
"I'm going to bed," she said.
"You're going to our bed?"
"I'm going to my bed. You're welcome to join if you've brushed your teeth."
The water shut off.
The door opened.
Tim stood there—damp-haired, barefoot, wearing nothing but a towel and an expression of such naked happiness that Bianca almost looked away.
"Brushed," he said.
"Mouthwash?"
"Swished and spit."
"Did you floss?"
"Don't push it."
He kissed her again, minty and warm and alive, and Bianca let herself be pulled toward the bedroom—toward sheets she'd chosen, a bed she'd bought, a life she'd built—with the quiet understanding that some variables couldn't be controlled.
Some variables just showed up at your window at 11 PM, stole your coffee, and stayed.
---
Endgame System Log - 23:17 EST
Subject: Drake, Timothy Jackson
Status: On-site. Unharmed. Elevated heart rate decreasing to baseline.
Note: Primary user's sleep schedule remains suboptimal. Coffee consumption at 23:00 inconsistent with recommended health parameters.
Secondary note: Chemise logged as "gift from DRAKE, T.J." Probability of removal before 02:00: 87.3%.
Tertiary note: Smiling detected. Primary user smiling detected. Logging for archive.
End of transmission.
---