Chapter Text
It ended with the seventh try.
Tim had made himself comfortable in the corner booth right at the back. It was pleasantly lit, across from the supply closet door so he wouldn’t be bothered by staff darting in to grab more condiments or eggs or what-not, while still letting him watch the grizzled old chef work her craft on the huge black-top. Best of all, the booth also afforded him a near perfect view of the rest of the diner, which soothed the paranoid part of his brain vigilantism had trained up for over a decade.
That gnawing beast was calmed enough that Tim had actually taken the first sip of his coffee without testing it for substances first. It was a pale brown from the amount of milk and sugar he’d added, but the taste of Marisol’s specific roast (the only coffee on the East Coast Tim would drink black, if forced) lingered underneath, warm and rich and perfect. Tim took another sip.
The plate with his mostly eaten omelet was pushed towards the edge of the table, sitting abandoned. It had been delicious – spinach and peppers, garlic and onions, tomatoes and cheese. He’d been craving bacon and eggs with bright, runny yolks, but those were always a danger now, given his condition. So he’d ordered the omelet on his waitress Tabby’s recommendation and been delighted with the result. It was possible that his meticulous, slow eating had made the meal even better.
As if summoned by the thought, Tabby appeared.
“You done with this, hun?” Tim nodded, and Tabby scooped up the plate, adding it to a frankly impressive stack she already had balanced on one arm. “How was it?”
Tim gave her a beaming smile.
“It was incredible. I think I’ve got a new favourite menu item.”
“Well, happy to help then! You need anything else, hun?”
Tim glanced at the door. It remained irritatingly shut as passersby – some stragglers on an early lunch break, some workers heading in for a mid-shift, some just walking hurriedly home, hoping that Gotham could hold its chaos back long enough for them to get in the door – walked past. None of them even glanced at Abuela’s. His phone hadn’t chimed either. He’d purposefully left it off silent so he’d hear it over his chewing, but it had never chirped. Despite things playing about exactly as he’d predicted, Tim frowned. At least the first few times, there’d been a text – ‘running late’ ‘something came up, I’m sorry! can we try again later in the week?’ – but even those were too much effort to waste on him it seemed.
He turned back to Tabby.
“I’m good,” Tim said, holding up the mug with his pale brown coffee. “Just gonna finish this and head out.”
“You want your check?” Tabby asked as she adjusted her stance. Cutlery clinked against plates as they settled. Something sizzled on the flattop, so fatty and greasy Tim’s mouth watered at the smell. Two booths down, a patron laughed, gesticulating wildly about something to his grinning friend. At the counter, another patron licked their finger and turned the page on The Gotham Gazette, Vicki Vale’s name on the front page byline. A teenager with piercings and acne shoveled home-fries into their face, grabbing a napkin to frantically wipe remnants from the sparse whiskers coming in above their mouth. And standing over him, Tabitha Mikaelson watched him watch the little fragment of the world in front of him, her eyes sharp and maybe seeing what was really going on.
“That’d be great,” Tim said with genuine warmth. Tabby looked at him, something flickering in her eyes. Some internal debate he wasn’t privy to. Tim settle into his seat and waited it out; either Tabby’d let him know, or she wouldn’t.
“You know…” Tabby said after a long moment, “your brother was in here earlier this week.”
Against his will, Tim perked up.
“Oh?” He said, straightening. It wasn’t much of a struggle to keep his tone mild. He thought briefly of the Tim-of-four-years-ago, who would have taken Tabby’s news like a lance to the chest and then curled up around the wound, waiting to bleed out.
Tim found he liked his new reaction more.
“Yeah, he was with Mr. Wayne’s youngest.”
There was the hint of a sneer on Tabby’s face that her professionalism would never allow to come to fruition. It was a pretty common reaction when people talked about Damian, Tim found. They bit back scoffs and sneers when out in public and in private, they’d growl about one thing or another Damian had done to piss off the general populace. There were whole diatribes across social media about him. Dick had ranted on and on about how unfair it was, the few times Tim had gotten to talk to him over the years, but there was nothing anyone could do at that point. People just didn’t like Bruce’s bio son for various reasons. Some were legit, like disliking the way Damian talked to…well, basically anyone that wasn’t his father or Dick. And some were mind-numbingly stupid, like people taking offense to a rich white man having a son with brown skin.
Teenaged Tim would have been celebrating the legit reasons, delighted at the fact that other people saw what he saw in Damian and he wasn’t crazy for not liking the little shit. Twenty-two-year-old Tim could only look at Damian’s unpopularity and feel weary.
“Ah.” Tim swirled his coffee, trying to think of something to say. “Did he, uh…did they enjoy themselves?”
“Well, I don’t think that boy did.” Tabby huffed. “He complained about the plates, the glasses, the seating- you get the picture. And when the food came out-!”
Tabby cut herself off. Tim watched her take a deep breath. Then another. Then another.
He could honestly just picture the scene she was painting: Damian, sitting in one of the booths across from Dick, arms crossed, face pinched in that pouting scowl that could have generously been called endearing on his ten-year-old self. At sixteen, the look gave Damian an air of self-absorption and disdain for the world. Dick would be playing with one of the plastic straws, nattering on about something or another, glaring briefly at every single person who gave Damian’s stink eye back to him.
Unfortunately, Dick was of the opinion that the scowling pout was still cute on Damian and had cooed over it the odd time he and Tim crossed paths on patrol in the past, using a sickly sweet voice that was better reserved for baby animals and very small children. Once upon a time, Tim had incredulously wondered if Dick ever actually looked at Damian, or if he just projected an image he had in his head onto him.
Tim understood the situation far, far better now, and wished he didn’t.
Distantly, he wondered how things were going with Dick’s former social circle. He hadn't heard back from Wally or Cyborg yet, so he might need to reach out to – he pushed the thought away. That was something to look into later.
“I’m sorry to hear that. He’s a bit…fussy, so please don’t take anything he said seriously. The food here’s fantastic,” Tim said once Tabby had gotten herself under control.
“Fussy, there’s a word for it,” she grumbled, more to herself than anything. “That’s kind of you to say, hun. I thought your brother liked it too, but he just sat there and let that boy run his mouth. Refused to rein him in one bit.”
Tim bit the inside of his cheek to keep the bout of manic laughter at bay; that kind of thing never went over well in Gotham.
Dick? Rein in Damian? There’d be a blizzard in Hell first.
“Well, you know.” Tim shrugged. And then, just because he could, “He’s just a kid.”
“He won’t be one for much longer,” Tabby said. “And if he hasn’t learned his manners by then, folks’ll get a lot less kind about the things he says.”
If Gothamites started matching Damian’s energy once he turned eighteen…Tim wasn’t sure he wanted to be around to see that. Maybe it would be best to relocate to the West Coast. Or Europe. Bernard would love to study in Paris or Italy or Spain and Tim could float the excuse of overseeing the WE European branches. They could take wine tours and visit museums without Tim needing to steal things and dip their toes in the Mediterranean while kissing as the setting sun painted the water red and orange and gold-
“Sorry ‘bout that, hun. Forget I said anything,” Tabby said, startling Tim out of the fantasy of making out with his beautiful boyfriend on a beach at sunset. He blinked several times, hoping against hope that he wasn’t sporting the ‘thinking-about-Bernard-heart-eyes’ again. If he was, Tabby didn’t seem to notice.
“I’ll get you that check now, okay?”
Tabby smiled at him and then hurried off, pausing by another table to swipe up a glass. Her tower wobbled as it was added to, but Tabby never broke stride and walked briskly back behind the counter. She shifted her hoard onto an empty patch with the confidence of a seasoned pro and started to load the dishwasher so efficiently Tim couldn’t look away.
If I didn’t know she was a lifer for Abuela’s…Tim thought, imagining the WE cafeteria under Tabby’s strict, no nonsense hand. The turnaround on staggered lunches might actually get done in a decent timeframe. But Tim knew Tabby was loyal to Marisol and no amount of money was going to tempt her away from the woman who’d given her a life off the streets. So instead, he took another swig of cooling coffee and people-watched until Tabby dropped his check on the table with a smile and a little wax paper parcel.
“On me,” she said with a wink and ducked off to refill someone’s water.
Tim poked at the wax paper with his right hand while his left fished out his wallet. A warm, spicy-sweet smell drifted out of the gap. He lifted the paper with a finger and found a small, cinnamon dusted donut, like the kind the diner offered in batches of three, six, and twelve. Marisol’s granddaughter Soledad had come up with the idea around the time Tim was fifteen, and the donuts had put the diner on the map on its side of town.
At the sight of the treat, the little knot in Tim’s chest that had been slowly tightening for the last three hours unlatched. A warm fondness unfurled in its place, a flower turning towards the small sun beating under his ribs. He pulled five 20’s and whatever loose change he had jangling around and tucked both under the check.
“Keep the change,” he called to Tabby on his way out. She waved as she grabbed three plates of food and started distributing them to the patrons sat at the counter, who thanked her profusely before digging in with gusto.
Tim stepped aside to let a couple of girls duck past him, and then left Abuela Marisol’s Diner behind for the blustery, mean streets of Gotham.