Chapter Text
Time Drake was not having a good day. Honestly, he wasn’t sure why he expected any difference, given how his life has been so far. For the past 12 hours he had been awake, he had had the absolute worst luck ever. Well, scratch that, this wasn’t the worst day of his life. That would probably have to be the day Ra’s stole his fucking spleen. Or maybe it was the day he realized his parents weren’t going to love him the way he wanted them to. Anyway, Tim was NOT enjoying this day in particular. And his current situation was really going to challenge his bad day hierarchy list. It had all started to go downhill the moment he woke up.
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Time woke up to the sun shining directly into his eyes. The night before, Bruce had forced him to go to sleep after 48 consecutive hours of being awake and pouring over case notes. He had been working hard to track down the warehouse where Scarecrow was stashing his newest strain of fear toxin. He was this close to tracking down just which building scarecrows goons were using when Bruce put his hand on Tim’s shoulder. Tim almost jumped out of his skin, whipping around to stare at Bruce, eyes wide and bloodshot, the dark bags accentuating how tired he was. Bruce had ordered him straight to bed, and by the look on his face, Tim decided he should probably just give in this time. He had trudged to his room, yawning as he opened his door, before he noticed his curtains moving slightly. He had frowned, thinking he had probably just left it open after another patrol, and pushed the curtains aside to close the gap. However, in his exhaustion, he had forgotten to close the curtains, hence the glaringly bright light shining directly into his eyes.
Tim groaned, sitting up and stretching, hearing his joints pop and feeling his muscles ache. He seriously needed to stop slouching over the BatComputer so much when he was working on cases. Time yawned, looked at the clock, and pulled himself out of bed. After brushing his teeth and getting dressed, he headed downstairs to get breakfast.
Walking into the dining room, Tim paused. The room was, amazingly, pretty full of people. He spotted Cass and Steph leaning together as they ate, watching something on Steph’s phone. Next to them was Duke, who seemed to be showing Dick and Bruce a file he was holding. Jason was holding his fork, still holding a pancake, towards Damian, who was threatening him with a butter knife. Jason was grinning, clearly enjoying riling up the younger Wayne.
Tim couldn’t help but stand at the door for a minute, looking at the happy family. He felt a twinge of sadness and guilt, feeling out of place. He knew he wasn’t a part of the family, not really. He had wedged himself into the vigilante group, determined to give Batman his Robin in his time of grief, and despite the true Robin taking his place, Tim was still there as red Robin. He knew the others were too nice to say anything, but it was obvious that Tim wasn’t needed there anymore. But until he had a solid plan of what to do with himself, he was going to have to stay, despite knowing he was intruding in a family that wasn’t really his.
Shaking his head to clear his thoughts, Tim walked into the room, taking a seat next to Damien, who was on the left of Bruce. Reaching for the plate holding an impressively tall stack of pancakes, Tim hummed a morning greeting. Bruce turned his head, nodded his head in acknowledgement, and cleared his throat. When the others at the table didn’t quiet down, he cleared his throat louder, pointedly. The table fell silent, all heads turning to the head of the table where Bruce sat.
Tim watched as he stood up, looking over them all before speaking.
“As you all know, we’re currently working on finding the location of Scarecrow's newest fear toxin store,” Bruce said, going into his serious Batman tone,”And I’m glad to say that Oracle has tracked down a location, thanks to Tim’s meticulous research.”
Tim felt his face redden when Bruce acknowledged his hard work, but he couldn’t help but smile. Steph, Cass, Jason, and Duke all grinned at him, Duke giving him a thumbs up. Damian turned his head to give Tim a nod, a much better upgrade from being stabbed, Tim thought.
“However,”
All heads turned back to Bruce.
“From what Oracle can see from cameras and informants' statements, this building is suspiciously very heavily guarded. Clearly Scarecrow doesn’t want this place found or destroyed, which means this new toxin is likely to be some serious stuff.”
There were groans heard around the table as Bruce finished speaking. Everyone knew that this new information had just made their jobs even more difficult.
“This was supposed to be an easy patrol.” Jason groaned, stabbing his pancake with more force than the soft breakfast item likely needed.
“Oh please, when are our patrols ever easy?”
Tim looked over at Steph, who was smirking at Jason, her fingers drumming on the table.
Tim couldn’t help but mentally agree with her.
Bruce raised his hands, trying to calm the rowdy group down.
“I know it's inconvenient, but for this patrol mission, I’m going to need all the hands and fists we got.”
Time pushed his pancakes around on his plate, looking over to Bruce when he sat back down. If Batman needed all of Gotham’s Vigilantes, then this warehouse must be holding something very bad, bad enough that whatever is in that toxin needs to be destroyed before it's exposed to the masses.
Finishing his plate and handing it to Alfred with a thank you, Tim headed down to the Batcave.
Obviously, he was not going to be having a relaxing night, or a good sleep for another couple dozen hours. How fun.
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Sitting at the giant computer with a nice hot cup of coffee he had managed to sneak from the kitchen, Tim stretched his fingers out and was about to get to work when he heard a commotion. Spinning around in his chair, he watched as Dick and Bruce came down the stairs of the Batcave, their argument getting louder the closer they got.
“B, I know this is an important mission, but surely we should make a better plan before we charge in right away?” Dick tried to reason, keeping up with Bruce’s quick steps,” I mean, this is fear toxin we’re talking about, and a new strain we know nothing about. Don’t you see how this can go badly?”
Bruce waved his hand, not looking worried at all.
“Dick, we have dealt with fear toxin many times now, everyone knows the protocol. And besides, we need to get this threat dealt with. We cannot let whatever Scarecrow has planned for the public get out to Gotham, and to do that we need to act now.”
Dick still looked like he wanted to argue, but they had already made it to the Batcomputer Tim was still seated at.
Tim jumped up to let Bruce sit, turning to look at Dick with a questioning expression.
Dick sighed, turning to look at the files Bruce was pulling up on the Batcomputer.
“B wants us to go out tonight to deal with the warehouse.”
Tim’s eyebrows shot up, turning to look at Bruce, who was now plotting different spots on a map of a warehouse he had pulled up. Bruce was not usually one to act without a meticulous plan and several contingencies. Whatever had him this worked up must be something nasty. Before Tim could open his mouth to say something, Bruce spun to face him.
“I need you to go to Wayne Industries today,” He raised his hand, silencing Tim before he could complain,”I know, you’re supposed to be on a short break, but I can’t be there today, I need to coordinate with Oracle to plan out our patrol tonight, and there are some shareholders today that scheduled a meeting, and we can’t cancel it again.”
Tim groaned, tilting his head back to look at the ceiling. He normally enjoyed working at WE, but some of the people B had to work with were absolutely insufferable, including his more wealthy shareholders.
“Ok, I can do that,” Tim sighed, turning to head back up to the Manor and change,”But text me if anything important comes up, I want to be able to compare that to my research on the toxin.”
Bruce let out a confirming hn, then turned back to plot points and entryways on the map.
Great, just great, now Tim had to deal with snobby shareholders for the next several hours. What a fantastic day.
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Sitting through a bunch of old people arguing about stocks and tax returns certainly was not something that Tim would consider a fun day activity, but alas, the company was very meticulous in how they did their work. Bruce had made sure when he inherited the company that he threw out any and all corrupt board members and employees. Although he had later instated trustworthy members to help run the company, Bruce still preferred to be very hands on, and this extended to Tim as well.
Don’t get him wrong, Tim loved working at Wayne Enterprising. He enjoyed talking to people about company plans, and he absolutely had a blast doing the research needed before the company agreed to work with other companies. Time would never want anyone to think he didn’t like his job, especially Bruce, the one who trusted him in the first place with such an important job. Tim did find it a little weird, what with the fact that Tim obviously wasn’t going to be here for much longer. He understood that Bruce had needed help with the company. But now that Jason was back, Damian was here, and Bruce was back from the time stream, Tim just wasn’t needed here anymore. Which is why Tim was so confused about why he was still allowed to work at the company. Perhaps Bruce simply wanted his skills for as long as possible, at least until his real sons were able to take on more prominent roles.
Well, Tim thought, Might as well enjoy the opportunity while it lasts.
A loud sigh could be heard from Tim as he stacked the last of the paperwork the shareholders had been arguing about. The meeting had lasted 3 hours because the shareholders couldn’t agree about whether they wanted their shares to increase, or if they wanted to split it into smaller shares instead of having a larger combined share. Tim rubbed his temple, glad he was finally free of the ordeal.
Checking his phone, he noticed he didn’t have any notifications from Bruce. Time frowned, but that probably just meant there was no new information. Heading down the parking garage, Tim hopped into his car and started heading back to the Manor. It was starting to get closer and closer to sundown, and Bruce would want everyone in the Cave to discuss strategies and go out to the warehouse. Tim couldn’t help but feel excited. It had been a while since everyone got to patrol and work together like this. Dick had been in Bludhaven for a while recently due to some trafficking incident, and Jason had been sticking to Crime Alley most nights. Damian was always around, but he had spent a few days at his friend Jon’s house, which pleased Bruce to no end, seeing his son actually do things kids his age would do. Steph and Cass had gone on a small mission across the country, and had only returned a few days ago. Because of this, it had been mostly Batman and Red Robin who graced the night sky of Gotham, and even then Tim had been busy with his finals for his fall semester.
It really had been a while, but with everyone there, the patrol was likely going to be a breeze.
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