Work Text:
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Last time Tim checked, the cave was strictly for vigilante business. It was meant for doing important work like analysing dna samples, tracking the location of illegal shipping containers, storing files on dangerous criminals that escaped from Arkham that week. It was even used for providing first aid to said vigilantes who got injured whilst keeping the city safe, used for storing weapons and other items useful — but recently the cave had not been used for any of those purposes mentioned.
This irritated Tim to another level.
God knows when the last time Dick and Jason hasn’t gotten off the ugly brown couch that somehow got down there. The couch looked like it had existed longer than Alfred, it was was lumpy yet extremely soft despite its appearance and Tim was certain that the colour of the couch wasn’t its original colour but rather a result of being sat on so many times. But yeah, there was a fucking couch in the cave that faces the huge batcomputer screen which his older brothers used to play games on even though the manor had multiple flat screens.
Damian used the cave as a barn; he has a literal cow. Tim didn’t even ask how or why but there was also a cow inside the cave and no, it doesn’t have any sort of purpose regarding to vigilante business. It was just a cow. Damian didn’t even want to move her else where because he claimed that Batcow likes it here since it’s nice and cold and that she only likes to graze in the grass occasionally.
Steph and Cass like to go exploring the cave systems and how deep it really was. You would think that there’s no issue in that until Steph would keep loosing things in there such as Tim’s camera or multiple batarangs. Cass was good, she didn’t bother Tim. Duke would constantly pester Tim without even realising, Tim could be knee deep in fixing fragile alien tech when duke would appear out of nowhere breaking the silence to ask Tim something. He didn’t mean for Tim to get distracted but when there was so many things going on in the cave it was easy to forget that someone might actually be doing work in there and they do not want to be distracted.
Bruce for some odd reason didn’t really care. Tim suspected he’s given up. Most of the time when Bruce is in the cave is when Tim is which can be really fucking annoying for Tim. If he needs the screw driver it’s not there. Why? Oh because Bruce is using it.
The desk was big but when Tim and Bruce are both at it, they just can’t share the space because they both need ALOT of it.
Tim’s friends would also occasionally (atleast one a week) would drop by the cave for no particular reason. It’s just that when Bart and Conner did, things would constantly be out of place. Bart puts his grubby hands on everything he sees ans when a guy who moves around almost at the speed of light, it’s hard to track where he could’ve put something down. Conner likes to use the cave as a piercing salon because of the refined kryptonite the bats have kept locked away. Tim keeps telling Conner he can’t just keep piercing his face or his ears every other week but again — the cave was being used as everything other than a work place.
The bottle Tim kept his feelings in was very close to over flowing. Friday night was slow — Surprisingly — which led the bags to wrap up patrol early (well— early for them) so this led to the bats heading back to the cave to chill. Tim had been working on piecing together a puzzle which he suspected led back to the riddler but it was getting really hard to concentrate when all he could hear was the constant “pew pews” coming from the batcomputer or the smell of hay that was Subtle but strong enough to make its presence known.
“Can you turn that shit off!” Tim slammed his fist against the cold table.
“Chill chill chill Timbo.” Jason mimed from his spot.
“No! Don’t tell me to chill! I’m trying to do something important but I can’t concentrate with that irritating background noise!”
“Alright alright. We’ll turn it down.”
Dick did turn down the volume but the game did continue going on and when it got the the boss fight, Jason and Dick were screaming at eachother in panic as both guys had one life left.
“JASON AIM AT THE STOMACH!”
“SHIT I CANT I’M OUT OF AMO”
“YOU BETTER FUCKIN HURRY I CANT HOLD HIM OFF MYSELF!”
“USE THE GRENADE!”
Dick threw the grenade except his aim was so horrible it went to the side and blew up absolutely nothing meaning the beast has no damage done which then resulted in Dixk dying
“RICHARD IM NEVER PLAYING WITH YOU EVEE AGAIN! YOU’RE SO SHIT AT THIS GAME!”
“IT WASN’T MY FAULT THE GRENADE-“
“YES THW FUCK IT WAS-“
Both boys were abruptly cut off by their younger brother who was holding the cord of the computer that was unplugged from the socket. Dick looked at Tim and then the black screen infront of him and before he could even get a word out Tim spoke irritated, “Get the fuck out. Now.”
“Wha-“
“NOW!”
Jason got up reluctantly and this time didn’t argue with his younger brother.
“Jesus! I can’t concentrate with your caveman like yelling that goes beyond 10 decibels! It’s a surprise how the bats haven’t mauled your faces off for being so loud! We have like 5 tvs, can’t you guys play on one of those! Just let me fucking work in peace.”
With that said the boys left and there was no room for argument. Bruce got out of the shower and after changing into some sweats he took a seat at the desk and opened up one of the files that had something to do with Maloney. Tim didn’t bother asking he was too invested in his own thing. He got up to go make himself some coffee because this looked like it would take a while, so he did go and make his coffee. It was the last coffee pod that Tim had put into the machine, there were no other pods for another two days until they had to do on their weekly shop. Tim returned and placed the mug next his right arm and left it there to cool whilst he sat back in his chair to get back to what he was working on, he heard Bruce say something but didn’t pay attention to what exactly he said and so he mindlessly nodded. 5 minutes later he picked his head up from the papers he was nose deep in and reached for the mug and when he picked it up it was light. Strange. He licked it up and brought it to his lips only to get two sips before there was nothing left. Tim put the mug down and turned to his right to gave Bruce.
“Bruce. Did you drink my coffee??”
“Hm? Wasn’t that mine?”
“-uh no. That was my coffee that I made for myself.”
Bruce blinked at him twice before looking back at the case and then feeling a pair of eyes burn holes into him.
“I’m sorry Tim, I’ll go make you another cup.”
“NO!”
“What?” Bruce stared at him confused
“NO YOU CANT GO AND MAKE ME ANOTHER CUP BECAUSE THAT WAS THE LAST COFFEE POD THAT I USED FOR MY CUP OF COFFEE WHICH YOU DRANK!”
“I-“
“OH MY GOD BRUCE JUST PLEASE LEAVE SO I CAN HAVE THE DESK TO MYSELF! I NEED TO FINISH THIS AND I CANT FOCUS!” Tin pleaded.
“Okay. Okay.” Bruce calmly got up and gave Tim a firm shoulder squeeze and left the cave. When he got out and went to the kitchen to search if maybe there was another pod laying around he saw his two eldest.
“Tim kicked you out too?” Dixk asked
“Yeah.” Bruce replied.
“We should go back down there and check on him.”
“I needed to ask Damian something anyways so I’ll come” Jason said.
The three went down to the cave again where Tim was hun he’d over looking worse than the hunchback of Notre Dame. Damian and Steph were looking at this funny cat video on Stephanie’s phone.
“Wait wait, look at this one!” Damian giggled
Steph let out a full belly laugh and fell to her knees clutching her stomach so then dick went over to see it as well because he got FOMO and then he started cackling. Tim’s eye twitches in annoyance. All he wanted was to finish this puzzle off but his family were making one simple thing so difficult.
“That’s it! Everybody out! Now!”
His family all stared at him blankly.
“All you guys do is use the cave as another regular space and you don’t use it for its intended purpose! It’s a work place and you guys use it as a barn or a living room! Just let me fucking work in peace! That’s all I ask of you guys!”
“God Tim, you don’t have to be such a tight ass”
“Yeah where’s your whimsy?”
“I don’t have any fucking whimsy right now because I’m irritated from all you guys!”
“You can’t always work. You have to have a bit of fun.”
“Alright•” Bruce spoke, “let’s all leave Tim alone and give him some space. Come on. Everyone out.”
Within moments all bats were out of the cave and it was just Tim.
There was no yelling or loud laughing or cramped desk. It was so nice Tim was about to cry.
What surprised Tim was how quickly he was able to solve this puzzle, turns out when you don’t have apes screaming your ears off, you can actually get more done. Tim leaned back in his chair and stared hard for a moment before his brother’s words came back to mind, “you have to have a bit of fun.”
All this time they were the ones having fun so it only fair for Tim to utilise the cave in his own way for its not intended purpose.
A sudden burst of energy coursed through Tim’s veins. He dimmed the lights down and plugged the computer back in and went to Spotify to play some music. He jumped out his chair and cleared the space up as the song “I want you back” by the Jackson 5 began playing.
“Oh baby give me one more chance!” He sang along to the song whilst swirling his feet from left to right. He moved his hips and swung his arms until he was prancing and dancing around the cave busting out some moves on his energy high.
Upstairs in Bruce’s bedroom the family contemplated whether they should go down and apologise to Tim now or wait till the morning.
“I’ll check how he’s doing.” Bruce said pulling out his iPad that was connected to a camera in the cave.
“Wait what, you had that?” Jason raises his brows.
“Of course he did. I’m not surprised.” Dick mumbled.
“Its a safety measure. Obviously he has it.” Damian said.
When the iPad switched between all the cameras and landed on the one in the cave all the 4 just looked at the eye brows with different expressions on their faces. They were met with a version of Tim that was completely different than the grumpy one they had left behind an hour ago. Tim had done a complete 180.
“I won’t be able to look him in the face tomorrow.” Damian muttered before just walking out of his fathers room.
“So Ithis is why he was so desperate to get rid of us!” Jason exclaimed with a huff.
“Oh!” Was all Bruce said as he watched his son twirl around along with the music looking happier and much more relaxed.
“It’s pretty funny” dick laughed
Jason then pulled his phone out to record. “Oh man this is perfect blackmail material!”
“Jason!” Bruce grumbled as he swatted Jason’s phone away and turned off the iPad.