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Tim stares at the clock, ticking in a rhythmic pattern as time passes in a blur. The sound grates on Tim’s senses, the punding behind his skull getting worse with every new sound.
“I believe that this is the best course of action–” one board member defends, but another cuts him off.
“And it has been proven to not work over and over again. All it will do is cause the company more damage and we’ll lose stocks over it!” The second man complains. Tim doesn’t remember what they’re talking about, having zoned out mere minutes after the meeting started. His head has been bothering him all day, but it got worse right before he had to leave for the meeting. He had asked for the lights to be turned off– or at least half of them– but his request was denied, his only saving grace being the clouds covering the sun to prevent its rays from streaming through the floor to ceiling windows. Tim sighs.
“Why don’t we just run the optics on Mr. Jenson’s plan, and if the outcome looks bad, we’ll reconvene, how does that sound?” Tim offers tiredly. Mr. Jenson looks pleased at this, and the other man looks annoyed, but Tim has the final say, so the other man (smartly) shuts up. Clouds drift by on the horizon, in tune with the clicking of the clock, telling the room about the minutes that are passing with little progress on the to-do list that Tim wrote for the meeting. Tim looks at the third item on the list. “Now, we have to talk about the warehouse that fell over near the docks. It was one of the larger producers of emergency supplies, but during the shootout between the Morano’s and Black Mask’ gang, the factory got raided. We’ll need to temporarily move production to the factory in Central and 5th, since they rebuilt the factory to be larger-scale. We have to figure out how we want to rebuild the factory.” Tim pulls out a paper from his bonder, resisting a flinch at the sound of everyone following suit.
“Why don’t we just use the same floor plan?” One of the people on the opposite side of the table speaks up.
“The layout was inconvenient and it posed several safety hazards and we want it to be safe for our workers.” Tim recites his practiced line. The clouds in the sky begin to recede and Tim barely bites back a whine as the light from the sun hits his face, bringing his hands up to cover his face and try to ward of the oncoming migraine. His head falls to the table with a thud and, miraculously, the room goes silent. The shade provided by the table does little to sooth the headache that pushes against Tim’s skull, but it’s better than nothing.
“Mr. Drake-Wayne, are you alright?” One of the members– Tim can’t recognize the voice and, frankly doesn’t care to– asks after a moment, hesitant. Tim hums, both annoyed and not annoyed. Really, it’s an indecipherable hum, but Tim relents. He lifts his head for a moment, the sun still to painful to bear, so he puts his head back down, a lot more calm this time. After a moment, the fluorescent, overhead lights dim and the pressure on Tim’s head finally dulls. When he looks up, half of the board is standing around him and the light from the sun is exponentially more manageable. Tim gives them all a weird look.
“I have a migraine, I’m not dying, there’s no reason for so much concern.” Tim remarks dully, turning his attention back to his papers with confusion. He doesn’t think that him falling head first onto the table was that big of a deal, and he clearly thinks that everyone else is overreacting. Or they have never had a migraine before, it could be either, really.
They begin to go through the list much quicker, everyone agreeing on matters much easier than before, confusing Tim, but he doesn’t want to look a gift horse in its mouth, so he continues on as before. Right as they near the second-to-last item on the list, though, the door bursts open and Jason stomps into the room angrily, his eyes trained on Tim with green flashing in them. Tim nearly hisses when Jason turns the lights on, the latter not caring about (or even really processing) Tim’s reaction. The rest of the attendees of the meeting look at Jason with a mix of fear and confusion at the outburst.
“Delete it.” Jason demands, Tim blinking up at him, his head pounding against his skull painfully, cluelessness leaking into his expression the longer that Jason stares at him.
“No.” Tim finally responds, despite not knowing what Jason is talking about. Jason slams his hand onto the table, Tim flinching from the sound but overall looking unamused. After all, Jason has done a lot worse to him, plus, he knows that Jason won’t hurt him anymore. Or, at least, he hopes so.
“You,” Jason laughs manically, his eyes drifting along the walls and ceiling, “you will delete that photo, because Dickface told me that you had it, and you will not keep it on one of your 50 different backup drives, because you will not use it as blackmail. Do you understand?” Jason asks, his words short and with an irritated edge. Tim hums, his brain too foggy and tired to register what Jason is talking about.
“Yeah, I could, or I could use it against you. I don’t know, both sides are tempting,” Tim smirks up at Jason lazily. Jason all but growls at Tim’s response.
“That is not fair. I’d do the same for you!” Jason tries, but Tim snorts, clutching his head when the sound makes the pain worse.
“Yeah right. You’d hang it over my head for months.” Tim shoots back. Jason opens his mouth, about to say something, but closes it before any words come out, clearly understanding that he’s at a loss, throwing his hands up, irritated.
“Fine. Fine.” He grits out, stomping back out of the room and leaving everyone (including Tim) absolutely baffled. Tim nods slowly, trying to get his head back on straight, before turning to the rest of the people in the room.
“So, let’s get back to it, yeah?” Tim tries to re-rail the meeting, but Mr. Jenson interrupts him.
“What photo did you take of him?” He blurts out, clearly embarrassed by his outburst but curious nonetheless. Tim sighs.
“I’m gonna be completely honest, I have no clue.” Tim replies, ignoring all the other confused noises that people let out, forcing them to get back on track.
(When he looks through his camera roll that night, he stumbles upon a picture. A very embarrassing picture of Jason, specifically, Jason leaning against Bruce’s chest, sound asleep with a peaceful look resting over his face. Bruce looks delighted, fondness in his smile as he looks proudly down at his son. Tim smirks. He will definitely be using this against Jason in the future. He also backs it up to 16 (out of his 28! he does not have thirty) of his contingency USB’s. Jason is never living this down.)