Chapter Text
CRACK!
“Aw, man, I just cleaned that!” Robin exclaimed, sending a glare at his attacker, who had oh-so-rudely stricken his Bo staff. Evidently, it was one hit too many, as the wood was now cracked and a few splinters had flown off of it.
He sighed. Just his luck—of course the new late-night ice cream parlor that Dick wanted to drag him to was all the way in Metropolis. Of course it just so happened to be in the neighborhood of a strange building that made the hairs on the back of his neck stand up just from passing it. Of course there just happened to be suspicious-looking people seemingly breaking into said building. And of course Nightwing and Robin can’t ignore possible crime happening under their noses.
“Don’t worry, I’m sure he’ll pay for it.” Nightwing quipped, coming to stand side-by-side with the younger vigilante. He looks the offender in their eyes as well as he can with their face obscured by a dark hood. “You will, right? You can go ahead and make it out to the Batcave, cash, card, check- ooh, or on second thought…”
Robin blinked in surprise as the staff in question was torn out from his grip. “Hey!”
Nightwing responded only with a cheeky grin, and used the staff’s last legs of integrity to launch his lower body upward, planting both feet squarely on the underside of their jaw. “…maybe save that money for your medical bills instead. Ouch!” The vigilante had turned his momentum into a smooth backflip and landed gracefully on his feet—the same cannot be said about the guy he kicked, who most certainly would have been knocked out by the fall if not by the impact itself. Satisfied, Nightwing tossed the remains of the staff (now two pieces, having snapped all the way under his weight) back to it’s rightful owner.
“What the hell, N!” Robin caught the pieces with a huff, staring at the jagged ends. But nonetheless, he carried on, adjusting his stance to better suit two-weapon fighting. He quickly took care of another hooded attacker, landing a solid hit to their midsection with one of his (now) batons and sweeping their legs out from under them. League robes—assassins. Leave nothing open.
No doubt having noticed the same thing, Nightwing drew his escrima sticks, switching their electricity setting to ‘On’. The two worked together like a well-oiled machine, mirroring hit for hit, breath for breath. “First the costume, and now you’re stealing my signature moves, huh kid?” He said in mock offense. “The dual sticks is kinda my thing.”
Robin rolled his eyes under his domino mask. It may be subtle but he knows Nightwing is aware enough to notice.“And whose fault is that?” He frowned, mentally weighing the pieces in his hands. It wasn't horrible, of course—he had done plenty of training with with twin batons, but he was already missing the feeling of a complete battle staff. “Besides, I didn’t steal the suit, I made it better. I wouldn’t be caught dead in your pantsless abomination.”
“They were cut like that for ease of mo-” Nightwing began to retort, but whatever he was going to say was quickly forgotten when the assassins they were currently trading blows with—as well as the others around—abruptly disengaged, turning tail to flee. “Hold that thought. We can talk about why you’re wrong later.” The man in black and blue immediately gave chase, unwilling to let them get away.
Robin, however, stayed in place—despite the other vigilante’s urging calls to “Come on!” . As his companion disappeared around the corner, Robin remained, thinking. Something was fishy here... His brow furrowed in confusion. He had been so sure that those people were wearing League of Assassins robes, but out of the many things the League was known to do, running away sure as hell wasn't one of them. Even if they had accomplished…whatever it is they came here for, it was hard to believe that they would just stop fighting before he or Nightwing (or both) were dead on the ground.
Unless…they hadn’t accomplished it quite yet. They had a goal in mind, and needed to make sure he and Nightwing didn’t get in the way, even on accident. Kneeling beside one of the numerous unconscious bodies on the ground. Robin felt around inside their hood until… A-ha! Gotcha. He pulled out the comm device he'd found, taking a second to blow on it before implanting it into his own ear.
“-way. I repeat, keep the birds away. We can’t risk them finding out.” Came someone’s voice from another end.
He knew there was something! Whatever the League wanted with this building, they were reeeeally worried about being found out. Robin took off in the opposite direction of the hooded assassins, plunging deeper into the empty building. Shortly into the running, he couldn’t help but think that this would be a lot easier if he knew what he was looking for. The rooms all seemed to blur together, as one big load of nothing. Every few minutes, he could hear more talking over the League comm, but nothing that pointed him in the right direction.
“Main line’s compromised. Man down missing a comm. Backup still intact, switch to line B.”
Robin heard a few echoing “Heard”’s pass through the line, until it dissolved into nothing but static. Damn it! He tore the device from his ear and tossed it to the side, deciding to focus on what he can see instead, although he could have sworn he’d already been through this room before… the whole place was practically a maze, despite not being too large all-things considered. But even with the confusing layout, the boy wonder must have made it to every room by now, there had to be something missing—!
As if on cue, he sound of muffled whirring followed by equally-muffled footsteps snapped Robin into alertness. From the volume and sound quality, he’d estimate it was only one or two rooms over. Robin raced towards the source of the noise, hoping to find whatever it is the League didn’t want them “finding out,” but to his dismay, the boy was only met with another empty room. Too late. He was right there, he could hear them, and he was still too late. The young vigilante balled up a fist, falling to his knees in frustration. With a dull Clang! his fist hit the carpet, and—
Wait, “Clang”?
Robin knocked on the floor once, twice more. Underneath the thin muffling of carpet was the unmistakable sound of metal. Of course, there was something underground! How had he not thought of that sooner? He grinned, beginning to look for anything that could trigger a trapdoor or something of the sort, when Nightwing’s voice nearly sent him jumping out of his skin.
“Robin, status update?” Nightwing’s breathing was heavy, clearly having come out of combat with the assassins who were occupying them earlier.
Robin let out a breath, remembering that he hadn’t come here alone. “Unharmed, in an empty portion of the building. No hostiles in sight.” As he spoke, he continued to inspect the floor and rest of the room, to little avail.
He could practically hear the sigh of relief from the other side. “Looks like they cleared out, still don’t know why they were here in the first place.”
Not yet, they didn’t. “I have a lead,” At least, he hoped he did. “investigating it now.”
“Is it breathing?”
Robin cocked his head in confusion, momentarily distracted from what he was doing. “Huh?”
“Is your lead breathing?” Nightwing repeated. So Robin had, in fact, heard him correctly the first time.
“No,” He began to explain. “I found—”
“Then you’re investigating it tomorrow.” The older man’s voice was firm and authoritative. Robin began to open his mouth in protest, but was cut off before he could even begin.“It’s a school night. I still have to drive you back.”
Robin was incredulous, it wasn’t even that late, they had plenty of time to solve this case. After all, it was only—
“1 am!???” He exclaimed in disbelief at the time on his watch. Yeah, they’d been here for a while, but there’s no way it could have taken that long! He rubbed his eyes and checked again. Nope, same time. He still felt fine, but there’s no way Dick would agree.
“Uh-huh, that’s right, kid. Let’s go.”
He sighed. Great, he spent hours chasing a theoretical through an empty building and he had nothing to show for it, not even ice cream.
The duo parked in front of Brentwood Academy at precisely twelve-fifty-eight in the morning, much to his confusion. Last he had checked, the drive was about two hours, not negative two minutes. The young teen even blinked at the clock a few times, just to make sure he was reading the large digital display correctly. He was. Tim looked between his watch—which now had the hour hand nearing the ‘3’—and the smug grin of an unmasked Dick Grayson-Wayne, and rolled his eyes. Timothy Jackson Drake had been tricked into a semi-normal sleep schedule. “Was that really necessary?” He asked, not really interested in the answer.
“Considering you have to be up in about six hours to get ready for your history test, yes. Yes, it was.”
He huffed, resigning for the time being. It’s not like being upset about it will take him back to the building. At least he didn’t have to worry about accidentally waking up his roommate at an ungodly hour tonight.
A soft beep could be heard as the school clock came to read “01:00”
Well, a more ungodly hour.
Luckily, he made it to his bed without incident, but he was greeted with a few unwelcome questions in the morning.
“I’m telling you, I lost track of time last night, that’s all.” Which—to Tim’s credit—was technically true. Okay, maybe not the “that’s all” part, but he had definitely lost track of time last night, no thanks to Dick. The room filled with a pop! as he opened a can of Zesti soda. “I’m okay, I promise.” Again, true! Arguably.
Tim’s roommate paused from pouring his cereal to give him a look. “Just like you ‘lost track of time’ the other day, right? And last week?” The guy was clearly not buying Tim’s ‘I have no idea what you mean’ face. “Timmy, dude, I don’t know how you’ve been getting away with being out after curfew so many times, but eventually someone’s gonna notice.”
“I swear, I’m not out doing anything shady.” Tim assured, deciding that the 'play dumb' ship has sailed. He had been roommates with Marcus for long enough to tell that at this point, he wasn’t going to buy some shoddy excuse.
“I’m from Gotham too, I could care less if you’re going out drinking or doing a ‘job’.” Marcus sighed, picking up his bowl to sit across from where Tim was at their little table. “Do what you gotta do, I get it. Just don’t get yourself expelled, okay, man?” He outstretched a fist.
Tim completed the fist bump and took a sip from his Zesti. “I won’t.”
Marcus seemed…satisfied. At least for now. “Good. Can’t have you getting kicked out on me, especially before tonight.”
“Yeah, yeah, I know—wait, tonight?” Tim facepalmed. Dang it, he completely forgot they had plans after school today. “Right, the movie. Look—”
“Don’t tell me, something came up and you can’t go?” The blond asked, not pausing for confirmation. “Kinda figured.”
Tim bit his lip. He had really wanted to properly check out that building, but… he didn't want to flake again...plus, he should probably fix his staff before going out again... “No, no. Looking forward to it.” He gave Marcus a thumbs up.
Tomorrow. He’d just do his investigation tomorrow.
Robin did not do his investigation tomorrow. Or the day after, for that matter. First it was the movie, then a study group, a Scarecrow attack, a Young Justice meeting, and even getting dragged out to karaoke with his classmates. Eventually, about two weeks after the incident, it wasn’t even on his mind.
It was a Saturday morning, and he was sitting on a couch in Wayne Manor, sipping a Celcius while reading some documents on his tablet. Tim had been greeted by a particularly difficult case when he came to stay over last night, and it had kept him up til morning. It had been like this often, recently; he’d seen long fights, late nights, and friends asking where he’s been. Not to mention making time for both training and studying, while being expected to excel at both. Sometimes he wished that he could let someone else take some of the responsibilities, even if just for a while. Don’t misunderstand—being Robin was wonderful. Despite all of the doubts and hardships, Tim had never once regretted asking to become Batman’s partner. At one point, he had even told Bruce that it felt like being Robin gave him magic, but the older man seemed to have an…averse reaction.
He didn’t say it again after that.
A few feet away from where Tim was in his own thoughts, Dick was typing away on his laptop, presumedly working on some paperwork for the precinct. The two of them existed in a comfortable silence, both barely acknowledging the other's presence but appreciating it nonetheless. This had been going on for a while, Dick occasionally pausing his work to take a sip of coffee, when they were both alerted by the sound of the front doorbell.
“I'll get it.” Dick stood to his feet, mug still in hand.
Tim gave him a simple nod of appreciation, then turned back to his case files, which were beginning to blur together. He pinched the bridge of his nose in exhaustion. Maybe a break wouldn’t be such a bad idea. The raven haired boy closed his eyes, and instead focused on his other senses—the feel of leather cushions, the smell of his drink sitting in front of him on the coffee table, the sound of footsteps echoing from outside the room. The front door wasn't visible from here, but it was close enough that he could still hear, albeit barely, Dick’s steps come to a halt, as well as the subtle turn of a latch and squeal of old hinges. It was close enough that Tim could hear the less subtle crash of ceramic shattering upon tile, almost immediately after the door had been opened, and it was close enough that the silence that followed spoke volumes.
It didn’t take long for Tim to reach the front door himself, not sure of what he would see. It couldn’t be attackers, the sound of Dick Grayson fighting someone off would be hard to miss. Likewise, a friend coming to visit would be filling the air with warm greetings.
It’s a good thing Tim hadn’t brought his drink with him, otherwise the half-full can would have landed on the ground alongside the broken shards of Dick’s coffee mug. He stared in full disbelief at the scene before him, questions upon questions filling his head. The door had been left wide open, and Dick himself was out on the doorstep, arms wrapped around a smaller figure. The other person’s face was partly obscured—Tim could really only see his eyes and nose peeking out from above Dick’s shoulder, but even so, it was unmistakable. Tim knew that face. It was the same one he had looked up to for years, the same one that he had photographed over, and over, and over again.
“Dick…you're…crushing me” God, even his voice—
“Sorry—! Sorry.” Dick released the boy from his hold, checking to make sure he was okay. As he did so, it gave Tim an unobstructed view, confirming what Tim had already known; standing before him, looking healthy as a nail, was Jason Todd.