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Gotham at night is really stunning. In a macabre, horrifying way. Duke is kind of glad he sticks to the day patrol most times; Gotham in the day time doesn’t strike quite the amount of instinctual fear.
The only reason he’s here is because Stephanie couldn’t be— college, man, and Duke is so glad he doesn’t have to deal with that— and everyone else was busy.
Duke doesn’t make a habit of looking back on the past, meta abilities aside. Regret makes an enemy of everyone it possibly can and, in Tim’s words, Bruce is enough of an example to deal with pain in as healthy a manner as possible. Despite Tim being the one to say that, Duke thinks it’s a pretty solid statement.
That being said, Duke is really regretting the life choices that led him to this exact moment.
“Troooooy,” Tim slurs, pitching over Duke’s shoulder to plant a bug on a woman’s purse, arms flopping in the approximation of a drunken man to disguise it. “Don’ wanna go home.”
“We have to, Bryce.” Duke replies, his stiffness easy to construe as exasperation. “You’re drunk as hell.”
“But i’s no’ even two yet.” Tim pouts, slumping back on Duke’s arm like his trying to pull a Dick Grayson impression of spine disrespect. Another bug planted.
It’s currently twelve forty eight. Must be code then. Duke glances at Tim in askance. Tim points to the ceiling, giggling. In the reflection of the high windows, Duke can see bouncers guarding the coded door they were watching. Someone important must have slipped in.
Two? Two minutes. Hoo boy.
Ghost Vision pulls oddly at his eyes and insides, and he can see the seven digit code a skinny, suited man puts in. Seeing as the code only changes every week, Duke and Tim’s job is done for the night. Batman instructed only surveillance before meeting on strategy and what the bugs picked up.
Duke moves further towards the door. The bouncer stops him.
“Leaving before the party really starts?” His grin is not friendly. It’s down right scrutinizing. “Why the rush?”
Shit, the bouncers were probably instructed not to let anyone leave while the boss was still in. If Duke and Tim retreat back into the crowd, that’ll give the bouncer time to clock them, and Tim and Duke may just find some unsavory types on their tail after they leave. Or the door code being changed.
Duke tries his best to grin back, channeling his inner naivety. That he hasn’t had since before the Riddler cut city power. Shit.
“Sorry, man, but my friend here is piss drunk. Like, he might barf in the next two minutes. Gotta get him home.”
Duke shrugs, all ‘you know how it is’. The bouncer frowns as though he very much does know how it is.
“He looks alright,” the bouncer replies, not even sounding convinced himself. “You both should enjoy the party a little longer.”
“Nah, I really got to get him home. Or it’ll be my car he’s puking all over.”
Abruptly, Tim starts shaking with sobs. Like, full on blubbering with snot and tears streaming down his face.
“Troy,” he wails, “My fish are dying! I didn’ feed them ‘fore I left and now they’re dying!”
Duke has never been to Tim’s apartment and therefore can not accurately judge whether this is Tim’s true reaction to the thought of his fish dying or Tim’s magnum opus in acting. He chooses to treat it as the latter.
Duke pats him on the back while giving the bouncer the most imploring look he possibly can. The bouncer looks hesitant still, but that is quickly cleared up by another wave of Tim’s tears.
“Fine. Have a… nice night.”
Duke smiles gratefully and ducks past the bouncer, dragging Tim with him.
They move slowly to the car, partly because someone might still be watching and partly because Tim is still sobbing as loudly as possible. He slumps tiredly in the passenger seat and Duke takes the wheel. He drives back to Tim’s apartment, the one with his own personal Batcave in it.
Tim, overachiever that he is, does not quit the act until they are behind his Oracle protected home base and the door is locked behind them.
“That’s… that was some really good acting, Tim,” Duke says awkwardly.
“Thanks.” Tim replies, scrubbing his face of any wayward tears.
“How’d you cry so easily?” Duke asks, still entirely too awkward because no matter what Steph says, Duke still thinks Tim is kinda cool in a weird way. A really weird way.
“Oh, I classically conditioned myself over winter break when I was eleven. All I have to do to tear up is pinch a certain point on my arm. See?” Tim viciously pinches a spot on his inner forearm. Immediately tears start to well in his eyes. “People get uncomfortable and distracted when a child cries, so it was a useful skill to have. People get even more wildly uncomfortable now that I’ve grown up.” Tim wipes his eyes once more before sort of smiling at Duke. “It’s kinda funny.”
Well now Duke is wildly uncomfortable.
“How did you do that?” He can’t help it. He’s had to know now.
Tim flaps his hand dismissively. “Oh, like two dozen onions. I’d pinch myself and then rub my eyes with onion juice. It didn’t really work, so I upped the ante and got a bunch of peppers to do it.” Tim nods, looking oddly proud and appreciative. “It really helped with social events and now it helps even more with undercover operations.”
“Uhhh,” Duke offers. There’s nothing he can really say to that. “Yeah. Comes in handy.”
Tim gives him a grin before moving off to the showers, beckoning Duke to follow him.
They actually have a bit of a movie night afterwards. It was fun. Tim has either way too many opinions or none. Duke will narrow down the categories he has too many opinions on if it’s his final task on this Earth. The movie nights going forward will be glorious.
_____
“Don’t ever ask Tim anything you don’t want to know the answer to,” Dick says, his dimples disappearing under the sheer weight of his severity. He shakes Duke’s shoulders just slightly for emphasis. “Chances are he won’t answer you, especially if he knows that his answer isn’t socially acceptable. But there’s still a chance he’ll actually answer you and you’ll regret asking but you have to keep it together and not show him your regret unless you want him to never mention anything like what you asked about in your presence again. Tim’s like a weird little tube baby. No, he’s actually weirder than his literal tube baby friend. He knows what’s normal and what isn’t in an abstract, doesn’t-apply-to-me kind of way. He’ll tell you weird, concerning shit about his perspective of life and walk away because it’s just another Tuesday to him. It’s not. Never let him catch on that he’s as neurotic and bad as Bruce, because then Damian and Cass will notice and it’ll all be down hill from there. And he’ll get upset and never talk to me about the places his strange little head goes and then where will I be? Listening to Tim is better than any acid trip and he’s my baby brother and if you make him sad about his strange little head I will make your middle child life terrible.”
“Oh,” Duke replies rather eloquently, his shoulders stiff with how tense they are. “Is this about how he Pavlov’ed himself into crying when he pinches his arm? When he was eleven?”
“He told you about that?” Dick wails. “He only told me that! That means I have to take a big brother point away from myself! Shit!”
“No, not really,” Duke says, rubbing the back of his neck. “He told you first, and you didn’t react weird, so he’s comfortable enough to share with others now. Right?”
Dick’s dimples we’re back full force. “You’re right! I should add a point for that, actually.”
“You keep score?”
“No,” Dick says, dimples gone once more, “but Jason does and I have to make sure the board is accurate.”
That just sounds like Jason has successfully provoked Dick into keeping score, but whatever Dick wants to believe, Duke will let him believe. However…
“Don’t you have the inherent advantage of zero murder attempts on younger brothers?”
The hands were back on his shoulders. Funny, Duke hadn’t noticed they’d left.
“You would think so,” Dick says gravely. “You would think so.”
_____
“So I almost crashed into a fire hydrant because of them, and I can’t even get mad ‘cause this one kid was in the middle of a sick kick flip.” Alfred’s post-patrol snacks are to die for. Duke shoves more and more into his mouth. It’s four in the afternoon and he is still keyed up from an uneventful patrol. For Gotham’s standards. “God, I wish I could do a kick flip like her.”
Tim leans forward, suddenly and kind of violently, staring at Duke with intensity he doesn’t feel his post-patrol rant had warranted.
“I can kick flip. I could teach you, if you want.”
“Really?” Duke tips his head back to rest on the top of his comfy armchair, thinking. “Oh yeah. You were the Robin with the skateboard. Man, you were cool as shit. Every kid in my foster home wanted to meet you.”
Tim’s face went a concerning shade of pink. “Uh, yeah. I learned how so I could take down a skating gang when I was like fourteen. It was honestly awesome, so I made my Redboard.” Tim smiles fondly at the memory of it. “It was the best thing ever. Super high tech stuff. It could go seventy miles an hour.”
Damn, and Bruce just let that happen? Although, when one truly thinks about it, Bruce probably didn’t let Tim as Robin do stuff so much as he reacted to Tim as Robin doing stuff.
Duke whistled. “How long did it take you to learn?”
“I skipped school for a week to practice for hours. It’s been a bit, but I’m still pretty good at it.”
Duke’s head whipped up. “You learned in a week?”
“Uh huh. Nearly broke my collarbone, but it was worth it.”
Glossing over the fact that Tim could skip school for a week to strategize for a one man gang war, Duke seriously considered Tim’s offer. On the one hand, Tim was probably a skating prodigy that never had any real troubles with skateboarding and therefore would not be able to teach Duke. But in the other, Duke hasn’t gotten to hang out with Tim in a while.
“Yeah. Do you still have a skateboard we could use?”
Tim scrambled up from his seat, beaming. “Yeah. Let me get all of my gear.”
Duke trailed after him.
Tim was actually a pretty good teacher, all things considered.
_____
The Gotham sun is sweltering; it’s almost enough to make Duke miss the biting cold of winter.
It certainly doesn’t help that Duke is crammed into reflective bleachers next to Dick and Tim. Body heat is a rather big hinderance to Duke’s internal cooling system.
He’s trying to be into the game the way Dick and Jason are, but he just isn’t. Neither are Tim or Damian, but none of them wanted to begrudge Dick or Jason their little ballgame.
“Man, I’m tired of baseball.” Tim sighs, slumping down in his seat. Damian huffs next to him, but doesn’t snap at him. He’s trying to a sketch the wind up of the Gotham Knight’s pitcher before he throws and having mild difficulty. Watching him draw is a lot more interesting than the game, but Duke knows better than to stare.
“Do they take you to games a lot?” Duke asks. He’s never been to a baseball game before and mostly agree to come because of the novelty. Damian and Tim came because they hate feeling excluded.
“Nah. I don’t usually come. I just hate the game.”
“Any reason?” Duke asks, hoping for one of Tim’s highly interesting tangents on very specific portions of baseball. Talking to Tim is fun, much more fun than watching the Knights get curb stomped while Dick and Jason yell about it. Maybe Steph was right to reject the invite. Maybe he should have stayed home with Cass while she bullied Bruce into listening to her new favorite metal band. It’s not Duke’s favorite genre, but at least he would be in the AC inside an actual manor
Tim idly tracks the progress of Damian’s drawing, eyes flicking to it in a pattern of twenty-two, thirty, and nineteen seconds. Likely so he can either backhandedly compliment it upon its completion or snidely mention something Damian missed, forcing Damian to valiantly defend his work. Tim seems to enjoy riling Damian up more and more lately. It gets bad for Duke’s heart.
“Well, this one time I had to play baseball for an entire galaxy of life.”
Duke blinks rapidly, trying to clear space on the shelf of his mind to process that thought. “Elaborate? Please?”
“This alien race was trying to eradicate multiple planets during my spontaneous space trips days during Young Justice.” Tim looks entirely too wistful. He probably hasn’t gotten his Bart, Kon, or Cassie quota of the month. That’s… kind of scary to think about. “And I, the team leader, come up with the brilliant plan to fight it out with baseball. The game makes me panic, especially if one team is losing by too much. Makes me all high strung.”
The Gotham Knights are down twenty points. They’re getting their asses kicked completely and entirely, and have been for the past forty minutes.
Obviously coming to the same conclusion, Damian looks up, a hard scowl on his face. “Then why the hell would you come along, Drake?”
The ‘you idiot’ is unspoken but heavily implied. Duke is entirely too understanding of what Damian feels.
Tim shrugs. “I like you guys.”
Well now the center of Duke’s chest is both tense with concern and gooey with warmth. Damian looks much the same. Someone needs to change the subject before Damian stabs his sketching pencil into Tim’s neck to avoid the embarrassment of feeling things.
Duke hums, desperate to divert Tim’s attention so he can tug Dick down and whisper frantically. “We like you too, Tim. Hey, Damian, the shoulders and head are a bit disproportionate. Maybe take another look?”
Scenting the blood Duke carefully spilled into the water, Tim immediately leans over to harangue Damian about proper human anatomy while Damian glares at Duke, retribution promised in his eyes. Duke smiles apologetically before yanking Dick’s t-shirt sleeve none too gently to murmur in his ear.
“Baseball gives Tim severe anxiety and he didn’t tell anyone about it.”
Dick’s face goes tight and he instantly murmurs something in Jason’s ear like some sort of demented game of telephone. Jason curses, quietly at first, then louder.
“Get off your asses, I’m done with this bullshit game.” Jason’s boots on the bleachers are almost louder than him, but Duke is appreciating his promptness over anything else.
Tim stands up without protest, and now that he’s standing Duke can see how his legs minutely shake before he locks his knees into place. Really, Tim’s hands can be too steady for his own good. If the temperature weren’t so high, Duke thinks that Tim would be pale instead of flushed.
With Jason leading the way and Tim close behind, it’s easy to fall into step with Damian, Dick holding up the rear.
Ah. Family outings.
_____
There are two key factors to Tim Drake and his relationships, Duke realizes, and they contradict Tim’s personality in… fascinating ways.
The first way is his persistent personal goal of being as honest as possible. It doesn’t always work out because Tim also makes a point not to tell anyone anything he thinks will upset them, make them mad at him, or— worst of all— make them worry about him. Resulting in a wild game of twenty questions, with Tim replying in honest half-answers because he’d rather not say the truth outright but he also really doesn’t want to lie. Unfortunately, Tim is really good at talking in circles and dodging meaningful conversations, so very specific questions have to be asked.
Unless it’s Batman. Batman, not Bruce. Tim never lies to Bruce. Red Robin regularly lies to Batman.
Duke really, really wants to pick his brain on that. But Tim will probably dance around the subject until Duke is all turned around and unable to remember the point of asking him a question.
The second is his complete and utter commitment to remembering every important event in any given family member’s life.
As the head of Neon Knights, main strategist and battle expert of any major Teen Titans mission, Red Robin, and occasional help to the Justice League or any other superhero team he has inexplicable ties to, Tim’s schedule is often more hectic than anyone else’s. He does try to take a day off a week, per Alfred and Bruce’s instructions, but sometimes life gets in the way, or so Tim frequently tells Bruce, Alfred, and Dick.
This, of course, does not stop him from fully committing to family events. For all that Tim bemoans how much he despises Damian, he dutifully notes down the date of every play, art show, science fair, sports game that Damian is made to participate in. Duke isn’t in any after school activities, but he’ll make plans with Tim, only for Tim to show up, looking put through the ringer, because he had forced himself to stay up thirty-six hours so that he could make their plans. Every ballet show of Cass’s is attended by at least a party of one; anytime Jason dines at the Manor, Tim’s seat across from him is filled; whenever Dick claims to need little brother time, Tim will file in like it’s his sole duty. The same goes for everyone else.
If you make plans with Tim, mention an event to Tim, breath about a nice day off to Tim, he will remember. He’ll note it down in his brain and remodel his whole schedule around it. If no one else is able to make it, Tim is able to. If he’s not, he will show up within five business days with a congratulatory gift.
If both weren’t vaguely alarming, Duke would have found them charming traits. He still does, despite that.
_____
Duke’s fist spasms over his overpriced iced latte. He deeply prefers cappuccinos, but the really pretty barista had told him about the special drink of the month and Duke had dumbly replied that he wanted that, having forgotten his original order. Duke doesn’t really like sweet things, and so far he tastes at least two pumps of hazelnut and one caramel, so he’s not exactly enjoying his drink.
He is, however, enjoying the view of the very efficient, very pretty barista. Taking orders ten feet from him in this tiny diner.
His name tag says Milo. It’s a nice name. Two syllable names always are.
Sitting right across from him, stirring his vanilla raspberry iced latte, double shot with an extra pump of both flavors and a drizzle of white chocolate and whipped cream on top, Tim’s eyes bore holes in the side of his head. If Duke weren’t so focused on watching Milo tap away at the kiosk and make an array of coffee drinks for the few people straggling in this early in the morning for drinks to-go, he would be staring back.
It’s mainly because Duke knows Tim that he’s not uncomfortable. Tim isn’t a hateful person, and won’t treat Duke any different just because he knows that Duke can not physically handle being in the presence of cute boys.
“I’ve made out with Kon.” Tim announces to the whole diner at seven in the morning. Thankfully, the stragglers have all taken their drinks to-go and Milo has taken the moment of break to retreat to the staff room. “Multiple times. It was really nice, especially since I didn’t expect it after… well, and I think we’re dating.” Tim fiddles with his cup. “I haven’t told anyone else.”
“You think,” Duke repeats, touched that he’s the first to know. “Or you are dating?”
Tim shrugs, unnerving eye contact swapped out for staring down at his drink. “Yes? Maybe? We haven’t said anything about it yet, cause it’s super embarrassing to stick around with the person you made out with, you know?”
Good lord.
“So you’ve made out,” Duke finds himself saying slowly. “More than once. And you still haven’t talked about it with him?”
“It’s hard,” Tim sighs. “How am I going to lead that conversation? Like, hey Kon, I know I tried to clone you like, ninety-nine times, but since it wasn’t a hundred, you wanna date?” Morose, Tim pokes the ice in his drink with his straw before taking a gulp.
Duke’s head is spinning. He’s known about this, vaguely, because it was in the introductory files of becoming a member of Batman’s team under section C4: ‘Do Not Ask Red Robin About Clones’. And what that basically boiled down to is that Tim is entirely capable of cloning a human being and could maybe be convinced to use the knowledge if he’s not mentally stable enough at the moment he’s asked to. Maybe. And do not ask about any cloning attempts because Red Robin will go dark for a week if the topic is broached.
Roll with it, Thomas, Duke scolds himself. You rolled with creating and leading your own gang, fucking roll with this.
“Uh, maybe don’t lead with that? Go with something a little more low key. Like, hey Conner, I really like making out with you, let’s date.”
Tim viciously stabs at his ice cubes, the entire drink sucked down in a matter of minutes.
“Sure. Fucking sure. Why didn’t I think of that,” he mutters viciously, the ice he’s brutalizing clinking against his glass.
“I mean,” Duke tried again, “he definitely likes you. You’ve made out, right?”
“Right, because Kon hasn’t made out with random-ass people in the past.”
Oh shit, Tim’s voice is getting all croaky.
“You’re not random, Tim,” Duke offers, pushing aside his drink once and for all. “It’s impossible not to have a strong opinion on you.”
“And what if that strong opinion is friendship?” Tim asks, crossing his arms and leaning back in his chair. “What if I ruin everything again?”
At least they’re far away from the cloning attempt conversation.
“I can’t lose my best friend again.” Tim laughs. “I didn’t exactly handle it well the first time.”
Crap, and now it’s back.
“How did that come about, then,” Duke tries, trying to follow where Tim keeps steering the conversation, eyeing the rest of the diner to make sure they’re conversation won’t be overheard or interrupted. It’s rather telling that Tim would rather talk about this instead of his relationship issues. “The… the cloning, I mean.”
“Oh, you know,” Tim picks back up his straw. Clink, clink, clink. “Just losing one person after another, all in the space of a year. My girlfriend, my best friends, my dad… shit like that.” Clink, clink, clink. “You know, I always told Bruce I was never going to be like him. Never process grief like he does. And I was fine after the both of my parents were murdered, except that I wasn’t. I almost killed Boomerang and I went on a mega, suck-ass bender. Some hypocrite I was.” Clink. Clink. Clink.
Duke is so unqualified for this. Oh, how he wishes Dick were here instead. Dick loves to listen to Tim; loves to help him. Or Cass. Cass would probably not know what to say at all, but she would know what to do. And Cass is one of the few people who can reliably fold Tim into a hug without surprising him with it.
Except, if Tim wanted to tell Dick or Cass, Dick or Cass would be here instead of Duke. Tim wants to tell Duke this, and Duke would rather walk into several bullets than screw this up.
“Shit man, I’m not the best person for this. I mean, there were other factors at play, definitely, but one of the key responses I had to my parents being put in a coma by Joker was starting a gang. A gang. I think you’re allowed to experiment with some DNA after that kind of tragedy. At least you didn’t hurt anyone.”
Duke laughs a bit awkwardly, a little regretful of bringing up his parents. He desperately hopes the conversation doesn’t actually shift there. He doesn’t want to get into the semantics of it, of being told he did the wrongish— or even right— things for good reasons. He doesn’t want to think about being a part of a new family when his parents are still alive, still waiting for him to help them when he’s getting coffee with someone he likes to think of as his brother that they’ve never met. He really, really doesn’t want to think about it.
Tim smiles wryly, still unable to look up from his drink to Duke. “But I did. International criminal right here.”
Thank God, they’re going back to Tim. Luckily, this topic was also in the introductory files. Section F7: ‘How to Answer When You Are Questioned About Red Robin’s International Crimes’. It was right between how to answer for Red Hood’s technical crime lord status and Robin’s past in assassination.
“Hurting people on purpose and doing everything you can to save someone missing and in danger are two different things. I’d say you handled the everything pretty okay.”
Tim mouths ‘pretty okay’ to himself, smiling a little less sadly. “I’ve never heard my trip described like that. You know I lost an important organ, right?”
Duke winces. “Yeah, but that’s why I put the diminutive ‘pretty’ in front of ‘okay’.” Time to back the hell away from this subject; Duke is still kinda squiked out that Tim is missing his spleen. “Anyway, about Conner. I think you should just go for it. Asking for a date is pretty normal after making out, so if your friendship is fine after kissing, it’ll probably survive a single date. Or more.”
Tim thinks it over, his brain easily following the logical track Duke laid out.
“Yeah, okay. You’re probably right.”
Duke grins in victory, only for his smile to sputter out.
“You need a refill?” Milo asks Tim. He has a beauty mark right under his left eye. It lives up to its name.
“Please,” Tim responds.
“Of course. Anything else?”
Duke mumbles something unintelligible, ears growing hot.
“Sir?”
“He’s fine,” Tim says, saving the day with a wide smile. “We’re good.”
Milo nods and walks away, set on making Tim’s drink.
Duke puts his head in his hands while Tim laughs at him. Asshole.
_____
Family time is a wonder of wonders. Truly.
“Get the fuck off and read your book, Tim.”
“No,” Tim replies, wiggling his shoulders like he was snuggling into Jason.
“Move. Your. Scrawny. Ass. It’s hotter than an activated bomb in a warehouse and I won’t tolerate it.”
“Shut the hell up, Jason,” Tim gripes, continuing to lounge his legs across Jason’s lap, “you weren’t the only one caught in a warehouse explosion.”
“Was it a betrayal of the worst kind for you? No? Then you shut the hell up.” Jason twists violently in the couch, book forgotten, trying to dislodge Tim. Tim digs his fingers into the back of the couch and holds fast.
“Uh, yeah it was. My fake-dead ex girlfriend and my father figure tricked me into it for ‘training purposes’. You were sold out by a women you just met. So you shut the hell up.”
Tim is bowled over, his head knocking harshly against the floor and Jason mock-snarling over him.
“Yeah, well I actually died, so you shut the hell up. Goddamn brat.” Jason begins to sharply prod his fingers into Tim’s neck, where he is apparently overwhelmingly ticklish. His shrieks of laughter mix in with his destructive flailing, causing Damian to look up from his book as well, staring disapprovingly at the tangle of limbs on the floor.
“Both of you assholes need to shut the hell up,” he grouches. “Idiots shouldn’t—”
“Language!” Jason bellows, sitting up from where he is on top of Tim. “Watch your language!”
Twisting his head to peer up at them, Tim snickers. “Yeah, Dames, who the fuck taught you to speak like that?”
Jason cackles. “We’ll have to teach him better as his big brothers, huh, Timmy?”
Truly, Duke thinks, watching Damian get yanked down by both Jason and Tim— their fight forgotten in their aggressive team up against Damian, whose screaming far surpasses Tim’s— family time is the gift that keeps on giving. Way more exciting than the— Duke checks his book, also forgotten— Emily Brönte novel Jason had browbeaten everyone into attempting to read. Sorry Emily, sorry Jason.
Duke stares down at the floor where Jason has Damian in a tight head lock, Damian is clawing at Jason’s arms while attempting to strangle Tim with his legs, and Tim is still on the bottom of it all, reaching up to dig his thumbs into Damian’s ribs. Sorry Damian.
Tim is laughing instead of screaming now, a wide grin pulling his lips apart. Duke is left to wonder if he put his lags in Jason’s lap just to get out of Emily Brönte’s novel Duke has forgotten the title of. And then Duke doesn’t wonder anymore because that’s exactly what Tim just did, he knows it.
Duke smiles too. Truly, family time is amazing.