#because dick wasn't literally 9 when he became robin where are people even getting that from?????????

[lesbian-cowpoke]

Jason Todd being Tim's Robin in fanon stems from trying to make sense of the wacky timeline bullshit created by the writers doing their best to entirely erase Jason Todd. It's why Dick is Tim's favorite Robin. Dick was Robin from when Tim was 4-10, the longer amount of time, so he still could have been Tim's favorite Robin regardless, but it's also. The writers really really hated that little boy.

[iphoenixrising]

Justice is Blind AU: V

I’m alive, I swear. This is the next thing in the Blind!Tim au @satire-please started.

**

The Black Bird is a rough and tumble design. Close to a year and a half of work into making the car his new ride (because, you know, not that Robin anymore). It's the biggest pre-Iraq project, started shortly after he left Gotham and realized he'd probably never be welcome in the Cave, the Manor, or in with the Bats again (it wasn't…fine at the time. Fuck it was a painful realization, one hovering in the back of his brain pan while adapted to the nefarious side of the Force—stealing and then returning Bat-shaped artifacts and such).

Naturally, it’s the first project he picked-up in the transition period—the one after the Mission: prove the Bruce was still alive and fucking find him. After he’d done the job, sent Bruce back to Gotham to recover, to get his own orientation, Tim had packed up the Red Robin costume and returned to Gotham City. While adjusting to his ever-sharpening senses (and yes, Tam even toned down the light but cloying perfume once she realized it gave him migraines within the first five minutes) and trying to determine his next steps in the whirlwind of holy shit his life had become (who was he kidding? When was his life not a shit storm of ‘what next’?), he’d put up the suit until he made his choice about where to go from there.

Of course, once he had nothing to focus on, no reason to keep moving, the eventual fallout of oh God, how can I do this? Fuck that, I am doing this. I’m going to figure out how the fuck to do this came with the determination to finish the half-assed projects he’d left the night Dick took Robin and handed it over to Damian. The projects became something important, something so crucial to proving he could still get his shit together.

The Black Bird was the first on the list.

He’d originally worked on the specs, did the heavy lifting between finding frustrating clue after clue (the Bat symbol on a cavern wall, made into an earthen pot, a wax stamp to mark documents). He’d even been mid-way through programming the massive computer system, one similar to the one in the Batmobile (the last one he’d actually ridden in that is) so he could calibrate it to lock on to his homing signal in the utility belt and auto-pilot itself to his location.  The coding alone had been extensive, especially considering he’d started from literally scratch, refusing to access the Batcomputer to get the initial set-up from Bruce’s mainframe. At the time, he hadn’t wanted to trip any of Dick’s instincts, hadn’t wanted to give himself away, hadn’t wanted to talk or swing or what-the-fuck-ever (but secretly he’d been pretty damn sure all his access had been revoked from the big system anyway, he just hadn’t wanted to face that finality, the proof of ‘you don’t belong here anymore.’ Fuck, he’d already gotten that message loud and clear.)

Working on the Black Bird was the only thing keeping him sane, keeping him from running further away, from believing Dick had a fucking point and maybe he might just be having some kind of psychological break. When none of them believed in him, it's the only thing that kept him moving.

He'd only finished the body work and undercarriage before he'd been blinded and going back to it immediately had been... a reminder of what he’d lost (another thing he’d had to sacrifice). The damn car sat up on the automatic lift until he came back to Gotham a month after he’d sent B back to Dick, Damian, and Alfred, getting through that little meet-and-greet without giving out too many details but satisfied and terrified at the same time since, well, Mission accomplished. Now what?

Finding B lost in time had been the real clincher in the whole should I stick with it? mentality. Even though no one but Ra's, Shiva, and Tam knew, it was always on the tip of his tongue, in a puddle at the bottom of his brain pan when the rest of his contingencies mapped out exactly how to get through things like space/time.

Find Bruce, get him back, and then what?

Safe answer: go to college, say “fuck this lifestyle.”

But…but—

Instead of feeling like his last action as a crime fighter would be a big send-off, a final win for their side, and the last blast before he gave up the cape, the part of him, the part that pushed him to be ROBIN rose up to sneer Give up? Be a normal guy? College? A 9-5 job? What the utter fuck, dude?

So, he'd taken the time, jumped in with both hands all over again (and it’s just like when he was on a train to Haley’s Circus at twelve years old, hoping to convince Dick Grayson to take up the Robin mantle again and save Batman. Welp, we all know how that little situation panned out, don’t we?). Getting his projects done, getting the tools he’d need to function, getting a network established, setting up shop again so Red Robin could throw out his own safety net in the instance of shit, shit, Plan X failed (thus, the Black Bird). Honestly, he’d made the decision before he’d even realized it himself.

And nope, he hasn't regretted it yet.

Well, once he realizes someone breached the upstairs of the Perch, there might be just a small smidge after all since very, very few people knew how to find him and, even better, how to get in.

Straightening from his place at the hidden workbench in the sub-basement level, several vertebrae in his spine crack sharply, telling him how long he’d been bent over the stack of whirlybirds, taking his time to solder new microchips under the insignia and Plexiglas casing. These were marked with a niche on the bottom, a groove deep enough for his gloves to catch when he’s in the suit; he’d also made them much smaller than the usual palm-sized— rather, almost the size of a silver dollar and with a low-frequency output most people wouldn’t even detect, but could give him placement in places with high ceilings or echoes (you know, when the baddies hold up in shitty warehouses and such). He stands up to stretch while his phone gives off a specific beep, one to indicate the Perch’s motion detectors had been set off. Snagging the device, he leaves his progress where it is, minutely adjusting the tools so he could come back to it. Barefoot, he pads out through the hidden door of the inner workshop and onto the plush, vinyl mats of the functional gym, takes 36 steps to the side area with workbenches along one wall to keep his suit stocked with the usual toys. Finally another 18 to the hidden staircase and up the back passage to the penthouse apartment.

It took him long enough for the smell of fresh coffee to waft halfway down the stairs and set off his inner caffeine sense. While the fingertips of one hand run along the wall absently, automatically, his stomach rumbles in reminder of how long it’s been since he’s tried to do, you know, real people things like sleep and eat.

(It’s fine, his guest probably already knows)

And it’s finely honed instincts that allow him to backbend slightly before he’s even a step through the hidden staircase to avoid the hot mug of coffee being shoved directly in his face.

“I’m going to need you,” Tamara Fox starts out in that patiently irritated tone, “to get Bruce Wayne the hell out of my office. And I need you to do it yesterday.”

Well. Shit.

“Hi Tam. Nice to see you too,” he takes the mug gratefully as he straightens up, steps out to allow the wall to slide closed and hide the stairs again. He checks the level of liquid pointlessly while the rim is already at his mouth and just perfect. Of course it is because Tam is the quintessential perfectionist (and nope, she can argue all she wants about reckless decisions and such—again, sorry you almost died. Really, it’s my life, so I can totally sympathize). But he smiles around the first mouthful and moves to the kitchen table so she can pace and rant at her leisure and he can enjoy a few minutes of sitting upright.

“Bruce has been at WE I take it?” He starts the train rolling even as he pulls out a chair to make himself comfortable.

“Has Bruce been—are you kidding me?”

Choo-choo, allll aboard

“He’s been there all week, Tim. Not in his office, not with my dad, not with the board. He’s been literally in my office. I’ve given him stacks of paperwork for the last three days and he still isn’t leaving. Monday? He had a champagne fountain in the middle of the office and invited everyone from Accounting to come up for a drink.”

Oh. Oh no.

He makes a positive noise for go on while the coffee sits warm in his stomach and he cracks the knuckles of one hand absently.

“Tuesday? He brought two models up for a photo shoot, including equipment, backdrop, and whatever the hell they needed for a magazine cover!”

And Tam takes six long strides to cover the kitchen before she turns and takes six back, always more at ease to talk while she’s doing something. That’s her, someone who is in perpetual motion. Slight sighs are her hands and arms moving to gesture without a hitch in her step.

“And it was for Forbes, Tim. He had half-naked models posing with him for the cover of Forbes.”

He enjoys breathing enough that he doesn’t snicker, he might choke a little on his coffee, but really, not laughing here at all.

“Bruce was always a little…quirky. All rich guys are.”

She pauses long enough to face him, gritting her teeth, “most rich guys don’t do their own brand of crazy in the middle of my office, Tim.”

Just a slight wince, but, well, Tam. “Well, he’s also Batman, so that should factor in to his brand of crazy.”

A slight noise is a wave of her hand, “I’m not worried about the scary man that breaks faces for a living. I’m worried about the former-CEO who is going to be back in my office Monday morning with God know what else unless he gets some information on how you’re doing.”

Damn. He’d hoped B would leave Tam out of anything unrelated to WE—

Wait. What now?

“Wait. You’re telling me he didn’t come to you to get his company back?”

His mug makes a sharp noise on the table from force because he had certain expectations on how that little situation was going to pan out for everyone.

The chair across from him pulls out with a soft scratch, and his spine straightens when she slides into the chair. Papers flutter and clack when they’re straightened, slide across the table in front of him.

Tam not talking means not good.

His fingertips are already moving over the soft line of dots across the top of the pages, moving from the usual WE headers and down to the bulk of content:

I, Bruce Thomas Wayne, assign all duties and responsibilities of Chief Executive Officer of Wayne Industries and Wayne International to Timothy Jackson Drake-Wayne—

His jaw drops, hand stutters across the braille line.

Tam hums just slightly and the sound of her drinking her own mug (and it’s probably the special one he keeps for her, the whole You don’t have to be crazy to work here, but it helps one).

His fingers skip down, move across the page slowly in shock, his brain coming up with what fucking reason Bruce would just—

“He did that playboy moron thing he’s got going on for a while, but—and I’m not sure where he got the right forms—but, he brought them to me signed and notarized on Friday. We…well, we talked a little. I mean, like people, not like you kind of people about bad guys and fighting, but like real people. The real guy is kind of…intense?” Tam sighs a little and the noise is heavy in his ears, stressed. Without thinking, he raises his head slightly and slides his free hand across the table, seeking until he gets the bump of her knuckles, wraps his hand around hers, runs his thumb over the back of her hand in a soothing gesture. It did wonders to calm her down when they were in the belly of the proverbial beast, the League of Assassins’ Cradle.

Okay. This could be not good.

“He wants you to stay as CEO and for me to be your I don’t know second-in-command or something? Dad wants R&D back because he says he’s getting too old to keep up with running the company, and Mr. Wayne doesn’t seem to want the controlling interest in his company back, so I don’t know what else to tell you to do, Tim. Only that you have to address the company in person eventually, do a formal introduction to the Board. Start coming into an office somewhere so people can see you once in a while.”

He has nothing but changing thoughts and motivations running through his brain at high speeds and keeps listening, his reading hand absently skimming through the rest of the page, turning it over to start scanning the next. He takes everything into account since Tam must have already started planning the next steps in what was supposed to be a strategic move to keep the company from falling into Ra’s al Ghuls’ grubby, immortal hands. He wasn’t really supposed to run Wayne Industries.

Just, nope. (Bruce really doesn’t expect him to do this, right?)

“He did…He asked for you to call him. Soon. Just to talk, he said.” And she sighs a little, gripping his hand back when he hadn’t realized he was squeezing a little tight.

Next page. Job description. Pfft.

“I think…” it’s a pause where her eyes are probably on his, where she’s probably biting down on her lower lip before she comes out with it. “I think he misses you, Tim.”

He stops reading long enough to pick up his coffee again and drain it to get rid of the lump in his throat.

“He has a Robin,” is the right response (or, well, it was). “Now he wants a CEO. I get it. It’ll take the pressure off of him to be a constant figure. He can still do the ‘Bruce Wayne’ things for the society sections without being tied down to the company. It’s…a smart move for a caped crime fighter.”

And then something she said resonates in his brain, makes him perk slightly.

“Wait. He said he wants to talk?”

“Well, yeah. I mean, he said he wanted to have a talk. Maybe about the company—”

“Where’s your purse?” And he’s already half-standing, reaching out a hand.

Tam (who got a first-hand view of his inner vigilante sense during go-time) goes with it, the noise of it coming off the back of another chair and delivered right into his hands.

Tim sets the heavy thing between them on the table, fingers moving to the delicate stitching all over the thing (and it’s one of those ridiculously expensive ones, a Marc Jacobs or something), and—

Yup. Fuck.

Few, if anyone, would be able to pick out the slight bulge of fabric on the underside, but he picks the seam with a fingernail because, of course, the tiny, Bat-shaped device is just right there.

“That is a Four. Hundred. Dollar bag, just so you’re aware.”

He holds out the device in the center of his palm, and deadpans, “I’ll buy you a new one. Apparently, I’m a CEO now.”

Tam blinks down at the blinking red device and back up at Tim’s grim expression and off-focus gaze when the realization sets in. “He played me? I got played by Bruce Wayne?”

“Technically, you got played by Batman. That should actually make you feel better.” And he gets only slightly pissed off that B went there. He’s more concerned knowing B is aware of their connection—his and Tam’s—since he’s never been necessarily happy when civilians find out their identities.

“This is a little much, isn’t it?” And yup, someone messing with Tam’s one obsession. Now he’s really hoping B shows up in her office on Monday so she can chew his ass right the fuck out (mental note: check the live feed from her office while that little discussion is going down. Also, make popcorn)—that is, if he can get out of Gotham before a whole bunch of crime fighting wingnuts decide to descend on his Perch.

“I…haven’t talked to him since I left the Manor last week.”

“Really? You don’t say? Well, isn’t that a perfectly reasonable justification to cut a hole in my Chanel handbag?”

Tim blinks as his inner sense kicks the tension in his shoulders and back up a notch just before his phone chirps again with the motion detector warning, this one outside the front door.

“I may or may not have mentioned,” he deadpans, waiting for it, “he’s Batman.”

The doorbell is unassuming while he’s already moving on silent feet. He doesn’t bother with glasses because he already knows who’s out there anyway.

He cracks the front door just slightly, frowning. “Sorry. We’re not buying Girl Scout Cookies today. Thanks.”

“Not even coconut ones?” Bruce’s voice is only slightly deep, so probably in his day ware, not the nightfall outfit (so…not a case?).

“Not from cheaters,” he returns while still opening the door. After the effort, Bruce isn’t just going to go away, that much is pretty damn clear.

“It’s not cheating. I worked for it fair and square since you won’t pick up a phone, Tim.”

He closes the door behind Bruce’s massive figure, closing his eyes for a second to steel himself for whatever this might be.

A plastic noise from Bruce’s right hand, “Nice to see you again, Miss Fox. I hope Prada is to your liking?”

**

More coffee is made and consumed until Tam (the traitor) leaves the penthouse with her new bag in tow and a litany of praises for Bruce’s sense of style. The Chanel is still a point of contention, though, he can hear it in her voice when she thanks Mr. Wayne for his thoughtfulness (like she’s saying you ass hat instead…and will always be why Tam is one of his Top 5 favorite people of all time).

They’d (B and Tam) spent a little over an hour discussing the state of the company with B giving him some surprised kudos when she mentions a few of the projects he’d initiated in his first few months of being a CEO; the reality of the situation (of which he failed to mention) is he’d given their engineers and scientists a few inventions and software designs to tinker with to cement himself in the role, so as few questions as possible would be posed as to why is that guy up in this business? At the time, he was just seventeen, barely managed to get his GED, and was an adopted son—the backlash from the media had been enough to keep him moving between trying to find Bruce, stay out of Dick’s Bat-Radar, and keep the stocks from literally plummeting.

The first MedPod had hit the market, and all those critics started to take fucking note.

(Because really LexCorp’s Medical Supply line was absolute shit, so a self-sustaining medical pod for emergency transports was really just the way to go for the Armed Forces—considering they’d beaten out several other big names for the contract was enough to prove he might just be all right for this job other than, you know, keeping it out of the hands of bad guys.)

Through the back-and-forth about the company, he’d kept his opinions to himself, waiting for something to catch him up; something like “that’s amazing. I’ll know when I’m getting back into.” Or “Once I’m back in the saddle, we’ll keep that project going.” Or, “You’ve done some amazing things, Tim, thanks. I’ll take it from here.”

He gets nada. Absolute fuck all.

Sitting on his left with Bruce across from them, Tam had nudged his knee, her way of telling him to please say something or I’m burying you in paperwork hell, but honestly? He’s pretty much at a loss.

Making non-committal noises around a fresh cup of coffee is really all he’s got at this point.

He shows Tam to the door leaning in slightly out of the doorframe to assure her in a low voice he’d already checked the Prada bag and it seems clean enough.

She sighs at him (again) and makes the usual demands, “Eat something. Sleep for God’s sake. I’ll…see you at work, boss.”

He feels his face pull with the automatic smile (because it’s Tam) and has another moment of regret when they couldn’t make it work—the two of them would have been good together. Too bad for things that had never-been (too many, he’s lost too damn many to make that leap again).

Coming back to the table is the hardest part of his day, knowing Bruce is probably watching him for all possible ticks, is probably staring at his dead eyes with that shitty self-recrimination happening in the background, that the Dark Knight can find him now (and fuck, he doesn’t want to have to move his things to a new safe house. Dammit, he likes it here).

And once they’re alone, he gets the first one in, “tagging Tam was shitty, you know.”

A shift of movement, a nod while a heavy sigh probably lifts Bruce’s shoulders and chest, and he can remember the moments when the Bat needed to be called back, reigned in so the man behind the cowl didn’t drop from exhaustion and injuries, from the sheer weight of things he’d taken on his shoulders to bare. The noises, even without the visuals, are so damn familiar, a basis for the layer of Robin instincts that are honestly a part of his chemical make-up at this point. His instincts to pull B back from the edge of the abyss when the Dark Knight was taking him farther than any human being (ever Bruce Wayne) could handle…and stay sane.

He hadn’t been fucking kidding when he told B “Batman needs a Robin” all those years ago.

“I know.”

“There some kind of unstated rule we have about not treating other Bats like—” criminals but oh yeah, forgot for a second, didn’t you?

His mouth shuts with a sharp clack of his teeth coming together before the sentence gets out (and yes, Bruce caught it).

“If you stayed anywhere near the radar, or had at least picked up the phone, I would have left Tam alone, I swear.” Bruce fills in smoothly, filing away the aborted statement.

“Emails have been fine up until now, you know.”

And just like the usual, B has something to keep him on his toes. “Just emails have never been fine, Tim.”

So…maybe the undercurrent of it would be nice to see you back in Gotham once and a while, you know, when you have time and shit might not have all been lip service after all (but he already has a Robin, right?)

Instead of voicing it, giving old hurts a space in reality, he goes with the automatic defense, “the accident didn’t make me an invalid, B. I’ve still been vigilantie-ing it up, blind or not.” The hard edge to his tone implies no one else picked up on it so I must be doing something right.

Another shift, a shrug, and just like Batman, he drops something completely fucking unexpected, “I never stopped keeping track of you, you know.”

Is…not what he expected to hear, just like with the CEO thing.

In true Bat form, B starts rattling off longitude and latitude, one set, two sets, three sets, four sets (and fuck, apparently he had been keeping track. The realization is jarring, a bucket of cold water over some of his previous notions of not a Bat anymore).

“Those are the ones I can think of off the top of my head.”

“I…”

“The point of this is the same one I gave you at the Manor.” Bruce tries to say it softly, take the hard punch out of his words. “You’re one of my Robins. You always will be. That’s what happens when you agree to take up the mask.”

He draws himself up a little because the implications (the I’ll have your back, all you need to do is call and I’ll come). And just like he was still that teenager in the tunic, Tim feels the heat in his chest, the undeniable feel of comfort, safety B has always brought forth in him. Even when they worked their own cases, were continents away, he knew, had believed, B would come running, B would still need him—

His face turns away, scarred fingers tapping lightly against his coffee cup, an automatic response (and he doesn’t even realize he’s tapping out R-O-B-I-N in Morse code) to keep motion while his brain works.

“I appreciate it,” is finally what he can give back, soft and firm. “It’s…it hasn’t been… easy. Acclimating, I mean, to this,” and a general wave at his face. “But, I’m…better now. Better than I was. It’s—” and he almost, almost falls back on his usual diversion, his absolutely bullshit when he’s got nothing left.

It feels out of place here, in the space of his sanctuary, the place he had to make useable without the Manor, the Cave, Titans Tower to fall back on— it feels out of place because Bruce…still doesn’t pull any punches.

The hand, that hand, the one that’s caught him countless times over the years, pulled him back in so fucking many ways—from over the edge of buildings, from his own recriminations, his own failures, from blood loss and sleep dep, from working himself into a coma, from—

That hand can still wrap around his wrist with room to spare, a thumb rubbing easy circles over his pulse, a reminder.

When he swallows, his throat is thick again, his eyes heating up just a little, just enough for him to chuff a laugh, a half-hoarse, rusty sound.

If there’s one thing the Batman and the real Bruce have in common? They don’t bullshit the good guys about the important things. If B came here to say it, went through the trouble of finding the Tim’s rabbit hole, he meant every damn word.

The litany of things he might have said fades down with the realization, and Tim raises his eyes, tries to make sure he’s looking at Bruce when the genuine half-smile is almost a wince.

“Do you…do you want to come downstairs and see the set-up?” (And no, his voice doesn’t break a little, his chest doesn’t lurch with the familiarity of it all.)

But he can hear it in Bruce’s tone, stark relief. “Yes actually, I do. Very much so, Tim.”

**

And outside, Gotham City breathes as day gives way to night; the Birds of Prey step out, taking their time to work. Nightwing and Robin fill in the gaps, moving like they’ve fought together their whole lives, and it gives the Batman time, time he so obviously needs.

Once N splits up with him, plans to meet back at the Mylar Building at two-thirty, Robin makes an impressive leap, launching himself through the sky.

Robin ends up in the Narrows, jumping around the old theatre where O used to make herself comfortable. He grapples up to the Queen & Sons headquarters, the tallest building in this part of the city, and makes himself comfortable between the feet of his favorite gargoyle. He idly listens to the back and forth between O and N, O and Batgirl, Black Canary and the thug she’s beating the shit out of, Black Bat and O, all the sounds of family.

(Speaking of which)

All-in-all, he does not have to wait very long for his next appointment of the night.

Anyone else not in the cape and cowls would have missed the soft boots striding across the roof, but Robin has been meeting here the last few months, attempting to make something in their world right again—to give something back.

And perhaps because he is no longer under the delusions of the League, perhaps because he is getting older, perhaps because he is Robin and the symbol of his chest means so much more than it meant when he first desired it, perhaps because now he better understands making the right choices for the right reasons, he has continued to attempt these interactions.

The taller vigilante ducks under the wing of the gargoyle, sitting on the ledge of the building rather than back under the statue. A careless toss of the greasy paper bag lands the offering right in Robin’s lap, and the smell is not…necessarily terrible.

A bottle of his preferred Vitamin Water is tossed at him as well, and he has it open, drinking it down while his eyes slide to the side behind the whiteouts. The soft noises, metal on metal, are indeed a testament to how far they have come in the last few weeks.

The red helmet is left on the roof between them and a small flame flickers behind a gloved hand, lighting a casual cigarette while Robin hands over the chicken burrito and takes the veggie one for himself.

“I call this meeting a’ the Dead Robins Club ta order,” the Red Hood smirks at him through the shadows, lenses up on his domino so his eyes are just as jade as the waters of the Pit, “all right Demon. Gimmie the skinny, yeah?”