#they accused bart of cheating” “did he?” “of course he did. its bart

angel-gidget · 8 years ago

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Stars Unearth Your Fires (ch1/?)

Title: Stars Unearth Your Fires (Ch 1/?)

Fandom: DCU, Teen Titans, Red Robin (preboot)

Rating: PG | Words: 1400 approx | a03 link

Summary: Tim Drake never thought of himself as a troublemaker as far as Robins go. But a passing accusation quickly escalates into a case of stolen memories, technologically backwards clues from his past self, interdimensional hijinks, reflections on the good old days, and possibly the rekindling of a foregone romance. Eventually Tim/??? Mystery ship!

A/N: I have a horrible history with chapter fics, yet here I am. With a chapter fic. I have something resembling a plan and sense of direction for this story, however, and you can expect lots of nasty angsty preboot/nu52 issues to be worked out through the course of this story. Enjoy. :)

Thanks to @kiragecko for the beta! You rock!

Their general proportions were human. But of course, keepers and traverses of the universe were anything but.

Tim had mentally labeled them as The Gatekeepers, since they were both cryptic and rather obsessed with telling the Justice League and the Titans to physically stay in their own lane—or in this case—their own universe.

Apparently, that was about to become more difficult than usual? Due to some cosmic aligning of the stars? Again, cryptic, so getting details out them was like trying to strain yogurt through Kevlar weave. Joy.

The interdimensional douches were telling the heroes not to worry because this was a temporary, passing thing. They didn’t need to be alarmed. They were not supposed to remember the moments when realities collided. They might be bombarded with tiny insignificant flashes while the celestial paths crossed. Insignificant memories from the last time something similar had happened.

But then their buggy eyes caught on Tim, and he felt Dick’s hand on his shoulder tighten. There was no reason for Red Robin to be singled out among the other heroes. At least, no good reason that came to mind.

But their too-low-pitched-to-be-human voices were still doing that placating gentle thing. Which had the exact opposite of its clearly intended effect. They told him he might remember more than most.

“Oookay. Why?”

“The other heroes fulfilled their duty to the letter. They fully engaged in combat despite the respect they garnered for their opponents. They did not have sentimental memories afterwards to cling to. They did not try to bridge the worlds afterwards. We must warn you not to try again, Robin.”

He nearly corrected them to make it ‘Red Robin,’ but the ghoulish mystery people didn’t seem like they would care much. From what he’d gathered, the last time this cosmic alignment (or collision?) had happened, he had been Robin. And the current Robin was in Gotham, too busy violently cracking skulls in absentia to take offense.

“I… I have no intention of randomly trying to jailbreak into a separate universe.”

Even without human emotions, there was something really skeptical about the silent look they gave him as they turned away.

He shrugged off Dick’s hand and ignored the concerned stares from his teammates. If there was reason to be concerned, it was not because of him. Tim knew better than to do something stupid, no matter what those Gatekeepers thought.

—

He was four days into what was supposed to be a four-week event. (That all the major hero teams of their Earth were supposed to know about, but ignore? Again, non-human logic . Fun.)

There was a tiny voice of self-disappointment that he hadn’t accessed the Crays sooner, but Oracle still hadn’t won out against Bruce for making them remote accessible, and as much as it pained him to disappoint Alfred, he and the homunculus were still better apart than together. And really, Tim had his own apartment now and it was cool. A little empty, maybe, but it still had a popcorn machine, so score.

So he had been avoiding the mansion. (Avoid was a strong word, but okay, it worked.) So it had taken him an extra bit of time to be the detective everybody else couldn’t be bothered to be, and check the logs for that stretch of time in which all of the heroes of Earth ostensibly battled an entire universe of other heroes for cosmic survival.

Now that he was actually looking… the records DID look fake. That week from years ago was filled with forgettable patrols and skirmishes–Condiment King? Really?–that could have seriously been any night. It was the logs of the days after that were… actually weird.

Twenty seven unsuccessful attempts to log in and re-write the log history of the week before. On the twenty eighth try, his fourteen year old self had apparently gotten to the typing entry stage but just… left it blank. Left it blank and saved file.

“Cucumber sandwiches, Master Timothy?”

He flinched. Alfred… he had missed Alfred, and he appreciated that the man was trying to make things easier by pretending that he had visited more than he had.

“I… yeah. Thanks, Al.”

They were crisp, and cool, and heavier on the mayo than anything Alfred would make for other members of the family.

He was not going to cry over a sandwich. He wasn’t.

But he would get over his avoidance (and okay, maybe it was an accurate word as much as it was a strong one), and give Alfred the grateful smile he deserved.

He avoided talking by stuffing his face. And wow. He had been using a combination of power bars, caffeine, and sleep deprivation to keep his brain open enough to function, but he was embarrassed to realize that he had underestimated a full stomach’s ability to do have the same effect.

He felt his own pupils dilate when he noticed.

The entry only appeared blank.

It was a series of space bars and tabs. His own code from back when he thought it would be cool to have a code totally to himself. He had thought about sharing it with others. He had almost shown it to Dick about five times and shown it to Cass once, though she didn’t fully understand it. That was when he had decided to abandon it. (He thought he should probably bring it back and show it to Bart. Bart was old enough now that he’d love it.)

But to the message: I-s-o-l-a-t-e-d-e-v-i-c-e-s

Isolated devices. That was… cautious. Like when he wrote it, he worried he’d have someone looking over his shoulder. And… that was fair. Hadn’t he just thought about showing the code to someone else? But had he shown it to Dick, Dick would still understand the implications of old tech and privacy.

Isolated Devices. Devices separate from the Crays and from Oracle’s database. Devices that could be synched to either, but might also theoretically contain details on them—or personal reminders—totally separate from the mainframes.

And not susceptible to the same memory wipes.

They didn’t use them anymore, not really. The wrist computers, the chunky tablets. They were secure, yes, but they were borderline analogue, and Oracle eventually shamed the family into giving them up in favor of just fortifying Wayne Tech and Cray firewalls.

Tim felt his adrenaline spike. He had left a reminder for himself on isolated devices from when he was Robin. He had gone to a whole hell of a lot of trouble for a reminder of something he couldn’t remember at all.

He belatedly swallowed the last bite of cucumber and bread. There weren’t that many isolated devices left, much less ones he carried as Robin.

Thankfully, he was already at the manor.

“Okay, woah! No! Damian, knives down! Tim! Tim, STOP. I will bring Bruce and Alfred in here if you do not stop now."

Threatening to bring in Alfred was a low blow, and Dick knew it. The Bruce threat was clearly for Damian’s benefit, and the little snot-stain at least had the wherewithal to look somewhat contrite about it. Tim was too riled to care.

“He messed with my tech. That I needed for EVIDENCE, Dick."

“Ttt. Highly unlikely, as I unearthed your archaic toy a year ago, Drake.”

Liar. Tim wanted to scream.

Damian could break bones and do standard hacking, but he was not observant enough to surpass Dick, Bruce, and Alfred (who must have dusted that same spot every day) and simply find the catch in Tim’s custom window frame.

More likely, he had cheated and recruited the damn dog.

“It’s a resurrected case. I needed my personal notes. Notes that were lost the moment you hooked up my mini to the Crays to spy on me.“

He waited for Dick to point out that there should be backups. That Tim’s notes should have been preserved by Cray security. That would have then prompted Tim to point out how very wrong it was that the backups didn’t happen. That something was very wrong with the mainframe files from that entire week.

But Dick sighed instead, and Tim could see him mentally listing through ways to convince Tim to placate Damian.

Screw. That.

He grabbed his (stupid, unnecessary) overnight bag on the way out.

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