Who: Tim and Dick Where: Their apartment When: During the ghost plot What: Ghostly aftermath Rating/Warnings: Low/feels Status: Complete
It was the middle of the night, and once again Tim was awake. It wasn’t abnormal though for one of the bats to be awake late into the evening. He was busy typing away on some program in the main living area of their shared place. The light of his laptop touched his eyes. He was wearing one of Dick’s shirts that he’d kidnapped and claimed as his own when he was going through it. Recently. He had no plans of giving it back either. It was big and comfy and he liked it. It was comforting. He wasn’t quite as small as he had been on his first go around there so it didn’t quite reach his knees like it once might have, but it was still a bigger fit than his usual. It was one of his Nightwing shirts.
The room was otherwise silent other than the occasional tap tap tapping of the keyboard. Hours went by, Two A.M. caused Tim to stretch and put down the laptop, rubbing at tired eyes. “Okay PONG, Go idle.” He told the robot over the headset he wore to communicate with the little robot even when he was in the portal room. Which was where he was. Tim set aside the laptop and stood, turning to go to bed when it happened. A brush of ice cold air touched the back of his neck. “Hey champ.” A familiar voice rang in his ears, one Tim had to see to believe. There was nothing there at the start, only a feeling. Tim could only squint into the darker corner of the room where an eerie sort of outline appeared in the shadows. “Got a sec for your old man?” Tim didn’t know what to say except he nodded. The pair sat and talked for at least a solid fifteen minutes. Well, Jack Drake talked. Tim mostly stared in awe. He thought he’d have so much to say if he saw his dad again. The takeaway was his dad was proud of him and how far he’d come. He held no resentment towards Tim’s choices, and when the time was up Tim could only sit there in the dark for a long moment staring at the space his dad was moments ago. Eyes tightened, tears threatening. But this time not ones of sadness. This time it was tears of relief.
The urge to pee had woken Dick, while a stuffy head and sore throat had sent him to bed before 11pm that night. Courtesy of his flu shot hopefully and not the beginning of a virus. Once he'd finished in the bathroom, he wandered along the hallway to the kitchen, in search of a drink. His half asleep brain finding it incredibly weird how his body could want to pee and drink at the same time.
Glass of juice in hand, he gave a cursory glance through the living room doorway and stopped when he picked out the figure of his brother on the couch. "Tim?" His voice was soft, not wanting to inadvertently wake their other roommate, who kept much more reasonable hours than the two resident Bats.
Padding into the room, he sank onto the couch beside his little brother, "You okay? Can't sleep?"
Tim looked up as Dick came over and he didn’t hesitate to curl up against him. Like he often used to do when he was younger. Without Dick in that world, Tim would have been completely lost. “No.” He frowned a little as he shook his head. His brows furrowed a little with worry as he chewed at his lip. “My dad was here.” His blood dad had shown up in the middle of the night. While it had been a good visit, it also brought up all kinds of memories.
He avoided eye contact for the most part though, managing to just make himself almost look small (as if he actually needed help with that), besides Damian he’d always been on the short side. But he somehow managed it.
"Your Dad?" Dick's brain was still a little foggy, with sleep and whatever the shot had given him. But with everything that was going on at the moment with spirit visitors, he could guess what Tim meant. As his little brother curled against him, he wrapped his free arm around Tim's shoulders, cuddling him close. "Was it a good visit? I mean… Did you get to talk?"
It was no wonder Tim was clingy, and folding into himself. Dick was pretty sure if he'd been visited by his biological father's ghost he would be similarly shaken. So instead he tried a different tactic, plucking at the material of his tee, "I'm never getting this shirt back am I?"
“Yeah..it…” Tim wasn’t sure how to describe it. It was like the words got all caught up in his brain and he just huddled into that embrace. “It was different. I don’t know what these visits are meant to be doing though.” His logical brain was far too lost in the jumble that was feelings.
“Mine now.” He stated in regards to the shirt that he’d stolen from him. He had a few things of his Dick was probably never going to see again. He was also a hoodie thief. Tim hated shopping for clothing. “I let FRIDAY buy my stuff and none of it was any good. So this is mine now.” That tactic seemed to unlock his brain a bit at least. Got him distracted by other topics. It was a good way to go. That didn’t mean he was ready to move away from him yet, so he stayed right where he was.
"I’m not sure if they mean anything." Dick sipped his juice, trying hard not to gulp it down, despite feeling like he hadn’t had a drink in a week. Tim’s mind was probably in turmoil trying to figure out his own feelings, but Dick wanted his brother to sleep and not be up all night, so he didn’t venture any further musings on the spirit visitations.
"Yeah, I noticed a few things have gone missing from my closet. Please leave at least a couple of hoodies for me now it’s getting colder." Not that he was innocent in the borrowing of clothes. There were a couple of Wally’s sweaters he’d acquired from his friend’s closet, which he’d probably have to return to the Speedster now he was back. "Maybe we can go to the city and pick up some things? I know you don’t like shopping, but we can do something fun while we’re there too."
“Do you ever miss home?” It seemed out of the blue, but recently Tim had been feeling mostly that way. The ghostly visit only intensified that. Sure he had his job with Dylan, but he missed Bruce, and Alfred, and sometimes even Damian. Okay, not so much Damian, but the others? Yes. A lot. "Dad said he was proud of me..but I haven’t really done much recently.” He felt just sort of disconnected after breaking things off with Peter.
“I didn’t steal them all. Just maybe a lot. Yours are comfy.” It was possible he just needed to see where Dick got things, but also entirely possible he just liked the things Dick already wore. A weird sense of comfort in an uncomfortable world they were in. “Yeah? I like the sound of that idea.” He wasn’t thrilled about the shopping part, but the hanging around with his brother? Yes. One of his favorite things still. That part had never left in spite of him growing up physically a bit.
"Of course I do." He hadn't thought about it so much recently, especially with all the distractions the Portal kept throwing at them. "Even though I had only just remembered everything about my life there before I was sent here. I miss getting to know my family and friends again. If that makes sense?"
"Well, I'm glad that you left me something to wear. Or I'd just have to embarrass you by walking around in my underpants." He chuckled, "Maybe with a scarf and gloves in winter."
He understood why his brother borrowed things, it was the same reason he'd borrow his teammates sweaters and shirts while he was with the Titans. Comfort. Especially while times weren't exactly perfect. He knew his brother had been feeling directionless of late. "You know I'm proud of you too.It doesn't matter if you haven't done much recently, you've done a lot in the past to be proud of, and I'm sure you will do more rad stuff in the future. What about the junior team?"
“Yeah it does.” Tim frowned a little as he curled up beside Dick and toyed with one of the larger sleeves of the sweater he’d swiped. “I miss it a lot lately.” They’d both been there for quite some time. Even if home was kinda fucked up pretty often, it was still theirs. There were good things there too. “Conner was alive again, I was finally reconnecting with him.” Tim offered a faint sort of smile as he shook his head a little.
“As if I haven’t seen you do it before.” Tim rolled his eyes. But all the same, he’d prefer to not see it again any time soon. So maybe he’d stop raiding some of his clothes. some “You are?” A faint crimson touched his cheeks as he offered a hint of a smile. “With Tony being gone half the time I haven’t really known what the hell I’m doing. Seems like sixteen year old me had all the ideas.” He ran a hand through his short dark hair. “Feel a bit like I’ve run up dry on ideas.” He worked, he came home; Tim often had a hard time making friends, so he didn’t feel super connected lately. He made friends easier with adults around him than other young people.
“I don’t know, Peter was my second on that team..I’m not sure what to do with it now.” He offered an awkward shrug as he reached over to steal a blanket for them both. It was getting colder in the apartment with winter approaching.
"Yeah… I don’t know if I should have told you he came back before. But the whole future spoiler thing is really difficult to judge." Dick frowned, it honestly made his head hurt if he thought too much about their different timeline points. Wally was from the past, so was Tim, and when Babs and Steph had been there they were even further behind. "I’m glad you got him back. Nothing changes back there while we’re here, you’ll go back to exactly when you left."
Taking another sip of his drink, Dick swallowed down a laugh at his brother’s statement. It was a hazard of sharing an apartment with your sibling, you sometimes saw far too much of them. "Of course I am. And it doesn’t matter if you feel you’ve run out of ideas just now, you’ll have more in the future. Maybe run with something your younger self started? Like you have with Pong."
The mention of Peter brought a little frown to his face, but he hadn’t seen or heard much from the youngest Parker on the network in a while, so it was possible he was taking the break-up just as badly. "Well, you have Courtney who led a team on her world, maybe she could help? I think it would be good if you could all work together to become a cohesive team. I know they’re older, but Wally and Kaldur are both experienced with teams."
“I don’t think I would have believed it even if you did tell me.” He gave a faint smile as he shook his head with a hint of amusement. Tim was stubborn, probably to the same degree as Bruce. If he hadn’t seen it with his own two eyes he probably would have had a hard time accepting it as facts. “Bruce was also alive and back again.” Things had been looking pretty up for him there. Suddenly to find himself back in this place again had been jarring. It still seemed like he wasn’t dealing with it well.
“Not even sure how to get that kind of inspiration back. There’s the Agency, but it’s mostly just Ex creep cheated on his wife type stuff I’m being hired for recently.” Which were easy cases. Tim’s mind needed more stimulation, but he wasn’t sure where to find it. “Feels like my brain is stuck on a loading screen and I can’t get out.”
Running a hand through his short hair in mild frustration he shook his head. “Maybe. But until then, I think I’ll keep your shirt.”
"Yep, way in the past to me." Dick shook his head, it was still weird to think about some things that had happened back home. They were unreal, people coming back to life, or falling back into existence after being lost in a cosmic force. Though this world wasn’t much less weird, what with super soldiers and alien invasions.
"You might get meatier cases if you pass the exam and get a license of your own? You’re currently working under Dylan’s, right? Maybe there’s insurance or legal reasons for not getting more gritty cases."
Shaking his head slightly he nudged his little brother gently as a yawn caught him by surprise, "Keep the shirt, but don’t sleep out here on the couch."
“How far in the future are you?” Tim was a bit confused at where Dick was actually from. But he wasn’t sure it was something he should know or not. Messing with the timeline was a weird one. Just ask the Flash.
“Mm possibly.” Question was, did he have the drive to? Maybe. He did want more of a challenge. Right then though, all he wanted was sleep that was hard to come by for him. He’d even gone as far as to rest his eyes for a moment.
Tim made a face at the nudge and moved finally to stand in spite of being comfortable where he was, he was pretty sure Dick also didn’t want to sleep on the couch. “Thanks…for believing in me when I don’t.”
"It was December 2020 back home when I left." He wasn’t going to spill too many beans about the future, knowing exactly how treacherous that could be. He’d told Babs, Steph and Tim what had happened to him when he’d first arrived back and nothing untoward had happened. Of course since then Tim had returned home and come back, so that knowledge would have been wiped. "Not that being in the past here makes much difference."
"Hey, that’s what big brothers are for." Dick stood, slipping his arm across Tim’s shoulders and walking him to his room. "Sleep well, lil’ bird."