Hesitation Lasts But a Moment

“Oh man, he’s barely even conscious.”

“What’s, ah,” he yawned again, “what’s up, guys?”

Jason snorted.

“What’s up? My dude, you had a sick fight with the Demon’s Head himself and took a little spill out a window and are claiming not just that B-man’s alive but you have evidence to back it up. That’s what’s up.”

“You’re spending too much time with Roy,” Dick complained from the doorway, tray in hard.

Tim ignored Barbara’s ensuing comment and Jason’s response as he slowly turned his head to face the eldest and his eyes found the steaming coffee mug at the same time the scent hit his nose. It had been months since he had last had some of Alfred’s carefully roasted and brewed coffee beans.

He made a grabbing motion with his hands and Dick laughed, bringing the entire tray over to balance it on his lap.

“Food first, wonder boy,” Steph said before swiping the coffee and stealing a sip.

Tim glared at her but happily dug into the berry-laden oatmeal in front of him.

“What’s everyone doing here?” He asked.

Or, at least, that’s what he meant to do. But a mouth full of hot oatmeal turned the words into indecipherable garbling. Well, mostly indecipherable.

“Bed rest means resting, preferably in bed, so we’re going to do the interrogating right here,” Jason proclaimed with far too much glee. The things that brought Jason glee normally brought Tim some form of discomfort. Then the words Jason had said registered.

Instantly any peace and sleepiness that Tim had been basking in was gone. he tried not to show it, but he knew there must have been some muscular tensing he couldn’t hide completely.

“We’ll let you eat first,” Dick was quick to reassure him, “Kon wouldn’t be letting us do this if we didn’t, but we do really need to talk as a team and as a family.”

Tim chewed carefully around the current mouthful of oatmeal and berries. He swallowed before talking again.

“So then where’s Damian? And Alfred?”

Steph shifted in her seat, sharing a quick glance with Dick.

“Damian has school,” Dick explained, voice hesitant for some reason, “and Alfred is dropping him off. He’ll be joining us once he’s done, though.”

“Shouldn’t we wait for both of them?” Tim asked. He wasn’t trying to stall, not really. Well, okay, that was a lie—he would give anything to not have any of the people currently in his bedroom there—but more than that, he didn’t want to have to navigate the minefield that was his mind since Bruce’s disappearance in real time in front of three detectives.

“We thought of that, Timbers, and we knew you would be oh-so-concerned, so we brought this.”

Jason through a small hand-held recorder onto the bed next to Tim’s legs. He groaned internally.

“I reserve the right to only tell you what would be required for a mission report,” he stipulated quickly.

Before Stephanie or Jason could protest, Dick nodded.

“That’s fine.”

Tim started to relax a little bit, but then Dick was grinning.

“We’ll save that interrogation for movie night.”

Steph fist-bumped the air while Jason hissed out a “hell yeah” that had Tim actually groaning out loud. Barbara only laughed at that.

It was no secret that they all had issues, of varying flavors and quantities, but for all of those spicy character traits, there was a standing rule that non-case related gossip and any subsequent blackmailing that it entailed was free game at family movie nights. He was pretty sure that that special Bat-tradition started when Dick and Jason decided to team up against Bruce for the first time.

“Okay, but this can be an uninterrupted mission report style interrogation?” He asked to clarify.

All four people nodded.

“Okay, so not long after Bruce was thought to have died,” Tim started, raising an eyebrow at Jason’s dash to turn the recorder on, “Dick made Damian Robin. It was not a smooth transition of costumes, and in the ensuing emotional outburst, I discovered the first clue, the first hint of a clue, that Bruce was not dead but instead sent back in time. Prior to that moment, I had only had a hunch. So I took on the Red Robin name and costume, and left Gotham to find more concrete evidence.

“I followed the smallest hints across cities in Europe. I handled some cases, cases whose completed reports should already be in the system. I noticed around my fourth city that I was being tailed. While I was in Paris, the trio of shadows who had been following me made an attempt against Tim Wayne. I make the distinction because I was in a hotel room, booked under an alias, not in uniform when they fired a rocket at me.”

“What alias was it?” Barbara asked, voice and face all business as she whipped out her phone.

Tim shook his head.

“I’ve had to burn it already, but Alvin Draper. I’ll be explaining why soon.”

“So, a rocket gets shot at you,” Jason prompted, tone again too gleeful for the situation.

“Not exactly. I had seen light glint off the scope so by the time the hotel room blew up, I was en route to the roof and my costume. I confronted the assassins,”

“Assassins?!”

He ignored Steph’s interruption.

“At first I thought that they might have been sent by Shiva, but not long into the fight they pulled out with a flash bang, leaving behind a communications device. Ra’s al Ghul was on the other side.”

Nobody tried to interrupt him here, but it was clearly a close battle with their self-control as he noted clenched fists and open mouths.

“I moved on to Berlin. There, I needed to break into a museum to find my next piece of evidence. Ra’s sent the same three assassins to assist me, but also orchestrated a local metahuman by the name of The Wild Huntsman to complicate things. Alvin Draper then became an art thief known to international authorities, which put me in the position Ra’s wanted. I next flew to Iraq but had moved too quickly as the local authorities tried there to arrest me. The assassins, however, had planned for this and already prepared identification to help me through security as Tim Drake.”

Tim tried to swallow but found his throat was dry. That’s when he remembered that Dick had brought him coffee. He turned to Stephanie and reached out. She didn’t stop him from taking the mug, though the fact that it was only half-full probably contributed to that. After taking a few sips of the now lukewarm beverage he continued.

“We traveled into the Iraqi desert which is where I found my first physical and indisputable piece of evidence that Bruce is indeed stuck in the time stream and not dead. Well, the first in that it was the oldest. After I had finished examining the evidence, we were ambushed by someone who called himself The Widower. A member of the Council of Spiders. We did not know it at the time, but this Council of Spiders was a rival group of assassins hunting members of the League for sport, some kind of game. Two of the three assassins traveling with me were assassinated pretty much instantly, while the third, a Prudence Wood, had her throat cut. I was not on his list but got stabbed anyway. Pru and I both blacked out, and we were incapable of accessing our comms. I was able to get us back into the city, somehow, wasn’t really sure then and I’m still not sure now how I did it. We broke into the Wayne suite, just moments before Tamara Fox walked in, which happened just moments before the backup team of assassins that Ra’s had called in when we didn’t respond showed up.”

“That’s what Tam was doing in Iraq?” Barbara interrupted.

Tim looked at Barbara in surprise.

“You were tracking her?”

She waved her hand, wincing.

“Not exactly. I knew Lucius had sent her to track you down so I was keeping an eye on her. Iraq is where I lost her trail.”

It was Tim’s turn to wince. He tried to tell the next part of the report as quickly as possible, making a point to not look at Jason as he spoke.

“That is my fault. I don’t know exactly what happened when Pru and I were retrieved, since I had fully passed out by then, but the assassins brought Tam with us. I woke up an unknown amount of time later in a League base. Upon waking, I had initial reason to believe that I had been resurrected via Lazarus Pit, but the White Ghost quickly corrected my assumption. While not resurrecting me, they had needed to performed surgery and removed my spleen, the only organ damaged in the Widower’s attack. After explaining what had happened, it was made clear to me that we were in the League base only known as the Cradle, and that I didn’t have much of a choice in helping them find and destroy the Council of Spiders. They were holding Tam hostage in exchange for my cooperation.”

Barbara nodded as if that explained everything, and Tim really wished it did.

“I lead the…endeavor, as they called it, per Ra’s’ orders. I tried my best to enforce non-lethal methods, but most of Ra’s’ assassins were outmatched by the various members of the Council of Spiders anyway. I had complete access to his system, and because of that discovered that his Expediter was a mole. While working on the plan to take out the Council of Spiders, I also began enacting my plan to cripple the League as much as possible.”

He paused to finish off the coffee, the bitter dregs settling over his tongue.

“My plan to take out the Council of Spiders required simultaneous hits on the known members, and while Pru and I were on our mission, unbeknownst to us, the Cradle was being infiltrated, courtesy of the Expediter. I made it back in time to save Tam. Ra’s sent out a decoy, which enabled us to fight off the Council long enough to blow it all up. Literally. I blew the Cradle and as many other League bases as I had access to sky high. Cairo, Vienna, St. Petersburg, the Cradle, all of it went up in flames, figuratively and literally.”

Tim was about to continue when there was a knocking at the door. Alfred crossed the threshold and Jason was on his feet in the same moment, gesturing for him to take the seat. Alfred gave him a nod of thanks and sat down. Jason leaned against the wall behind him before waving his hand. Tim rolled his eyes and smiled at Alfred.

“Thanks for breakfast.”

“You are welcome, Master Timothy. But please, don’t stop the retelling on my account. I can be caught up later.”

Tim nodded and took a deep breath.

“Tam and I rushed back to Gotham, and it wasn’t long before Ra’s was contacting me again. He said that I needed to be punished for my actions against the League, which is where most of you came in. I didn’t announce my return to Gotham, but I did contact who I could. Ra’s wanted to cripple Bruce’s legacy by both killing everyone Bruce cared about and who was in Gotham, and by taking over Wayne Enterprises. I’m sure everyone else already at least started their mission reports, so I won’t go into too much detail, but we thwarted Ra’s on all accounts. None of the targets were assassinated or even seriously injured, and Ra’s did not gain control over the company. I did.”

Tim mentally applauded himself. Such a succinct retelling of the last chunk of his life. No hint of the compromises he could feel staining his soul, no hint of how close the previous night had been, no hint of how he was suppressing his own emotions about the last 48-72 hours.

The mental applause died out as the hands shot up. He sighed before pointing at Jason.

“Your spick and span mission report seems to be missing a few details, Timberina. Details like why Ra’s trusted you with access to his empire.”

“I don’t really know why. He talked a lot about how much respects me and my intelligence, and talked about how he’d been watching me.”

“Ew, creeper,” Jason said, again with too much glee for Tim’s comfort.

Next, Tim pointed at Dick.

“Not a question, just want to state for the record and for posterity’s sake that while you said you knew I’d catch you, it’s a load of bull. What Tim neglected to mention,” he spoke directly to the recorder now, “is that he took on Ra’s al Ghul by himself after defeating his own appointed assassins. He was injured fairly severely, hence the current bed rest, including being kicked out a window. He passed out right as I caught him, which leads me to believe there is a very serious talk about people’s mental states in the near future.”

Tim’s face was burning and there was nothing he could do to stop it. So maybe his mental health was a sensitive subject even before Bruce’s disappearance and everything that came after. Instead of addressing it or Dick, he pointed at Barbara.

She took a moment to speak, eyes wide and focused on Dick. Eventually she turned to face Tim.

“Any chance you saved some of that League data before, and I quote, blowing it sky high?”

“I’ll get that data to you once I’m off bedrest,” he said, throat tight. She just nodded, for which he was grateful.

Finally, he pointed at Steph.

“Where does you and Tam factor into all of this?”

Tim felt his eyes go wide before he dropped his face into his hands, groaning.

“Lover boy forgot about his own engagement? What a shame,” Jason crowed.

“I still have no clue what that’s about,” Tim said through his hands.

“I believe it has something to do with our least favorite Gotham reporter,” Alfred said calmly.

“Vale?” Tim asked, sitting up straight. “That…actually might go a long way to explaining it.”

“Are there any further mission related questions?” Dick asked, voice having lost its older brother tone and taken on one too reminiscent of Batman for Tim's comfort in his bed.

Everyone shook their heads, so he leaned forward and turned off the recorder before pocketing it. Without any warning, the door flew open and in walked Kon, a red blur maneuvering around him.

“Finally! That took forever, and Tim’s already a normally thorough guy. I thought you’d never finish talking,” Bart blabbered from first Alfred’s side then from between Stephanie and Barbara.

“No speeding in the house,” Alfred reminded him.

“Woops,” Bart said, completely unrepentant.

“Sorry for barging in so quickly, but we were getting impatient,” Kon explained. He had a bottle of water in his hands that he passed to Tim. Tim took it gratefully and didn’t bother to wait before cracking it open.

“Thanks,” he muttered before gulping half of it down.

“Just to clarify for the room at large, Tim is on mandatory no-doing-anything-even-remotely-work-related for three days, starting today, and is benched from Red Robin anything for the remainder of the week.”

“Thanks, Dick,” Jason said, grinning, “so when is that promised movie night happening?”

“I’m free tonight and tomorrow night,” Barbara was quick to say.

“I can be free whenever it’s happening,” Steph added.

Tim looked up a Kon, trying to make his facial expression as pitiful as possible.

“Can you kidnap me between now and then?”

Kon’s nose wrinkled in the begging of a laugh, but before he could actually reply, Bart was standing next to him.

“No can do hermano, you know the rules of bed rest. No active kidnapping situations!”

Tim fell back into his pillows. The moment he wasn’t sitting up anymore, the exhaustion he had been staving off hit him like a ton of bricks. Keeping his eyes open was a struggle, but thankfully (for once) he was in a room full of detectives.

“I’m sure we’ll have plenty of more questions later, and so will Damian, but before we skedaddle and let you sleep, Tim, do we need to be doing anything this exact second about Bruce?”

Tim took a deep breath and tried sitting back up. When that failed, he focused on thinking.

“Not this exact second, but later today I’ll have all the info compiled we need to move forward. We have some time, but we’ll need the Justice League’s help on this.” Dick nodded, patted one of Tim’s covered feet, and stood, taking the now empty tray with him.

“Don’t think we don’t need to talk, Tim,” Jason warned, before exiting the room with a two-finger salute.

“Tim,” Steph started, but she stopped when she glanced around the room.

“We’ll talk later, Steph,” Tim said, hoping his tone was reassuring. It must have been because she just nodded and left to follow Jason. Who seemed to be waiting for her at the door. That is not good, he thought to himself, that is very not good for me.

Barbara just exchanged a nod with him before wheeling herself out. Tim ignored Bart’s excited speed-speech directed at Kon, who was slowly sitting down next to Tim's chest, and turned to Alfred.

“That coffee Dick gave me was decaf, right?”

“Indeed it was, young master.”

“Good,” he said while smiling. Alfred returned the smile and stood to leave the room.

Now it was just Tim, Kon, and Bart, and Tim shuffled himself down in his bed so that he was no longer sitting up.

“Is it sleeping time?” Bart asked, voice hushed.

Kon’s fingers began threading his hair, and Tim was too tired to stop the quiet moan that that elicited. Kon just laughed, quietly.

“I think it is Bart. Do you want to go see if Dick or the others want to hang out with you? I don’t mind Tim-sitting some more.”