꙼ᩚ . . . RASPBERRY PI . building a cyberdeck with bf tim !
pairings . tim drake x fem!reader ⋮ wc . 4.2k ⋮ fluff ⋮ warnings . none, pure fluff with a hint of suggestive language. nicknames used : babe, baby and sweetheart. notes . miscellaneous tech jargon + very self indulgent and sorta dialogue heavy, maybe ooc tim who knows... first tim fic kinda nervy + also new fic layout ! ⋮ art creds : @/quezartt ⋮
The rain hammered against the floor-to-ceiling windows of Tim’s penthouse apartment like it was trying to break in.
Gotham’s usual gloom had turned into a full downpour by the time the sun usually broke through the clouds, morphing the morning skyline into a blur of bruised pinks and gunmetal greys.
While inside, the world felt miles away. The only lights came from the soft glow of a few dim lamps, a monitor lazily blinking through the open door of an adjacent room, and the TV playing classics your boyfriend ever-so-graciously — albeit illegally — siphoned straight from Toonami Aftermath like premium cable television.
“Moon Princess Halation!”
The exclamation echoed from the wide flat screen and you snorted under your breath, knees tucked under you on the massive sectional as you hunched over the coffee table decorated with scattered tools. Tiny screwdrivers, flush cutters, tiny spools of wire, custom keycaps for an even tinier keyboard and a LED strip that cost more than you wanted to know.
“When’s Yu-Gi-Oh starting?”
A warm, bare chest pressed against your back while two arms slid around your waist. Tim — the boyfriend in question — groaned through a yawn as his chin dropped heavy onto your shoulder, his messy dark hair tickling your cheek. He smelled like sleep and the faint sharpness of menthol from whatever bruise cream he’d been swearing by lately.
“You’re supposed to be resting,” you murmured, not looking away from the ribbon cable you were carefully threading into the hollowed-out bottom half of an old Nintendo DS where the second LCD screen should’ve been, but was now waiting to be filled with the custom components you’d been collecting for weeks.
“Mmm. I was,” he rasped, voice still gravelly. One of his hands splayed across your stomach under the hem of your shirt, thumb stroking slow, absent circles. “Then I woke up and my favorite person wasn’t in bed. A sort of cruel and unusual punishment.”
You leaned back into him with a scoff, letting his body heat soak through your clothes, careful not to press back too hard because you remembered the look of the bruise along his ribs — that you assumed was still an ugly bloom of purple and yellow from the last time you looked at it while he slept.
“Hi, baby,” you said softly.
“Morning to you too, sweetheart.” Tim kissed the side of your neck, lazy and lingering, then peered over your shoulder at the half-assembled mess that was his cyberdeck project — or, formerly his cyberdeck project but now yours, since he was supposed to be horizontal and useless for at least two more days.
He pulled away from you only to come around the front. “You’re going too tight on that ribbon cable. The hinge is gonna pinch when we close it.”
“We?” You lifted your head just enough to glare at him. “Backseat building already and you’ve been awake for thirty seconds.”
Tim’s hair was longer now, falling into his eyes in wild strands that made him look softer — distracting enough to overshadow a dark bruise fading at the curve of his jaw, if the fact that he was shirtless hadn’t made you dizzy enough to almost not scold him.
“I’m not backseat building,” he protested, all feigned innocence, even as he reached past you to gently adjust the tension on the cable with two careful fingers. “I’m… offering emotional support. From a very horizontal-adjacent position.”
You flattened the cable in place just as his other hand reached over to try and steal the flush cutters you were working with.
“Down, boy.” You smacked his wrist and he whined, immediately dropping the tool into your awaiting palm. “This is my work station, by the way — if you haven’t realized — and I don’t want your grimey hands all over it.”
“Thought you liked my grimey hands.” He leaned over to kiss the side of your face, then your cheek, and another one right below your ear. The slight wince from the pull of his sore ribs was obvious, accompanied by the nasty bruise still on display exactly where you left it, like a painful kiss at the curve of his ribcage.
“You don’t love me anymore? Is that it?” Tim complained.
You did. Even with the bruises. Especially with the bruises, because they were proof he was home and safe enough to be annoying.
“Do not even think of sitting down, you need to get back to bed.”
On the TV, Sailor Moon struck another dramatic pose and the music swelled to a crescendo as Tim pretended he didn’t hear you at all.
“I came to watch Yu-Gi-Oh actually,” he hummed matter-of-factly while he sprawled out on the massive sectional, stretching his legs out and draping himself against your side. “Not to see you. Or the Sailor.”
You laughed, tangling one of your legs with his. “What is your deal with Sailor Moon?”
Tim’s hand lazily found your thigh, squeezing gently as he shifted closer, peeking over your shoulder. “I don’t have a deal,” he mumbled. “I just think it’s unrealistic that the bad guys wait for her to transform before the actual fight happens.”
“Right… Because Yu-Gi-Oh is so realistic.”
“Well. If you’re asking—” He stretched one long arm toward the coffee table without untangling his legs from yours, grunting at the flex of his aching muscles. “An argument can be made about its applications to any kind of strategy based initia—
“Again, I don’t recall this being a collaborative effort.” You swatted his arm away. “Shoo.”
Tim made a pathetic little sound and snaked his arms around you again, only tighter, before his hands eventually settled on your hips and pulled you closer, just until your back was flush against his chest.
“You should be recovering,” you continued. “R and R remember? Rest and relaxation—” You shifted so you could face him better, easing yourself up onto his lap gently at first, waiting for him to give you the full go ahead.
“I am recovering,” he mumbled, lips brushing your jaw. He didn’t wait another second before pulling you down onto him, stretching his legs out on either side of you with a sigh. “This is like homeopathic medicine. Skin-to-skin contact, all that stuff. Very healing.”
You shook your head, a hand reaching behind you blindly to push the hair back from his face, your fingertips brushing the faint scar near his hairline before sliding between the strands to scratch lightly at his scalp.
“You are the worst patient on the planet.”
“And you…” he whispered, pressing a slow kiss to the curve of your neck. “Are sooo pretty…” Then another. “When you’re concentrating.” And another, working his way up until he could nuzzle right behind your ear. “It’s distracting me from how much everything hurts.”
You melted despite yourself, tilting your head to give him better access. “Manipulation tactics. I see you, Drake.”
“Are they working?” He whispered. Your stomach did a flip.
“Unfortunately.”
You could feel him grinning against your skin. “Still got it.”
One of his hands wandered down to your thigh again, just to rest there, while the other slipped down to where you held the flesh cutters in your palm against a cable. This time, you let him intervene — his longer fingers sliding between yours to grip the tool a little tighter.
“Don’t backseat me,” you warned, as he guided your hand in the opposite direction you would’ve gone. “I’m serious.”
“I won’t,” he said. “Scout’s honor.”
And he kept to his promise for a little less than two minutes.
Tim’s lips puckered against the skin where your neck and shoulder met, trailing up the line of your neck until he reached the curve of your jaw, burying his face there with the tiniest kisses.
“Maybe,” he whispered. “And this is just a suggestion,” he continued, voice low. “Let’s... not use PiSugar for power supply…”
“Oh my God, you promised.” You groaned, but there was no real heat in it. His lips were too warm against your skin, his hair tickling you softly as he nuzzled closer and closer.
“I’m not helping,” he murmured with faux innocence, voice still raspy from sleep and the remnants of last night’s patrol that he was rightfully benched from midway. “Just… offering constructive criticism. From a very restful position. And I think that this… this just isn’t it, babe.”
Tim paused to shake the flush cutters from your palm, instead forcing you to pick up the little, black rectangular power cell.
You slapped his wrist in protest and he blew a raspberry against your cheek — so sloppy and wet it made you recoil with disgust and a squealed ‘Ew, you fucking creep—!’
He tossed the PiSugar cell out of the DS’ hollowed shell and toward the pile of unused tools with a victorious smirk.
“Muuuch better,” he said. “Why are we using PiSugar anyway? I’m kinda offended…”
You twisted in his lap just enough to shoot him a look as you rubbed the wetness from your cheek. “It’s cheap and it works. And I would prefer not throwing money at an overpriced battery solution, Tim.”
He made a scandalized little noise, arms tightening around your waist as he pulled you flush against his bare chest. “Now, with all due respect—”
Tim stopped himself when you glared at him hotly.
“Babe. Darling. Smartest girl in the whole wide world—” He continued. “You did not see me use PiSugar or some cheap ass LiPo pack when I made your first cyberdeck. I am disappointed.”
“Jeez, sorry Dad.” You snorted, leaning back into him despite yourself and he hugged you close. “Maybe I just didn’t wanna outsource a battery fit for a supercomputer… It’s not like I’m catching criminals as a hobby.”
“Dad?” Tim laughed softly, the sound rumbling through his chest and against your skin. “Low blow. And no— it’s reasonable and it works better. Geekworm is the go-to, baby. I’m ordering one later.”
“No,” you objected immediately, easing up and reaching for the discarded PiSugar just to make a point. “That is exactly what we’re not gonna do. It’s like fifty bucks, Tim.”
“More like eighty with shipping,” he corrected, completely unbothered, as he hooked his chin over your shoulder again, pulling you back into him. “But I’ll have it here by tomorrow if I—”
“We are not dropping eighty dollars for a battery, you capitalist freak. The PiSugar is fine.” You elbowed him lightly as you tried to squirm free from his grip. “And seriously, go away— I have to finish this—”
He made an exasperated sound, somewhere between a whine of protest and a sigh, then pressed another warm kiss just below your ear. “But I’m bored. And you’re so... so hot when you’re all focused…” Another kiss to the back of your neck, then another, and back up again to press one more against your cheek. “Let me help.”
“Leslie said intensive bed rest. And no activities that require more than ten minutes worth of focus,” you reminded him, trying — and failing — to focus as you reached down to thread another ribbon cable.
“Oh yeah?” Tim’s palms slipped under the hem of your shirt and idled over your stomach, squeezing gently, while his fingers traced silken patterns that made it very hard to keep your hands steady. “Nothing at all?” Your entire body felt hot as he whispered in your ear.
“Don’t get ahead of yourself, perv. It’s not happening,” you laughed. “Wouldn’t want you to get a Charlie Horse and die.”
“Okay, mood obliterated.” He deflated. “Even doctors overreact sometimes. I am fine.”
“You came home looking like you lost a fight with a tank. Again.” You looked at him over your shoulder. “And you told Lonnie I was beating you at home, when you know damn well—”
“Firstly, that was a joke made in good faith that is much closer to the truth than you like to admit—”
“—I will ignore that because I refuse to give into the stereotype of punching you in the mouth.”
Tim continued, teeth grazing your shoulder. “Second, it was the line that failed me,” he corrected, lips brushing your jaw. “And I won—”
“You got punched into another building. Then fell from the highest floor of said building while trying to zipline your way back down.”
“Semantics.” Tim shrugged. “Your boy’s always a winner, baby.” Another kiss, this one so much sweeter, your face felt hot. “C’mon…. Let me help. Just the cable management. I’m excellent at cable management. World-class, even.”
You turned your head just enough to glare at him again.
His eyes were soft and heavy-lidded, his tousled hair falling into them, and that faint bruise along his jaw making him look unfairly pathetic, in an endearing way.
“Terrible at staying put, is what you are.”
“Please? I’ll be good.” Tim blinked slowly. “Scout’s honor? Again?”
“You were never a scout,” you laughed, your prior defenses now rendered null and void. “Like, ever.”
“Have pity on me,” he whispered, pressing a kiss to the corner of your mouth. “I’m hurting all over, you know?”
You frowned. “I’m being manipulated again, I think.”
Then another kiss, slower, coaxing. “Make me all better?” He pouted. “Please, sweetheart?”
“Tim—”
His lips met yours softly, and you instinctively turned to him for more, the kiss lazy and slow but full of heat. You could feel him smile against your mouth before he pulled away, forcing that same pout to keep his grin at bay.
Then you sighed dramatically and handed him the flush cutters. “Okay, fine, whatever. Cable management only. But if you even think about ordering that Geekworm before we finish this section, you’re sleeping alone.”
He gasped dramatically. “You wouldn’t.”
“Try me, rich boy.”
“I’d like to.” Tim’s grin was immediate and devastating and you audibly boo’d him as he shifted you both slightly so you were still mostly in his lap but could both reach the coffee table easier. His longer hair kept falling forward as he leaned in, and you couldn’t resist reaching up to tuck it behind his ear.
For the next hour you worked like that—tangled together, half-lazy, trading slow kisses between crimping cables and snapping accessories shut.
His arms framed you on either side, one hand steadying the DS shell while the other passed you tools or held wires in place and every time he leaned forward, his bare chest pressed warm against your back, chin hooked over your shoulder so you were cheek-to-cheek, breathing the same air.
Whenever he reached too far and the ache in his ribs made him wince, you’d scold him gently and kiss the fading bruise on his jaw like it would help heal the rest of him. He’d just smile that small, deafeningly self-satisfied smile and pull you back in.
At one point Tim paused, peering at the exposed internals. “Hey, want an LED status light right here?” He tapped a spot near the hinge with one long finger. “Just a little power indicator. Would look sick when it’s closed.”
You hesitated, then shook your head. “Nah, it’s fine without.”
He gave you a long, knowing look, the corner of his mouth slightly curving upwards. “Uh-huh.”
Two minutes later he was carefully soldering a tiny LED in place anyway, one arm still looped around your waist to keep you steady against him while his other hand worked with that effortless precision you fell for.
“Tim...”
“Relax. I’ve got a steady hand.” He whispered, teasing. “And I know you want the blinky light, even if you’re scared of the iron.”
“I am not scared of soldering,” you lied, cheeks warming as you watched the focused pinch of his brows. The faint smell of solder mixed with the earthy petrichor drifting through one of the cracked windows, and the faintest ray of morning sunshine struggled against the rainclouds.
“Mhm. But you want the blinky light,” he murmured, blowing gently on the fresh solder joint. “I’ve got you mapped.”
“You’re the worst,” you whispered, but you were smiling as you turned your head to press a kiss to his temple. “Fucking show-off.”
“Your show-off,” Tim corrected happily, a dopey grin on his face. “And you’ll thank me when it looks sick as hell at night.”
The cyberdeck build came together slowly but surely after that with your vision and his refinements until it eventually started to look less of a disassembled mess and more like something usable.
The rain kept falling in steady sheets outside as the final Sailor Moon episode on the television faded into the opening chords of Yu-Gi-Oh.
Tim perked up slightly at the familiar theme, unable to hide the excited childlike quirk in his brows, but his movements were growing slower and heavier as the work became more about holding you than building— the little kisses pressed to your shoulder, the pads of his fingertips thrumming against the warmth of your stomach, the feel of his unclothed heartbeat against your spine took up more and more of your attention.
Between the distant sound of Yu-Gi-Oh and the occasional soft click of tools, Tim’s breathing also changed behind you, his body hunching forward against your back in a drowsy fold.
“You falling asleep on me already?” you whispered, amused.
“Halfway there,” he admitted, voice slurred and muffled against the nape of your neck. “...‘S your fault,” you felt him smile a little, nuzzling deeper into your skin, or trying to. “You’re warm and you smell like my shampoo… and you’re doing tech things…. You’re so beautiful.”
You sat the tiny keyboard down carefully and twisted in his lap to face him properly, straddling his thighs. His eyes were half-lidded, his eyelashes fluttering gently with that unguarded softness he only ever showed when he was here and all yours.
“Poor baby,” you cooed, brushing the hair back from his forehead, fingers trailing over his hairline. “Got beat up by bad guys on national television.”
“It was a local broadcast, please.” Tim deadpanned, tilting his head to catch your fingers with a lazy kiss. “And you’re supposed to be nice to me…” his teeth grazed the tips of your fingers.
“You’re spoiled, you’ll live.” You leaned in and kissed him, tasting the faint mint from his toothpaste and all those assorted flavors of him needing you. He sighed into it, one hand sliding up your back under your shirt, a warm palm splayed across your skin.
“Take me down a peg,” Tim hummed lazily, pressing another lazy kiss to your mouth. “I like that.”
“Pervert.”
Still, you kissed him again as the rain kept pouring and Yu-Gi-Oh dueled in the background. When you pulled back, his eyes were brighter despite the exhaustion and he pressed his forehead against yours with a long sigh.
“Does it hurt bad?” You asked, carefully trying to shift your body over his lap to ease the weight on him. You could feel the faint twitch of muscles every time you moved, but he never complained.
“Stay,” he whispered as his arms tightened around your waist, pulling you closer against his chest while the half-finished cyberdeck was forgotten on the coffee table next to you. “Hurts less when you’re right here.”
You hesitated, hovering just a little. “Tim… your ribs—”
“Are fine,” he murmured, already tugging you down with gentle insistence. “C’mere. I want you on top of me. Proper R and R.”
You let out a soft laugh but gave in, carefully lowering your full weight until your chest pressed against his and you were nearly melded to him. You stayed tense for a second, hyperaware of every bruise while Tim just hummed contentedly, one hand stroking slowly up and down your spine.
“See?” he whispered against your hair. “Perfect. You feel good like this.”
You relaxed bit by bit, melting into the steady rhythm of his breathing and the warmth of his bare skin as the rain drummed steadily against the windows and the low sounds of card duels came from the TV.
“Can you sleep like this?” you asked after a while, pressing a kiss between his brows as his eyelids fluttered closed. Tim murmured an ‘mhm’ and hugged you closer, his head leaned back against the cushioned sectional. “Don’t drool on me though,” you said, burying your face in the side of his neck.
“I do not drool.”
“And I’m Batman.”
Tim snorted, his nostrils flaring from amusement and you kissed his jaw.
After a quiet minute, his voice came out soft and drowsy. “We should make one like the Millennium Puzzle.”
You smiled against his collarbone, tracing patterns on his chest with your fingertip. “You seriously have a problem.”
“Hm, you’ll see my vision soon,” he said, voice low and warm. “Tell me your ideas instead. For the rest of this one, I mean. The layout, the interface, all of it. I wanna hear.”
You shifted a little lower so your chin rested on his sternum, careful not to press on the worst of the bruises.
“Okay… I was thinking the top half could have some custom acrylic designs maybe? I wanna see what I can do with that 3D printer you spent a million bucks on— I can give it a mini computer look… but I like the sort of Y2K gaming console turned high tech spyware concept in my head… if that makes sense, I don’t know—”
Tim’s hand kept stroking your back in slow, lazy circles, his breathing growing softer beneath you. “Mmm… keep going,” he mumbled, eyes already drifting shut. “What about the interface?”
You kept talking softly, describing the power cell you secretly did want just to run a bunch of gaming applications, the messaging interface you wanted to design just to sync with his cyberdeck, how you pictured the whole thing looking and operating like pure magic.
“—and that’s where the Raspberry Pi is gonna go…”
Tim’s responses got quieter, made up of little hums and half-formed words. “...Raspberry Pi.”
“…and maybe a small speaker for gaming effects, we can run an emulator for Yoshi’s Island,” you continued, grinning to yourself. “And Final Fantasy.”
You waited for his usual chuckle followed by some cheeky remark about the longstanding rivalry you two had in all things Final Fantasy concerned. But all you heard were the same slow, even breaths.
“Tim? You still with me?”
No answer. All you could feel was the steady rise and fall of his chest under yours and his arms still loosely wrapped around you like he’d fallen asleep mid-caress.
You lifted your head to get a good look at him, and his face was completely relaxed now, lips slightly parted and messy dark hair splayed across the cushiony sectional in fluffy tufts.
“Tim…” you called out to him in a whisper, but he didn’t shift. “Paging geektopia,” you giggled, nuzzling your nose against his cheek.
He twitched softly in his sleep, fingers tightening around your waist. “M’ awake…” he inhaled deeply through his nostrils, squirming tighter against you. “I’m listenin’.”
You let out a quiet, fond laugh and pressed a gentle kiss to the corner of his mouth. “Sure you are,” you whispered, nuzzling closer.
“Sure I am.” He repeated, grinning with his eyes closed. “Just resting my eyes, sweetheart,” his fingers danced in shapes over the skin of your waist — crooked little circles, lopsided hearts, the occasional RR symbol like he couldn’t help himself.
You stayed draped over him, your weight like a warm blanket that he refused to let shift even an inch.
The rain had softened into a gentle drizzle against the windows, and the Yu-Gi-Oh soundtrack played like a lullaby in the background. Every so often Tim’s fingers would still as sleep coaxed him away, then start up again, chasing the feeling of your skin as if touching you was the gravity holding him here.
“You’re gonna build the Millennium Puzzle cyberdeck with me, right?” he mumbled after a long, quiet minute, voice thick and barely there. “We should… date night… gonna be so cool…”
“Yeah, baby,” you murmured, brushing his hair back again. “We’ll build it together.”
Tim made a soft, contented hum, the sound vibrating against your chest as he murmured to himself. “So many Raspberry Pi’s….”
You chuckled.
Then his arms tightened once more, pulling you impossibly closer. “Don’t go anywhere.”
“I’m not going anywhere,” you promised softly, pressing one last kiss to his bruised jaw. “Sleep, baby. I’ve got you.”
When you pulled back, Tim was smiling that small, lovedrunk smile, straining his eyes open a tiny fraction. “Love you, you know that?”
“Yeah, I know….” You let your head settle against his chest. “I know…”
His breathing evened out for good after that, deep and slow as his eyelids fell closed, the faint lines of unspoken pain smoothing from his face.
You watched him for a while, peering up through your lashes at the way his jaw relaxed, the flutter of those soft eyelashes against his cheekbones, and that tiny twitch of his mouth like he was still half-dreaming about his own Millenium Puzzle like a little boy on a lazy Saturday morning.
Outside, the rain kept falling while Yu-Gi-Oh played on low and your boyfriend — your stubborn, bruised, brilliant, and finally resting boyfriend — dozed in your arms.
You stayed right there on top of him, listening to the sound of his heartbeat against your ear drowning out everything else, perfectly content to let him sleep as long as he needed.
Within the tangled warmth of your limbs and his, you whispered, “I love you too,” and the rest of Gotham remained blurred away outside the glass as sleep took you too.
🗒️ written and proofread while half asleep so this might be the best and worst thing i’ve ever written. #timnation STAND UP . art creds : @/quezartt
