matrix !!

tim knew, vaguely, that this was probably a bad idea. similarly to how he knew stalking the batman and robin up on the roofs of gotham was a bad idea - it’s probably (definitely) illegal, could possibly lead to injury, and gives him a heady, buzzing rush of adrenaline through his body, making his fingers tingle and his teeth ache. he ignored it all with ease, and simply kept crouching low right behind bernard’s own hunched form.

they had been hanging out at berns’ house on one of those nights where bern’s parents were gone on a weeks long trip and the boy was lonely enough to call up his friend- tim, who answers every time. he might be busy with robin, but usually berns calls on nights where he’s not patrolling, or early enough in the evening that he doesn’t have to worry about patrol for hours to come. this time, it was both, so tim had been comfortable with coming over with a night bag.

they’ll do homework together (with some light nudging from tim to get berns going - the boy is smart enough for the work, he just hates doing it. which tim feels very hard, considering the work is boring enough to deter him from finishing it), play games together, read together (tim, with textbooks he’s studying for robin or novels that jason had left behind in the manor’s library with notes or markers, and bernard with comics or books his mom had recommended to him once upon a time). sometimes they’ll just sit quietly in each other’s company, with berns breaking the silence to ramble about one thing or another, and tim simply listening.

tim’s always been good at listening, and it’s just so easy to listen to bernard’s outlandish theories and ranting opinions about the state of gotham or the world. the blonde always has so much to say, loud and opinionated and crazed with intellect that’s made comical by how far off the mark he can be at times. if all tim did all day was listen to berns ramble about batman being a shadow government plant with a mission to create a clone robin army, furiously connecting the dots with red string and bright markers, his hazel eyes glinting with mania as a grin terrifying enough to scare the joker splits his lips, well then- tim wouldn’t be opposed. no, not at all.

but in any case, they were hanging, and berns was doing research with his laptop in his lap, fingers flying across the keys as he laid on his bed, and tim had been hanging off the side of said bed playing with one of bernard’s fidget cubes. berns had stopped typing all of a sudden, seemingly thinking of something for a long few, drawn out minutes, when tim finally pipes up and asks him what’s wrong. he sits up so he can look at his friend, who’s expression was twisted in thought.

slowly, bernard’s expression had lit up with something like realization, something like joy and mischief, and tim had sighed in resignation, already knowing that bern was going to suggest something crazy and tim would probably say yes.

berns had looked him in the eye, his stare a bright, piercing thing that made dread drop through his stomach, and excitement pump through his bloodstream. he had smiled, and asked tim if he wanted to break into an abandoned facility to explore a new theory, and tim had only hesitated for half a second- barely any time at all, really- before saying yes, like he knew he would.

and here they were, creeping along the bushes just outside of the withering fence that surrounded the abandoned complex. it was a dilapidated building that was actually quite big for simply being an “old research space”, and tim wouldn’t be shocked if they came across remnants of an old rogue plot or the remains of breakthrough research that had been cut short by some corrupt company or other. it was gotham, this shit happened all the time.

he was concerned that it could house some unsavories, but he just vowed to himself that he would keep berns as safe as he could, and he figured they’d just turn and run at the first sign of trouble anyway.

they climb over the fence, it being made easier by how frail it was from age and disuse. they drop down, readjusting their bags, and walk around to a side entrance that creaks a bit when they pull it open, the door rusted and shaky. they step inside, and berns looks around with hungry, sharp eyes, picking apart the empty, broken down space, many different hallways stretching from the main lobby, and a second floor made immediately obvious as they look up at the walkway connected from the main stairs. it’s all metal walls and wooden furniture, everything dusty and dark- only a few rays of gray light streaming through the skylight. that’s gotham for you.

they decide to meander through the halls, quietly calling to each other when they separate for more than a few minutes. berns has his journal out, jotting down a few things as they walk about. they go up the stairs eventually, having found nothing of note on the first floor, and it’s here where they find something a bit more interesting.

empty, though still half-stocked, labs. quite a few of them, too. rows of stations, clear beakers tipped over or sitting in trays, microscopes, shelves with some leftover chemicals, refrigerators with even more empty trays and nothing else. bernard still explores every lab with renewed interest and a pep to his step, scribbling furiously in his notebook and noting the chemicals he knows off first glance, taking pictures of what he thinks should be documented as well. tim just follows behind him, making note to return here later as robin and search more thoroughly for anything sinister- maybe even empty out the chemicals so they won’t be stolen and used.

they bump shoulders as berns says some of his observations out loud, with tim questioning him on some things and nodding with a fondly exasperated smile at others. “we haven’t even found anything, are you sure this is the home to a new sighting of cryptids? maybe someone was just high when they posted that,” tim is saying with a teasing smirk, and berns loudly talks over him, saying that tim just wants to see him fail and he has no faith whatsoever in bernard’s gut. and bernard’s gut is saying that something is here so we will keep exploring, mister drake-wayne, unless you have somewhere to be?

tim just holds his hands up, grinning at berns’ mock irritation, who huffs loudly and moves on to the next room. they bicker and shove each other, smelling the safe chemicals and steering clear of the more volatile ones that have separated over the years, covering up some that shouldn’t still be exposed to open air with their gothamite gas masks on. they discuss curiously about the pros and cons of pranking their chemistry teacher with something innocuous enough to not mess with any chemicals and materials, but significant enough that he leaves the room so they can start their own separate experiments.

it’s as they’re talking that they enter the last room, and tim is the first to pause as he realizes this one is a bit different. there’s another skylight in here, and it looks close to an office with lab stations shoved inside of it rather than an actual lab. the floor is carpeted which- that’s a solid no with chemicals in the room- much more stocked shelves than the other labs, the lab stations are smaller but they take up either side of the room, the middle being open under the skylight and leading up to the big desk pressed up against the floor to ceiling window that makes up the back wall. tim and berns slowly look around, separating to check out opposite sides, careful not to mess with anything- their previous conversation forgotten.

tim feels itchy with- not exactly dread, but something close, like he can tell there’s something off about this room and it’s disconcerting. like he can feel that something isn’t right. he purses his lips as he comes to a stop, turning to where berns is snooping at the desk.

“bern, i think we should leave. something is wrong,” he says, voice calm and quiet, but the nerves still gripping his throat tight. berns doesn’t seem to hear him, too distracted.

a distant crack and rumble makes tim snap his eyes up to the skylight, where he can see gotham’s usual gray clouds getting darker with a storm. lightning briefly flashes right above the little window, and tim can feel his heart start to race again as he backs up towards the door.

“bernard, i’m serious. we’ve gotta get out of here,” tim calls, much louder this time with his urgency. bernard waves his hand vaguely in tim’s direction, eyes glued to papers that he’s gotten out of the desk as he walks around it, coming to stand closer to the skylight. he’s awash in grays and silvers, and tim can see his feverish stare only become more manic with information.

“just a sec, timmy! i think i’ve found something- this place was going to be an extension of a lab outsourced from a different city- i can’t tell which city, the font is so smudged from age- and they were in the middle of building something big when they got shut down by some mystery corporation,” berns rants, his mouth moving a mile a minute as his eyes greedily eat up what he’s reading from the pages.

tim’s lips twist as his eyes narrow, his teeth setting on edge as he hears thunder rumble again, sounding closer than before. and it’s then, as his eyes sweep one more time over the office, that he realizes what had made him start to itch. this space isn’t as dusty as the other labs. it looks as though someone has been here recently. and they had been up to something, with all the updated lab stations and shiny-looking chemicals.

“yeah that’s great, berns, but i really think we should go-“

“holy shit!” bern exclaims, cutting tim off and almost dropping the papers in his hands as he accidentally bumps into something on the side of the desk and makes a panel in the floor open up, something shooting out of the newly-opened space. tim’s blood thunders in his ears as he takes a quick step forward, almost flying forward with his robin-reflexes before he forces himself to stop.

what had come out of the hole was a pole that unfolds to show something not at all dissimilar from bernard’s own conspiracy board. it’s at least five feet across and seven feet tall, with pictures and newspaper clippings and ripped out textbook pages and medical files all connected with red yarn, key words and faces circled in black marker pen. tim stares, wide eyed, and berns has not fared any better, what with his jaw dropped to the floor.

berns takes a step closer to the board, his full hands reaching out with a marveling expression brightening up his face, no doubt his little conspiracy theorist heart feeling all warm and fuzzy at the sight of this, but tim just feels goosebumps break out over his arms as he suppresses a shiver.

“bernard, i’m not joking anymore! please, let’s just go. someone was here, and that board is clearly their secret evil plot, or something. we can notify the police or the bats or someone, but only once we’re gone!” tim shouts, one foot halfway out the door. berns seems to snap out of the frenzy he’s been in since they had entered the room, and he looks over at tim with wide eyes. whatever he sees makes him settle, and he nods as he swallows, rearranging his bag so it’s in front of him so he can shove as many papers into it as he can, jogging over to tim all the while.

tim feels a little knot of tension undo in his chest, relieved that his friend is finally listening. he reaches a hand out right as berns crosses under the skylight, and-

that moment there, is when everything changes.

the world explodes in a burst of bright, searing white light, his ear drums imploding and the breath knocking out of his lungs as he’s thrown back, completely out of the room and slamming into the railing of the walkway, bending the metal under the force of his weight.

pain explodes in his spine from the impact, and a ragged cry squeezes out of his throat as he slides to the ground, his vision tunneling into black. he’s probably only unconscious for a few seconds at most when he coughs awake, rapidly blinking as he attempts to orient himself.

his whole body aches and throbs as he forces himself to sit up, wind brushing through his hair and stinging at his eyes, the air smelling of burnt chemicals and smoggy rain. he coughs again as he tries to stand, his brain whirling and buzzing as he tries to understand what just happened.

“oh fuck- bernard-!” he chokes out as he suddenly remembers, stumbling over broken pieces of debris and glass as he runs back into the room, wildly looking around the place - which is significantly more disorganized than before the- what the hell even happened?- with the desk blown back, the skylight broken and streaming in rain and wind, the lab stations toppled over or disarrayed, the floor covered in more glass and broken things - before landing on bernard’s figure. his pulse ratchets up as his heart stutters through several beats at the sight of his best friend.

he had been thrown into one of the shelves lined up next to the lab stations, chemicals all over the floor and soaking into bernard’s still body. he was pale and bleeding, and as tim ran over to him, he could smell- ozone?

“bernard! oh my god, berns, oh god, oh fuck-” tim shouts, fear making his hands shake as he grabs his best friend and hauls him into his arms. his fingers sting from a static shock as he holds him, but he barely even registers it before he’s running out of the room. he had checked for a pulse and almost took his hand away with a hiss at the thundering pace of his friend’s heart. it was almost beating too fast to be possible- that couldn’t be healthy on top of everything else, he needed to get berns help immediately.

he flies through the halls and down the stairs, cursing in frustration at the obstacle the fence made before just throwing berns onto his back as securely as he could, and climbing painstakingly slow so he doesn’t jostle berns off of him- especially since his friend wasn’t conscious to hold onto him.

he runs through the gotham, trying to take back alleys and shortcuts that he knew were safe so as to avoid getting into any trouble berns couldn’t afford. he’s running so fast and so far his chest is heaving with it - especially with the wind and rain not making it any easier - but if not for missions, if not for defeating rogues and saving the city and saving the world, what use is his robin training than for this?

he makes it to leslie’s clinic with single minded determination, drenched to the bone from the rain, his sheer stubbornness holding off the cold and preventing him from slipping in his non slip-proof sneakers. truthfully, he hadn’t even noticed any of it. all he was chanting in his mind was leslie’s clinic, and bernard. bernard, who was so warm he was bordering on uncomfortably hot, burning through tim’s thin shirt and branding his skin with something tim couldn’t even hope to name.

bernard, who he cradles in his arms again like something so so utterly precious, like the only precious thing in the world. like someone tim is deathly afraid to lose. especially to something like this - something so far out of his control it almost circles right back around to being funny. bernard, who he holds out to leslie when she comes out of her office at the sound of the door jingling with tim’s hasty entrance. bernard, who looks so deathly pale in the low, inoffensive light of leslie’s clinic as leslie gracefully takes him into her arms - not one to startle easily, even from things like this - that he practically looks already dead.

bernard, who disappears behind the door to where he can hopefully be treated, to where tim can’t follow.

tim, who slides to the floor as light as a feather without bernard’s weight to hold him steady, keep him standing and in place. tim, who distantly feels the tears slide down his pink cheeks, and the warmth seeping back into the limbs that hadn’t been holding bernard close.

tim, who doesn’t even realize when his brother shows up, concerned and crouching down in front of him.

oh, tim thinks. leslie had called dick as soon as she saw tim frantic and terrified. because even when tim is bleeding out and delirious and idly asks if he’s going to die tonight, he’s never one to be truly, utterly beside himself with terror. he can’t even imagine how horrified and scared he must’ve looked to freak leslie out enough for her to call one of his brothers right then and there.

it doesn’t matter, anyway. nothing matters except bernard. he can’t even hear dick’s voice, in this congealed, shadowed place he’s in, where his heart had stopped when bernard’s did. where the only image he can think of, is the sight of berns’ limp body laid across a shelf.

and it’s in this strange sort of limbo, that his world lights up again for a second time. for one terrifying second, tim is back in that doorway, and the room is going to explode and bernard is going to get hurt, and he can’t reach him in time-

but then he looks up.

and it’s bernard, lit up in beautiful blues and whites and golds. the world is a slow thing, turning on its axis as if through molasses. berns is burning, standing in place, lit up with sparking lightning, his eyes bright and electrified. he looks down at tim with all the speed and wonder of the warped cosmos, his hair moving as if underwater. he grins, so wide and mischievous, his teeth crackling with something like electrons and thunder.

“hi timmy,” he says, using that dreaded nickname, and his voice rumbles and carries in this- strange space, where everyone and everything is lagging behind and it’s just him and tim. tim reaches a hand out, automatically, unthinkingly. he just- all he wants is bernard, alive and awake beneath his fingertips.

bernard reads his mind, and grabs his hand.

tim gasps as he feels his brain light up, warmth and sparking adrenaline flooding through him as he’s pulled to his feet. he’s dizzy with lightning crashing in his chest, with bernard’s swirling stare, so full of energy and emotion. bern pulls him close, right into his chest, and tim is surrounded with golden vibrations and violet static, berns’ high laugh making his mind fizz with something like relief, and joy, and something more.

“bernard,” tim breathes, holding onto his friend with a death grip because he simply can’t do anything else. berns laughs again, and squeezes him tight.

“yeah, timmy. wanna go for a run?”

and oh. that’s what this is. of course. tim- really should’ve seen it, considering he’s robin, and all that. but in his defense- he was scared.

it doesn’t matter now.

he just grins, high and light for the first time in years.

“i’ve been waiting all my life for you to ask,” tim says, grinning but he’s so grave, so serious, he means it, really. he’s been waiting for bernard his whole life.

bernard holds him impossibly closer, lightning racing over his arms and crackling between their faces that are only inches apart. he’s grinning so hard tim is afraid it’ll get stuck like that.

“drama queen,” he whispers, and then he’s running, and well. tim is a lot of things.

bernard knows. he knows. contrary to what his parents like to say, and what his teachers like to say, and probably what his classmates like to say behind his back, bernard is not dumb. quite the opposite, actually.

to escape the stifling, love-absent atmosphere of his home - his parents with their haughty conversations about one day getting to shake hands with the likes of the drakes and the waynes at their fancy rich people functions, and their thinly-veiled, judgmental stares - bernard likes to sneak out the second story window of his bedroom, and escape to the roofs of gotham at just ten years old. and sometimes, if he’s lucky enough that there’s hasn’t been any major rogues out that night, he’ll be able to catch the whisper of batman’s cape, or the bright, catching colors of robin in flight.

it’s quick to become routine for him- getting out of that silent, tomb-like house filled to the brim with disappointment, and he goes bird watching. well, bird and bat watching. him, the clothes on his back, and his stupid little binoculars he’s probably had since he was six or something and his mom gave them to him on christmas after he said he enjoyed looking out over the city.

this christmas, he’s going to ask for a camera.

and he does. it’s practically game over from there.

bernard hadn’t really thought of himself as the- stalking type. well, obviously if you’re a good person then it would never even cross your mind to consider yourself a stalker, or to do stalker-like activities. but even then, as bernard silently climbed roofs and peaked around building corners and hid behind vents and doors and roof ledges and dumpsters, snapping pictures of batman and robin, and following them all over gotham without them suspecting a thing, he hadn’t once thought it was necessarily wrong. like, of course it’s wrong in the way that any kind of stalking is wrong, but this is batman. and robin! gotham’s protectors, and very own cryptids. they fight crime and save citizens and break up drug rings and stop muggings and punch scarecrow in the face. surely, surely, if anyone in the world deserved to be documented, monitored, followed, it would be these two? the unknowns that put their lives on the line simply for the good of gotham? surely, bernard is at least in the right for that. for tracking something as important as this. for wanting to know.

and know he does.

bruce wayne and jason todd. his idols. people that have no idea he even exists, but that he loves like he’s right there with them, up on those roofs in his very own spandex. leather? whatever. maybe that’s what he’ll try to find out next.

not that he gets the chance. jason dies, robin dies, and batman is without his partner-in-crime-fighting. a broken, grieving man- father, alone, bereft of a bird, and a shadow without its bright red yellow and green light at its side.

bernard refuses to accept it. refuses to let this legend, this hero, this real, grieving man be without his little birdie. refuses to leave the man that he looks up to more than his own father alone, and without his other half (because what is batman, without his stoplight sidekick? bernard has their pictures hung up all over his conspiracy board in his room, and even when robin is let off to solve things himself, they’re never apart for long. robin keeps batman grounded, and closer to the light- keeps him from melting into the shadows forever, never to be human again.)

he grips his camera tight, and instead of staying in his usual shaded and hidden spot, he walks out into the open, right where he knows batman can see him two roofs away, and he backs up only to go for a running head start, jumping the gap.

it’s two years later, and bernard- he’s robin, and that is still insanity, still something that sets his brain spinning. he wears pants though, because miss him with those godforsaken booty shorts, Peter Pan head ass, Jesus Christ-

the point being, he’s new, and he’s different, but he’s still robin because he had to be. even seeing and knowing batman and bruce up close- pulling the man away from the bat computer so they can train or drink alfie’s delicious tea or watch some brain dead cartoon on the couch, feeling that big, calloused hand ruffle his hair, sending warmth straight through him and squeezing his heart like a hug- he still thinks he’s a cryptid. even as he trains under bruce’s watchful gaze, learning to melt into the shadows as he does, and step quieter and lighter than even a feather would be - finding out what makes batman batman - bernard is 100% convinced bruce is some sort of vampire clone experiment.

and look the man wasn’t involved with any shadow government whatsoever, but there’s something there with some cult known as the league of shadows and that’s enough for bernard’s conspiracy theorist brain to go into a tizzy for a week straight.

all this to say, bruce is closed off and burdened and his grey blue eyes are so broken with pain and grief and a lost love of a little boy who’s life was stolen too soon, and bernard tries not to say anything, tries not to see, tries not to feel suffocated under the weight of it all. because here, even as bruce ignores him most days, flinching away from him in some at the sight of bernard in the robin suit, it’s still infinitely better here than at his empty, loveless house. his parents are always trying to go on some business trip together, and the time they stay gone only extends each time. it spares him from their frosty stares and unfeeling mouths, which only ask if he’s doing well in class and if he’s decided what he’ll do at college (“i don’t know yet mom, i’m only 12” - side note, he’s 14 now-) and if he’s held hands with a girl yet. they always seem particularly testy when they ask that last question. bernard sometimes wonders if they know something he doesn’t and they would just rather swallow lemons whole then ask him directly.

but yeah. bruce’s sad, sad gaze as he looks down at bernard like he’s a ghost of something he wishes he could still ask for will always be infinitely better than- all of that. and robin…that will always be the best thing that’s ever happened to him. becoming useful and seeking out a purpose that can only lead to him doing good? it’s an indescribable feeling. it’s giving little kids lollipops after losing their parents or siblings to a mafia shootout, it’s punching goons in the face and sneaking into highly guarded warehouses and putting on gas masks as they fight against poison ivy and her many pollens. it’s investigating cases, his theorist brain on fire as he gets to search out clues and put pieces together.

it’s staring frustratedly at the bat computer as the third museum that week gets robbed of their lauded, precious painting, or something or other, his blonde brow twitching on his bare face with his rising irritation, his gloved hands gripping the back of the plush chair seated at the computer with enough force to crack glass.

whoever this thief was, they were good, and bernard didn’t have enough of a trail to go off of. they sent him on a false lead at first, before he quickly realized what they had done and doubled back, only to be left with nothing. it was driving him crazy. he was this close to just saying fuck it and going out again, even with patrol supposed to be over, just so he can sneak into the museum again. retrace his steps.

“master bernard?” he hears alfie’s voice echo through the batcave as the man seemingly descends the stairs so he can come fetch him for dinner. except, bernard is already gone. all alfred sees as he walks up to the bat computer before stopping in his tracks with a slight disappointed slant to his mouth, is a slowly spinning, empty chair.

robin narrows his eyes behind the mask as he looks up at the skylight he descended from, knowing without a doubt that’s where the thief had entered and escaped. he then looks around at the crime scene, carefully stepping over labeled evidence and broken glass, not a crunch to be heard with his kind of training. he stares at the empty display case where a great big painting from the renaissance era should have been, painted with soft yellows and beiges and reds in swooping swirling patterns. he looks all around it, behind it, at the other display cases, at the speckled shattered glass again which was actually a result of the thief being thrown at the only other empty display case that had yet to be filled by the new art the museum was due to receive soon.

he perks up as he crouches down at the glint of something, immediately going into the pockets of his belt and pulling out an evidence baggie and some tweezers. he picks up the glass, and smirks as he sees its faintly tainted with small droplets of blood.

only to drop it all as a loud, lightning-crack of a sound rips through the still, silent air, his hands stinging from the attack. he springs to his feet, whipping out his nunchucks painted red and green, only to freeze as he looks up at the culprit. how he got snuck up on had eluded him for no more than a split second- the time that it took his brain to register what he was seeing. and then he almost sighed audibly as he realized he was an idiot.

cat lad. of course it was. cat woman’s newest side kick. he was quick to make a name for himself for being as fast and light on his feet as his mentor, and for being whip-smart. his intelligence seemingly matched the bat’s, with the way he had him and robin scrambling after his thieving.

“of course it was you. i should’ve known,” bernard huffs out, his voice an airy thing that was mostly annoyance, but also something like grudging respect- though still in robin’s deeper register. cat lad chuckled lightly, stepping close enough to be slightly seen in the museum’s low lighting, his whip in hand, and most definitely the thing that had made bernard drop his biggest clue yet.

“don’t worry hon, i’m sure you would’ve figured it out soon. i might’ve changed my signature, but you’re fast. faster than batman, at least,” cat lad says, his voice buttery smooth, though just as young as bernard’s is out of the suit. bernard had figured they were a teenager like him, and he didn’t know why the thought sent butterflies through his stomach. he tries not to grit his teeth so he can focus. he will not blush because of a compliment from a thief. he will not, he simply refuses.

“gee thanks, love the confidence. to address the elephant in the room though, i’m gonna need that painting back,” robin says, all mocking and serious with his lips pursed. he still hasn’t moved from his fighting stance. cat lad giggles behind his hand, like he finds robin particularly amusing, and he steps closer. close enough that he could reach out and touch him. he holds his hands up, whip at his hip once more, looking contrite in that stupid cat cowl.

“sorry birdie, it’s already gone. sold. me and mama are enjoying the spoils, ya’know?” he says, all soft and sorry. he’s stepping closer, knee-high, heeled boots crunching over the glass with not a care for something as trivial as evidence. robin doesn’t know why he’s staying rooted in place. he doesn’t know why he hasn’t lashed out and started a fight yet. his hands are sweating in their gloves, only clutching his nunchucks tighter. his eyes could not possibly narrow any smaller.

“are you kidding me?” he growls out, irritated enough to sound like batman. cat lad just grins, like the chesire he is, and he reaches out. slowly, steadily, like where he’s going to wind up putting his hands is inevitable, like he knows robin won’t say no. robin should be doing more than saying no, he should be sweeping his leg low to make the thief fall and tying zipties around cat lad’s wrists.

“i know, i know, it was quick, wasn’t it? i told mama that you would have us made once you picked apart the false trail, and she made sure to speed up the process as much as was humanly possible. trust me, if i could still give it to you, i would,” the thief is saying, his pink lips stretched in that knowing smirk and his glittering, glass-shards-for-eyes holding robin’s white lens-gaze.

robin scoffs, so loudly disbelieving even in his posture that cat lad laughs, high and genuine.

“you’re such a liar,” robin is saying, his hands slowly lowering against his better judgement as cat lad lays one hand on his waist, and cups his chin with the other.

“no really, scout’s honor,” cat lad whispers, and when did he get so close? when did robin let him? why did he let him? he swallows, throat bobbing, his nunchucks forgotten and the sold painting and the evidence underfoot with cat lad’s sparkling eyes looking right past the mask and into his soul.

“liar liar liar,” robin murmurs, swaying close without meaning to. “god. you’re the only case that gives me trouble. leaves me stumped. you know that?”

“yeah.”

“you know you drive me crazy?”

“‘course i do, honey. you’re robin. you’re smart.” and cat lad is leaning in and they’re so close, this is a bad idea, this is the worst possible idea robin could ever have. cat lad pauses. grins. “but i’m smarter,” he mutters, smiling like the cat who got the cream. and then he kisses him.

and well, what’s one bad decision, in the grand scheme of things? it’s not like bruce is any better, so really, bernard is not some stupid rebel kid, he’s a product of his role models, or something. the apple and the tree and all that, and wow, this is bernard’s first kiss and it’s with a boy and it’s with a thief and he’s wearing the mask and as he absently hooks his nunchucks at his waist and cups cat lad’s face, he thinks this boy is the best thing he’s ever tasted.

tim cannot go to a hospital. for one, he does not have a good enough excuse for the bullet wound in his thigh that’s currently pooling blood under his leg all over bernard’s kitchen floor, and for two, that would require enough energy and maneuvering for him to fully get out of his robin suit right now and he’s simply not going to do that, nor will he ask bernard to help him do so.

no, clearly the better option here is unzipping and unlatching the panels of kevlar material on his leg so that bernard can dig into the wound to take out the bullet and stitch him back together with barely-shaking hands, thread, and a tight-lipped expression full of all the hopes and prayers that are flaying tim open. his boyfriend is arm’s deep in his flesh and leaking lifeblood, his green-brown eyes narrowed and focused with all the fierceness and terror he had exhibited when robin had saved him from the cult. it could be enough to cut through the joker’s chemically-sagging flesh.

“i’m okay, baby,” tim whispers through gritted teeth, his upper lip as he licks it salty with blood and sweat. he’s trying to be reassuring, but he doesn’t think berns even heard him. he’s keeping pressure on the wound and he’s cleaning it with antiseptic and he’s probably sweating through his soft powder blue hoodie but he hasn’t said a word since tim dropped in unannounced, swaying dangerously from blood loss and in need of the help that his boyfriend could offer (the manor too far, leslie’s clinic too far, the Batmobile at least 10 minutes away. he could’ve gone to a closer safe house possibly, but truthfully, he hadn’t wanted to. he just wanted his boyfriend.)

“baby,” tim huffs out, reaching a hand up to cup bernard’s cheek. bern flinches into the hand, his fingers only flinching enough to follow through with the last stitch, never enough to hurt tim, never that, not even when he’s scared and covered in his partner’s blood and probably trying to keep a panic attack under wraps. he looks up into tim’s unmasked, ice blue eyes, and tim just holds him there. bern, with his shuddering shoulders and still, blood-soaked hands, and his flinty hazel eyes that blink away tears every five minutes. tim, no longer bleeding and still drunk from it, propped up against the cabinets under the sink, his hand cold but still steady enough to hold bernard’s face with the love of a never ending cosmos.

he whispers, “i promise berns. it’s not that bad. i’ve had worse. it’ll be okay.” and bernard just- stares, his gaze only shuttering the more tim speaks. tim shuts his mouth with a click as he sees it happening, his brows furrowing in concern. “baby-”

“you could’ve died,” bernard finally murmurs, finally speaking as he swipes antibiotic cream one last time over the closed wound and firmly starts wrapping it in gauze. he only looks away from tim’s eyes once, just to make sure his wrapping is smooth. he pins tim in place with his dark stare, his lips a thin, white line; his hands are black with blood. his freckled, slightly-scarred hands, made warm in the occasional sun that peeks through gotham’s unrelenting cloudy sky, dripping with tim’s essence. tim doesn’t know why he swallows as he thinks that.

“you could’ve- i could’ve lost you, tonight. bleeding out in my arms,” bern whispers, all done treating tim, but his hands seemingly unable to move from where they hover above tim’s thigh. they begin to shake now, truly, and tim feels his chest burn and his throat close up at the tears he sees gather in bernard’s eyes that the blonde can’t seem to blink away this time. they trickle down his cheeks like a leaky faucet, cleaving through his freckled cheeks and collecting at his sharp jaw- like the most detectable droplets of seawater tim has ever seen. he reaches out to wipe them away, to try again to tell bernard that it’s okay really you fixed me right up baby you helped me you’re so good at helping me, when he stops abruptly in his tracks.

bernard is now staring at his hands, captured by the sight of them becoming caked over with tim’s drying blood, his palms damp and his fingertips crackling and chipping. he slowly brings them up to his face, and as he flicks his eyes back up to catch on tim’s (they’re so dark and full of whispered promises. of screams that echoed through a place no one could hear, with chains on his wrists and chains whipping at his supple flesh and tim is drowning in them, drowning in bernard), piercing through his pupils and down right into his soul, berns’ pink, wet tongue slides out, and licks a line across his palm. tim chokes on his spit as he watches, the little amount of blood he still has left in his buzzing body rushing south almost instantly. he’s lightheaded he’s dizzy bernard is licking his hands clean of tim’s blood.

he’s tasting it, he’s tasting tim, tim’s life is on bernard’s tongue. that life that he could have possibly lost, the life that berns is still crying over, his face as wet as his tongue. his tongue that curls around his own fingers as he sucks them into his mouth, and tim is dizzy dizzy dizzy. he’s lightheaded, he’s light, he’s floating on the high of bernard eating him, eating his flesh-leaked fluid.

he can’t help the way he sways forward, his hands groping for stability as they clench around berns’ soft soft hoodie, and he’s wincing from the pain as he shuffles forward and his thigh twinges but he barely even notices when he’s too busy leaning forward as berns cleans himself of tim, of the way tim had dirtied him, soiled him, with his bleeding mortal coil. bernard hums around his hand, his eyes rolling in their sockets at the taste, as tim presses their foreheads together, needing to touch him to be close. needing to be breathing in bernard’s air as his boyfriend licks licks sucks.

“i held your life in my hands, babe,” bernard says, his hands clean and his mouth stained. like a sinner, licking the juice from his arms after biting into the devil’s apple. like tim’s very own sinner, cannibalizing himself on tim’s soul. tim would let him, tim wants to see it again. he has to stop himself from digging into his thigh just so he can make himself bleed again. just so he can see bernard with a mouthful of fresh blood.

“i had it there, as i was pressing my hands to your leg. trying not to be scared to lose you. trying to keep you here, alive, with me,” his love continues, blonde hair shaggily falling into his dark dark eyes. “and it’s like i could feel your heart beating directly into my hands. it’s like…your life is the only one i care about, and i don’t know what i’d do if i lost it. lost you.”

his mouth is moving and his breath smells of copper and his mouth is so red, so pink, so dirty, and tim has never wanted to kiss him so desperately in his life. he’s throbbing with it, with the need. my blood my blood my blood on his tongue, filling his mouth, sluicing down his pretty throat.

“and it’s over now, you’re gonna be okay, just like you said. but…i don’t know. i’m still scared. and i want…i don’t know,” he’s whimpering out, repeating himself, his pupils blown wide. tim wants to fucking rip him open and kiss every piece of him that tim’s blood touched. wants to make love to him, in the pool of tim’s blood that dried on bernard’s kitchen floor, and he wants to kiss away his bernard’s tears and cuddle him until his boyfriend feels less terrified about how the night will turn out. “i want…” bern barely says, his lips forming the words right over tim’s own. “i just wanted to have you, on my tongue. just in case. just in case i lost you, somehow, so i could have had you in my mouth. so i could hold you there, behind my teeth,” he explains, stuttering and trailing off, his light colored lashes fluttering with his twisted words.

oh so twisted, so hurt, so damning. he didn’t need to explain himself to tim. tim could have never known the reason and he would still kiss him, hold him, rip into him with his teeth.

tim blows out a soft breath, a sigh and shaking, aching want all in that whoosh of air.

“baby,” tim more presses against bernard’s mouth than actually says with his voice. “kiss me.”

bernard waits a long moment, the silence dragging as his blown out eyes slowly narrow into pinpricks, burrowing into tim and picking out the truth like food between teeth. the truth, which has tim’s veins singing with the need to have his blood exposed to the air again, just so bern can catch another taste. take a slurp of his rightful drink.

“c’mon berns, kiss me. need it. need you. please please, kiss me baby. you did this to me. i’m on fire baby. aren’t you gonna kiss it better?” tim is rambling, spitting out, begging on his hands and knees just for this. “what do you want? you can bite my lip hard enough to make it bleed if you want. it’s yours, you know. my blood. all yours, bern. all y-” tim can’t shut the fuck up, he’s delirious and dizzy and so light and it’s all bernard’s fault and also probably the bullet but also bernard.

he’s cut off anyway by lips crashing into his, and he’s so fucking gone he must have died after all.

their mouths move and mold together like they were meant to fit, wet and filthy and tim can’t help the high, needy moan as he tastes iron, bernard’s tongue slipping between his parted lips like he couldn’t help but take up the invitation, sliding over tim’s own tongue and gliding over it and fucking into his throat and tim is high high high, tasting spit and warm lips and a slick, cheeky tongue, and blood, his blood, god he’s in him, he’s in bernard’s stomach and bernard’s tongue is filling his mouth and he’s so fucking dizzy he’s never gonna get off this ride.

in bernard’s mouth, he finds sin, and the softest, lightest of feelings, like salvation, like truth, like the sun on the horizon. he moans and he moans and he’s being gently picked up into bernard’s arms like he weighs nothing and he doesn’t think he’ll ever recover from this. not once does bernard take his mouth off tim’s, not even to look where he’s going so he can carry tim to the couch, carefully sitting him down and holding him close, their tongues more tangled than a ball of yarn and tim’s hand sliding into and grabbing hold of berns’ golden locks.

eventually, they’ll part, coming up for air as their chests heave and a spit line connecting them slowly breaks apart, and bern will help tim out of his armor and will peel his suit off of him like some sort of professional, and they’ll cuddle and watch their newest show and tim’s wound will throb like a distant memory because he’s basically forgotten all about it, but right now, they’re kissing.

and berns bites his lip hard enough to make it bleed, and he sucks sucks sucks on it, and tim is so fucking high he will never come back down.

your drink your flesh your blood it’s all yours baby it’s all yours.

it’s a lazy, warm sunday, and tim does not have much in this life, he idly thinks. syrupy slow and satiated within the soul in a way that’s hard to come by these days. especially in gotham.

so, here was the thing. he and bernard were lounging on a low roof of a stout building in the middle of the narrows, no real plan for how the day’ll go other than just- going. following the wind as they rode their skateboards through the city, close enough to touch but not enough to bump. they were taking a break- how long it would last, neither of them really cared to dictate a time- with tim laying on his back, head in berns’ lap as the other boy cards his fingers through tim’s soft hair, and they’re both quiet as they sit on the lip of the roof, right on the edge- feet dangling in open air.

the horizon is painted in the soft golds and oranges of a setting sun- though it won’t fully set for hours to come- and tim only has eyes for his friend as he looks up at him. bern, in his backwards cap, long sleeved, form-fitting shirt with the sleeves rolled up, his noise and brow pierced, and his tongue too when he opens his mouth to quietly ramble about something or another when he’s decided the silence has lasted too long. he’s in converse too, the high tops that make him look like that much more of a skater boy-

not that tim is much better, according to bernard. which- who listened to him, anyway? certainly not tim. (tim, the notorious liar, that is.)

“so anyway, he said i couldn’t do a fuckin’ kick flip off his goddamn grandmother and i asked him who the fuck he thought he was and who he thought I was, because last I checked I could do a kickflip poppin’ out the goddamn womb so he must have lived in delusions of grandeur-land-” berns is saying, ranting as he’s wont to do with his hands flapping and gesticulating as loudly as his words are. and really, this is what tim has. his skateboard, gotham, his bernard, and bernard has his own skateboard. and yeah maybe he has his camera and his family too, but really, this? this is it. this is what tim has. and it’s good. better than good. it’s what he has, every day, every other day, on the weekends and after school and during the weekdays during lunch and when they decide to skip.

the sun is setting, and berns is lit up and haloed by this gooey golden hue, and he looks as though he’s descended from the heavens- parted through gotham’s gloomy, cold clouded skies and brightened tim’s world.

sometimes he and bernard can’t hang because tim got busy with one thing or another, and so the blonde boy skates on his own. at the rink, or through the streets, or just down his neighborhood and around a cul de sac, and sometimes, if tim manages to sneak away from those pesky obligations, he can follow berns from a distance. skateboarding just behind the boy so he can watch him live his life with the wind in his hair and his clothes, so free and so beautiful that tim would be just about speechless if berns suddenly knew he was there and turned around and asked him how he was doing.

he’s probably really creepy for that. he’s probably a really weird and creepy stalker, and if bernard knew, they almost certainly would cease to be friends. but he just- can’t help it. he needs to know, he needs to see. when he and berns are apart, he gets this itch in his fingers. they twitch and flinch sporadically, like the possessed little demons they are when they’re not holding bernard’s hand. he wants to know what berns is doing and where he is and what he looks like when tim isn’t by his side.

wants to see berns smile to himself as he closes his eyes and flies through the air with his board on his feet, rings and piercings and T-necklace glinting in the daylight, or the flickering street lights in the dark night.

tim is self aware enough to know that he’s a weird obsessed creepy stalkery little freak, but as long as berns keeps looking down at him with his soft hazels and even soft smile, with his jagged painted nails scratching at his scalp and his blonde waves falling into his face- well. what berns doesn’t know won’t hurt him, right?

can’t tim be selfish just this once? with this one thing that he has that’s so good he doesn’t have a single word for it?

“why don’t we keep rolling, boy wonder?” berns asks under his breath, his voice more of a suggestion than a solid sound as his whisper gets swallowed by the breeze. the breeze that ruffles his bangs peeking through the cap sat snug on his head. the breeze that vaguely ruffles at tim, but can’t really touch him as long as he’s within this warm pocket with his bern.

tim sighs softly. “do we gotta?” he’s asking, even as he’s shuffling a little to prepare to sit up. bern grins warmly, ruffling his hair before sitting up straight so tim won’t smack against him as they get up.

“let’s go, birdie. don’t you wanna catch the wind before the sun’s gone?” bern is saying with a smile in his voice as he grabs his board and shoves it under his arm, slinging his backpack over one shoulder. tim does the same, his satchel going over his chest and grabbing berns’ sunglasses from where they were hooked in his shirt so he can slide them on. he had squinted from the sun’s glare exactly once earlier this afternoon, and bern had offered them up faster than tim could blink. and he was blinking, trying to get rid of the spots in his vision.

“i don’t need ‘em. i’ve got my cap, y’see?” he had said, already pushing off into a sprint with one of his feet on his board as if to escape tim’s response. tim had spluttered and raced to follow him, the shades on his nose without his realizing.

so. they climb down into a neighboring alley from the building, and they ride down the street on their boards, and tim reaches for bern before he’s even aware of what his hand is doing and berns catches it mid-motion and laces their fingers together and this is…this is what tim has. and it’s a slow, syrupy, freeing sunday, with the sun setting through the clouds, and berns glowing in the dying light as he’s wont to do- like an angel. like tim’s angel. and he’s all tim can see. he’s the only thing tim wants to look at for the rest of his days.

they ride off curbs and flip flop between the streets and the sidewalks, maneuvering around the many pot holes that only one person - bruce wayne - is trying to fix in this hellhole of a city, skirting around suspicious looking puddles, some with empty needles swimming in them. and all the while they don’t let go. they move their boards like they’re extensions of their bodies, and neither of them even think of separating more than a foot.

they might make their way back to the rink so they can glide and flip and fly off walks, hanging off edges and trying to land quadruple flips. they might quietly ride to bristol, then through to wayne manor. and they might lean into each other’s sides with bern’s arm slung over tim’s shoulders as they walk to tim’s room so they can go on a binge kick or play games or play a new game of chess (tim was winning 24-21).

irregardless of the conclusion to their journey, they’ll ride through it all together. and tim won’t take his eyes off of his bernard.