#tim drake

By then, you already knew enough. Tim Drake, Wayne-adjacent royalty, tech prince, adopted son, former boy genius, current insomniac in tailored wool. He had enough money to treat five figures like pocket change. Enough loneliness to make it dangerous. You had read the profiles, the gossip, the business blurbs, even old paparazzi comments about how he looked sadder in person. That was the detail that caught you. Maybe it should have made you wary, but you had always recognized that particular shade of sadness, the kind that paired longing with hunger. Once, a less careful version of you had trusted people who promised safety, leaving you emptier in the end. Loneliness was the one inheritance you still kept polished. It made you selective, hungry in your own way, drawn to the possibility of control instead of the pretense of belonging. Sad rich boys were useful. Sad rich boys with control issues were better. They liked to rescue. They liked to fix. They liked people who made them feel needed, only to punish them for it.

You were not afraid of obsession when it came wrapped in money.

You made him come to you by pretending not to see him again. You drifted through the gala like you belonged, though your invitation was a favor wrapped in a lie. You touched a donor's arm while laughing. You let your eyes pass over Tim once, twice, never long enough to give him certainty. When you finally stepped onto the balcony, you did it slowly, leaving behind the heat and perfume and old money, letting the winter air bite your cheeks until your eyes watered just enough.

He followed three minutes later.

Not two. Not five. Three. Close enough to be intent. Far enough to pretend to be a coincidence.

“Needed air?” he asked.

His voice was softer than you expected, a little rough from underuse, threaded with that careful Gotham politeness people used when they had learned too young that every word could become evidence. He stood a few feet away, hands in his pockets, not trapping you against the railing, not yet. He was good. Better than you thought. That made your pulse kick, not with fear, but with interest.

You looked over your shoulder. “Something like that.”

“You don’t seem like you’re enjoying yourself.”

You laughed under your breath and turned back toward the city. Gotham spread below in black glass and wet neon, its buildings cut into the night like old teeth. “Is anyone?”

“That depends.”

“On?”

“Whether they came here for the cause, the cameras, or the escape route.”

You glanced at him again, letting your expression flicker. Surprise first. Then amusement. Then a slip of sadness, lashes lowered, mouth softening like you'd been seen in a way you didn't want to admit. It was theater, but good theater needed a little truth. You were tired. You hated the room behind you. You wanted someone to choose you, even if you planned to charge them for it later.

“I came for the free food,” you said.

Tim’s mouth twitched. “Bold strategy.”

“I’m very brave.”

“I noticed.”

There it was. Too quick, too quiet, almost swallowed. A little confession in a black suit.

You let the silence stretch. Men like Tim always wanted to fill silence with proof. You had expected compliments, questions, maybe some awkward attempt at charm. Instead, he watched the reflection of the city lights move across your face and said, “You shouldn’t trust most people in there.”

You smiled faintly. “Including you?”

“Especially me.”

You should have taken that as a warning. Later, when you replayed the balcony in your head, when every word rearranged itself into a map you had mistaken for weather, you would understand he had been honest from the beginning. That was the most obscene part. Tim had not lied. Not really. He had simply let you misunderstand the shape of the truth.

At the time, you only thought, Oh, this one wants to be dangerous.

So you gave him something to chase.

Not all at once. Never all at once. You let him have your number after making him work through a conversation about terrible coffee, Gotham rent, and your alleged reluctance to date anyone with a Wikipedia page. You made him smile twice and look wounded once. You let your fingertips brush his when he handed you back your phone, and you pretended not to notice how his pupils widened. The next morning, you waited six hours before replying to his first text.

Tim: I found the coffee place you mentioned. You were right. It’s terrible.

You: I warned you.

Tim: I thought you were exaggerating.

You: That’s your first mistake.

Tim: What’s my second?

You: Thinking I give warnings twice.

It became a game, and you were good at games when the prize came with a trust fund. You gave him pieces of yourself, carefully chosen, a little bruised. A story about an ex who made you feel watched, just to see his reaction. A complaint about your landlord raising rent, because you wanted him to ask how much. A joke about needing a new laptop, because Tim Drake worked in tech and men loved to solve problems they could buy. He didn't offer right away. That almost disappointed you. Then, three days later, your laptop died in a café while you sat across from him, and Tim's gaze flicked to the blank screen with an expression so mild it was suspicious.

“That’s inconvenient,” he said.

You sighed, pressing the power button again. “It’s fine. It’s basically held together with spite anyway.”

“I can take a look.”

“Oh? Wayne Tech support make house calls?

“For you,” he said, and the words landed gently, almost shy, while his eyes remained too steady.

Your heart gave a pleased little kick. Hooked.

You let him walk you home that night. You made sure your apartment looked just vulnerable enough: thrifted furniture, a half-dead plant on the windowsill, cheap curtains, a blanket tossed over the sofa like you hadn't expected company. The nicer things were hidden in your closet. One drawer left slightly open, nothing inside. You wanted him to feel the urge to fix things. You wanted him to imagine himself as necessary.

Tim set your laptop on the table and opened it with long, precise fingers. He looked too natural in your space, dark coat folded over the back of a chair, sleeves rolled to his forearms, hair falling slightly into his eyes. It irritated you for a moment, how easily he belonged somewhere he had not earned. Then he glanced up and caught you watching him.

“What?” he asked.

“Nothing.”

“That didn’t look like nothing.”

“You’re very serious about a dying laptop.”

“I’m serious about most things.”

“Sounds exhausting.”

“It is.”

There was no self-pity in it. That made the line work better than it would have if he had tried. You softened your face on instinct, because people were locks and expressions were keys. “You could try being unserious sometime.”

“With you?”

“If you survive.”

He smiled then, small and tired, and you felt the first strange tug of something that wasn't calculation. You stepped away from it fast.

The laptop revived because, apparently, Tim really was that good. You acted thrilled. He acted like the praise did not matter while absorbing every drop of it. The next day, a courier delivered a new laptop to your apartment, sleek and expensive, with no note except a little card tucked beneath the ribbon.

For when spite is no longer enough.

You laughed for a full minute.

Then you sold your old laptop, paid two overdue bills, and texted him a picture of the new one open on your kitchen table.

You: This is ridiculous.

Tim: Is that a complaint?

You: It’s an observation.

Tim: Do you like it?

You waited. Made tea. Counted to one hundred. Let him feel the little cliff edge of your silence.

You: Yes. Thank you, Tim.

His reply came instantly.

Tim: Anything.

You stared at that word for a long time, heat unfurling behind your ribs like a wicked flower.

After that, you got bolder. Not reckless. Reckless people got caught; you preferred choreography. You complained about things he could fix. You arranged little misfortunes for him to solve. Your tire went flat two blocks from Wayne Tower because you let the air out yourself, and Tim arrived in twenty-two minutes, coat open, jaw tight, eyes scanning the street before he looked at you. Your phone 'accidentally' shared your location one night while you walked through a neighborhood safe enough to worry him, not dangerous enough to hurt you. He called in thirty seconds.

“Where are you?” he asked.

You let your voice come out breathless. “Walking home.”

“Why are you on Ninth?”

“It’s faster.”

“It’s not safer.”

You smiled into the dark. “Are you stalking my location, Tim?”

A pause. Not long. Not guilty enough.

“You shared it with me.”

“By accident.”

“You haven’t turned it off.”

You looked up at a flickering streetlamp, rain misting silver through the light. “Maybe I forgot.”

“No, you didn’t.”

Your smile faded, not from fear, but from the sudden cold edge in his voice. For a second, the game sharpened. "You sound very sure."

“I am.”

A black car turned the corner at the end of the block, headlights washing over wet pavement. It pulled up beside you without haste. The passenger window lowered, revealing Tim’s face half-lit by the dashboard, expression calm and unreadable.

“Get in,” he said.

You should have been frightened. Instead, you felt triumphant enough to nearly laugh. He was already there. He had come when summoned without being summoned. He had placed himself exactly where you wanted him.

Still, you made him wait.

You leaned down toward the open window. “That sounded like an order.”

“It was.”

“Try again.”

His gaze traveled over your face, taking in the damp hair at your temples, the thin jacket you had chosen specifically because it made you look underprepared. His hand tightened once around the steering wheel. When he spoke again, his voice had gone softer, which somehow made it worse.

“Please get in the car.”

You did.

The inside smelled like leather, rain, and coffee. There was a half-empty cup in the holder, three charging cords coiled too neatly, a tablet asleep on the console. Tim turned up the heat without asking. You watched him do it and felt the satisfaction of a plan unfolding exactly as designed.

“You can’t keep doing this,” he said.

“Walking?”

“Testing me.”

You let your head tip against the seat. “Is that what I’m doing?”

“Yes.”

“And are you passing?”

He did not answer immediately. Gotham slid past the windows in streaks of blue-black and gold, the city’s reflections crawling over his face. At a red light, he turned to you. “Do you want me to?”

The question settled between you, velvet over wire.

You could have kissed him then. You almost did, not because it was time, not because it was useful, but because Tim Drake looking at you like that felt like standing too close to a locked door and hearing something breathe on the other side. Instead, you looked away first, giving him the victory because victories made men generous.

“I don’t know,” you said.

A lie. You knew exactly what you wanted.

Money first. Safety second. Attention as needed. Affection negotiable. Tim, increasingly, as both resource and entertainment.

He became easier after that, and harder too. He bought you things, but only what you could accept without feeling bought. A better winter coat after yours went missing at a restaurant. Groceries when you joked that your fridge held only a lemon and a jar of mustard. A deposit for a new apartment disguised as a loan, terms so vague they felt like a ribbon around your throat. He never asked for repayment. He never asked for anything obvious at all, which made him feel less like prey and more like a room locking from the outside.

You ignored that sensation because the apartment was beautiful.

Not ostentatious. That would have made you suspicious. A renovated one-bedroom in a secure building, warm wood floors, deep windows, good locks, a doorman who knew your name the first day. Tim said the building belonged to a Wayne subsidiary, and he got you a reduced rate. You pretended to protest. He pretended to believe you. The dance was elegant by then.

The first night there, you stood barefoot in the living room among half-unpacked boxes while Tim installed something in the security panel by the door.

“What is that?” you asked.

“Updated system. The old one had vulnerabilities.”

“Normal people just say congratulations on the apartment.”

“Congratulations on the apartment.”

“You sound thrilled.”

“I am.”

“You’re installing surveillance.”

“Security.”

“Difference?”

“Consent.”

You laughed, but his hands stilled on the panel, just for a second.

When he looked back at you, the city lights caught in his eyes and did not soften them. “Do you want me to stop?”

It was a trap, though not one you recognized. You thought the trap was yours, baited with need and helplessness and flirtation. You did not realize he was offering you a door and measuring whether you would close it yourself.

You folded your arms. “No. I like feeling safe.”

Something moved across his face, too quick to name. Hunger, maybe. Relief. Possession, quiet and polite.

“Good,” he said.

From then on, Tim knew when your door opened. He knew when you came home. He knew when you stayed out late, and his texts would appear with unnatural timing.

Tim: Did you eat?

You: Hello to you too.

Tim: Did you?

You: Yes, Dad.

Tim: Ew, don't call me that.

You: Bossy.

Tim: Only when you make bad decisions.

You: Then you must be bossy a lot.

Tim: Constantly.

You flirted with other people in front of him. That was one of your favorite tools, cruel as it was. Nothing serious. A laugh held too long at a Wayne fundraiser. A hand on someone's arm in the lobby. A date you arranged mostly to cancel after Tim saw the reservation flash on your phone. He never exploded. He never begged. He just got quieter, and the quiet was addictive, the way storms are when you're safe behind glass.

One evening, after a man from your building offered to help carry your groceries and you accepted with a bright smile, Tim appeared in your apartment twenty minutes later without knocking.

You were arranging oranges in a bowl when the door opened. You looked up, startled for real that time, and Tim stepped inside with your spare key in his hand.

You stared at it. “Where did you get that?”

“You gave it to me.”

“No, I didn’t.”

“You left it in my car last week.”

“That was an accident.”

“No, it wasn’t.”

The oranges sat between you like small suns, absurdly cheerful. Your mouth went dry. Tim locked the door behind him. Not a slam. Just a click, clean, and final.

“You’re very confident tonight,” you said.

“You like that.”

You laughed, but it came out thinner than intended. “You think you know what I like?”

“I know you hate being ignored. You like being chased, but not caught too quickly. You like gifts more when you can pretend you resisted them. You like making me jealous because it proves I’m watching. You like leaving doors open and pretending it was carelessness.” He set the key on the table. “And you liked knowing I had this.”

The room seemed to tilt, just a little. Not enough to fall. Enough to notice gravity had shifted.

“You’re making a lot of accusations.”

“I’m making observations.”

You hated that he used your own words. Hated the little echo of your earlier game. Hated more that your pulse had started to beat too quickly, not entirely from fear.

Tim crossed the room slowly, stopping on the other side of the kitchen island. He did not touch you. That restraint felt deliberate, almost surgical. “Did he touch you?”

“The neighbor?”

“Did he?”

“He carried groceries, Tim.”

“That’s not an answer.”

“That’s exactly an answer.”

His jaw flexed. “You shouldn’t invite strangers up.”

“I didn’t invite him up. He helped me to the door.”

“Don’t.”

You arched a brow. “Don’t?”

“Don’t make me watch someone else put their hands where I should be.”

The words should have frightened you more. Instead, your body responded first, heating your spine, annoyance and thrill tangled together. Fear fizzed behind your ribs, but it never made it all the way to the surface, too muddled with anticipation, with something that felt dangerously close to satisfaction. You wanted to recoil from him, but a part of you leaned in, hungry for the validation and repulsed by what it cost. Beneath it all, guilt pricked at you; a sharp, almost shameful reminder that you were as much to blame for this slow spiral as he was. This was what you had been coaxing out of him, wasn't it? The obsession, the crack in the Wayne mask, the proof you mattered enough to unmake him. You wanted the monster to show its teeth. You just hadn't expected them to look so familiar up close.

“You’re not my boyfriend,” you said.

“No.”

“You’re not my keeper.”

His eyes dropped briefly to your mouth. “No.”

“You don’t own me.”

“No,” Tim said again, and the softness of it was almost tender. “Not yet.”

The silence that followed had a pulse.

You should have ended it then. You should have thrown the key at him, told him to leave, changed the locks, deleted his number, found another mark with less shadow behind his eyes. Instead, you stepped around the island and stopped close enough to smell the rain in his coat.

“Careful,” you said. “You’re starting to sound obsessed.”

Tim looked down at you. “Starting?”

That was the first time he kissed you. Or maybe you kissed him. Later, the distinction became another useless little object at the bottom of a dark drawer. His mouth was controlled for exactly three seconds before control became something hungrier. He kissed like he had been thinking about it too long, like restraint was a debt he had grown tired of paying. His hand came to your jaw, firm enough to angle you where he wanted, gentle enough to let you pretend you could stop him. You did not. You wound your fingers into his shirt and felt his heartbeat hammering beneath the expensive fabric.

It was supposed to close the con.

That was what you told yourself when he started sleeping over. When half his wardrobe appeared in your closet as if the apartment had slowly accepted him. When he began bringing work to your kitchen table, Wayne Enterprises code glowing across his screen while you pretended not to understand any of it. When he paid for things before you could ask and watched you accept them with that same unnerving, patient satisfaction. You told yourself you were winning because your bills were paid, your fridge was full, your body was warm at night, and Tim Drake looked at you like the world was a problem he would solve with blood if necessary.

Then people began disappearing from the edges of your life.

Not many. Not enough to make a pattern anyone else would notice. A man who had cornered you outside a bar and refused to take no for an answer. A landlord from your old building who kept sending “accidental” messages. The neighbor with the groceries, who suddenly moved out without saying goodbye, leaving behind a rumor about debt, fraud, something ugly found on his work computer. You asked Tim about that one because the timing bothered you.

He was making coffee in your kitchen at dawn, barefoot and half-dressed, dark hair sleep-tangled, looking almost human in the blue-gray light.

“Did you do something to Evan?” you asked.

Tim poured coffee into your favorite mug. “Who?”

You watched him. “My neighbor.”

“Your former neighbor.”

“Tim.”

He slid the mug toward you. “He had problems.”

“What kind?”

“The kind that make it hard to stay in Gotham.”

Cold moved through your stomach. “Did you cause them?”

Tim leaned against the counter, studying you over the rim of his mug. “Would it bother you if I did?”

That was another door. Another test. You saw it this time and still could not tell which answer was safer.

“It depends,” you said.

“On?”

“Whether he deserved it.”

Tim’s gaze softened in a way that made you feel, absurdly, rewarded. “He did.”

You believed him because it was easier. Evan had been too friendly. The old landlord was awful. The man outside the bar had scared you. Every disappearance had a justification, and Tim removed only people you wouldn't miss. That was how he trained you, though you didn't call it that. You let yourself believe it was protection, not erasure. You told yourself it was fate, not blame. And every time you smoothed over a worry, you wondered, briefly, guiltily, how much you were pretending, and how much you actually agreed. He made violence feel like service. He made your silence feel like complicity. He made complicity feel intimate.

By spring, you had stopped pretending the relationship was normal, but you had not stopped pretending you were in control.

Your plan had evolved. The first goal had been money. The second was leverage. If Tim ever became too much, you thought, you would gather enough evidence to protect yourself. You kept screenshots. Notes. Dates. Little records hidden in a cloud account under a false name, because you were not stupid. You documented the gifts, the installed security system, the suspicious disappearances, the way Tim sometimes knew things he had no reason to know. You saved it all like an insurance policy.

Then, one rainy Thursday, the folder vanished.

Not deleted. Not hacked in the flashy way movies promised, with skull icons and dramatic warnings. It simply became empty. Your backup drive is corrupted. Your burner email locked you out. Your notes app showed blank pages where careful lists had been. For ten full minutes, you sat on the edge of your bed with your phone in your hand, all the blood in your body turning slow and cold.

Tim texted at 9:07 p.m.

Tim: Don’t panic.

You stared.

You: What did you do?

Tim: Cleaned up something dangerous.

You: That was mine.

Tim: It was a liability.

You: You went through my private files?

Tim: Yes.

There was no apology. Not even a decorative one.

You called him. He answered before the first ring finished.

“Where are you?” you demanded.

“At work.”

“Don’t lie to me.”

A pause. Then the faint sound of keys, a door closing, rain against glass. “I’m not.”

“You deleted my files.”

“I removed evidence that could hurt you.”

“That could hurt you.”

“Yes,” he said. “That too.”

Your laugh broke sharply and humorlessly. “At least you’re honest.”

“I try to be with you.”

“That’s psychotic.”

“I know.”

Something about the calmness of it made your throat tighten. “You know?”

“Yes.”

“And what? That’s supposed to make it better?”

“No.”

“Then why say it?”

“Because you like knowing what I am.”

You went still.

Tim’s voice lowered, not seductive, not pleading. Simply certain. “You liked it from the beginning. You saw the shape of me before most people do, and instead of running, you stepped closer. You pulled strings. You left openings. You wanted proof I couldn’t stop looking. You wanted my money, my attention, my jealousy. You wanted the cage as long as you thought you were holding the key.”

Your apartment felt suddenly too full of cameras, too full of locks, too full of him, though he was not physically there. You stood and moved to the security panel by the door. The screen glowed quietly. Armed. Watching.

“You don’t know anything,” you said.

“I know everything.”

It was not boastful. That was the problem. Tim did not sound triumphant. He sounded tired, almost gentle, as if he were telling you the weather had changed and you should bring a coat.

“No,” you said, because denial was a small animal in your chest trying to survive.

“I knew about the gala invitation. I knew who got it for you. I knew what you searched before you came. I knew when you looked up my net worth, my job, my dating history, old photos, rumors about my family. I knew when your laptop was going to ‘die’ because you downloaded the wrong thing on purpose and I let it happen. I knew about the tire. I knew about the location sharing. I knew about the folder.”

Your hand gripped the edge of the table. “You let me think I was scamming you.”

“I needed to see how far you’d go.”

“You needed?”

“I needed to know if you would choose me when you thought you were choosing yourself.”

The words slid under your skin, sharp as a blade.

“You’re insane,” you whispered.

“I’ve been worse.”

The call ended.

For one second, nothing moved. Then your security panel chirped, and the lock clicked open.

Tim stepped inside, soaked with rain, black coat dripping on your floor, face pale in the hallway light. You hadn't heard the elevator. You hadn't heard footsteps. No umbrella. His hair stuck to his forehead. There was something almost beautiful about him then, something ruined and devoted, like a saint made from sleeplessness and bad intentions.

You backed up.

He noticed. Of course, he noticed. Pain flickered across his face, quickly swallowed. “Don’t do that.”

“You broke into my apartment.”

“You gave me access.”

“I gave you a key.”

“You gave me more than that.”

“Because you manipulated me.”

“Because we manipulated each other.” Tim closed the door behind him. The lock clicked. “You just didn’t know I was better at it.”

Your breath shook. Anger arrived then, hot and grateful. It saved you from fear for a moment. “So what now? You tell me I’m trapped? You reveal the master plan? Very dramatic, Tim. Do you have a villain monologue prepared?”

His mouth twitched without humor. “I’m not a villain.”

“You’re stalking me, controlling my apartment, deleting my evidence, and apparently ruining people’s lives when they annoy you.”

“When they threaten you.”

“When they annoy you,” you snapped.

He flinched, just barely. Not from guilt. From the edge in your voice. He hated when you sounded afraid, you realized. Hated it and wanted to be the cause anyway. That contradiction sat in him like a second skeleton.

“I have never hurt anyone who didn’t deserve it,” he said.

“That is exactly what dangerous people say.”

“Yes.”

You stared at him, trembling now, though you refused to let it become visible enough to satisfy him. “What do you want?”

Tim looked at you for a long time, and the answer was already everywhere: in the locks, the gifts, the disappeared files, the wardrobe in your closet, the way he had entered your life like a man accepting an invitation you did not remember sending.

“You,” he said.

“People aren’t things.”

“I know.”

“You don’t get to keep me because you’re lonely.”

“I’m not lonely when I’m with you.”

“That’s not an answer.”

“It’s the only one that matters.”

You moved toward your bedroom, not because there was anywhere to go, but because your body needed direction. Tim did not grab you. He followed at a measured pace, giving you just enough room to feel hunted rather than seized. You snatched your phone off the bed, thumb flying toward emergency call, and the screen went black.

Not dead. Locked.

A small red icon pulsed once in the corner and vanished.

Your stomach dropped.

“What did you do?” you asked, your voice very quiet.

“I made sure you wouldn’t make a call you’d regret.”

“You mean a call you’d regret.”

“The Bats wouldn’t help you the way you think.”

The sentence was wrong. Wrong in shape, wrong in weight. You turned slowly.

Tim stood in the bedroom doorway, rainwater darkening his collar, his expression unreadable.

“The Bats?” you repeated.

His silence opened like a trapdoor beneath your feet.

It happened stupidly, then. Not with a grand confession, not with a cape unfurling under moonlight, not with a dramatic mask pulled from a drawer. It happened because lightning flashed beyond the window and lit the room for half a second, catching on the narrow shelf behind him where you had once seen a small locked case. The case is open now. Inside lay red armor, black fabric, a folded domino mask, and the unmistakable stylized emblem you had seen on news footage a hundred times.

Red Robin.

Your mind tried to reject it, then rearranged every fact with nauseating speed. The impossible timing. The silent entrances. The surveillance felt too professional. The injuries he hid beneath expensive shirts. The way he spoke about dangerous people. Bruce Wayne’s son. Tech genius. Gotham nights. Missing hours.

Hmmmm, some hysterical little part of you thought, bright and absurd through the terror, maybe this was a bad idea.

Your knees almost laughed for you.

“You’re Red Robin,” you said.

Tim’s gaze did not leave your face. “Yes.”

“You’re Red Robin.”

“Yes.”

“And I thought I was scamming a rich kid with stalking issues.”

A strange softness passed through him, nearly fond. “I know.”

“Oh, that’s humiliating.”

That startled a laugh out of him. Just one breath, cracked at the edges. It would have been sweet in another life. In this one, it made your skin prickle.

You sat down on the bed because standing seemed overly ambitious. “Batman knows you’re like this?”

Tim’s expression cooled. “Bruce knows what he needs to know.”

No fucking way. Bruce is Batman. Tim Drake is Red Robin. Which means you just stepped into a mansion full of crazy psychos in spandex and metal boomerangs. 

“That sounds like no.”

“That sounds like I’m careful.”

“You’re not careful. You’re deranged.”

“I’m both.”

You looked at the armor again, then at the apartment, the locks, the dead phone in your hand, your beautiful secure building owned by a Wayne subsidiary, your life moved piece by piece into a place Tim could control. You hadn't found a mark. You'd found a vigilante with a billionaire's resources, a detective's patience, and a wound where normal attachment should be. Worse, he had found you first.

“You set me up,” you said.

His eyes softened. “You set yourself up. I just made the path easier.”

“You made me think I was winning.”

“You were.” He stepped closer, slowly, as if approaching a frightened animal. “You got the apartment. The money. The attention. The protection. You got everything you wanted.”

“At what cost?”

“Me.”

Its simplicity took your breath away.

He knelt in front of you. Not submissive. Never that. It was worse because he made kneeling feel like possession from below, his hands resting on either side of your knees without touching, his eyes lifted to yours with terrible devotion.

“I know what you did,” he said quietly. “I know why you did it. I know you were going to leave once you had enough. I know you told yourself I was a problem you could manage. I know you thought, if it got bad, you could expose me.” His voice gentled further. “But you can’t expose Red Robin without exposing yourself to Batman, Nightwing, Oracle, the entire family. You can’t run without me finding you. You can’t go to the police with gifts you accepted, lies you told, evidence you tried to gather and hide. You can’t disappear because every system you use has already learned my name before yours.”

A tear slipped down your cheek before you could stop it. Tim watched it fall with naked hunger and pain, as if it hurt him to see it and fed something starving in him anyway.

“You’re scaring me,” you whispered.

“I know.” His hand rose, slow enough for refusal. You did not move. His thumb brushed the tear from your cheek with devastating tenderness. “I’m sorry.”

“No, you’re not.”

His eyes flicked to your mouth. “Not enough to stop.”

There it was. The whole ugly cathedral of him, all at once.

You should have hated him. Part of you did. Another part, the worst part, the part that had smiled on the balcony and thought obsession looked like opportunity, understood with a sick little twist of recognition that Tim had not created the game alone. He had only been willing to play it to the end. You had baited the hook. He had swallowed it and dragged you into deeper water.

It was almost funny, the way you felt a flicker of pride burning under the fear, knowing you had finally found someone playing at your level. There was a thrill in the realization, a sick exhilaration, like two predators circling, each waiting for the other to blink first. You could not even pretend you were innocent. You craved the danger of being understood. Somewhere beneath the guilt and the anger, you recognized the satisfaction of being chosen not for your weakness, but for your sharpness, for every mask you wore and every lie you shaped to survive. You had always wanted to win, but you had hungered even more for a real opponent. In Tim, you saw your reflection; hungry, cunning, desperate for proof you existed. Responsibility tasted bitter on your tongue, but you could not deny that some part of you reveled in the symmetry of being matched, even as it threatened to undo you.

“What happens if I say I want out?” you asked.

Tim’s hand stilled against your face.

The room seemed to listen.

“You can say it,” he replied.

“That’s not what I asked.”

“I know.”

You laughed once, broken and breathless. “God, Tim.”

His expression tightened at the sound, not displeased. Your fear hadn't made him retreat. Your anger hadn't made him defensive. Even your disgust seemed to become part of the collection, proof you were here, proof you were feeling something because of him.

“I won’t hurt you,” he said.

“You’ve already hurt me.”

His brows drew together, and for one terrible second, he looked young, almost lost. “I won’t break you.”

“Comforting distinction.”

“You can hate me for a while.”

“For a while?”

“As long as you need.”

“Generous.”

His hand slid from your cheek to the side of your throat, not squeezing, only resting there where your pulse betrayed you. “You’ll understand eventually.”

“That sounds like something a kidnapper says.”

Tim looked at you, and the silence answered before he did.

Your blood chilled.

“Am I allowed to leave this apartment?” you asked.

“Yes.”

“Alone?”

His thumb moved once against your pulse.

“Not tonight.”

No chain. No locked basement. No dramatic violence. Just a beautiful apartment, a dead phone, a vigilante kneeling between your knees, and the slow, crushing understanding that every exit you could imagine had already been mapped by someone who loved you like a crime scene. You thought Tim Drake's obsession would be a vault you could crack. Instead, it was a citywide system of doors, cameras, favors, masks, brothers in capes, and one dark-eyed genius who decided you were safer as a permanent thing.

You swallowed. “What do you want me to do?”

“For tonight?” he asked.

“For tonight.”

“Stay.”

“As if I have a choice.”

“You do,” Tim said, and there was the lie at last, soft as snowfall over a grave. “You just won’t like the consequences of the other ones.”

You stared at him until your eyes burned. “You’re horrible.”

“I know.”

“You’re not supposed to agree.”

“I told you,” he murmured, leaning closer until his forehead nearly touched yours. “I try to be honest with you.”

“You used me.”

“You used me first.”

“You wanted me to.”

“Yes.”

You closed your eyes, and his breath trembled. That was the thing that would ruin you, if anything did. Not the money. Not the danger. Not even the secret identity folded in the corner like a nightmare with Kevlar seams. It was the trembling. The proof that under all the planning, all the surveillance, all the cold patience, Tim Drake was still barely holding himself back from clutching you like salvation and catastrophe wore the same face.

“I hate you,” you whispered.

His lips brushed your temple. “Not forever.”

“You don’t know that.”

“I do.”

“How?”

“Because you hate losing more.”

Your eyes opened.

Tim’s gaze met yours, dark and brilliant and unbearably awake. “And you’re going to want to prove you can still win.”

The worst part was that he was right.

A slow, horrified smile tugged at your mouth before you could hide it. Tim saw. Of course, he saw. His expression changed, deepened, something possessive and adoring moving through the exhaustion.

“There,” he whispered.

You wanted to slap him. You wanted to kiss him. You wanted your laptop, your old apartment, your foolish little folder of evidence, your belief that you could put a leash on a monster and sell tickets to the show. Instead, you sat very still while Red Robin, Tim Drake, the rich boy with stalking issues who had never once been only that, rested his head against your lap as he had come home.

Outside, Gotham glittered wet and watchful beyond the windows. Somewhere, sirens wailed, thin and distant. Somewhere above, Batman moved through the dark with his own judgment, unaware or unwilling to see what his son had built in the quiet of your apartment. Tim's arms circled your waist, careful, almost reverent, and you realized with a cold bloom of awe that the trap didn't feel like snapping shut.

It felt like breathing in and finding his name already in your lungs.

“You planned everything,” you said, your voice faint.

“No,” Tim murmured against you. “Not everything.”

“What didn’t you plan?”

His hold tightened, just enough to be felt.

“How much I’d love you.”

You looked down at him, at the damp dark hair, the bruised shadows beneath his eyes, the vigilante armor waiting open in its case, the beautiful disaster you had mistaken for prey. Your fingers hovered above his head. You did not touch him. Not yet. That was the only power you had left in the room, and both of you knew it. Even now, with his body kneeling at your feet and the apartment mapped in his design, the room paid attention to that pause. Your restraint bent the balance, the decision to touch or withhold granting you a sliver of control. For all his planning, Tim waited. And in that waiting, you reminded him he did not own every move; some were still yours to play.

Tim waited.

Patient. Devoted. Dangerous.

You let the silence stretch until his breathing changed.

Then you lowered your hand into his hair, very lightly, and felt him shudder like you had forgiven him, though you had done no such thing.

Fine, you thought, the word bitter and bright inside you. New game.

Tim smiled against your thigh.

And that was when you understood he had heard you without needing a single word.