Timari Month 2021

Mornings mean a lot of things for a lot of people. Maybe they’re gentle, with murmurs of “five more… hours” and hair splayed out over a pillow and blankets pulled closer. Maybe they’re hectic, a blaring alarm going off twenty minutes before a person is set to leave and a rush to get everything ready for the day. Maybe they’re slow, trudging feet and long stares into nothing and sips from a mug.

For vigilantes, though, this wasn’t the time to wake up. This was the time to stumble through the door, a backpack filled with their gear held close to their chest like a child hugging a teddy bear, their skin sticky with sweat.

If they were the first one home, and they weren’t injured, they would take a quick shower and change into pajamas they didn’t particularly like. If they were hurt, they would pause for a few moments to treat themselves, suture needles stitching themselves up and compresses of varying temperatures pressed to aches as a news report drones in the background.

And then the other would get in. Their partner would snap to attention, sparing a few moments to watch as they walked through the door, watching for anything out of the ordinary. And the other would do the same, looking for discarded gauze or compresses or temporary slings.

If either was hurt, they would deal with that. The partner that had just gotten home would talk about wanting a shower while the other would mutter about them being stupid and popping their stitches. The partner that had been there for a while would bat curious hands away, complaining about how everything was already dealt with and that their partner was sweaty, while the other ignored them in favor of making sure they had taken care of themselves properly.

And if they were both injured? Well, then that would mean a mild wrestling match on the couch, both of them laughing and trying their hardest to treat each other despite their squirming and the fact that they, too, were trying their hardest to deal with their partner’s injuries. Whoever won would get to kiss away the loser’s pout and deal with the other, and then would have to sit still as their partner checked them over.

But on the rare occasions where neither of them had been injured in the slightest, there would be a quick shower and a pair of people changing into comfy pajamas, and then they would clamber into bed.

Tim would rest his head on Marinette’s chest – or nuzzle his nose into her neck, if there was bruising or stitches there – to hear the steady thrum of her heartbeat or feel her pulse. Marinette would wrap her arms around him, one hand coming up to play with his hair.

Every time without fail, Tim would mumble an “I love you”.

And Marinette would laugh, the motion just barely displacing his head for a moment. Would respond that “Aw, Tim, you love me? That’s so cute.”

“You love me, too,” he would respond confidently.

She would hum a little and mumble that, “I do.”

“Save those words for our wedding day,” he’d murmur, already drifting off.

“I care too much to wait until then.”

To say that Tim was confused to find a batch of cupcakes on his counter was an understatement. But, to be fair, most people would be concerned if they found a batch of cupcakes on their counter if it hadn’t been there the night before.

Maybe Marinette had been stress baking? She had mentioned that she did that sometimes. And he understood her being stressed, he was pretty sure that your parents dying was one of the biggest stressors there could be.

He inched closer to the tray, blanket wrapped around him like a cape, his eyes narrowed in on the card placed innocently on top of it. Forgive him for being hesitant, but unknown objects never meant anything good in Gotham. Especially ones complete with a card.

And his nanny wasn’t supposed to get there for another three days or so, which meant that if he died there his parents would be annoyed that his body had stunk up the house.

But then he noticed the card had a familiar scrawl on it.

He gingerly picked up the cupcake the card had been set on, pulling it from the pink frosting it had been set in, suddenly terrified for a brand new reason. Marinette wasn’t the type to use letters, most of the time she preferred talking things out in person. Why had she opted not to do it this time?

‘Hi, Tim

I have to run away. The adoption? foster care? whichever system has lots of traffic trafick trafic bad people. They'll be expecting me here.

I’m sorry, Marinette’

He rubbed the back of his hand over his eyes, trying to see if he had misread something or if, maybe, this was a dream. The words stayed stubbornly there, and the rings on his fingers scraped against his eyelids painfully. He was awake. This was real.

He was out the door before the card had even touched the ground.

ooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo

Tim liked to think he was pretty good at finding people. His late night hobby kind of required it.

Now you can argue that part of the reason why he found her so easily was that Marinette didn’t know the city well, certainly not as well as Tim did, and that she was too cautious to go wandering off into places she wasn’t familiar with… which narrowed down the places she could be considerably. But consider: shut up.

What’s important is that he found her rather quickly, huddled under the awning of the bakery her parents had owned. It was decently late in the day, plenty of people were around, but not a single one paid any mind to the little girl in a too big shirt that was scarfing down a Nutrigrain bar with tears in her eyes. The people around here knew who she was anyways, and knew exactly why she had chosen this spot, knew exactly why she was crying. They gave her her privacy.

Tim rushed over to her, only to get warded off when she pulled a butterfly knife out of, seemingly, nowhere. She pointed it in his direction, her eyes still trained on her food.

“Do you have to leave?”

She winced and, after a moment’s hesitation, closed her knife, allowing him to brush away the light snow on the ground to sit next to her. Neither of them wanted to be out there in the snow, the doctors had warned that they were supposed to be be very sensitive to frostbite, and already the tips of his fingers were beginning to go numb. But neither of them said a word about it.

She reached into her bag and handed him a Nutrigrain bar. He looked down at it for a moment, struck dumb, and then he shook his head and pushed it back into her hands. If she was really going to do this, then she would need it far more than him.

Besides, he still had the cupcake she had given him, clutched in quickly numbing fingers. He wasn’t sure why he hadn’t let it go yet, didn’t understand why it felt like doing so sent a pang through his chest. It was hard to run with, and most of the frosting had fallen off, and yet there he was, unable to let it go.

He took a careful bite of the cupcake. It was good, her baking always was, but that wasn’t really what he was concentrating on. Marinette’s lips pulled into the barest trace of a smile, the closest she had been to something truly happy since she had walked home after a relatively routine sleepover and found out that her entire apartment complex had burned to the ground.

She still wasn’t looking at him, not properly. She pulled her legs under her large shirt and rested her chin on her knees, watching as people passed them by.

“If anyone sees me – your parents, your nanny, any guests – then I’m screwed, Tim,” she said after a couple of agonizingly long seconds.

“Then we can hide you when people are over,” he said, and it sounded stupid and desperate even to himself. She was right. It only took being seen once for everything to fall apart. So, he scrambled for a newer, better angle. “Don’t you want to stay as long as you can?”

“And risk getting caught when someone sees me?”

He sighed and looked down at his cupcake again. No one looked at street kids, not really. And if they did it was never for anything good. But at least if she went and became a street kid, she wouldn’t be sitting around waiting to get found by the wrong kinds of people.

He got the logic. He did. He just wished he didn’t.

She slowly tipped to rest her head on his shoulder, the pompom on top of the atrociously bright green knitted cap she wore just barely tickling his neck. He set the cupcake in his lap gingerly and allowed her to take his hands, pulling them between hers to help keep them warm.

It was quiet for a long few moments other than quiet sniffles. It was debatable as to whether these sounds were because of the cold or not.

“What if I promise I’ll come back?” She tried. “When we’re old and don’t have to worry about me getting taken away? I’ll come see you again then.”

He snorted. “You broke a pinky promise last week.”

“Yeah, because it was dumb,” she huffed, no doubt remembering the promise that she had made to trade one of his Lunchable pizzas for a cookie. She hadn’t ended up liking the pizza, and had taken back her cookie before he had even got to enjoy it, leaving him with a bite taken out of his lunch.

And, wow, life changed fast. Last week their biggest problem had been a broken pinky promise that neither of them had really cared about anyways. Now it was figuring out how she was going to evade traffickers until she was old enough, rich enough to get a house of her own.

After a few minutes something hit her. She opened her hands to look at his, and then held it up for him to see.

“Promise rings!” She said. “We can wear them, and that means we won’t be able to break the promise this time!”

Tim remembered hearing his parents mention something about promise rings once, so that sounded legitimate and binding to him. He nodded his agreement and, after searching his fingers, found two simple gold bands. He slipped them both off.

She blinked. “Two?”

He nodded, smiling. “It’s not fair to make you do all the promising.”

She smiled. Her cheeks were flushed, but it was hard to tell whether that was just from the cold or because she was actually blushing.

He thought it over for a bit. “I promise to look for you,” was what he decided on.

She blinked once when he didn’t immediately move to put it on his finger.

He huffed. “You’re supposed to seal it with the ring!” He said, shoving it into her hand and then holding his hand out, splaying his fingers as well as he could when he couldn’t currently feel them at all.

She giggled, and tears sprang to her eyes once again. She squinted at his hands, thinking, and then put it on his ring finger.

She nodded to herself once, as if confirming to herself that she was doing it right.

There was a beat.

“I promise I’ll come back,” she said quietly.

He put the ring on her finger.

It was too big. And had been put on clumsily. It instantly slipped off, the ring finding a makeshift pillow in the snow.

Marinette giggled, rubbing wet eyes with her free hand. “Uhoh. Does that mean we don’t got a promise?” She asked, picking it up again.

He huffed and crossed his arms over his chest. “Maybe it can go on another finger.”

She tipped her head to the side consideringly, and then began testing them all out. Eventually, she found that she could put it on her right thumb if she bent it just a little to make sure it wouldn’t fall.

He smiled, looking down at the matching rings for a moment, before throwing his arms around her. She returned the awkward, sitting down, side-hug as best she could. She buried her face in his shoulder. He could feel a wet spot begin to form, but he wasn’t going to acknowledge that when his own eyes were beginning to prickle.

“See you later, Mari.”

“Bye, Tim.”

ooooooooo

Tim had gone over what he would say if he ever saw her again. For years, he had never looked her up on the batcomputer, never gave in to that part of himself that had to know, he wasn’t sure he wanted to know whether she had managed to survive all those years. He wasn’t sure he wanted to know whether there was a file on his childhood best friend, because that could only mean bad things.

But now he was standing just outside a shop, staring through the window that he had glanced into by chance.

It was her. She seemed to be doing decently well for herself, her hair had been dyed a deep blue color, her skin was a little darker than he last remembered it being. The clothes she was wearing, while just as black and dark red as the rest of the city’s, was made of visibly better quality than he might see on the average person.

He wouldn’t have paid her much attention, honestly.

But then she brushed hair behind her ear.

The movement had made him look up momentarily, and he had noticed the old, black frostbite burns on the tips of her ears and the golden band on her pinky finger.

He had frozen in his tracks.

He… didn’t know what to do. All of his plans left him in an instant.

She still had the ring, he thought, and he felt like a child again, giddy about the smallest of things. But was it really small? If she was wearing the ring, that meant she still thought about him at least a little. Still cared at least somewhat.

He hesitantly walked over to the window she was sitting in. Her computer was open, but he couldn’t see what she was doing from this angle. He could, however, see the many stickers decorating the back of her laptop. It was covered in different, cartoony baked goods. A group of macaroons all making faces, a cupcake waving at him, a cookie looking very distressed about the bite that had been taken out of it.

A slight smile rose to his face. He brought a hand up and knocked on the window. Light, but there.

Her head jerked up to look, and her eyes widened when they locked on his.

He waved just slightly, mimicking the sticker.

Riddler gave Tim and Marinette an exhausted look. “Really? A rubix cube?”

“I just want to see how you solve it,” Marinette said, smiling in a way that was far too innocent to ever be seen as real.

He sighed and shook his head. “Really, things like this are just done through patterns,” he began, already working to unscramble it. He wasn’t even looking down, not really. He was too busy giving her a flat look. “I’m sure you can figure it out yourself. Or you could just look it up.”

“Well, maybe I just wanted the smartest person alive, ever, to teach me,” she said.

Edward rolled his eyes exasperatedly, but he was smiling a little nonetheless. “Fine, if you really want me to, then I can show you how to do this.”

He held up the rubix cube. Unfortunately for him, it seems like he had messed up somewhere, for there was a green piece on the white side and the corresponding white piece on the green part.

He pressed his lips together thinly, clearly embarrassed, and went to fix it.

But then he found a speck of red on the yellow side.

Tim and Marinette glanced at each other.

He sighed. “It’s a trick, right?”

Tim grinned and gently pulled it out of Riddler’s hand, inspecting the device that he had made with Marinette to torture the unfortunate, not-quite-innocent man. “Yep. But Signal managed to do it.”

He purposely left out the fact that it had taken his brother a solid day and a half to figure out the exact mechanisms.

Tim squinted around. His head was fuzzy, the sedative was still somewhat in his system, but he was able to take in a few streaks of neon colors and a faint dinging sound.

Also, he wasn’t tied up. He shifted where he had been laid out on the floor, quietly confused, and found that the only thing holding him down was a blanket.

The almost videogame-like sounds stopped and there was a sigh.

He closed his eyes quickly, but he got the distinct feeling that it wasn’t fast enough.

And then he felt a gloved finger poke his cheek. Which, yeah, that settles that.

“You’re awake,” a voice said, and it wasn’t a question.

He blinked an eye open to find a blank white mask. Or, at least, he thought it was blank, everything was kind of blurry.

“Muddafucka,” Tim slurred.

She laughed in the face of his biting insult and reached behind herself. “I’m sorry, Mr. Drake, but I don’t happen to be a necrophiliac.”

His nose scrunched in confusion, his head unable to piece together what he was pretty sure was an insult, but she didn’t seem to be paying much attention to that. Instead, the mask got closer as the woman leaned in, poking at his face.

“Hm… I guess I should administer the rest…” She murmured absently.

He saw something silver gleam out of the corner of his eyes and thrashed to the best of his abilities, but the blanket was weighted or something and she was holding his head to the floor.

Something stabbed him in the neck.

He went very still. He wasn’t that fond of sedatives, but necks were fragile things and he wasn’t going to purposefully tear it open just in hopes that he would be able to avoid too much of it getting in his bloodstream. He liked being alive, thanks.

But then the weirdest thing happened. His vision got clearer. And he was able to push off the light blanket and her finger left his face.

He sat up slowly, testing out his ‘new’ limbs. “I think you gave me the wrong thing.”

She snorted. She didn’t seem surprised by his newfound ability to form sentences. “I’m not stupid, I wouldn’t do that.”

He tipped his head to the side consideringly. “But…”

“Listen, Mr. Drake, I might be dumb enough to kidnap you for quick cash, but I’m not going to mistreat you.” She winced just slightly, her head jerking to the side almost imperceptibly with the motion. “I’m not fond of the idea of the bats beating my face in.”

He stared at her.

She tipped her head to the side on purpose this time. “Did I not give you enough?”

“You’re… a normal person,” he said, quietly confused.

Her shoulders shook with what appeared to be laughter. “Duh. Now, how good are you at videogames?”

He finally took in the area. Maybe he should have done that earlier, as his bat training had always told him to do that first, but she had been pretty close to his face to examine how he was doing so he had an excuse as to why he couldn’t really see. Now, he realized he was…

“Are we in an arcade?”

“No. My house just has a giant game room complete with an entire prize counter. Y’know, for aesthetic purposes.”

He frowned. He wasn’t sure if she was joking.

She sighed. “Right. That doesn’t work with billionaires.” She pushed herself to her feet, brushing imaginary dust from her knees before gesturing around. “This is an arcade. I hijacked it because I was bored, happened to see you while heading here today, and now here we are.”

He looked around. There was a Frogger character consistently jumping to his doom. That must have been the game she was playing before he woke up.

There were a couple of employees around. They were ignoring the pair that weren’t supposed to be there, going about their daily duties as if everything was fine and normal.

There were no customers.

“Huh,” he said quietly. “So… you’re just going to play games with me until you get ransom money?”

“Yeah. I’m not even taking your phone.”

“Aren’t you scared I’ll call the police?”

Her nose scrunched. “Don’t do that. They’re buzzkills. I literally just want a couple of grand so I can make a quick downpayment. Chill.”

He thought that over for a moment before shrugging. He could play along. And, if she wasn’t taking his phone, then he could warn his family that everything was actually fine.

“Now. What do you think of fps games?”

///////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////

Tim squinted at the fake, plastic gun in his hand. “Does this have kickback?”

“Nope.”

“That’s so weird,” he muttered, frowning as he tried to imagine how he was going to un-account for kickback.

She shrugged.

///////////////////////

“-- and then the bastard stiffed me,” she said, throwing her hands up in frustration. Probably not the best thing to do during a round of basketball, but Tim was purposefully doing terribly and she had a good twenty points on him so she must have assumed it was fine.

He frowned and looked away from the hoop to find her pouting. “You don’t take your money in advance?”

“Of course not, no one would hire me,” she sighed, leaning back against the machine. “It doesn’t work like that. Think normal business paranoia, but instead of just trying to get the upper hand they’re also actively trying to screw you over. And they're expecting the same from you.”

He tipped his head to the side consideringly. “How often does this happen?”

“Oh, not that often. Most people are too scared of my general love of poisons to try things like this.”

His eyes narrowed. “Wait, did you –?”

The machines beeped to say they were done and she finally realized that Tim had beaten her score.

She gasped, pointing an accusatory finger. “You were lulling me into a false sense of security!” She said, puffing her cheeks in false anger.

But she snickered all the same.

/////////////////////////////////////////////////

It took an embarrassing amount of tries considering both of their intellects, but they ended up with a plush each courtesy of a banged up crane machine.

Tim hugged the dumb little smiling octopus to his chest. Technically, the thing was reversible, but consider: why would he want to make his darling baby sad on purpose?

The woman kissed the forehead of a duck plushie. “I’m going to love him and feed him and call him George. Or whatever.”

He snorted. “Please don’t feed the duck.”

/////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////

“I’m here to take care of the problem,” Red Hood said, cocking his gun in a clear threat.

Tim rolled his eyes and motioned to the woman who was casually taking apart a sensor on a jump roping game to figure out how to make real life pressure plates. To the cherry slushie in his hand. To the plush in his lap. To the phone on the ground that he had used to tell his dumb, paranoid family that everything was fine. “Problem? What problem?”

There was a moment as this was considered, and then shrugged. “There isn’t one, I guess,” he muttered, sending the woman a wave that she only barely acknowledged.

He moved to walk away, but didn’t even get a full step in the opposite direction before he collapsed.

Tim almost choked on his slushie. He turned to give his kind-of-captor a wide-eyed look.

“In my defense, I thought he was going to kill me, I think sedating him is perfectly understandable,” she said, shrugging.

Tim was torn between laughing and going to check on his brother.

Some might think of Gotham as a horrible wasteland.

And they’d be right. Their infrastructure was literally crumbling before their very eyes. The clouds above them, a concerning mix of red and black thanks to all of the lingering chemicals in the air, swirled constantly, as if they were just waiting for the worst possible moment to send an actually natural disaster their way. A glance down the wrong alley would lead to the worst possible sights – a smattering of blood and a corpse curled by a dumpster, a wheelchair on its side with no disabled person in sight, a rat. Any given area has been devastated by a Rogue attack at least once, and it shows.

But it was their wasteland, thank you very much, and as much as they might have complained about their twenty insurances making up for the insanely low rent prices, no one ever really tried to leave.

Besides, there was plenty to find beautiful within the city.

Namely: the people.

Marinette and Tim sat on top of a rooftop. They were two of the many people doing so. Ever since the bats had started cropping up all over the city and taking to the rooftops in search of crime, it became a popular thing to do for both the wary and the daring. The wary got to stay within the hypothetical sight of the vigilantes, and people were more hesitant to do something to them when they didn’t know whether a simple mugging could turn into a beating for them. The daring got to clamber up rickety fire escapes (if the buildings around them even had them, some climbed the somehow even less stable drainpipes) and stand close to the edge, just waiting to get hurled from a roof by a stray explosion.

Which were they? Wary? Daring? Something else altogether? Who knows. Certainly not them.

They didn’t seem to care about analyzing themselves, though, as they sat on the edge, drinking hot cocoa despite the warmth the spring air provided.

If you were particularly lucky – or particularly unlucky, which was definitely what they were – you might catch sight of a Rogue on their way to go and commit atrocities. Watching them slinking through town, while mildly concerning for obvious reasons, was always a treat. They were a blip of color parting a sea of grays and blacks, all while trying their damndest to mesh into those colorless blobs in hopes that they wouldn’t get spotted by a bat prematurely.

That was rare, though, Rogues usually lived and breathed their jobs in the most literal sense by not leaving the building until their scheme was up.

No, it was much more common to have to search for anomalies in the crowds of people who were rushing to work and school and their homes in hopes that, if they simply moved fast enough, they would get to their destinations without incident.

And, when they did, they were happy to point them out to each other.

Marinette would grin and point out a group of three teens, who were always, inevitably, doing Dumb Shit. They had even come up with a name for it:

“They’re doing a Robin,” Marinette murmured, watching them gear up to test out the theory that cartoons proposed (will someone bounce if they land on a canopy?).

Tim glanced over to make sure they were only two stories up, and therefore wouldn’t get too hurt, before turning to glare at her. “You know I resent that.”

“I do,” she said, batting her eyelashes at him for just a moment more before turning an eager gaze back onto the teens who had learned that, no, actually, cartoons were liars and wooden supports are not meant to handle people falling on them. The shopkeeper was not pleased to be the one to suffer second most from their experiment (she was pretty sure one of them had twisted their ankle, yikes), and she was sure that, if he could get through the door that had been blocked off by fallen debris, he would be trying to hit them with the broom he was waving threateningly.

The teens scrambled off, and with them, their entertainment.

But that was fine. They found something else to concentrate on soon enough.

Tim jerked his chin to point at a blob of yellow on the horizon. “He’s heading our way. We’ll have to move soon.”

She blinked and squinted to see that, yep, the blob was moving. Damn it. Signal, they were trying to enjoy themselves here, couldn’t you relax on the crime fighting for, like, a day?

And then she saw a flicker of blue and red out of the corner of her eyes and snorted. “Nah, he’s gonna be distracted.”

There was a moment as they considered whether they wanted to follow Signal to observe him. They both knew him well, of course, but there was a difference between fighting/being siblings with someone and observing them in their natural state.

They collectively decided that, no, that was too much effort for such a pleasant Sunday afternoon.

Something else was quick to catch their interest, anyways.

A pair of tourists were easy to pinpoint. They were wearing gas masks for no real reason outside of the fact that they didn’t want to be ‘tainted’ by the Gotham air, which was fair considering everything but cowardly, and their clothes were just a smidge too bright, too interesting. Besides, they were looking at their phones – probably at a map app – and everyone in Gotham knew that you needed to look people in the eyes as much as possible, because people were less interested in attacking you if they knew you could identify them in a lineup.

Tim hummed. “Good to see that people with wanderlust are finally including Gotham in their must-sees.”

It wouldn’t happen again. The pair of people walked up to a hotdog vendor and immediately got held at gunpoint by the owner. Most Gothamites didn’t take kindly to the kind of people that viewed Gotham as a zoo that you just have to see for yourself to see all the insane, backwards people there. Which was understandable. The gun part probably wasn’t, though.

They should probably help but, hey, people that aren’t Gotham citizens aren’t their problems.

Also, that guy sold the best hotdogs. Sure, they definitely shave a few years off of your life while you’re eating them, but they’re worth it. They weren’t going to get on his bad side.

Speaking of. She was beginning to crave hotdogs.

She knocked her shoulder with Tim’s. “Food?”

“Am I paying?”

“Obviously. I’ll owe you one.”

“You already owe me seven hundred.”

She grinned. “I’ll owe you seven hundred and one.”

He sighed deeply, but his lips were twitching upwards despite his best attempts. He pushed himself to his feet and flipped his sunglasses down to hide his identity.

“I still think sunglasses are the worst way to look inconspicuous in Gotham. Please just get a wig.”

“You’re wearing enough colors to make any other Rogue jealous,” he sighed. “You can’t call me inconspicuous when you’re doing that.”

She patted her pale blue dress to get as much grime off of it as she could. “The difference between us is that I’m not trying to hide.” She took the hand he offered and allowed him to pull her to her feet. “Anyways, I’m feeling hotdogs.”

He hummed as a kind of agreement and they started down the fire escape. “I think I wanna visit the planetarium today.”

“Me too, hope it’s not still closed from Selina’s last escapade.”

“Eh, if it is, I think the botanical garden is nearby… if you want to risk Poison Ivy, obviously.”

She snickered. “Poison Ivy would make a visit even more fun, are you kidding me?”

And, though they didn’t really recognize it, they, too, were people that were often observed in Gotham. Not because Tim was somewhat famous or because Marinette wore bright colors, but because they were both undeniably happy about living in their city. About being around each other. It was strange.

Marinette squinted at Tim. Not quite glaring, yet, but not quite pleased, either. “Tim.”

“Mari?” He responded, eyes wide and ‘innocent’. And then innocently wide because he almost tripped on one of the leftover vines from Poison Ivy’s latest attack.

“Deserved. Are you seriously angling your umbrella to get rain on me?”

“No,” he said, finally succeeding in splashing her shoulder.

She squinted at him for a moment, her grip on her umbrella tightening.

“But, if the way I'm holding my umbrella is inconvenient for you, there is a solution...” He said, trailing off with a glance over the space between them.

Okay, admittedly, a little cute. Annoying, sure, and he could have just asked to share an umbrella with her… but she could appreciate that he wanted to be closer to her, that he wanted to do something stereotypically couple-y.

But, also, her shirt was now wet and she would sooner gouge her own eyes out with spoons than do what he wanted.

She hesitated, thinking it over for a moment.

And then she grinned. Something about this particular grin seemed to put him on edge.

Good. It should.

“You’re right, Tim, there is a way to get you to stop splashing me.”

She made a mad grab for the umbrella in his hand. His eyes widened and he jerked away before she could take it for him.

He leaned back so far that he began to soak his pants. It was a good thing this was their after-work walk, because she wasn’t sure he could impress slimy businessmen when he was covered in water. They would repel each other. Literally.

Hilariousness aside, Tim’s eyes began to gleam and she couldn’t help but be wary.

“Oh? I didn’t know that was an option.”

After a quick glance both ways to make sure there was no one around (and there wasn’t, of course, who would be insane enough to go near a place that Poison Ivy had just attacked?), she closed the umbrella. The full force of the rain almost stunned her, she hadn’t realized just how much it was pouring, but then she grinned.

“‘Come and take it’ or whatever.”

He snorted and ran forward.

No one was there to make them muffle their laughter as each little grab failed. The rain poured down on them, large dollops splattering against the ground, leaving the world quiet. Their umbrellas whoosh-ed through the air with every swing of their arms. The world seemed almost hushed, as if it was made solely for them two to enjoy, as if everything was watching silently, desperate not to ruin the moment or miss anything.

And then Tim stilled, assumedly to push all of the wet hair from his face, she used the short break to do the same, but she was surprised to find out that it was more than that:

“New strategy,” Tim said loudly, announcing it for the world – as small as it might have felt for them at that moment – to hear.

She paused for just a moment, curious.

He held his umbrella like a two-handed sword, and then used her moment of weakness where she cringed at his choice of grip, because the umbrella wasn’t heavy enough for that, to lunge.

He managed to grab ahold of her umbrella.

She yanked on it and he went stumbling forward, slipping on the wet asphalt, but then he huffed and planted his feet. He swung the umbrella which, normally, she would have been smart enough to let go of.

But she didn’t want to end this so soon, so she allowed him to swing her around in circles, trying to shake her off while she laughed as he frantically shook the umbrella.

She detached a hand from her umbrella and caught hold of his as well. This, of course, only meant that they were going to end up having more leeway to spin each other, but who cared?

The pair span in circles, practically dancing in the rain.

Dancing in the only way vigilantes and villains knew how, within a fight, but dancing nonetheless.

A winner wasn’t necessary. Why would it be? Sure, the longer they were out the more they would soak, but his safehouse wasn’t too far and they both liked carrying spare outfits on them due to unfortunate job risks. This wasn’t work, they didn’t care enough to kill each other, and honestly, there was something fun about fighting like this. About using a moment where their ‘swords’ crossed to lean in and kiss him on the nose, about mussing up her wet hair to make it hard to see, about playing around without actually trying to win.

But winning was still fun, and they were both happy to take the chance if it ever arose.

He swept her legs out from under her and she shrieked, a sound made up of surprise and anger and glee all at once, letting go of the umbrellas to fall in a way that wouldn’t end in her getting hurt.

He held up the stolen umbrella victoriously.

She grabbed his old one, held in a limp hand, and then kicked him in the stomach. Not hard, she was barely even trying, but he clearly was expecting her to give him a moment to gloat and therefore hadn’t been ready for the sudden blow.

He doubled over with a wheeze.

He also let go of his umbrella.

She rolled backwards to get out of range, holding her prize close to her chest.

There was a beat as they both looked down at their new umbrellas. Their designs were similar anyways, simple black ones that wouldn’t stand out in a crowd. Tim’s was slightly bigger, and hers was proportionally lighter, but that was the only difference. They glanced at each other, still panting a little, their hair plastered to the faces that were split with wide grins.

And then they shrugged in unison.

Years of fencing were put to use. Tim put his free hand up, she tucked hers behind her back. Just like that, they were sword fighting with their dumb little umbrellas.

Tim gave an affronted gasp as she whacked him in the side. She laughed, but her laugh was cut off when she got jabbed in the leg. After that, they seemed to come to a truce not to actually try and hit each other, and instead they focused on fancy footwork and flashy, choreographed movements that would allow them more than enough time to block.

But nothing could last forever, least of all flimsy dollar store umbrellas.

There was a loud crack.

Both of them pulled back their umbrellas, eyes wide and faces pale.

The umbrella Tim was using had broken.

A grin slowly made its way across Marinette’s face.

She held up the still okay umbrella in her hand victoriously, giggling. “Looks like we’re using mine.”

“Ugh, can I at least hold it so I don’t have to duck the whole time?”

“Nope! Crouch beneath the superior umbrella, loser.”

He huffed, but ducked down into her space to stay beneath the umbrella as they started back towards his safehouse. Of course, the umbrella was pretty much useless now, they were both thoroughly soaked and she could already see a scramble for the first hot shower in their futures, but she didn’t mind that much. Gotham rain was always cold, and their old frostbite scars didn’t much appreciate it, so crowding beneath an umbrella was a good excuse for him to shove his hands into the pockets of her jacket, or for her to lean so his breaths were warming the skin on the tips of their ears.

And, besides, it was nice. She liked being close to her boyfriend, sue her.

“You know, technically this was my umbrella, so I still win.”

She groaned and turned to look at him. He was smiling so damn cheesily, she couldn’t even be mad. In fact, she was hopelessly endeared by how stupidly competitive he was. Damn it damn it damn it.

“I’m going to kiss you to shut you up now,” she announced. “Is that okay?”

His eyes widened and a blush spread across his face

“Don’t know how I – how I feel about our first kiss being an attempt to make me be quiet,” he stammered nervously.

She sighed and let her head tip forward to rest against his shoulder. “I think it’s fitting.”

He hummed in a kind of agreement. Frost-nipped fingers slipped out of her pockets and came up to cradle her chin, tugging her head back up until their noses brushed.

“Maybe,” he agreed.

And now it was her turn to blush and stutter, apparently: “Coolcoolcool –.”

Marinette hugged a bundle of flowers to her chest. She knew she should probably loosen her grip, flowers were delicate things and she certainly didn’t want to give Tim wrinkled flowers, but her body didn’t seem to want to comply with her.

She had done a lot of death-defying things in her life. Had had a gun pointed at her head more times than she could count. Had befriended some of the most dangerous people to exist. Had fallen asleep unsure if she would ever wake up.

So why was this what had nerves clawing at her throat?

She had asked out plenty of people before, had been asked out even more times. Granted, most of those relationships weren’t exactly serious, but she wasn’t inexperienced. She shouldn’t be hovering just out of range of the cameras he had set up outside of his base, shouldn’t be considering walking away as heavily as she was.

But there she was, staring down at a carefully selected bouquet, wondering if she could just toss it aside and go up to him as normal. It would be easy. No one had to know.

She didn’t have to know.

She scuffed her shoe on the concrete.

She didn’t want to lose Tim.

But he deserved to know either way.

She took a deep breath in, taking in the many different mingling scents of the flowers in her hands. Aster, daisies, gardenias, and morning glories all to say that she loved him. Forget-me-nots to say she wanted to make lovely memories with him. All tied together into a lovely smattering of white, blue, and purple.

Okay.

She walked the rest of the way to his safehouse. This one was just a regular apartment, but it was close to the meeting he needed to go to later. It took her less than five minutes to get there, and the time was gone in an instant.

The door swung open before she had even knocked, as usual. He had probably been watching since she had walked past the first camera.

“Any longer and I was going to go looking in alleys to see if you were getting mugged.” And then his eyes landed on the bundle in her hands for real and his head jerked back in quiet surprise. His face did a complicated twist she couldn’t make sense of. “Oh. I see. You got harassed by a flower vendor, huh?”

“No,” she said, laughing a little at the mental image of Tim shaking down a poor man just trying to sell bouquets for an apology. “I – uh – got these on purpose.”

Tim tipped his head to the side. “Oh. Did you get asked out?”

She shook her head quickly. “Not unless you count getting catcalled by the construction workers outside of GU. I don’t, they’re not really asking for a date, y’know? And they’re not being all that gentleman-ly about it, if I’m honest. I mean, I’m not that hard to please, but even I’m not swayed by ‘hey baby why don’t you come over here for a bit’. Like, really, is that the best you have –?”

Oh, great, she was rambling.

Thank god he cut her off: “Then what’s with the flowers?”

Fuck.

Fuck.

Fuck.

She had just gotten rid of her excuses.

Guess she really was committing to this.

“Tim, I’d like to take you on a date!” She blurted, holding them out.

There was a beat where his eyes widened. He looked down at the flowers for a moment. She knew he knew flower language, he had encountered Riddler and Poison Ivy too many times to not pick anything up. He knew that the overall message was a very clear I love you. He knew that the inclusion of borage meant to take the other flowers literally.

And, if he didn’t, the words ‘I’d like to take you on a date’ done while offering flowers should have cleared things up rather well.

She watched his shoes as he took the flowers. Not because she was scared, they were just very nice shoes. Leather. She could appreciate that.

There was a moment of silence. She spent the entire time looking anywhere but his face.

“You mean platonically?”

She wondered if it was bad form to slam her face into a wall in the middle of a confession. Because apparently she was still in the middle of a confession.

She twisted her ring around her pinky nervously. If he saw such a blatant confession as platonic, did that mean he didn’t see her as anything but a friend?

She could still back out.

She sighed. “No, Tim, I don’t,” she said quietly. “I mean a date date.”

And then she chanced a look up. Just in time to watch his face flush a deep red that looked strange next to all the purple and blue clustered by his chin.

But that was nothing compared to the soft smile on his face as his eyes flicked from the flowers to her and then back to the flowers. “Oh. I’d… I’d really like that,” he said, hushed, as if she was the only person he wanted to hear it.

And hear it she did.

She smiled, letting him reach forward to intertwine their hands around the flowers.

“Me too,” she said.

“Would you like to go get something to eat?”

“Well… you have work to get to…” she said carefully, and then giggled when his face managed to, somehow, get even more red.

“After that?” He tried, and it was nice to see he was a little nervous, too.

Tim slumped on top of Marinette, his chin resting on her shoulder to let him see what she was doing in his darling box. “You know, it’s not right to snoop.”

She snorted dismissively, but her hands stilled where they had been sifting through the many photos he had opted to take with him to their new house. “You got nudes in here that you’re trying to hide?”

He rolled his eyes. “No, I have those in a separate box.”

Marinette made a choking sound and her head whipped around to look at him to see whether he was joking. He kept his face perfectly impassive.

She squinted at him for a moment before shaking her head, grinning. “Anyways, I just wanted to see. I haven’t gotten to look at your photos in ages,” she said.

“Can I go through to make sure you don’t see any of the bad ones?” He asked, smiling nervously.

“... why would you go through the effort to develop bad ones?”

He huffed. “I was a kid. I didn’t know about shot composition.”

“Then why keep them?”

He thought about it for a moment before shrugging. “Couldn’t get rid of them, I guess.”

She hummed lightly.

Tim shooed her off so he could lean over the box. She huffed a little, clearly not enthused at the idea of going back to unpacking, but did so without any real complaint. She resumed her desperate search for bedsheets, neither of them wanted to sleep on a bare mattress if they could help it.

He grabbed a handful of pictures, the laminated pages just barely sticking to his hands. And then he started flipping through them. A tiny smile made its way across his face. He hadn’t seen a bunch of these in years, and there was something kind of adorable about seeing how bad he had been back in the day. Some of it wasn’t his fault, admittedly, catching people in motion was difficult with a camera, especially at night, but still. Looking at the blurs of color on dark backdrops that he had used to think of as tastefully stylistic rather than unfortunate…

It was a simpler time.

Besides, it made the few good pictures littered through the box seem more amazing. A shot of Robin and Batman awkwardly standing in line for smoothies. A picture of Robin in free fall, his cape fluttering in the ‘wind’. A picture of Batman poised perfectly against a rare moon in Gotham, a dark silhouette against the light.

And then he reached something at the bottom of the box that was too large to be a photograph.

Maybe it was a collage?

He pulled out a large sheet of laminated paper. It took him a moment to recognize it, but when he did he laughed out loud. “Holy shit, Mari, look.”

She blinked once, setting down a random vase so she could make her way across the room to stretch over him. Her eyes sparkled with recognition. “Ooooooh, I remember that,” she said, leaning closer.

The ‘that’ in question was a finger painting mural that their class had collaborated on during art way back when they were about to graduate from kindergarten. The base was a professionally done drawing of a forest, the trees sporting an almost ungodly amount of branches. This wasn’t the main feature, though. It was a backdrop for the actual finger painting the kids had done. Really, it was less of an art project and more of a ‘stamp your thumb in a spot and then turn it into an animal’ activity.

“When I put my bird next to yours everyone went ‘ooooooooo’. A classic,” Tim said quietly, pointing to the pair of tiny fingerprints in the top right corner. They had both opted to turn theirs into birds, because it ‘just made sense, they were in trees!’, but you wouldn’t know that from looking at it. They looked like smiley faces with feet.

Marinette and Tim’s blue and red birds had overlapped somewhat, turning the area between purple. Marinette had insisted that he had ruined it by ‘turning them into a Venn Diagram’, he had cried, and she had cried because he was crying and had begged for forgiveness.

It was quite a day.

He rubbed the two laminated birds, smiling. His thumb nowadays could cover up both of their old fingerprints. “I’m guessing you don’t have your copy anymore?”

She pouted. “No. It was the worst day ever and I tossed it into a river before it got home. My favorite pink skirt got ruined, why would I want to remember that?”

He snorted into his hand.

“You’re laughing. That’s my villain origin story and you’re laughing.”

He grinned and pressed his hand against his mouth as hard as he could in hopes that that would muffle his amusement even partially. He could still remember the pure horror on her young face, which looked particularly pale when compared with the bright green paint that one of their classmates had spilled on her. At the time, that had seemed like the biggest thing to ever happen to them.

She grinned and took a seat next to him, her eyes on the pair of birds. She leaned into him a little, almost mirroring the way they leaned against each other in the picture. At least they didn’t meld together like the birds had, that would have been inconvenient.

She absently rubbed her thumb against her palm, as if remembering the way the paint had felt on her finger all those years ago. “I almost poisoned a bunch of customers because I forgot to wash off all the paint on my hand before helping my parents.”

“... wait. Is that why I got a bunch of bread the next day?”

She cleared her throat.

“You told me the blue was just food dye!”

“Technically, I said that the blue wasn’t mold. And it wasn’t.”

He sputtered.

“And, I mean, you’re fine now, so it’s all good.”

His eyes narrowed at her. She was avoiding eye contact, so she definitely felt bad about it. But. He would have preferred an apology. Since she wasn’t offering one, he thought it was perfectly reasonable to resort to torture.

“How do you know that? I could be un-bread for all you know.”

She groaned. “I’m going to strangle you.”

“I’m a ghost! You can’t do that! Your hands would go right through me but, hey, at yeast you tried!”

Her eye twitched. “One more,” she dared him.

“... hey, you don’t gotta be a brioche about it –!”

She grabbed him by the front of his shirt and dragged him into a kiss. “Shut up,” she muttered against his mouth.

Tim stepped inside the abandoned warehouse and instantly knew something was wrong, but he wasn’t sure quite what. Maybe he just has PTSD from all the other abandoned warehouses… or, maybe, his intuition was correct and there was a strange stillness to the air. Not the kind that was supposed to come when you walk into a place that has been truly left alone for years, but the kind that came when you had walked in on something and the people were trying to act like nothing was amiss.

He looked around, his nose just barely wrinkling to keep out the dust particles floating aimlessly through the air, searching for some hint of disturbance. There were no tracks on the floor, no dust kicked up outside of what he was displacing with his own footsteps, no creaking sounds…

And yet…

“I know you’re here.”

The tension in the room skyrocketed instantly. He could feel eyes pressing in on him, but he couldn’t tell where exactly they were coming from.

And then.

“No you don’t,” a familiar voice said on his right.

He looked left, grinning. “Oh. My bad. Guess I’ll be leaving then, Madame Ghost.”

Marinette giggled, and this time it was slightly closer. That didn’t mean much, he knew she could throw her voice when she wanted to. But he did note the difference.

“Good. If you move on, then so can I,” she said lightly, and now he could hear a quiet crunch nearby.

It took everything in him not to look over. He knew that trick, throwing something to give the illusion of footsteps, he had used it himself on multiple occasions. But it was still human nature to glance up when you hear a sound.

He hummed, keeping his eyes forward and looking for any hint of the woman.

There was a rush of movement and he reached up just in time to catch her hand, centimeters from his neck. The needle shone in the low light. She flexed her wrist, trying to push the needle forward just that little bit she needed, but it didn’t sink in.

And then she went slack, sighing.

He spun to look at her. Marinette hadn’t bothered with her usual mask, not when it was just them, so he saw the mild amusement playing across her lips plain as day.

He held her hand there, knowing that loosening his grip even then would only lead to him getting jabbed with whatever paralytic or sedative she had on her.

“Almost had me. If there was less light I think you would have gotten me,” he said lightly.

“If there was less light I wouldn’t have been able to see you,” she huffed. “Not everyone is ‘sponsored by’ the Waynes, Red.”

“That sounds like a you problem,” he teased, bringing hand up to his heart. “I –.”

She took the hand, lacing their fingers together and dragging it to her own chest, away from the emergency beacon hidden on his suit.

“Am not getting out of this, apparently,” he sighed lightly, shaking his head.

“You wouldn’t want to, anyways,” she teased, taking a tiny step closer. Both of their costumes were heavily padded, there was no point in pressing close, and he was sure she was just trying to distract him from the fact that she was trying to get more leverage.

He leaned closer as well, trying to get their intertwined hands closer to the symbol on his chest that housed his beacon. “Maybe not.”

“If you let me go I’ll put out,” she said, leaning close with a tiny smirk playing across her lips.

He rolled his eyes even if she couldn’t see it behind his domino mask. He was sure she knew, anyway. “No, you won’t.”

“You’re right, I won’t,” she laughed lightly, letting their noses brush. “But I will bake something for you.”

He hummed thoughtfully. That was a compelling offer. “What are you trying to distract me from?”

“Ra’s propositioned me to have a child with you for genes or whatever so I’m adding cadmium to his dumb pit to hopefully counteract its revitalizing properties and kill off the old fuck once and for all. It’s deserved. That’s gross of him.”

Tim thought this over. “That is gross of him,” he agreed, nodding slightly.

She lit up.

“Are you making sure no one is there when you bomb his base?”

Her expression soured in a way that would have been imperceptible if he hadn’t been looking for it. “I never said I was doing that.”

He raised an eyebrow.

Marinette huffed. “Yes, I already sent out an evacuation notice. If they don’t go then that’s on them.”

He nodded slowly, before smiling. “Then sure. I want that croquembouche you made for the party last year.”

She groaned a little. “Of course you’d choose that.”

He pouted. She sighed, and he could see the way it was quickly eating away at her defenses.

“Fine.”

His grin returned immediately.

Neither of them acknowledged the quiet beep signaling the fact that his family had been notified of his location, nor the piprick of pain as a needle found its place in his shoulder. That was a problem for later, when the serum inevitably kicked in or his family came rushing in to give him backup.

No, for now, he let the hand that had been holding the needle fall away, down to wrap around her. She tossed the empty syringe aside in favor of wrapping her arm around his neck.

“Hey, look,” he said, already feeling his head beginning to fuzz. Looks like she had gone for a sedative instead of a paralytic. “If I do this…” He dragged their intertwined hands out from between their chests, pointing their arms outward. “It looks like we’re two-stepping.”

She smiled. “Not leaving much room for Jesus, though.”

“That’s fine. I’m Jewish.”

Marinette took hesitant steps into her boyfriend’s main base. She’d have to show him hers later, she knew, this whole thing was an exercise in trust, but for now she was just going to enjoy looking around. The place had been cleaned recently, the random bits of clothing and chip bags stashed safely away in a closet somewhere. The theater chairs had been cleared out in favor of tech she couldn’t even close to understand. The high ceilings allowed for a second floor to be built in, which had been used to house a… well, house. While small, it held a basic kitchen that she was sure he had never actually used and a bed that she would only wish upon her worst enemy.

“Well, Mari, welcome to The Nest. What do you think?”

“I’m sorry, this place is called the what now –?”

She cut herself off before she could tease him too thoroughly, catching the silent plea in his expression to take something seriously just this once. She wouldn’t, privately, but she could pretend for just a few minutes if only to soothe her boyfriend’s anxieties. She hummed, quietly appraising the place.

“This place is nice from the ground.”

His shoulders untensed. He cracked a hesitant half-smile. “Thank god. If you fell out of my ceiling one more time I think that I’d straight up die.”

She snorted and turned to look at him. “You’d better hope that B-man doesn’t find out that you’re so fragile and weak that a little jumpscare would kill you. What are you, a sunfish?”

“That’s a myth, actually, sunfish aren’t that easy to kill.”

“And boyfriends aren’t that hard to break up with, so maybe rethink your correction.”

He grinned, leaning back against one of those tanks you’d see in sci-fi movies when a mad scientist was trying to clone someone. “You wouldn’t break up with me.”

She raised an eyebrow.

“And stick to it for longer than a day or two.”

There was a beat as she considered it. Then she sighed. “I hate when you’re right.”

He opened his arms and she found a place within them, burying her face in the crook of his neck.

They relaxed for a few moments, the sound of the maybe-cloning-tube bubbling soothingly. She had to fight not to fall asleep right there, standing up.

She yawned and curled closer, struggling to find a distraction to keep herself awake. “So, why an abandoned theater? Is it a Wayne thing?”

“Because it was the first place I found,” Tim said, and she didn’t have to look up to hear the quiet amusement lining his voice. “I’m not B. I didn’t make the code to get into my base the time my parents died.”

“Remind me to call him an edgelord the next time I see him out as Batman.”

He laughed, and she would have mourned the way her current comfortable spot had started moving, but she couldn’t help the way a small smile made its way over her face.

“Of course I’ll remind you. That sounds hilarious. And if I’m there I get to take a picture of his face after you say it!”

She smiled. “Once a stalker, always a stalker.”

“I’m not –!” he sputtered. “You’re more of a –! It is not stalking okay I was just –!”

“Oh my god! I just realized! Does your family know that you used to stalk them? Do you still have the pictures? Have you made more?”

He sighed and buried his face in her hair. This was an attempt on his part to hide the red creeping up his face, but she could still see the blush tinging his skin. She grinned and looped her arms around him, closing her eyes as she listened to the awkward, bumbling excuses that came pouring out of his mouth.

It was nice.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

“Welcome… to the Underground,” she said, turning the lock with an overdramatic flourish.

“Do you have to make fun of me every time we talk?”

“Absolutely I do.”

He sighed, trying to hide the slight fondness in the action by stepping past her through the doorway.

“I was expecting more of a… evil lair.”

Tim squinted around the house, almost looking for a secret lever or a hidden staircase that would open up into the True House.

The place itself was small – there were only three rooms and two of them didn’t even have any real walls separating them – likely because she didn’t want the people who ran the city to look into where exactly she was getting her money. Not that the city would, it was Gotham, but the IRS might if they saw too many discrepancies on her tax forms.

Still, she had clearly gone with whatever decorations she wanted. And ‘whatever she wanted’ was apparently ‘the most ugly things in existence’. He was almost impressed by her ability to find the most garish colors for every piece of furniture.

Maybe the true evil was the ugly furniture she found along the way.

Or maybe not. Marinette smiled, tossing her bag onto a bench nearby. “Sorry, Tim, but I have an actual work-life balance, so all of that stays at work.” She turned around to look at him.

“You say that, but this place looks like a Rogue barfed on it.”

She giggled. “So I take it you like it?”

“I think it’s awful.”

She looked pleased by this. Of course she did.

He huffed, continuing to look around. While it was terrible and he was very tempted to just up and leave so he wouldn’t have to be subjected to torture like this anymore, he also found himself wanting to see more.

His eyes landed on a bed. It was unmade, of course, the mound of blankets on top balled up in a nest so intricate he wasn’t sure if it was an accident or not. But that wasn’t what he focused on.

“Ohmygod who is that?” He breathed, his eyes catching on the shadow with almost luminous green eyes.

“That’s my other half,” she said, cooing.

“Our other half,” Tim decided, walking forward slowly and making a quiet pspspspspsps sound, his hand out.

The cat, the darling, the best thing that had ever happened to him outside of maybe his girlfriend and found family, gave him a wary look but started towards him.

The cat sniffed his hand, its nose just barely bumping against his fingers a few times as it inspected him, and then brushed up against him.

I was angry with my friend; 

I told my wrath, my wrath did end.

Tim felt his fingernails dig into the skin of his arms. It hurt, holding himself so tightly. But it still felt nicer to cross his arms over his chest than it did to ball his fists at his sides.

“Why didn’t you tell me?” He asked, and he sounded strange to his own ears. It wasn’t angry like he expected, like he felt, he just seemed sad.

And maybe that was the root of it. He wasn’t actually angry, it was just easier to feel angry than it was to feel betrayed and hurt and inadequate.

“You were here for years and you didn’t bother to come up to me once! Why? I’m a public figure, you had to have known about me! Why didn’t you say anything?”

She looked at the ground, scuffing her sneakers on the concrete as she shifted awkwardly on her feet. “It’s stupid.”

“I don’t care if it’s stupid,” he groaned. “I just want to know.”

“I –.” She started, only to cut herself off. Her lips did a complicated twist. “I… didn’t want to find out you’d changed too much.”

He took a startled step back.

“I knew you would be different… it’s been so long, you would have to be.” She closed her eyes and looked away. “But I was – I wasn’t scared – I was concerned that I would walk up to you and you wouldn’t even remember me. Or–  or–  or that you would remember me, and you wouldn’t be interested.”

He went quiet. He remembered the moments before he had gone up to her. How he had been terrified that she wouldn’t like him anymore.

If he hadn’t had the life he had – hadn’t known thanks to all of his research that she was still just like he remembered, would he have gone up to her that day? Would he, too, have continued on without a word?

He felt it all drain out of him, leaving him with a quiet kind of relief.

“Okay,” he breathed.

She blinked and looked up, only for her eyes to dart away. “Okay?” She said, hesitant.

He smiled faintly and took her hand, lacing their fingers. “Okay.”

I was angry with my foe: 

I told it not, my wrath did grow. 

He sighed when he heard a familiar, faintly distorted giggle. His head tipped forward to hit against his computer, knocking against it just hard enough to get an audible clicking sound.

She giggled again. “Aw, pleased to see you, too, Red.”

He lifted his head. “Sorry, Opera, that was rude of me. It’s nice to see you here, tonight of all nights, at this exact moment.”

He smirked when he saw her shoulders stiffen just slightly in her annoyance. It was petty and stupid, but he couldn’t help the curl of amusement he felt.

“That’s not my name.”

He tapped a hand to his forehead. “Oh! Right! Duh! Sorry, Drama.”

Her fingers twitched just slightly. Maroon gloves seemed to flicker in the light, gaining a deeper color that made it look like there was blood coating her hands.

She crossed her arms over her chest. “Mature.”

“Well, if you’re going to act like a child then I might as well get on your level.”

She gave a sound that was somewhere between a scoff and a laugh. He wondered if this was what her laughs actually sounded like – full of disdain and an air of superiority she hadn’t earned.

He pulled the headphones from his ears. The people he had been tailing had long-since walked out of range and it wasn’t like he could follow after them with her here. She would inconvenience him at every turn, he knew, and then would reveal it was all to her plan and that she was actually going to benefit greatly from whatever it was that he had done.

He wasn’t particularly eager to find out just what, exactly, had made her come to him, but he might as well ask.

And I waterd it in fears,

Night & morning with my tears:

Marinette’s eyes flicked to the corner of her room, as if it would be different this time. Gone this time. But it wasn’t.

Red Robin had bugged her.

She fought the urge to shiver. To scream. To grab it, crush it, throw it out the window.

She didn’t even know when it had started. She had guesses, sure, but the bugs littered through her apartment could have been there for weeks before she noticed them. And she wasn’t even completely sure what she had done wrong.

Tears threatened to well in her eyes and she clenched her fists to give herself something else to concentrate on. The skin broke beneath her nails and she went to the bathroom to wash it away before Red Robin realized that she knew. At least the bathroom was safe.

Not that that made her feel less violated. Not really.

“You’ve been hanging out in my territory a lot more than usual,” she said, struggling to keep her tone neutral.

He tipped his head to the side just slightly. A grin made its way across his face. “Well, you’re one of the two Rogues that concentrates on me, so… might as well focus on you, too, right?”

She set her jaw behind the safety of her mask. “Then concentrate on the other person.”

“Kinda hard, he’s located on a completely different continent.”

She snickered to hide the way she wanted nothing more than to punch him. “I have a girlfriend but she goes to another school.”

He sputtered.

And I sunned it with smiles,

And with soft deceitful wiles. 

Now that Red Robin was sure that she wasn’t there purely to ruin him, he seemed to relax minutely. He pulled his headphones on once again and grimaced, muttering something about how ‘they had moved’.

He gathered up his things, carefully packing all but the essentials away, and then turned to the air conditioning vent he had just been leaning against.

Marinette followed after him, smiling as they made their way through the complex. He couldn’t see the smile, of course, her mask covered her face and then some, but smiling also changed your posture in minute ways that would allow him to see the ease she held.

Or was pretending to hold, at least.

Because it’s difficult to be calm when a person seems to know exactly who you are and is collecting evidence to put you in jail.

And yet she needed to be.

Never let your enemy know when they have the upper hand.

They’ll know to strike you down before you can retaliate.

And it grew both day and night. 

Till it bore an apple bright. 

And my foe beheld it shine,

And he knew that it was mine. 

“There’s a vibration detector in this room. So. You go first,” Red Robin said and, ah, that was why he had let her go with him.

But, hey, if she got in there first then she might be able to get the valuable information before he did.

And into my garden stole, 

When the night had veild the pole; 

In the morning glad I see; 

My foe outstretched beneath the tree.

There was a thud behind her and her shoulders jumped up in surprise.

She whipped around, a chastisement for not being sneaky enough surely on her tongue, but found no one there.

Yet.

The door to the left of her was flung open in a flash and a group of three men streamed into the room, all of their guns pointed on her.

Tim leaned close to the edge of the now open vent, watching over the room. His lips curled into a strange kind of smile as he looked down on her. She held her hands up in a kind of surrender. ‘A kind of’, because her head was moving just slightly – shaking with fear, the mobsters were sure to assume, but Tim knew better. She was looking around, trying to decide how she was going to escape her newfound predicament.

She stopped. Her mask jerked to look at him properly.

He almost wished the mask was gone. That it would allow him to see even the slightest sliver of her face. He wanted to see the anger flicker across her expression.

As it was, he was able to see the way her shoulders hiked up a little higher.

He stuck his tongue out at her before turning to leave.

Marinette laced her hands behind her back, following after Red Robin like she was a puppy that was eyeing up the treat in his hand.

“Don’t you have better things to do?” He sighed, glancing around a corner before nodding – mostly to himself – and continuing forward.

“Nah, I’ve got everything I came for,” she said, swinging her bag for emphasis.

“Then why aren’t you leaving?”

She grinned. “I'm not stupid, Red, I know that anything you’re after would be worth quite a lot.”

“Won’t be worth much if you don’t know how to use it.”

“I’m not a bat,” she reminded him. “I’m perfectly willing to get help. I’ll hire someone if I have to.”

“Yeah? Then I guess I’m going to start applying for a specific job position hundreds of times.”

“Aw, you want to spend time with me that bad?”

He rolled his eyes (they were gray) and went back to ignoring her, trying door after door in search of… well, something. Marinette wasn’t really sure. She knew that there was a goldmine of information on site – the people running the place were decently important members of the Court of Owls, and most rich people were absolutely arrogant enough to keep classified documents without proper defenses. She didn’t know the nature of the information, but she knew she could use it as leverage or sell it for personal gain, so she would like to get her hands on it.

“Well, it looks like we’re out of the bed and guest rooms…” she said, quietly relieved. She had already walked in on people ‘making the most of the night’ enough to last a lifetime. In fact, walking in on people zero times would have been enough to satisfy her for life. She was not having a good time. “I’m guessing we’re looking for a study? Or an office?”

“Why do you ask?” He sighed, glancing up from the room he had opened up. It looked to be a greenhouse of sorts. Rich people.

“Because I want to help, obviously,” she said, smiling sweetly.

“You don’t even know what to look for,” he reminded her carefully. “You need me to find anything of use.”

“I’m just going to steal the CPU and every file I get my hands on.”

A simple method, maybe, but hey, it works.

He pinched the bridge of his nose. “Don’t do that.”

“You could always tell me what we’re looking for,” she said.

“I am looking for stuff that can put them behind bars.”

She hummed a little, nodding to herself. Yeah, that could definitely be used to extort them. Especially since there was no way that a family as rich as this would actually go to jail. Sorry, Red Robin, she should probably tell you of her doubts, but she’s a realist and a capitalist.

They got approximately three doors down before Marinette’s ears picked something up. She blinked and glanced back at the end of the hallway, where she could hear the steel toe boots of the guards clanking as they headed their way. They were moving fast – not quite running, but certainly moving with urgency. Which meant they were suspicious.

She glanced back at the door she had just unlocked. It was a study, almost definitely the one that they were looking for based on the sheer amount of filing cabinets there, but she couldn’t see any hiding places. Besides, the place was supposed to be locked. If they so much as tried the knob, they would realize where they were hiding.

But if they were suspicious already then it would be difficult for them to get into the room later. If the guards didn’t see Red Robin and Marinette there, and saw nothing out of place, then they would expect for them to head there later.

She tipped her head from side to side, considering.

She rushed in and threw open some cabinets, tossing aside manila folders and individual papers alike.

“The hell are you doing?” Red Robin hissed. “They’re going to check here first, we need to go.”

She didn’t bother answering. She glanced around, making sure the place looked sufficiently ruined.

He held a hand out for her, jerking his head in a way that screamed ‘hurry up’ without actually screaming because they didn’t want to get caught –.

She nodded to herself before taking the hand and allowing him to drag her to the door.

They poked their heads out the moment the guards stepped into the hall.

There was a beat as the two pairs locked eyes, frozen in a mix of shock and horror.

And then Red Robin yanked on her arm and they were stumble-running for the nearest place to hide.

They slipped into the greenhouse, and Marinette threw the door closed behind herself, locking it.

Marinette breathed a tiny sigh as she stepped back. It wouldn’t hold them for long, but it would hold them.

“We know you’re in there!” The person yelled, and there was a terrible clanging sound as they beat against the doorknob.

“Get fucked!”

“Open up or we’ll make you!”

“Yeah? Do it!”

The knob broke off, and with it the lock. The door started to open.

Okay, well, yeah, that one was on her.

“Occupied!” Marinette yelled through the new crack, pushing the door closed again and throwing all of her weight into holding it. At least the hinges were on their side. It was much easier to hold the door closed that way.

Red Robin wrung his hands, looking around. There was plenty of vegetation to hide in, but would that really matter? They knew they were there.

And then his eyes lit up with something that might have been realization.

“Hold the door!”

“I’m sorry, the fuck did you think I was doing before?! Leaning against it for fun?!”

He started moving aside plants frantically, shoving a few in front of the door as if a tiny pot of aster was really going to help her hold back the people ramming into the door as hard as they could.

An alarm started to blare.

“Well, I guess this is a lovely place to die,” she muttered.

“We’re not dying here. I am not dying with you.”

But it didn’t work like that, they both knew.

Her eyes slid from place to place, drinking in the sights. They would be the last ones she’d ever see, after all. No one comes back from screwing over rich people.

So, she should enjoy it while she can.

Flowers of all colors. Blues, purples, yellows, whites, and greens. She recognized a few as aconite plants, though she couldn’t move close enough to see what type.

There was a stone bench crowded underneath a gorgeous cherry tree in the center of the room. Maybe the tree would have been a problem, as it made it difficult for the sun to get through, but in a place like Gotham it didn’t matter.

Sun lamps shone down on them, and it was the closest she had ever been to actually feeling sunlight in a long while. It was nice.

A couple of butterflies fluttered around, disturbed by the banging on the door. One landed on her shoulder, and she smiled at it.

Through the glass wall on the opposite side of the room, she could see bright smears of neon lights.

“What a waste,” she breathed. “That such a lovely, romantic sight should be wasted on us.”

Red Robin pulled back to look at her, his skin flushed from all of the rushing he had been doing. “Well, who says we can’t be romantic? This is a date, isn’t it?”

She giggled. It sounded a little manic, even to her own ears. “Oh? Take all the girls to do B&E on your first dates, then, Red?”

“I mean, why not? What better way is there to tell if you’re compatible than to try and work your way out of a life-or-death situation together?”

She laughed, and this one was far less strained. “Oh, and how are we doing?”

She had expected him to banter back, to say something about how they weren’t meant to be, but he drew back from his spot and revealed a vent he had unscrewed.

“You tell me.”

Marinette’s eyes widened.

And then she glanced back at the door, the butterfly fluttering off in protest of the sudden motion. But she didn’t care.

Tim held out a hand for the woman on the ground. She had stumbled back in surprise when he had dropped into the alley to attack her attempted mugger and hadn’t bothered to get up since. She had been staring at him ever since. Not in shock, but shocked.

She blinked once and then looked down at his hand. Something like a grin tugged at her lips as she took it, allowing him to pull her to her feet.

He handed her back her purse and she absently rifled through it – he no longer took offense when Gothamites thought he had taken things from them, it was too commonplace for him to care at this point. She hummed a single happy note to herself, apparently pleased to find everything still in place, and then held up a hand in a vague wave as she set off.

He fell in step with her. “I’d like to walk you home.”

She glanced at him out of the corner of her eyes and sighed. “I think I can get home on my own, Red.”

“Forgive me for doubting you when I just had to save you from a mugger.”

She raised an eyebrow. “You save, like, seven people a night. Do you think that every person in Gotham is incapable of walking home?”

“Kinda, yeah.”

“Then go help one of them.”

His eyes narrowed just slightly. She… really didn’t want him to walk home with her. Was she hiding something? Or did she just not trust him?

“Don’t you need to stay with the perp anyways?” She asked, crossing her arms over her chest. “You know, in case they get out of their bonds or whatever before the police arrive?”

“Can’t be there when the police get there,” Tim shrugged. “Kinda bad to be spotted by them. Illegal vigilante and all.”

She hummed. “Ah. So that’s why you’re coming with me.”

“Is it really that hard to believe that I’m doing this out of genuine concern for your safety?”

She shrugged. “I mean, kinda. Honestly, it feels like you’re just suspicious of me.”

He was.

“I’m not. What, do you have a guilty conscience?”

“Gonna pull the usual ‘shouldn’t be scared if you’ve got nothing to hide’ routine?”

“I’m not a cop.”

“Yeah, you’re a cop that does illegal things to put people behind bars… oh, wait.”

He gritted his teeth. “You’re trying to annoy me into leaving, aren’t you?”

“I’m just naturally charming,” she said, batting her eyelashes.

“I don’t doubt that, but I still think you’re trying to get me to leave.”

She hummed lightly, turning to walk backwards in front of him. A dangerous thing to do in Gotham, considering all the stuff on the ground, but she seemed fine.

“Well, if you’ve figured out my master plan, then I guess I don’t need to hide it.” She gave him a crooked grin. “Reeeeeed Robin. Yum.”

“Original. I’ve never heard that one before.”

“Still bugs you, I can tell,” she said, her eyes crinkling at the corners in a smile. It was a nice smile. He wished he could see it in a context that wasn’t her purposefully trying to get on his nerves.

“You know, most people are grateful when I save them. Or indifferent. I can’t say it’s normal for someone to purposefully try and annoy me.”

She smirked. “Awwww, you think I’m special?”

He raised an unimpressed brow at her. She paid it no mind. Or maybe she did and it only egged her on:

“Did you know that no human has beaten a chess-playing AI in over 15 years? The robot revolution is coming.”

“Only if we allow them to come.”

“You know we will. Someone will decide that the money that could be made is worth more than whatever problems may rise from it. ‘Tis human nature.”

He shrugged. “I choose to have faith in humanity.”

“Lame. And wrong. It’s not about humanity, it’s about individual humans.”

“I think individual humans can be good.”

“And I know individual humans can be bad.”

“I’ll agree to disagree.”

“I won’t.”

He rolled his eyes. “Okay. Well, I’m done having this conversation.”

“Coward. But if it really bothers you that much, you can always just leave.”

He rolled his eyes again.

“Hm. Looks like it’s time to pull out the big guns.” She took a deep breath. “This is the song that never ends –!”

She tripped.

He caught her arm with ease. He only barely stopped himself from dropping her just for the sake of it.

“This is karma, I hope you know.”

“... it will go on and on my friend!”

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Eventually – finally – they reached her apartment. He glanced past her as she slipped inside. It looked pretty normal, if a little unused. Maybe she was new in town? Or maybe it was a safehouse? Or was she the world’s most neat minimalist?

… yeah, probably not that last one. She tossed her purse aside and didn’t even glance behind herself to see where it landed.

She leaned in the doorway, massaging her throat. As promised, she had sung The Song That Never Ends until they had reached her building and now her voice cracked every few seconds. He was just glad that they had made it to the apartment complex before he had gotten distracted and accidentally sang along.

He reached into his tool belt and pulled out a tiny canister of water. “Here.”

She blinked. “Thanks,” she said, looking down at it with wide eyes. And then she gingerly took it. After a moment where she looked at the water, blue eyes narrowed as if she was wondering whether he was trying to drug her, she took a couple hesitant sips.

“It’s no problem,” he said softly.

She nodded once, still looking down at the water, quietly thinking.

And then she leaned against the doorframe, crossing her arms. “Nice of you to walk me home and give me water and all that, but I hope you know I’m not ‘inviting you inside’.”

He jerked back in surprise. “I – no – I wasn’t expecting –.”

She brought a hand up to her mouth to laugh, her eyes bright.

He relaxed a little. Despite himself, he found himself smiling a little. She was still insufferable, don’t get him wrong, but this kind of behavior was far more genuine, and far more fun for both people involved.

“It’s been… well, not nice, but meeting you has been an experience.” He held a hand out to shake. “Goodbye… oh, I don’t think I caught your name.”

“Because I never threw it.”

He raised an eyebrow at her behind his mask. “Still trying to get rid of me?”

“Still lingering outside my apartment like a creep?” She said, and then snickered at whatever expression had made its way across his face in response. “My name is Christine. It’s been ‘an experience’ meeting you, too, Red Robin.”

They shook hands.

And then she pulled away, giving a tiny wave just as she disappeared behind her doorframe.

He shoved his hands into two of the many pockets on his costume and walked away.

He glanced back just before he turned the corner.

Tim poked his head into room after room. He was, of course, looking for one room in particular, but he wasn’t able to ask where the private office was unless he wanted to draw suspicion immediately after he had walked into the dumb masquerade he was infiltrating. This, unfortunately, led to a lot of awkward moments where he had to stumble back out because the people inside of the rooms were partaking in activities that many Christians would disapprove of.

Not that he was Christian. But that didn’t mean he was all that fond of walking in on or watching people enjoy themselves in that particular way.

So, he continued on, his face heating up under the masquerade mask he had to wear. It was made of simple red lace, which he was hoping would somewhat wash out the pinkness of his cheeks.

He found a locked door and his eyes narrowed behind his mask. He glanced from side to side, checking for guards, and then knelt to pick the lock as quickly as he could. Which was pretty quick. Rich people tended to be overconfident, assuming that if they simply paid enough for an expensive security service they wouldn’t have to bother doing anything else. There weren't any cameras dotting the halls, and the locks were so simple that he could pick them without even taking out his usual lockpicking jack.

The door swung open.

It looked to be a private bedroom. A rather nice one, yes, with its velvety duvet and a small chandelier being used for light, but it was nothing more than a place where the Powers – or maybe their most beloved and esteemed guests – slept. He might have groaned to himself over the waste of time if it wasn’t for the weird way the light in the room swayed. The chandelier was moving just slightly, the crystals making the light refract strangely.

His eyes were pulled to it.

There was a woman there. She, too, wore a masquerade mask – a white one with a design that could have been a fox or a cat, he couldn’t quite tell from his current angle. She wore a long dress that trailed just past the chandelier, but there was a slit on one side that would have allowed her to bunch it all up on her hip and run if the need arose. One high-heel-adorned foot hung over the side, bouncing to a beat he couldn’t hear.

Not that he thought she was actually listening to music. He couldn’t see her eyes through her mask, a thin black fabric was stretched beneath the eyeholes and it would likely take getting too close for comfort to tell what her eye color was, but he could feel her gaze on him just fine.

He froze up. Some dumb part of him wished he had gone through more effort to make his outfit stand out. Most of him just recognized that she was a threat and didn’t want to find out what weapons she had hidden on herself the hard way.

She apparently dismissed him, her head going back to pointing at the necklace in her hand. It was gaudy, with large pearls that had to be worth thousands each and a large piece of aquamarine in the center. She hummed, quietly appraising it, and then smiled and stuffed it into a shimmering black purse.

“Well, since you saw me, are you going to join me?”

She hopped off of the chandelier. She started back to the vanity, which had an assortment of jewels strewn across the top in a way that seemed careless. He wasn’t sure if that was because the Powers didn’t bother to take care of their expensive items or because the thief had torn through the jewelry in search of something of use.

“You’re decently cute, I’d be happy to let you run home with something. For a price.”

He sighed and ran a hand through his hair in hopes that it would stop her from seeing the way his face reddened at the sudden compliment. “I don’t think –.”

“Aw, c’mon. I’m giving you a great deal. All you have to do is leave without telling the guards and I’ll give you some pretty new things. I’ll even help you up into the chandelier if you want. It’s fun up there – makes you feel powerful… it’s good to be king for just a few minutes.”

He leaned against the doorframe. “Not interested. I don’t like the idea of stealing their stuff for no good reason.”

“Mine now,” she said lightly.

“Afraid it doesn’t work like that,” he said, shaking his head.

She gave a low hum. Blood red lips curled into a smirk. “Interesting of you to look down on me when you just picked a lock to get in here. What were you about to do?”

“That’s different.”

“Is it, now?” She said, pulling her face into a mocking pout. Heels clicked as she made her way over, her hands laced behind her back. “Tell me, how is it different? Is it because it’s you? Because you can’t be a bad person?”

His jaw set. She was trying to get a rise out of him. He wasn’t stupid, he could tell that much. She wanted him to reveal something.

“Or is it because you think you’re doing something for good? You said ‘for no good reason’, and that implies you think that stealing is okay in specific circumstances...” 

His shoulders tensed just slightly, and her expression contorted into something cold and cruel. Like a shark that had just smelled blood in the water and was circling in for the kill.

“So that’s it. I guess it makes sense, you clearly do fancy yourself a hero. Trying to stop me and all,” she said. She shook her head. “I would rethink being a hero here, though. Getting on the bad side of a rich person… well, it’s not a smart thing to do in Gotham.”

“Doesn’t seem to be stopping you,” he scoffed.

She gave a light laugh, though it sounded off. Wrong. “Little things like their jewelry don’t matter to them. Look at how they treat their things. I doubt they’d even notice anything gone.”

She leaned close. Close enough that he could see the outline of her eyes. They were crinkled at the corners, mirth hiding in their expression.

Marinette stared at the katana that had been thrust into her hands. “Your family is insane. And I don’t use that word lightly.”

“Yep. Welcome to the jungle,” Tim drawled sarcastically.

Damian frowned, pushing his goggles up onto the top of his head. “Does this mean you don’t want to play fruit ninja in real life?”

Tim jumped when he felt a finger tap him on the shoulder, only just stopping himself from shoving the devices he’d been using behind himself like a guilty child. Instead, he pulled his headphones down to rest around the back of his neck as slowly as the sudden spike of adrenaline allowed him to and turned to look at his brother. He tried to give off the vibe he usually did when he got interrupted while doing important work but, from the pure exasperation lining Duke’s posture, he could tell that he had fallen short somewhere.

“Dude, this is getting excessive. Even for you,” Duke said.

“It’s not!”

Duke looked unimpressed even through his helmet. He motioned to the array of devices that Tim had set up. And, yeah, he could admit that maybe having a camera in every room except for the bathroom, a set of headphones connected to a device made to amplify every sound coming from a specified area, and several computers worth of code relaying everything happening on her devices was maybe overkill… but…

“I’m right on this!” Tim hissed, pulling one of the headphones up to his ear to continue hearing the crackle of her egg beater and quiet humming. “You know me, Signal, I know what I’m talking about! She’s suspicious!”

“She’s making cupcakes.”

He scowled. “And it’s not her birthday!”

He had never seen his brother look so tired before. Which was quite a feat, considering he was the one in the family that had his sleep schedule messed with most consistently thanks to his day shift.

Speaking of…

“Aren’t you supposed to be protecting Gotham or something?”

“I am. That’s why I’m here,” Duke said. “She’s a Gotham resident, and you’re stalking her.”

Tim sputtered. “It isn’t stalking if it’s research!”

“No, I’m pretty sure it’s still stalking.”

He scowled and leaned back on his hands as much as he could when he was balancing on a breezeblock. “C’mon, man, I know something’s off with her! Can’t you just trust me on this? When have I ever been wrong before?!”

Duke started counting off on his fingers. “When you chose to call yourself ‘Drake’?”

“Reverse psychology is a viable strategy!”

Duke put another finger down. “The time you forgot to tell everyone you lost your spleen and then got deathly ill because of it?”

“You guys are never going to let the events of That Year go, are you?”

“When you woke up from getting stabbed and thought you had been put in the Lazarus Pit and placebo-ed yourself into thinking you had gone pit-crazy and started attacking people?” Duke said, giving him a pointed glare as he put another finger down.

“That’s a no, then,” he muttered bitterly.

Duke sighed and brought the hand he had been counting off on up to rub his temple. Or, at least, he tried to. Helmet, remember?

“Okay. Fine. Red Robin. You think she’s suspicious? What did she do?”

He opened his mouth.

“Outside of ‘be too comfortable around me as a vigilante’.”

He closed it again, scowling.

Duke groaned a little, and then leaned past him to start packing away his work.

“She doesn’t have an identity!” He tried.

“Neither does, like, half of the Gotham population. You’re gonna have to give me more than that,” Duke said, shrugging. He turned to look Tim in the eye as best he could when there was a giant yellow thing in the way. “Listen, you’ve been at this for a week now. You haven’t found anything yet so, even if she is shady, you’re almost definitely not going to find any proof of it.”

Tim could see the logic. He was still fighting the urge to curse out his adoptive brother.

He knew something was off. There was something bugging him about the woman, and he was going to figure it out.

But he reluctantly helped set everything back in their places. He’d come back later, in a few days or so, once Duke had stopped looking for him.

He glanced back at the window.

She was standing in the window, leaning close enough to fog it up with her breaths.

Tim stilled, watching as she carefully wrote a message on the glass with her finger.

‘Hi, Red Robin <3! Call me! XXX-XXX-XXXX! Love, Marinette!’

“Well, I think I see why she was so calm about being around you,” Duke said.

Marinette winked and blew him a kiss through the window and then disappeared around the frame. Tim could hear her giggling through the headphones hanging around his shoulders.

He continued staring at the window long after the message had faded.