Tim Drake #1 fan

Previous -> Part one

Cw: Author does not use auto correct, Potential military inaccuracies, reader is implied nuerodivergent, mentions of poisons, very slight angst if you really, really squint but mostly a fluff chap, reader is consistantly decribed as 'doll-like', GN!reader but reader does have hair and is shorter than Ghost, automatonophobia and pediophobia, into the spider-verse spoilers (?), longer than usual chapter

A/N at the end!

Once you had a time all sorted, you and Roach parted ways for the night. The rest of the team still seemed iffy, but with Roach around maybe things wouldn't be so bad. With that thought in your head, you began getting ready for bed, gathering clothes for your shower when your phone began to buzz.

You looked down at the now illuminated screen, a message alert from Nikolai popping up. Clicking on it, you were met with a brief text message; "Matryoshka, this is Nikolai. How are you settling in?"

God, he texted so formally. It almost felt more like an email than a text. Do all people his age text this way? Or maybe it was just because of his job? Does this mean you should reply formally aswell? Either way, you responded. "I'm doing well!" Not a complete lie, but not the full truth, either. You didn't want to bother him with your problems.

Afterwards, you set your phone down and continued gathering your clothes before going into your bathroom to shower. The base really was nice, the water in your shower was always warm, you noted. Once finished, you got out and dressed yourself. Then walked over to the sink and began to brush your teeth before another ding form your phone was heard. You grabbed it to see yet another message from Nikolai; "That is good to hear Matryoshka! I assume that they are warming up now, yes?"

Of course he would pry, you should've expected that. That man could probably sense you had been exaggerating and with holding the full truth from him.

Still, you couldn't lie to him it seems. The man would sniff them out like a shark to blood in water, even through a screen. "Sorta" You replied, then quickly added "it's only been a day though." Before you set your phone down and spit out the toothpaste, watching as the water washed it down the drain. Glancing up at your reflection, you sighed. Your shower hadn't washed away all your eyeblack, it seems, so you grabbed some q-tips and makeup remover and began cleaning it off. You didn't even flinch when you heard the ding this time, instead waiting until you finished removing all the melted eyeblack before looking at it; "Sorta? Come on Matryoshka, you have to give me more detail!" You let out an amused huff at the message. Of course he wouldn't let you leave it at that. You thought carefully about how much to disclose, before you began typing your message out.

"Well they've mostly been the same but I did make a friend and he's really nice!" Is what you finally decided on. You made the decision to leave out the part where the rest of the team ignored you, you didn't want to risk upsetting him at all. Hoping he'd be satisfied with that, you began to brush your hair. You always did before bed, otherwise you found that in the morning it would be insanely tangled no matter what you did. Whether it was long or short, the result was always the same. Your mom always said it was because of your hair type and how it was just genetics, but honestly it just made you feel like an unlucky bastard. Even your hair doesn't listen to you.

Halfway through brushing it, you heard another ding. You sighed and picked your phone up. "Tell me more about this friend." The text simply read. God, you were so tired and you were not in the mood to tell him everything about Roach right now. You honestly should have been asleep a while ago, but unfortunately you were the type of person to never skip out on taking care of yourself now that you were grown, bedrotting was more of a younger you thing.

You thought for a moment before typing out a reply. "Can I tell you in the morning? It's getting pretty late and I still have to get up early tomorrow" you looked it over for a moment before adding a frowny face to the end for the sole purpose of sounding less rude. It's not like you didn't like Nikolai, you just did not trust yourself to do much more coherantly in your state. After clicking send, you set your phone down and continued brushing your hair, and this time you finished the task without any interuptions. With that, you grabbed your phone and went off to bed.

It wasn't until you were settled that he sent another message. "Oh, of course Matryoshka! Do not lose sleep over me. But I will be holding you to it!" Good, it seems he wasn't upset about it. With that, you finally let yourself get some much deserved sleep.

The next day, Roach was at your door bright and early, eager as ever. He was there maybe thirty minutes early, but you weren't going to complain about it, not when he seemed so excited. You just slowly dragged yourself out of bed at his incessant knocking, just barely remembering to throw your mask on before answering the door. The first thing you noticed when you saw him was that he looked slightly dishelved, not in a beat up sort of way, but rather in a 'I was rushing this morning and may or may not have put some things on wrong' kind of way.

Speaking of. "Uh.. your boots are on wrong." You grumbled, still groggy and dazed from sleep. You were still in your pajamas, for crying out loud. At your comment, his face flushed red before he signed something along the lines of "They are?" You were unable to stop yourself from huffing out a laugh, before gesturing for him to come in, waiting until he stepped inside to shut the door. "They are.. how did you not notice? Did they not feel weird?" You asked as you walked further into your barracks, with him following close behind, even in the small space. "Oh! Don't mind the mess, by the way.. I'm not done unpacking so there's kinda just stuff everywhere. I was not expecting you to be here this early." You added, watching as he looked around.

You walked over to your wardrobe and grabbed some clothes, before you began heading over to the bathroom only to look over to see him starting to follow you again. Luckily, he seemed to realize what he was doing and stopped, embarrassed again. You watched him fidget with his hands for a second before turning around to face him fully. "...You haven't slept at all, have you?" You asked. Even if you couldn't fully see his face, he looked guilty. That was enough of an answer for you. You sighed, more humored than anything. "What have you been doing all night?" You asked. Reach looked back over at you, a bit suprised. "Setting up." He signed. The answer he gave was simple, but the implications were not. You paused. "And it took you all night..?" You hesitantly asked. He stared for a moment, before slowly nodding. Exactly what kind of training would you be doing?

You took a deep breath. "Do you want to lay down? I don't want you pushing yourself and then passing out on me." You said, only for him to immediately shake his head and sign; "I'm fine." Well, you tried. "Alright, I'm gonna get ready then." You said, before disappearing into your bathroom.

You emerged a few minutes later, now fully ready for the day. You looked around to see Roach sitting in one of the armchairs you had set up, his boots how fixed. You also noticed he had turned all the lamps in your room on. On top of that, some of the books on your bookshelf were now slightly misplaced, mainly the comics. Seems like he had fully explored your room.

Truth be told, you didn't mind. He was your friend, So you honestly liked him being comfortable in your space. "You ready to go?" You asked, Watching him nod and then stand up. He seemad excited, you noted. "Lead the way then." You said with a huff of a laugh.

He led you to the training room, and as you stepped inside you quickly realized why he took all night to set up.

Where did he even get all this stuff from? There was a rockwall, for crying outloud. That was definitely not there yesterday. There were hoops and tires on the floor and hurdles off to the sides. Was this a training course for people or horses?

Feeling his gaze bore into you, you turned to look at him; finding him looking at you expectantly. "Wow, you uh.. really went all out didn't you?" You said, not quite sure what else to say. "But- it still looks fun! Just wasn't expecting it. I haven't seen anybody do this before." You quickly added incase you sounded rude. Your answer seemed to satisfy him enough because he nodded before he began signing; "What do you want to do first?" He asked. You looked around, trying to decide what you knew how to do the best, ultimately deciding on rock climbing. "Uhm, rock climbing is fine by me, honestly."

Honestly, it had been a while since you'd been on one of those rock climbing walls, and, besides getting your foot stuck in the crevices of the wall a few times, you felt like you had done pretty well. The rest of the things Roach had set up for you guys also went pretty smoothly save for Ghost and Soap walking in on you two putting away all the equipment afterwards. That being said, however.. they didn't really bother you. That was likely due to Roach's glare, though. He was staring at them so intently you would've thought they were committing a crime.

You chose to pay no mind to it for now, though you do feel as though you might need to address it at some point. Animosity between teammates never ends well. For now you'd stick to putting up all the hoops and tires Roach had gotten out while he did whatever he was doing.

You could hear bits of things Soap was saying while you were in the storage closet. "Thats.. er.. quite the setup ye got there." You heard him start to say, only to be cut off by what you can only assume was Roach signing something. "Oh, that makes more sense. Do ye need any help?"

Yes. You did not want to put away all these hoops and tires all by yourself. Unfortunately, Roach didn't seem to shsre your same sentiment.

"Suit yerself then. Me n' Ghost will be over there if ye change yer mind." You heard Soap say before presumably walking off, right as you put the last hoop you were holding away, too. What a shame. You had half a mind to stop him and take him up on that offer, but you don't think Roach would be too pleased.

Well, the show must go on, you suppose. So, once you were done, you went out to grab the rest of the hoops as Roach began picking up some of the other stuff. You glanced over to Ghost and Soap, who was already looking at you. Ghost might've been aswell, honestly, but you couldn't tell. Still, you decided it was best to atleast try and be friendly with them, so you waved at them. Soap, of course, waved back, Ghost on the other hand either didn't see or didn't acknowledge it.

After putting away the last of the hoops and tires, you headed over to Roach. He seemed almost done with what he was doing as well. "Do you need any help?" You offered, only to get waved off. "Alright, if you insist." You replied, before sitting off to the side. After a few minutes he slunk down beside you and let out a loud sigh. "I'm so hungry." He signed as he looked over at you.

"Go eat then, it should almost be lunch time, no?" You replied, leaning your head back against the wall. "But the food from the mess hall is gross." He signed, a little quicker than before. You paused for a moment to think before remembering a certain detail Soap mentioned.. "I could cook you something." You replied after a while. Roach sat up straighter at that. "You can cook?" Roach signed with a slight tilt of his head. "I'm no Gordon Ramsay but I can atleast throw something together that tastes decent without starting a fire." You replied.

That seemed to be enough for him, because now you were standing in the kitchen of the common area looking through the fridge. They seemed to just have a bunch of random things, honestly. There was butter, bread, a random stray bulb of garlic, eggs, flour, milk, some kind of cheese you couldn't quite identify, potatoes, some oil, and like 10 different kinds of alcohol. The other things you understood.. but who keeps bread in the fridge?

Their spice cabinet was even weirder. There were a good amount of seasonings, but they were all quite random and mostly empty. How did they have flake salt and not oregano or paprika? Maybe they ran out of the other spices and hadn't gotten around to restocking them. Still, it was rare that you found flake salt in a place like this. Maybe there was a cook amongst your teammates?

You honestly couldn't help yourself, you looked back at Roach standing behind you. "Uh.. whats up with your guy's spice cabinet?" You asked a bit hesitantly. He paused to look for a second before turning back to look at you. "I think Soap keeps using random seasonings he finds." He signed. You hesitated for a second, you weren't really that suprised, more so concerned. "Does what he makes taste good?" You asked only to be met with Roach immediately shaking his head. "Figured." You said with a sigh.

Oh well, you could still work with what you found. Potatoes are versitile. You looked to see what kinds of pans they had, they luckily seemed to have all the basics. So you grabbed a pan and a muffin tin, along with a potato peeler and a knife. You got out the butter, garlic, potatoes and a couple of herbs and seasonings.

Roach looked at all the things you had gotten out and then looked over at you. "What are you making?" He signed. "It's gonna be a layered potato dish, basically." You answered as you washed your hands and the potatoes.

"Do you think you could help me peel these?" You asked him as you put the butter into the pan. You took each potato as he finished peeling it and cut it into thin slices before setting them off to the side. Once the butter was melted, you set a bit of it off to the side. "Hey Roach, do you mind preheating the oven for me? Just to 190°." You asked as you began dicing the garlic before throwing it into the rest of the butter along with the herbs. After, you dumped a bit of it onto the potatoes before putting them in the fridge as you waited for the oven to finish preheating.

"Y'know, this would probably be better if we had parmesan but it's whatever.." You said as you pulled yourself up to sit on the edge of the counter. You watched as Roach walked over to the sink to wash his hands before sitting down beside you. You thought for a moment, is now a good time to ask about the way he's been acting? Should you even bring it up at all? You probably should, right? You can't have him not getting along with the rest of your teammates. That'd probably cause a lot of issues further down the line.

Luckily, before you could overthink it any further, Roach put his hand on your shoulder. "What are you thinking about?" He signed. You paused for a moment and took a deep breath. "Why are you getting so.. defensive with everybody?" You finally asked.

He stared at you for a minute, as if he was clueless, before sighing. That was probably the loudest sound you've heard him make. "Because I don't like the way they've been treating you." He finally signed. "Why not?" You asked without really thinking. It only seemed to make him more upset. "Because it isn't fair. Why do you let them ignore you?" He signed so quickly it was damn near a miracle that you caught it all.

You actually stopped to think about what you were gonna say this time around, you thought about telling him about your previous teams, how they treated you far worse than this, or about how this is more or less how you've been treated your entire life, but you doubt either of those would elicit positive responses from him. "Because... you can't force somebody to like you." You said after a while. "I mean- like.. if I forced them to pay attention to me or to be nice to me, then is that attention or kindness even real? They'd probably just end up talking behind my back or they'd find me annoying. Same goes for you defending me all the time, they're just gonna get tired of both of us." You added.

He stared at you for a moment, before finally nodding his head. "Okay, fine." He signed, before looking down at his feet, he looked far too dejected for your taste. "You know that just because they're treating me like this now, doesn't mean that they'll treat me like this forever, right? I'm sure they'll warm up eventually." You said as you glanced over at him, his mood visibly lightened a bit at your words and nodded along.

You both sat there in comfortable silence for a few more minutes until the oven finally beeped. You pushed yourself off the counter and walked over to the fridge before pulling the potatoes out and setting them on the counter beside the muffin tins. You also grabbed the melted butter you set aside, along with some oil and greased each tin while Roach watched.

After you finished greasing each tin, you walked over to the sink to wash your hands before walking back over to the potatoes and picking out the smallest slices to put in the bottom of the tins, you repeated this process for all of them slowly working your way up from the smallest slices at the bottom of the tins to the largest ones at the top. Afterwards, you put some more of the seasoned butter over them and sprinkled some salt on top, before covering each pan with foil and then setting them in the oven.

After you set a timer on your phone, you turned to look at Roach, only to find that he was now cleaning up the kitchen. "Oh, you don't have to do that-" you began, only to get waved off by him. Which shouldn't be suprising, knowing him. You sighed and made your way over to the couch. "Well once you're done, do you want to watch a movie while the potatoes cook?" You asked, glancing back at him as he gave you a thumbs up.

With that, you began scrolling through netflix looking at all the movies. "Oh my god, how did I never know netflix had into the spider verse?" You said as Roach sat down beside you. "I've never seen it before. Is it good?" He signed. You froze. "You haven't seen it before?! Are you kidding?" You asked as he shook his head. "Okay, we're watching it. You need to see it, I genuinely don't know how you haven't yet." You said as you put it on.

You did your best to keep an eye on the timer while you both watched the movie, though you don't know how well it was working. No matter how many times you've already watched it, you never really got bored of it. You were practically as into the movie as Roach was. You probably should not have been as suprised as you were when the timer went off.

"Oh- shit be right back." You told Roach as you walked back into the kitchen. You put on the oven mitts, before grabbing the pan out of the oven and removing the foil, after, you stuck a fork through the middle of one of the potatoes. "Seems good enough.." You mumbled to yourself as you turned the heat up on the oven and then put them back inside. After, you walked back over to the couch and set a new timer. Roach, of course, was still completely absorbed in the movie. Or, atleast, you think he was. His goggles made it hard to tell.

Should you ask him if he liked it so far? You didn't want to be one of those people who talked during a movie.. it's probably safe to just stay quiet and just ask him once the food was done. Talking during a movie was rude, so you weren't gonna do it. Thats what you thought was gonna happen, anyways. That, of course, didn't happen though, because only seconds later you hear somebody barge through the door. "There ye two are! Ooo, what're we watchin'?" An all too familiar voice said before slinking down beside you on the couch. "Soap? I thought you were hanging out with Ghost." You said as you glanced over at him, raising a brow from under your mask.

"Well, I was. But Ghost kicked me out while he's showerin'." He explained with an over dramatic sigh. "Shame, I bet you really wanted to watch that." You responded as you heard Roach snicker from beside you. Soap paused for a second, as if caught off-guard before he laughed a bit too. "That was a good one, I'll give ye that!" He said as he made himself comfortable beside you. You figured, or more like hoped, that would be the end of it and he'd finally shut up. That was not the case though. It only took him about two seconds after you unpaused the movie to start whispering to you.

"So.. what's goin' on?" He whispered to you. For a guy that doesn't want you bothering him, he sure as hell seems fine with bothering you.

You held back a sigh, before turning to him. "So basically it's spiderman, except there was already a spiderman-" you began, only to be cut off by him. "Huh? What d'ye mean? How is there two spidermans?" He interrupted.

You don't know how you held yourself together, but you did. "I'm getting to that!" You whisper-yelled. "Okay, just listen. So like, that kid got bit by a spider while he was out spray painting with his uncle. But then the next day he gets all these weird powers and stuff and after figuring out that he's like spiderman, so he freaks out and tries to go back to the place he was at with his uncle yesterday, except then he discovered a lab where the villian guy was making a machine to bring back his dead wife and kid-" You tried to explain, but he just began talking again.

"His dead wife an-" He began, but you cut him off before he could finish. "Yes. We'll get more into that later in the movie, now could you please just let me explain everything?" You whispered to him again, and this time he atleast had the decency to nod. "Okay, so the evil guy made a machine, very bad machine, might destroy everything, we don't know. But the kid sees and gets like dragged into the middle of a fight with the real spiderman and the villian guy. Then he almost dies but spiderman saves him and then is all like 'oh you're like me so I'll teach you after this fight' or whatever, all that, except then spiderman dies in the fight and it's partially the kids fault but also not really? I don't know- But then the villians see the kid and now he's got a bunch of villians after him and a powers he doesn't know how to control. Oh also spiderman gave him this little like usb chip thing to destroy the machine because now he has to." You said, finally able to explain without interruptions.

It was silent for all about two seconds. "Dinnae know ye could talk this much." Soap whispered. "It was the only way to get you to shut up." You responded. Soap looked a bit amused at that and then nodded, before glancing back at the TV "Why's he in a fuckin' cemetary?" He whispered. "Because he went to spidermans funeral because he felt guilty." You said, watching as the other peter came up behind miles. "Whose that gu-" Soap began. "Just watch the movie!" You snapped at him.

Eventually, your timer went off, and you got up and walked over to the kitchen and pulled the potatoes out of the oven. "They need to cool for a few minutes." You told Roach to which he nodded. "Ooo what did ye make?" Soap asked as you sat back down beside him and Roach. "They're just potatoes." You said as Roach unpaused the movie.

It only took about a minute for Soap to start talking again. "D'ye think they're cool now?" He asked hopefully. "Probably not." You responded simply, watching as he sighed, before seeming to get an idea. "..I can go check 'em, if ye want." He suggested. You barely stiffled a laugh. "Fine, go ahead and try. I'm telling you it's still hot though." You said, watching him run over to where they sat on the counter to grab one, only to promptly burn himself. "Jesus fuckin' Christ! Hot hot hot-" He said, along with another long string of what you could only assume were scottish swear words as he ran to the sink to run his hand under cold water. You could hear Roach trying, and failing, not to laugh beside you.

"I warned you." You said, now giggling at Soap's annoyed expression. "Aye, I know ye did!" He said with a huff, before sitting back down beside you, now with a paper towel around his finger. This time, you enjoyed a nice twenty minutes of silence before he spoke up again. "Shouldn't they be cooled by now?" He asked. Atleast now he waited an actual reasonable amount of time.

"They probably are, actually." You said as you paused the movie. Soap was already in the kitchen when you had finished speaking, and Roach also seemed pretty excited.

By the time you and Roach joined him in the kitchen, Soap was already enjoying the potatoes you had made. "Thes're fuckin' delicious-" He said, his mouth half full. Gross, but whatever. You watched as Roach pulled down his mask to take a bite, his expression visibily lightening once he did. "Is it good?" You asked as he excitedly nodded.

Soap, on the other hand was already reaching for another one. "Shouldn't Ghost be out of his shower by now?" You asked, growing increasingly annoyed by him stealing the food that you and Roach made. He paused, a look of slight guilt passed over his face as if he suddenly remembered something he had forgotten about, but he reeled it back in rather quickly, snapping right back to his normal self. "Probably, but I'm havin' fun 'ere." Soap responded. "You just want the food." Roach signed. "Big and greedy." You said in agreement. Still didn't stop him from taking the whole tin back to the couch. "Well, are ye planning on finishing the movie or are ye both just gonna sit there starin'?" He said, beckoning you both to sit down with him. You sighed, but you and Roach both sat down on the couch anyways. You had a feeling the rest of the movie would be very, very long.

A/N : UGHHHH THIS PART WAS SO ANNOYING TO WRITE OH MY GOD!! I took SOOO long on it and I somehow still feel like it sucks omg. Im also so sorry it took me this long, I actually finished it the first time a few weeks back but then I accidently deleted ALL of it and kinda rage quit for a week before I started working on it again (I still lowkey feel like the first one I made was so much better but I am NOT rewriting this again yall have waited long enough) this is also an extremely long chapter (for me, anyways.) I almost never write this much so do not expect this to be the new normal. I also feel like this all seems like it's going nowhere in particular rn but trust me it's all leading up into something!! Okay I'm tired and going to take a nap now love you guys please interact with this so I don't go insane and if it sucks uhh be nice im exhausted