Tim gets hit by a sleep spell. Y'know the ones - where you have to want to wake up and escape your perfect fantasy.
One moment Batman is yelling in his ear that he taught Tim better than rushing in blindly, like Tim had a choice with Nightwing's impulsive leap.
Yeah, sure... the choice of not watching Nightwing's back.
People always thought it was Jason or Damian who were the impulsive ones. But really it was Nightwing, and then Spoiler, and then Damian. Jason was just hotheaded and loud, which gave the impression but in fact he was one of the more cautious Bats when entering a place.
When Tim 'wakes up' someone he hadn't seen since he was twelve is in front of him. Danny Fenton reaches out to him softly and asks, "Hey, are you okay?"
Like the boy hadn't died in front of Tim, Sam and Tucker in his parents' lab.
He looks good. He looks healthy. Older. The baby fat gone from his cheeks to become a sharp jawline. Narrow frame that Tim's experience with awareness of his surroundings automatically categorized as five foot nine swimmer's build. Same as his mom, Maddie. His eyes were different though, more green in them now, like his sister's.
They're in a coffee shop and Danny is handing Tim a drink with one hand and brushing hair away from Tim's forehead with another.
Tim replies, "Yeah. I'm fine now," and then they go about their day.
There's hints. Missing time, changed clocks, how touch and heat and cold sometimes feel dulled and sometimes too sharp. Faces that pass through the day are always familiar and out of place in the roles they are given. For some reason every street light is red all the time.
He ignores it all desperately, because Danny says he loves Tim like it had been said a million times. And it hurts. Because Danny said that all the time when they were children, but it didn't mean the same thing when they were little kids playing house with Jazz.
Tim supposes those words said so easily shouldn't seem odd to him seeing as Danny had said 'love you' to him the most out of anyone in Tim's life.
His parents were only home during school vacations, and the Bats weren't very vocal about it. But Danny had always said it liberally. As if an 'I love you' were money and he wanted to make his friends and family rich as hell.
Even though Tim hadn't seen Danny in a decade he had still heard it more in total from Danny than all other people summarily.
The day drifts. They go to visit Jason's grave - over the course of their walk they'd left behind the Gotham coffee shop and Gotham graveyard. The air smells like wheatgrass and gravestones became polished as they let the rusty always-unlocked gate swing shut to Amity Graveyard. Danny doesn't have one there even though Tim remembers where it should be, and leaves a flower.
Danny gets scared when he says that, holds Tim with both hands cradling his face and reassures that he didn't die that day, it only made him half ghost and he's still here.
Tim cracks to pieces being held by him as he sobs, and the world warps. Danny takes him home to their apartment. Tim knows that's not how it works and he's missing something. It doesn't feel real-
Danny stops him and says he teleported them. Which all of a sudden makes sense to Tim, of course that was all. He remembers now. Danny has too many powers to name, even Tim forgets them all sometimes. (Don't think about it.)
These days there are so few ghost attacks in Amity with Danny running things in the Realms. Danny doesn't need to use powers like teleportation often. Tim usually tries not to think about those harsh days when the halfa was tripping into new abilities left and right while Tim had to watch the ghosts break his bones in the middle of the street. He's been so out of it today, drifting, worrying Danny.
But Danny understood. He'd been a hero for a long time from an early age. There were so few people who understood Tim. His earliest childhood friend didn't mind him having bad days. He said as much in the graveyard when Tim cried where Danny's grave should be.
They go to sleep early but Tim feels like he didn't sleep at all when he watches the red, cloudy sunrise through the window. Something about it is- he's drawn to it, struggles to remember- why red, his parents' summer cottage home in Illinois didn't have red skies-
Danny flinches away from the light in his sleep and Tim's hit with fury. He slips away from being held for a short moment to snap the shades shut. Ghosts fear light the way humans fear the dark. They shouldn't have been open anyway. He won't let anything hurt Danny, even as small as nightmares.
They get up, shower, make breakfast, Danny keeps helping him remember what happened in missing time, and holds him fiercely in reassurance that it's okay. He doesn't mind helping Tim remember if it means he stays.
The day is a fog; at the diner the waitress sets down a plate of waffles and begs Tim to wake up, tells him dreams aren't real happiness and that she loves her boyfriend even if they are messy and hurt and have to gently rebuild brick by brick - she wants to do that with him if he would just wake up.
Danny punches the waitress in the face so hard she stumbles back into the bar, and snaps at her with eyes glowing neon that this was the way things were supposed to be.
It was stolen from them once.
Danny wasn't going to let him go ever again.
Tim's confused - Danny had never died. Tim hadn't had to let him go. He'd grown up in that summer cottage with his parents, and spent all his life hearing Danny say 'I love you' in different ways.
Summers filled with the Illinois haze of pollen and heat, neon lights of the FentonWorks sign and sleepovers under glow stars, making lightsaber noises as he and Tucker chased each other around at the playground under the shade of the trees, summer storms rife with thunder as they all screamed and ran outside into the rain to throw mud at each other in gratitude for the cold, sand under his bare toes and the night sky stretched overhead with a bonfire on the shores of Lake Eerie. His parents home from digs for the hot season and he got to see them every single morning before he went off to play. The crisp crunch of leaves as they began to turn before school started back up and Tim was returned to Gotham's boarding schools and the usually lonely city penthouse.
What did the halfa mean by it being stolen from them? Tim was right here.
It's a workday though, and after Danny takes Tim and bolts from the diner, he mulishly gives him rough kiss goodbye then drops him off at work.
The routine of it settles him. The familiarity and knowing what to expect. Tim may as well be a messenger boy today, going back and forth between his office where he would video call the managers of various Neon Knights centers, and the financial division to turn in request forms.
He falters his way through conversational Russian with the newest center they opened out there, ends up chatting about taking Tae Kwon Do with the rep in Hong Kong, and has to argue in Mandarin for three full hours to secure a contract with a company to send sports equipment to the Neon Knights center in England.
Tim hacks his way into a full folder of basic data about four kids that Gotham's Neon Knights centers had informed him were interested in attending Gotham Uni, a record high for the week, and put it all together in a way that made them look like wonderful scholarship candidates.
He throws open the door to the CEO's office with a wide grin and too excited to remember he'd loosened his tie and undone the bottom two buttons of his shirt. "Four! Four kids told the new counselor they want to join the Martha Foundation's scholarship-"
"Tim, son," Bruce interrupts him with voice pleading. "I'm so proud of you, and I never tell you that enough. Please wake up. Please come back to us. I know we aren't perfect, but that false fantasy - it's fake, and there are real people that love you waiting. Wake up, Tim."
Wide-eyed, Tim stumbles a step back.
The mirror on the wall cracks. The coffee on the desk tilts to spill on the floor. Bruce doesn't react.
And Danny's there, cupping his face and pleading with Tim to stay calm. Reassuring him that he's safe with eyes pinched like he was going to cry from watching Tim so upset and terrified.
He pulls Tim away and Tim clings to him with the reflex of the damned drowning in water, that claw for a hold on their rescuer only to drag them both under with their struggles.
Danny had brought him lunch at work knowing he was likely going to forget given how much trouble Tim was having lately. There's nothing in his eyes but worry and patience.
He cares. Bruce is wrong, Danny has always loved him. Bruce may care but Tim had to earn any love or loyalty there bit by bit - by baring his throat for them to hold a knife to, working himself exhausted to earn it... and it was conditional.
If Tim left his job that love would leave too. He's seen it before when people retired. It was obvious from the chat with Cissie and Greta that had the last message sent two years ago when they happened to be visiting Gotham and asked to meet up for lunch. But Tim had already been in San Francisco by the time they did.
Tim never had to earn it with Danny. Danny expected nothing beyond the basics of communicating in their relationship and reciprocating affection, never wanted him to be useful to earn praise, never gave him the cross to bear of a title of responsibility to be the better person like 'Damian's brother' or 'Replacement', had never wanted Tim to fight even if the halfa had to.
Danny never wanted him to be anything. Danny just wanted him.
Tim is clinging to Danny as Bruce's words turn to static in his ears and the world crashes around him like the glass from the mirror did - and everything twists again. Right, teleporting.
It's suddenly late afternoon near sunset. Tim is sitting in a chair at the table, calm, staring at the steaming coffee in front of him. There's the rhythmic sound of a knife on a cutting board somewhere, along with a pissed off nightingale outside the window chasing another songbird through their tree, the faint rushing of wind and leaves.
Danny's arms are both around him and he's leaning against Tim's back with chin on his shoulder gently rocking them.
"Back with us, baby?" Is murmured to him, and Tim finally raises his head to blink and then nod slowly.
Danny tilts his head to the side towards him with a touch to the chin and kisses him so softly Tim can barely stand it. Tim shifts a knee to try and halfway turn around for easier access and returns it with just as much feeling.
Why did it feel like no one has touched or kissed him like this in years? Shouldn't he be used to it?
Tim frowns when they part. "... How long have we been together by now?"
"Officially? Well, prom was... you turned thirteen around... Mm, ten years?"
Tim blinked. It has truly been so long, since the lab?
He had spent half his life without Danny? Might've- would have, if Danny weren't halfa.
He remembers it now that Danny said it, like being told unlocked the memories. Talking, laughing, their first kiss while Danny was in physio after the accident and he had been able to write his name again for the first time - Tim had spun him around as they yelled in joy and then found himself pulling Danny in for it. Then they pretended it never happened as they scrambled though the Bi crisis. Gentle kisses exchanged in secret and even more hesitant gestures of affection they pretended were just friends being supportive. They were so tiny.
Tim could never survive that loss, he thinks. Half his life alone would become a majority and he couldn't stand the thought of that. Of experiencing more of life without Danny than with him.
Why did he keep thinking he was going to lose Danny?
There was a scraping sound from the kitchen as a knife was wiped off on the edge of a cutting board, then a sizzle. Hot oil and the smell of roasting.
Kon, chopping the onions since the juice couldn't hurt his eyes and make them tear up. He always did that for them when anyone cooked.
Danny hesitates and gives Tim a careful look. "Why do you ask? More brain fog, are you okay?"
"Just orienting myself I guess." Tim answers.
He becomes aware of voices in the living room after a loud bang from there. Bart, Cassie, Sam, and Tucker all laughed.
Of course Danny had called them when Tim blanked out again. How many times was that this month? He feels horrible, guilty, for being a burden-
"Hey, no," Danny rubs a thumb over his cheek. "They enjoy their time here sunshine. You're no burden. They like spending time with you even when you're having one of these... Moments. They just prefer you more present because it's better for you. And they're my friends too you know, just like Sam and Tucker are yours."
Tim feels something in him coil up in bitterness at the last part - Sam's screaming still echoes in his ears sometimes, after what happened to Danny. She hates him.
But there was still history there, a long one, they were too important to each other to let sleeping dogs lie.
The hesitance about Sam is secondary to hearing the softness in Danny's voice, the laughter in the other room, the clack of the spatula in the kitchen and vague smell of caramelized onion drifting on the air.
"I love you." Tim tells Danny on reflex.
It felt like ages since he last said that to Danny.
"Stay with me then, okay?" Danny smiles and pokes him lightly in the side, half playful half affectionate. "And I'll wait as long as you need to see your eyes light up like this again. Needing breaks is okay. I just want you to rest. I'll always be here when you zone back in, okay space cadet?"
Tim kisses him, and remembers what it's like to feel like home is a person. It makes him feel like a little kid again.
"It's his favorite," Alfred says as he sets down the plate of fancy stuffed mushrooms next to them. He'd chosen a mix of cream cheese and caramelized onion for the filler of them today. It was the differing fillings that Tim liked most, always something new to try, he liked the variety. "They say the smell of coffee can wake the dead. You lot certainly do look like zombies, stumbling down the stairs following it."
"He's not dead!" Kon snaps from the entrance to the kitchen.
The suddeness, the yelling, and the jarring way it tore apart the warmth in his chest that his lungs could barely contain make Tim flinch. His shoulders drop forward as he all but cowers with head bowed towards the still-hot coffee.
Danny covers Tim's ears and puts up a barrier to seal the spaces between his fingers, and then Tim watches the halfa's mouth move silently like the world was on mute while Danny yelled his lungs out at the two in sheer neon-eyed rage.
Danny would never let them hurt him. Tim knows it down to his soul. He remains relaxed, lets his head lean against one of the other's shoulders.
Eventually Alfred leaves and Kon goes to the living room with the others. Tim cards a hand through Danny's hair until he's calm. They breathe together to slow their racing heartbeats, and Danny's hands eventually stop shaking.
When Danny finally opens his eyes they flash red once before settling back to his usual gorgeous northern lights green. "Tim. As long as you want it - want this. I'll keep you safe, I'll keep you here. I promise."
Tim nods slowly. He has vague flashes - Bruce and Dick standing and screaming in the entryway of the manor, his mother hissing in low cold about the Drake heirship, his father pulling a gun on Bruce and yelling that Tim is his son after finding out about Robin, Damian's loud haughty voice and way of twisting simple words into cruelty... Tim would hide in his room whenever he was at home. Jason told him once that Bruce and Dick didn't fight in front of him like that as a child. Tim was trained to be a soldier instead of a son so they didn't care by then, and fought in front of him all the time.
"... I hate it when they yell." Tim whispers.
Danny's eyes burn with anger and determination, and he presses a kiss to Tim's temple. "Then I'll make sure you never hear them again, since they're only going to upset you. Okay?"
Tim exhales and melts into him, basking in the affection as all five of their best friends talk in the other room, waiting for the two to be ready to join them. "Okay."
The cave is nearly full with a more-colorful-than-you-would-think array of Gotham vigilantes as the rush of air and electrical whine of the Zeta power down.
"Zatanna," Bruce says, jaw tight. "Thanks for coming."
Zatanna nods at him. "Batman. You said it was a magically induced sleep state?"
Batman makes a small sound on confirmation and turns to lead the way to the medbay.
"Right. Let's get the kid on his feet. Don't worry, it won't take long to wake him up."
