content tim drake x gn! reader, meta! reader, forget-me-not powers, memory loss, angst, hurt/comfort, slow burn, strangers to friends to soemthing more, canon-typical violence, no yn, memory loss, loneliness, identity erasure, implied childhood neglect, injury/blood, panic, gun wound, stab wound
masterlist
wordcount 7.1k
every time someone looks away from you, they forget you exist, leaving you trapped in a life of constant introductions, abandoned conversations, and grief no one else remembers causing. desperate for help, you track down red robin again and again until tim drake begins building systems, notes, recordings, and theories around the shape of your absence—even though he forgets you every time his gaze slips. but as tim’s body learns to trust you before his mind can remember you, both of you must decide whether trying again and again can be enough to turn loneliness into something like hope.
The first time you met Red Robin, he forgot you before you finished bleeding.
To be fair, it wasn’t his fault.
People never meant to do it. They didn’t mean to turn away from you in grocery aisles and leave you holding half-finished conversations like dropped glass. They didn’t mean to blink past you at bus stops, their faces emptying of recognition while your mouth still shaped their name. They didn’t mean to invite you in, laugh at your jokes, make promises, then look toward a ringing phone and turn back with polite fear in their eyes.
Can I help you?
The worst four words in the English language.
People always said them gently. That was the thing.
No one remembered hurting you. So, no one ever apologised.
You’d been twelve the first time you realised it wasn’t normal. Your teacher looked down at your homework, looked back up, and asked whose desk you were sitting in. Your classmates laughed because children could always sense when the world had found a new way to be cruel.
Your parents forgot you in pieces. At first, it was little things. Leaving your plate out at dinner. Locking the front door while you were still on the porch. Calling the police about “a child in the house” when you came downstairs for water.
By sixteen, you had learned to keep your backpack packed. By eighteen, you had learned not to tell people your name unless you were prepared to watch it die in their mouths. By twenty, you stopped expecting anyone to hold onto you.
Then Gotham happened.
Gotham had a way of making tragedies feel ordinary. A city full of curses, chemicals, ghosts, gods, monsters, and miracles gone sour. People disappeared here every day. Some of them even left bodies.
You were good at disappearing. Not invisibility, exactly. Nothing so useful. People saw you. They could talk to you. Touch you. Hurt you. Help you.
But the second they looked away, you were gone.
Not physically. Just from them.
A thought ripped clean from the page. A footprint swallowed by black water. A name left out in the rain until the ink ran.
You called it your forget-me-not curse.
A joke, originally.
A bad one. The kind you made alone because there was no one around long enough to laugh.
You tracked Red Robin because he was the only person in Gotham paranoid enough to believe evidence over memory.
Batman would have been the obvious choice, but Batman was myth and shadow and trauma in Kevlar. Nightwing was too bright. Red Hood was too dangerous. Robin was a child with swords and the emotional range of an alley cat.
Red Robin, though—Red Robin solved things. Red Robin noticed patterns. Red Robin built answers out of scraps.
You had watched him for three weeks before you approached him.
Not stalked.
Watched.
There was a difference, though you were pretty sure the difference would not hold up in court.
He moved like exhaustion had learned martial arts. Sharp, efficient, clever. Always three steps ahead of everyone except himself. His cape snapped behind him as he crossed rooftops, and his voice over comms, when you caught pieces of it through stolen frequencies and cheap equipment, was dry enough to sand paint off a wall.
You liked him immediately.
Which was unfortunate. Liking people was how hope got its teeth in you.
Still, you needed help. So you followed him onto a rooftop in Chinatown during a rainstorm that turned every neon sign into a bleeding wound.
He had just finished taking down three men trying to move unmarked crates through the back of a restaurant. You watched him zip-tie the last one to a drainpipe, then crouch beside a broken lockbox.
“You missed one,” you said.
Red Robin spun so fast his bo staff was at your throat before your second breath.
You froze.
Rain ran down the side of your face.
His white lenses narrowed. “Who are you?”
There it was.
The beginning. Your least favourite place to stand.
“My name won’t matter in about ten seconds.”
“Try me.”
“You’re going to forget me.”
“Unlikely.”
You almost laughed. “Everyone says that.”
His jaw tightened beneath the mask. “Meta?”
“Maybe.”
“Threat?”
“To myself, mostly.”
“Explain.”
You lifted one hand slowly, pointing toward the alley below. “There’s another guy under the fire escape. He has a gun. You missed him because he didn’t come in with the others.”
Red Robin didn’t look away.
Smart boy.
His head tilted slightly. Listening.
A second later, he threw a birdarang without taking his eyes off you.
A pained shout rose from the alley.
You blinked.
“Nice.”
“Thanks. Now explain.”
“I need help.”
“With?”
You swallowed. This was always the hard part. The moment before someone knew enough to pity you and not enough to stay.
“With being remembered.”
For a second, he didn’t speak.
Rain tapped against his armour. Somewhere below, a siren cried like a mechanical animal.
Then his comm crackled.
“Red?” a voice said. “Status?”
His eyes flicked away.
Just for a second.
Just enough.
When he looked back, his bo staff snapped up again.
“Don’t move,” he said. “Who are you?”
There it was.
The ending.
Your throat tightened anyway.
“Yeah,” you whispered. “That’s the problem.”
His grip shifted on the staff. “How did you get up here?”
“I climbed.”
“You expect me to believe that?”
“No,” you said. “I expect you to forget this conversation, too.”
“What conversation?”
You closed your eyes. Rain, cold and patient, slid down your neck.
“Never mind.”
You stepped backwards off the ledge.
Red Robin lunged, but you had already dropped onto the fire escape below, landing hard enough to rattle your bones.
By the time he looked down, he shouted, “Hey!”
Not your name.
Never your name.
You ran.
Behind you, Gotham swallowed the sound.
The second time you met him, you brought a folder. The third time, a USB drive. The fourth time, a whiteboard marker, because you were starting to get desperate. The fifth time, you wrote YOU WILL FORGET ME across his left gauntlet while he was distracted disarming a bomb.
He noticed the writing forty-three seconds later.
Unfortunately, he noticed it after looking away from you.
“Why does my arm say that?” he demanded.
You were sitting cross-legged on the floor of an abandoned subway station, chin propped in your hand. “Because subtlety wasn’t working.”
His eyes narrowed. “Did you write on my suit?”
“With consent.”
“I don’t remember giving consent.”
“Exactly.”
He stared at you. You stared back. Somewhere above you, a train rumbled through a city that had forgotten this station existed.
Relatable.
Red Robin looked down at his gauntlet again.
Then at you.
Then at the folder in your lap. Then at the cheap burner phone you had placed beside it, already playing a video of the two of you from fifteen minutes ago.
On the tiny cracked screen, Red Robin said, “Testing hypothesis. Subject claims memory alteration occurs when visual attention is broken. I am recording this willingly.”
Onscreen, you gave a tired little wave.
Current Red Robin went very still.
You hated this part. The suspicion. The recalibration. The way people looked at proof of you like it had crawled out of a sewer.
His voice dropped. “What did you do to me?”
“Nothing.”
“That’s not an answer.”
“It’s the only one I have.”
The recording continued. Onscreen, Tim — Red Robin, but by then you had found his name in enough public footage and gala clips to know the shape of him outside the mask — looked intensely uncomfortable.
“Subject claims this has occurred throughout their life. Existing theory: anomalous cognitive deletion tied to direct perception. Memory resets after loss of visual contact. Physical evidence remains. Emotional impressions may remain.”
Current Red Robin slowly looked at you. “Emotional impressions?”
You shrugged, trying for casual and landing somewhere closer to wounded animal. “Sometimes people feel something. Déjà vu. Unease. Comfort. Anger. Depends on the person.”
His mouth pressed into a thin line. “What do I feel?”
You shouldn’t answer. You knew that.
Hope was a mousetrap with velvet on the spring.
Still, he asked, and you were very bad at denying yourself crumbs.
“You feel comfortable,” you said quietly. “Usually. Around me.”
He didn’t respond.
The recording ended. The silence after it was massive.
He crouched in front of you, careful and slow, like you were something wild.
“How many times have we had this conversation?”
You looked away first.
It didn’t matter if you looked away. You always remembered.
“Six.”
His breath caught. “Six?”
“Seven, if we count the rooftop, but that one was short.”
He sat back on his heels. “You tracked me down seven times?”
“You’re hard to catch.”
“You should not have been able to catch me at all.”
“Yeah, well.” You gave him a tired smile. “Being forgettable has perks.”
That landed wrong.
You saw it on his face. The way his suspicion cracked open just enough for sadness to show through.
You hated that too. Pity was a warm blanket made of needles.
“Don’t,” you said.
“Don’t what?”
“Look at me like that.”
“Like what?”
“Like you’re already sorry.”
His lips parted, but no sound came out.
Then his comm chirped.
You saw the instant he registered it. You saw the calculation.
His gaze flicked toward the sound.
“Wait,” you said.
Too late.
His eyes moved away.
His face emptied.
Not dramatically. Not cruelly.
Just blank.
When he looked back, he was a stranger again.
His hand went to his staff.
You exhaled shakily.
He looked at the folder. The phone. The writing on his gauntlet.
Then at you.
“Okay,” he said slowly. “I’m guessing we’ve done this before.”
Your laugh broke halfway through. “Yeah.”
His posture eased by one painful inch. “I’m sorry.”
You stared at him.
He didn’t know what he was apologising for.
He meant it anyway.
Oh, that was dangerous.
That was so, so dangerous.
Tim Drake made a problem board.
Of course he did.
You found out two nights later when Red Robin left you coordinates scratched into the edge of a takeout menu you’d taped to his belt before he forgot you.
The coordinates led to a safehouse.
Not the Nest. Not the Cave. Somewhere smaller. Older. A third-floor apartment above a closed pawn shop, with three separate exits and windows reinforced from the inside.
There was a note taped to the door when you arrived.
If you are reading this and you are the person I keep forgetting, come in. I gave you the code. If I didn’t, check under the gargoyle across the street. If you are not that person, this door is electrified. Good luck.
You smiled despite yourself.
The code was under the gargoyle.
The safehouse smelled like coffee, dust, and circuitry. Three laptops glowed on a folding table. A whiteboard stood against the wall, covered in branching theories and question marks.
At the top, in sharp block letters, Tim had written:
FORGET-ME-NOT Under it: Not invisibility. Not standard telepathy. Not illusion. Perception-linked mnemonic erasure?
Then: DO NOT LOOK AWAY WITHOUT RECORDING.
Then, circled three times: THEY ARE REAL.
You stood in front of those words for a long time. Long enough for your chest to hurt. Long enough to hate yourself for how much it mattered.
They are real.
Not subject. Not anomaly. Not possible threat.
They. Real.
Your fingers lifted before you could stop them, hovering just beneath the words.
You didn’t touch. Touching felt too much like asking.
The bathroom door opened.
Tim Drake stepped out in sweatpants, a black T-shirt, damp hair curling at his forehead, and a toothbrush in his mouth.
He froze. You froze.
He blinked at you.
You lifted one hand weakly. “Hi.”
Tim removed the toothbrush from his mouth.
There was a very long silence.
Then he said, “I’m guessing you’re Forget-Me-Not.”
“Please don’t make that my codename.”
“I already made it your case designation.”
“That’s worse.”
“I’m bad at branding.”
“I’ve noticed. Red Robin?”
He pointed the toothbrush at you. “Okay, low blow from someone whose entire thing is being forgotten.”
You stared. He stared back.
Then both of you laughed.
It surprised you so badly that you almost didn’t recognise the sound coming out of your own mouth.
Tim’s smile faded first.
Not gone. Just softened.
“Sorry,” he said. “That was—”
“Funny,” you said.
His eyes searched your face. “I didn’t hurt you?”
You looked at the board again.
THEY ARE REAL.
“No,” you said. “You didn’t.”
He nodded once, then glanced toward the mirror over the kitchen sink.
Your stomach dropped. “Tim—”
His gaze shifted. His face went blank.
You hated mirrors. You hated reflective windows. Phones. Passing cars. Anything that gave people an excuse to stop looking at you.
Tim looked back. His eyes landed on you.
His hand tightened around the toothbrush.
Then he looked at the whiteboard. Back to you. Whiteboard.
You.
“Okay,” he said after a moment. “That’s deeply unsettling.”
You swallowed the ache in your throat. “Welcome to the club.”
He crossed the room carefully, eyes fixed on you with almost comic intensity. Like a cat trying not to lose sight of a laser pointer.
“Do I know your name?”
“Yes.”
“Do I get to know it again?”
You told him.
He repeated it.
Softly. Correctly.
Like it mattered. Like names were not disposable things.
Then he wrote it on his wrist in black marker.
Your chest went tight. “You don’t have to do that.”
“I do, actually.”
“Tim.”
He paused.
It was the first time you had said his name to his face. He didn’t flinch. Didn’t ask how you knew.
He only looked at you. “What?”
“You’re going to forget anyway.”
His expression shifted. Not pity this time.
Determination. Very different.
Much worse for your heart.
“Then I’ll remember again.”
You looked away.
The words hit somewhere deep. Somewhere, still twelve years old, standing in a classroom while everyone laughed.
“You say that like it’s easy.”
“No,” Tim said. “I say that like it’s possible.”
The apartment hummed around you. Computers. Rain. Gotham breathing through broken brick.
You wanted to believe him. God, you wanted to believe him.
That was the problem with starving.
A crumb looked like a feast.
Tim built protocols.
Protocol One: Cameras on before conversation.
Protocol Two: Notes visible on every surface.
Protocol Three: If he forgot you, he had to read the red folder before engaging.
Protocol Four: No sudden movements after reset, because apparently the third meeting had involved him pinning you to a wall and then feeling guilty about it for forty-eight hours, based solely on the bruise and your annoyed sticky note reading RUDE.
Protocol Five: Coffee.
You weren’t sure why coffee was a protocol.
Tim insisted it helped.
“You just want an excuse to drink more coffee.”
“That’s a serious accusation.”
“You have a mug that says ‘sleep is a social construct.’”
“It was a gift.”
“From who?”
“Me.”
You stared at him. He stared back.
Then he shrugged. “I know what I like.”
The work was slow. Messy. Painful.
Tim forgot you dozens of times.
Sometimes in the middle of a sentence. Sometimes, while reaching for a pen. Sometimes because his phone lit up and instinct won before caution.
Every reset cut, but not always the same way.
Some were clean. His face would go politely guarded, and he would ask for an explanation, and you would hand him the folder like a nurse handing over bad news.
Some were worse. Once, after a long night of testing, Tim laughed at something you said. Really laughed, head ducked, eyes bright, shoulders shaking. You had been talking about the time a mugger forgot he was mugging you halfway through and apologised for standing too close.
Tim laughed, and you laughed too, because it was stupid and awful and somehow funny in the way tragedies became funny if they happened enough.
Then he turned to grab his coffee.
When he looked back, the laughter died on his face.
He stepped back. “Who are you?”
You sat very still.
Your smile felt glued on. “No one.”
His eyes flicked to the notes.
He read them fast.
Too fast.
His face crumpled in slow motion.
“Wait,” he said. “We were laughing.”
You didn’t answer.
“I was laughing,” he said, quieter.
“Yeah.”
“With you.”
“Yeah.”
“I forgot that?”
You looked down at your hands. “You forget everything.”
Tim didn’t speak for a long time.
Then he said, “Not everything.”
You almost snapped at him.
You wanted to. You wanted to tell him not to soften it. Not to romanticise it. Not to turn your curse into a puzzle with a hidden blessing, because there was nothing beautiful about being erased. There was no secret poetry in sitting across from someone who had smiled at you three seconds ago and watching their eyes turn unfamiliar.
But then Tim touched two fingers to his own chest.
“My heart rate is elevated,” he said. “But not fear response. My shoulders are relaxed. I’m angled toward you. I reached for coffee without checking my weapon first.”
You blinked.
He looked at you, eyes steady.
“My body knows you,” he said. “Even when my brain doesn’t.”
That shut you up completely.
Tim seemed to realise what he had said a second after saying it.
His ears went pink. Extremely pink.
You stared at them because you were sad, not dead.
He cleared his throat. “Scientifically speaking.”
“Right,” you said.
“Physiological familiarity.”
“Obviously.”
“Conditioned trust response.”
“Super romantic.”
His blush deepened.
You smiled despite yourself.
Tim saw it. Something in him eased, like he had been waiting for proof he hadn’t ruined everything.
You looked away first.
Not because you wanted to.
Because wanting was getting dangerous.
You started staying longer. That was the mistake.
At first, you only came by for testing. Then for updates. Then because Tim texted a number he had written in six different places and asked Are you safe?
You stared at the message for twenty minutes.
No one asked you that. Not and remembered long enough to care about the answer.
You typed back Mostly.
His reply came instantly. That is not a yes.
You should have ignored it. Instead, you went to the safehouse.
Tim opened the door with a laptop under one arm, hair a disaster, a hoodie hanging off one shoulder.
He looked you over. “You’re hurt.”
“Barely.”
“You’re bleeding.”
“That’s what barely means in Gotham.”
He stepped aside.
You came in.
He patched your arm with hands so careful they made you want to scream.
Not because it hurt.
Because it didn’t. Because he kept looking at you. Kept his gaze trained on your face while reaching blindly for gauze and antiseptic.
“You can look down,” you said.
“Nope.”
“You’re going to tape my sleeve to my skin.”
“I have done worse with less.”
“That is not comforting.”
“It wasn’t meant to be.”
His fingers brushed your wrist.
You both went quiet.
Tim’s gaze stayed on yours. There were shadows under his eyes. Purple-blue and stubborn. His mouth was set in that familiar line of someone trying to outthink the universe through sheer spite.
“You’re tired,” you said.
“I’m always tired.”
“That’s not as cute as you think it is.”
“I think you think I’m cute?”
Your soul left your body.
Tim froze. His ears went pink again.
A gift. A treasure. A tiny biological betrayal.
“I meant—” he started.
“You said what you said.”
“I’m sleep deprived.”
“You’re always sleep deprived.”
“Then I’m always not liable for my words.”
You smiled. He smiled back.
For a second, there was no curse.
No whiteboard. No folder. No grief waiting in the corner with its coat still on.
Just Tim’s hand around your wrist, warm through his gloves, and his eyes on yours like looking away was the one thing he refused to lose.
Then his phone rang.
Both of you flinched.
Tim did not look away.
The phone kept buzzing on the table.
He stared at you. You stared back.
“Could be important,” you whispered.
“Probably.”
“You should answer.”
“I know.”
“Tim.”
His jaw worked. “I don’t want to forget this.”
Your breath caught. “This?”
His thumb shifted against your wrist.
His voice dropped. “You.”
Hope was a stupid thing. A stubborn weed growing through concrete.
You wanted to rip it out by the roots.
Instead, you sat very still while it bloomed.
“Tim,” you said softly. “You will.”
The phone stopped ringing.
Then started again.
He closed his eyes.
Your heart jumped.
But he didn’t turn away.
Eyes closed, he said, “Still thinking about you.”
“That’s cheating.”
“That’s science.”
“That is absolutely not science.”
“It is if I write it down later.”
You laughed, but it hurt.
His eyes opened.
He looked almost relieved to find you still there.
The phone stopped again.
A beat passed.
Then his comm went off.
Oracle’s voice filled the room.
“Red Robin, if you’re ignoring me because you found another conspiracy wall, I’m sending Nightwing.”
Tim grimaced.
“You should take it,” you said. He did not move. “Tim.”
“I know.”
You gently pulled your wrist from his hand.
He let you.
You stood.
His expression tightened. “Don’t leave.”
The words were too raw. Too young. Too much like your own secret prayers.
You swallowed. “I’ll come back.”
“You don’t have to say that just because I won’t remember.”
“I know.”
“Will you?”
You should have lied less softly.
“No,” you said. “Not tonight.”
His face went still.
You stepped back. “Because you’ll forget me, and I don’t think I can watch it again right now.”
The comm crackled.
Tim’s gaze stayed on you.
You gave him one last smile. It was probably a bad one.
Then you slipped out the window onto the fire escape.
You heard him say your name. Then Oracle said something urgent. Then the night took you.
By morning, he had sent seventeen messages. All to the number he did not remember saving.
I’m sorry.
I don’t know what happened.
There’s a note on my arm that says I hurt you.
Please tell me what I did.
Please be safe.
You don’t have to answer.
But please be safe.
You deleted none of them. You answered none of them.
Avoiding Tim Drake was harder than finding him had been.
This was unfair, frankly.
Gotham was huge. You were practically a professional non-entity. You had evaded landlords, social workers, police officers, and one very confused census worker who kept rediscovering you on your own couch.
You could avoid one vigilante. In theory.
In practice, Tim Drake was a nightmare with Wi-Fi.
He left messages in places no sane person would think to check.
On rooftops. In police scanner chatter. In the metadata of a corrupted file you had stolen from a Falcone server. Once, in a fortune cookie.
You still had no idea how he managed that.
The fortune read: YOU ARE NOT A BURDEN. ALSO, PLEASE STOP GHOSTING ME. UNFORTUNATE WORD CHOICE. SORRY.
You kept that one in your wallet.
Not because it mattered. Obviously.
You avoided him for eleven days. On the twelfth, you found Red Robin bleeding on a rooftop.
Because Gotham had a sense of humour, and it was mean.
He was propped against an air-conditioning unit, one hand pressed to his side, cape torn, breathing shallowly. Three unconscious men lay scattered around him. A fourth crawled toward a gun.
You kicked the gun off the roof.
The man looked up at you, startled.
Then he glanced away toward Red Robin.
When he looked back, confusion washed over his face. “What the—”
You punched him.
He went down.
Red Robin made a sound that might have been a laugh if it weren’t wrapped in pain.
“Nice,” he rasped.
You crouched beside him. “You’re an idiot.”
His lenses were cracked. One had gone dark, leaving a sliver of blue eye visible beneath the mask.
He looked at you. Really looked.
Your chest ached.
“You came back,” he said.
“You got stabbed.”
“Technically shot.”
“Do not get pedantic while bleeding.”
“Sorry.”
You pressed your hands over the wound. He hissed. “Where’s your emergency beacon?”
“Damaged.”
“Comms?”
“Jammed.”
“Backup?”
He gave you a weak smile. “You?”
“Terrible plan.”
“Working so far.”
“Tim.”
His smile faded. The exposed corner of his eye softened.
“I know you,” he whispered.
Your hands froze. Blood slicked your fingers.
“What?”
“I don’t—” He swallowed hard, face twisting. “I don’t remember. But I know you.”
You tried to breathe. “Tim, stay with me.”
“Trying.”
“You need pressure here.”
“Okay.”
“And you need to keep looking at me.”
His laugh came out broken. “Was already planning on it.”
You hated how that hurt. You hated how good it felt.
You dragged him upright, and he leaned heavily against you. Too heavily. His head dipped toward your shoulder.
“Eyes on me,” you said quickly.
He forced his head up. “Bossy.”
“You like it.”
“I feel like that’s true.”
“It is.”
“Good to know.”
You half-carried him across the roof toward the stairwell.
Halfway there, the door slammed open.
Nightwing burst through, escrima sticks raised.
Behind him came Batman.
Of course. Of course, the universe looked at your worst night and said, Actually, let’s add the emotionally constipated bat-themed father figure.
Nightwing saw Tim. Then saw you.
“Step away from him.”
Tim’s grip on you tightened.
“Don’t,” he said.
Batman’s eyes narrowed. “Red Robin.”
Tim breathed hard. “They’re helping.”
Nightwing looked at you.
Then away, scanning the roof.
Then back.
His expression blanked. “Who are you?”
Your stomach sank. Tim went rigid against you.
“No,” he snapped. “Look at the notes.”
Nightwing blinked. “What notes?”
“Left gauntlet,” Tim said through gritted teeth.
Batman moved first, taking Tim’s wrist carefully.
Written across the inside of Tim’s gauntlet in white marker were the words: IF SOMEONE IS WITH ME AND YOU DON’T KNOW THEM, TRUST THEM. MEMORY HAZARD. DO NOT LOOK AWAY.
Batman read it. Then looked at you.
You expected suspicion. You got it.
Then he looked at Tim’s blood on your hands.
You expected threat. You got that too.
But beneath both, there was calculation.
“Can you get him downstairs?” Batman asked.
You nodded.
Nightwing stared at the message on Tim’s gauntlet, face pale.
“How long has this been happening?”
“Long enough,” Tim muttered.
His knees buckled. You caught him with a panicked noise.
Batman stepped in, taking some of his weight.
For one terrible second, Tim’s gaze slipped from you to Batman.
You felt the exact moment he forgot. His body went tense. His hand jerked toward his weapon.
Then stopped.
His eyes dropped to his wrist. To the writing. To the blood. To your hands still holding him up.
He looked at you again.
No recognition.
But his shoulders eased.
His voice came out hoarse. “Hi.”
You almost broke.
Right there on that rooftop. With Batman watching and Nightwing confused and Tim bleeding between your fingers.
You almost shattered into every version of yourself that had ever been left behind.
Instead, you smiled. Small. Devastated. “Hi, Red.”
His eyes flickered. “Red?”
“You hate when I call you that.”
“I do?”
“Yeah.”
He considered this. Then, barely audible, “Feels familiar.”
Batman’s jaw tightened. Nightwing looked like someone had punched him in the chest.
Good.
Let them see it. Let someone else hold the horror for once.
Tim swayed.
Batman said, “Move.”
So you did.
The Cave remembered you better than people did.
Computers didn’t forget unless told to. Cameras kept your shape. Motion sensors tracked your movement. The Batcomputer marked you as UNKNOWN ENTITY until Tim, pale and stitched and furious from the medbay cot, demanded Batman change it.
“To what?” Batman asked.
Tim looked at you. He had forgotten you three times since arriving.
Each time, he read the notes. Each time, his face did something painful.
Now he sat upright despite Alfred’s stern disapproval, one hand pressed to his bandaged ribs, eyes stubbornly fixed on you.
“Forget-Me-Not,” he said.
You groaned. “Tim.”
“It’s accurate.”
“It’s corny.”
“It’s poetic.”
“It sounds like a Victorian ghost with abandonment issues.”
Nightwing, who had been trying very hard not to stare at you and failing because staring was now medically necessary, whispered, “Kind of on brand, though.”
You pointed at him. “Don’t encourage this.”
Nightwing held up both hands. “Wouldn’t dream of it.”
Then he looked away toward Batman.
His face blanked.
He looked back at you. Startled. Tim pointed at the gauntlet.
“Oh, come on,” he said, horrified. “I did it again?”
“Yep.”
He dragged both hands down his face. “This sucks.”
You laughed.
You didn’t mean to. It just escaped.
Nightwing looked stricken. “That was insensitive. I’m sorry.”
“No,” you said. “It does suck.”
Tim smiled faintly.
Batman did not. Batman had been watching the recordings.
All of them. Every safehouse interaction Tim had saved. Every reset. Every time Tim’s face went from warm to blank. Every time you flinched like you had been slapped, and then patiently explained your own existence again.
Bruce Wayne had an excellent mask. Batman had a better one.
Neither was good enough. Not for this.
When Tim finally fell asleep — reluctantly, after Alfred threatened sedation with the casual authority of a man who had raised vigilantes and regretted much — Batman approached you near the computer.
You stiffened.
He stopped several feet away.
“Tim trusts you,” he said.
You looked toward the medbay. Tim’s face was turned toward you even in sleep. “He trusts evidence.”
“No,” Batman said. “He trusts you.”
You laughed under your breath. “He forgets me.”
“Those are not the same thing.”
You hated him a little for that.
For being right. For saying it in that gravelly voice, like truth was a verdict.
“He shouldn’t,” you said.
“Why?”
“Because I’ll get him hurt.”
Batman said nothing.
You looked at Tim again.
“He keeps trying to remember me. He gets distracted. He hesitates. He writes things on his skin and loses sleep and builds systems and—and cares.” Your voice cracked. You hated that. “He cares, and he doesn’t even get to keep why.”
Batman was silent for a long moment. Then he said, “Tim is very difficult to stop once he decides someone matters.”
Your throat tightened. “Bad survival trait.”
“Yes,” Batman said. “It runs in the family.”
That almost got a smile out of you. Almost.
Bruce looked toward the medbay.
“He has been calmer,” he said.
“What?”
“Recently. Still sleep-deprived. Still reckless. Still Tim.” A pause. “But calmer.”
You stared at him.
Batman’s gaze returned to you. “I didn’t know why.”
You had no idea what to do with that.
So you did what you always did.
You prepared to leave. “I should go.”
Batman’s voice sharpened. “That’s not necessary.”
“It is.”
Tim stirred faintly in the medbay. Your feet rooted to the floor.
“He’ll wake up,” you said. “He’ll forget. Then he’ll remember from notes, then he’ll feel guilty, then he’ll try harder. It’s a loop.”
“Then we break it.”
You looked at Batman. Something like anger sparked under your ribs.
“You can’t punch this.”
“I’m aware.”
“You can’t adopt it either.”
One corner of his mouth twitched.
Tiny. Devastatingly father-like.
“I’m aware of that as well.”
“Then what?”
Batman’s eyes moved to the computer. “Tim has theories.”
“Tim has a caffeine addiction and a martyr complex.”
“He also has a working prototype.”
You froze.
Bruce tapped a key.
A file opened.
CONTINUITY ANCHOR — FMN PROJECT
Your breath stopped. Schematics filled the screen. A visual tracking system. HUD integration. Facial recognition. Constant line-of-sight proxy through micro-cameras. Audio prompts. Haptic alerts. A recording loop designed to feed Tim reminders before, during, and after attention breaks.
A way to outsource memory. A way to build a bridge over the gap.
Not a cure. Never a cure.
But a handrail in the dark.
“He didn’t tell me,” you whispered.
“He likely intended to finish it first.”
“Of course he did.”
Because Tim Drake would rather bite through his own tongue than offer hope before he could guarantee it.
Your eyes burned.
On the screen, beneath the diagrams, was a note.
Not technical. Not polished. Just Tim’s writing, rushed and uneven.
They deserve continuity. Even if I can’t give memory, I can give consistency. That has to count for something.
You covered your mouth.
Batman looked away. Then immediately looked back, jaw tightening as his memory reset.
You laughed wetly.
“Yeah,” you whispered. “Annoying, isn’t it?”
Batman stared at the screen. Then at you. Then, very carefully, he said, “I understand why Tim is angry.”
That undid you more than pity ever could.
Tim woke three hours later and forgot you before saying good morning.
His eyes opened. They landed on you.
Blankness.
Then he saw the note taped to the ceiling directly above his bed. YOU KNOW THEM. DO NOT PANIC. ASK FOR THE BLUE FOLDER.
He stared at it. Then exhaled.
“Morning?” he guessed.
You sat beside the medbay cot, knees pulled to your chest. “Afternoon.”
“Did I sleep?”
“Under duress.”
“Alfred?”
“Alfred.”
He nodded gravely. “Powerful man.”
“You have no idea.”
His gaze drifted to your face. Stayed there.
“I’m sorry,” he said.
You sighed. “Tim.”
“No, don’t ‘Tim’ me. I know you hate it when I apologise for something I don’t remember doing—”
“I never told you that.”
His mouth shut.
You raised an eyebrow.
He looked briefly smug. “Physiological familiarity.”
“You are impossible.”
“I feel like you’ve said that before.”
“Many times.”
“Nice.”
You shook your head, but you were smiling.
He noticed. Tim always noticed. Even when he forgot why it mattered.
His expression softened. “You stayed.”
“Yeah.”
“Why?”
You looked at your hands.
Because you were tired. Because he kept trying. Because you had spent your whole life being temporary, and Tim Drake had looked at your curse and said, then I’ll build something that lasts.
Because hope had teeth, yes. But maybe you were tired of bleeding alone.
“You got shot,” you said.
“Again, technically stabbed after being shot.”
“Tim.”
“Right. Not the time.”
A quiet beat passed.
Then he said your name.
You looked up.
He was watching you with that unbearable focus.
“I don’t remember meeting you,” he said.
“I know.”
“I don’t remember most of our conversations.”
“I know.”
“I don’t remember why you look sad when I look away.”
Your throat tightened.
“But I know I hate it,” he said softly.
You stared at him. Tim’s fingers curled against the blanket.
“I know there are gaps,” he continued. “I know something is missing. Every time I reset, it’s like walking into a room after someone has stopped crying. I don’t know what happened, but I know it mattered.”
Your eyes burned. “Tim—”
“I’m not saying that fixes anything.”
“Good, because it doesn’t.”
“I know.”
“You don’t.”
His face changed.
You regretted it instantly. But the words were out now, and maybe they deserved air after all.
“You don’t know,” you said, voice shaking. “You don’t know what it’s like to have to prove you exist every single day. To explain yourself over and over until your own name sounds fake. To watch someone care about you and then lose it because they looked at a clock.”
Tim went very still.
You stood because sitting hurt too much.
“You don’t know what it’s like to be someone’s favourite person for five minutes and a stranger for the rest of your life.”
Silence.
Huge. Electric. Tim’s eyes did not leave you.
“I’m sorry,” he whispered.
You laughed once, broken and sharp. “I know.”
“That doesn’t make it better.”
“No.”
“What does?”
You looked at him. He looked so tired. So young, suddenly. Not Red Robin. Not the genius detective. Just Tim, with messy hair and stitches in his side and your name written on his wrist like a prayer he refused to stop saying.
“I don’t know,” you admitted.
Tim absorbed that. Then he nodded. “Okay.”
“Okay?”
“If there’s no fix yet, then we start with no fix.”
“That’s not a plan.”
“It’s the beginning of one.”
Despite everything, a laugh trembled out of you.
He smiled faintly.
“There it is,” he said.
Your heart did something stupid. “Don’t.”
“Don’t what?”
“Look at me like that.”
His smile faded. “Like what?”
“Like I’m someone you could keep.”
Tim’s expression went quiet. Then he reached toward the tray beside him, picked up a marker, and wrote something on his palm.
He turned it toward you.
TRY.
One word. Three letters. Ridiculous. Insufficient.
Everything.
Your breath caught.
“That’s not enough,” you said.
“I know.”
“You’ll forget.”
“Probably.”
“It’ll hurt.”
“Probably.”
“You’ll get tired.”
His eyes sharpened. “No.”
“You can’t know that.”
“Yes,” Tim said. “I can.”
You wanted to argue. You wanted to run. You wanted to believe him so badly it felt like standing on the edge of a building with no grapple and calling it flight.
Tim lowered his hand. “I don’t get to choose what my brain keeps,” he said. “But I get to choose what I do about what it loses.”
You pressed your lips together.
He swallowed. “And I choose to try.”
Your vision blurred. “Every time?”
His voice softened. “Every time.”
You looked away.
For once, someone else remembered the important part.
The prototype was ugly.
You told Tim this. He looked offended.
“It is functional.”
“It looks like a beetle married a security camera.”
“That’s mean.”
“It has antennae.”
“They’re signal stabilisers.”
“They’re emotionally antennae.”
Tim scowled at the device clipped onto his cowl.
Nightwing, who had been instructed not to look away and had taken this to mean he should stare at you with the intensity of a golden retriever witnessing a magic trick, nodded. “It’s a little buggy.”
Tim pointed at him. “You’re not invited to science anymore.”
“I was invited to science?”
“No.”
“Harsh.”
The Continuity Anchor worked. Mostly.
Tiny cameras mounted in Tim’s cowl maintained visual contact when his eyes moved. His HUD displayed a small marker whenever you were in range. If all visual tracking broke, an audio cue played in his ear.
You know them. Look for notes. Do not panic.
Tim recorded it himself.
You hated the first version. He sounded too clinical.
The second version was worse. Too gentle.
The third version made you leave the room.
You came back to find Tim sitting alone, staring at the recorder.
He looked up at you.
“I don’t know how to talk to myself about you,” he admitted.
Your anger dissolved on impact. “Try talking to me.”
So he did.
The final version said Hey. You forgot. That’s okay. They’re real. You trust them. They are not leaving because of this unless you make them feel like they should. Be kind. Start there.
You listened to it once. Then never again.
It lived in Tim’s ear now. A tiny ghost of himself, guiding him back.
The first field test happened on a rooftop at dawn.
Gotham stretched around you in bruised purples and dirty gold. The city looked almost soft from up there, which was one of its better lies.
Tim stood beside you in full Red Robin gear, the new system humming faintly.
“Ready?” he asked.
“No.”
“Great. Me neither.”
You gave him a look.
He smiled. Nervous. Hopeful.
You hated how beautiful he looked in the thin morning light.
“Okay,” he said. “I’m going to look away.”
Your stomach clenched. “Okay.”
“I’ll look back.”
“You might not know why.”
“I’ll have help.”
You nodded.
He took a breath. Then slowly, deliberately, Tim Drake turned his head and looked out over Gotham.
The world did not end. For him, maybe it shifted.
For you, it cracked open.
His profile was sharp against the sunrise. The wind tugged at his cape. One second passed. Two. Three.
Then he turned back.
His eyes found you. For half a heartbeat, there was blankness.
A terrible, familiar void.
Then his HUD must have triggered.
His hand twitched.
His gaze dropped to the writing on his wrist.
Then back to your face.
Recognition did not return.
Not fully. Not magically.
But something else did.
Choice.
“Hi,” Tim said softly.
Your eyes stung. “Hi.”
He stepped closer. “Did it work?”
You laughed, and it came out like crying. “Depends what you mean by work.”
“Did I panic?”
“No.”
“Did I threaten you?”
“No.”
“Did I make that face?”
“What face?”
“The one that makes you look like you’re trying not to disappear on purpose.”
Your breath left you.
Tim’s mouth tilted, small and sad. “I don’t have to remember everything to notice you.”
That was unfair.
That was devastating.
That was Tim.
You wiped at your face quickly. “This is still going to be hard.”
“Yeah.”
“I’m still going to get hurt.”
“I know.”
“You can’t just tech-solution your way out of grief.”
He winced. “That one felt personal.”
“It was.”
“Fair.”
You both stood there, the sun rising behind Gotham’s teeth.
Then Tim held out his hand.
Not grabbing. Not assuming.
Just offering.
“You don’t have to,” he said.
You stared at his hand. “How very dare you be respectful right now.”
His lips twitched. “Trying something new.”
“It’s rude.”
“I’ll stop immediately.”
“No.”
The word came out too fast.
Tim’s smile softened.
Slowly, like approaching a scared animal or a miracle, you placed your hand in his.
His fingers closed around yours.
Warm. Careful. Real.
He looked down at your joined hands.
Your heart lurched. “Tim—”
His gaze snapped back to your face.
Still there. Still knowing enough.
The camera on his cowl gave a tiny mechanical whirr.
He grinned. “Science.”
You laughed wetly. “Dork.”
“Accurate.”
He rubbed his thumb once across your knuckles. “Can I ask you something?”
“You usually do.”
“Have I asked you on a date yet?”
Your entire brain short-circuited. “What?”
“I’m guessing no.”
“Tim.”
“That sounds like no.”
“You cannot ask me out because your own tech is bullying your memory into cooperating.”
“Actually, I can do whatever I want. I’m very stubborn.”
“You got stabbed yesterday.”
“Shot, then stabbed.”
“I swear to God—”
“Coffee,” he said.
You stopped.
His thumb moved again. “Just coffee. Somewhere public. Somewhere with reflective surfaces covered if needed, cameras on, notes ready, exits clear. Worst first date ever, logistically, but emotionally? Strong concept.”
You stared at him.
He looked nervous now. Actually nervous. Tim Drake, who fought assassins and solved murders and apparently stared down gods with caffeine and audacity, was nervous because he had asked you for coffee.
Your heart broke in a new direction. A better one, maybe.
“You might forget halfway through.”
“I might.”
“You might look back at me and not know we’re on a date.”
“I might.”
“That would be awful.”
“Probably.”
“And you still want to?”
Tim’s voice went quiet. “Yes.”
You searched his face.
There was no perfect answer there. No cure. No promise safe enough to build forever on.
Only Tim. Only trying. Only a boy with too much grief and too little sleep, holding your hand like forgetting was not the same as letting go.
You squeezed his fingers.
“Okay,” you whispered.
Tim’s smile bloomed slowly. The sunrise caught on his lenses, turning them gold. “Okay?”
“Coffee.”
“Coffee,” he agreed.
“And if you forget, I’m leaving you with the bill.”
His smile widened. “Reasonable.”
“And I’m picking the place.”
“Smart.”
“And no making Forget-Me-Not my codename.”
He hesitated.
“Tim.”
“Fine.”
“Tim.”
“Fine.”
You laughed. He looked at you like the sound was something worth surviving for.
Then, because the universe was still cruel but maybe not only cruel, Tim looked away.
A gull cried overhead.
The city moved.
His hand stayed in yours.
The device in his cowl whispered softly.
His fingers tightened.
Then he looked back.
For one splintered second, his face was blank.
Your heart braced itself.
Then he glanced at his wrist. At your hand. At your face.
And smiled.
“Hi,” he said.
You smiled back, tears slipping hot down your cheeks. “Hi.”
Tim lifted your joined hands, pressing his mouth gently to your knuckles.
Not because he remembered everything.
Because he chose to begin again.
And for the first time in your life, being forgotten did not feel exactly like being gone.
Jeff had been on a mission all week. It was a big one, he was in a hurry and forgot his hoodie on his bed. Slowly you snuck in, peeking your head around the empty room. Posters decorating the room, some falling. A messy bed and the room was dark but cozy? Your eyes spotted his hoodie tossed carelessly on his bed still bloody but you didn't care you missed him do much. Your fingers grabbed the fabric and you slowly slipped it over your smaller frame it practically swallowed you whole! You wore it all day long not parting eith it once. Later that night you sat on the couch watching tv, hands under the hoodie, hoodie up so only your eyes peeked out, legs curled under the blanket.
Soon the door opened .ᐟ.ᐟ
To engrossed in your show you didn't realize. You felt safe, at home but then a familiar voice graced your ears. "What are you doing doll?" Your eyes snapped to him. Bloody, hair messy, breathing heavy but there's a look in his eyes. A look of pure possession and of course you ran to him, wrapping your arms around him. One if his strong hand traveling down your body to settle on the small of your back, other hand holding his knife. "Missed you too princess." He murmured kissing your head, his hand tightening on your back, grounding, possessive, his.
BEN
BEN wasn't home, be was out on a punishment by Slenderman for lack of completion. You thought it was absurd. Ben himself even said he was no proxy, that he didn't, couldn't be punished like them. Yet he chose to live the same as the other residents, chose to be apart of this twisted family. With a shrug you sat more comfortably on his gaming chair wearing his favorite tri-force hoodie and hat, your Nintendo in hand. You lowered your chin under the collar to fill your nose with his scent, lazily spinning his swivel chair.
A crackle and BEN teleported right to his bed.ᐟ.ᐟ
"Aw shit baby I'm so sore." He whined, hands above his head. He looked over at you and just froze, face reddened instantly in a cute blush. "Holy shit babe your so cute in my clothes!" He squealed tripping over his own feet to stand beside you. You looked up at him, one knee up, one dangling off the chair. "Hey Benny" you muttered, fingers lazily clicking the buttons. His heart fluttered, "Calling me pet names and wearing my clothes is peak cute girlfriend behavior." He whined dropping to his knees in front of you, arms around your waist, face in your stomach. Your fingers ran through his blonde locks and he sighed, content. "Missed you baby." He said softly, nuzzling into your stomach.
Toby
Slenderman had him chopping wood in the backyard. His sweatshirt off, left discarded on the porch. You slipped outside, careful not to disturb. Thankfully the loud chopping covered your steps. With a sigh of relief you slipped it on, and sat on the porch with a cup of water. The sun beat down on Toby, sweat dripping down his lean frame. You appreciativly sat there admiring him.
When he was done, he turned to come back in and saw you .ᐟ.ᐟ
His whole body froze, you were expecting him to be mad at how still he was. Slowly he approached and stood right in front of you smelling of wood and sweat. "Are you...?" He asked hesitantly and you nodded, holding out your glass of water to him. Surprised, he took it and gulped it in one go. After he was finished he stared at you with dark eyes. "I like seeing you in my clothes." He admits, one calloused hand running down your arm. You stood up, arms wide and he immediately grabbed you up, face in your neck. "All mine yeah?" He said in your ear, placing a kiss right under it. "All yours." You repeated softly, arms wrapping around his back, nails piercing his skin.
EJ
Standing outside his closet you internally debated if you would grab his hoodie. He wasn't paying attention to today, busy in the basement, working so this ought to get his attention. With a devious smile, you grabbed one of them, slipping it on. The end brushed the tops of your thighs. With silent steps you snuck down to the basement and stepped inside. His back was turned, white tank top stretching across his build. You climbed up on the medical table, swinging your feet slightly. You purposely sighed loudly, enough to get his attention.
Then he finally turned to you .ᐟ.ᐟ
"What are you planning?" He said lowly, if he had eyes they'd definitely have narrowed by now. "Nothing" you say sweetly feigning innocence. "Really? Nothing?" He places a tool down, walking over, arms around either side of you. "Nothing, you say but you sit here in my workspace, in my clothes, knowing exactly what it does to me." He continued, long fingers brushing the underside of your jaw precisely. "Hm maybe." Your dreamily as you placed your hands on his rough shoulders.
Helen
You came home late one night wearing his blue coat. It was cold, you couldn't find your own, and the thought of wearing his clothed made your stomach fill with butterflies. Thing was, Helen loved cleanliness and organizing. He would most definitely scold you for misplacing yours and be nitpicky with you using his. You planned on sneaking it back but as soon as you snuck inside...
He stood right in front of you in his snug black turtle neck
"Oh hi! Fancy seeing you here..." you try to joke but his face was anything but silly. You sighed, wringing your hands together. "Sorry...I couldn't find mine and I was running late..." you trailed off looking up at him. Thats when you noticed he didnt look mad or even remotely upset just a fierce sense of ownership and protection in his piercing blue eyes. The revelation making your heart pound harder for a completely different reason. "Thats alright. I don't mind you using my stuff." He said in his low calming voice but you didn't fail to hear the underlying tone suggesting more in his words then he let on.
Masky/Tim
It's been a long day at work for you. All you wanted to do was snuggle up with your boyfriend just to see he wasn't home yet, informed by BEN. You wanted to cry, exhaustion catching up to you and soin hot tears flooded your waterline, until you spotted his hoodie resting in the rack. With slow steps you grabbed it and hugged it close. Slowly you pulled it on and immediately felt better like he was really there. Your fingers traces the cigarette burn when the door opened.
Masky walked in, tired and drained .ᐟ.ᐟ
He took off his mask, eyes looking around his room to see you cuddled up in his hoodie on the bed. "What are you doing sweetheart?" Tim asked, the exhaustion heavy in his voice. "Missed you." You say quietly, sinking lower in his hoodie. He found it incredibly adorable despite himself. He sighed, and climbed into bed next to you. Trying to pretend he's unaffected even when you wrap your arms around him, even when you snuggle up into him. He was very much affected.
Hoodie/Brian
This man never takes his off so of course you snuck it when he showered. It was just sitting there no harm right? It was still warm. You laid on the bed in his room, scrolling social media when you heard the shower turn off, steam filing out of the open door. You heard him shuffling around and muttering in confusion.
Then he walks out, spotting you curled up
"Have you seen my-" he stopped short, registering the sight before him. He suddenly wasn't mad anymore. "Someone's comfy." He said with a slight smirk, arms crossed, hair still wet. You rolled over to face him with a mischievous smile. "It's very cozy." You said with mock seriousness. "Is it now?" He responded, crawling next to you, arm around your shoulder.
touchstarved ! rookie! reader x training officer! tim
summary: Tim had said ‘no more rookies’ after Lucy, but well. Things don’t always go according to plan. Just like you never thought you’d be staring at your training officer’s arms, wondering how they feel wrapped around you.
cw: daddy issues (seriously this is a tim x reader like. don’t we all have daddy issues) mild depression, descriptions of child death and abuse (it’s one scene and pretty easily skippable but yk police call stuff) tbh could be read as platonic this isn’t super romantic i just want tim to hold me i don’t care how he does it
a/n: in this universe chenford never happened even tho i ship it with every cell in my body. also im only like halfway through season two so take my depiction of characters and events with a grain of salt. buckle up this one’s LOOOOOONGGG
title taken from Lover You Should've Come Over by Jeff Buckley (jeff buckley i miss u)
──────────────────────
Tim Bradford has really nice hands.
This is, undoubtedly, not at all something you should be noticing about your training officer. Probably the most strict, unpredictable, unrelenting, high-key-wants-you-to-fail training officer in the LAPD.
And yet.
Here you are, noticing.
His arms are really nice too. The chords of muscle flex in a particular way while he drives. Especially when turning or when he’s conducting a car chase and his hands go white-knuckled on the steering wheel.
You think to yourself that his hands are probably warm. Tim seems like the kind of man to run hot.
Tim also makes sure that you understand how much he doesn’t like you.
You get it. Kind of. He’d been on his way to becoming a sergeant when it’d been decided that during the coarse of his career, not enough of his officers actually made it past being a rookie.
“One last go,” The captain had said on your first day, “Should be easy. This rookie’s the most self-sufficient thing since Officer West. If she doesn’t make the cut, I want to know why.”
So yeah. You’re pretty sure Tim tuned out the conversation after hearing ‘one last go’.
Additionally, you two have… clashing personalities. You’ve always prided yourself on being self-sufficient- on not needing anyone else. But Tim makes it his mission every single day to remind you of all the million different ways you need to rely on your partner and need them— need him.
It’s annoying on a good day and humbling on a bad one.
And then there’s the matter of Lucy Chen. One of the few rookies to survive the Tim Tests and actually make it past rookie, all the while gaining his respect and friendship.
You don’t even try to hope to reach what she accomplished. Lucy Chen is an inspiration, a pipe dream, and an unreachable standard wrapped up in blue. It’s clear that Tim is proud of the cop she’s become. Proud of his work.
You’re not sure he could ever be proud of you.
But you didn’t raise yourself to be a quitter. So you get up everyday and take the Tim Tests in stride. You work and learn and learn and work and pretend the lack of relationship or bond you have with your fellow rookies doesn’t bother you.
You pretend you don’t dream of being held by warm arms and wake up in the same position, alone and cold.
You pretend the heated blanket you bought during the Academy with your meager funds feels just like human warmth. You pretend it’s enough.
And you do what you always do: you manage.
—
Like with any job, there’s good days, and there’s bad days. You try not to dwell on the bad days, but you usually end up doing so anyways, usually in your silent, empty apartment as you try to fall asleep.
Your shift today is only half over, and you’ve already lost a suspect during a chase —Tim ended up catching her, and the look he shot you as he cuffed him was nothing short of fiery— you accidentally tampered with evidence —in your defense, you weren’t aware that piggy banks were used to move drugs, but accidentally dropping it made you want to crawl into a hole and die— and the cherry on top was the suspect you apprehended today, who, in her desperation to get away from you and jail, kicked you in the leg while she was on the ground. With her very long, and very skinny heel.
‘I got stabbed in the leg with a stripper’s heel’ isn’t a sentence you ever thought you’d say, but here you are. The wound isn’t that bad, thankfully. Just all the usual pain that comes from being stabbed with a fairly blunt object.
You sit in an uncomfortable hospital chair in the waiting room, elbow digging into the hard, wooden armrest and holding your head up by your forehead, while your other arm presses on the still sluggishly bleeding wound on your lower, mid thigh, leg stretched out in front of you.
You’re tired.
Recently, the bad days have outweighed the good ones. You knew this would be the case when you signed up to be a cop. You knew your apartment would feel empty and cold, but you thought that maybe, maybe, you’d make a few friends in your coworkers and it wouldn’t feel so unbearable.
But it turns out there isn’t enough time to make friends when you’re busy trying to get the highest scores in the Academy. And by the time you graduated, you’d been written off as a stuck-up teachers pet. Tolerated by the other rookies at best, occasionally sneered at and mocked at worst.
No fellow rookies, no friendly coworker, no nice neighbors in your apartment. Your training officer doesn’t like you, and the watch commander regularly enjoys singling you out for rookie-typical ridicule.
You’re tired.
The wound on your leg hurts like a bitch, already bruised to hell and back in that way that blunt force injuries usually do. Your pants are dark and sticky with blood, and the hand that’s applying pressure is uncomfortably tacky as you bleed, clot, and dry, over and over again.
It’s shitty. You feel shitty.
The fluorescent overhead lights are making your head pound and there’s so much noise in the waiting room, overlapping and, for lack of a better term, stabbing your eardrums in a pounding beat, and the pain is starting to make you a little nauseous, or maybe that’s the smell of anti-septic, and you fucked up so badly today, and oh god what if you get sepsis or a staff infection, that heel was so dirty, who knows where it’s been, and why won’t you just stop bleeding, and—
“Boot.”
—you haven’t called your mom in ages, she deserves better than that, and god your leg really hurts, and you don’t want to go home after this because—
“Rookie.”
—you’re most definitely being sent home, you got stabbed with a fucking heel for christ’s sake, and unlike after a normal shift you won’t have the exhaustion to just send you straight to bed, chores be damned, your apartment is so, so so quiet and you hate it—
“Hey!”
Snapping fingers in front of your face and Tim’s shout jolts you from your pain-slash-panic-induced spiral, and you reflexively clench your fists, then hiss in pain as your grip tightens over the wound.
He’s crouched in front of you, dark, steady eyes scrutinizing your face.
“Sorry,” you huff, face hot with embarrassment. “It’s, um, it’s loud in here.”
He just nods once, looking rather unimpressed. You resist the urge to fidget.
“You good to stay here while I go back out?”
The thought of waiting in the ER alone, and then more than likely catching an Uber to the station and then ignoring possible doctors orders to drive yourself home from there is… less than pleasant.
But if it has to be done, then it has to be done.
“Yeah,” You say easily, the lie slipping right off your tongue. “Yeah, yeah I’ll be good.”
Your injury had already been called in, so Grey wasn’t expecting you back at the station. Tim would go back on shift and you’d take care of yourself like you always do. You’ll be fine eventually. You always are.
You expect Tim to take the easy out. You’ve handed it to him on a silver platter. Express permission to not have to deal with you anymore today.
He sighs, unexpectedly, then stands, and you look down so you don’t have to watch him walk away, and wait to hear the sound of his retreating footsteps.
They don’t come.
The chair next to you creaks as someone sits down in it.
As Tim sits down in it.
You blink, looking up at him. “Officer Bradford?”
He’s crossed his arms across his chest, sparing you a small glance. “What?”
You look down at your lap. “Nothing.”
He doesn’t say anything, just pulls out his phone, clearly texting someone —probably Officer Lopez— and pretty much ignores you as you wait to be called back.
His presence is enough, though. It chases away some of that creeping panic and chill in your chest. You relax in increments. Your posture slouches, your hand unclenches, and you feel like you can take a breath without throwing up.
Eventually, your name gets called, and maybe you just look especially pathetic as your stiffly and shakily climb to your feet and begin ambling towards the indicated trauma room, but you hear another annoyed sigh, and then Tim’s mumbling “Here,” and then your arm is around his shoulders and his arm snakes behind your back and just above your waist.
And fuck.
If you thought that having him near you was something, having the arms of the man you’ve literally dreamt about doing nearly this exact same thing is… it’s a drug.
Your skin is on fire where’s he’s quite literally holding you together as you awkwardly shuffle across the waiting room. His hands are warm even through the under shirt and your uniform shirt. The rush of chemicals in your head is dizzying at the contact, your brain startlingly aware of each and every place the two of you are connected.
To him, it’s nothing. To you, it’s everything.
If this is what hard drugs feel like, you sympathize with the addicts. All it takes is his arm around you, safe and steadying, and you’re gone. Hooked.
You try your best to file the feeling away in your head, to commit it to memory, so later, when those bad days have their cold nights, you can take it out and remember it. Remember what felt like to be even half wrapped like this. Supported and steadied.
It’s an uncharacteristic show of care on Tim’s part. He’s not exactly a touchy-feely kind of guy. He’s more like the ‘deal with it or quit’ kind of guy.
But he’s helping you here, now. More than he knows.
You don’t comment on any of this, of course, because you don’t want to draw attention to how much you’re leaning into his touch.
You hope he writes it off as needing help walking.
—
The first night after the stabbing —Tim does not let you drive yourself home, though looks vaguely impressed that you were completely willing, and instead drops you off and has Officer Lopez drive your car back to your place— is great. You sleep clear through the night without waking up once. The memory of Tim holding you up, touching you, is fresh in your mind. Sleeping is easy. You arrive to work for once not faking your enthusiasm under layers of professionalism. You actually, genuinely feel okay.
As the weeks progress though, you start flagging.
By the time a month has gone by, you’re downright miserable. You didn’t realize just how empty your chest could feel after actually feeling how warm and full it could be.
This, of course, means doubling over on professionalism, because there’s absolutely no way that anyone can know how much you’re starting to fracture, bit by bit. You’re strong, put-together, and self-sufficient. You take Tim’s training in stride and you never complain. You don’t rise to the bait when you get singled out for hazing, and laugh when you become the subject of a rookie prank.
You do not stare at Tim’s arms or hands out of the corner of your eye when he’s not looking, you do not imagine the big pillow you hold at night is him, and most importantly you do not even entertain the fantasy in which Tim holds you, really holds you, and you don’t have to keep it all together anymore.
It’s not realistic. You’re always going to hold everything together. You always have and you always will.
But sometimes, every now and then, you get something well and truly right, and Tim says “Good job, boot.” And he means it. Gets that crinkle near his eyes and that twitch in his jaw when he’s trying not to look impressed or pleased. And it chases away the empty, just for a little bit. Makes how hard he pushes you just a little more worth it, each time.
It’s starting to get to you, though. Has been for awhile. Because it’s a bit pathetic, isn’t it, to think these things about your training officer? Someone who would never, ever do the things you want him to do? As trivial and stupid and childish as they are?
And look. You’re not stupid. You know exactly why you’ve fixated on Tim Bradford specifically. You’re well versed in the art of “intellectualizing your feelings so you don’t have to feel them” and your want of your training officer’s touch is no mystery. He checks all your boxes- Brooding, emotionally unavailable, harsh, attractive, and more importantly, in a position of power over you. So you get it. Daddy issues, your emotional needs not being met growing up, blah blah blah. It’s whatever.
What’s not whatever is your inability to stop obsessing over it. Him. You need to get a grip.
You want to become a detective. And, not to mention, you’ve worked incredibly hard to be a damn good cop.
But here you are, sitting in the shop with Tim, spacing out when you should be paying attention because you saw one of your old friends post the anniversary for her and her boyfriend last night and now you can’t stop thinking about how she probably look at every couple and wonder how it feels to have someone around, constantly, to soothe the near permanent ache in your chest and itch under your skin.
She probably doesn’t have the ache or itch at all.
“Boot!” Tim barks, voice sudden and loud. “Where are we?”
You jolt in place. “Uh—“
Tim slams on the brakes, your seatbelt snapping against your chest. “I’ve been shot. I’m dead. Where were you just now?”
You scramble for an answer. “I was—“
“Your head wasn’t here,” He jams a finger onto the center console. “And in this line of work, that means you’re dead. It means people die on your watch.”
He starts the car, and without the crackling of dispatch over the radio, it’s awhile before he speaks again.
“What’s wrong?”
The words sound so foreign coming from Officer Bradford that you pause.
“Is that a trick question? Is the answer…um… I should focus more…?”
“Well, yes, and no,” He responds, face set in a slight grimace, “Yes, you need to focus more, but no, that wasn’t a trick question.”
When you don’t immediately respond —what are you supposed to say to that?— he keeps going.
“You’re spacey. You don’t get spacey. But you’ve been all over the place lately, so something’s up.”
“Nothing’s—“
He levels you with a Look.
Now it’s your turn to sigh.
One of the main reasons you didn’t get along with other students at the Academy was your unwillingness to sacrifice your career for a social life. You didn’t tell anybody your sob story— didn’t need the pity, didn’t care what they thought.
And you don’t really want to tell Tim either, but for a different reason. An opposite one, really. You do care what he thinks. A lot. And you don’t want to sound whiny or sensitive or any less of a capable cop. You need to prove to him that you can do this.
But Tim also has the best bullshit sensor of anyone you know, and will immediately see through you if you try to lie.
“I moved to California right before I started at the Academy. I was focused and career driven. And I’ve never really been social. It just, uh, kind of hit me, I guess. That my family is a thousand miles away.”
“What, you don’t have any friends from the Academy?”
His confidence in your social skills is nice, if not very misguided.
You shrug. “I gave up everything to move here. I thought that if I went out to bars and parties, I’d lose focus and fail. I couldn’t, and still can’t afford to.”
Tim’s saved from responding by a call close to your location crackling out from dispatch. And thank god for that. You’re sure as hell not itching to restart the conversation, and besides. Tim wants you to get your head in the game, so you do. Complete and utter focus on the call.
It goes well. But Tim doesn’t say anything as you climb back in the shop, not even a not-displeased hum.
“That’s stupid, you know.”
You look up from where you were checking something in the system. “What?”
“This thing you’re doing. You’re not even living. You’re just going to work and then going home. Your performance is shitty because you feel shitty.”
You gape for a second before rushing to respond. “My performance isn’t—“
“Yeah, it is. Don’t argue me on this, boot. You’re drowning, is what you’re doing. You have no work life balance. You’re going to burn out, and then you wash out.”
He turns to you, eyes bright and jaw set. “And you better not wash out, because you’re my last rookie and I need you to win.”
Right. Yes. Of course. Tim needs you to win, so he needs you to get focused, and get real.
The smile you give him is perfectly practiced and hollow. You ignore the nausea churning in your chest.
“Don’t worry. I don’t do anything other than win.”
—
Even though it’s most definitely stupid and insane, you ignore Tim’s advice. Since when have you had the energy to do things outside of work but rot in bed? And besides. Going out would mean losing precious sleeping hours, which are already hard enough to come by as it is. You don’t need to make your energy levels any worse than they already are by adding going to bed late on top of incredibly fitful sleep.
So it’s fine. You’re handling it.
—
You’re not handling it.
You’re exhausted. All the time. The more tired you are, the more you have to work to make sure your performance at work isn’t suffering. Which makes you more tired.
And you just… can’t sleep. You toss and turn all night, wake up a million times, and usually end up reliving your worst cases with added bonuses, like Tim being injured, and then berating you for it, and then the watch commander calls you into his office and fires you.
And then there’s the guilt. The sickening, nauseating guilt that follows you day after day, choking and clogging your throat because you know you’re better than this. You’re better than this. But you’re not getting better.
You should’ve taken Tim’s advice, maybe. Should’ve heard it two, three, maybe four months ago and extended yourself to other people and tried going out, making a routine of trying new things other than sleeping, watching tv, or working, but it’s too late now and you’re just so fucking tired.
And alone.
Really, really, alone.
When you finally lose it, it’s because of a call. A bad one. A really bad one.
It’s a little girl. No older than nine or ten. Her mother had reported her missing when she’d come home from work and her daughter and her husband were missing. At first, the report hadn’t been taken seriously, but the mother begged and pleaded. It was Lucy who’d pulled up the woman’s husband and found several previous charges for domestic violence and abuse that dispatch had sent multiple units after the child.
Whom you found. Locked in a car.
You were the one to break the window. You were the one to get her out.
You were the one who had to call an RA unit for a nine year old girl, not conscious, not breathing.
Tim pulled you away from the scene. From her. Kept a hand on your shoulder and steered you towards the shop, and you were shaking. Are shaking. You’re in the shop. You can’t get your hands to stop shaking.
Tim is uncharacteristically silent. He doesn’t start the car. You can see him watching you out of the corner of your eye. You need to stop shaking. You need to get it together.
It’s just. That was you. Could’ve been you. Almost was you, once or twice.
You spent a lot of time in locked cars growing up.
“Boot,” Tim says softly, too softly, he’s babying you, “You need to take a minute.”
“No, no,” The first no is shaky and the second is no better but you need to be fine, “I’m fine, I’ll be fine. I need to adapt, need to get used to this kind of thing.”
He makes a noise of annoyance in the back of his throat. “No you don’t. Becoming desensitized to this kind of thing isn’t what you want to happen. Trust me.”
You breath is starting to hitch a little, and your eyes are beginning to burn. Why can’t you stop shaking? It happened so long ago.
“I’m fine. I’m— It’s okay. We should get back on the road.”
Your voice wobbles at the end. You clench your jaw, steel yourself against the onslaught of emotions and will yourself to just get a fucking grip.
“Hey,” Tim starts, voice that lower, gentle tone he sometimes uses on victims, and that’s messed up, because you’re not a victim, just dramatic, “It’s okay to not be okay after something like that.”
“I’m fine!” You snap, “I survived. She didn’t.”
Oh.
You feel the first few tears begin falling, and immediately scrub them off your face as fast and as hard as you can.
“I’m sorry,” You half-whisper, mortified at the action of crying and snapping at him. “I’m sorry, this is, this is really unprofessional—“
You hunch, pressing the heels of your hands so hard into your eyes starbursts of color are whirling behind them.
Tim doesn’t say anything, which only adds to your mounting anxiety, until you hear the semi-familar sound of him typing on his phone, and then a steady tik. Tik. Tik.
You look up, your eyes already puffy.
Tim sets his phone down on the console between the two of you.
“That timer is set for ten minutes. For ten minutes, you are not going to be fine. Ten minutes while we drive. Got that?”
You sniffle pathetically. “Ten minutes is a long time to put up with me crying.”
He shrugs. “If I give you your ten minutes, and you get this out, then you’ll be more focused on the job. Seems like a fair trade off to me.”
You’re not expecting the firm hand to land on your shoulder.
“This was your first d-o-a. Even the best cops are shaken after something like that. It changes you. That is not something be ashamed of.”
You let yourself lean into the touch, ever so slightly. The tears start falling easier after that, and, still not entirely comfortable with crying in front of your TO, you cover your face with your hands.
The crying bit is over in only a few minutes. The rest of the time on the timer is spent staring down at your lap and trying to calm yourself down, and when that doesn’t work, you pull out your phone and soothe yourself by organizing one of your Pinterest boards. Ah, the peace that comes from setting arbitrary rules that affect no one and organizing pictures based on these rules. Bliss.
Tim only removes his hand after you stop crying, which. You try your best to memorize the touch —no matter how mortifying the circumstances— and try your best not to think about how it almost seems like starting to catch onto the messier parts about yourself you’d like to keep hidden.
—
Sometimes it’s hard not to feel well and truly and completely alone.
You know you’re not. Not really. Not if you tried harder, extended yourself more. Made an effort to get out there. But you don’t have any energy for efforts. You don’t have anything left to give.
Tim’s touch and approval and just there-ness haunt you on your off days and are, if you’re being embarrassingly and horrifyingly honest, the only thing you really look forward to anymore.
You like your job. You do. But you’re tired. And how many times can you say that? Can you think that?
Please, someone, put me down, let me go, give me a minute, I’m tired.
So it’s not really surprising when you get sick.
You’ve been running yourself absolutely ragged, day in and day out, and when you wake, feeling like death warmed over, you don’t even groan. It makes your throat hurt.
Your head pounds with pressure from your sinuses and your hands shake as you put on your uniform in the locker room. Your slow-and-unsteady gait gathers a few looks as you make your way into the, surprisingly empty, roll call room.
Is it really empty if one person is in it? Tim’s in it. He’s leaned up against the front desk, where you usually sit with the other rookies. Only time you’re really ever near them. He looks mad. Why’s he mad?
“Boot,” He starts, voice low, and that’s never a good sign, “Is there a reason you decided not to show up to roll call today?”
You blink, thoughts going about as fast as a fish in frozen water, “But it’s not time for roll call yet.”
It’s not. You woke up when your alarm went off, took cold medicine (probably more than you’re supposed to, and the wrong combination of them, but who cares) and drove to the precinct. Same as you always do. Minus the cold medicine.
Tim frowns. He’s always frowning. He frowns deeper. “You’re over an hour late.”
That…doesn’t make any sense. How’d you lose an hour of time? Did you fall asleep somewhere along the way? You don’t remember falling asleep. You’re not missing any memories, no blank spots, no black outs.
“Boot!” He barks, and you flinch and the noise, pressing a hand to your forehead as if that’ll help the sharp stab of pain in your head that accompanies his raised voice.
Tim is downright glaring at you now. “Are you hungover?”
“No!” You reply indignantly, then instantly regret it due to the burn you now feel in your throat, “I’m just like. Kind of sick.”
Did that come out convincing enough? You’re sure you can still work. You worked through every cold and flu and fever back at the Academy. You can totally do this, right?
Tim pushes off the table and stalks towards you. arms crossed. He uncrosses them as he gets closer and—
Oh. That’s nice. His hand’s cool.
Your eyes flutter shut, unbidden, as the cool skin of the back of his hand presses to your forehead. If your eyes were open, you’d be able to see that his frown has taken on a concerned brow furrow to accompany it, but you’re too busy enjoying the simple contact to notice. Or keep your eyes open.
He takes his hand away with a sigh, and you stumble forward a little.
“You feel like you’re on fire. Jesus- did you drive here?”
You nod, to avoid angering your throat, and end up angering your headache instead.
“Yeah, you’re going home.”
Panic stabs you in the chest.
“No!” You rasp, “I’m fine. I’m a rookie, it’s my job to keep working no matter what—“
“It’s also,” Tim interrupts, “Your job to take care of yourself, but you’re shit at that, which is why you’re sick in the first place. So I’m going to drive you home and make sure you’re not going to die by yourself while you’re sick.”
You shake your head. “I used to work through being sick all the time at the Academy, I can do it.”
“And you were stupid for doing that too. The key difference here is that you’re not responsible for peoples lives at the Academy. I’m not going to get shot today because you’re too hopped up on cold medicine to cover me.”
“But—“
“I’m sorry,” He growls, “Were you under the impression that you have any sort of say in this decision?”
You close your mouth.
“That’s what I thought. Go wait at my desk while I clear this with the watch commander.”
You trudge solemnly to his desk, head and vision swimming. Great. Now Tim’s upset at you and you feel awful. Why is everything so terrible?
You slump into the chair at his desk, dropping your head onto your arms and allowing your eyes to close. The walk from the briefing room to Tim’s desk exhausted you. And your uniform feels extra uncomfortable.
You just want to be at home, not sick, and maybe sleeping restfully for the first time since becoming a cop. Maybe you’re not cut out to be a cop. Maybe you should quit. Maybe—
Someone gently shakes your shoulder, and your straighten, blinking blearily.
“Come on, up we go.”
A strong arm hooks under yours and carefully hauls you up, and let out a small whine at the movement. Tim’s desk is comfortable. And smells vaguely like him.
“Don’t give me that. I’m taking you home. We need to go get your stuff from the locker room.”
You whine again, as if the noise will somehow convey everything you’re feeling at the moment.
I don’t want to leave the temporary and fake saftey of Tim’s desk. I don’t want to go home cause my home is empty and I’m sick. I’m extra miserable because I’m sick. My brain isn’t working and I don’t remember what locker I put my stuff in. I don’t even know if I brought my stuff. Is it somehow possible for my technical-boss to take me to his house instead and tuck me into his bed that smells like him and has him in it so I can sleep next to another human being and feel safe for even twenty minutes?
Of course, none of this is relayed to Tim, who’s currently half holding half dragging you over to the locker rooms, grip firm but not unkind.
After assuring you that no one else is even going to be in the locker room because you’re now over an hour into your shift, he goes with you and helps you find and take your stuff. In your sick daze, you did manage to bring your bag and water bottle, but neglected to put any water in your water bottle or put your wallet in your bag.
Tim just mutters an “Alright, come on,” once your stuff has been acquired, and escorts you out to the parking lot.
Two things occur to you.
One, Tim is no longer dressed in his uniform. Instead, he now sports jeans and a dark gray henley.
Two, you’re both headed towards the personal parking lot.
If Tim isn’t in work clothes anymore, and he’s taking you towards his car, that means he’s not just dropping you off at your house.
He is, presumably, going to look after you. Because you’re sick.
He ushers you into the passenger seat, going so far as to help you up and grab the seatbelt for you. He leans over you when he does it, and there’s a second where he’s pressed against you and it’s so nice and you kind of want to live in the moment forever but you can’t because you’re sick and he’s mad at you and he shouldn’t have to deal with this and you should’ve been better.
You sniffle just as he starts the car, momentarily thankful for the engine turning over hiding the sound, but unfortunately, the second the tears start, they don’t stop.
Tim notices immediately, because of course he does.
“What’s wrong?”
You hiccup a half-sob. “I’m sorry. I should’ve called out.”
“Yeah, you should have.”
You sniff again, harder, cause now your nose is running. “I thought I could do it. I thought I could handle it.”
He eases the car out of the parking space. “Having a brain-cooking fever isn’t really something you can just handle.”
He eyes the fat tears rolling down your cheeks and you see the muscles in his jaw work.
“Why didn’t just call out sick?”
“I don’t like calling out. I wanna be a model employee. Model officer. Wanna be reliable. I wanna be—“
You swallow, voice hoarse and wobbly. “I just wanna be good.”
The car is silent for awhile. A long while. Tim doesn’t respond, and with your nerves now thoroughly fried and your immune system making a minor attempt on your life, you’re pretty sure you fall asleep.
You wake to Tim shaking you, albeit gently, and helping you out of the car. He instructs you to leave your bag and to go inside and change.
He really doesn’t have to tell you twice. You feel awful. So bad. Terrible. Horrible.
Changing clothes only serves to exhaust you further, so you trudge out to the living room and collapse onto your couch, shivering. There’s a blanket only a few feet away, but it’s just so far.
You hear your front door open and the sound of heavy-footsteps, and then there’s the creak of your shitty fridge opening and a few mumbled curses.
You ignore the noises behind you and dedicate all of your energy to grabbing the remote off the coffee table and finding something you don’t have to think about watching. Maybe Criminal Minds. Or Bluey.
“I,” Tim starts, then annoyedly snatches the blanket off the end of the coach and drags it up over you, “Am going to the store, because your fridge looks like it hasn’t been used since the eighteen-hundreds. Don’t die while I’m gone.”
“Okay,” You say, but your voice is hoarse and muffled by the blanket so it comes out more like, “Mmomhay.”
You end up watching Jurassic Park, because nothing makes you feel better like dinosaurs and people getting eaten by them. Classic.
Tim does return at some point, right about when you’re thinking of just binge watching every single Jurassic Park/World movie, and starts making noise in your kitchen. Which you also ignore.
You’re doing a lot of ignoring today.
It’s easy though, is the thing. Tim is cooking something, if the sounds of grocery bags and pots and pans and chopping are anything to go off, and he’s handled you and his’s shifts, so there’s no work to worry about, and you’re really honestly too sick to think about any other things that need to be done.
Tim’s taking care of it. So you don’t have to worry, cause he’s cooking something, and people are getting eaten by dinosaurs on the tv in front of you, so maybe everything will be okay for the time being.
The okay feeling comes to a swift and brutal end when Tim comes around the edge of the couch and tells you to sit up.
“M’ comfy,” You mumble, indignant.
He rolls his eyes, ever exasperated. “You can’t eat soup while laying down.”
“Watch me.”
“No. Come on, sit up.”
You whine as he pulls you forward, stuffing pillows behind you so you don’t actually have to put effort in to staying upright. He then places a tray you didn’t know you owned (maybe he bought it?) on your lap and places a small bowl of soup and a sleeve of saltines.
Your eyes begin to burn with unshed tears again.
Tim groans. “It’s just soup, Boot.”
You sniff harshly. “No one’s made me soup before.”
He sigh’s long-sufferingly, but his vocal exasperation is undermined by the careful way he dabs at the tears on your cheeks.
“Thought you liked your mom.” Tim says, a question hidden in his voice.
“I do. But we were really poor, so she couldn’t really afford to take time off work because I was sick. And I got sick pretty often so,” You pick up your spoon with shaky fingers. “I got good at taking care of myself.”
“Yeah?” Tim says, opening the package of saltines for you, “Then where’d all that skill go?”
He clearly means it as a joke, but you still can’t help the small stab of guilt in your chest.
You set the spoon back down. “I’m just really tired.”
He doesn’t sigh again, but he does purse his lips in that way he does when he’s upset about something and can’t quite decide how to show it.
When he moves, it surprises you. He takes the soup off your lap, moves the tray to the little coffee table by your couch. Turns the TV volume up. Loud enough to hear the audible crunch of the Spinosaurus battling the T. Rex.
Then, he reaches forward and just. Reaches his arms around your waist and back and pulls you forward, then borderline man-handles you into a comfortable position with your legs now where your head used to be, and your had pillowed on his shoulder. He wraps an arm around your waist, pulling you just that much closer.
You couldn’t have stopped yourself from melting into the embrace even if you weren’t hopped up on cold medicine.
After a few minutes of mindlessly watching a Spinosaurus go on a rampage, he speaks again.
“You wanna know what I think?”
You nod into his arm, face smushed.
“I think you got really good at making people not worry about you. You probably had to.”
For a brief second, you think about hunger, and sickness, and locked cars.
“And I think that in my haste to get through this training period and make it to Sergeant, I didn’t bother looking deeper to find out if you were lying or not.”
You shift in place, now a little uncomfortable as the conversation has switched over to you. “It’s not really your responsibility.”
“It is,” Tim says easily, tone-matter-of-fact. “You’re my rookie. And it shouldn’t have taken me this long to learn what kind of training and support you needed.”
You sit up at his words. Which is a huge mistake, because then you get really dizzy and nauseous and there are weird stars dancing across your vision.
“You—“ You pause, taking a deep breath, “This is police work. I shouldn’t have to be coddled every step of the way.”
“Lay back down,” He tugs you down by your waist. “You aren’t coddled every step of the way. You’re a capable cop. You’re good at your job. I’m not holding your hand. I’m giving you what you need.”
You sink lower on the couch, trying to hide your face from this mortifying experience. Unfortunately the closest thing to hide your face in is Tim’s side.
Oh well. Beggars can’t be choosers.
He rubs your back consolingly. It only feels a little patronizing.
“But,” He continues, “I don’t know what you need if you don’t tell me.”
“I don’t want to bother you with that. You’re my T.O.”
“And you’re my rookie,” Tim continues smoothly, “I can’t send my rookie out on the streets if any criminal can get to her through a hug.”
“Hey,” You grumble, “That’s mean.”
“No it’s not.”
You pull your face away from his side and go back to facing the TV.
“But what if I need this a lot? What if my brain gets… screwy when I’m alone for awhile, and this is what fixes it?”
“Then I’d say it was a fairly normal reaction and need.” Tim shrugs.
You look up at him questioningly.
“Look. I didn’t have a great dad either. It’s not…” He trails off, jaw working. “Bad things happened to you. You dealt with them the only way you knew how. But now you need a little extra help. That’s all.”
“That sounds like something Lucy would say.”
Tim rolls his eyes. “How could you tell?”
The conversation lulls into a gentle silence. Tim continues trailing his hand up and down your side. Up and down, up and down, up and down. And occasionally pause to rub, knead, or scratch. All of which you lean into with equal amounts of shame and enjoyment.
“You’re like a cat,” He mumbles, eyes trained on the still rampaging Spinosaurus, “Can’t believe I didn’t make the connection before.”
You don’t have it in you to do anything more than make a non-committal hum.
A couple beats pass.
“Thank you.”
Tim’s hand trails a little higher on the next pass, his large palm curling up over your shoulder and to the back of your neck.
Hiii!!!!! I saw that you had requested opened and wanted to request the creeps (mainly Tim, Brian, habit, and toby but any others ) texting the reader about one or 3 things. 1) the reader passed out from insomnia maybe on them? 2) reader drunk confessed to having a crush on the creep or 3) the reader befriended some random creature (like a deer or a crow) and said creature is taking too much of readers free time.
If non of this speaks to you I honestly just go free have fun!
Thanks!
Anon
┗━━━━Drunk Words, Sober Thoughts ━━━━┛
Features: Tim, Brian, Habit, Toby, Jeff, Nina.
Author's Note: I will be doing all three !! This one first, then the insomia one as headcanons, and then the animal one as a smau. Im so glad I got to write without correcting my spelling mistakes for this 😭😭. I type fast and often mispell stuff and my friends say I type in simlish LMFAO.
Yandere Stephanie Brown who's smitten with you, one of Tim's exes. (GN reader, but panties are mentioned, feel free to swap that out with something else in your mind)
Also heavily implied Yandere TimSteph x Reader at the end
(stay with me here)
~~~~~~~~~~~
She met you for the first time while you and Tim were still dating.
He was infatuated with you, and since Steph was his "best friend", insisted that you two had to meet. He sung your praises the whole way to the cafe where you were waiting for the two of them.
He'd said that when he was with you all the weight that seemed to cling onto his bones went away and he could finally breathe.
Steph just scoffed at first, but in due time, she understood exactly what he meant.
You'd been sweet to her, never once acting like a bitter partner—insecure over how close he was to his ex. Instead, you'd embraced every time she tagged along on your dates with him, making sure she felt included at all times, even if it was something as small as sitting with her on a ride at an amusement park. (Tim wasn't the happiest at having to sit in the row behind you two, but you made it up to him easily enough with a peck on the lips.)
You were good.
Full stop, no more discussion.
Tim knew it. Steph knew it. Hell, even Tim's family knew it, studying you with an almost hopeful gleam in their eyes when you came over for dinner, hoping that finally somebody untainted would enter their orbit and stay there.
But you didn't, breaking up with Tim after half a year of being together. Tim was heartbroken, spending long nights crying in Steph's apartment while her mom was working the night shift.
He wasn't the only one. Bruce had looked visibly disapointed when he'd asked Tim about you after patrol once, only to be met with a stiff "webrokeup". Neither the father nor any of his sons seemed to be very good at holding down a relationship, but the whole family had hope for this one.
Of course, Steph was also heartbroken, since after her 5th time tagging along with the two of you, she'd identified that familiar warmth inside her heart that told her she'd fallen hard.
When Tim first told her the two of you were finished, she was selfishly happy, assuming that she was clear to make a move now. The two of you had become close friends, it wouldn't be weird, right?
But no, apparently things hadn't ended on good terms. You'd sent Tim a text, asking him to meet you at the park where you told him in no uncertain words that what you had wasn't working out.
You didn't offer him much other than a gentle parting kiss, patting his hair one last time and telling him to take care of himself.
Of course, Tim had broken down then, yanking you back by a hand and begging you to tell him what was wrong, overall starting to cause quite a scene.
You cracked, begging him to please leave you alone and that it was because you couldn't stand how overbearing he was, constant interrogations and a lack of boundaries starting to suffocate you. Apparently it was the fourth tracker you'd found in your shoes that pushed you over the edge.
So when she sent Tim away for the night, after two weeks of him moping around her apartment, she made a plan to at least secure her spot on your good side (and hopefully in your bed if everything worked out).
She'd texted you, asking if you wanted to swing by her apartment, writing a heartfelt message about how much she still wanted to be your friend despite what had happened between you and Tim.
You took the bait—hook, line, and sinker.
She waited for you to come over that Friday night, a pack of beer in one hand and takeout in the other.
A few hour into the night and suddenly you were ranting, drunk and loose-lipped, about how much your relationship with Tim had upset you.
He was perfect at first, you'd wined at her, tears in those pretty eyes, but then you found the photos he'd taken of you from before you were dating and the eyes of the teddy bear he'd given you turned out to be cameras, so you knew you had to break it off.
Steph only listened, nodding along at the right times, and agreeing with you when you'd said that it was just too much. Inwardly, she couldn't help but scold Tim for getting greedy, soft things needed gentle hands, and Tim was always a little too rough with what he considered his. He'd put his own urges before you, and she's make sure to smack him upside the head for it next time.
It wasn't until you'd woken up the next morning, very much not on the couch you'd passed out on last night, instead in one of Tim's familiar high-rises somewhere in the city, that you began to panic.
Because while you thought you were safe getting drunk with a friend, Steph had never touched the alcohol, instead nursing a can of Zesti.
Zesti was Tim's favorite.
~~~~~~
Steph was ecstatic, watching you struggle against your restraints on the cameras. Tim would figure out where you were soon enough, but she wasn't worried.
He'd given her the key to this apartment a little while ago, since it was closer to Gotham U and she wouldn't have to pay for utilities.
He was sweet like that.
She'd let you out of the restraints when you calmed down, for now content to let you tire yourself out.
She couldn't wait until you realized that it was just her, and Steph would never hurt you.
You must know that, right?
Anyway, taking care of a whole person was hard enough, but juggling your adjustment period (inevitably messy) and her coursework at Gotham University? That would be quite a bit of work, especially considering her night job as Spoiler.
....Well you said Tim was perfect at one point right? And no matter the label they had on their relationship, Steph and him were a little closer than friends, anyway.
Maybe it wouldn't be so bad to have some help with this.
God knew how much Tim had missed you, and she'd be sure to keep him in line this time (no more sneaky panty-huffing, she'd be making sure he took care of you first and foremost.)
When the familiar number flashed across her home screen, she picked up.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~
yum yum yum yum timsteph x reader yum steph x reader yum
This one's really sticking with me, might expand on this (also I do see and appreciate all the love on the other blurbs, trust, I'm coming around to working on them as well 😉)
