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"Just so people know he's not gone," Dick says for what has to be the tenth time tonight, and they're not even fully suited up yet. He knows that Tim's laughing at him, on the inside, at least; he's making a grand effort of not showing it, and Dick can appreciate that. The little crinkle of strain at the corner of his mouth is a giveaway, though. Bruce would make him aware of the deficiency, tell him how to fix it. Dick can't, or doesn't want to.
"Just until he gets back," Dick says again, and the cape ripples with the shrug of his shoulders.
"Dick." Tim's voice is even enough to let Dick know that he's completely shattering his concentration, fingers stilling on the keyboard. "Have we stepped into a time loop?"
"Right, sorry." Dick leans in over Tim's shoulder to peek at the monitor, wincing at his own bulk. "It just feels weird. Wrong."
Tim finishes updating the file he's working on (it's Impulse's, and if the team could see half the data Batman keeps on all of them—that's a bad line of thought to follow), turns in his chair to stare Dick down. "You said yourself, it's only every once in awhile. We'll patrol like always. It'll be fine."
It'll be better than fine, actually, because they are who they are: Bruce would not have gone out of the city, let alone off-planet, without being firm in the knowledge that they could handle his absence, that they could not only pick up his slack, but pick up his entire being, take the Bat and duplicate it perfectly. They'll be better than fine, and no one will know the difference unless they are very sloppy or very unlucky.
But it feels weird.
No room for that, here, though, not when he's supposed to be the big brother. So he just grins and says, "Yeah, you're right. Besides, he could be home tomorrow for all we know."
Tim doesn't smile. Dick feels his own start cracking at the edges until the crackle of the comm breaks their silence.
"I've got the docks tonight," Barbara says. "You boys gonna be alright by yourselves?"
"'Course we are, B.G." Dick pulls the cowl down and follows Tim to the car. "Try not to have too much fun."
"Don't worry, Boy Wonders. I'll save you some." He can hear the smirk in her voice. "If you're quick."
Dick slides into the driver's seat, offers Tim his nicest smile. The expression he gets in return is the most confounding mixture of pained and wry. "What?"
"That, ah," Tim starts, mouth twitching a little. "Is very disconcerting. With the—" He gestures above his head in what Dick understands to be a fairly accurate depiction of the Bat-ears. He sighs, and they peal out of the Cave.
-
It was only meant to be a short patrol. A couple of hours, tops, enough to make sure that enough low-level thugs saw them in action, could run back to their bosses and tell them that Batman and Robin saved that day. That Batman and Robin stopped that shipment.
That Batman and Robin are still here.
Robin has other ideas.
They've been at it long enough to strengthen their—he doesn't want to call it a cover, but that's what it is, because Tim is not his Robin and he sure as hell isn't Batman—but Robin is still bouncing on his heels, diving down into the street almost faster than he can keep up. Which is odd, in its own way. Tim's movements were always controlled, if a little rigid, but tonight, he's all loose, wild limbs, using more upper body than anything, like a brawler, like a street kid, like—
"You coming, boss?" Robin's head is cocked to the side, and he's grinning, foot planted firmly on the chest of a dealer he took down with a fury, like every swing was personal, like he meant every punch. Under the cowl, Dick clenches his jaw.
Tim is Robin, but Robin is not always Tim; that much, he can understand. And he can understand the pieces of Robin he put there himself, but the parts that aren't him are the ones that are interesting, are the ones that Tim's flaunting.
"Robin," he says. Robin's grin explodes into laughter.
"Nice try," he says, and grapples to the roof of a nearby building. Dick curses and follows him, leaves the dealer moaning on the ground.
By the time he's caught up, he's winded, which is really saying something, and Robin is already neck deep in a fight, which is becoming a precedent. He swoops down into the thick of it, cape billowing around him. His loom is better than he'd thought; a couple of outliers flee at the sight of him, and Robin laughs, keeps throwing punches. They make quick work of it, between the two of them. Dick hates the cape and the cowl and the lifts in his boots but he knows Bruce well enough to know how to fight like Batman, to be able to throw his weight around effectively, and beside him Robin is cutting through men like butter. He turns around just in time to see the last thug standing get his teeth kicked out, and then to watch Robin kneel beside a crate dropped and abandoned in the ruckus.
"Looks like Scarecrow's stuff, but this is the only one and it's pretty much destroyed. Guess we could get a sample anyway, huh, Batman?"
It's only after the haze of adrenaline starts to subside that he realizes where they are, knows that Robin put them there on purpose. That he would know what it'd feel like to see him standing there, hands on his hips, posing. Dick knows how long Tim has spent in the depths of Mount Justice, staring at a memorial for a boy he never knew, but never expected—
The sign behind his head says Crime Alley.
"Robin," says Batman, but this time he says it right. This time he growls.
"Yeah, B?" Robin's grin is blinding, sharp and bright and white-hot.
"Car. Now."
"But—"
"Robin."
The smile stiffens. It never falters.
-
The drive back is mostly silent, with intermissions of Dick tightening his hands on the steering wheel, gauntlets cracking, and shifting uncomfortably in his seat.
When they pull into the Cave, Dick fully intends to give Tim either a stern lecture or a hug, and he's still working out the logistics when he gets out of the car and Tim is there to push him up against it, mouth sealed over his.
He saw this coming. He just doesn't want to think about the why.
"Timmy," he tries to say, and maybe his trying is a little half-hearted, because his hands aren't so much pushing Tim away as pulling him closer.
But what Tim rasps out is, "Batman," and at that, Dick has to force him back a step, has to look at him. His mouth is red and wet, his lenses are down, and Dick wants to shake him, make him explain himself, but Tim's hands are fiddling with the belt, and it's all he can do to dig his fingers into Tim's shoulders, to close his eyes and shake.
"I got you, boss," he says, and the jock is gone and it's just his hand around Dick, pumping slowly and if Dick could open his eyes he knows he'd see the smirk. It feels like lying, and that should make him want it less, should make him flinch away when Tim wraps his mouth around his cock, but for some reason he can't bring himself to do it. He sets his hand gently on top of Tim's head, does his level-best to not thrust into his mouth, but when Tim hums around him, it's a miracle his knees don't give out. "Jesus, Tim."
"Robin," he corrects, licks a stripe up Dick's cock. Dick tightens his fingers and groans.
"You don't have to be him," he babbles, "told you not to be him—"
Tim pulls back, staring, says, "You told me not to die," and squeezes the base of his dick, ducks out of the way when he comes with a shout.
When the spots of light leave his field of vision, Tim's already crying out, his hand down his tights. Dick wants to tell him to stop, wants to touch him, wants to savor it, but he can't move—just watches, transfixed, until Tim exhales shakily and leans his forehead against Dick's thigh. Dick pushes the cowl back.
"Tim, Timmy, little brother," he murmurs now, because he can get away with it. He sinks down to his knees so he can get his arms around Tim's shoulders and squeeze. "Why now?"
Tim's smile is bitter and lazy and doesn't reach his eyes, even though he's warm and relaxed in Dick's embrace. "Because I could. Batman needs a Robin."
Bruce never needed Dick like that, and Jason—Jason is dead, but Tim is alive and touching him, a little too fond of the mind games but breathing and wanting and Robin, which wasn't complicated a handful of hours ago but is now forcing Dick to strain his mind around it.
Dick isn't Batman, so Tim isn't—can't be—his Robin. The fact never felt disappointing before.
Bruce isn't home yet.