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Tim closed his apartment door and stopped dead in his tracks. The sound of shuffling in the kitchen covered the quiet click of the lock as he flicked it closed. Creeping towards the entryway to the kitchen, he slipped his hand under his hoodie to hover over the gun in his waistband. None of his allies know where he lives, and hopefully neither do his enemies, so this is either a dumb robber or an even dumber spy.
The kitchen light wasn’t on, but the lamp he keeps near the couch was, casting the apartment in an almost cozy orange glow. His sneakers were silent on the laminate floor, and any creaks caused by his weight were covered by the movement of the intruder.
Almost as if sensing his thought, the sound stopped, causing Tim to freeze. He waited for any indication that the person in his apartment was moving around, before deciding that he had the element of surprise and a gun, so he’ll probably be fine.
He pulled the gun out of his waistband at the same moment that he swept around the corner into the kitchen, pointing the gun and unlocking the safety.
He was met with a thirteen year old with a spoon halfway in his mouth.
Jason froze, looking at him with wide eyes. He had a bowl of cereal with Tim’s Lucky Charms and a book in front of him. He was sitting at Tim’s bar with one of Damien’s hoodies tossed across the other bar seat.
Oh. So not a dumb robber, just a dumb Robin.
Jason lowered the spoon back into the bowl before giving Tim a nervous smile, “Hey Tim! Fancy seeing you here.”
Tim stared at him before rolling his eyes and lowering his gun, flicking the safety back on. “What the hell, Jason. How’d you even get in here?”
Jason watched Tim set the gun on the counter, pointing away from any open space in the room, before answering, “The window in your bedroom was unlocked. You should probably remember to close it.”
Tim thought back to last night when he rolled through that window with his side covered in blood before slapping a bunch of butterfly bandages on the cut and passing out on the couch. He grunted in response.
Tim busied himself in the kitchen while Jason went back to his cereal, abandoning his book in favor of watching Tim like a creep.
Tim grabbed the trash from his breakfast (three protein bars that he barely choked down before leaving) and paused when he opened the trashcan. There, crumpled on top of the too-full trash he meant to take out two days ago, was his mega-sized box of Lucky Charms.
“You ate all of my cereal you little twerp!” Tim exclaimed, more distraught by this than the fact that Jason broke into his apartment.
“I’m sorry!” Jason whined, “I got hungry,”
“This box was almost full, dude.”
“Well,” Jason gestured at nothing with his spoon, “I’ve been here a long time.”
Tim dragged a hand down his face, groaning. That was literally the only thing he had here that wasn’t protein bars and cashews.
“Does Damien not feed you, you hoodlum? That’s like,” he did the math in his head, “over a thousand calories in cereal.”
“Damien doesn’t let me have cereal anymore because Dick is fucking obsessed with it. He wouldn’t eat anything else for a week so now we can’t have any.” Jason frowned.
“I think you’re “fucking obsessed” with it, kid.” Tim snarked back.
“No!” Jason defended. “It was the only thing here!’
Tim gave Jason a look before pulling out his phone and making his way to the living room, “Well, I’m ordering myself a pizza. You can either get lost or suffer the smell while I eat it all.”
Tim scowled his computer screen, flicking between the readings and the sample of what the readings are supposed to be. He groaned, pushing his chair away from his desk before taking the laptop he was looking at and disconnecting it from his desktop. He flipped it over and set it on an angled stand.
“Hey, kid?” He called.
“What?” Jason asked grumpily. Tim was being serious about not letting him have any pizza, and ordered a double meat lovers out of spite. The box was sitting on the couch, open, coincidentally directly across from the young teenager.
“Can you grab me that little screwdriver that’s on the table? I need it.”
Tim ducked under his desk to grab his other tools so he could fix the stupid hard drive on this stupid computer. If he wasn’t determined to fix this laptop out of spite he would’ve just thrown it in his closet for a couple of months.
When he came back up, Jason was leaning on the desk, squinting at his desktop. It wasn’t doing anything at the moment, but Tim had installed some Shimeji’s to entertain himself the last time he was stuck in his apartment on bedrest.
“Are you looking at my guys?” Tim asked, flopping onto his chair and setting the toolbox on the desk.
“Are those like, characters?” Jason asked, seeming genuinely confused.
“Yeah, most of them are little versions of the rouges but this one,” he pointed at the corner of the screen where a little black cat was curled up, asleep, “is the cat from Sailor Moon. Steph likes that anime.” Tim smiled. He looked back at Jason, who was now squinting and frowning. He leaned back from the desktop, almost stepping away from it, before making an “ohh” sound.
“Those are cute. I think you should have Ivy instead of the Cobblepot though, the motherfucker is creepy as hell-”
“Are you far-sighted?” Tim interrupted.
“What?” Caught off guard, Jason gave Tim a weird look. “No. What is that?”
Tim leaned back in his chair and gestured to his eyes, “It means you can’t see very close up. Like if you’re trying to read, you have to hold the book away from your face.”
“I read normally.” Jason said, almost defensively.
“Okay, show me how you read.” Tim challenged. At this point, he was either going to figure out that Jason needs glasses or he’s going to tease him about it until he leaves.
Jason turned to get his book, giving Tim a side-eyed look while doing so. He grabbed his book and aggressively sat down, before looking at Tim.
“Okay,” Tim waved his hand at him, “how far do you hold it to read.”
Jason narrowed his eyes at him before looking at his book, arms close to his chest. He held it further away, to where his arms were a little more than halfway out from his body, before looking at Tim again.
Tim had his hand pressed against his mouth, deliberating. He doesn’t read books very often, but he thought about how close he held his phone to his face, and he has 20/20 vision. The Pit made sure of that.
“Yeah, you need glasses.” He decided.
“No, I don’t!” Jason protested.
“Yeah, you do,” Tim laughed, “you need readers, you little old man.”
“No I fucking do not, asshole.”
“You’re gonna be older than Bruce in a couple of years.”
“Ugh!” Jason threw himself onto the couch dramatically.
Tim let the moment settle and turned to start working on the laptop, letting the quiet music from his phone fill the silence. Well, at least for a little bit.
“Can I have the last slice of pizza.”
“Jesus Christ, Jason.”
Jason ended up leaving around an hour later, pizza slice eaten, before the big bat felt it was warranted to track his bird down. Tim ended up having to go out that night, some gang deciding that his threats were there to be tested, and stopped by an old convenience store on his way home.
It was almost 4am, the bats definitely in bed by now, but the streets were as quiet as they can get in Gotham. A horn blared in Tim’s ear from the road as he slipped through the dirty glass doors of Billy’s Convenient Convenience Store. He grabbed a box of cereal, a family-sized Frosted Flakes unfortunately, before stopping at a display of reading glasses. Half of them plain black, thick frames with smudged lenses, but at the very bottom was a pair of gold-colored wire rims. He grabbed them and looked closer, holding them close to the face shield of his helmet. There was a little sticker with +1.50 on the corner of the lens. That should work.
He approached the cashier, who was a middle-aged white guy with greasy, thinning blonde hair. The cashier’s eyes widened as he approached, and he backed up with his hands by his head. His named tag said Jared.
“H-hey man, I don’t want any trouble.” He said nervously.
Tim rolled his eyes. Some people are such cowards, it’s not like he’s killed anymore or anything. At least, not recently.
“Me neither,” his voice changer growled as he said it, and he slid the items towards the cashier, who flinched.
“Listen D-Deadbird, I don’t know why- why you’re here, but you can just take the shit and go, y’know? No one's gonna stop you!” Jared laughed nervously.
Tim cocked his head, knowing it looked creepy, “I know that,” he rasped, “do you know that?” This dude was acting so suspicious, Tim almost wanted to think it was a joke.
“Yeah! Of course,” more nervous laughing, “L-let me just, hah, get the key for the cash register.” He slid away towards the front of the store. Tim hadn’t even gotten out cash yet.
He waited for a second, and sighed when he heard the bell of the door ring, then the door slammed back into the frame. Heavy footsteps ran down the street, away from the door. He fished out a ten from his pocket and threw it on the counter before walking out.
He’ll do research on Jared tomorrow.
When he got back to his apartment, two mega-sized boxes of Lucky Charms were sitting on his bar. Next to them was a sticky note that said “Thank u 4 pizza :)”. Tim smiled.
