Chapter Text
Tim was in trouble.
Like in deep, deep, DEEP trouble. Maybe even worse than his year abroad with the League of Assassins.
Okay, that was a lie. Nothing would be as bad as losing his spleen.
But what was he so pressed about, you may ask?
Well, he was currently sitting next to Kon, Cassie, and Bart as Superman briefed the entire hero community—and he meant entire. Everyone from the Outsiders, Outlaws, Titans, Birds of Prey, Young Justice, and the Justice League was present.
Tim sighed. He could feel Jason smirking at him under his helmet from where he was seated between Roy and Kori. Dick, who sat near the head of the table as the leader of the Titans, was clearly trying to stifle a laugh—at least, to anyone who knew him. And Bruce’s clenched jaw made it clear he was so done with all of this. Even Damian looked slightly disgruntled.
In the end, Tim would like to blame Bruce.
If Bruce hadn’t gotten lost through time, then Tim wouldn’t have had to go on a quest to bring him back and end up becoming an internationally wanted art thief (beat that, Jason!), which is what put him on the League’s radar in the first place.
Actually, if Bruce hadn’t fallen into a depression after Jason’s death, then Tim wouldn’t be here at all. He could be living life blissfully unaware.
But no.
Tim sighed again. Kon shot him a look, probably worried about the number of times his best friend had sighed in the last hour alone.
Again, this was all Bruce’s fault. If he didn’t insist on keeping their identities and relationships secret for “safety reasons,” then Tim wouldn’t be here listening to Superman lecture the entire hero community on all the ways the youngest C.E.O. in the world, Timothy Drake-Wayne, was dangerous and showed potential of becoming the next Luthor.
Tim could admit that was a reasonable suspicion—IF he wasn’t sitting RIGHT HERE!!
And besides, after taking over the company, Tim had also become the Justice League's—and by extension, the hero community at large’s—main benefactor.
Tim resisted the urge to sigh again.
At least the suspicion wasn’t only on Timothy Drake, but also on the rest of the Waynes for reasons like being “too dumb” and having “weirdly good relationships with each other.”
In Tim’s humble opinion, as the world’s second (first, be honest, Bruce) greatest detective, those were not valid reasons to suspect someone. Which, thankfully, most of the senior members agreed with—so luckily, Tim wouldn’t be getting arrested today.
However, that is why Superman and Wonder Woman planned to put all the teams on rotating shifts of surveillance on the Waynes—specifically him.
Great.
Tim would just love seeing his friends, who technically don’t know they're his friends, everywhere.
He sent a pleading look to Bruce, who just ignored him, as usual. Tim tried not to pout, knowing Cassie and Cissie would notice something was up.
And the worst part? Bruce couldn’t even claim this as a Gotham case because you needed multiple people on the case—which he would have if he’d just let them admit they were family!
Tim was really getting tired of pretending not to know his siblings—or in some cases (Jason and Damian), pretending to hate them. Sure, out of all his siblings he fought with Jason and Damian the most, but they had long outgrown the animosity between them.
On the bright side, he still had movie night at the Clocktower to look forward to. Steph had promised to bring her special waffles, and Babs had blackmailed Jason into cooking. Duke had forfeited his turn to let Cass choose the movie, and she had landed on Finding Nemo. Which, surprisingly enough, none of them had watched yet.
Bruce, as usual, would be skipping. At this point, Tim was convinced B didn’t even know the movie nights were a thing—even though Dick had assured him that he and Babs had reminded Bruce multiple times.
After the Debrief
“Wow, this kid is loaded,” Kon exclaimed.
“Apparently, he has like a vault of kryptonite somewhere and ties with the League of Assassins!” Bart tacked on, sending a mischievous grin Tim’s way.
Tim was pretty sure that Bart—being from the future—already knew their identities and was just messing with him at this point. But with Bart? Who knows?!
“What’s wrong, Tim?” Cassie teased. “Shouldn’t you already have a manila folder on the guy and a hundred contingencies to go with it at this point?”
Cassie and the others may not know his civilian identity, but at least they knew his first name. Tim had convinced Bruce to let him at least tell Kon—it’s not Tim’s fault if he made sure Cassie and Bart would overhear too!
Tim sighed for like the trillionth time that day, rolling his eyes. He was about to retort when he and Cass locked eyes.
Icy—cold.
It was a brief moment, barely lasting a second or two, but you could feel the temperature drop.
Cassie suddenly looked very uncomfortable.
“Uuuh…” she stammered.
Cass looked up at her, expression seemingly blank, before straight-up disappearing and reappearing next to the rest of the Birds of Prey.
Tim just rolled his eyes fondly at his sibling’s antics, knowing it wouldn’t be visible through his mask.
“Man! I know she’s on our side, but Orphan still scares the heck out of me,” Kon said, tracking Cass’s movements with his eyes.
Cassie rolled her eyes. “Come on, we need to get our group assignments.”
They headed to where Nightwing was standing next to Donna, currently looking bored as he distributed the folders and explained, for what sounded like the hundredth time, the finer details of the mission.
“Hey Wing,” Bart greeted as Cassie went to have a short discussion with Donna.
“Bart!” Nightwing replied warmly. He always seemed so friendly despite being so reserved. If Bart was being honest, it was kinda weird. The only reasons Bart and Cassie even knew Wing at all was because he was friends with Kon, Wally, and Donna.
Red Robin, on the other hand—Bart was sure, knew little to nothing about Nightwing on a personal level. Sure, they’d interacted at a professional level, coordinating on missions and such, but never more than that.
“All right, Young Justice,” Nightwing started, “so that’ll be Kon, Bart, and Cassie. Red Robin, looks like you’ll have to sit this one out for identity reasons.”
Red nodded, as if he had already expected that—which, knowing him, he probably did.
“So, the three of you,” Nightwing continued, “will be charged with main surveillance on Timothy Drake.”
Tim resisted the urge to groan out loud, satisfying himself by sending glares at his brother instead.
“You’ll be posing as the new interns at his company and will be attempting to get close to him in order to enter his inner circle. Be warned, Drake is known for being cold, harsh, and generally hard to work with.”
Tim glared harder. Poor Tam! She’d have a stroke dealing with interns who had absolutely no clue what they were doing.
While he was glaring, Tim noticed something—Dick seemed to be favoring his left side.
Tim tried to think—had Dick been injured recently? Well, there had been that fight with Croc the other day, where Dick was launched into the balcony. But surely if he had gotten injured, he would have told someone, right?
Who was he kidding? Being a bat automatically meant you were emotionally repressed and hated to be seen as vulnerable, which meant never revealing your injuries. Tim knew he couldn't get mad, the amount of times he's done it himself would send Dick's head spiraling.
Well, Tim grinned internally.
Time to initiate Protocol 49KDR, which they used whenever they needed to get each other out of social events without revealing their connections to one another.
Tim lightly tapped his comm in Morse code, knowing Babs would hear, while locking eyes with Dick.
Dick had a look in his eyes that said, Don’t you dare.
Tim dared.
Almost instantly, he could feel all the bats in the room subtly switch their attention to Dick. He could practically see Jason glaring and Damian plotting ten different ways to get Dick to go home.
Now it was Dick’s turn to glare.
Meanwhile, their various teammates remained oblivious.
Bruce shot them a look that clearly meant: Dick, go home and be careful, or you’ll blow our cover.
Steph got the ball rolling, casually commenting to Huntress and Supergirl about how Nightwing seemed really tired—which caused them to shoot worried glances at him, alerting Kori to the trouble.
Kori immediately walked over to them, stopping to check with Oracle (everyone knew she knew everything—even stuff she had no business knowing).
“Oracle, I apologize for the interruption. Have you noticed anything off with Nightwing today?”
Babs pretended to be pensive for a minute before saying, “Now that you mention it, he does seem to be favoring his left side…”
Roy’s curiosity was piqued by all the commotion, to which Jason explained it was probably because Nightwing was quiet during the briefing—which, for a prominent member of the hero community, was especially weird.
“But who knows? You know the guy much better than me,” Jason said—for secret identities’ sake and all that.
At this point, Roy worriedly went to talk with Cissie and Lian about “his” findings. Duke rolled his eyes. They think it’s their idea.
Damian smirked—another job well done—having been the one to point Lian in Roy’s direction.
By now, Cissie had slipped back to her team, and Roy and Lian had gone to tell Artemis.
Kon overheard their conversation (super hearing and all that).
“Wait! You’re injured?!” He exclaims, before using his X-ray vision to check Dick's leg.
“How are you still standing? Your calf is broken in like three different places?!”
Dick shrugged. “You get used to the pain after a while.”
At the glares he received after that, he chuckled and raised his hands. “All right, all right, I know when I’m not wanted,” before heading for the Zetas.
On his way out, Damian sent him a glare that said, You better be resting and not setting up for movie night.
Dick made a sound that was a mix of an existential sigh and a chuckle. Really, he loved his siblings—but sometimes they could be a bit overbearing.
The debriefing was almost over anyway.