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“Stupid, Stupid, Stupid,” Tim mutters to himself as the staff slips from his grip for the umpteenth time since he started practicing earlier that evening. For, probably not the last time this month, he wonders if trying to learn martial arts away from home was a good idea just to become Robin.
“Hey there,” He turns around to catch the owner of the voice and completely green eyes peer back at him in curiosity. They’re not green like Starfire’s eyes, but rather suit his cat aesthetic, “What are you doing here?”
“Uh,” Cat— Chat Noir? Asks, and all Tim can do is stare at the bo-staff lying by his feet and greet the hero awkwardly, “Hi.”
“You’re training with that?” The cat hero asks Tim just as the staff smacks him right in the middle of his face.
Again.
Tim flushes in embarrassment, “I’m trying,”
“Do you want me to help?”
“Could you?” Tim asks, eyeing the baton the hero is waving around, “Please.”
Before Tim can even blink the staff is snatched from his hands, it’s not exactly snatching if Tim was offering it anyway, and crumbles to dust. Both Tim and the hero blink in confusion, which Tim isn’t sure why he’s confused when it was his fault in the first place. But before Tim can demand any answers, the hero runs away and Tim gapes at the dust, which was previously his staff, in front of him.
“Sorry,” Ladybug says as she lands in front of him, “We thought you were an Akuma.”
“No, I’m sorry,” Tim apologizes, “I can leave if it's bothering you.”
She eyes him for a moment like she’s assessing him, “You can stay, as long as you let us keep an eye on you.”
Tim offers a jerky nod in return. Before he can ponder what exactly he can continue practicing with, Chat Noir returns and offers him— a part of his baton?— and sincerely offers to help Tim, and he would be a fool to not accept when he’s seen the hero’s skills.
“So who are you?” They ask him hours after, when they’re sitting on the roof top with ice creams in hand.
“Robin,” He answers before pausing, “I will be.”
Ladybug pauses for a moment like she’s trying to recall something, “Like Batman’s Robin?” She asks.
“Yes.”
“Cool.”
It becomes his routine for the next month before he leaves to go back to Gotham.
“Marinette, Adrien!” Cassie shouts beside him, and Tim has to wince at the volume, “Over here!”
“Cassie,” two very familiar people greet his friend and take turns hugging her.
“I can’t wait for you guys to integrate into my band of idiots,” She grins, “You’ll fit right in.”
There’s two separate indignant ‘Hey!’s directed at her, from Bart— and presumably, Adrien. When Cassie turns to introduce them all to each other, they brighten up when they catch sight of Tim— which he didn’t think was possible, considering it had been years since he last saw them. And it wasn’t like they were close, having only met each other for a month.
Tim didn’t know they were the heroes Dick was going to introduce to the team today.
He also didn’t know Cassie knew them.
“Robin!” They chorus, and it’s freakier than last time. Adrien smiles, “I never thought I’d get to see you again.”
“Hi,” Marinette greets him, “You seem to be doing good.”
Cassie blinks in confusion, “You know them?”
“In a way, yeah.”
“Aw, don’t say it like that. You wouldn’t be here without me,” Adrien whines as he drapes his arm across Tim’s shoulder, then whispers loudly to the others in the room, “I trained him to fight with the bo-staff.”
Tim scrunches his nose in disagreement, “You did not. You simply helped me practice with it after I learned it from my mentor.”
“Oh my god,” Dick whispers from where he had been standing, and Tim eyes him curiously. “You have friends.”
Immediately, Tim feels himself flushing.
Kon asks, grinning, “Rob has other friends?”
“I don’t.”
Marinette snickers, still tucked into Cassie’s side from earlier, “That’s a bold faced lie.”
“Can’t sleep?” Tim asks curiously, watching as Adrien shuffles through the cabinets and takes out a cup. He startles, exactly like a cat, and Tim feels amusement creeping in.
“Kwami,” Adrien mutters after he spots Tim seated in the dark, “Don’t do that to me.”
Tim smirks, “What, are your cat instincts gone now that you’re out of costume?”
“Yes, actually,” The other boy frowns as he takes a seat beside him. “Why are you up? And in,” He asks as he gestures to all of Tim, which, fair. He’s still in his costume.
“Nightmares. And insomnia. Plus a result of an unhealthy lifestyle.”
“Same,” Adrien mutters deliriously, and Tim doesn’t know if he wants answers to the questions he has.
They sit in silence for the next few hours.
“Come here whenever you’re having a hard time sleeping,” Tim tiredly says as Adrien gets up to leave, “I’ll probably be up. We can keep each other company.”
“Okay,” comes the equally tired response.
It becomes a thing.
Tim blinks in concern at Adrien, who seems to be frantic and looks completely disheveled, “Are you okay?” he asks.
“I can’t—” Adrien’s breath hitches before he can finish explaining and he looks like he’s on a verge of a panic attack, “I can’t find my ring—”
Tim’s eyes move towards his friends, who have been looking at the aforementioned ring for the past fifteen minutes, and it seems that he made some indication of that because Adrien catches the movement and spots the ring. Tim’s eyebrows draw in concern as the other boy practically trips forward to snatch the ring away.
“You can’t—” He laughs hysterically, “You can’t take people’s things without asking.”
“We’re sorry.”
“Just—” He clenches his jaw tightly, “Don’t do that again.”
“Should we—” They start to ask, and while their apology seems sincere, Tim isn’t sure that Adrien can handle anyone else right now so he interrupts, “Give him some time.” “Okay.”
Hours later, Adrien finds Tim as he’s hunched over the monitor and says, “I don’t like people touching my ring.”
He winces because he should have known, he’s seen the way most of Adrien’s anxiety seems to be tied around the ring, “I know. I should have stopped them.”
Adrien merely shrugs, “They didn’t know.”
“Are you okay?”
“As much as I can be after the fear of being wiped from existence, yeah.”
Tim pales when he hears that, then chokes out, “What?”
That cannot mean what he’s thinking.
Adrien simply gives him a weak smile and leaves, “You’re smart. Figure it out.”
The next morning, Tim hunts Adrien down to talk. To answer his questions.
“The ring is connected to your life force somehow. And if my friends accidentally destroyed it, you could possibly die,” He states.
Adrien nods, and suddenly he looks like the teenager he is, he looks impossibly tired, “I was manifested by the miraculous of emotion. The ring is my tether to life, in a way. I don’t like having it with someone else because that means they could control me, like—” like my father, remains unsaid.
When Tim processes that, he lurches towards his friend to capture him in a hug, “Adrien.” He whispers. There’s so many things he wants to say, but none of them would make this right.
“Adrien?” Tim blurts out before he can stop himself.
The boy turns to him in confusion and asks, “I’m sorry, do I know you?”
Tim hadn’t expected to run into Adrien outside the mask. Hell, he would never have even thought of running into him in Gotham of all places. So when he saw the other boy waiting tables in the restaurant he was going to eat dinner at, he’s appropriately shocked by the development, and because something about Adrien completely disarms him to the point that it’s bordering dangerous now. But before Tim can deny anything, Adrien seems to have already worked out everything in his head as he brightens considerably, “Rob!” He exclaims.
Tim gives up any pretense of trying to get away from this situation and nods.
“Hey dude! I didn’t know you lived around here.” Adrien gets a look that probably says, ‘Are you serious? We’re in Gotham.’ because he suddenly looks sheepish, “Right, yeah. That’s stupid.”
He doesn’t look put off, just asks equally brightly, “What can I get you?”
Tim quickly rats off an order and then pauses to ask, “And how much longer until you’re done?”
“A few more hours. My shift ends at five.”
“Okay,” He nods, and before he can talk himself out of it he asks, “Let’s get ice cream after you’re done.” When he gets a bright smile in return, he can’t bring himself to regret asking.
It becomes their little routine whenever Tim stops by.
“Hi,” Adrien grins at him sunnily, “I knew you’d show up.”
Tim blinks, “Should I not have come?”
“I have the day off today,” Adrien snorts back at him.
“I can leave you alone to enjoy your time off,” Tim says feeling guilty, but pauses when he sees the other boy wilt— like a cat— and says, “Or we can hang out.”
“Yeah!”
“Did you have anything in mind?” He asks kindly, when neither of them make a move to continue the conversation.
“I was thinking of having a movie night. Would you join me?”
“I—” Night? “Yeah, of course,” he agrees.
Adrien leads them to an apartment, and he’s surprised enough to ask out loud, “In your apartment?”
“The movies I want to watch aren't playing in the theatre.”
“You’re trusting me enough to show me your apartment? I could—” Adrien gives him a pointed look, so he shuts up immediately.
It takes them a while to settle in, and Tim doesn’t complain about the fact that Adrien puts on a french movie for them to watch. He does find the movie interesting as he continues watching it, so he figures it was the right choice not contesting the pick.
“That’s my mother,” Adrien murmurs to him when the leading actress comes back into frame after a while.
“Oh,” He murmurs back, just as quietly, “She’s beautiful.”
He’s never heard Adrien speaking about his mother.
“She was,” He agrees, and Tim pretends to not notice the tears shimmering in his eyes, “She was one of the kindest people I knew.”
“I can understand where you get it from.”
It’s not the last night Tim spends at Adrien’s apartment.
Tim feels like the ground is breaking apart beneath him, and he’s not sure what he’s going to do without—
Stupid—
Stupid Prime—
Tim should have been the one to—
Adrien opens the door and looks at him with such concern that Tim feels all of his resolve slipping away and he falls onto Adrien, and clutches his friend.
“Adrien,” He chokes on his tears as soon as they’re within the safety of the walls of the apartment, “They’re gone.”
Kon and Bart are gone.
He can’t even say it out loud because it feels like admitting it.
Adrien understands anyway.
“Shh,” He says, and Tim thinks that Adrien is also breaking apart but is holding himself together for him, “I’ve got you,” he says as he strokes Tim’s hair.
“Let it all out.”
“I didn’t even cry this much when my dad died, and now it feels like a part of me has been ripped away,” He scrubs his eyes, and his face wishing that the feeling of grime and death would just wash away, “I don’t—” understand.
He’ll never get them back.
Adrien mumbles through his own tears, “They were your family too, Tim. The one you chose.”
Tim feels himself breaking apart again.
For months it feels like Adrien is the only one that’s holding him together. It’s not like the others don’t help, it’s just that Adrien understands grief just like him. Adrien is the only other person that Tim knows that has lost these many people.
“I want to go out,” He absently states one day.
Tim hasn’t gone out to have fun in a month.
Not since his friends—
“Okay,” Adrien agrees, “Where do you want to go?”
Tim thinks for a moment before answering, “Skateboarding.”
“You skateboard?” Adrien asks with barely concealed awe in his voice.
Tim feels flushed at the attention, “Not in a while.”
“Come on,” Adrien hums, tapping the table, “Breakfast. We’ll leave right after.”
Tim lets himself have fun for the first time in a long while.
“You’re leaving?” Someone asks behind him, and Adrien startles, but relaxes when he realises that it's only Tim.
“Shit—” He mutters, That’s what he forgot, he forgot to tell Tim, “Yeah, just for a bit,” He assures.
Tim comes to stand behind him, hooking his chin over Adrien’s shoulder, “Where are you going?”
“Paris,” He pauses, “And then Tibet. I have a few things I need to sort out.” At Tim's questioning poke to his back, he elaborates. “I haven’t claimed my inheritance from my parents yet, so my aunt is helping me out with that. After that’s done, I need to head to Tibet, Marinette has a few things for me to pick up.”
Tim blinks at him curiously, “Marinette is in Tibet?”
“Mhm,” He hums, “She’s been there for the past month. She needed Grand Master’s help with something.”
After a few moments, Tim eyes the boxes skewed around before asking, “Do you need help?”
“If you could, yeah,” Adrien agrees gratefully, “I’m just packing up the things I don’t want stolen by the time I come back, though, I haven’t figured out where to ship them yet.”
The other boy hums thoughtfully as he sits down to tape the boxes Adrien has filled up, “You could send them to my home.”
“What? I couldn’t do that. There’s way too much stuff,” Adrien denies immediately.
“It’s okay,” Tim simply snorts in response to Adrien’s hesitance, “In case you haven’t noticed, I live in a mansion. And I own another mansion.”
Hesitantly, he asks again, “Are you sure?”
Tim waves him off with a nod, “Absolutely, I can get the stuff shipped to the Drake Manor until you come back.”
In the moment, he realizes just how intricately Tim has weaved himself into Adrien's life. In the past year, he doesn’t think he’s missed a single hang out with Tim, which is saying a lot, considering they hang out at least two times a week.
“Thank you,” he says sincerely.
“How long will you be gone for anyway?”
“I don’t know. It’ll take me a couple weeks to a month in person to settle everything with my father’s company and his assets. Then I’ll be heading to Tibet for another few weeks,” Then he looks at Tim guiltily before he says the next bit, “I don’t think you can contact me after I get to Tibet.”
“Oh.”
Adrien tries not to think about how disappointed Tim sounds.
“Will you be okay?” he asks softly, referring to the recent addition to the boy’s family.
Tim smiles dryly, but assures, “I’ll try my best.”
Adrien gives him a look, which he knows the boy will interpret correctly. He then crosses the distance between them to press a small beacon in his friend’s palms, “Here.”
“What’s this?” Tim asks curiously, and Adrien slaps his hand before he can get around to prodding it.
“Transmitter,” He answers, “If you ever need me to come, turn that on. I’ll be there.”
[Tim>Adrien: can i go through ur stash of snacks?]
[Adrien>Tim: Yeah, go ahead. Make sure to restock them after they finish.]
[Tim>Adrien 👍]
[Tim>Adrien: dude can u look at this when you have the time?]
[Call 30:27]
[Call 12:34]
[Tim>Adrien: THIS IS LIKE THE 3RD ATTEMPT HES MADE ON MY LIFE]
[Tim>Adrien: I JUST WANT A LITTLE BROTHER]
[Call 1:08:56]
[Adrien>Tim: Can you explain these business terms to me in a way that makes sense?]
[Adrien>Tim: picture sent]
[Call 47:41]
[Call 18:12]
[Adrien>Tim: I wish these meetings would go faster, I wish I was hanging out with you instead.]
[Tim>Adrien: lmao]
[Tim>Adrien: dw ive made a list of movies we can watch together when u get back]
[Adrien>Tim: 🤍]
[Tim>Adrien Not received: i hope your trip goes well]
[Tim>Adrien: ah I missed your flight]
[Voice Message Not received: Adrien, I can't— Bruce is gone Adrien. And this time it feels like I really did lose my dad— He's dead and I couldn’t save him, I wasn't supposed to lose another parent—]
[Tim>Adrien Not received: i want him to come back]
[Voice Message Not received: I haven't been able to go on patrol with Dick. I can't— He's not my Batman—]
[Voice Message Not received: When I said I didn't want to patrol with Dick, I didn't mean he could just take my suit and give it to Damian. He could have at least had the decency to tell me himself, instead I HAD TO WALK INTO THE CAVE TO SEE HIM WEARING MY SUIT— It's not, It's not the kid's fault but it feels like it is—]
[Voice Message Not received: I told Dick that I thought Bruce was alive, and he didn't even give me a chance— I get that he's grieving but he wouldn't even look at me before suggesting I go to the loony bin and it hurts because Dick is supposed to be— What's worse is that no one else believes me, not even Cassie— Fuck, I don't know of I can do this Adrien—]
[Tim>Adrien Not received: im sorry if you come home with me gone but i need to check for myself]
[Tim>Adrien Not received: at least i can travel the world alone for a bit]
[Tim>Adrien Not sent: i wish you were here]
Tim has made a lot of stupid decisions in his life. Right now, he can't help but feel like working with Ra's was one. It didn't feel like that at first, because he was getting all his resources to find Bruce because no one else would give it to him, but it all felt useless now. Most of that related to the fact that he was bleeding out in the desert, two of his friends murdered and the other and himself barely hanging on to the threads of life.
The drive with all the information about Bruce’s continued existence presses into his pocket, and it feels like the weight of it is choking him.
There’s no way he’ll be able to get the information to someone useful.
Not like this.
He’s going to die alone, clutching Pru’s almost dead hand, all of his work going to waste.
Please, he thinks as he clutches the transmitter in his bloodied hands, Please.
He doesn’t know if he wants Adrien to rescue him, or if he wants to see—
Or if he wants to see the person he loves one last time.
When Adrien had finally left Tibet, he had been pretty excited to see Tim again. It had been months, and it took him so much longer than he had expected. He was absolutely prepared to grovel at Tim’s feet for forgiveness.
Nothing had prepared him for the absolutely devastating messages in his inbox.
He feels his heart cracking with every message he listens to, and thinks he should have been there.
Tim—
No one should feel this amount of loss within a few years of just starting to heal.
When he reaches the cave, the air winded out of him, he catches Dick in a Batman suit, oh god he might hurl, Bruce is actually gone, the man who had took care of stuff when he couldn’t was gone, be it temporarily or not, the first thing he asks Dick is, “Have you seen Tim?” His voice cracks as he rushes to get the question out, he needs to know—
He needs—
He needs Tim.
“I’m sorry,” Dick chokes in response, “We haven’t—” He pauses for a moment to compose himself, “We haven’t seen him in three months.”
A part of Adrien breaks.
“I need to—”
Dick nods like he understands, “Take anything you need,” He says softly like he’s afraid of breaking both of them, “Bring him back. Please.”
Adrien nods resolutely.
He’s going to bring Tim back.
He searches for Tim for a whole month. He carries the messages he has, the hope he has that he’s borrowed from everyone like it’s about to spill. It had been a slow process, trying to visit one place at a time, trying to catch rumors of Tim if he had been in that place, and trying to build a timeline and route one step at a time.
Adrien was eternally grateful to his friends that they only made him do the search parts, because using two miraculouses everyday was draining his energy considerably, enough for him to not form a coherent strategy when he got back everyday.
He’s checking out one of Tim’s bases in Paris for any clues when his transmitter flares.
Adrien fumbles a bit to understand, but when he reads the location his blood goes cold.
This is the first time Tim has used the transmitter in months, and Tim isn’t someone that asks for help and what is Tim even doing in Iraq?
Adrien’s scared for Tim.
As he portals to the location, he feels impossibly sicker than he already feels when he spots the blood that seeped into the sand, and he sees people slaughtered.
And Tim—
Tim is right there, still bleeding out and clutching the transmitter in his hands.
“Tim,” Adrien chokes out as he skids towards him, and presses on Tim’s wound, “Tim.” Stay with me.
Please don’t take him away from me too.
Please.
Adrien doesn’t know what to do.
Adrien feels like his heart is going to crawl out of his throat as he moves his trembling hands away from Tim’s bleeding wounds and makes a portal for them to get away.
Please. He thinks, as he carries the two people who are barely breathing, Please save him.
Tim wakes up to bright lights, which shouldn’t be possible since he distinctly remembers bleeding out in the desert, “Where—”
“Take it easy,” Adrien says beside him, and it takes Tim a minute to recognize him, “I got you back to the Titans tower. Gave everyone quite a scare when you were bleeding out in my arms,” He quietly answers Tim.
“Pru?”
“She’s alive,” Adrien answers softly, and Tim heaves a sigh of relief.
Before he can ask anything else, he furrows his eyebrows in concentration to recognize the voice seeping through the walls of the infirmary, “Marinette’s here?”
Adrin nods, “She’s moving to California in a few months.”
“I thought she wanted to live in New York,” Tim asks, confused.
Adrien gives him a funny look which has him curious, and a bit worried, before he snorts and says, “Can you believe that she and Cassie finally got their shit together?”
“What?”
Fucking Cassie got her shit together before Tim?
“Yeah.”
“You’re real?” Tim asks, because this doesn’t make sense, “This is not a weird injury-induced hallucination right?"
Adrien laughs in response, and Tim thinks it sounds lighter than earlier, “No Tim, I’m not a hallucination,” He pauses to smirk, “Do you think hallucinations look this good?”
“No,” Tim flushes, “I guess not.”
“You came,” He says after a few minutes have gone by, voice filled with wonder.
Adrien smiles, “You called.”
And it’s so impossibly cheesy, and so Adrien that he can’t help but laugh.
He doesn’t know if it’s the fact that Cassie managed to ask Marinette out before him or if his feelings are finally boiling over when he says the next sentence.
“I want to take you out,” he says, then winces at the wording, “On a date, I mean. When all of this is over.”
Adrien frowns, “Don’t be stupid.”
And Tim. Tim didn’t expect that response from Adrien, so he asks, “What?”
Adrien chuckles, “I’m not human. I’m not even real.”
Tim eyes him oddly, “Would you call your friends not real?”
“Never,” Adrien glares.
“Exactly,” he says, as he tries to sit up without agitating his wounds, “You’re just as real as me. Do you want to know what I see when I look at you?” he asks as he takes Adrien’s hands into his own, not believing Adrien would even dare to think about himself like that. He softly continues, “I see a person who’s figured out how to live their life, and not just survive. I see someone who has a beautiful heart despite all that’s happened to you. I see someone with likes, dislikes and opinions. I see a human.”
“Tim—” Adrien says, wide eyed, and Tim doesn’t know if he’s stepped over the line, “Tim.”
The way Adrien says his name like a plea has him thinking that maybe, just maybe Adrien needs to hear this.
“I like you for who you are as a person,” he says.
Adrien scrubs his eyes, and Tim feels alarmed, what if he really did step over the line? “You really don’t care that I’m not human?”
Tim chuckles and squeezes Adrien’s hands, I like you, “My bi-awakening was my best friend, who, might I remind you, was a clone of an alien. Do you really think I care about the semantics of it all?”
“I guess not,” Adrien agrees.
“Will you help me?” Tim asks, suiting up after he’s finally recovered enough to leave.
Adrien grins at him, all teeth, “Thought you’d never ask.”
He got a whole business talk earlier, which he mostly understood. Turns out working with Ra’s did have its consequences, and now Tim was the one that needed to take over WE. He hadn’t even agreed to take DI yet, and it had been years since his parent’s deaths and now he was being handed a company much larger than that. He laughs incredulously at the idea.
He looks up when he hears a familiar transformation phrase and promptly stops in his tracks.
“Woah,” He cannot keep the surprise and awe out of his voice as he unintentionally blurts out, “You look—” hot.
The boots go up to his knee now, and they look heavier and more designed. Similarly, Adrien has a jacket over his skin tight suit, that’s lined with neon green markings that makes it look cool. The mask is also modified with highlights so it looks cheekier.
“Better?” Adrien flexes with a half smirk, oh he knows what he’s doing alright, “I fight better too.”
They haven’t talked about it at all.
Adrien had discovered about Tim’s new living situation, and realized that the apartment Tim owned was much better than his own place and had promptly moved in without asking.
Not that Tim was complaining.
His three bedrooms didn’t exist for his siblings to crash. Adrien could live in all three of them for all he cared for. Even if they ended up in the same bed by the time morning came, they were simply too tired to go to another room after their respective patrols. Not that it made a difference, they still chose to sleep in the same bed even if they went to sleep early.
Tim knows that several of their friends have noticed the change in dynamic, with the way they seeked each other out rather than Tim settling around the recently-revived Kon and Bart like he used to.
It’s killing Tim to not talk about it, but he doesn’t know how Adrien will take it when it’s been a couple months.
“I’m tired of waiting for you to come around and ask me,” Adrien says instead of greeting Tim like he usually does.
Tim cannot believe he has fucked this up, “Adrien—” he starts but he gets interrupted almost immediately.
“Did you mean it? That you wanted to date me?”
Tim looks in Adrien’s eyes and says with as much conviction as he can gather in his voice, “Yes.”
“Okay, good,” Adrien says after a moment of searching for something on his face. Then he hands Tim his own phone and taps it to show an already booked reservation, “Take me out, pretty boy.”
And then he winks as he leaves.
This guy.
Safe to say, it’s one of the best dates Tim has ever had gone on.
“Do you remember when I told you I wanted to do something else with my life?” Adrien tries to bring it up casually.
“Yeah,” Tim recalls, “Did you settle on something?”
“I want to be a paramedic.”
Adrien tries not to think about Tim’s blood on his hands as he says this.
“Adrien, that’s amazing,” Tim whispers, not bothering to keep the awe from his voice, “Have you looked into it?”
“Yeah.” He smiles.
He doesn’t say he wants to become a paramedic just in case they can’t get to anyone in time. He never wants to feel despair like that ever again.
Not when this has been the best thing he’s had in years.
Not when this has given him happiness he never thought he could get, for over a year.
“Dick wants to see you this Sunday,” Tim voices when they’re cuddled up watching a movie on the couch.
“Like on the family dinner,” Adrien pauses, “Where your entire family will be there?”
“I guess so,” Tim smiles, already knowing where this was going.
Adrien screeches, “Tim, I’ve never met them. What if they don’t like me?”
Tim snorts at the ridiculousness of that sentence, “Dick adores you, he treats you like he birthed you. Which is funny, considering he’s only a few years older than you. Bruce likes you just fine, he would adore you if he got to know you. You’ve met Damian and Cass. You and Steph are practically best friends. You just have to meet the others.” “Yeah, like a million others!” “Besides, you’ll love Alfred’s cooking.”
And, they know how happy I’ve been since I started dating you, He privately thinks.
The dinner goes as well as he’d expected it to go.
He doesn’t call out the times Adrien almost cried, when he’d been swept up into a hug by Dick, when he’d taken the first few bites of the dish Alfred had made especially for him, when Bruce had ruffled his hair proudly when he found out about Adrien’s recent certification as a paramedic. Instead he smiles, thankful that they could give him the family that he never got.
Adrien doesn’t think he ever expected himself to be this happy.
Not after he crawled out of the ruins his father had put him in.
He never thought he’d allow himself to love after everything, and he’s really grateful he decided to, because the past few years have been the best of his life.
He wouldn’t do anything differently if he had to go back in time.
“Hi,” he softly whispers when he comes face to face with his lover.
Adrien responds back equally soft, “Hi.”
“You should—” he snaps his mouth shut before he can blurt something stupid out.
Adrien simply looks amused, “I should what?”
He can’t contain himself any longer, the words just stumble out, “You should marry me.”
“Tim—” Adrien looks stunned, but he doesn’t look unwilling.
So, Tim continues.
“I probably should have done this better, hell I literally bought the earrings yesterday and I don’t even have a plan yet. But when I saw you fight with me, then the shooting star went by, all of a sudden there was nothing in my mind except that ‘I want him to stay by my side.’ and everything else went out the metaphorical window. You’re the best thing that’s ever happened to me, and I don’t think any other thing could ever come close to that even after decades go by. You’re the person that’s broken me out of my shell, you’re the person that I cherish the most. You’re the most amazing, determined, kind person I know, and you drive me a little crazy sometimes, but you’re—” He breathes out, “You’re the person I love.”
“Will you marry me?” He asks.
“Yes,” Adrien responds, eyes glittering with tears and happiness.
“What was your dream childhood wedding like? I bet we could draw some inspiration from those,” Tim smirks, “Since you have great taste.”
Adrien stills, “I don’t—” “I don’t have anything.”
His fiancé, he can say that now, pauses, “You don’t have anything?”
When Adrien doesn’t respond, in a moment, something akin to understanding and sadness fills Tim’s eyes. Adrien wishes nothing more to disagree, but he cannot because it’s the right conclusion. He still flinches when Tim says, “You weren’t planning to get married, were you?”
He wasn’t.
He really wasn’t.
Not until Tim.
Adrien doesn’t know how to reply to that, because he doesn’t want to mess this up, but he’s never been good with words and making people understand where he was coming from. Tim is the best thing that’s ever happened to him in entire life, and Adrien doesn’t want to lose him. He’ll be damned if he does.
He looks into Tim’s eyes again.
Tim isn’t running, he isn’t walking away. He’s simply waiting for Adrien to explain, despite how off it all seems.
Which is—
Which is good. Which is so much more grace than he deserves.
He can work with that.
“I wasn’t planning to meet you,” Adrien whispers.
Tim’s eyebrows furrow in confusion, and Adrien still doesn’t know how to explain this in a way that he’ll understand.
“You know,” He starts slowly, “My parents shaped my understanding of love. They loved each other with their whole hearts. I thought it was the most beautiful thing to exist, to love someone like they were your whole soul, like no one else could come close to it.”
“I thought that’s what true love is, that’s how you’re supposed to cherish your partner.”
Tim says, “It is.”
Adrien shakes his head, “But the thing is, my father never learnt how to love someone that was already gone. He never learnt how to love more than one person, never learnt to love something he had built with the person he loved. He didn’t know how to let the love grow.”
Adrien thinks about the fact that his mother would have probably resented him for the actions he took.
“When I first learnt about what he was doing I was terrified of everything I had been trying to ignore. He loved my mother to the point that he was willing to destroy the whole world to get her back, and she had already left. She was gone, and all of us had already mourned and accepted her death. What scared me is the fact that he was willing to throw away everything she had spent her life building. He was willing to kill me when it came to that, and I had never felt so terrified of love. He didn’t understand. I couldn’t make him understand.”
Adrien thinks about the time Marinette had finally told him about the whole Chat Blanc incident. He trembles, “I was scared I would turn out like him.”
“After a few months, falling in love began feeling more like a cruelty that I was afraid of, rather than magic I looked forward to. I promised myself I would never let myself fall into anything like he did. I was never planning on falling in love when I left Paris, I was never planning to meet someone that completed me,” He confesses.
“You are nothing like him,” Tim says fervently, “Nothing. You are much kinder than him, you could never hurt someone intentionally like he did. Never.”
“That’s not true,” He says, “In one timeline I destroyed the world and the moon because I was in love.”
“That’s okay.”
“No it’s not,” He denies immediately.
“Adrien, it’s okay. If it ever comes to that, we’ll figure it out together,” Tim says with so much conviction in his voice that Adrien feels himself breaking, “Did I ever tell you that there’s an alternate of mine out there who’s an evil version of Batman?”
“No?” He asks, confused.
“There is. For the longest time, I was afraid I would turn into him.”
He hesitantly asks, “What changed?”
“I made plans. Plans have always made me feel better about a decision, or a possible outcome. I have hundreds of contingencies in my servers just in case something goes wrong. Plans make me feel safe. So that’s what I did, I made plans and trusted the people around me with them if it ever came to that. Even when I don’t trust myself, I always trust my plans to follow through. If not the first one, the seven others that have been made as a back up. Things go wrong all the time, it’s just a matter of how you solve them or how you adapt to them. My point is—” Tim breaks off in the middle of the rant, “My point is, we’ll figure it out.”
“Adrien,” He says, squeezing Adrien’s hands, “When Marinette seemed surprised to get the proposal announcement, I was confused. She isn’t the type of person to think a relationship couldn’t have lasted this long. And when I talked to you, I knew.”
“Tim—”
He doesn’t get any further before Tim interrupts him.
“Adrien. I never meant to make you feel like we have to get married because that’s how traditional relationships go. We don’t have to get married. Just give me the word and I’ll call the whole thing off, you don’t have to worry about a single thing. We’ll figure it out. We don’t have to be married to stay with each other. We can—”
“Timothy,” He chides, “I want to get married to you.”
It’s a confirmation.
Uttered with as much love he could pour into it.
“What?”
“I wouldn’t have said yes if I wasn’t sure about this. I promise Marinette was probably just surprised because of how happy I looked.”
“Oh.”
He assures, “I am so lucky to have fallen in love with you, and I am so lucky to be loved by you. I’m so grateful you didn’t walk away or asked for time after you realized this.”
“I wouldn’t have walked away from a five year relationship just like that.”
Adrien smiles and his heart has never felt more full of love than today, “I know, but it’s still great to have it be assured.”
“If you want, we can still completely throw the idea of a traditional wedding out of the window. We can have a barn wedding and fill it with things that your father would never have liked. We could have a space wedding too, I could hijack the watchtower for a few days, my siblings would help,” Tim mutters later that night when they’re tucked into each other.
“I want this wedding to be about us,” He denies, but pauses as he considers. “But I wouldn’t say no to a space wedding.”
“Hell yeah.”