metalogs | grab your hat, get your coat, the cellar door is an open throat (open/closed)

“You don’t know already?”

The truth is, he’d assumed TJ already knew. They have the same parents and the same upbringing, right? He should know what their parents are like. He should know what it feels like, being caught in their arguments. He’s supposed to understand.

“Our timelines diverged at some point in your past.” He sets his ice cream cup down neatly beside him on the bench. “I don’t know how far apart they actually are, and what happened in my world isn’t always transferable to yours.”

(Stalling. Clearly evasive.)

Why is it so hard to talk about this, six years later? He accepted it a long time ago. It’s fine. “Mom died when I was thirteen, and I already told you I don’t remember fighting the Reach.”

Janet Drake’s murder means that, if it’s their parents, Tim has at least a year’s more memories to contend with.

For a moment, he wants to yell you’re lying and throw his ice cream like a little kid having a tantrum. Except that would be stupid because it’s not like TJ would lie about something like this. He wouldn’t. So if he - if TJ’s mom died, then. He doesn’t. He doesn’t know what that means.

He feels - grief, even though it’s not his mom that died. And. He’s not sure what else. Maybe. Maybe horror, too. If. If his mom was gone, then it was just TJ and his dad. And. And maybe that would have been okay. Maybe it would.

“What happened?”

The urge to physically move away is squashed immediately before he can recoil, but he’s keeping himself still and his voice even with a delicate tension.

Details are being pruned even as he answers. “She was poisoned by the Obeah Man.”

Snip. Not mentioning the kidnapping and ransom attempt. Snip. Not a word about his dad being comatose and paralyzed. Snip. Batman didn’t get there too late.

(Again. For the first time.)

“But your world is different. I don’t know if it’s better or worse.”

“I don’t recognize the name.”

It’s information offered just to clarify that no, Tim’s parents didn’t go through that. No one was poisoned. It’s a clear point of contrast between them.

He’s not going to ask for any more details, because it’s clearly not something TJ wants to talk about. “I’m sorry.”

The appropriate answer is a polite thanks, and he knows that. But it would keep him from saying something ambiguous and perhaps more important. “It was never your fault.”

Certainly not his fault that Janet Drake died somewhere in the multiverse. Not his fault about anything related to her. “What are your parents like now?”

Let him think what he wants. If he thinks it’s just because TJ’s thinking about his mom, fine. If that’s his way in, he’ll take it.

Up til now, he’d been thinking that their home lives were - the same, pretty much. That their home life was similar enough that he could just assume that TJ knew what things were like in the Drake household and leave it at that.

But that’s not a given anymore. And that’s why Tim finds himself defaulting to the Usual Description of his family. “They’re okay. They’re still pretty busy, with the company and their digs, so they’re not always around that much but it’s okay cause their work is important.”

Tim places himself third in importance, so it's more of the same. More more, probably, as Tim gets older and, therefore, to the Drakes' thinking even more self-sufficient. The reality is that third is inflation. They're pretty busy, with their company, and their digs, and their impromptu vacations, and the charity circuit... anything that isn't Tim.

But keeping himself fed, not burning the house down, and making sure no one knows what goes on in the Drake household is all one needs to be self-sustaining. "And how's Mrs. Mac?"

Well, that’s… weird. To his credit, Tim does go searching around his memories for a moment, looking for anyone by that name, but he’s got a blank happening here. “Who?”

He shakes his head. Yet another difference and yet... still so much the same. "My parents' housekeeper. She used to check in on me, when they were away. Maybe they hired someone else in your world. It's not a worrying difference. There aren't any worrying differences on your side of this, aside from the aliens. I think it's all on mine. That's good, though."

“Oh.”

It’s kind of weird that there’s only one housekeeper, when the Drakes own several properties, but then, maybe they finally picked a favorite to settle down in. “We just have a housekeeping service and stuff. They maintain the properties and get them move-in ready when mom and dad are ready to come back. It’s usually not the same people.” Tim recognizes a few here and there, but mostly they just do their jobs.

“So it’s just you and them, in essence, and you haven’t moved in with Bruce yet. You’re either pretending it’s an WE internship or that you’re on the football - or both - to cover yourself in case anyone decides to pay you any mind.”

Meaning… it’s probably the Drakes. The fear of disappointing Bruce wasn’t so heavy until life started blending Tim Drake and Robin into whatever Tim Wayne was. “Don’t bother arguing that it’s lacrosse in your world.”

“I’ve been staying at Wayne Manor most of the time when they’re gone. They, um, insisted when they realized how much of the time mom and dad are gone.”

Beat.

Then, quieter: “They don’t really know. B wanted to talk to them about it, but I convinced him it would be better coming from me. They wouldn’t really like it, but they don’t really pay enough attention to notice I’m not where I’m supposed to be, either.”

So that’s probably going to blow up in his face someday if he’s not careful enough, but he’s doing pretty okay putting it off so far.

“I know it seems like they never pay attention, but they do. Dad searched my room when I was dating Steph. He found - everything.”

Hiding things is disrespectful, even if it’s something no one dreamed of asking about. And Jack Drake demands respect from his son.

“You should let Bruce tell him. He can manage the situation better than you can. Dad found out a lot accidentally, and it didn’t go well.” How much should he say? He shouldn’t have said this much, if he wanted to preserve whatever relationship Tim has with the man, but it seems like the cord needs to be cut. “He pulled a gun on Bruce.”

See, Tim was about to point out that even if Jack and Janet were inclined to search (one of) his room(s), he been very careful not to leave anything they could possibly access that they could find.

And then TJ went and said that, and now he's looking kind of in shock. "He - what?"

He’d thought that too, once. It should’ve been secure, but Jack found his emergency gear. Found out he was Robin. “He stormed into the manor and pulled a gun on Bruce. I had to quit. Steph took my place until…”

Until she died, but not really, but that didn’t make the next year and a half of his life less painful to live. “Until I could do it again. That’s not the point. The point is, you can’t underestimate his anger. I don’t think he meant to hurt Bruce - and he didn’t - but you’ve been training long enough to identify the risks there. And…”

A cautious pause. “I think you know more than I do about dad’s temper.”

There. He said it. He’s almost done his due diligence, now. This can be over with.

“That’s not - he wouldn’t try to shoot someone, that’s not how he - “

Dad throws things sometimes. And he’s not… always careful where those things land. And. And he’s not good at reigning in his temper. But that doesn’t mean he’d -

And yeah, both of his parents do things that, that suck sometimes but they just don’t always think through what they’re doing. They never wanted to deal with a kid.

“I loved Dad, too, but I’m not defending his actions.”

Seeing it from this side is rough, because he knows how to look for signs in victims. Sentences that don’t say anything, incomplete arguments, debating a point that wasn’t made. Panic attacks. Overreacting when certain aggressive behavior happens in their presence.

He’s not supposed to see it in himself. “I didn’t say he shot anyone. He threatened Bruce with a gun. You’ve been taught gun safety. You don’t point a gun at anyone you don’t intend to shoot because accidents happen all the time. Especially when people are upset. Especially when he’s Bruce’s friend and everyone in the city knows that Bruce Wayne saw his parents get shot to death.”

Under other circumstances, he would be controlling his body language better. As it is, he's started to curl in on himself, unconsciously making himself smaller. He doesn't want to have this conversation, why is TJ making them have it? The Drakes function best when they leave certain things unspoken, unaddressed. "He wouldn't," is all he can manage to say because he's not sure how to make the argument when TJ is telling him otherwise, but he also doesn't want to admit it could be true.

Because he had to know.

TJ had to know if it was specifically male family members shouting at each other that made Tim freeze up.

(And it was. Look at him. Look at what you’ve done to that kid.)

Had to know if it was Bruce or Jack. Like with his freezing up with Jason, it’s the lack of a real fight that gives it away. Suddenly, the Tim that keeps up with him so well just. Shuts down. Curls in where TJ would curl up.

(But they’re not alike. It’s different. Something worse happened to Tim. Had to.)

“Hey. It’s okay. It’s not going to happen in your world. Your world is different enough, and you’re forewarned. Plenty of time to plan for contingencies. I’ll help you.” He moves to give himself a half hug and stops awkwardly a few inches away. He’s not a born hugger. “If you’ll let me?”

If he keeps carving up bits of his past as offerings in solidarity, maybe Tim will tell him what happened, and TJ can tag in Dick.

If. If it can get that bad in TJ's world, where could it stop in his? The thing is, Tim thought that he knew something about where the line is. He tries to keep events from escalating and pushing that line, but he thought. He didn't think his dad would pull an actual gun on anyone. If that's possible, then where's the line? How far could his dad go, if pushed the right way?

He glances up and nods quietly at the request for permission to be hugged, and then he looks down again, so he doesn't have to look TJ in the eye. "I don't. I don't want B and my dad to meet," he says, low.

He pulls him in for a hug and keeps him there. It’s not as good as a hug from Dick or Bart, but it’s solid and anchoring and he can say it’s all for Tim.

(He’s fine. He’s fine.)

“Then don’t bring anything into the house. No matter how well secured, okay? Nothing. And whatever you’re using to cover your nocturnal activities, you have to actually do that too.”

And staying at the Wayne Manor needs to stop, but he can’t bring himself to voice that. That’s his link to Alfred, Dick, everything. To what family can actually be.

The hug is... it's nice. Not like one of Dick's, but nice. He lets it happen, and he stays quiet for a while and lets the suggestions sink in. They're not bad ideas, he's just... tired, all of the sudden, thinking about what it takes to maintain his life back home, keep it from blowing up in his face more than it already does.

A childish part of him wants to whine that it's not fair, he didn't ask to be born to Jack and Janet Drake. If they never wanted a kid anyway, couldn't they have just adopted someone older? Instead of making him hold all the pieces together?

A sound comes out of him that's suspiciously close to a sob, and he stiffens up immediately, because that wasn't supposed to happen.

Oh. He’s upset the delicate jenga of being Tim. All the carefully supported hollows and gaps are fine until the wrong piece is jostled and then the weight’s too much. He shouldn’t have suggested that Tim make the cover story real. It’s such a stressful time sink, and he’s still so young.

TJ reels him into a reel hug, the way he wished people would’ve done for him more. The kind of hug he pretends he doesn’t need. “Hey. You don’t have to hide from me. I might not know every detail, but I understand. I know how hard you work. I know they don’t tell you that you’re great, and they should. You’re Robin. You iii earned that. You look after yourself, and B, and smooth the path for everyone around you and they don’t even notice. But you’re allowed to be not okay.”

He swallows the tightness in his throat away. “You can stay with me if you want. Nobody else needs to know if you’re not okay. Drake secret.”

It hurts, hearing that all said out loud, even if it's sort of nice at the same time. He tucks his face into Tim's shoulder and tries not to let the one runaway sob turn into actual crying, because he doesn't want to make a Scene (more than he is already).

He finds himself saying, quietly, because TJ promised he'd understand: "They fight all the time now. And it feels like they'd be better off getting divorced but they don't want to, because of the company and how would it look, so they just make each other miserable instead, and if they did get a divorce, where would I even fit in anymore? They barely want me now."

Some kids' parents divorce and get nasty over who gets custody of who. Tim's pretty sure his parents would fight tooth and claw not to have him.

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