Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

Everyone in the family was allowed to have one villain they could be on friendly with, as a treat, no questions asked,- thanks Dick for that rule- and although everyone had seemed survived when Tim had listed Shiva as his exception, he didn’t quite understand why. She was nowhere near as bad as who some of them had chosen.

With this rule in mind, Tim was going to visit his old teacher, Lady Shiva herself, when he heard the sounds of someone training inside as he raised his hand to knock on the door.

He didn’t know Shiva had a new student. Well, he vaguely knew, but he didn’t realise the student was still here.

He wondered why Shiva had invited him over for one of their catch ups when she still had them.

Shiva opened the door before his hand could even make contact.

“Timothy.”

“Shiva.”

She gave him a quick assessing look, before giving a half smile, “It doesn’t look like you’ve lost another organ. I do hope that my students are good enough to not need to learn that lesson, but you’ve always been…. good at finding unusual situations.”

“That was one time!” Tim protested, before composing himself, “Thanks for your concern?”

Shiva gave a small nod, before turning to lead him inwards.

“So….”

“I have another student at the moment,” Shiva told him, pre-empting his question.

“How are they doing?”

“We’re nearly done. Only a few more days, probably. Don’t tell them.”

“Who is it?” Tim asked, “Anyone I’d know?”

Shiva didn’t answer, waiting for the few more steps onwards before her student, in the middle of doing some practise of some kind.

It was Respawn- who he’d last seen trying to kill Damian- who he’d last thought he’d seen dead.

He looked almost the same- other than his hair. It was longer, even more than his hair was before, and held back with a cheap pale blue hair elastic.

He had so many questions, and turned to Shiva.

“Don’t interrupt the kid now, he’s practising. You’ll have time later on.”

---

Tim didn’t have a chance to talk to Respawn until dinner rolled around that night, but, as much as it was nice to talk to the kid with Shiva, he couldn’t exactly ask what he wanted to with Shiva around.

He wasn’t quite sure why Shiva seemed to deliberately leave the two of them together afterwards, but, he appreciated it regardless.

She always had her reasons.

“So, you doing okay?” Tim asked.

Respawn glared at him.

“You were stabbed last time I saw you. And now you’re training under Shiva.”

“I got better.” The kid muttered. “Besides, you trained under Shiva.”

“I was probably too young then. And you’re younger than I was, even if we pretend you are as old as you look. Shiva’s treating you okay?”

“I’m fine. She’s fine.”

“Good, good. I just had to check, you know?”

Respawn looked away.

“So, Respawn… well, that’s… Kid, do you have a name yet?”

“My name’s Respawn.” The kid paused, and Tim, as someone who had had a name who hadn’t felt quite right on him when he was younger, recognised that uncomfortableness on Respawn- on the kid. “No. No one’s given me a name yet. Well. None I want.”

“You can always name yourself,” Tim offered, “That’s what I did.”

“And you chose Tim?”

“Yes.” He ignored the insult inherent in that question.

“You can do that?”

“Yes. You can.”

“Oh. That’s—hmm.” The kid looked pensive, which Tim hadn’t thought he would ever see on a kid that came from Talia.

The room went silent for a few minutes, and the kid fiddled with a knife in his hands.

“How did you know how to choose a name?”

“Well I first thought about what was wrong with the name I didn’t want, so I knew where I wanted to do from there. Then you know how to choose for yourself.”

“But I want a name from someone else.”

“Then you know which one from someone else to accept. What was wrong with the names you were offered before?”

Respawn pulled a face. “They were all boy’s names.”

“Oh.” Tim said, pieces finally clicking into place in his mind. “Well, what about names that aren’t boy’s names?”

“I want to keep the ‘R’ though.”

Tim took that as a yes. “Hmm. R… r…. Rebecca?”

The kid thought for a second. “Not that one.”

“Remy? Reina? Reberta?”

“Reberta?” The kid crinkled their – her?- nose.

“I’m not very good with names.”

“I can tell.”

“Ouch.”

“… Do you have any more?”

“Rose? Roxanne? …. Um… Reya?”

“I like those more, but.” She didn’t finish the sentence.

“It took me a few months to settle on Timothy, there’s no rush.”

The kid actually smiled at this.

They fell into silence again.

“So,” Tim realised he’d nearly forgotten one of the questions he’d wanted to ask. “Do you have any idea what you’ll do once you’re done training?”

The kid just shrugged, but, at least she didn’t scowl again.

“You’ve still got some time to decide, don’t worry.”

“I don’t worry!”

---

A few hours later, once she was off to where-ever it was she was sleeping- and Tim had confirmed the kid was she, Tim went to talk to Shiva again.

“Is this why you wanted me to visit now?”

Shiva looked at Tim as if the answer was obvious, and Tim did his best to not feel like he was 13 again.

“Of course. I don’t keep my students beyond training after all.”

“Sandra Wu San.”

Shiva just shrugged, unrepentant.

Tim sighed.

“You did mention on your last visit that when you eventually adopted a child you wouldn’t be learning from my example.”

“Normally, when someone mentions their future plans they don’t expect you to find a pre-existing very stabby child for them.”

Shiva lifted an eyebrow to Tim, as if challenging him to say that she was wrong.

“How annoyed do you think Bart would be if I moved up our future plans a bit?”

“I would be able to answer that, if you ever introduced him to me.”

“Bribery still isn’t going to work. Anyway, I would only do that if the kid was fine with it.”

“So… where did you find this student?” Tim asked, sitting down opposite her.

“You never do stop trying to learn everything, do you?” Shiva teased him, before beginning to properly answer.

---

The kid did in fact finish her training a few days later.

And well, if Tim just so happened to be ready to head home himself at the same time, well, that was just a coincidence.

That she took the offer of somewhere to go now was, however, very much deliberate.

Chapter Text

Bart was incredibly excited.

This was normal, but today, his excitement actually had an excuse, Tim would be coming back from his trip over to an unspecified location somewhere in Eurasia, and Bart could barely wait to see his husband again.

He did his best to continue focusing on his work, not going too fast or risk damaging to metal of the car, channelling that patience into a mostly harmless tapping of his foot.

Some of his family didn’t quite get why he worked here- as a mechanic at a small shop in Keystone- where he couldn’t go fast, couldn’t use his speed- but Tim did, and Max certainly did, and that was what mattered. Slowing down was good sometimes, and there was nothing quite like feeling every success of a fix that he’d actually earned.

“Try not to burn through the floor,” Griffin called over from the other side of the workshop.

Ah. So, his tapping was noticeable then. “Sorry!”

“Anything world ending happening that you’re nervous about?”

“No- no- it’s good, don’t worry. I’m excited, not nervous.”

“Hard to tell sometimes. Hey, do you know where the keys are for this?”

“Check the top right drawer on the boss’s desk.”

Griffin nodded in acknowledgement, before heading off to search.

Leaving Bart again alone with his very fast thoughts.

He wasn’t worried about Tim, even if he was going to see a known villain, even if it was Tim’s designated Friendly Villain Exception that the Bats weren’t allowed to complain about him interacting with, because Tim could handle himself, but that didn’t mean Bart didn’t miss him.

Even if it had only been a few days.

Griffin made a noise of success from the next room- he’d apparently found the keys- and hey, wait-

His friend Griffin, who had a brief villain which, - actually that was kind of nice given it meant he knew Bart had superspeed so he didn’t need to hide it when it was just the two of them working and wait-

He wasn’t really a bat, but did that mean he also had a Friendly Villain Exception too? Did Griffin count for that?

Hmm.

Bart decided he didn’t want to think about that too much, and fortunately, he didn’t have to, as his phone pinged with an incredibly conveniently timed message notification,

It was Tim- that was nice!

He read over the messages quickly, before sending an acknowledgement of a reply.

Tim was home, which was nice, and apparently he’d brought something back with him.

That was ominous, unspecific, and completely normal for Tim.

Bart thought of what Tim had brought back from previous Shiva visits, and wondered where on the scale of a box of expensive French cookies, to a cursed poisoned sword that will require gathering the whole of their old team to deal with, this particular surprise would be.

Hopefully on the cookie end of scale.

As much as he liked adventures, he wasn’t a kid anymore.

If he had been excited about Tim returning before, knowing he was back now meant he was practically vibrating out of his skin.

Well, not literally. Not only would that incredibly uncomfortable he wasn’t sure his powers would even allow that and –

Bart decided he would stop thinking about that. More thoughts about Tim. Those thoughts were always good thoughts.

Griffin walked back in.

“Oh, I’m guessing Tim’s back early then?”

“Is it that obvious?” Bart asked.

“Yes. It is.”

Bart tried his best to settle down. “Less obvious now?”

Griffin made a noise that was neither an affirmation nor a denial. “Hey, why not head out early tonight? Once you’re done with that of course,” He gestured to the engine Bart was currently working on. “I can handle everything else.”

“I could never leave you to do it all by yourself,” Bart lied.

Griffin laughed, “I’ll use up that favour I owe you from lunch last week, go home, Bart.”

“Deal.” Bart agreed.

Within ten minutes, he was already heading out the building to run home.

---

Bart was home, and Tim was there- his wonderful husband Tim-

And-

Hmm.

He wasn’t quite sure where this fell on the cookie-sword scale.

Tim was sitting a full on child at their kitchen table.

A child that was vaguely recognisable even if Bart couldn’t quite place them. Maybe he knew a relative that they looked like?

“Who are you?” He blurted out, the first in the room to speak.

“Hi to you also, Bart.” Tim replied, amused.

The kid scowled.

“Hi Tim. Hi….” He trailed off, hoping to be introduced. When it didn’t happen he tried to figure out something to say, “Hi… human?”

Well, at least his lack of common sense there got a slight smile out of the kid.

“So, Bart, remember how we talked about adopting a kid sometime?” Tim said.

He did remember those conversations. He just didn’t expect Tim to show up with a fully formed child one day.

This is probably what he should have expected from marrying a bat. He’d met Bruce before. He knows how Tim’s dad just kept on collecting random children.

It shouldn’t be too big of a surprise that Tim had apparently inherited that trait.

Although that explained why the kid was here, it didn’t answer who the kid was.

“Anyway,” Tim continued, “Do you also remember that Deathstroke and Damian’s mom had a test tube baby clone running around?”

Oh no.

“So, this is her.” Tim finished, presenting her with jazz hands.

Bart had about three existential crises in a row. He was so glad he could have them in superspeed so that the people in front of him couldn’t tell.

“I don’t remember first hand, but you’ve definitely told me about it sometime.” Bart said as calmly as he could.

The kid was looking at him suspiciously, and he realised something. “Guess the spare room’s been claimed now then. Hopefully the kid’ll chose better curtains than you.”

Tim protested that he had perfectly good interior design tastes thank you very much, and Bart prodded back.

Some of the tension in the kid was gone, but not all of it. Seemed she’d been waiting for Bart’s reaction to her presence.

“I’m Bart,” He said, addressing her and cutting Tim off mid-sentence about florals, “You?”

Instead of answering, her eyes darted over to Tim as if as to ask how she should respond.

“She’s still deciding on a name.” Tim explained.

She nodded, “It’s going to begin with R.”

“We could go by surname for now?” Bart suggested, and somehow, his mouth moved before his brain despite having superpowers that you think would let him avoid that, “You’ve got white hair like Slade- so- Baby Wilson?”

Respawn scowled.

“Hey!” Tim protested, “Slade didn’t want her, we are not using Wilson.”

“Yes, but,” Bart stated to dig himself into an even greater hole based on Tim’s expression as he continued, “If you used just Baby Drake or Baby Allen, how’s Damian going to be able to refer to her? He’ll have a stroke with two family members having the same surname.”

Tim paused for a second, as if considering that that would actually be a possibility for his brother.

“Double barrel it,” She grumbled, “Baby Drake-Allen.”

“Oh?”

Her eyes widened slightly in realization, “I am not being called Baby.”

“We can go with that.” Bart said.

“As a placeholder, until we figure out a proper name.” Tim soothed.

She grumbled, but ended up agreeing. For now.

---

At the end of the evening, Bart took a picture to send to the joint Flashfam-Batfam group chat.

She’d fallen asleep on the sofa, TV still on but Tim turning the volume down to 0 with the arm that wasn’t currently trapped by the kid.

They both looked adorable.

He mouthed over to Tim to ask if he should, and Tim nodded.

Bart: Image Attachment: baby.jpg

Bart: new baby lol

Bart: they grow up so fast look how big she already is!

Tim: anyway, congrats on getting your first great granddaughter Barry and Alfred

Bart: surprise!

several people are typing…..

Wally: congrats

Max: Bart where did you find a child?

Jason: no more pressure t give B a grankid now then lol

Dick: is that respawn

Dick; Tim this is important is that Respawn

Barry; Who is Respawn?

Dick: Bart why do you have Respawn

Dick: Bart tell Tim to look at his DMs I need to talk to him

Max: bring the kid with you next time you visit

Dick: Bart where did Tim find Respawn

Jason: shiva’s, dick

Dick: Tim was at Shiva’s??

Dick: Bart?

Dick: BART

Dick: ANSWER THE TEXTS BARTHOLOMEW I CAN SEE THE READ RECEIPTS

Bart laughed silently at that, showed Dick’s messages to Tim, and switched his phone to DND.