Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

Cassie and Tim had fought. And a lot. They both missed Kon so much, but what the gothamite was doing was truthfully stupid and unethical. Idiotic, as he would say to make himself sound smarter. Scratch that, it would be Bart, not Tim, who would say idiotic to make himself look smarter.

So much for being trained by THE Batman. Maybe it was growing up in Gotham of all places, she would go mad if she did. Probably kill someone from punching them hard enough.

And she wasn’t having the best time mourning her now-dead boyfriend, but she didn’t try to clone him! But the dude was as stubborn as he always had been and no matter what Cassie did he couldn’t change his mind. And Cassie had given up on trying to change his mind. Or go down into the underground lab, still she knew he must be close to his hundredth attempt. Again, that Robin may have been the smartest one out of them all, but he still was a Robin and being stubborn was more a set trait than a coincidence, even if she had only met Batman, Nightwing and spoiler who was the one she interacted with the most. Even so three former robins out of 5 and some things that Tim had told her were evidence enough.

As she descended the concrete stairs, her steps barely made any sound being the only one filling the room. The silence was maddening, she got the feeling that something wasn’t right. There was a distant sound of moving bubbles in liquid and the beeping of the computer, but not it talking like it had been the last time she had gone down there, counting every time Rob had failed.

The bats were extremely aware of their surroundings, knowing who was around them without looking and making you not notice them. If they didn’t want you to see them, you most probably wouldn’t see them. And yet, when Cassie saw Tim, standing still, looking at the tank with its green liquid, the one that with its lights illuminated her friend’s face in its uncanny shade, she felt like he didn’t want to be seen.

Her breath hitched as she stopped at the end of the stair, he didn’t turn towards her, like she didn’t exist to him right now. Whatever was in the tank, she couldn’t see, and yet she feared what may have one of the robins entranced, the kids that had seen everything they shouldn’t have from their job and from their city, everyone knew the mythos, specially when your only surviving best friend was apart of the family that carried it. That same robin that had lived through hell and back (metaphorically, of course) looked like shit. From her position she couldn’t quite see him full, but his longer hair- Kon had always said it would suit him better, how it hurt that he was right and hadn’t gotten the chance to brag about it like he would’ve done - grease from, probably, days without washing it hiding his paler face and the eyebags that peaked as if taunting her.

Daring to get closer, maybe out of curiosity, maybe out of sadness for the poor almost man, made her see what had bewitched the other hero, what he had created. There, in the cristal tube, floating in the green liquid which light now seemed to fill the room as if asphyxiating her, a baby that looked one or two months old posed in the fetal position, as if protecting themselves from the two onlookers they managed to get. Floating with him, as if making him company, were Kon’s shirt and sweatpants, the one he had last worn, the ones his life had been taken away in.

She felt as a tear fell down her cheek, but had no force to move from where she stayed, her last surviving and present friend at her side. The one that she had almost lost from leaving at the side while she grieved. The one that had run away from them all, and not only her like others had done.

Another tear fell, and another one, one after the other until she lost count. She didn’t hiccup. She didn’t make any sounds. Her heartbeat was normal. Yet she was crying and so clearly it hurt. All her energy went into it and so she whispered, almost as if forcing herself “What have you done?” not incriminating nor reprimanding. She wasn’t angry, if anything she was worried. Still something assured her her voice wobbled a bit. She didn’t know what she wanted to be answered, or if she wanted even that.

There was a collision sound, of someone falling to the floor. Tim sat on his knees on the floor, some space he had been before. He looked at the floor and Cassandra dared to look at him. He, just as her, was crying without any noise, shaking through the emotion. His hands were in fists, pressing down on his thighs, maybe even hard enough to sink in slightly the extremely toned muscle, he probably also grit his teeth against each other, she knew him enough to feel free to guess that last one.

She sat down with him, hugging him close to her chest as they both cried for as long as they needed to, time hadn’t matter since they lost their friends, it still didn’t. They needed the time the others lost.

Robin tried to talk once or twice, but when all that came out were sobs he quickly gave up. “Crying in my house was not allowed” he once had told her “I was a young man, my father always said men didn’t cry. My mother said to cry for important things” . This was important. Men do cry. She wanted to tell him to let it all out. She to sobbed instead of talk. It felt pitiful, even if she knew it wasn’t.

The kid floated around in the tank as if waiting for them, even if they were probably asleep. Tim shaked under her arms and the hug was returned. They both parted to look at eachother faces. Her face must’ve looked like shit, puffy and red eyes, her face painted with dried tears and if there was something else there it would surprise even her. There probably was, Tim looked like he’d seen a ghost.

Tim’s face was as bad as she believed it to be. His eyes were red, probably from crying, lack of sleep and staring, the eye bags weren’t much better either. He probably hasn’t slept in around 36 to 40 hours. His expression looked sorrowful, and his hair covered part of his face. His domino wasn’t on, so he had probably been crying for a while, he always said that it was really uncomfortable to cry with it on, that the tears spilled on inside and couldn’t escape.

She kissed the top of his forehead as she smiled. He returned it. “I don’t-” His voice was wavy and he took a big breath before he continued “It must- I just-” another big breath followed this time by some silence, he was thinking how to put it.

“It’s okay love” her voice was much the same, still she hoped it was reassuring.

Tim breathed in and out again. A deep breath. “I don’t know how it happened. I kept adding more human DNA, kryptonian’s are quite unstable” She had been aware of that, there’s a reason Kon had a shit bio dad “But- but I just- It just” He breathed again and looked sad.

She looked at the baby, floating there like nothing really mattered. They looked happy, more at peace than any of the other people in the room.

Her friend tried to explain again, but just gave up. Not even putting up the robin’s report front help. He just called for the computer to explain. Its robotic voice could only say the facts, no opinions or thoughts, not like someone like Red Tornado could. It gave the facts of the experiment, all the processes used and how they were successful or failures. How it spliced and combined the DNA, how it was almost like in vitro fertilisation but for chromosomes from what Cassie remembered from school.

How there had been DNA from 3 different users, and that shocked Cassie. The computer called them donors 1, 2 and 3. Donor 1 was the kryptonian DNA, so that was surely superman’s. Donor 2 and 3 were human, one she was sure was Lex Luthor, but who the other was haunted her. The computer mentioned that the Donor’s 1 and 2 DNA were in the same proportion as the previous experiment’s files, both Tim’s and other’s. 

She looked at him, her eyes asking him even before she voiced it “Who’s donor 3, Rob?”

He didn’t answer, just pointed at a screen. She could see the tears forming in his eyes. Fear. A fear he would only wear around someone who he trusted. The screen showed data, barely any images on it. There, in small letters and almost hidden where the donor’s names:

Clark Joseph Kent. Kal-El.

Alexander Joseph Luthor.

Timothy Jackson Drake-Wayne.

The small letters screamed at her. Screamed what happened. Told her that her friend was crazy, a lunatic, a maniac, as if she hadn’t known that. Timothy fucking Jackson Drake-Wayne . Any other day she would’ve laugh at the fact that both of Kon’s bio dads- and them being bio dads as any other name would made her feel mean and condescending towards her dead boyfriend- shared a second name, almost wishing that it was his second name too, just because she would’ve find it hilarious. Any other day she would’ve focused on how Tim had too many names, no one should have two surnames AND two names, only one of those options. Any other day she would question how Tim got the first two DNAs, if he had gotten them from Batman and if Batman had their DNAs if they had her one too.

Today she could only focus on the boy’s name there. And today she could also only focus on how the same boy was full on sobbing in her arms, saying sorry and being ashamed of his position, maybe both physical and psychological.

She hugged him closer, hiding her face on his neck. His cry was ugly and he stained her shirt with mucus and moisture. Her cry was silent again, repeating over and over again that it’ll be okay, it’ll be fine, that it’s okay to cry.

He took the back of her shirt in fists, weeping as he spoke his sorrys once again.

She held him. He held her. They both cried. And the feeling was so familiar that she missed her old team even more. When they were in young justice they may have not gotten along all the time, but they were there for eachother all the time. Just a friend group with peculiar origins. And she didn’t have them anymore, for one reason or another. And at times like this she missed them even more.

“I loved him” Tim cried, his voice low as if he didn’t want to be listen “I loved him so much, Cassie”

She held her head petting his head lightly “I know”

“I loved him like you did, Cassie” He cried harder, as if he thought she wouldn’t understand.

“I know, Tim” She patted his hair once again. Her friend needed her confort “I’ve known for a while”

She hugged him even harder, if that was possible.

Tim was tired. Tired of crying. Tired of his life. Tired just from this last year. It had been too much. In the last 24h alone he had cried 23 times, he had counted them. It helped that he had only taken a one hour nap in that time.

And if he had to guess the last 3 or 4 times had been with Cassie on his side in between 1 hour and 1 hour and a half.

They now sit on the floor. They were wearing their hero costumes, it was normal when they visited the titan tower. He sat on his knees, as if he was waiting to spar with Steph or Dick and Bruce was watching them. Cassie sat hugging her legs, her chin in the middle of her knees.

They looked at the baby. He didn’t move, but you could see his chest slowly rise and fall as he breathed. The monitor that connected to the tank said he was healthy and that biologically he would be around 2 months old. His jaw already looked like the one the three kryptonian kents had once shared. His hair was black and looked to be curly like Kon’s but not like Clark’s or Jon’s. His eyes were closed and his chubby hands in loose fists.

Tim wanted to cry again.

What was he thinking? Why would he even decide to clone Kon? What was wrong with him? And now he had created a kid. His kid. With his and his dead best friend’s DNA. His dead best friend who was dating his friend. His dead best friend who he had had a crush in almost since he had become his best friend.

And he had told his dead best friend’s girlfriend that. AND SHE KNEW? AND NEVER SAID ANYTHING?

Tim calm down. You’re a calm and cool individual. Panic is overrated and that’s not what you’re doing again.

Sometimes one just had to tell those sorts of things to himself. It didn’t really help internally, but when one was fighting whoever decided to attack Gotham today it sometimes did. And even if it didn't, some habits die hard, he guessed.

Logically Cassie wouldn’t have said anything no matter how long she’d known. For a long time Conner would flirt with anyone and everyone that identified as a woman, except for Cassie. So none of them had a chance. This was also the first time he had told someone he liked men. It felt like those words didn’t fit in his mouth. Truthfully he didn’t know why he hadn’t told anyone before, he just knew it felt wrong to voice, even if he knew there would be no problems around it.

What if they had talked about it? Would she have never dated Kon? Would she tell Kon about it? Would it have gone down the same way it did? It was, and had always been, as matter of fact as it could be. Kon liked women. And a lot.

Cassie looked at the baby intently. Tim looked at the floor intently as well. “I wanna keep him” That made him look up.

“Huh?”

Cassie raised her face and lowered her legs as she pointed with an open hand and a slightly outstretched arm to the tank. “ I want to keep him.” She then turned to point at Tim with an accusatory finger. “Dunno what you want to do. But I want to keep him”

“Huh”

He hadn’t thought it was an option. Logically, he was going to keep him. He was the creation of his bad choices and stubbornness, but it wasn’t guilt what made him want to keep the baby. The baby was approximately a fourth kryptonian, which came with its own powers and restrictions. Leaving the kid for adoption felt like taking a risky gamble. Best place scenario, the kid was adopted by loving parents and had a childhood similar to what must’ve been Superman’s, concealing his powers but being an overall normal kid. A worse place scenario is that he stayed in the foster system or had bad luck with his adoptive parents, his powers being discovered and probably being exploited as a kid for fame, money or whatever else illegal plan someone in Gotham had tried to make their kids do. Worst of all would be being found out by Lex Luthor. That would be catastrophic.

“I can hear you think, you know?” Her posture relaxed and she fully turned to look at him “You make this face” Her lips pursed, her eyes crossed as she was looking at her nose and she adopted the thinker’s posture. That made him laugh. That made her laugh too, losing her concentration and going back to a much more comfortable position. “Its okay if you don’t know yet”

He shook his head “No. No, I want to take care of him” His eyes darted to the baby, his posture the same as it had last been “It’s what's best for him after all but…”

The phrase never ended, he couldn’t quite find the words to explain himself, still the blond softly smiled and nodded as if she understood. “Sometimes you just don’t know what's right for someone, Tim, but I think you’re right” She hopped off the floor and offered him a hand to stand up, which he gladly took. “Why don’t we go grab something to eat, sleep for a while-” that felt targeted “-and talk about it more when we're in a better headspace?” It didn’t sound like a bad idea, truth be told. He was tired and hungry, she must’ve been as well or just felt like it was the right thing to do.

They reached the stairs and a red light with a siren’s sound loudly played for everyone to listen. Someone was trying to break in. He reached for his bo staff to be ready to fight whoever came in, he had a faint feeling it had to do with the baby.

He tried to go up but Wonder Girl stopped him, bumping their shoulders, walking past him and somehow taking his bo away with her. “No, you’re not going to fight, you look like you’ll fall down from going up the stairs” She was exaggerating, he knew it. She threw the bo back to him. “ You leave, I stay and fight”

The sound of steps and breaking objects was above their heads and the red beeping didn’t stop, the red light that accompanied it overpowering the green the tank emanated. That green that for some reason reminded him a bit too much of the hellspawn that was the new robin and of the time Jason tried to kill him just because. That green should’ve warned him enough, that green spelled death and torment.

“Cassie I can’t leave you here alone” He walked towards her, but she took him by the shoulders and as lightly as she could threw him towards one of the other computers in the lab.

“You sure as hell can” She hugged herself as she slammed her whole body into the tank, breaking it and letting the green liquid spill out, the kid in one hand and Kon’s clothes in the other. That’s it! The green liquid!

Robin incorporated himself and shouted an order to her “Start my motorbike! I’m blowing this up” He turned fully from her to start inputting the right codes and passwords into the computer. He had installed a self destruction mechanism and multiple safety measures to make sure he didn’t accidentally turn it on.

The bike made a noise of it turning on and their exit made sure to alert him it was opening as he finished inputting the last password and a countdown appeared onscreen. He raised towards the bike and jumped on the driver’s seat, Cassie waiting just behind him with the baby in her arms, using what remains they had from Kon as a very bad blanket and a very bad onesie

“I could’ve just flown us away” The bike had started and they raced out of the tower, going past the speed limit into the dark night of san francisco. He didn’t respond, he focused on trying to exit the city.

5 seconds to the explosion he told Cassie to protect the kids ears and to hang on tight. The moment the tower disappeared almost all the traffic stopped, making it harder to exit the city, but Robin still managed. “You didn’t want to leave with me” he shrugged his arms and the baby cried, Cassie rocking him to sleep so close that the baby was almost touching the driver’s back.

He touched his comm, the one that connected all the bats and not the one that made him talk to anyone associated with the justice league. Three beeps. Someone was online in star city. He had the feeling that he knew who it must be.

“Jason” he called out, getting only a sigh in response. That was Jason “You’re in star city, right?”

Star city was at most 3 or 4 hours away. It was their best bet of a place to go to. Either that or Gateway, and something told him that Cassie didn’t really want to see her mother or her- technically- older sister. Maybe it wasn’t the best idea for him to take them on as little sleep he was on as he was, but there was something in him that pushed him to his limit.

“Mister ‘no legal names on the job’ is calling me my legal name on the job. Finally breaking the rules, huh replacement?” Jason had taken his sweet time to answer, but only if he had known all the things- which weren’t many mind you- that he had done while not listening to B. If only.

“Are or are you not in star city?” The older man was beating around the bush. Tim needed answers.

“Yes, why? What do you want from me?” His voice sounded concerned. That was a new expression to add to the roster.

Tim smiled “Great. Don’t move from there” He deactivated his coms before he could answer.

The baby had calmed down when they had already been 10 or 15 minutes out on the road. Maybe even falling asleep, it felt weird to think so from the speed they were going in, but he knew Cassandra had him secured in her arms.

He felt a tug and then a rip, and suddenly his suit lacked a cape. He knew it had been Cassie the one to tear it apart, and still it wasn’t fully separated, a piece of his cape still hung to his suit, and his friend was strong enough to tear kevlar. It surprised him still, guessing she was only using one hand.

He knew that the girl was not falling off the bike because of her super-strength, still it felt wrong. “I’m using it as a blanket” she was referring to the cape “It should keep him protected” Tim couldn’t turn around, still he nodded. “I still feel like I could’ve flown us to star city”

“Maybe” He increased the speed of the bike knowing that the baby was protected by his cape. At this speed and rate they would reach Jason and probably Arsenal in closer to 3 hours than four. If he didn’t fall asleep, which he wasn’t planning to do, determination and the importance of the situation was keeping him awake. “But you would end up really tired”

She scoffed “When was the last time you slept? And I’m as strong as Kon was and he carried you while flying well enough!” Her anger was faux, her arguments valid and her tone of voice brought fondness to his heart he had thought he lost a long time ago.

“My bad or good habits are not important right now” His anger was faux as well, his tone mocking how he would talk to batman or nightwing while on a mission.

An exaggerated gasp “You’re going to pass them down to the baby! What a dishonor of a father!”

He laughed lightly “If we are keeping him maybe he deserves a name”

Cassie gasped this time truly. She had an idea. Maybe a bad idea for the name, but the best they had. And when one had slept as little as he had, any idea was a good idea.

Chapter Text

Jason had known that something was wrong when the kid contacted him from the comms. That was even the first give away. Maybe not the worst but definitely a big one. Because he worked with the bats when they needed him, but the replacement either never needed him or didn’t want him to need Jason. Jason was fine with that, he enjoyed doing his own thing with no one on him to tell him what to do or how to do it.

Then there were the names on the job. No robin used them. None. Only when something really bad happened to someone in front of you or when you went on to be your next hero identity. Jason had been like that once, and so had Dick. From what this last one told him, Tim had been similar and the new sibling seemed to be in that same way, as far as he knew he even refused to call people by their first name. Like on the regular.

No kid that becomes the boy wonder is normal, Jason had ended up realising. Half of them were orphans. Only one of them had biological parents currently alive. The woman hated Bruce and Jason had the feeling that they would get along only because of that, even if he had to discover what her name was before that. Dick put the milk before the cereal, the obvious wrong choice, and added water to coffee once it was done for it to be colder because he had never been a normal person about it and added ice or cold milk. He heard that Tim figured out that the dynamic duo was their neighbours at age 10 and Jason didn’t even know they were neighbours. And the new kid was Talia’s son which made Jason suspect the kid was going to appear any day with a dagger and pierce his heart.

The call Jason had received had been at a bit after 10pm. That wasn’t a weird time for one of Gotham’s heroes to be outside and kicking ass. They would get there sometime soon, but not knowing when had thrown him off, same as the kid knowing where he was currently located.

The bats didn’t really interact that much with Jason. Dick pestered him from time to time when he went to gotham. Barbara checked on him almost daily just to see how he was doing. Bruce… did what Bruce does best and hid in the shadows while not making any noise. Still none of them should know why, where, how and with who he was. Those questions had easy answers that he didn’t feel fine with them knowing. They were the greatest detectives ever, yes, but sometimes they could respect boundaries he hoped.

He was in star city because of Roy. They had had common ground to get along fairly quickly. They had both been sidekicks and had wanted to grow out of it. They both loved the color red and range weapons. Dick had been one of their best friends once. They had had problems with substance abuse, Jason had smoked a lot before he died, sometimes did it now, and Roy had gone to rehab for a heroin problem. And since Roy had come out of rehab he went to visit star city more often than he would’ve done in the past.

It was a little more complicated to explain  the why than the with who . Especially because then he had to explain that it was Roy’s daughter who wanted to go to the city. And then he would have to explain that he had an investigation on star city in order to stop something drug related. And then explain that they decided to stay together in a safe house in the city. And maybe ignore the part that he slept in the same bed with arsenal, that his daughter sometimes called him dad, that the drug thing had been stopped in a mere hours of getting there, and why Roy had gotten an arrow stuck on his leg if he wasn’t supposed to be using them that weak which Jason didn’t fully know the answer to.

At the moment of the call Jason had been out, doing vigilante work. He enjoyed running across rooftops and watching the views, had always been his favourite part of the gig. He actually wasn’t doing much work. The arrows had the city under control, sometimes one forgot that not every city is like gotham. He talked a lot of shit about Gotham but he actually really loved it, a city different from others even if it wasn’t for the best of reasons. Days where he was like this, running across other cities rooftops and looking at the scenery, he missed the gothic architecture that the main part of the city had. Those gargoyles that once had scared him as a kid sometimes were the best confidants.

When he went back to the safehouse, Lian was asleep in the room they had assigned as hers for the week they were going to stay in star city and Roy was sitting on the couch, a cup in his hand with probably one of those teas that help you sleep Jason had used since he was taken in by Bruce. Thank whatever god was out there if they even existed for Alfred and his british paraphernalia. Between the nightmares, the pain and the growing up those chamomile teas did wonders. They had been giving them to Lian ever since she came to live with them, the girl also had those same problems Jason had had. Roy took them every time he got really hurt since they met, and Jason could imagine that taking an arrow to the leg hurt much. It was a much healthier habit than taking heroin every time you got hurt, Jason was proud. The red head man sat with his injured leg layed on the coffee table, the bandage covered with sparkly and typically girly stickers, as he watched the tv late night news even if they were the 24h news channel with that one reporter that Jason hated for no reason.

The gothamite had taken his laptop the moment he got there, Tim disconnected his comm which prompted the living dead man to do some digging. A bat’s favorite activity. He hated that idea but it still felt too true. A bat’s favorite hobby was sticking their nose where it didn’t belong and learning things one shouldn’t have known, for better or for worse. He was sure Tim had done that, so it didn’t hurt to do it back.

Tim’s location was inactive. He could check with Barbara to see if she knew anything, but he doubts it would be much help. Something told him that he didn’t contact anyone else. It was a weird and illogical feeling. Tim didn’t like being around him, he got it, he had tried to kill him, but Jason was getting better, or so Roy said. Maybe he could talk to the kid after whatever he needed. He noticed that his bike was moving, he hoped the kid was the one using it and not anyone else. From its tracking Jason could tell that it would get to star city in about one hour and a half, so around 12pm.

A mug fell to the floor, the sound giving away its broken estate. That took Jason out of his work. That and the gasp Roy gave as he shouted for Jason to come in with urgency. That worried the man even more. Not because Roy knew that Tim was coming to star city for some reason, Jason hadn’t told him yet, too stuck in his own head to mention it when he came into the living room. More so because if it had shocked Roy so much his hopefully empty mug broke it was either really good or really.

He got to hear the reporter he hated before he even saw the tv, its volume low enough that you could only listen to it from the living room, Lian shouldn’t be awoken after she fell asleep, it took her ages to fall back asleep. “-firefighters are working on it at the moment, they have already found 4 people inside and we don’t know if there is anyone else there.” The images of the teen titans tower burning up in flames as if it was a candle illuminated the night sky “It appears that the capes weren’t at the building at the time of the explosion, but we cannot be sure of that yet, the justice league and associates have been made aware-” Roy turned off the tv, Jason hadn’t even gone past the door. Roy looked like he was about to cry, even if it wasn’t the tower he had lived in and had been his home for a good part of his teenage years, it must feel close enough to him for him to cry.

The red head turned his head in the now dark room, illuminated by the faint light from the kitchen which Jason had forgotten to shut off when he exited the room. He sat with him on the couch and the archer laid his head on his shoulder as he whispered “You think the titans are alright?”

Shit, for a moment Jason had forgotten that some of Roy’s old friends from when he was a titan were still a part of the teen titans. He slowly passed his hand through the others hair, combing it with his hands like he did to his daughter when she was crying on his shoulder. With his other hand he took the other man’s closest to him and squished “I’m sure of it”

He hoped he was, and he hoped that the moment Tim entered the city he would start explaining himself and answering their questions. Jason was getting more worried by the minute. What had happened to that little psycho that he needed his help this urgently was starting to change priorities from knowing the why to the what , because Jason was starting to get an idea that it wasn’t something he could go to the other bats to and for the kid’s sake he hoped it wasn’t murder.

Jason took a moment to think how to put his thoughts in words “Tim said he was coming to star city, that he wanted to talk to me” Roy straightened, his head still on Jason’s shoulder, the hand on his head stayed on his head and the hand that had been holding his now had finger interlaced in it.

“That's…” He seemed to think for a moment “He definitely caused the fire”

“Yep”

“Why?”

Jason shrugged “We’ll just have to wait to see”

They waited in total a bit more than an hour and a half like Jason predicted. There was a knock at the door at 12pm and thank god they didn’t use the doorbell because that’ll just get a certain kid woken up. Jayson was the one that went to get the door, it would have normally been Roy but he had spent the waiting time talking on the phone to whoever picked him up to make sure his old teammates weren’t dead. It was nice to know that even if they had kicked him out of the team because of his addiction they still picked the phone up. He had been talking in their shared bedroom with the door locked and the man limped whenever he tried walking, so Jason was forced to open the door even if he didn’t want to.

At the door stood Tim Drake with Wonder Girl behind him. Dick had mentioned her once or twice by civilian name but Jason had no idea how she was named. And she was not Donna, that Jason was sure of. If they were going to have a convo about whatever happened as they asked for his help he had the feeling that calling her Wonder Girl all the time or similar names was going to get weird really quickly. And things were already weird.

They were both wearing their heroes suits, or at least he assumed that the girl’s clothes were her hero suit as it was a red shirt with a wonder woman-esque gold logo and low rise loose-fitted jeans, which was definitely a better outfit than most of what Jason had worn over the years- a very specific pair of pants and helmet came to mind- but he knew that Tim’s clothes were his robin outfit, with the big R logo and everything. Except the cape, it had been torn off. That was… strange, their capes weren’t supposed to be torn off and it left a hole from the back of the suit that almost reached the front part of his shirt’s collar, if you even could call it that, exposing the scar that Jason had left him with.

Every single moment Jason felt that it made less and less sense that they were there.

Like for fucks sake the girl looked like she was going to strangle him any moment now and Tim didn’t have a much nicer look even if he was wearing a mask that concealed his eyes.

“The longer hair suits you better, Tim” He didn’t want to talk about anything while Roy was on the phone and not with them. Two reasons tied together as one, he was prone to shouting, screaming, speaking loudly, raising his voice, any other synonym you want to give. It could be heard by whoever was on the other side of the phone and Jason enjoyed having private conversation thank you very much. And worse, he could wake up Lian. Speaking of which “Try not to make much noise, we’ve got a child sleeping here”

The sounds of a limping Roy approaching were easily heard but not too loud. He must’ve finished all his phone calls. Good. He got to the doorway as well, using Jason as a crouch so as not to fall and his face adopted a small smile “I’m so glad you’re both okay. Dick and Donna would’ve been heart broken if something happened to you two” Roy was being Roy Harper and not Arsenal. He was Roy with kids and people he was close to and Arsenal to the rest of the world. He was glad Roy saw them as what they were, as kids. Not like his own father. God eight year-olds shouldn’t be out fighting people and risking their lives. Neither should thirteen or seventeen year-olds.

The girl showed a small smile. He didn’t know if Roy and her knew each other, but she smiled at the mention of Donna. Tim didn’t smile at the mention of Dick. Tim was a Robin, he was trained to not show any emotion.

They stood there in silence for a few seconds. None of them wanted to say anything. Until Tim did while dropping his facade and taking his mask off. God the kid looked like shit, when had he last slept? “We need your help. Both of you. And it’s urgent”

Roy and Jason looked at each other before looking back at the kids. Tim looked at wonder girl and she nodded, both of their expressions serious. She moved her hands and she was carrying a baby in her arms, the robin cape functioning as a blanquet.

Roy inhaled sharply and Jason’s mouth twitched upwards.

“What have you done?”

They had a couch in the living room and an armchair. The older men told them to sit on the couch. Roy reached for the armchair and Tim guided him there. Whatever had the man limping made Tim feel bad for the hero. Roy had been one of Dick’s bestfriends and now was Jason’s, it was the least he could do.

Jason went into the kitchen to bring them something to eat or drink, saying San francisco was far enough for them to be hungry. Tim asked for a coffee and Jason just laughed as he told him no. Great, not only was he asking help from Jason but the man was laughing to his face. Truth be told, he was so tired he just wanted to drink like 5 cups of coffee and call it a day, but they had to talk, the two members of the teen titans had no idea what to do.

The two of them were given a glass of water and for some reason Tim couldn’t fully understand they were offered cheese. “I can take him for a moment if you’d like” Roy said leaning forward on the armchair “I’ll make it easier for you to eat” Cassie and Tim looked at eachother, and when Tim nodded the girl got up and carefully placed the baby on Roy’s arms. The archer smiled at the gesture and started rocking the kid back and forth in his arms.

Jason came back with a wooden chair to sit in, but because he had to be different and unique and cool he sat on it backwards. “Does he have a name?” He asked, pointing at the baby.

“Eddie” The two teens gave the answer at the same time, in any other circumstance they would’ve started laughing their ass off.

“Let’s call him Eddie” Cassie said and Tim felt like she was looking down.

Tim scoffed “Eddie? Like the Iron Maiden skeleton?”

Cassie scoffed in return “Well yeah! Kon loved Iron Maiden!” the image of Kon’s pyjama, an old Iron Maiden shirt he was sure he had thrifted that had been washed so many times that barely had the image of the band’s skeleton and logo on it, the one Bart always laughed at because he found the concept of a british skeleton extremely funny and those sweatpants that had been so worn out that they had a whole in his but and part of one of the pant’s legs was almost ripped off entirely. Tim didn’t want to remember Kon in his pyjamas anymore. “You have a better idea?”

Tim opened his mouth and closed it again. He didn’t have a better idea. Kon had once told him that he wanted to name his first daughter Martha in honor of Ma Kent, but he had never mentioned anything about a first son or any other kid. “Nope” He got the feeling Kon wanted to be a girl dad. “Should it be Eddison or Eduard?”

Cassie laughed “Yeah no, either a dude who stole all his creations or a creepy vampire dude, I’ll pass”

Tim laughed as well “The vampire does sparkle in the sunlight” he pointed out jokingly and Cassie hit his arm jokingly as well. “Yep, I get it, only Eddie”

Roy and Jason looked at eachother again “How did you exactly get the baby?” Roy asked.

“His Kon’s” Tim responded.

Cassie played with her hands in front of her “He must be a clone or something like that. We- we tested his DNA and everything”

Tim started scratching at the exposed skin of his neck. Another bad habit. For some reason he noticed Jason shift in the corner of his eye, though his expression didn’t change. “He doesn’t have any other parents, or, like, DNA donors? You could say that”

When they were going to star city they decided to lie about him being Tim’s kid. Less need to explain the intended cloning or the possible kryptonian powers.

“He was just left at the door, as if he Atalanta but with less bears or Oedipus but without all the incest” Jason would get the greek myth references, he loved all kind of literature. And Tim hoped Roy was as lost as he was, because he only recognizes Oedipus from his complex and that was not a fun thing. There were perks to Red Tornado's love for philosophy sometimes, even if you learned about Freud by being compared to his psychoanalysis. Id, Ego and Superego. Bart, Kon and Tim. He missed them.

Jason looked at them as if he felt pity for them. It felt pathetic. “Huh. That’s… Huh yeah that tracks”

Tim could tell Cassie felt lost. He felt too. Roy spoke this time “Happened the same with my little girl” Lian Harper. His and Chesire’s daughter. “I get it, it’s hard and not how you expected your day to go” He looked at them both, then at Eddie, then at Jason and finally at Eddie again. It was a miracle he was still asleep “You don’t have to keep him kids. You’re young, I had a life before Lian and made a couple bad choices” He looked at the corridor as he smiled and if Tim wasn't a Robin his face would’ve given him away. He turned to scratch at his arm, even if his suit didn’t let him reach his skin. “Don’t get me wrong, Lian is one of the best things that have happened in my life but that doesn’t mean that I didn’t fuck up” Roy looked at Jason with an accusatory finger “Never tell her that”

Jason put his arms on the air as if he was being pointed with a gun by a robber or a policeman “I wasn’t gonna”

“We-” Cassie stopped as if she was unsure of if to speak or not “We want to raise him. Maybe he’s not ours but we want to raise him”

“That’s what Kon would’ve wanted” Tim felt like he needed to add that. Because Kon thought that every kid deserves a parent. A good one. And he had deserved a better father in Clark than the one he got.

Jason nodded his head, as if he was in class and nodded so the teacher didn’t ask him “Yeah that makes sense. You were his girlfriend” He pointed at Cassie “You were his best friend” He pointed at Tim “And you’re dating” He pointed at both of them.

Tim choked on air and Cassie on the water she had been drinking. They had forgotten they were dating. And they had been dating for like a month. Fuck. Yeah fuck. At least they were sure that many romantic feelings weren’t there in order to forget you dated someone.

Roy and Jason were laughing loudly. Like actually laughing. But it didn’t feel mocking. “Who told you?” He asked the two adults while Cassie coughed and he rubbed her back.

“Dick” Jason said in between laughs.

It took them a while to fully stop laughing and by the time they were done Tim was already laying his head on Cassie's shoulder as he yawned, sleep slowly creeping in from the time he wasn’t speaking. For some reason both the adults were smiling at them.

Roy stood up with Eddie in his arms still. “How about you sleep in Jason’s room for the night and we can talk about this better tomorrow. Like you’ll need to talk about this to your parents, you’re in no condition to fly and you’re not going anywhere on that bike without a full 8 hours of sleep”

Jason got up as well “You can take some of our clothes to change into” Tim raised an eyebrow through his yawn “They’re clean, don’t worry about it. We’re not animals”

Cassie took Tim’s head off her shoulder “Can I take a shower before?”

Tim lost the rest of the convo as he fell (literally fell) asleep on the couch, which had been surprisingly comfortable, or maybe he was just too exhausted to care.

Cassie liked cold showers. The water pricking her impenetrable skin felt nice, calming. The safehouse had a shower and not a bath. It felt impractical for the older men, Roy’s daughter sounded quite young. She could ask Donna, from what she knew they didn’t have a really bad relationship, even if they dated, like Steph and Tim. Steph will love being Eddie's aunt.

Jason had lent her his shampoo and conditioner as he didn’t know which one she used. Jason seemed better than when he tried to kill Tim. That was nice. Maybe being with someone who also looked to have hit rock bottom like Roy appeared to have done helped him better himself. Maybe it was because they were probably doing the same thing she and Tim were going to do with Eddie, except the part where they forgot they were dating. Yeah, no, she’s going to have to talk about that with Tim.

She’s going to have to tell her mom as well. And Diana and Donna. Shit would Cissie listen to her if she told her? She knew she didn’t want anything to do with capes or meta humans anymore, but she had been her best friend. The teen titans were her team, sure, but Young Justice had been her friend group. And Greta… She was out of the picture. They had lost contact once Cassie joined the teen titans. The three of them went to class together for a year or so, and then they didn’t. Cassie couldn’t hang out with them between everything going on. Cissie had been distant the moment she joined but with Greta it was from one day to another. It would be bad to start to talk to Greta again because of Eddie. Same with Cissie.

Cassie crouched on the shower and let the water rinse out the shampoo and the tears.

She was a shit friend, she was going to be a shit mom. What was she thinking? What were they thinking? Like in general. They couldn’t even drink in their fantastical country but they were going to be parents.

The body soap smelled like lavender. It made her doubt it was from any of the former sidekicks but it was the one they lent her.

It had never occurred to her, that she could be a mother. Her relationship with Conner was going really well, thinking that their relationship was going to be one of those highschool sweethearts. And they both knew that even if they wanted, they would probably never be able to conceive a kid. She was basically a demigod. He was half kryptonian. Kryptonian and human genetics were hard to mix, not impossible, but really hard, especially naturally. Kon had told her once that Clark and Lois had tried to have kids for years and they hadn’t found much luck, probably because of the kryptonian and human DNA. She didn’t know enough about supergirl to know if she had similar problems.

The conditioner said that she should leave it on for around 10 minutes. She guessed it had been five minutes or so. Gods, maybe she should go back to short hair, Bart said that it suited her better.

And it seemed like gods and demigods had more children than anyone else ever. But maybe it had to do with the fact that most of them were immortal. She knew that Diana and Donna were almost immortal because they are amazons, but she wasn’t from any mystic race. And there hadn’t been any sort of study that could tell her that god’s and kryptonian’s DNA could mix. Maybe all this was because Conner was part kryptonian, but then you add the fact that he is a clone. Could Conner be infertile? Could Eddie be infertile? Gods, she didn’t think of that.

She rinsed the hair conditioner off her hair and covered herself with the two towels they had given to her. One for her body and one for her hair, leaving them on as she cleans the shower’s screen –she may shower with cold water, but that doesn't mean she shouldn’t clean the screen from any and all water droplets she could– and tried to leave everything as nice as possible.

The shirt and sweats they gave her she felt were Roy’s. The two man dressed similarly and with the same size and everything, but something about the sweatpants having the Star City Meteorites’ shield and the shirt saying “Better than cupid” in the ugliest font ever with a anatomically correct heart being pierced by a red arrow over a black background just screamed ‘I’m from Star City and I’m proud of it’ and not ‘My name is Jason Todd and I will protect Gotham’. She knew how proud gothamites were of their crime infested city. She had been living with one since they were 15.

Roy had told her to hang the towels off the clothes line that hung out the living room’s window so they could dry. In the living room there was no Tim, she knew they had moved him to Jason’s room and that the two of them would sleep with Lian, that the room had enough space for the both of them. It was nice of them. She also felt like she would have woken up the little girl. Out of the 4 of them, she was the only one that had never had the need to be sneaky to fight any goon. Maybe because out of the four of them, six counting the two kids present, she was the only one that had powers. For now. They should probably tell Clark in case Eddie turned out to have kryptonian powers.

Jason sat on the couch, as if waiting for her. She almost jumped out of surprise, she should be used to this by now. The man snickered into his hand “You can give it to me and go to bed. You need to rest”

He stood up to take the towels and Cassie gave them to him, not knowing what else to do. If she said no, she'd look like an ass. Probably.

“I left everything as I found it” She said looking up at the man, he was easily a head taller than her and even with the almost 2 meters that now were between them she still had to look up to talk to his face and not his neck.

Jason turned toward the window “There was no need. But thank you” Cassie was about to leave as well when the man’s voice interrupted her as he hang the first towel “If you’re anything like wonder woman when it comes to kids, you’ll be great for Eddie”

Cassie turned around, confusion on her face “Why’re you telling me that?”

Jason pulled his head back into the living room to take the second towel “‘Cause when Lian came into our life, Roy needed to hear it. That he was good with kids. I was the only one to tell” the man closed the window and went back to her “And when I first became robin my favourite hero was Wonder Woman. And you should’ve seen how excited I got the first time I met her” He laughed as he placed a hand on Cassie’s shoulder to lead her down the corridor again “The poor woman, I was even trying to climb her. Her patience was gold, I’ll tell you that. First time Lian tried that, I kinda freaked out and didn’t know what to do.” He stopped in front of a door “From what Dick says, Troia must be great too. I don’t doubt you’ll be” He opened the door to the room where Tim was asleep on the bed, Eddie next to him in the big bed, cornered by pillows as there wasn’t any better place to place him “But hey, this is your stop”

Cassie looked at her friend and baby once before turning around to face Jason who was going to open the door across from her’s, his inhumanly green irises being slightly visible if you looked for long enough, like Kon’s blue ones. “Thank you” she smiled at him “Good night” She entered the room as she heard a quiet ‘night’ being said back.

Tim was wearing most of his robin suit. All but the ripped shirt. It was funny to see him without shirt but wearing gloves. Eddie was surprisingly awake. First time he had been awake, or the first time she noticed.

She smiled at him as he blabbered something “Hi baby” she whispered and Eddie blabbered something back. She took away the pillows and picked up Eddie like she had seen Roy do, opening the bed and laying down under the covers, her baby in front of her. She hugged him as close as she could, and felt Tim stir up a bit as she did, moving around and one of his hands being placed on top of Eddie's middle and subsequently on top of Cassie’s own. “Dad is sleepy, Eddie. Mom too. We’re gonna go night night now, okay?” Eddie blabbered something back at her and she hummed a lullaby she remembered her mother singing to her whenever she had a really bad nightmare as a young kid, humming until her eyes closed and she fell asleep with her family around.

No, her family wasn’t complete, she was missing Bart and Kon.

She decided then, moments before sleep finally took her and her kid made incoherent baby sounds in front of her, that uncle Bart and uncle Kon were family, even if they weren’t no longer with us.

She wanted to teach her kid that wonderful people could be found everywhere and anywhere, no matter the circumstances.

Chapter Text

Tim had been woken up by a crying baby. He felt rather lost for the first few seconds after waking up in the dark room. The memories of what felt like a full week of events packed into realistically around 10 hours slowly trickled in and the sight of Cassie waking up and the baby they ended up hugging crying made more and more sense. The clock on the bedside table on Cassies side said in red letters 4:27 and Tim’s tiredness disappeared at the realisation that the baby, his son Eddie, hadn’t eaten since, like, ever. The tank had been keeping him safe, healthy, warm and fed, but the tank was no more, going down with the tower.

He stood up almost jumping. Cassie must’ve had the same realisation as she had a similar reaction, just less ‘bat silent jumping from rooftop to rooftop’ and more ‘the wonders can fly’ as she appeared to hover over the floor slightly, just like Kon did to just spite everyone as being the tallest in their friend group wasn’t enough.

Tim picked up Eddie as best as he could. How could they forget about feeding the baby? No. Scratch that. They forgot they were dating, they could forget more important things. Hell, Tim was the first one to forget to sleep, eat, drink and even pee. Tim had learnt how to ignore his body enough that it was starting to become a problem. A problem that he didn’t quite have time to fix, like ever.

He rocked the baby to try to get him to calm down as he walked to the kitchen. Babies only had one way of communicating and human brains were usually programmed to have an emotional reaction and help said baby. There was only a small problem. The kid that was sleeping in the other room in the safehouse. The one that they were told to try and not wake up the moment the door was open.

Cassie came into the kitchen with him as well. They both knew they needed baby formula for a two month old baby. None of them could breastfeed and Tim was pretty much sure none of them wanted to. They were going to have to find a way for the baby to get all the microbiota that breast milk would have provided him. He’ll ask steph about it later. Fuck, he’ll have to tell Steph and Tim feared her reaction from all her ‘I have to give my baby away as living with me and my vigilante life style wouldn’t be good for them’. He didn’t want to lose Steph. He couldn’t lose Steph.

“Do you know any stores that are open 24/7 in star city that might sell baby food?” She asked, panicked more so.

“No?” He was sure his voice sounded panicked as well “Why the fuck should I know?”

Cassie threw her hands up in the air “I don’t know! You know a lot of things!”

Tim was now walking in circles around the small kitchen, kind of like a headless chicken, Eddie in his arms as the baby didn’t stop crying “Well, yeah, maybe, but not about this city!”

A finger was pointed at him by his friend “Oh I call bullshit!” Yeah she wasn’t that off of the truth. Tim knew a lot of things about star city, but none about the stores that might be open at 4 am.

Someone cleared his throat at the kitchen doorway. “I know a lot of things about my city,” Roy answered from the doorway, a twenty dollar bill in one hand and a jacket in the other. “There’s a store that’s open at this hour of day. If you exit through the living room you have to go straight up until the fourth street on the left, which you’ll have to take. Take the first exit to your right and the second to the left again and it should be in the middle of the street” Cassie nodded at him as she thanked him, putting the too big leather jacket and pocketing the bill. He wasn’t sure Cassie needed it or not, but the look she had on wasn’t the best. She didn’t have shoes on, only her unicorn blue socks. “Don’t worry, that was big B’s money” Tim cringed at the redhead referring to Bruce as ‘Big B’. Was he implying there was a small B? Who would that be? No, no, Tim didn’t want to know.

Roy frowned at him and approached Tim with his arms slightly outspread. It hadn’t even registered that he was going to take Eddie in his hands but Tim stepped away and moved his body to cover his kid.

Tim felt stupid. He corrected his posture as he was before. Roy smiled at him “Sorry I should’ve given you a warning. It’s just…” He looked at Eddie again “May I pick him up?” Tim looked at his crying baby. He nodded to the older men and handed the baby over. Roy had a daughter, he had more experience he kept telling himself. “Thank you. Next time, trying putting a hand on the back of his head” Roy did as he said, rocking the baby back and forth while he spoke. Eddie didn’t stop crying, but he did slow down a bit. “Baby’s don’t have enough force to hold their own head up, their necks are too… young you could say. They need support. I’m not saying this to, like, scold you or anything. Just thought you should know.” He changed how he was picking up Eddie to pick him in a similar way as Tim was before “And if you're picking him up like this, try keeping your hands where mine are. Babies are fragile at this age”

Tim looked at him. He had his arms crossed, and didn't know what to do with them “Why’re you telling me this?”

Roy smiled a bit “I don’t think you have anyone else to tell you this. These are important things to be known” his face then soured a bit “I missed all this part of Lian’s life, but I’ve always trusted with babies and small kids” Tim didn’t believe it. He felt like Roy knew he didn’t. “Don’t look at me like that, don’t know either! I wouldn’t have trusted myself with babies!” Roy laughed at that and gave Eddie back, going back to the corridor.

Their interaction was strange, to say the least. But Eddie had stopped crying and Tim was picking his kid up as he had been told, even if he didn’t realise it.

Huh.

After that, everything he and Cassie did before falling asleep again was a blur. He knew Eddie had eaten and fallen back asleep on the bed they were in and he knew that Cassie and him slept the same they had done before Eddie started crying, but he couldn’t quite remember how they went from point A to point B. He even faintly remembered something having to do with Diapers but just the word, not really much else.

Huh. Was Tim that tired?

Cassie woke up again at 8 am sharp as if she had a literal clock inside her brain screaming at her to wake up. A bit later than usual but it wasn’t weird. Her eyes adjusted to the darkness of the room. There was a bit of light coming in through the blinds that Cassie was sure had some sort of fortification against every hero and villain (and everything in between) that they could. Cassie had the feeling that everyone that came from Gotham was like that, maybe that was stereotyping but the few people she had met from gotham were all paranoid like that. The few people from Gotham she had met were also all capes so maybe that’s where the paranoia came from. Maybe she should meet civilians from Gotham, maybe that wouldn’t be a bad idea.

Tim was sleeping, his face calm which was a surprising expression from her best friend. It shouldn’t be for someone normal their age. But they weren’t quite normal, at least not their life. Sometimes, Cassie thought, she had been lucky that her mother didn’t let her become a vigilante until a year or two ago. Gods, it had only been one or two years. That. That she hadn’t realised. Hera, her mom will be less happy about Eddie than she thought she would be.

Speaking of, the baby was on the bed, same as he had been before, between Tim and Cassie. The three of them fit well on the bed, it surely was a double bed, even if it was a narrower one than usual. She didn’t know the usual size of double beds, but it felt weird that the three of them fit on the bed when Tim’s arms were always spread out and Cassie always ended up sleeping on her back, occupying more space than she otherwise would do. Eddie’s little hand was taking one of her fingers and he looked at her with big blue eyes. Those same blue eyes that if you stared at too intently in dimly illuminated spaces you would see a faint glow.

Yeah that baby was definitely Kon’s kid.

She smiled at Eddie. The baby babblered back at her and something felt better. Her chest was filled with something akin to happiness. No, not akin, it was happiness. She brought the baby to her chest, placing a hand on his back, a hand that was as big as him. He was so small it hurt. Through her hand she could feel his pulse, so small yet so fast, as if his heart was asking to grow and to do it now or soon. He blabbered away. For a two month old kid he sure was talkative. It reminded her of when she first met Bart. Sleeping, eating and talking a lot even if people didn’t understand him. Bart would’ve loved being this kid's uncle, she could feel it in her bones.

She picked him up and went to the kitchen. She was hungry, she would eat whatever there was to be eaten. She wasn’t a picky eater even if she did have preferences like any other human being that wasn’t Bart, again that man could eat anything that counted as food. She felt a bit bad for the idea of just going to eat whatever the two men had in the fridge, but she’d repay them. She could buy them some takeout or maybe cook something. Like she wasn’t the best at cooking but she was good enough, better than Tim at least. That man had the power to make sweet cookies taste salty and she still didn’t understand what he did wrong. They were in the same kitchen, cooking the same cookies with the same ingredients. Or that time the cookies started boiling in the oven. That she also didn’t understand.

The safehouse layout was easy. Living room when you enter through the front door. A corridor to the left that let you get into the bathroom and the rooms. A door to the right that led you to the kitchen where they also had a small table for up to three people. That was where they gave Eddie his first meal. From the corridor you could see most of the living room but not the kitchen unless the door was open, which it was. So tell Cassie how she didn’t see a small child hide behind the corridor wall to scare her. And explain to her how she managed not to punch the wall as a reflex. She had a lot of those ‘I punch something when scared’ reactions. Maybe it was Eddie. Maybe the baby was giving her force of will.

She jumped up and down, even if her feet didn’t leave the floor, as if she was excited but tried to conceal it. Cassie had the feeling she wanted to speak, but just didn’t. Cassie threw a quick look at the kitchen’s door and saw Roy standing on the doorway, same way he had done in the middle of the night. She looked back at the little girl who was wearing a pair of black canary themed pyjama pants and a pink unicorn pyjama t-shirt, hair black hair in two braids she must’ve slept in as they were a bit all over the place. She closed her eyes and gave her a big smile. “I’m Lian!” The girl opened her eyes and pulled on the sweatpants that Cassie had been lent “Who are you?”

Cassie smiled at the girl “I’m Cassie, nice to meet you Lian” The girl pointed at the baby in her hands “He is Eddie” Eddie blabbered at the mention of his name and the small girl laughed.

Lian pulled her pant leg as she walked forward, asking her to move with “I live with my dads but not here” the girl explained as she took her to the kitchen. Even if Roy face changed and he took a look inside the room, he didn’t spot the girl “We live in Gotham” Cassie noted that she couldn’t quite pronounce Gotham, saying something similar to ‘Gotam’ instead “but Ollie and Dinah live here so we are here” The girl stopped in front of Roy and letting go of her leg. She tried pushing Roy, but the man didn’t move, instead he picked her up.

“Why don’t I go to get you dressed?” He told her while patting her head.

The kid frowned in an exaggerated manner and crossed her arms “No! I want to talk to the girl!” Cassie laughed lightly and Eddie did the closest thing to laughing she had heard come from him. She stared at the baby on her arms, smile on her lips and eyes wide. She could hear father and daughter fighting, but she couldn’t care less. Eddie looked at her, with his blue eyes that were so blue it hurt.

“Cassie!” Lian’s voice called out to her “Wanna have breakfast with us?” She was sitting in one of the three chairs around the table. Well, it was more like Roy was sitting on the chair and Lian was sitting on his lap, Cassie getting the feeling that if they weren’t like that, Lian would probably barely reach the table. The chair in front and the one in the middle were unoccupied and she now could see Jason cooking something on the stove. It made sense that they were like that, both together with Lian, but she hadn’t thought about it. She nodded at the girl and sat on the chair that she pointed to, the one across from her and her father. “I like your hair! Could you braid mine? Dad’s really bad at it”

Jason snickered and Roy put on a voice of fake hurt “I’m not bad at it, you just can’t sit still!” The girl snickered.

“Yeah, I can braid your hair” Just like she did to all the girls she had once babysat. And Cissie, who had never learned to braid her own hair, only knew how to tide it.

The girl smiled and looked at her father “Maybe you can teach dad how to braid mine!” The girl snickered again and Cassie could see Jason’s shoulders move as if he was laughing.

Roy started tickling the girl and her snickers turned into laughs “Oh you! I’m not taking you to the park at this point!”

The girl laughed harder as Jason came with some plates of scrambled eggs and bacon. One was placed in front of Cassie and Jason sat down on the last chair available, sitting in the middle of the four of them. He ruffled Lian’s hair while looking at Cassie “You should eat. I can take Eddie if it helps” She nodded and handed the baby to Jason, who gave her a small smile.

She felt small, a child, in the presence of the two adults. They had been put in a similar situation to Tim and her, that was something she was sure of. And seeing how well they had it all sorted out while she had had to fly in the middle of the night to get diapers and baby formula because they hadn’t even thought about babies having needs. He could hear Lian talk to them, to Eddie too. The three boys responded back to her in their own ways. And she could only look down at her plate.

A voice brought her back to the real world and out of her mind before she could spiral “Why’re you here?” The girl's voice had caution in it and Cassie took the first bite of her food to think of her words carefully. Jason and Roy didn’t look at her differently than they had before, maybe it had to do with some conversation they were previously having.

“I-” She breathed. “We needed a place to go to. Our house was kinda burned down” No mention of why, people didn’t need to know that.

“We?” The girl asked again.

Jason was the one to answer before she did “You know how I have a big family, right?” The girl nodded, “And how I don’t talk much to them?” she nodded again. Cassie was caught on the fact that they’ve talked about it. If Eddie ever asked about her father she would’ve just told him she never met him, no mention of how he was a god. Maybe the circumstances were different. And she guessed that maybe sharing a name with the most famous family in Gotham also didn’t help. Fuck her kid would also have that surname. “Well, um, one of my, uh, younger brothers, Tim, is also here”

She needed to talk to Tim about Eddie’s surname. She wanted him to have the Kent surname, but that meant telling the Kents and maybe that also meant her kid not being her kid anymore. Ma Kent wouldn’t do that. Ma knew both Tim and Cassie and she knew she trusted them. But the rest of the Kents were the problem. And fuck, if not the kid would either have hers, the both Tim has or maybe- the thought made chills run down her spine- three surnames. Too many surnames.

Lian was beaming as she exited the room and Roy tried to stop her. She had zoned out again, enough that she had no idea what had happened. She had a lot of things to talk to Tim about.

“They want you to go to the park with them” Jason said in that almost expressionless tone Tim used “use that time to buy anything else you need for him until you leave the city” She opened her voice to speak again, but Jason put a hand up “B’s money will pay for it. Your boyfriend’s a fucking billionaire, use that at your advantage, give that money back to the community, that man’ll never needed all he had” Cassie’s expression soured. It still felt weird, even if by all accounts the baby was in fact the son of a billionaire, using Batman’s and Tim’s money. Jason must’ve noticed as he added “If Bruce was here he would want you to use it. He is rich, yes, but he is not dumb. He is the richest person in Gotham and he is always the first to create funds, NGOs, organizations yada yada yada to give back to the community and help those in need. Hell he does exactly that every night, he would be a dumb asshole if he didn’t do the same with his money!” Jason laughed, but Cassie didn’t find it funny.

Still she thought about it. Eddie needed things to live. And they should get at least the essentials before they left to… where were they going to go after this? Where were they going to stay? She should talk about that with Tim too.

Speaking of the king of Rome, who made his presence known by hitting himself on the doorframe. That did make Cassie and Jason laugh. The man gave Eddie back to her as he went to prepare a cup of coffee. Coffee prepared the right way as Tim had always said. It was just coffee prepared in a moka pot. Tim sat where Jason had just left the seat empty.

None of the three of them spoke. Eddie just blabbered away to Tim and Cassie as the former looked asleep and half dead and the latter took close attention to Jason pulling out another moka pot the moment he set out the first one on the stove and moved a cup of sugar and a plate to the table. The pot made that sound they usually make when they were ready and Jason repeated the process he had done with the first pot, except instead of using water he used the coffee he had just prepared. The idea of that concoction existing also ran chills down her spine.

Jason left the new pot on the stove and put the coffee he hadn't used on a mug, and a big one at that. He offered the mug to her, she could see how half of it was empty “Want any milk?” She nodded. Eddie stopped blabbering and put on a face of maybe concentration. Jason put the second coffee pot on the plate, added milk to Cassie’s mug and gave Tim a glass “I think your baby is shitting himself. Want me to take care of it?” Cassie nodded again and mouthed a thanks as Tim was pouring himself what would be his first cup of coffee.

Jason took Eddie away to presumably change his diaper. Cassie saw the opportunity to talk to Tim about a few things, not all of them, but at least the ones regarding Eddie. Tim downed the steaming cup of coffee at once, still wearing the lower half of his robin costume and now a shirt that they must’ve left on the bed or something as when he had gone to bed and when Eddie had woken them up he was shirtless. The graphic-t was grey and said ‘I like my coffee how I like my metal’. She couldn’t guess whose shirt that was, but it looked like something Bart would’ve gifted to Tim.

“We need to talk”

The effects of coffee are never instant.

At best they take around five or ten minutes to affect a normal person.

A normal person.

Tim wasn’t a normal person. Each day he was even less normal.

For him, thanks to his amazing training to protect himself from multiple poisonous substances, coffee took maybe half an hour to take effect. It was as slow as when its effect stopped.

Yet he didn’t know what Jason had added to the coffee or what coffee he used or what the fuck happened to it that it made him feel normal. The coffee took effect at a normal rate. Tim sometimes yearned to feel normal again. No, not again, for the first time. Most kids didn’t figure out that Batman was their neighbour at 10.

Even if whatever Jason had added to the coffee was the worst poison in the world, Tim was extremely thankful for it.

“My mom’s out of the picture, like-” Cassie spoke more with her gestures than with her words, how she moved her hands was nowhere near Steph but they were enough to fit in the tight space “Oh, come on! Don’t give me that look! You know Hades’ more benevolent than she’s” After so many years of knowing Cassie he could understand most of the expressions she used. She was talking about what he would refer to as hell.

Tim pinched the bridge of his nose. Every day he was more like Bruce and every day he felt worse about it. “Cassie you haven’t lived with her in a long time, maybe she would-”

“I’m gonna stop you right there mister ‘I isolate myself whenever I need help and blame it on vigilante work’. My mom’s out. And that’s final”

He put his arms up in surrender. “How about the other wonders?”

She laughed once, it sounded mean “Is it because you don’t want to tell the bats? Or because you don’t want to be pressed about where the baby came from? Do I need to remind you about their best friends? The lasso of truth?”

“No” He denied, like a liar and a coward “They’re closer by” That was not a lie. Gateway city was still in the state of California. Gotham, however, was on the other side of the country. The state of New Jersey to be exact. Cassie could fly fast on her own, but not that fast, especially taking other people with her, she wasn’t kryptonian.

“Yeah, okay, right. Let’s say I believe that. The bats would help you in a heartbeat, you know that, right?” Tim didn’t respond. He just looked at her “Steph would. And Nightwing too! Like the dude that tried to kill you did, and those have never tried!” She threw her hands in the air. Steph would do that. “For the Gods sake Tim, you’re like a fucking orphanage! Isn’t your sister, like, literally called orphan ?”

“She’s not my sister”

“Okay, she’s not your sister. So the girl who was also adopted by batman” He looked at her again, not breaking eye contact like he did when he argued with any of the bats but Barbara and Stephanie. Cassie’s face turned softer “Look, I’m not about to force you to do anything you don’t want, but you can count on them. I cannot count on my mom- she would kill me and force me out of vigilante work, let’s be honest-, my father and his side of the family are basically incorporeal voices that sometimes remember my existence and I know you and I both fear more Wonder Woman than we do Batman”

That was true. Tim feared Batman, but he knew how to deal with him. Not Bruce, he feared Batman. But Wonder Woman? Yeah, no, he didn’t want to face her. He would 100% choose to fight superman to the death over having a confrontation with Wonder Woman.

She placed one of her hands on his. They both knew they couldn’t stay with Jason and Roy forever, or in this safehouse for that matter. One of them had to give over, he knew that. And Cassie was right in all her arguments. But Tim still didn’t know what to do.

“If you give me a bit more time Tim, I can-” She breath in sharply “I can talk to Helena, but it’s not gonna be fast or easy and-”

The kitchen door opened suddenly, Jason must’ve shut it when he exited it. Tim hadn’t noticed it was closed at least. In came a young girl with black hair and a comb on her hand. When she saw him, for one reason or another, her face lit up and she climbed to sit on his lap.

The girl was talking really fast and it took some time for Tim to understand any of what she was saying “-mean that you’re coming to the park with us? Cassie was going to braid my hair because dad’s really bad at it. I’m Lian and I also like the color blue but my dads’ favorite colors are red so I also have a lot of pink things, but blue is better!”

Roy came in and picked her up, telling her something that upset her. He also told something to Cassie, who nodded and looked as they exited the room, waiting for them to shut the door for her to start talking again.

“Lian and Roy are going to the park” Roy’s daughter “They asked me to go with them and get anything else we need for Eddie right now” She smiled softly “He laughed today. And blabbered. He talks a lot” Tim felt that Cassie wanted to add something at the end. Like his father . He got the feeling he knew why she didn’t. He would’ve done the same thing.

Tim smiled back at her “It’s okay. We can continue talking after this. You can go” She smiled back, squeezed the hand that was under hers once, and got up to leave the kitchen, shutting the door on her way out.

Tim just sat there for what probably were around 20 minutes, listening carefully until he was sure they had left the building. Adding five more minutes as he drank all the coffee that was prepared, most of it cold or room temperature by now. Cassie hadn’t touched hers at all.

He cleaned everything as best as he could, just like Alfred always did. He was a good guest, he cleaned after himself, even cleaned the plates that were used by others. He had to make himself useful somehow.

He exited the kitchen, Jason was in the living room reading a book. It looked like a literary classic, hardback cover without the plastic cover they always come with. It was simple, a red background with gold details spelling the title, author and something else. He was sure the spine also had that same design. The man didn’t look up from the book when the younger passed by, and the younger didn’t stop to look, but he was sure both of them knew they watched each other with their eyes.

He entered the room he had slept in and on the bed that he had done after waking up there were a pair of pants and a note telling him to take a shower. The note had a drawing that looked like a kid made it, a big face smiling with a stick figure body in light blue crayon. Next to it there was a plastic bag with body soap, shampoo and conditioner. No 7 in 1 bottle to be seen. Huh. That was unexpected.

He smelled his armpit under the shirt they had left for him in a similar manner. Yeah he definitely needed a shower.

He liked his showers hot. He liked the steam that formed in the shower. He didn’t take them often, you never know when someone may attack you. He also liked listening to music while he showered with hot water. It was different, a different mindset.

When he was robin, batman’s sidekick, former leader of young justice and member of the titans, the showers were cold, fast and music less. He couldn’t take too much time, he had to be alert at all times.

When he was Tim Drake, a normal teen that hadn’t faced death multiple times, the hair of Wayne Enterprises and current owner of Drake industries (they were in the middle of joining the two), a high school dropout, the showers were warm, long and with whatever music spotify gave him, sometimes even a mixtape Kon gifted him. He could relax, not be on edge all the time.

Today he wanted to be Tim Drake. And even if he didn’t listen to any music, he could always sing or hum the first song that came to mind. And even if the water was so hot his back ached as it burned, but the numb feeling that it left felt calming and even soothing.

He liked to wash his hair, massaging his skull. He liked to wash his body, massaging his often aching limbs. Letting all his grime and bad feelings go with the water.

Letting his body and hair dry in the warm steam while he sat on the toilet brought a kind of normality his life has always lacked. He wondered, then on the toilet, if anyone was ever normal, if he ever could count as normal, or if he ever did. He wondered, not for the first time, if he had ever met someone normal and it felt like he hadn’t. Maybe normality was overrated, or maybe he just needed to keep lying to himself.

He put on the clothes, he felt a tad better than he did before. He put on a pair of socks that he had also been lent, they had a duck on them, just one on each sock, big ones at that. He exited the bathroom after opening a small window to let the room air itself out.

His feet took him to the living room, he wasn’t thinking where he was going, he was just moving around just for the sake of moving. He stopped in the middle of the room when he noticed Jason looking at him, his face turned and everything and not reading. Tim just stood there, looking at him, Jason did the same thing from the couch. He had his feet on top of the coffee table and was wearing suspiciously red tinted slippers, basic jeans and a black shirt. Maybe all the graphic t-shirts were Roys.

Tim knew his hair was wet and it dripped down his face. Now he could see that the book was a midsummer night's dream by William Shakespear. Great, it wasn’t enough to have Dick’s theatre kid ass talk nonstop about William Shakespear, the man that tried to kill him also liked to read his plays. If he had to listen once more about that man’s works maybe he would take a gun to his head. He felt the scowl that painted his face and he knew Jason could see it. He was glad he did.

Jason took his feet off the coffee table and hunched over, similar to how Tim did when working on something. Yeah he could see why people constantly told him about how he’ll have horrible back problems in some years. The older man continued reading his book, as if Tim wasn’t there. In the light of the room Jason’s figure obscured, the book’s gold letters must be similarly placed on the back of the book as there was a golden light coming off of it and reflection on the wall. Jason’s eyes shined lowly green in an inhuman way, like Kon’s had once. Tim had an idea.

He ran back to the room and took his robin domino and went back to the living room. The scene was the same as it was when he left. The domino had a camera function added to it. It was like a digital camera, and even if Tim had always loved the experience and look of analog cameras way more, digital cameras were the best you could get most times.

He took one or two photos. He felt silly, having to put his domino on in order to take the photos, but he also felt like a kid, when he went out on the Gotham night to take photos of Bruce and Jason. He took three before Jason decided to acknowledge it, Tim was sure he had noticed before, no one could be so into reading a Shakespear play not to notice him, specially not a bat. Former bat.

“What are you doing?” Jason looked up at him with a questioning face.

Tim shrugged “Good lighting” He stood up from where he had been crouching.

“Good lighting?”

“Photographer first, everything else after” Tim got closer to show him the photos. He felt uneasy, he didn’t usually show the photos he took, but Jason was the subject of them, it felt mean not show them to him.

Jason took the domino with one hand as he held the book with the other one. He hummed as he saw the photos and Tim found himself sitting down again on the couch he had fallen asleep. It was really comfortable and he really hoped Jason wasn’t planning on attacking him any second. “You’ve got talent, I can tell that” and Tim wanted to smile yet he forced himself not to.

“Thanks” Jason waved the hand he was holding the domino in as if dismissing him and gave it back to Tim.

Tim felt like he should leave, Jason had gone back to reading his book and Tim had done what he had to. He felt like he should stand up off the couch but he didn’t, felt like he couldn’t.

“Do you do it often?”

“Huh?”

“Photographing things. Do you do it often?” Jason didn’t look up from his book.

Tim looked forward “Not really, not anymore at least”

“Why? You’re truly good at it”

Tim shrugged, he felt the answer was obvious “I don’t really have time”

Jason made a weird noise, as if he was a chainsaw “That’s bullshit”

The younger’s brows furrowed “But that’s the truth. I don’t have enough time” the ex-dead man made that same sound again but didn’t fight him on that.

Tim looked forward and made contact with a blank point on the wall. He wanted to ask him something and maybe he wouldn’t get any chances. “Why’re you helping me?”

The green eyed man made that noise again and didn’t look up from his book. “You’re seventeen”

Tim looked at him weirdly. He couldn’t understand.

The man looked up from the book and at Tim “You are seventeen”

Tim huffed a laugh, he still didn’t get it “Yeah, I know”

“Tim, you are seventeen” The book was closed and left on the table after Jason put the first paper-like object he found to mark the page.

“Yeah” The domino mask was left on the table as well “I know ”

Jason turned his body to look at him “You’re seventeen, Tim, you’re a kid” His voice was calm, as if he was truthfully trying to make him understand something, Tim laughed at that thought.

He huffed a laugh “Yeah, I’m the same kid you tried to kill once” He had a scar to prove it and everything.

Jason took his hands to his hair and passed them through their face “Yeah- Ok- Look! I’m really sorry about that, okay? I was angry at Bruce- My anger was misplaced- I’m really really sorry” To Tim, he didn’t sound sorry. To anyone else he may have, but it didn’t fool Tim.

“Aha, yeah, and I’m supposed to believe that, right?”

He stood up and sat down again, as if unsure of his movements. Tim took a tad bit of pity on him, he was a really big man, but still it didn’t change how he viewed him “Well, don’t believe it then. Or do, I just- I was angry that Bruce had gone out and took another kid to be Robin after- After what happened”

“He didn’t go out searching for me” Tim tried to be as calm as he could, but he was getting angry. “I went to him. I asked him to be Robin”

He got up again, but this time didn’t sit down, his voice was higher than it was before “And he shouldn’t have taken you in! Tim, you're just a kid!”

The younger one stood up as well “Oh, like you’re one to talk! You’re only two years older than me!”

He laughed “Yeah, thanks for the reminder that I basically lost most of my childhood in a grave!”

From how he said it, from the emotion Jason put behind the word, Tim got the feeling that he wasn’t referring to his literal grave, that it was something more. After all, the Waynes had a love for the arts and Jason was the example of the written ones, or so Alfred said.

Tim didn’t respond, yet Jason didn’t mind, he went on talking. “And I see you don’t want to get it, but you really should. You’re a kid! You’re just a kid ! You shouldn’t be taking care of anyone that’s not yourself! You should be- I don’t know- doing normal teen things! Like- like going out to parties, underage drinking, going to school ! Not fighting to protect a city and putting your life at risk”

“Oh, come on! Like you’re one to talk! Who would protect Gotham then? You?”

“Not a kid! Anyone but a kid! Don’t you get it?” Jason’s eyes softened, even if they still literally glowed, glowed more than they had before the argument. “You’ve lost the chance of being a normal kid!”

Tim moved out of the way and as far from him as he could. It wasn’t fear, it was him needing his personal space. “I lost the chance the moment that I was born!”

Jason scoffed “Then no one would be normal, Tim! It’s not about your birth, it’s about how you grew up!” The man got closer to him once again “You deserved to grow up normally!”

“How would you know that? You don’t know what I’ve done?” No one needed to know about how Eddie actually came to be or the wrong he had done before.

Jason’s hands grounded him, placed one on each shoulder “I don’t care what you’ve done, you’re a kid. No kid should be a parent” His voice was loud, true, but it wasn’t reprimanding, as if he had changed attitude but not how he showed it “Trust me, I know about it way too much, it happened too many times. No one should go through that. No matter what you’ve done”

They didn’t move from that position. Tim had the feeling he could cry, but he didn’t. He just knew something. He needed to talk to Steph. Steph helped him, Steph knew what to do, Steph was in Gotham. Cassie was right, Steph would help him. He had to call Steph.

Chapter Text

Late night patrols were nothing new to anyone that worked in the vigilante or cape community. Especially if you worked with the bats.

And if they were the same or different communities, Steph didn’t care. She didn’t have any special ability or superpower from alien descent or any other triviality from a weird science experiment or alien ancestors. She just had a really really big hatred of her father’s actions. And a big admiration to the bats, like any other semi-normal kid in gotham.

Today had been one of those late night patrols. But like, really late night. One of those that takes so much time that it basically ends when the sun rises. A shipment of unauthorised fire weapons arriving at the city. In any other circumstances, Steph wouldn’t have taken care of it, but Cass had asked for her help as Jason was out of town.

Now Steph had never met Jason, from what she knew Cass hadn’t either, yet at least, and she was his sister legally speaking. And Steph wasn’t one to do other’s dirty work or giving out favours to people she hadn’t met, but Cass was the one asking for her help, and fuck Steph couldn’t say no to her.

Cass just had like a force over Steph, like if she was magic, and Steph had been Robin, not Cass.

They finished betting dudes and calling the police at dawn and headed back to Steph’s apartment. It was closer and in the middle of fighting they had gotten the news from the titans tower catching on fire. They hadn’t been able to contact Tim and worry painted their minds, that made them take more time than they would’ve normally taken. Cassandra was better at controlling her emotions through fighting, but neither of them wanted to lose Tim.

The three of them- Tim, Cass and Steph- had been inseparable anytime that they were together. Tim and Steph spoke non-stop to anyone that would listen, Cass listened to everything, barely speaking most of the time. Thanks to that, they already had something to do when they weren’t fighting. Steph rambled about anything and everything she could whenever she could, silence wasn’t her friend. Tim talked to the walls, the sky, the air- anything but people, mostly talking to himself as if he were two individuals, as if Tim Drake and Robin were different people.

Tim and Steph had dated for a while, until they didn’t, but the confidence and comfort they had in each other never really disappeared, becoming best friends quicker than any speedster could run. It also helped that they both had possessed the knowledge that they liked other people at the sametime, and even if they knew who they were, they never said. When the awkwardness of no longer dating faded it was one of the first things they talked about.

Steph and Cass became really good friends really fast as well. They had a lot of things in common, and the things they didn’t have in common complimented each other. The time she realized that was one night when all the bats were staying at the Wayne manor and when Cass didn’t have anything for her period she went first to Steph than anyone else, even if logically Alfred could give her any period products, and how she asked Steph to go to the bathroom with her, letting her yap about whatever she wanted when Cass lived in almost constant silence and that silence drived Steph crazy.

Tim and Cass got along because they shared one specific fear and anxiety: not being good enough for Bruce. Steph could never share that sentiment with them, even if she once looked up at the man and wanted his approval, that feeling was long gone. But nevertheless she understood their sentiment, so she didn’t question them. Feelings were not something you needed to understand, control or share, you just had to accept them and move forward.

Steph and Cass had gone back to the former’s apartment. Steph couldn’t bear the thought of spending the night alone and she got the feeling Cass didn’t want to confront her family and listen to them argue about how to reach Tim, which they would probably do and Steph could already hear the argument Bruce and Dick were having over the phone while Damian could probably careless. She knew he had it in him to care about Tim, he just didn’t.

They had ended up sleeping on her couch. She had let Cass sleep on her bed but she found herself sleeping with the other girl basically on top of her. Their position wasn’t ideal to be honest. Her couch’s cushions could be extended out a bit, which she always did when someone slept on her couch, it made a human able to fit better. Steph was sleeping face up in the middle of the couch space, Cass fitting neatly and laying on her side in between the backside of the couch and the other girl, one of her legs and one of her arms on top of the other girl and her face in the crook of the other’s neck. Cass was silent even when she slept, Steph snored, when she slept alone, but the presence of Cass on her side made her stay silent.

Sometimes, they acted like a couple.

Sometimes, she wished they were.

At 11:26 am they were woken up by Steph’s civilian phone. Her on-patrol phone was a second-hand Nokia her mother had gifted her at 12 years old, she still was surprised it hadn’t broken yet.

Steph woke up and went to get her phone, and even if she knew that Cass was awake, she still tried to cuddle closer to her and hang tightly to her costume’s shirt. Hadn’t they changed out of their vigilante clothes? She managed well enough to get up to answer the phone, even if there was something in her that didn’t want to get off the couch, even if it gave her horrible back pain everytime she slept on it for too long.

She didn’t recognise the phone number and it wasn’t any of her contacts calling her, still she picked up even if her brain told her to just send it to voicemail.

“Who’s this?” Her voice surely sounded like she just woke up, no doubt about that, but she tried to mask it as best as she could.

She turned around and sat on the kitchen table from where she saw Cass sitting down on the couch. They hadn’t even slept with a blanket, were they that tired?

The voice from the other side sounded relieved “I really thought you weren’t gonna pick up” It was Tim, no doubt about that.

“TIM!” She shouted, which scared Cass, so she tried to speak more quietly “Tim! What the fuck happened?” She could see a faint smile on Cassandra’s face and a whole lot of relief, she was sure her face was similar.

“I’M OKAY!” His tone sounded closer to panic than to reassurance but he did match Steph’s intensity “I’m okay! I’m with Cassie in Star City! We’re okay!”

“Give me five minutes!” She yelled back at the phone and hung up, then looked at Cass “We’re going to Star City. You look for the plane and hotel and I look for better clothes?” Cass nodded and Steph gave her her laptop. She would be taking it too, she knew it.

Steph entered her bedroom and picked up one sport bag to take a change of clothes and their vigilante clothes. They never knew what could happen in Star City that made Tim and Cassie go there right after the titans tower exploded and burned to the ground.

She took two shirts, two pants, multiple pieces of underwear and some jackets and hoodies for each one of them. Cass stayed enough in her flat that she had enough clothes to stay there for at least a week without going back to the manor. Tim too, but not at the same level that Cass did. She also had a pair of sneakers that also belonged to Cass, whereas she didn’t have any of Tim’s shoes, or shoes that fit him, he had one size more than Steph did after all.

She exited her bedroom four minutes later and she threw some of the clothes she had picked for Cass on the couch. She started calling back the unknown number when Cass gave her a thumbs up. She had seen the laptop screen, she knew that they at least had plane tickets. She also knew they had been paid with money from the Wayne’s fortune, she would never be able to buy plane tickets with so little time before the flight. And she didn’t know how Cass had done it, but she had and that’s all that mattered.

The phone rang as she started to undress to change into civilian clothes. Cass had seen her change clothes enough to not be surprised. It was part of the job “Steph?”

“We’re going to Star City. Don’t move from there” She turned to Cass who made a 7 with her hands “Will be there by 6 pm” she hung up again. If they reached Star City by six that meant they had to take the plane around 1 pm. They had a bit more than 2 hours to do everything mandatory before embarking. That meant little to no time to hide many weapons, but enough for emergencies.

They were bats, they knew how to do it. And they were going as normal civilians and not like Waynes and affiliates. There shouldn’t be much of a problem.

She prepared coffee for the both of them once she finished changing, as Cass was finishing paying everything they needed to pay. She also made the girl some scrambled eggs and got herself a bowl of cereal for breakfast. Packed a few water bottles as coffee dehydrates someone and when dehydrated on a flight is when you start getting headaches and dizziness.

The two girls barely exchanged any words, but they weren’t necessary. They were in a rush to get to the airport. They knew they had enough time, but that still didn’t make them go any slower. The earlier the better, you never know what may happen.

They went by Steph’s motorbike. It was a normal motorbike, no vigilante shit to do with it except maybe some adjustments for it to go faster, and they knew how to avoid a police force that had bigger fish to fry than someone going slightly over the speed limit.

Cass had warned the other bats through a group they had. The message had also reached Steph’s phone. ‘We’re going to SC’ and then another one that said ‘Don’t count us for patrol or dinner’. It was kinda shitty of them, that left only mainly Bruce and Damian to patrol, but things sometimes were more important than patrolling, even if they lived in Gotham. Dick was only one hour away, he could go help if needed.

Everything until they took their flight went well and as the plane departed Cass laid her head on Steph’s shoulder, probably ready to take a nap. Steph had her earphones in, ready to continue her safe of that one game that Cass had gifted to her around two months ago and Steph couldn’t pronounce the name correctly even if her life depended on it.

Cass hand laid on top of hers and she whispered in her ear that everything was fine. Something in her didn’t know if she said it for her own sake or Steph’s, but she was glad she did.

The moment the plane arrived at Star City, though, it was already night. She checked her phone while Cass woke up, there were no real emergencies and so she called Tim to the phone he had called her, asking him to go to the hotel they had booked. They would go out on the streets and talk about whatever this was if it weren’t night. They were Gotham vigilantes, going out at night was related to probably beating someone up.

When Cassie had come back from the park at lunchtime he retold his conversation with Steph. The two that they had had through the phone. Eddie was with Roy, Jason was cooking lunch and trying to help him, moving around the small kitchen fetching things. Cassie and Tim were talking in the beginning of the corridor, one on the wall in front of the other.

He almost called Steph a bitch, affectionately of course, but stopped himself before voicing it, there were kids around. When he mentioned they were coming to Star City he heard a laugh coming from the kitchen. One of those laughs that were dry and only one ‘ha’, not a laugh born from laughter but a laugh born from disbelief. Roy was the one that specified that no one else was entering that safe house.

Cassie had bought the essentials for Eddie, all coming from the Wayne’s money. Tim wouldn’t argue that choice, the Wayne’s money was as much Jason’s as it was Tim’s, both of them being legally Waynes.

Now they had dippers, baby formula, one of those backpacks to take babies in, a baby bottle, a pacifier and a blanket. It wasn’t much but they had only two methods of transport they could use without contacting other people, and those were flying and a motorbike.

Jason’s cooking was better than his, even if lunch was a plate of rice and calf meat cut in small pieces. Tim knew he could cook the rice to taste the same, he doubted he could cook the meat, not because it was hard, but because he never knew when it was done how he liked it, always ending up over or under cooked.

Cassie and him went to the bedroom they had slept in, the other three people present staying in the living room.

“So” She started.

“So” He gave back.

She sat on the bed, Eddie asleep surrounded by countless pillows- all they could find to be honest- “Me and you” she breathed.

He stood up, lazily supporting himself on the mid sized wardrobe he had found the burner phone in. “You and I” he corrected.

“Look, Tim, you’re a great guy and everything, but no offense I don’t like you in that way”

He breathed in relief “Thank god, I don’t either”

She let go of a sigh, probably relieved as well “Great, glad we’re on the same page. What do we do now?”

He looked at Eddie asleep in the bed. He was a really young baby and he felt bad for his position in all of this. Even if his ‘birth’ hadn’t been a normal one, it was still Tim’s fault, for better or for worse. “Have you talked to your mom?”

“Still need more time to think about how to put it into words. I thought about telling Donna and Diana, but I think that’ll be a job better done in person”

“Okay, so we will be going to Gotham temporarily, until we figure something out” He was thinking like Robin, not like Tim. He was also speaking like Robin, not like Tim, and he was sure Cassie noticed, even if her demeanor didn’t change.

She looked around the room, as if questioning what to do “Yeah, right” she wasn’t being sarcastic, it was more that she was lost in thought “Right, what about when we get to Gotham? Before we go to Gotham? How are we getting to Gotham?” She looked him straight in the eyes and her expression turned serious “My kids are not gonna be famous, you get that? No ‘the son of famous billionaire’ this or ‘Bruce Wayne’s newest family member’ that. How are we going to avoid that?”

She was asking too many questions for him to answer or even think about. “When we get to Gotham we’ll talk with Bruce, that’s for sure”

She pointed a finger at him again “Will he keep his mouth shut?”

“We’re bats, we keep secrets” It was so obvious to him the question hurt. She raised a brow, either in doubt or asking him to keep talking. The overhead light flickered as if asking him the same thing “If one of us wants to hide something we’ll hide it. We’re detectives, we just find other people's secrets out. I feel like you already knew that”

She blinked “Remember how I barely know any of you? Vigilante or civilian. He banned Kon, Bart and I from attending any galas after you invited us to one” Deep in his mind, Tim thought he should’ve invited them to more, even if he got in trouble with Bruce, it had been a fun gala even if it was the talk of the town for a while “Opinions are truly formed when you meet someone, not from what you hear from others”

“Yeah, okay, yeah. Before we go to Gotham we stay here. Wait to talk to Cass and Steph, all those things. Maybe we can get the jet to pick us up, that way we’ll take our weapons and my bike with us” With our weapons he basically meant his, Cassie didn’t need any and he somedays envied her for that “Jason already knows and I don’t usually work with him, the other bats should know after all” She raised her brow again, but he didn’t give into her intentions.

“And after that?” She asked as if she thought he had a plan. She probably did. He didn’t

He took his hands to his head, gripping on his hair. His hair that had grown to that point were you either cut it shorter or let it long because it looked horrible. “I don’t know!” He wanted to shout. He wanted to laugh. He wanted to cry. Still, he didn’t know what he wanted “I don’t know what to do!”

He felt lost, even as Cassie hugged him, bringing a sense of comfort, he didn’t know what to do, Cassie didn’t either, but he was Robin, he was Tim Drake, he was known for thinking and solving things.

Cassie's hug made Bart’s and Kon’s absence even more heard. Bart loved to tackle them to the floor with a hug. Kon loved to raise people off the ground when hugging them, even if they were taller than him.

Tim hated public transport, but it was either walking or taking his robin bike. He hated Gotham’s public transport and he hated Star City’s public transport. He hated it even more for the fact that Cassie and him were wearing jeans that were a tad too big and shirts that were a tad too arrow-themed with leather jackets. He got the feeling that Jason was doing it out of spite.

They also carried a kid with them. He was sure someone took a photo of them, a camara sound here and a flash covered by a finger there. They sat together, her head resting on his shoulder and the baby on the baby carrier she wore strapped to her chest, she won rock paper scissors.

If someone took a photo and he was recognised, Dick was going to kill him for not telling him. That wasn’t fun, like at all. Alfred was going to reprimand him. Bruce couldn’t speak, he hadn’t known he had another kid until the kid showed up at his door seven years after being born.

People looked at them with weird expressions when they entered the hotel, especially when Steph came running to hug him. It had been a good idea that Cassie carried Eddie afterall. Cass hugged him too while Steph expresseed how worried they were for him.

He could feel Cassie’s uncomfortableness and he could see how Cass kept looking back at her, her gaze more questioning than judging. Steph let him go and looked at Cassie. Her expression changed to a serious one, going silent and taking them to their room and the moment the door closed:

“What did you do?” Her hands on her hips, she stood in the middle of the room. Cass sat on their bed and patted the space next to her looking at Cassie.

He stood in front of his friend “He’s Kon’s”

A dry laugh “Yeah- Kon whose dead”

Cassie looked at her “He really is, at least DNA wise” Anyone that dealt with the bats knew that DNA didn’t really mean that much to them unless they were solving a case.

“I’m gonna ask you again” She crossed her arms over her chest “What did you do?”

The two Cassandras sat on the bed and Tim could see from the corner of his eyes as his sister was taking her nephew in her hands.

He pulled a hand through his face “We didn’t do anything!” that wasn’t a lie, they didn’t do anything. He , on the other hand, had mourned a death in the worst way possible.

“Tim, look, I know you well and I don’t buy it” She sighed. Maybe she was angry, but she sounded more concerned at the moment “One doesn’t just, like, come upon a kid and adopt them- Don’t start with Bruce!” She warned as she saw his mouth open to speak, it wasn’t like she was wrong.

“What do you want us to do then? He’s Kryptonian! What will happen when his powers develop?” He whispered. They were in a hotel room, it didn’t feel safe to speak about things like that too loudly.

“Take him to the Kents if he is a Kent!” She gave back, matching his tone “They know what to do when things like those happen!”

“And force them to take care of a child?”

His sister spoke from the bed “You’re forcing yourself”

He turned to the girls on the bed, forgetting momentarily about Steph “Am not!”

Cassie got up from the bed and hugged him like she had done at the lab. Was he crying? He didn’t think so, but maybe he was. Steph spoke from his side “Let’s take a walk, we need to talk”

Chapter Text

Somehow, they had ended up disguising themselves in black clothes and a ponytail. Both of them wore ponytails. They raced across rooftops, jumping with practice ease, barely using grappling hooks. They didn’t think about being filmed or encountering anyone. It was still day, even if dusk came closer with every passing second.

On one rooftop Steph stopped him by the hood of his sweatshirt. She yanked it down, and he put it up again.

Right.

They were going to talk.

She decided that that would be the roof for them to talk, he guessed. Or she decided to stop procrastinating. Either way she pulled him towards the shadows.

“Tim” Her voice had an extreme seriousness that was uncharacteristic in her “You’re my best friend. You were my boyfriend. And I know you. So I want you to tell me the truth when I ask you what did you do” He wanted to counter her, saying that Kon was his best friend and Cass was hers. But he wouldn’t. He couldn’t. She was his best friend as much as Kon had been, and Kon was no longer.

He took a shaky breath “I-” He couldn’t bring himself to say it. He, for some reason, couldn’t. It had been his fault because he had been doing- he had been trying- Why would he even do it? Why had he even tried? He knew how much Kon had been hurt because he was born a clone.

He was more of a test tube baby if you think about it. A mix of two people’s DNA mixed to create a new lifeform in a lab. No need for gametes or a uterus two! A lack of childhood, yes, but Tim had managed to create a baby that way, that was scientific progress!

But he had tried to clone Kon that way. To replicate the man’s DNA. Maybe what Kon had been was immoral but not cloning. What Tim had tried to do was immoral AND cloning.

He felt a hand reach his cheek and rub it softly. He leaned into the touch. Another hand came up and cleaned the tears from his face. “It’s okay Tim” Steph’s words pulled him out of his thoughts “I just- I’m worried Tim. You have an incredible mind, but it’s scary”

He sniffled, she was right, she should be scared of him and his mind. Her hand, the one that had clean tears away from his face, pulled him closer into a hug as he tried to say something. Anything .

Steph deserved an explanation.

Maybe she was the one that most deserved it. At least the one that was alive.

Words stuck to his throat as he tried to swallow his grief, making him scramble to say anything “I didn’t get anyone pregnant!”

“I would guess Kon can’t get pregnant, die and then like 5 months later have a however old is that kid be born” Steph went from worried to exasperated too quick for his liking “You’ve already told me its Kon’s and I am trying to believe you, but how is it yours then?”

“It’s a long story!”

“And I want it all as long as it may be, so get to explaining” Steph went back to a slightly worried tone and Tim sighed.

Silence fell over them as Tim thought of the best way to put it into words. Having children was a sensitive topic, it was easy to see Steph avoided it like the plague and so Tim never brought it up, and so he wanted to be as careful with his wording as he could. Words could cut deeper than knives.

“You know the titans tower has been destroyed, right?”

Steph ran her hand down her face “Mistic baby?”

“Clone baby”

Steph looked at him in the eyes for a few moments “Weirder things have happened to us” Her tone lightened and her posture relaxed a bit “How are you in the mix?” Tim open his mouth to negate it but the other interrupted before he could “You’ve implied it, you explain it”

He took a deep breath “Did you know that Kryptonian DNA is really unstable?”

“Oh my god Tim” She started to laugh lightly and not out of happiness “Living things aren’t made to be the subjects of your weird experiments, go back to computers”

Her laugh was broken and lacked all the joy she usually radiated off of her. The blond’s laugh normally brought the other a sense of comfort and warmth. When Stephanie laughed Tim felt like he was home. But at that moment it felt like a curse. Like the definitive “you’ve fucked up” he didn’t need.

Paralyzed from emotion, he just stood there watching his best friend’s laughter turn into sobs as he felt like he couldn’t do anything. He already knew he had been demented for just having the idea of cloning Kon, let alone actually trying to do it, but it hadn’t felt as true as it felt at that moment.

Steph moved in erratic circles with no rhyme or reason, sobbing into her hands and exclaiming words and phrases that Tim didn’t want to listen and couldn’t quite hear. He could tell that she understood that they were keeping him, if they were to leave him up for adoption there were too many possible problems for a probably Kryptonian kid that could put Eddie and the El’s life and identity at risk, and Tim right now didn’t have the mental capacity for probabilities or multiple plans.

He opened his arms slightly and Steph lunched forward for a hug. He felt what he did was unfair to Steph and how she had gone through her own pregnancy. It was unfair. Steph had done what was the best for her girl and Tim was doing what was best for his boy. And he couldn’t lie to Steph, to everyone but Steph. Steph was the only person alive that deserved to know the truth. She would understand him. He knew that, he had always known that. But understanding his reasoning didn’t negate her feelings, it never had and it never will.

They sat on the ground and supported their weight on each other. Tim had helped Steph with everything her teenage pregnancy had brought her and this was no exception. Tim was too tired to cry but he believed Steph could tell they shared an emotion.

And so they hugged until Steph was too tired to continue crying too.

“I’m sorry Steph” Tim’s voice sounded broken even if he wasn’t going to cry “I’m so sorry” She sniffled in response.

Cassie was starting to hate the hotel room they were in. It was too posh and too hot for her to really enjoy herself. The company she had surely didn’t help as a distraction: a baby that had just, technically, been born and her friend’s sister she barely knows and has just met.

Cassandra was… less than talkative. Cassie didn’t have a problem with staying in silence but she had just… been staring at her for at least 15 minutes. Her and Cissie read the gossip columns, she knew she barely spoke, but this just felt kinda wrong.

The girl had just been holding Eddie as if he was the most delicate thing ever, not really interacting with him, but just rocking him asleep. She was lucky Eddie slept that much. Maybe because he was just like a newborn clone and he needed the energy for something?

They hadn’t moved from the hotel room and they hadn’t talked anything since she got there, first because Tim was talking with Stephanie and it wasn’t really her place to talk in her mind, after that because she was watching the baby fall asleep and now because she didn’t know what to say or how to say it.

“You’re Cassandra, right?” The girl nodded “I’m glad to meet you, I’m also Cassandra”

“I know” Silence fell once again on top of them as the black haired girl smiled slightly. The smile was short lived as as soon as it came it went away.

Okay. Cassie understood that she didn’t want to talk. That was okay, she had to try at least once.

Her hands were sweaty and she felt like she needed a shower. Well, another shower. Even if she wasn’t really sweating, the feeling of grime on her skin was a familiar feeling but that didn’t mean she liked it more or less, and even if she knew she wasn’t dirty, the temperature of the room was making her get closer to it.

She felt like she needed to do something, to go outside of the room and so she took the room key and went to buy lunch for her and Cass. The hotel surely had a vending machine, right? She came back to the room with a couple of vending machine sandwiches she may or may not have taken without paying and taking advantage of her strength and mostly impenetrable skin, yet when she opened the door Cass was standing there with Eddie still in her arms. “Hungry” she said as she basically offered the baby to her.

Cassie just stood there and looked at the baby, and then back at the girl. “I brought sandwiches in you want one, I’m sure they're not that good like I think they’re spinach and egg but you can have one if you’re that hungry”

Cass repeated herself “Hungry” as she looked down at the baby, as if urging her to take it. Eddie had his eyes closed but he had a weird face and so he left the food on the bed and took the baby in her arms. She had been a babysitter before, thank Helena for that, but not for actual babies, just for young kids, but he had heard stories from when Kon took him to meet Martha about how Clark made weird faces as a baby before he started crying because he was hungry. She didn’t think it was genetic, but Eddie truly had a weird face, his nose being scrunched up and his eyebrows gave him a sort of crying expression. Martha always told her it was because Clark and Conner both got so hungry sometimes that they got stomachaches.

“Did he cry?” Cassie asked as she sat down with Eddie in her arms “How are you so sure he’s hungry?” It’s not that she didn’t trust her, but she sure as the underground didn’t think she could read the baby better than she did after being together for less than an hour.

Cass shook her head no “He will” and she left the room with a sandwich in her hand. And Eddie did cry because he was hungry, she had been able to tell perfectly and something about that scared her.

Cassie knew the movements and knew what to do to take care of a baby, she had listened to Martha talk about it multiple times, she just loved talking about Clark when he was young and taking care from time to time of her grandson. The woman loved her family and talked about them whenever she could after all.

When the blond was younger her mother, Helena, used to sing her a small lullaby to sleep, one she didn’t remember the lyrics to but she knew the melody as if it were part of her DNA, and so she sang it to what was now her kid. Eddie smiled and giggled, too young to quite do anything else, reacting to her singing and the soft words she spoke.

She played with him how she knew people played with babies and the laughter he brought to the room did distract her from the temperature that did bother her and how hungry she was getting.

The black haired girl did come back to the room at some point and sat on a chair to look at the other two. When Cassie put her attention back on her she smiled slightly and said “Good” as she pointed at her with her face and then looked down at the baby.

“Thank you” They smiled at each other for a moment, the vigilante watching while the demigodess played with a son that from that point forward was hers.

She had done a good job. She thought she understood that one better.