Chapter Text
“What is actually wrong with you?”
“Mentally or retroactively?”
“Grape is the worst flavor in existence, kid; everyone knows that.”
Tim observed the Gatorade bottle with gravity before glancing up, frowning. He looked like a doctor about to deliver a terminal diagnosis. “You are incorrect.”
Marcus shook his head with a snort, slapping a few tens down on the counter. For the drinks, the chocolate, and the stuffed cupcake plush that was reprehensibly ugly, but was unfortunately the exact kind of toy that his brand new human being would probably adore. “You’re a riot.”
“How’s it feel to be incorrect?”
“I’m used to it. Last chance to switch out for blue flavor.”
“It’s this or coffee, and since you won’t let me have coffee---”
“You’ll put yourself back on a bender as soon as you get home, don’t worry.”
“---I don’t wanna hear any critiques from the peanut gallery.” Tim cracked the bottle open to take a hearty swig, letting it dribble down his chin for emphasis.
Marcus made a face at the cashier. “Grape it is.”
“Kids,” she laughed. “Amirite?”
“Yeah, I don’t---” Marcus blanked for two seconds too long. “Wait, I’m not---”
“What’s a road trip without coffee, right?” Tim complained gamely, leaning on the counter with a hip-cock signature only of teenagers. (And Red Hood.) He rolled his eyes at the cashier. “He won’t let me go to afterparties, either; can you believe that?”
“Oh, trust me, kid,” she said firmly while Marcus spluttered. “You’ll be better for it.”
Tim pouted largely. “I guess I’m not getting your support for that new Macbook, either, huh? See, I’m taking a poll to show him exactly how lame he is.”
“Sorry,” she said, smiling at Marcus without sounding very sorry at all. “I would make my kid work for it, too.”
Marcus picked up his change, struggling to find the right words that didn’t also include profanity. (He was trying to get outta that habit, dammit.) “I…”
“Here.” Tim sighed deeply, dropping a ten in the tip jar. “For the unfortunately good parenting advice. You have a good day, ma’am. C’mon, old man.”
“You’re doing a good job with that one,” the woman told Marcus approvingly, watching Tim hold the door for an elderly woman with full arms on his way out. “He’ll thank you some day, I promise. I thanked my dad.”
Marcus squeezed his eyes shut, mumbling some kind of embarrassed acknowledgement as he gathered the squishable an’ hurried back to the car. “Fucker.”
Tim laughed brightly, popping open an energy drink that Marcus had not seen a second ago. “You’re a natural.”
“At looking forty, apparently. Gimme that.” Marcus swiped the drink before Tim could lunge away, replacing it instantly with a breakfast burrito. “Eat up ‘fore it gets all soggy.”
“I hate you,” Tim said passionately, slumping in his seat, but he started nibbling anyway.
Marcus checked the receipt to be sure the energy drink had, in fact, been paid for. Then he took a swig. “Likewise. Ew--- What IS this?”
Tim smirked fiendishly. “Grape.”
Marcus held eye contact as he dumped the sludge outta the open window into the dingy parking lot. Then he started the car, pulled back onto the road, and rolled the other window down. Tim didn’t complain about the chill morning air. He just pulled his hair back with a scrunchie from Marcus’ jacket pocket before going back in on the burrito.
Marcus rested one arm outside as they found their pace, smirking. He looked old in the rearview mirror; bangs pulled back by the unforgiving wind to reveal a struggling hairline, eyes squinted to show off his smile wrinkles, and a grizzled chin courtesy of too many days away from his reflection.
Weirdly, it had been a very long time since he’d felt as young as he did right now.
“We need a secret handshake,” Tim said somewhere around the last fourth of his burrito.
“Yeah?” Marcus wiggled his numb fingers in the pale sunshine, letting the frigid wind flow around them like the current of a river. “For shits an’ giggles or for somethin’ useful?”
“Both.” Tim rolled his trash into a tiny foil ball, snagging Marcus’ lukewarm coffee. (Marcus didn’t stop him this time.) “We need to convince them that we bonded.”
Marcus raised a judgmental eyebrow. “In a way we haven’t already, you mean?”
“C’mon, y’know what’s at stake. We gotta make it obvious.”
“I could kiss you on the forehead if that would help.”
“How are you a literal mob lieutenant? You are the MOST unserious---”
“Okay, okay, a secret handshake. Put the worrywarts at ease, right? Get ‘em off your back about it.” Marcus wrapped his wind-chilled hand back around the steering wheel, freeing his right. “What kinda handshake were you thinking? Simple, remember; simple.”
“Finally,” Tim groaned dramatically, hopping out before they had even parked in front of the warehouse.
“Did he behave?” Jason called merrily.
Marcus shielded his eyes from the sunset glare, squinting at the waiting shadows. One had his hands shoved in his jacket pockets; a jacket that had used to hang in Marcus’ front hall. The other had his arms crossed, feet planted wide. They were standing close enough to converse, almost close enough to touch, and Marcus found himself wondering all of a sudden what Nightwing was to Hood.
Brothers. Surely. Maybe in another kind of life.
“Yeah, ‘course,” he answered aloud, shooting his boss a weary grin. “He’ll probably die early from an unhealthy reliance on caffeine, but y’know---”
Jason scoffed heavily. “I wasn’t talkin’ to you.”
“He was fine,” Tim answered huffily, hauling his backpack out of the car. “He damn near fell off of a mountain, though. He’s pretty spry for such an old---”
Marcus elbowed him in the ribs--- hard--- and glared in the other boys’ direction. “Help me unload this thing; I’m getting charged a whole kidney if I don’t return it by eight.”
Surprisingly, both of them hopped to, pulling every scrap of camping gear from the car. Four sets of hands made quick work. Marcus caught the older boy, who had yet to introduce himself, glancing at Tim with furrowed eyebrows. Tim, for his part, didn’t even make eye contact.
In the interest of pretending he still didn’t have a clue… Marcus should probably stay out of it.
“What’s this about falling off a mountain?” Jason was asking in the background, an edge of steel in his cheerful voice.
“Uh… long story.” As he shut the trunk, Marcus nudged Tim in the ribs again. Quick, before his exhausted surety fled. “Hey.”
Tim glanced up, surprised. His blue eyes looked icy in the bright sunset light. The dark circles underneath were almost completely gone.
Marcus tapped his knuckles to the kiddo’s collarbone, trying to ignore the ache in his throat. “No one’s better off alone.”
Tim’s gaze sharpened in recognition. “Laying all our cards on the table at the same time is a big ask.”
“What’ve you got to lose?” Marcus dropped his hand to the juncture of Tim’s shoulder, squeezing. He couldn’t back away from this; not yet. “Maybe you’ve already tried bein’ alone. Maybe it’s time to try somethin’ different. Maybe next time shit hits the fan… you don’t gotta deal with it alone.”
Maybe he didn’t know what ninjas were doing in Gotham, why Batman had been missing for a few days, or how Tim had drifted so far off his axis before his family actually noticed, but Marcus didn’t need to know. The words landed where they were meant to. Tim’s muscles eased up under Marcus’ hand. He reached out, initiating the NOT-so-simple handshake they had practiced for over an hour on the road. All that trouble was worth it just for Marcus to smoothly slap, slide, and knuckle-bump his way through a rad hello/goodbye gesture like he’d done it a hundred times before. It was hard not to glance up at the others, but he thought he heard a chuckle.
Tim surprised him with a tight hug. “Don’t forget t’ tell him.”
Marcus blinked hard, pressing the hand that wasn’t occupied with a cooler against the kiddo’s wiry back. Tim was still wearing Marcus’ jacket. Neither of them had mentioned it. “Yeah… okay.”
“I mean it.” Tim pulled away, offering a tight smile that strained with sincerity. “You both deserve the truth.”
Marcus swallowed past that damn ache in his throat, letting the kid go. He tried not to watch as Tim finally acknowledged the older boy’s presence, burying himself in a hug and holding too tight and mumbling somewhere in the dissolving awkwardness of tearful greetings, “We should talk.”
“He was everything, y’know?” Tim poked at the dying fire. They had talked through the night. The sun was coming up. “He was my first brother. Hell, he was the first person who ever really gave a damn about me.”
Marcus stared at the cold stars. They were so bright out here. “So then what?”
“I learned he was only human. Things got complicated after that.”
“C’mon.” Jason walked up beside him, shoving his hands back into his pockets. “How was it REALLY?”
“It was good.” Marcus allowed a little smile to escape. Everything felt different. A little more grounded… a little more real. Perspective or some damn shit; that was probably it. “He’s got a hell of a story, but I think he’ll be okay.”
“I knew it.” Jason’s tone flooded with poorly concealed relief. “I knew you’d be good for ‘im. I wasn’t so sure about sending him off without Wi-Fi; kid’s a menace an’ a half when you take away his toys, but a little nature never---”
Marcus shook his head in mock amusement, but his heart thundered as he turned, resting his hand on his boss’s shoulder. “He’s a damn good kid, Jason. So are you.”
Jason’s eyes widened, too shiny all of a sudden. His mouth quirked up as he visibly struggled to pull an emotional shield into place. “What?”
Marcus moved slowly, wrapping his arms around Jason’s back. He squeezed tight. No one needed to know about the lump in his throat. That was HIS business. “You’re a good kid, too. I just thought you should know.”
Jason’s rigid discomfort melted into a kind of… desperate weakness. He fisted the back of Marcus’ shirt, resting his chin on the older man’s shoulder. His sigh shuddered all the way from his bones.
It was something. Maybe not perfect… but something.
Maybe the truth.
“I have something for you.”
Marcus jumped about three feet, flicking the safety on with a string of curses. “Don’t DO that, I’m WORKING---”
“C’mon, this bust is deader than a dead Robin.” The shadow to Marcus’ immediate left cocked its head, white lenses narrowing. “Although those don’t tend to stay down for very long… You’re guarding an empty warehouse.”
“Yeah, for show. D’you have any idea how long this operation took to set up? It’s a long game an’ it’ll be ruined if our guy sees me talking to nothin’.” Marcus suppressed a wry smirk, trying not to stare at those eyes for too long. “You’re gonna scare the hell outta Sharpie when he gets back outside, though.”
“Do you want me to?”
“HELL yes. What d’you want? I’m on the clock here.”
“If Hood docks your pay for taking a three minute break, bill me,” the kid shot back, sounding amused. His gloved hand slid into the light, cardboard tube in hand. “I wasn’t sure if you would want it framed.”
Too curious now to resist, Marcus slung his rifle across his back, taking the tube in his frozen fuckin’ fingers. “This isn’t a prank for the grape drink, is it?”
“Nah.” The shadow receded. Marcus couldn’t see it anymore. “I owed you.”
Plastic lid finally popped off, Marcus carefully tugged the paper out. A shiny photo unfurled in his hand, bigger than his head, and he suddenly forgot to breathe. “You owed me?”
The splash of orange and yellow and red sunset almost glowed, shedding sharp shadows on the valley below. A man’s face took up half of the frame, angled up an’ away, but you could still see the way his golden-brown bangs drifted in the breeze, the crinkling of one eye, the relaxing of his shoulder. You could still see his smile.
He looked peaceful, this man. He looked good. He looked whole.
Marcus scrubbed at his burning eyes, holding the photo out of harm’s way. “What th’ hell FOR?”
The soft whoosh of a cape preceded his answer. “For being a good friend.”
Marcus rolled the gift back up, tucked it carefully into its packaging, and zipped the tube into the biggest pocket of his new leather jacket. Then he slung his rifle back to ready position, sniffing firmly. He had a job to do.