Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

Timothy Drake wanted coffee. Well, caffeine in the general sense of the world. Running on 72 hours no sleep, he was extremely tired, hungry, and done with these fuckass board meetings. Like, Jesus Christ!! He had fought tooth and nail to bring Bruce back from the time stream, (losing his whole fucking spleen in the process, may he add) can the man take back his job already instead of putting all his responsibilities onto the shoulders of a boy who felt like he had been seventeen for an unreasonably long time.

Anyway, to get back to the point, Timothy Drake was tired, and he wanted  some goddamn caffeine. His meeting were all done for the day due to the absolute goddess known as Tam Fox (She took one look at Tim’s million dollar eye bags and cancelled all his afternoon meetings), so he was wandering the grimy streets of Gotham trying to find some sort of energy stimulant. Then, he saw his salvation. There, unassuming on the side of the road, it stood. The vending machine.

The vending machine itself wasn’t anything special, just a regular old vending machine. At least, that’s what it looked like. At the sight of the dispenser, Tim felt a burst of energy- he had to get fix of caffeine.  Reaching the machine, he noticed it was cash only.

“What the shit?? Who the eff even uses cash anymore”  he grumbled to himself and he dug around in his pockets. From his pockets, he withdrew: a TV remote, a glue gun, tape, a sparkly purple hair tie (Steph’s), a gecko, his dad’s urn, before finally pulling out a few crumpled dollar bills. Triumphantly, he marched to the machine and peered through the glass to see what was available. However, the glass was so ridiculously dirty, the only thing he could see was some discernible blobs. Bunching his sleeve into his fist, Tim tried to wipe away the grime. Unfortunately, his attempts just seemed to make everything worse, plus getting grime all over his hoodie. Scowling, he decided to say “fuck it, yolo” and just punched random numbers in. The machine beeped.

“DOES NOT EXIST- TRY AGAIN”

Tim screamed, and tugged his hair, before punching in ‘001’

DOES NOT EXIST- TRY AGAIN

Was it actually fucking with him?? So he tried again:

DOES NOT EXIST- TRY AGAIN

And again:

DOES NOT EXIST- TRY AGAIN

DOES NOT EXIST- TRY AGAIN

DOES NOT EXIST- TRY AGAIN

DOES NOT EXIST- TRY AGAIN DOES NOT EXIST- TRY AGAIN DOES NOT EXIST- TRY AGAIN DOES NOT EXIST- TRY AGAIN DOES NOT EXIST- TRY AGAIN

“RAHHHGGGG” Tim let out a primal yell. Who did this vending machine think it was. The audacity of it, the fucking clanker. He gave it a kick, before his foot promptly got stuck in the flap.

“FUCK MY FUCKING STUPID CHONGUS LIFE” was what he yelled before promptly drawing back his fist and punching the glass hard. Let it be known, Tim Drake is not a weak man. Due to his night activities, he had quite a bit of muscle on him. That’s what made it so shocking when he heard a crunch, he looked and saw that, no- it wasn’t the glass, it was his fist that had cracked. The glass was fine. It stood there, taunting him. Tim looked at his mangled fist, the fully intact glass, and slammed his head into it, knocking himself out in an instant.

Chapter Text

Tim arrived back at the manor broken, bleeding and concussed. Pathetically , he staggered to the kitchen, to his most prized possession. The 2 million dollar coffee machine. Looking around, he saw that there were no cups or mugs anywhere (Jason went on a rage when his sourdough turned out soggy and smashed everything in reach- Alfred banned him until he got therapy). He was dismayed, but there was no force on heaven, earth or hell that would stop him from getting his holy nectar. That was when he remembered he had just the thing.

”Aha!” He triumphantly cried, drawing out from his pocket… his dad’s urn. Shrugging, he put the remains into a baggie for later, and shoved the now empty urn under the spout. As it was a rather large urn, it took many rounds of the poor overworked machine to fill it. 

The moment the first drop hit Tim’s tongue, he practically ascended. Eyes rolling back, he practically guzzled the rest of it, until he heard a cough from the doorway. There stood the rest of his family, staring at him with horrified curiosity. 

“Tim, chum… what happened? Are you okay?” Tim snorted, and continued to drink until every last drop was gone. Wiping his mouth on the back of his hand he said

”I almost died for my true love. 10/10 don’t recommend. Losing my spleen for you was enough” 

He stood there, looking at his family with blood trickling down his face and a haunted look in his eyes.

”Sweetheart, you know you can always talk to us, don’t you?” Bruce said in a worried tone of voice.

 “Tt, of course Drake would get beat up by a villain, how pathetic.” Damian muttered, before wandering off to go feed his cow.

 “Mhm, yeah. Big scary villain. Got me good” Tim slurred, the huge amount of coffee he just downed doing nothing for his sleep deprivation, especially with a concussion to top it off.

 “Oh baby bird, come here” His older brother opened his arms, into which Tim happily stumbled, legs barely cooperating. As his brother hoisted him into his arms, Tim, for the second time that day, passed out.