Work Text:
Being a hero that’s associated with the Justice League, with the Flashes, Time-Travel is pretty much considered par for the course.
Sometimes, it sucks. Sometimes, it’s all about the fate of the multiverse, and laying low, taking care not to destroy the timelines. It’s all about dodging temporal assassins and not accidentally marrying his great-grandpa. Sometimes, it tears him apart inside, seeing all those people he can’t save, no matter how much Tim wishes he could. Nobody wants a remake of the Flashpoint paradox, least of all Barry himself.
Traveling through time isn’t always like that, though. It isn’t even always exciting.
Most of the time, it’s downright boring.
Tim stares at the blank ceiling from where he’s laying on his back on the floor, watching paint dry.
...
Literally.
...
Boredom makes him want to claw his eyes out. But he can’t even do that. They won’t let him. It could interfere with your future, Tim, you’ll end up throwing a wrench in my plans if you interact with anything you shouldn’t, brat, and do you want the fate of the universe resting on your unimpressive frame, Drake, No, not even a cup of coffee, Tim, what if the coffee’s evil, Tim-
He rolls over, blowing a rebellious strand of hair out of his eyes. He’s now laying face down on the floor. It constitutes the most change his environment’s been through in the last few hours.
How exciting.
Bored. Out. Of. His. Mind .
He’s been blasted into this time-zone three hours ago. Per protocol, he’s signaled his presence as well as the kind of situation he’s in. Per protocol, he hasn’t been allowed to snoop around, to search for people he could save. He’s been retrieved, by who he’s mostly sure was Jason wearing a fraying ski-mask and a ‘Fuck the Batriarchy!’ t-shirt, and confined to this room ever since.
This is interfering with his schedule. He had plans. Good plans. Beautiful plans. An entire evening off. The theater. He’s been waiting for that movie to be out for five entire years. Alfred was going to allow them to have real, actual, popcorn. He’d bribed the Rogues to be quiet, to rest, for one tiny little night.
One.
But no. No, of course not. That was too good to be true. Instead, of finally – finally – knowing what happens to his favorite characters, Tim is stuck roughly ten years in the future, watching paint dry while he waits for Batman to get his act together. Though he’s been assured people back in his time know where he is and what he’s doing. So at least there’s that.
But the worst of it isn’t the boredom. Or the time-traveling in itself. No.
It’s way worse than that. It’s all the spoilers he’s risking by sacrificing his one night off.
Tim rolls back around. He glares at the ceiling again.
Maybe if he stays like that long enough, he’ll melt through the floor. Back to his time. Back to his family, far away from the slow death this version of them is inflicting upon him.
He’s had more pleasant torture sessions.
They haven’t even left him in his own suit. Something about him being able to use it to hack the Batcomputer.
He could, of course he could, that’s not the point. It’s within the range of his abilities. Easy. Still, that doesn’t mean he-
...
Well, yes, he also would. But he wouldn’t have to if he had the slightest little thing to distract himself with. With each second that passes, he can feel more and more neurons dying from sheer lack of stimulation.
He’s half-tempted to just play dead. To be done with this miserable, brainless existence. Get someone to react, rush into the room, provide something other than a blank wall to his starved brain.
He doesn’t. It isn’t a joke anyone appreciates, or wants to make.
Still, Tim needs a distraction and needs it bad. Before he gives in and chews his own arm off. Or the door. The door seems like a better alternative. He could try chewing through the door to escape. There’s nothing useful in the room, he doesn’t have his suit, or his gear, but he’s resourceful, and they’d at least be forced to intervene to keep his teeth from breaki-
Dots connects.
An idea, fragile as it is, starts to form in his brain.
Tim props himself up on his elbows, eyes narrowing.
“Oh no, you don’t.” Comes a voice from a hidden speaker in the ceiling. He can’t recognize it. It’s impersonal, mechanized, robotic, but it’s breaking protocol. Jason. “I know that look. The answer’s no. Fate of this universe, Babybi- Tim.”
The thing about Time Travel, is. Yes. He could, potentially, destroy this timeline.
But.
If this is a closed-loop type of situation.
(Which every piece of evidence he’s gathered so far leads to, seeing how prepared they were and how little explanation they’d needed. How not-surprised they were to see Tim. The fact that they hadn’t even asked for the a precise time frame to send him back to when they’d gone to calibrate the time-whatever in order to send him back.)
His actions have both already happened and are waiting to happen in the future.
His actions have no consequences whatsoever. He is Past!Tim. When he becomes Future!Tim, he’ll still remember all of this. The OnceandFuture!Tim can model the timeline accordingly when he is sent back to his own time. Only tell relevant information. Keep things happening the way he wants them to. Tim has all the cards, here. He’s in control.
This is a closed loop. It all already happened.
A closed loop, roughly ten years in the future.
This is perfect.
“Jason.” Tim says sweetly. “On the 24th of August 2019, around 0817pm, You promised me a favor if I concealed two of your safe-houses’ addresses from Bruce. I’m cashing it in.”
“Nice try.” The voice responds. “But I’m pretty sure the favor in question wasn’t of the timeline-destroying kind. No can do.”
“I know I didn’t cash it in, since I won’t. Well, normally wouldn’t.” Tim says. Closed loop, closed loop, closed loop, he is in poooooower.
So sue him, he just spent three hours bored out of his mind in a tiny and very bland room. His brain wants some fun. Tim sits up, cross his legs and looks at his hand nonchalantly. “We had a deal. One that I could break if you don’t honor you word.”
“You’re a devious little shit, you know that?” Jason groans.
Tim keeps his voice very innocent.
“You wouldn’t want to be responsible for the destruction of your own timeline, would you, Jay? It would be such a shame if I went back and ‘accidentally’ changed things. Told Bruce what safehouse you use when you need to recover from your wounds.” Not that Bruce doesn’t know already, but they all like to keep the pretense intact. “Or cashed said favor in. Then, there’s the butterfly effect to consider. You could end up-” He scours his brain for a sufficiently horrifying future for Jason. “-married to Wally or something.”
The silence his explanation leaves behind is distinctly unconvinced. Tim decides to add some more sufficiently horrifying details.
“Which would create a whole lot of opportunities for Dick to meddle with your love life. They don’t keep secrets from each other. Wally would talk, and Dick would invite himself to your dates. You know he would. He’d know your schedule. The addresses to all of your safe-houses. He’d plan your entire wedding, down to the smallest detail. Then the information would pass on to Bruce. He’d-”
“And thus, never in a thousand parallel universes would I ever date Wally West. That just ain’t happening.”
“Okay. Let’s say I go back and cash in the favor, then. I could ask you to check on what’s in the first drawer of Bruce’s WE desk and to give it to me.”
“What the fuck is in the first drawer of Bruce’s desk that’s so important it would alter this timeline.”
Hood, line, and sinker.
“Nothing.” Tim says a tad too quickly, averting his eyes.
Oh No. What A Shame. What A Surprise. Jason Doesn’t Know Yet.
“Wow. Look even more unrepentant, could you?”
He doesn’t deign replying out loud, choosing instead to smile at the boring ceiling. He takes back everything he’s ever said about Time-travel. Time-travel is amazing.
“I can’t believe you sat on a favor for ten years just to get whatever it is you want now.”
Tim can. Tim has a plan. A great plan. The best plan. Even better than what he’d initially planned for tonight. This new plan doesn’t even involve super-villain bribery. Just some minor blackmail. A light dash of extortion.
Why thank you, Future!Tim, for your fine meddling.
Steph is going to be ecstatic.
“I’m looking after the well-being of the universe. It already happened, yet not.” He answers sagely, nodding. “It was written in the stars. It’s destiny, Jason. Fate. We mere mortals can’t fight fate.”
The voice-modulation drops with a screech a second before the door opens. Jason, without the god-awful mask – but still wearing the insulting t-shirt – is leaning against the door frame.
“Bullshit, we can’t. We make our own. Which is exactly what you’re doing right now, you manipulative little gremlin.”
He sounds and looks awfully fond, when he says that.
Tim surmises that the future isn’t all that bad.
He grins.
There’s an amused sigh.
“What do you want?”
----------
They still don’t let him have much contact with anyone other than Jason. He still can’t access the Batcomputer. But his plan works. He’s barely pocketed the small USB stick when it’s time for him to go home. There’s a machine there, with a flat screen and two simple buttons. So he can’t even bring himself to be too mad when Jason smirks, then says: “So sorry about the landing. But, see, it already happened, yet not. Fate, Timmers. It’s written in the stars.”
One of the buttons is pressed. A flash of bright blue later, Tim is drowning in a bowl of cereals.
Fruit Loops with chocolate milk and syrup.
Dick’s not human.
The milk drips out of his nose to form little puddles onto the table when Tim comes up, spluttering. A moment later, he’s saved from a frankly humiliating demise by the large hands that helps him cough it out of his lungs.
The same hands then continue rubbing slow circles into his back, as another pair uses a napkin to clear the milk out of his eyes.
He blinks the blurriness out of them and they settle on Dick’s startled face. He’s crouched on the table and wielding his pink, plastic, godawful, spoon like it’s a Batarang.
“You okay there, Timmy? Nice trip?”
Jason’s standing just behind him, looking part amused, part in serious pain from the bullet wound Tim knows is still in his side.
“You’re the worst.” Tim informs him. “At least, when you first tried to kill me, you chose a dignified way of doing it.”
“What happened?” Dick inquires.
“Drowning in a bowl of cornflakes is not what I’d consider dignified, Jason!”
“But it does make for a memorable death.” Jason replies.
“More of a flaky one, I’d say.” Dick adds, somehow managing to keep a straight face through that sentence. His grip on the spoon is relaxing.
Tim glares. The effect is mitigated by the bright Fruit Loops stuck on his face.
“I hope you find hair in your food for the rest of your life.”
Dick nods, pensive. He’s staring mournfully down at the ruined mess that was his breakfast. Now that every occupant of the room has ascertained that the danger’s passed, they’re sitting back down, returning to their respective meals. He doesn’t seem to notice that the spoon’s cheap die has bled all over his fingers from when he was gripping it too tight. So they don’t warn him when he rubs a hand over his face and it leaves awful pinkish streaks behind.
He deserves it.
“That’s a better curse than what I’m usually subjected to. Not bad. Extra points for the lack of swear-words. Disgusting, chilling, but not quite related to my bodily integrity enough for it to be really effective.”
“That’s what you think.” Tim and Jason mutter in unison, still reeling from the godawful pun.
What a beautiful bonding moment. Tim can almost forgive him for trying to drown him. Almost.
It’s too bad for Jason’s future attempts at dignity, that, as Bruce always says, ‘Almost does not cut it, Tim. You can do better. You need to.’.
“What-” Comes slashing through the air in the most chilling tone of voice they’ve had the pleasure of hearing yet. “-is the meaning of this?”
They look at where he’s still dripping syrup all over the table and the polished-floors then pale in unison.
“Time-travel!” He squeaks. “I didn’t know where I’d be landing.”
Alfred doesn’t look like he believes his story. Not in the slightest. Tim is forced to spend a precious few seconds wondering which one of them used that excuse on him before.
Bruce’s the likeliest, he decides when he notices the shade of red Dick is turning as he tries to suppress his cackles.
“I have proof.” He argues, waving the USB stick in front of him. As far as weapons go, it seems like a poor choice, but he did bring back the final season of Alfred’s favorite show on it. The one that’s not supposed to be out for another two years.
So, there. Appearances can be deceiving. Having Alfred on one’s side is the best weapon anyone could ask for.
Thank you, Past!Tim, for your flawless forethought.
As well as your impeccable taste in movies.
Tim’s looking forward to binge-watching everything he brought back. That and having the contents of the stick to lord over his family for the next few years.
Information’s the second best weapon there is, after all.
It’s not even like he won’t share.
Eventually.
----------
“Bruce. I need a favor.”
Bruce turns towards him and gestures for him to explain.
“Do you still have any really embarrassing pictures of Jason from when he was a kid?”
“I’m not giving you any.”
“Oh, good, you’re not denying it. I don’t want them, I have plenty. But, see, one fine day about ten years from now, Jason is going to snoop through the first drawer of your desk. It is crucial to our future successes that he finds the most mortifying pictures of him you have, along with this note taped to-”
“No. I’m not getting involved in one of your prank wars.”
“It’s of Universe-Saving Importance, Bruce. Think of the timeline.”
“Hn.”
Tim mentally translates that as ‘you’re full of shit and we both know it.’ He tries another approach.
“Think of it this way, then: If they’re stored in your desk, I can guarantee that he’s not going to find them – or destroy them – for the next ten years. What’s more, you get to look at them whenever a meeting gets too boring.”
“Hn.”
Better, but not enough.
“And – to sweeten the deal – you get some of the more recent embarrassing pictures I took of him. Some even Barbs never had access to.”
“...Hn.”
Another win-win deal for Team-Tim.
“You’re the best.”