Work Text:
There were precious few people who could lie to Batman and get away with it. He had too much training, too much experience, too much fatherly instinct that sensed when someone wasn’t being fully truthful. He could catch almost anyone in a lie. Almost.
Tim prided himself on being one of the few who could outmaneuver his mentor. Batman could sometimes catch him in a direct lie, but stretching the truth or omitting information was laughably easy to sneak past the Bat. Tim had a few theories as to why, the main one being that he hadn’t spent much quality time with Bruce until he was halfway to fifteen and had learned to cover most of his tells by then. The other theory was that he just didn’t care what Tim was doing outside of The Mission and didn’t bother to know what he was doing enough to catch him in lies. That was a depressing thought, one that his friends actively discouraged him from entertaining.
Regardless of the reason, Tim’s natural skill or Bruce’s willing ignorance, lying to the man about why he needed to be in a certain location was very easy. Telling him that he’d already signed up for a surveillance shift at Titan’s Tower wasn’t exactly a lie, but saying that he had to be there for it certainly was. Months ago, he had set up a system that went directly to his Robin phone that would ping him if something seemed out of the ordinary. He could give all the intel needed for a California mission from the comfort of Gotham. So, no, he didn’t need to go to the tower for his shift. But he was going anyway. The Quarterly-Young-Justice-Reunion-Movie-Night, as dubbed by Bart, was something that he wouldn’t miss for the world.
In the beginning, they’d tried to have a movie night every month. The kids had grown too close to simply disperse to the wind after Young Justice had officially disbanded. But much of the time it ended up that someone had to miss out. Cissie might have Olympics training, Anita might not find a babysitter, any one of the Titans members might have a mission. But a pattern emerged that pretty much once every three months the seven living members of Young Justice were able to get together.
Tim refused to miss movie night; short of a Joker breakout, nothing was able to shake his dedication. So, he worked around the Red Hood-inspired lockdown Batman had instilled by pushing the importance of being present at the Tower for surveillance duty. Which totally needed to happen for the whole night. Bruce seemed slightly worried about it, but Tim banked on the man’s own dedication to working a Watchtower shift and the idea that he’d be safter out of Gotham anyway.
“Come on B, Red Hood won’t have a chance to get to me when I’m in basically the most fortified building in California. Which is across the country from here. Going to my shift is something I need to do anyway, I’ll be fine.”
Batman grunted, already looking to the side in positive contemplation. Tim knew that Bruce wanted to have him there to personally ensure his safety, but the man also was accepting Tim’s points.
“…You need to check in if anything happens. At all.”
“Duh.”
“And you’ll come back the moment your shift is over, don’t linger.”
“6 a.m., I’ll be here. Can I go now?”
Bruce grimaced, obviously wanting to go back on his terms and make Tim stay anyway. But after a moment he let out a very fatherly sigh, giving up the fight in his head.
“Alright, have a good shift.” Hell yeah, QYJRMN secured.
Tim just about ran to the cave’s zeta tube. “Bye B, see you in the morning!” The zeta fired up and flashed him away, leaving Bruce to his devices in the cave. The sensation of dematerializing was strange, as always, but within moments he appeared in the Tower.
He had to go up a floor to get to the recreational area, the quiet of the elevator gave way to the faint noise of all his friends gathered in the giant living room. He jogged down the hall to appear in the doorway. Greta, who was facing the door, saw him first.
“Tim, you made it!”
“Yeah. Sorry, Batman’s got a new rouge and he didn’t want me to leave. Took forever to convince him.” He stepped forward to start giving hugs to the civilian girls. Greta always took her time when giving hugs, making up for all the time she couldn’t touch people as a ghost.
“That guy’s got a permanent stick up his ass, I don’t know how you handle him.” Cissie stepped up and put her arms around Tim and Greta both. Tim readjusted so one of his arms was around her too.
“Coming from the girl whose manager is her mom?”
“Shut the fuck up, we worked on it.” Cissie cuffed him on the head.
“Language,” Cassie yelled from the kitchen, “There are toddler ears present!”
Both Connor and Bart voiced their disapproval of the long-standing tease point as Tim let go of Greta and Cissie to go embrace Anita.
“How are the baby-parents?” He asked as he squeezed Anita close.
“God, mom started teething and I think I’m going to have to kill her.” Anita squeezes him back and they separate. “Dad is going to start soon and then I’ll have a true nightmare.”
“Rip, at least it shouldn’t last too long.” Tim starts heading for the kitchen, with Anita following.
“That’s what you think, but when you live with them it lasts forever. I’m getting gray hairs at the ripe age of 16.”
“I think it’s chic,” Tim chuckles as the movie feast appears before him. Kon is shaking out jarred queso into their multi-sauce tray, the other areas filled with salsa and guac. Bart is flitting about the room, trying to get all the sugary snacks to fit on one tray. Cassie is fanning at a dish that she pulled from the oven, which is only lightly smoking. Her junk food cooking is amazing. The only problem is that she always sets the oven too high and lightly burns the top of whatever she puts in it. Everyone calls it an extra crunch and doesn’t complain.
Tim and Kon do their ‘ultra-cringe-loser-handshake’ over the kitchen island and Bart hugs Tim just slow enough for him to feel before he flits away again. Cassie and him side hug and then survey the damage done to the dish.
“I mean, the top isn’t black so that’s a win,” Tim observes.
“It’s buffalo chicken dip, so a crust will add umami.” What?
“Umami?”
“Or something.” Cassie blushes a bit in embarrassment. Tim takes pity.
“Well, it’s gonna taste great, whatever the top adds. I can take it out to the living room.” He snatches the potholders and carries the glass dish out to the ottoman that they use as a makeshift table. Their couch is a gigantic L shape with ottomans that can be pushed against the couch to make it essentially a massive bed. When put together, it’s bigger than a king. From what Tim knows, the couch had been one of Dick’s purchases in the early days of the Titans for exactly this purpose. Movie nights. The size is perfect for the seven of them.
When Tim re-enters the living room, Cissie and Greta have made themselves comfy on the arm of the L. As he sets down the dip, Bart speedily sets the rest of the spread around where Tim is lowering the dish. They have chips, the four kinds of dip, popcorn, pop tarts, donuts, about 10 boxes of different candy, and there’s the promise of ice cream in the freezer. So, a little less than they normally have. Tim shoves the other ottoman into the couch, making it a U shape, and claims it so that he can lie down. He lets everyone else start war over what movie to watch and what snack to claim while he takes a not-quite-powernap. Sue him, he works hard and he’s tired.
The food-movie-war is wrapping up when the Robin phone pings, so Tim wakes back up to look at it. Apparently, there’s some new villain in China Town. Tim texts Starfire, who says she’ll take care of it on her own because she’s a saint. He puts his phone back in his hoodie pocket and looks to the food. The initial descent onto the spread is done so he goes forward and puts some of Cassie’s chicken dip on a plate along with some chips and Recces Pieces. He reclines back to his original position and digs in. Anita settles on one side of him, close to the wall. Kon settles on the other side, sitting up. Cassie sits cross legged next to Kon and Bart settles on the floor closest to the food for easy snacking. Tim looks to see what got chosen for the first flick. Grown Ups. Perfect.
They cycle through bad comedies and classic kids’ animations, providing commentary and making each other laugh. The food gets worked through quickly, and by the middle of the third movie Bart takes a few seconds to bring all the dishes back to the kitchen and then completes the mega-bed. Tim gets two more pings, another villain that he sends Beast Boy to take care of and a robbery that Bart volunteers to stop which takes him less than a minute. In all, a pretty quiet night. By the fifth movie, Tim drops off to sleep. He, Cissie, Anita are always the first to pass out from the hectic nature of their lives. He lets the warmth of his friends on both sides and the white noise of ParaNorman pull him to dream land.
--
Jason had planned this ambush for months. He had spent weeks thinking about the perfect place to make his statement, Titan’s Tower being the winner. A place where the Bat wouldn’t be able to stop him, a place where he could stack the deck, a place where he could break the brat. He’d spent weeks more planning how he was going to do it; wait for the kid to be scheduled alone for a night shift, wait for him to be tired, cut off all power, cut off cell service, and attack. It was a plan that should have made him unstoppable so that he could properly rip the wings off the stray bird.
He’d planned the perfect ambush, so he was feeling pretty ticked that he couldn’t find the fucking cuckoo Robin. Locking the Tower down and cutting the power had gone off without a hitch, it was pitch black. But the kid wasn’t running comms like he was supposed to. In fact, he was nowhere on the main mission floor. Jason had to go up and down the stairs hunting, looking for a bird who should have been waiting in the open to get shot. It made the green that always tinted his vision worse, closing in at the edges. How dare this fucking replacement outsmart him. How dare he know in advance. When Jason found the kid, he was going to peel him apart. Slowly.
As he entered the recreation floor, he prowled every inch with his helmet’s temperature sensors and night vision. Finally, there was a concentration of heat in a room near the kitchen. Jason silenced his steps, and slowly made his way toward the red blob. He turned the corner quickly to quickly take the element of surprise back and… froze. Instead of a singular person waiting to be tortured, he found a gaggle of teenagers. All asleep. He looked to the wall opposite them and saw a T.V. What the fuck? And he couldn’t even see the replacement among the pile of hair and blankets. The main target of his whole fucking mission, and he wasn’t even fucking here.
No, wait. There he was. Jason could see the kid’s head, pillowed on a boy’s shoulder next to him. The rest of him was being covered by a blanket and the hair of a girl on his other side. Jason tried to figure out the identities of the kids here. He recognized Wondergirl, and then Kid Flash laying near her. A closer look and he figured out that shoulder-boy was Superboy. He couldn’t place the rest of them, but he guessed that the rest were all similarly powered. Shit. An attack on the kid now wouldn’t end well for him. He’d planned to have the advantage of surprise and skill, but a gathering of supers would halt that. Fuck, how was he going to get out of here? Also, why were they all asleep? Had they been cursed?
The green of his vision slowly receded as more questions popped into Jason’s mind. And as the green left his head, concern replaced it. What was he doing? Each kid in the pile couldn’t be older than sixteen. He physically couldn’t attack the supers, but what if the others were unpowered like Robin? He couldn’t shoot them, he didn’t hurt kids.
And that was the thought that finally broke the green altogether. He didn’t hurt kids, and Robin was also a kid. The realization felt like a punch to the chest, and he huffed a breath out with it. His helmet was still set to output sound, disturbing the careful silence.
Kid Flash sat up, blinking in clear confusion at the darkness around him. He brought up his phone to turn on the flashlight and quickly found Jason with it. Shit-fuck-damn, the night vision whited out at the light and Jason hurried to turn it off.
“Woah, who are you,” the kid asked, moving his light up and down. “I don’t think I’ve seen you around here, man. Although I might’ve, if I was going too fast. Are you new? Wait, Cass would know.” The words came too fast to interrupt. Plus, Jason was still a little frozen in shock from having his plans so knocked out of whack. He didn’t move as the boy turned around to shake Wonder Girl, or vibrate her depending on perception.
“Hey, wake up. Someone’s here you should know.” The blonde let out a groan, waking the girl on top of Robin and another blonde up as well.
“Shut up Bart, I don’t know every actor,” Wonder Girl complained, without opening her eyes. “Look it up yourself.” She started rolling over before Kid Flash started shaking her harder.
“No, no, no! A real person is here. Like a Titan. Although he’s new, ‘cause I don’t know him.” That got the girl’s attention. She sat up and flinched back at the phone light in her face, but quickly refocused to look at Jason. Her flinch had knocked her back into Superboy, who also groaned at having been jostled. The situation was quickly spiraling into dangerous territory. Jason had four sets of eyes on him already, with the other three probably quickly on the way. At least two metas were locked on him. Wonder Girl assessed him and looked immediately distrustful. But she didn’t attack, just frowned in contemplation at him as Superboy started speaking.
“What the fuck is all the talking for? It’s ass-o-clock in the morning, go back to sleep.” The kid didn’t bother sitting up or opening his eyes, he did readjust Robin on his shoulder though. Robin, or Tim, hadn’t stirred throughout the talking.
“New person in the tower, Kid Flash and I don’t know him.” Wondergirl had taken charge, and she didn’t move her eyes from Jason as she spoke. It seemed like the use of Kid Flash’s code name instead of his real one spurred the others to act; Superboy turned his head to look at Jason and Kid Flash moved in front of the two blonde girls that Jason hadn’t recognized.
Superboy shook Tim, sitting up at the same time. “Hey Rob, do you know this guy?” Tim blinked a few times as he awoke and focused on Jason, and then said just about the worst thing he could have said considering the situation.
“Yeah.” And then he didn’t fucking elaborate. Just plopped his head back down to his friend’s shoulder.
“Would it kill you to give some more fucking context?” Jason finally spoke up.
“I agree,” Wondergirl added, “HOW do you know him?”
The only thing Robin elected to do was groan into Superboy’s shoulder, already almost back to sleep. Kid Flash seemed to get tired of the phone lights and became a blur for a moment. “Hey, the lights won’t turn on I’ll fix it real-” on that word he blurred away again and then reappeared, “-quick.” Now the overhead light was on. So much for locking down the tower. “Also, our wifi was off so I turned that back on too.” Shit.
“Why was the wifi off?” Wondergirl took on an annoyed tone.
“Don’t blame me, I turned it back on!”
A ding came from the purple-haired girl’s phone, and she brought it up to her face. “Hey, the ‘rents went down without a fuss.” Everyone gave a cheer, which was fucking weird. “I might as well head back since we’re up,” she said, already standing.
“Ooo, can you still give me a ride?” The girl with the short blonde hair clasped her hands together as she asked her question.
“Course I can, lets go.” The two got up and everyone started hugging, with Jason realizing that he’d been well and truly forgotten. Well, the plan was already dead and buried so he reached up to take off his helmet.
“I’ll head out too,” said the last civilian girl. “Bye Robin,” she teased to her friend who had conked back out. Everyone laughed and started to disperse.
“I’ll start breakfast!” Kid Flash shouted and then disappeared, probably to the kitchen, only to reappear in front of Jason. “Do you have any allergies? We got tons so I can cook around allergies.” Seemed like the consensus was to think he was a new Titan, and not deeming him a threat. Jason shook his head, which caused the boy to vanish from sight again.
“You will not be cooking at all, you will be reheating around allergies.” Wondergirl got up to follow the kid to the kitchen. He was left with just the clone and his sleeping target.
“Are they always like this?” he asked, pointing towards the kitchen door. Jason’s question prompted a chuckle out of the boy in front of him.
“They’re actually being calmer than normal since you’re a guest, and they don’t want you to tell on the other Titan’s about this.” Now that was an interesting piece of information, given the assessing gaze Superboy fixed him with.
“The others don’t know?”
“No, Robin clears out the tower sometimes so we can all be here for movie night, most of the girls are civilians.” So that’s why Jason’s intel said Tim would be alone. The teenage tendency to lie to parents foiled his entire plot, outsmarting him without even meaning to. Speaking of…
“Ah. Are you sure it’s not pass-out-on-your-team night,” Jason asked, pointing to the still (miraculously) sleeping Tim.
“Nah, he just never sleeps like we tell him too.” Superboy started shaking Tim awake again, “Hey Rob, breakfast is soon. Also, you never told us how you know this guy.” Tim grumbled as he was unfairly awoken for the second time. He took a second to focus back in on the man in front of him before confusion came over his face.
“Jason Christ, its Jesus Todd.” Jason froze as the kid started stretching. “Why does your face do that?” Damn, he was barely making sense. Except to the clone, apparently, who’d frozen at his question.
“Wait, so you DON’T know him?”
“No, no, I know him. He’s the new rouge.”
“From Gotham?!” Mmm, seems like the reputation of Gotham crazies had made the rounds.
“Don’t get your tights in a twist, he’s alright.” That… was not how Jason would describe himself. “Protects women, protects kids, drugs off the street, yada yada yada,” the kid stood up as he talked, making Jason realize just how short he was. “The only reason B doesn’t like him is ‘cause he kills drug lords, which is way less of a thing than he thinks.”
“Have you said that to his face?” Jason thinks Bruce would evaporate from rage if he heard that particular opinion from a Robin.
“God no, he’d evaporate if a Robin said that to him.” Tim had apparently woken up a little more, and quickly looked at his phone before focusing back on Jason. “Did you tell Wondergirl why you’re here yet? Do you need help with something? Also, why do you look like Jason Todd? Are you like a clone or something?” Apparently, the tendency to asked too many questions at once spanned the whole group. Jason thought of what he could say that wouldn’t make the still staring clone pulverize him.
“Just dropping in to say hi. Not a clone. You could say… I’m like family.” Superboy narrowed his eyes while Tim had started chewing on the vague sentence. Seemed like he couldn’t resist a mystery.
“Huh,” he huffed out, still thinking as he started to head for the kitchen. “This calls for coffee.”
“Fuck it, I guess we’re all going to the kitchen.” The clone seemed resigned to all his friends’ behavior. “Follow him,” he directed at Jason. The new place dipped Jason into chaos yet again. The two supers who’d gone in before were power walking all around, with Kid Flash putting boxes of candy and orange juice next to each other and Wondergirl holding a microwave closed and shoving the speedster away whenever he tried to touch it. Robin seemed passed out again in front of the running coffee pot. Superboy put himself seamlessly into the fray by getting out plates and starting to set the island like a table. Jason just stayed out of the way.
The microwave and coffee maker beeped at the same time. Wondergirl yelled, “Don’t fucking touch it Bart. I have to do even servings,” while Tim popped up excited to pour a full mug. A too full mug. Jason tried to figure out how he wasn’t spilling. He quickly found out when Superboy started yelling over Wondergirl.
“C’mon man, I hate having to hold that stuff so you can overdose.” He held his hand out, obviously manipulating the mug so that not a drop would spill. Tim just cackled and started slurping the drink as he walked to the table. Jason figured that he might as well join them, seeing as he had a plate filled with what looked like buffalo dip. He just figured he’d go with the flow here, until he could escape back to normalcy.
Everyone ate in silence, savoring their servings, until Jason decided to break the silence and call upon the movie starting menu he’d seen on the T.V., “So, Kiki’s Delivery Service, huh?” His question prompted Tim to slam his mug on the table.
“You fuckers watched it without me?”
“You were asleep, what were we supposed to do?” Superboy’s hair actually puffed up with indignation. Jason couldn’t help but think it made him look like an actual Ghibli character.
“Watch. Another. Movie.”
“It was father Miyazaki vibes, we can’t help that,” Bart defended, “Plus you didn’t even wake up for it.”
“Yeah, you need the sleep.” Wondergirl added.
“Your eyebags are a super fashionable shade of purple,” Jason mockingly soothed, earning him a glare from his not-victim.
“I could arrest you right now.” There seemed to be a theme with Tim nonchalantly saying words that made his friends tense up.
“Wait, we need to arrest him?” Wondergirl pointed to Jason.
“Apparently not,” Superboy cut in, “he’s more like a murdery Batman than a villain. But I still don’t know how you got here.” The last sentence was directed at Jason himself.
“Wouldn’t you like to know,” Jason answered with his mouth petulantly full.
“Can I run blood tests on you?” Tim asks with a sudden realization. Ah, so he seems to be catching on to what exactly Jason might be. Never let it be said that Bats are stupid.
“Say no, it’s not worth it.” Kid Flash cuts in. “Wait a minute, are you actually joining the Titan’s? We totally need another person. You’d get along great with Starfire, I know it.” And then he starts speaking faster than Jason can understand.
“Look what you did, you set him off,” Superboy accuses.
“Me? I didn’t even say anything!”
“You made faces, which to him is basically active speaking.”
Jason reels for a second and prepares a grand defense for himself before a new voice in the direction of the elevator cuts through the chaos at the table. “Tim! Where are you?! I swear to God, B is having a hernia. You know you’re so grounded when we get home-” Nightwing rounds the corner and freezes when he sees Jason. Everyone else freezes with him, Wondergirl with a fork halfway to her mouth. “Jay?” he asks with surprise and wonder in his voice. God fucking damn it, now his plans were thrown off forever.