Work Text:
Tim didn’t decide to infiltrate the Iceberg Lounge until he’d exhausted every other option. Even then, it was the sort of foolish decision that Bruce or Barbara or, hell, even Jason would have talked him out of if they’d been in town. They weren’t.
So Tim took it to Steph. She looked at him for a long moment and then said, “This is fucking stupid as all hell.”
Tim winced. “I know.”
“You’re probably going to get killed.”
“Yeah, probably.”
She worked it over in her mouth for a moment. “But it’s you and me in charge of Gotham right now, huh? And there’s something big brewing.”
“Yeah.”
“So I’ll go with you. We always have each other’s backs.”
They did.
Of course, they both knew there was no way they could get away with it. The Iceberg Lounge had tighter security than the Pentagon nowadays, and scarier guards. Every employee went through years of training before they were allowed anywhere near the secret meetings in the basement. With preparation, Tim could hack his way through the escape doors that led into the sewers, and Steph could edit himself out of the CCTV, but he couldn’t avoid the guards. He and Steph planned for that.
Still, he hated the feeling of creeping down the maze of corridors between the sewer door and the Penguin’s snobby secret meeting room, anticipating the moment he would be caught. The worst part was that it took longer than he expected. A childhood spent stalking Batman and Robin across the rooftops had paid dividends.
So Steph said, They've got you, it was practically a relief.
The voice came from behind him. “Hands up quick, cape, or I'll shoot.”
Tim raised his hands. He didn't turn his head. “Whoops.”
“You're going to walk straight ahead and stop at the end of the hallway.” When Tim obliged, the guard muttered something into his radio. Another bulky figure appeared in front of him as he neared the end of the hall, dressed in nondescript fatigues and holding an artillery rifle solid enough to do some real damage to his suit. Play it cool, Robin, he thought to himself, in a voice that sounded an awful lot like Bruce. But it wasn't. Bruce didn't call him Robin anymore.
The new guard jerked his head. “Who's this jerk?”
“New on the scene. Calls himself Red Robin.”
“Shit name.”
“It wasn't my first choice,” said Tim.
He was rewarded with a twitch of the new guard's lips. “You playing nice?”
“Doing my best.”
“Good thing for you. There's the hard way to die, and then there's the harder way. Walk this way nice and slow, now.”
Tim did. Half a dozen guards had joined the one in front of him and he heard the scuffle of footsteps behind him as well. He told his heartbeat to slow, although it didn't.
They marched him to a door even more solid and impregnable than the rest. The second guard left Tim under the watchful eye of two dozen eyes and one dozen rifles while he spoke into his radio. “Caught a cape sneaking in, boss.” Crackle. “Never heard of him. Calls himself Red Robin.”
Tim waited. Come on, you bastard, you know you want to gloat. You know it. You want to pin me up in front of your colleagues before you take me apart.
The radio blared to life once more. The voice of the Penguin said, in his crisp accent modulated by static, “Red Robin? You idiot. Don't touch him.”
“Hadn't done so, boss.”
“Well, don't start now. I'm coming.”
The door swung open. Oswald Cobblepot, sweaty and beaming, stood silhouetted in it. He held out one hand. “Red Robin,” he simpered. “What a delight to finally meet you. We have so much to discuss.”
In general, it was a matter of mission viability to not clog comms when someone was undercover. Tim knew this, because he believed it with everything in him; Steph knew this, because of how many times Bruce had torn into her about it. Now, though, she couldn't help from barking, What? straight into his ear. Tim managed not to hesitate in replying to Cobblepot. “Mind if I lower my hands?”
Cobblepot waved down the guards. Rifles lowered. Tim took his hand and shook it firmly. “A delight,” repeated Cobblepot. “Please, come in. I've got such a wonderful crowd for you to meet.”
This isn't part of the plan, right? Steph was saying. Tim, you didn't know this was going to happen?
“I must say, this isn't the welcome I anticipated when I dropped by,” he told both her and Cobblepot. He loved Steph, he truly did, but he had learned long ago not to trust her to trust him. He was, it seemed, fundamentally untrustworthy. Even by Steph. “I thought you'd take a bit more convincing.”
He had thought he'd be beaten black and blue and then flung in a cell to be tortured as leverage against Bruce. A necessary price, if he could drop a bug in Cobblepot's precious meeting room. It sat against his palm right now, begging for action. He ignored it.
“I’ve had my eye on you for some time, Red Robin,” said Cobblepot in lieu of an answer. He turned back to the table and swept his arm out. “I’m sure you recognize everyone here, even our less illustrious friends.”
Tim caught a wince from one of the second-rate villains at the table, whom he recognized as King Scimitar. Well, you didn’t show up at the Iceberg Lounge if you didn’t want to get frozen out. Ha. Alongside a host of irritations sat a few more long-term problems, including the Riddler and Mr. Freeze. Both were regarding him with even, assessing expressions. No one had even drawn a weapon. “It’s a pleasure to meet you all,” he said, with a grin that he knew probably came across as a smirk. All of Tim’s grins came across as a smirk, no matter how earnestly he meant them. “Sorry I’m late.”
“I’ll bite,” said a woman Tim recognized as White Rabbit. Her eyes were narrowed. “What the hell is he doing here?”
“Anyone appropriately villainous may join a session of the Council of Rogues,” said Cobblepot smoothly.
RR, what the fuck? said Steph over his headset, which was about what Tim was thinking as well.
“Right. But he’s a cape. He’s only been around for a few months and he’s already busted one of Falcone’s operations.”
“Do you talk to Falcone’s people?” cut in the Riddler, voice mild. “I do. I heard quite a few things about our friend here from the survivors of that rendezvous.”
Oh, realized Tim. Oh, no. It was the fucking monologuing that did it.
He sectioned a whole Biblical flood’s worth of revelations about the current situation to one corner of his brain and let the rest propel him forward, clasping his hands behind his back. “Don’t worry, Riddler. I wasn’t expecting a warm welcome. I hadn’t realized anyone had caught on yet.”
The Riddler snorted. “You blew up every single one of Ra’s al-Ghul’s bases last year just because he mildly annoyed you. We’re not stupid.”
“We knew one of the Bat’s little birdies would fly the coop eventually,” agreed Cobblepot. His hand found Tim’s shoulder, and Tim leaned into it, just for a moment. “It’s so nice that you can finally join us, even if your name does need some work.”
“It’s a subversion,” argued Tim. Out of the corner of his eye, he saw two of the second-rate rogues whispering to one another. Jealous? A fluttering of the eyes, a twist of the lips: yes, jealous. Here he was, barely twenty, getting more respect from the senior rogues than most people in the room. Even if it was stolen valor, a little part of Tim enjoyed it. “I can’t just expect everyone to forget I was Robin. I have to lean into it.”
“Honey, it’s a restaurant.” Tim had never in his life thought he would hear the Riddler use the word honey to refer to anyone, least of all himself. “And if you have to explain it, then it doesn’t work.”
“But of course not even you can work alone.” Cobblepot’s eyes glittered. “You’ve got a little canary singing in your ear, haven’t you? Why don’t you invite your friend in to join us?”
And Tim knew, beyond a shadow of a doubt, that he had to pass this test. If he was to truly capitalize on this unparalleled opportunity, then he needed to show them he was all in. More than that: that he always had been in. Robin III, the child genius, the criminal prodigy, would need someone in whom to confide. And the perfect person was sitting right outside the Iceberg Lounge in a beat-up Subaru packed to the brim with surveillance equipment.
Sorry, Steph. “I’d be delighted. Steph, why don’t you come on in? We don’t have to hide anymore.” Silence. Tim smiled as though he had gotten confirmation. “Great. Ladies and gentlemen of the Council of Rogues, may I present to you my very own Oracle, if Oracle liked to get their hands dirty. Stephanie Brown, daughter of the late Cluemaster.”
To Steph’s credit, she swanned into the Iceberg Lounge with the glamor of a star on the red carpet. She must have had a change of clothes somewhere in the Subaru for formal events, because she was wearing a tight red suit that Tim had never seen before. She had pulled her hair into a bun.
Up on the security screen at the head of the conference room, she winked at the camera. Two minutes later, she appeared in the doorway. “Hey, Red,” she said, and her eyes promised horrors untold for Timothy Jackson Drake the second the two of them were alone. “You could have given me advance notice. I’d have done my makeup this morning.”
(“Red works as a nickname,” commented the Riddler to Mr. Freeze in the background. “I like that. We have to get rid of the Robin part, though.”
“Red… Cardinal?”
“Cardinals are red already. It’s redundant.”)
Across the table, Firefly had stood abruptly. “Ms. Brown. I knew your father.”
“Did you?” remarked Steph, eyebrows lifting. “Sorry about that.”
“He was a good man. I was sorry to hear of his death.”
“That makes two of us, although for the life of me I can’t explain why. Red, what’s going on?”
“They know what we did to the League,” said Tim, before anyone else could step in. Well, here went nothing. Sorry, Jason. “And to the second Robin, I assume.”
“Of course we do,” said Cobblepot smoothly, but he couldn’t disguise the faint flash of something in his eyes. It almost looked like respect. It almost looked like fear. “So young, to do what you did.”
“Well, you know what they say. Become the murder you want to see, or something like that. Can I have a chair?”
Cobblepot’s eyes fixed on White Rabbit and, beside her, a young man so unimpressive a villain it took even Tim a moment to place him. He called himself Vendetta, although he didn’t seem to have one. “Don’t you want to offer our guests a seat?”
Vendetta looked like if he hadn’t had a vendetta before now, he certainly was developing one rapidly. But anyone who wanted to rise in the Gotham underworld didn’t say no to the Penguin. “Fine,” he ground out, pushing his chair back.
To her credit, White Rabbit took the slight a lot more gracefully. “Ventriloquist, dear, I hate to lean into the whole Playmate bit in friendly company, but do you have a lap I could borrow? Thanks.”
Before he could stop himself, Tim said to Vendetta, “I have a lap too, if you need one,” which got a shocked round of laughter out of the table. Vendetta turned robin-red and elected to lean against the wall, head tucking into his enormous turned-up collar.
Cobblepot returned to his seat at the head of the table and folded his hands one on top of the other. “Now, Red. And Ms. Brown, of course. I do believe it’s time that you reveal to us the identity of the Bat.”
“Can’t do that,” said Tim lazily, leaning back in his chair. A horrible part of him, aka most of him, was starting to have fun. “If I tell you who he is, then you’ll find out who I am. I’m not interested in that.”
“We already know who Ms. Brown is.”
Steph snorted beside him. “Yeah, good luck using that for anything. I’m a high school dropout teen mom with half a dozen disorderly arrest counts against me. No shit I’ve been hanging with a supervillain.”
And that, thought Tim, was just as much a big fuck you to him for what he had just done to her than a defense. “I’m not particularly interested in your feud with Batman,” Tim told the table. “He’s competent, but he’s also local. Boring.”
“You’re afraid of him,” said Mr. Freeze.
Tim shrugged, and exchanged a glance with Steph. She was playing along well, despite her anger: her little amused expression was a nice touch. “Not really. He and I worked together for years. All he cares about is keeping daily life in Gotham to a minimum of casualties. I’m fine with that, seeing as it doesn’t interfere with my work overseas.”
“That’s your interest in the Falcones.”
“Right. And Red Hood.” Jason was going to be so, so mad when he found out about this. Tim had to stop himself from laughing. “Hood’s got vision. You’ve got vision, Penguin. The rest of you, good luck on your own crusades. But we don’t have much in common.”
“I have a very clear vision,” said Mr. Freeze frostily.
“Right. As I said, I wish you well. But it’s not mine.”
The Council of Rogues regarded him with expressions ranging from interest to open loathing. “And what is your vision?” Cobblepot asked.
“Oh, pretty simple. Just taking over the world, since no one else seems to be doing it. I’ve been having fun with the League of Assassins, but at the end of the day, they’re more useful extant than not. Ra’s understands that now. He’s playing nice with me.” In fact Ra’s al-Ghul was playing a little bit too nice with Tim, but no one needed to know that. Except Jason, who had listened to him complain about it on one of their rare team-ups.
Snickers sounded around the table, although not from the senior Rogues. They had known Tim too long. Against the wall, though, Vendetta said, “What, we’re taking this guy seriously? White Rabbit’s right, he’s a fucking cape!”
White Rabbit raised her hands from where she sat on Ventriloquist’s lap. “Hey, leave me out of this. I didn’t know he was tussling with the League. You want to mess with someone who has Ra’s al-Ghul on his payroll, V?”
“You can mess with me if you want,” offered Tim, with a cheery grin.
“Yeah? I think I fucking will, turncoat— aaggh!”
This last was because Steph had, without apparent interest, pinned him to the wall with a grapple. The point went clear through his black suit, fabric darkening instantly with blood as he howled and twisted.
“Whoops,” said Steph. Tim did his best not to boggle. His throat felt very tight.
After a long, very long moment, Cobblepot said, “Call your dog off, Red. We don’t attack one another here.”
Tim looked at Steph. “Down, girl.”
And Steph blushed. Steph blushed. If Tim had been anyone else, he wouldn’t have caught it, but he had been cursed since birth to be Tim Drake, and he caught everything. “Bark,” she said, and pressed the retract button on the grapple. With a sudden horrible tearing noise, it ripped its way out of the wall and through Vendetta’s shoulder. He howled even louder and collapsed on the floor.
The Riddler shook his head. “Culture clash,” he commented to Mr. Freeze. “We’ll train them out of it.”
In the end, Tim and Steph wound up at the top of the Iceberg Lounge, sharing a friendly cocktail with the Penguin. They had, indeed, one cocktail, because Steph claimed at first that she didn’t want one and then immediately started stealing sips from Tim’s.
“Now is the time for us to move on our control of Gotham, you understand,” the Penguin commented, as they stood overlooking the sharp suits and dresses of the clientele, mingling in a haze of wine and cigar smoke. “Seize the Diamond District back from Falcone without Batman stepping in to calm us down. Get rid of Commissioner Gordon. Take Crime Alley and the Narrows back from the Red Hood.”
“I have good news for you and bad news for you,” Tim said. He tucked his arms over the bannister and took the glass back from Steph. “I’ve got a plan already set up to take Falcone out of the picture. I’m tired of him.”
“I’d noticed,” said the Penguin drily. “What with all the bodies at the warehouse last week.”
The bodies had, in fact, not been Tim’s fault. Falcone’s people had brought guns; once they started shooting, his only option had been to trick them into friendly fire. The only thing Tim had done wrong there was the monologue, which he tried so hard not to indulge in. But you had to treat yourself every now and then.
“And Commissioner Gordon is a done deal,” he continued. Also not his fault. Despite himself, he had a fond spot in his heart for Gordon, and thought the city would be better off with him in charge of the GCPD than anyone else. The GCPD, it seemed, thought differently, according to Tim’s sources. “He’ll be out within the year. Pinky promise. But I can’t let you mess with the Red Hood. He and I have an arrangement.”
Steph cackled and took the cocktail glass back. “The last thing he did before leaving town was take potshots at you,” she said, after downing a healthy quantity of root beer float.
“Yeah, but he missed. He didn’t use to miss.”
“I was indeed under the impression you two couldn’t stand each other,” Cobblepot said.
“We can sort of stand one another if we talk exclusively about organized crime.”
“The basis for any solid friendship,” said Steph. She had, unexpectedly, always been a lightweight.
“Listen, Cobblepot, you don’t want Crime Alley. Even Crime Alley doesn’t want Crime Alley. Leave it to him, and things will go smoother.”
Cobblepot waved his hand, and another root beer float appeared. “Perhaps I might be inclined to leave it to him if he would act nice with the rest of us. Instead he’s off playing the hero with Arsenal.”
“Arsenal,” said Steph flatly. “Arsenal the known hitman. You’re worried that Arsenal will be a good influence on him.”
In fact Arsenal was one of the better influences on Jason since Talia had loosed him on the world, but Tim would be damned before he told anyone that, least of all Jason himself.
“Red Hood has always been playing the hero,” Tim said, rather than dissect his brother’s baffling personal life. “That’s what his whole operation is about and always has been. Fortunately, he happens to have a very mercenary perception of what the right thing to do is. I’m sure we can reach an arrangement with him once he’s back in town.”
Which would, hopefully, be much sooner than the rest of them would be. Bruce and Damian were off-world, Dick was handling national crises for the JLA, and Cass was covering Bludhaven in his absence, but Jason was merely on a sojourn in Alaska doing who-knew-what with Roy and Kori. (Tim did actually know what, but he generally pretended not to for Dick’s sake.)
“In the meantime,” said the Penguin, with a polite smile, “I had a problem I thought you might fix. It’s not my normal sort of problem.”
Steph lit up with the glow of one and a half root bear floats. “Yeah? Not melting glaciers, this time?”
“Pardon?”
“Penguin joke.”
Cobblepot stared at her. “Do you know,” he said, “that you are one of the first people to ever bother making a penguin joke at me? I appreciate it. I really do. It seems as though the vast majority of people haven’t even realized why I’m called the Penguin.”
“Because it’s the Iceberg Lounge, and you’re on top of it?”
“Yes! Yes, Ms. Brown. Thank you. I appreciate you, I really do. And you’re handy with a grapple, although don’t let the others know I enjoyed your little show.”
“Oh, I could tell,” said Steph, and studiously avoided Tim’s face.
He managed to get it back under control in time to say, “What’s your problem, then?”
The Penguin winced, and for once the emotion seemed real. “The IRS is on my tail. Ridiculous federal nonsense. I’ve assassinated half a dozen accountants, and they keep finding more somewhere. This seems like a problem you might be well-equipped to solve.”
“Yeah, I can handle that,” decided Tim. His mind was already racing. This would be fun.
“Then I suspect we’ll have reason to meet again soon, and discuss proper compensation. What a pleasure it has been meeting you, Red Robin. Ms. Brown.”
The Penguin tipped his hat. Tim nodded. Steph, with great aplomb, tipped an imaginary hat back.
They walked through the sewers back to Tim’s nearest safehouse in silence. They stripped and located the bugs in silence. Only when they had both showered and changed into pyjamas did Steph finally say, “Did you manage to bug the conference room?”
“Yeah,” said Tim, “when you grappled that guy.”
They sat on the couch. More silence. Awkward eye contact. Tim said, “I wouldn’t have done it if I could think of anything better.”
“Right,” said Steph. “I know that. But maybe something worse would have worked, still.”
Probably. “Maybe so.”
“Want toast? I want toast.”
“Yeah.”
Tim got up and made toast. He put extra salt on Steph’s because she was chronically electrolyte-deficient.
When he got back, she took the toast and said around a bite, “I’m really fucking mad at you right now.”
“Yeah,” said Tim, “that makes sense.”
“But I did kind of have fun being your red right hand.”
“Bark?”
“Bark,” agreed Steph. “Felt bad for that guy.”
“Man, that was gnarly.”
“Can you send him a check for medical bills?”
Tim’s lips curled. “It would come across like a threat. Like, hey, I know who you are.”
“Yeah,” said Steph. She was grinning. They finished their toast. “How long are you planning on keeping this running?”
He met her eyes. “I have absolutely no idea. I’m flying by the seat of my pants right now, Steph. I mean, I knew— I knew my style is a bit, uh—”
“Evil?”
“I don’t do evil things,” protested Tim. “It’s just everything about me seems to suggest that I should. I’m aware of it. I try not to lean into it.”
“Maybe you should. It’s a fun gimmick, you know.”
“Gimmicks are things that supervillains have, Steph!”
“Exactly. By the way, why were you standing up for Jason so much?”
“Because every time there’s a street war he wins. You want him more smug than he already is? No thank you.”
She started to giggle. Then Tim did as well, and they sat their on the couch covered in crumbs, laughing hysterically. He ended up in her lap, staring up at the ceiling with tears in his eyes. “What the fuck, Steph? What the fuck do we do now?”
“Play it,” she said, sobering. “Play it until we figure out how best to stop.”
Minutes passed. Tim’s eyes began to flutter closed. Then he bolted upright. “Fuck!” he announced.
“Yeah?”
He buried his face in his hands. “I’m gonna have to give Ra’s a call and ask him to play along,” he realized. “He’s going to be so turned on about this.”