the moon will sing (time traveling tim)
Tim had forgotten, to some extent, how vigilantism looked from a civilian perspective. Unless one had a strict, holier than thou moral standing, was a certain type of law enforcement, or was a criminal, very few people well and truly saw it as a bad thing, unless said vigilante punished innocents.
So when Tim sees Nightwing on the news, beautifully intricate and brutal, the air is punched out of his lungs. His older brother hasn't adopted the same type of showiness and efficiency Tim is used to, but he can see moves that Dick could've developed into his future style— a kick that could've transitioned into a flip, too many spins when it could've been easier just to twist out of the way. Tim aches, the same way a younger sibling misses the quiet and not-so-quiet affection only the older can fill. Tim knows how to bide his time, knows the price of hastiness like an old wound, but this is different. Dick is not a mission Tim needs to fulfill, a duty Tim has bound himself to serve (to save), he's Tim's older brother.
Because here is the thing about Dick: Tim knows he cannot outsmart him. Not because Tim isn't a fantastic liar or is wonderful at gaslighting people, but it's because he's learned it from the very boy who preceded him— Dick.
If Tim could move people around like chess pieces, analyze their next move and stay three steps ahead of them, then Dick could coax them to shift to where he wanted, read their body language and mood like it was nothing, slide right into their path and dismantle it. Tim manipulated people with the ease of a trained puppeteer but Dick was a damned master at it.
Or maybe, Tim just didn't want to see his older brother because the whole thing would fall apart. Not because Dick could read him like Cass could, but because Tim would probably slip up too much, let him know more information than needed— and boom, cover blown.
It's a good thing he's too young for galas at this age. Tim still has a few days left of spring break, but the deadline is coming quickly and he'll be thrown back into middle school. Or well, boarding school, to be exact. Which meant he wouldn't be anywhere near his house or the nightlife of Gotham for a few more months, not until summer break. The thought makes Tim's stomach twist uncomfortably with dread, half because he's still being hit with migraines and trips over himself way too much and the paranoia of being unable to protect himself gets a little heavy sometimes. And Tim hasn't exactly had the best of relationships with schools in general.
Intellectually, he knows that school should be easy. He's twenty-three years old and he's going to be surrounded by eleven-year-olds who most definitely have never used differential calculus or number theory before. They're probably going to have grammar quizzes in his English class instead of five paragraph in-class essays. Tim can fail most of his tests and it won't even matter in the long run because nobody even checks middle school grades.
All of a sudden, Tim sympathizes with Damian. The worst part is, reality is finally kicking in and the smartest people in the room are going to be teachers, who most definitely are going to treat him like a genius at best and a traumatized, overly intelligent child at worst (he has never understood Damian so much).
Tim can barely remember the name of his sixth grade friends, or if he ever had any. In fact, Tim has no idea what his classes are or where to find them.
Tim is pretty sure it’s ridiculous, how much time he spends on not researching current events. He’s from the future. He should know everything.
Gotham is horribly, terribly, alive. It’s the city he fell in love with, like every other Robin before and after him. In truth, Tim almost forgot his camera before leaving (rookie mistake, even his younger self would’ve caught on), because it’s been so long since he’d gone birdwatching. 2XXX. It’s a Saturday. Batman probably would swing through the Bowery first, then through Crime Alley, and then turn at East End, make a loop through Somerset, then go to Old Gotham.
Tim grabs onto a ladder, quickly swinging himself up onto the roof with a quiet ‘oof’. His footsteps are far too loud for his liking, but it was unlikely anyone would come and investigate– it was Gotham, as long as he didn’t go breaking into buildings, nobody cared. Quietly, he settles behind a packaged unit, adjusting the lens of his camera. Then, he settles in for the long wait.
Not before long, Batman comes swinging across with Robin– Jason. He’s not as acrobatic as Dick, but certainly just as efficient. Tim presses down softly and the camera clicks, the sound hidden among the rest of the nightlife.
He only gets a few other pictures that night, but his favorite is Batman and Robin, standing side by side, a wide smile stretched across Jason’s face as Bruce puts his hand on his shoulder.
It’s an achingly wondrous expression on Jason’s face.
All too soon, the week comes to an end and Tim has to order a taxi to bring him back to school. Annoyingly, it makes Tim extremely twitchy, so he spends most of the time trying not to vibrate out of his skin, forcing a steady stream of words out of his mouth to distract himself. It sort of works, and Tim is pretty sure that the taxi driver is reluctantly charmed and hopefully not annoyed.
At this age, Tim’s computer is still one of those big, chunky, plugged-to-the-wall, takes-forever-to set-up-type of computer, but at least he has one. It does not make him incredibly annoyed. It only takes a few minutes to open it, and by the time Tim is connected to the internet, his head is buried into his arms, burying a scream.
Everything burns, in the worst, most horrible way possible.
Tim gets back up anyways.
a/n: some introspection before we get into it! this also came out horrifically later than i wanted to lmao but i hope y'all enjoyed. :) i’m taking a hiatus after this, so posts will be sporadic (even more than before haha) but yeah.
