Chapter Text
Dick had a lot of friends, most people did, but Dick could make friends with a starving tiger. Even then most people didn’t make friends with their enemies. Well except for Tim and he was out of the hero business so it wasn’t like they were his enemies. Besides Selina was never all that enemy like and the other two were her friends.
But the point stands. Tim had gotten used to heroes popping in to check on him whether they were his ex-teammates or Dicks. A lot were Dicks. Heroes yes; enemies no. Enemies were not supposed to randomly pop in to check on estranged kid brothers.
The first time Tim met Red X the thief had shown up after he’d had been kidnapped.
“You’re Tim right? Dick talks about you a lot. He told me if I checked on you for him, he’d sleep with me again.”
What?! On the other hand… Tim eyed the costumed villain. Male, probably around Dick’s age, red and black outfit and white skull mask with a scar like red x. Looked suspiciously like something Dick would wear. And yeah Dick would use sex as a bribe.
Tim had been sitting in a nice little room, a tasty dinner in front of him, courtesy of Oswald Cobblepot who apparently wanted words with Selina. And obviously the best way to convince her to come around and talk was to kidnap her apparent pet kid. But this would, in all probability, be a bit more interesting.
“So anyway you look kinda bored” And the thief was ignoring Tim’s quiet reflecting. “So I’m gonna kidnap you and we can go clubbing.”
“Wait…what?”
“Yeah it’ll be fun!” The thief was undoing the handcuff attaching Tim’s left hand to his chair, something Tim hadn’t bothered to try and do since he was supposed to be a ‘harmless civilian’.
“But-“
Red X grabbed him around the waist bodily lifting Tim out of the chair and over his shoulder.
“Don’t be wet kitten Timmy, it’s time to party.”
“Hey! No, stop!”
The worst part was that Tim still wasn’t sure if that was the most traumatizing of the meetings with the various people Dick had conned into checking in on him.
Just as exciting, read very fucking scary, was the time Tim met a nice older women in the Library. Tall built and gorgeous with tan skin not at all hidden by a white two piece and neon pink buzzed fuzz for hair.
“Hi Tim.”
“Uh… Hi?” Tim’s book was dropped to the table as oodles of lovely bare skin sat in the seat opposite.
“Jinx.” She leaned back and smirked, very smugly. “I was told to check on you.”
“Really.” Tim glared at the pretty and most likely dangerous woman. He might not recognize her but the only type of women Dick knew were Dangerous.
“Tell Dick to back off. I’m fine and I don’t want him in my life.”
“That’s rather harsh.” Jynx tipped her head and Tim noticed that her eyes had sharpened into cat like slits. “But Wally asked me to check on you. I can’t upset him by coming back with nothing to say.”
“So.” Tim pouted and looked down at the open book.
“So,” Jynx could pure like a mountain lion and her hands were glowing green. “We’re going to spend the day together and have fun. Or I can drag you out of here and we’ll do the same just with you a fuzzy frog that’s easier to carry around.”
“Can you do that?” Tim asked very slowly eyes fixed on glowing hands. Why the hell hadn’t Dick ever talked about her? Probably because he didn’t sleep with her.
“Would you like to test?” Jynx was grinning as she stood up. “Hurry up all this dead trees makes me sad.”
“I’d hate to make you sad.” Tim snarled under his breath as he stood up.
In an odd way Jynx was a lot of fun. When she was outside she bloomed and lectured Tim on all sorts of random affairs from historical battles to rare earth magics. Tim hoped that she never met Pamela.
There were others, a few more random thieves and semi-ex villains that would pop up randomly talk with him, no matter how he tried to resist in the beginning, or force a ‘fun day’. There was the thief with the black and red eyes that taught Tim how to play pool, luckily before he blew up the balls, and how to speak really bad Cajun. Another thief that spoke with a thick French accent and worked with more common explosions showed him the best way to blow a door in half without hurting anything else. And then there was another pretty woman, also with a lot of skin showing, that definitely was sleeping with Roy and possibly had with Dick.
Tim was positive that half the people who would check on him were paid off in sex.
Then there was the time that Tim was sure he was about to die. He also learned that Dick needed to work on self-control when it came to ‘pretty’ people. That might have been Tim’s jealousy talking.
In any case Cobblepot and Selina had gotten into… well war would be the best word for it. It led to Selina coming home with broken ribs, and one memorable night a gunshot graze across her ribs, and Tim ending up on a hit list.
So you could understand his concern when he opened the apartment door to a big man with a shock of white hair and a single eye was staring through him.
“Hello Timothy Drake.”
“Slade’s not like other villains little brother. He always has multiple plans and you can never tell what’s going through his mind. But you can reason with him and he’s hot as hell…”
Why did Tim remember that last bit? Oh because the proof was standing in front of him. And the bastard could purr.
“I’m here to kill you.”
Well… that’s bad.
“Please come in.” Tim stood back, what the hell!! Tim Drake you are insane!!, and asked “Would you like something to drink?”