---- From chapter 38 ----

T: Dickie took me grocery shopping with Wally and Roy and let me tell you, it was wild

----

The morning sun had started its arch across the sky twenty minutes ago, the light so pale it was nearly white as it peaked through the thin slit in his curtains.

The windows were shut firmly, so no overeager songbirds could interrupt his working, but it appeared one had found him anyway.

Weaving through the carefully constructed chaos, Dickie approached him at his desk.

"Hey," he greeted.

Tim didn't stop typing, but he did glance at Dickie and the path he had taken to reach his desk. He was wearing nothing more than a blue crop top and tight, black jeans, but Dickie looked gorgeous. The front of his shirt read "Batman's Boy" and Tim knew for a fact Bruce didn't find it as amusing as Dickie did.

Leaning against the desk in an almost contrapposto style, his dark hair shining like a halo in the blue light of Tim's various computer monitors, Dickie looked out over Tim's room.

Every inch of surface that wasn't covered by papers had sticky notes on it, the only constellation being that the bathroom was worse. He wrote physics formulas on the tiles while he showered. The back of his conditioner bottle had the introduction paragraph to his last essay written in dry erase markers. The mirror still fogged up with the eulogy he'd tried to write for Jason's funeral before deciding he wasn't going.

"Hi," Tim returned, deciding that Dickie's care of his organized papers earned him at least a greeting.

"What'cha doin'?" Dickie ran a hand through his hair, holding his phone in one hand. Tim wished he had even an ounce of that commanding presence, of the ease in which Dickie could exist in any given space.

"Working," came Tim's short reply. Usually he was more hospitable to Dickie, given his respect for the man, but his flissle focus had finally narrowed and he had a short window of time to get everything he'd been procrastinating on done.

Something new occurred to him and he switched keyboards, going from his laptop to one of his computer monitors to add to the conclusion paragraph of his English essay.

Jason- backed by Bruce and Clark and everyone else Tim knew- had insisted, quite firmly, that he re-enroll in school, and online classes had been the compromise.

Dickie put a hand on the back of Tim's chair, reminding him he'd been slouching for a number of hours.

He straightened up, his back cracking, as Dickie asked, "Anything important?"

Tim chewed the inside of his lip, nodding to the screens around him. "English essay, chemistry paper, report for Bruce, and I'm re-coding the system we use to monitor traffic cams."

Behind one of his various tabs, the first season of X-Files was streaming. Every few minutes he could hear Gillian Anderson say something along the lines of "This is ridiculous, Mulder." On the desk, his phone buzzed once every waking hour- which was, for them, every hour- Jason, letting him know he was still alive.

Dick rolled his shoulders back, "So, you're busy?"

On his ring finger, he wore the engagement ring Wally had given him. He turned it round his finger as he waited for Tim's reply, gently thumbing the gold. He smiled to himself, not even seeming to realize he was doing it. He and Wally were saccharine like that.

Tim finished a new line of code and switched back to a different computer monitor. He'd just remembered that word he'd been thinking of to describe only linear structures of atoms. Acyclic. To Dickie, he nodded in void of a reply, wishing he had gum or something to chew while he worked.

He glanced at Dickie again, submitting the report to Bruce via a secure line. On a spare piece of paper at his side, he used the pen tucked behind his ear to write about recalibrating the frequency of the cave's zetatube in shorthand. His mind worked through the work with an equanimity born from months of training; it was nothing compared to the stress of being Robin.

He thought; maybe Dickie would get him some gum.

"Hey- you're going to the grocery store today, right?"

"Yeah, you wanna come?" Dickie didn't wait for a reply. "Great! I was just about to ask."

He was pulled out of his chair, scarcely having time to grab his phone before Dickie had him over his shoulders. The door closed on his dark room behind them, the rubber duck on his desk watching impassively and the blinking line on his screens left to blink until his return.

----

Dickie, still balancing his weight on his shoulder with one arm looped around his waist, exited the manor through a side door. Roy's Lamborghini was purring quietly on the gravel side road.

The passenger window rolled down, revealing Roy and his bitter wet-cat expression. Wally waved from the driver's seat, smiling brightly.

"Hey babes," Dickie greeted, skipping down the crumbling stone steps, the ivy grasping for his ankles carefully crafted by Alfred's meticulous caretaking. Nothing in the manor was in disrepair, but a certain amount of deterioration was necessary for the dark academia aesthetic they subscribed to as a family.

"Is that a wild Timotheus you have?" Wally asked. One of his hands was curled around the top of the steering wheel, the other regularly dipping into a bag of m&m's in the cupholder.

Roy had a dark pair of sunglasses atop his head and a childish tip to his lips that made the grown man look like he was pouting.

"That it is," Dickie said, ruffling Tim's hair with his free hand as they crossed to the other side of the car. Dickie deposited him on the black leather of the backseat, and closed the door behind him.

Wally turned around to look at him, grinning, "A very nice example of the species. Very rare."

"Not as rare as the Wallancera," Tim retorted, settling in against the leather, "natural selection at work."

Roy chuckled, making pleased eye contact with Tim through the mirror of his visor. Tim returned his grin.

Dickie knocked on the driver's side window, and Wally rolled it down obediently, "Care for a ride, good-lookin'?"

Dickie leaned through the open window to place a brief kiss on Wally's cheek. "Nice try. Move over."

Wally pouted, but unbuckled his seatbelt and looked to Roy. "Roy. Move over."

"Move over-" Roy repeated, "It's my car. You sit in the back."

Ten minutes later they were on the road and Roy sat next to Tim, his annoyed mood easily dispersed by Tim's presence alone. It was probably better this way; Roy and Dickie always ended up fighting over music and forgetting to look at the road.

He smelled like cigarettes and beeswax, and every time he said something mean to Wally Dickie rolled down his window and the smell washed over Tim. It was nice. Roy was not enjoying it as much.

"Why are you defending Flashboy?" Roy complained, trying to fix his hair, and Tim turned away to hide a smile because, really, it sounded more like a whine. "First you don't let me drive, now you attack me in my own car."

"I have to!" Dickie's fingers leaned into the wheel, taking them off the property, "It's our wedding day!"

"Your wedding is tomorrow," Tim blinked. Then, "Right?" He could not forget another wedding.

"Yes, Timmy. The wedding is tomorrow." Roy's arm landed around his shoulders, holding him in place as Dickie turned a corner sharply. Really, he was barely a better driver than Roy. They were all too used to car chases and tricked-out motorcycles to comprehend even the most basic of traffic laws. Driving safely was a battle against their instincts, all of which jumped to attention the moment the weight of a gas pedal appeared underfoot.

"Yeah, yeah," Wally waved them off, his other hand flicking through the radio frequencies rapidly, "but today is cake-day!"

"I thought you already went cake tasting?" Tim really needed to start paying attention. Roy told him as much, ruffling his hair with the hand he had thrown over his shoulders.

Wally, practically buzzing with excitement, didn't pay any attention to Tim's confusion and seemed happy just to talk about cake; "Yes, but we're getting a secret, smaller cake to eat. Today. Probably in the parking lot."

Tim looked up at Roy, expecting him to protest about the eating of cake in his car, but found only a soft expression on his face.

"Aww," Tim laughed, pushing Roy's face towards the window, "Roy loves his friends."

"I do not," Roy protested, catching Tim's wrists in his hand and pinning them to his knee, "I do like cake though."

Dickie and Wally were deaf to his denial, celebrating in the front seat by playing the same Hoizer song on loop until they arrived at the grocery store parking lot.

There was a big sign out front advertising a travelling petting zoo of sorts that had set up camp on the other side of the parking lot. Dickie pulled into a parking space a few rows away from it.

"You guys sound like lesbians whose greatest wish is to live in the forest," Roy claimed, determinedly not nodding along with the chorus.

Wally sighed, staring out the window, "Oh to be a lesbian living in the forest."

The four of them shared a sigh.

"Anyway," Dickie turned around to look at them in the backseat, killing the engine so the music stopped, "what's the game plan?"

"Cake," Wally answered immediately.

Roy reached forward, dislodging Tim from against his chest to wack Wally over the head. "Obviously," he said, "anything else?"

"I want gum," Tim said, remembering his plight from earlier.

Dickie opened his car door and stepped out into the parking lot, stretching his hands above his head until his back cracked. Then he turned back to them, "Ok! Let's split up! Meet back here at 8?"

"Dibs on Timmy," Roy said immediately, grabbing Tim by the waist and leading him toward the main entrance of the supermarket.

----

They were separated almost immediately.

Tim had a vague memory of Roy spying a sale sign in the distance and saying "stay here," but then his phone buzzed with a message and when he thought to look up again he was surrounded by minute rice and microwaveable meals for one.

Roy was nowhere in sight, and Stephanie replied to his last message before Tim could think to text him. His feet moved forward on their own, shuffling him out of the aisle as he typed, rolling his eyes at Steph's clearly wrong statement that Aristotle was a top.

She went on to say Descartes was also a top and Tim, standing next to a pile of oranges stacked to look like a pyramid, pressed the call button.

"Listen you wench," he said as soon as there was a dial tone on the other end, "Descartes's was a bitch. Cogito, ergo sum? Bold of you to assume you fucking exist, asshole-"

Their argument continued until Tim wondered past the bakery and remembered, 'oh. Cake.' He hung up on Steph, wincing when he realized he'd cut her off. He had actually wanted to hear what she had to say about Epicurus, especially since she was Epicurean herself.

Too late now, he supposed, checking the time and seeing he was about due to meet up with everyone else in the parking lot. He approached the counter of the bakery and found there was one cake left.

He nearly dropped it numerous times, trying to type and hold it at the same time, but managed to keep his balance long enough to catch up to Roy as he was leaving the store.

"Roy!" he called, adjusting the cake in his arms. It was an Oreo cake with little spirals of whipped cream decorating the top.

Roy turned at the sound of his voice and Tim saw he was also holding a cake. It appeared to be a chocolate cake with Hershey's Kisses on it on it. For a moment, anxiety rolled in Tim's stomach before he decided, clearly, his cake was superior and Roy was the one who would look like a fool.

"Timmy," Roy said once Tim was close enough, tucking a pack of gum into Tim's back pocket, patting it as he withdrew his hand. "You totally disappeared, man. Do we need to make you wear a bell?"

He thought about it. He'd look good in a bell, probably. Jason would either hate it or love it. Tim would have reached out and patted Roy's arm in thanks for the suggestion, but as they approached the car he saw Wally, frozen in place, a pigeon on his head and a strawberry cake in his arms.

They took in the sight for a moment before Roy sighed, "Um, Walls? What the fuck?"

Wally's body tensed, like he wanted to look at them but didn't dare turn his head.

"Hey Roy," he said, "Little help?"

Roy pretended to think about it, humming, "No, I'm good. This is the longest I've ever seen you stand still for."

Tim evaluated Wally's position; car door open, half-hunched over, one leg still in the car.

"Did you even make it inside?" He asked.

Wally shook his head, "No! As soon as I stepped out of the car Mr. Twitters here-"

"Mr. Twitters?"

Wally huffed, the action disturbing Mr. Twitters, who shifted threateningly on top of Wally's head. "Yes, Roy. Mr. Twitters. Shut up. You named your first dog Fido."

"Where did you get the cake then?" Tim asked, knowing if he let them start bickering he wouldn't get the chance. He assessed the thick-looking icing and fat strawberries on top and decided he still had the best cake.

Wally grinned at the concrete, not able to direct his sunny smile at them, "This nice old lady walked by and saw I was stuck so I gave her cash and she brought me back a cake!"

"Why didn't you just get her to scare the bird?" Roy asked, setting his cake down on the top of the trunk and stretching his arms above his head. Tim mimicked him.

"Who's scaring what birds?" Dickie's voice called from the side as the acrobat appeared in all his grace, seeming to bring the day's proper light with him. On one hand, he easily balanced an angel food cake.

"Wally made a new friend," Tim said, tipping his head at Wally and his predicament.

Dickie's eyes lit up, "Aw! A bird! Come here cutie," he sung,

"I can't," Wally whined.

"He was talking to the bird you idiot," Roy huffed. The bird abandoned its post in Wally's hair, freeing him, and padded along the roof of the car.

Experimentally, Tim whistled a few notes at it and was pleased when it mimicked him.

They had only been playing with the bird for what felt like a few minutes when a large man with a tall hat and suspenders approached them, his arms waving above his head.

"Hey! Heyyy!!" He was yelling, slowly to a stop in front of them. He opened his mouth to speak but ended up gasping instead. "One- one moment. Please," he huffed out.

When he had caught his breath, he reached into the pocket of his coat-tail possessing blazer and withdrew a handkerchief. He dabbed his sweaty forehead as he spoke, "You found Tiki! I cannot begin to tell you how grateful-"

Roy, ever the protective one, stepped between the man and the rest of them, gently nudging Tim and interrupting the man, "Found who?"

The man tucked his handkerchief away, smiling. He whistled a short, high note, and Mr. Twitters obediently flew off Dickie's shoulder and landed on the man's.

"You see," he explained, "I run the petting zoo over there-" they all looked across the large parking lot where signs and tents could be seen rising out of the ground- "and Tiki is our prized pigeon. The whole aerial routine would fall apart without him!"

"Your petting zoo has an aerial routine?" Roy asked sarcastically.

The man nodded cheerfully anyway, "Yes! Would you like to come see it? I'm sure everyone else would like to give you their thanks for finding Tiki."

Roy opened his mouth to refuse, but the man's eyes slid past him and instead fixated on the four cakes resting on the top of Roy's Lamborghini.

"There's free cake for all guests," he said. Roy's mouth closed with an audible click and, when he turned to look again at the tents, Tim saw Dickie and Wally already halfway across the parking lot, each carrying a cake.

"Let's go, Timmy," Roy sighed, picking up both his and Tim's cake and trudging after them. The man tittered happily and jogged ahead of them.

Tim drew his phone out of his pocket again, opening it to his conversation with Jason.

T: Dickie took me grocery shopping with Wally and Roy and let me tell you, it was wild

He watched the message send, then followed it up by sharing his location. He pocketed his phone and ran to grab Roy's hand so he could tug him just a little faster towards the petting zoo.