Title: And besides, you breathe differently down here (The View from Down Here)
Fandom: Batman
Notes: Taken from
this adorable headcanon sent to the lovely
incogneat-oh by the equally lovely
stroudlenoodle. It was supposed to be a completely fluffy, small drabble. Then it turned into this.
Summary: Sometimes, people can overlook Tim. But Tim is a resourceful boy, he always finds a way to get what he - desperately - wants.
Warnings: Swearing. Angst, but also fluff!
Ratings: Mature for swearing.
Characters: Tim Drake, Dick Grayson, Jason Todd, Bruce Wayne, Jim Gordon.
*****
Tim was fairly small for his age. And, he supposed, for his sex.
He was certainly small for a Robin.
That was okay. He had accepted around the time of his last growth spurt, that this was kind of...it. He had had plenty of time to get used to the idea. And now, he was... kind of fine with that.
If you can’t fix it, you have to stand it. Stop crying. You take what you have, and you use it to steal what you don’t.
Perhaps his mother hadn’t ever been the best role model, but... Tim had always thought that some of her theories had something to them.
***
His height and his slender frame gave him the advantage when it came to speed and agility. He could move so much more smoothly, run faster, and jump higher than most of the street-grime thugs who all seemed to be moulded from the same basic model - wide, heavy and hulking.
It meant that when they did catch you, they packed a hell of a punch. Tim was more often than not sent scattering bodily across the cement when one of the lumbering idiots managed to get a good punch in.
But it also meant that Tim’s sprawling, stringy limbs - and Dick could just take his stupid jokes about baby deer and Tiny Tim and shove them, because those awkward, gangly limbs that had always seemed to serve the sole purpose of getting in the way, and which always seemed to be too long for his body, though he never seemed to get any taller - they were finally good for something.
They meant that Tim was rarely within reach of the ham-fisted hired muscle. They allowed him to dart between their ridiculously large, bulging limbs, to flit in and out of jabbing range, zipping back and forth between huge, treacle-slow lunges, until their massive bulk worked them into such a frenzy of movement that even his relatively small frame could easily knock them off balance.
You could even go as far as to say that Tim was...proud of his stature. Not that he would ever allow himself to admit that to anyone but himself, in the darkest hour of the night, when everyone was sleeping, and could not possibly hear the whisper of his guilty secret. His secret pride.
But, in those hours, those scant minutes available to him by the time absolutely everybody had retreated to their beds, Tim allowed himself to feel a little proud.
Because he may not be Jason. He may not be Dick, may not ever be able to live up to the tall and solid shadows that they cast, but he was Tim. He was Tim, and he was proud because he would never be Jason or Dick.
These things that pained him in the daylight hours, now, here, in the soft shadows of his bed sheets, became things that forced Tim to stay and be what Batman needs but will never want as much as those that he can’t have.
Because he was Tim, and he was lacking the bright light of the golden sons, no matter how tarnished, he was lacking - and he still managed to shine bright enough to blind the underbelly of Gotham.
It still didn’t make it any easier to see life through everybody else’s elbows, though.
***
It probably didn’t help that he was so quiet.
A shame, but Tim had made his peace with that one too, had learnt to resign himself with - mostly - good grace, to any quirk which made the same list as his height, in being a quality that he simply couldn’t change if he wanted to.
And the more he examined that list, the more he realised just how much he had never had a hope in hell of competing with the memories of Dick and Jason.
Because Dick is a force of nature who gusts into your life, your space, your face, and brings in with him all the vivid, bright colours of the dazzling sun and the cacophony of passionate, wild and unrestrained music of the free and the joyful.
Like someone crawling from the dark, a cold and empty hole in the ground, it was beautiful to let the light filter in, soak his skin, bathe his eyes. But after a time, his eyes began to hurt; the sounds were all trying to speak at once, the colours too glaring, the light too bright. His eyes would water, he would have to look away for a time.
Jason was a different matter, in some ways, but not in the ones that count.
All hard, cold steel, a laugh that sings like the zinging of a sword unsheathed; loud, clanging and metallic. The laughter of blood on teeth, and sharp, glinting silver.
A smirk that could balance the world at its corner, make people trip to the twist of his mouth, and a truly careless laugh, like razorblades and steel; nothing could get near it, nothing could hurt it without seeing its own twisted reflection, without hurting itself. If he didn’t care for the person in front of him, he didn’t care whether they worshipped or him or prayed for the courage to slit his throat. He didn’t care, and it wasn’t an act, and Tim would always worship this forbidden power.
He had none of Jason’s lop-sided street-kid charm, the slum slang that had the harsh warmth and gritty, fluid colour that Tim’s cold, precise upper-class stiffness could never hope to aspire to.
And then there was Tim, and he was...quiet. He liked to sit. To be still, to think and to examine and to look.
He didn’t like to pace, to swallow up the ground with aggressive strides that took him to stand right in front of someone, face to chest, piercing the small and sacred layer of air that separated thoughtfulness from confrontation.
To stand right up to their faces and say to them, clear and with such absolute faith in words that were coming out of his mouth that there was no oxygen left for doubt; this is what we’re going to do; we’ll do it now and to hell with everything else.
He just...couldn’t. That wasn’t something that he could ever force his cold-stiff and creaky limbs to do. If he ever tried, he only ended up looking like a puppet with healed-over joints and frosted metal tubes for limbs.
But that was...okay.
His strengths, his suppleness and certainty, they laid elsewhere.
His silence bought him the most precious jewel in the vigilante’s crown.
Time was the gold dust that powered his clockworks. When he stood by, on the fringes of a group of people who were nearly always in perpetual motion, with noise all around him and their urgency swelling in his ears, his silence allowed the air around him to thicken and tremble, to create a puddle too deep for others to tread, where only his thoughts rippled through the water.
His silence allowed him to sink between people’s sides unnoticed, to be gently jostled by their slightest movement, a reed blowing in the gentlest breezes and most tempestuous storms, never hurt, never shattered, crouching quietly, unheard in the eye of the storm, buffered and buffeted by those who weathered it, as passive and unmindful of them as they were of him.
It let him to stay there, nestled between them, allowed him to feel them, to be wondrously close to them all without the dread heat of their premature gaze burning through his skin.
Not yet, not now. I’m not ready. Look away, look away and stay.
Each little bump and graze sent little electric shivers down through his skin and deeper, ever deeper, until they finally reached the bottom of the pool, the dark, black sand where he stood. Mostly the sparks and sputtered and died, suffocated, extinguished by the pressing, ever-darker inky waters, by the time they reached the bottom. The pitch-black silence didn’t often let people reach Tim.
But occasionally, eventually, one little spark would make it, one tiny little flare with a last puff of life in it, and it only just manages to graze his skin, but it is enough. Fire and water do not mix, and Tim is abruptly pulled, thrown up and out of the water, rejected by the silence that served him.
He is ready.
His thoughts, borne of silence, now in danger of being smothered by it.
Because really, being short and quiet in a world of giants and loudmouths?
It’s not conducive to getting the attention that you need.
Want.
***
So what’s a Robin to do, when Dick won’t shut the hell up, and Jason is only interested in speaking the language of bullets?
Tim, for all his agility and speed, cannot ever hope to compete with whatever dark magic Dick must use, because no matter how much he darts and slides and slithers, he is never faced with anything but the infuriating sight of Dick’s back turned to him, blocking him from...whatever danger Dick’s big-brother-hormone-infested brain sees in the situation.
This is a pattern that Tim finds himself repeating with alarming regularity.
He is smaller than Dick, significantly smaller than Jason. And he is quiet. Inclining towards shy, when civilian life allows it. And this causes Dick to think that he has some sort of...duty, responsibility, to somehow shield Tim from...whatever horrendous consequences he imagines might be unleashed on the world if Tim hits any number on the scale from ‘slightly uncomfortable’ to ‘somewhat distressed.’
Which is strange, because when they aren’t dressed in spandex and Kevlar, Dick never stops trying to drag Tim into any number of painfully awkward social situations, with timely and nerve-grating reminders that it would behove Tim to get out more.
But now? Now that they were suited up and talking business? A whole different kettle of fish.
Tim takes a deep breath, trying to tamp down on the rage at the sheer indignity of having to sit on the sidelines while his brothers battled it out, despite the fact that he had long since had his fill of thoughtful silence, and had been trying, as noisily as he ever could, to point this out for the past ten minutes.
The slight...artistic differences currently being thrashed out had been steadily gaining in volume and likelihood of a physical resolution for quite some time, and Tim’s frustration was bordering on the hysterical.
“Dick!” He ground out between aching teeth, pressing them up against his brother’s ear in the hope of getting something through the skull, even if it was just a brief reprieve.
“What is it, Timmy?” Finally murmured in his direction.
And Tim supposes it would have been comforting, if not for the fact that Dick’s gaze was still firmly fixed on Jason’s snarling face, and the muscular arm with inexplicable reach that suddenly flung out to bar itself across Tim’s chest, and which gave the overall interaction a distinct feeling of ‘quiet, the adults are talking.’
Tim could feel his face burning an unflattering shade of red that was particularly adept at not inspiring any confidence in whoever happened to see it, and also had the added silver lining that it made him look like a bashful child, thus perpetuating the whole, horrid circle. He swallowed down a grieved choking at the injustice of it all, snatching Dick’s arm with both hands, squeezing as tightly as possible, deliberately digging his nails deep into the flesh; the small, sharp sliver of pleasure at Dick’s flinch not doing much to console Tim over the fact that his fingers couldn’t quite manage to make contact around the girth of his brother’s arm.
“Dick!” He hissed in Dick’s face, eyes narrowed to slits.
Dick winced, and Jason turned from his spitting and cursing at Dick to snarl once in Tim’s direction before turning back to the matter at hand, a lion irritated with the playful gambolling of his littlest cub.
No. No. Tim could not deal with this. He was done, he was one hundred per cent done with this.
What could you do with that? What the hell could be done with the two Neanderthals in front of him -
Dick suddenly froze, and his words dried up in his throat as he looked slowly down to investigate the...thing that was making the skin of his shoulder warm and tingly.
Tim.
Tim.
He had - he was -
No. This was not Tim. And yet, it very much looked like him. But Tim was...
Tim was pressing his nose - his adorable, slightly snubbed nose - into Dick’s shoulder, and he was slowly rubbing it back and forth over the Kevlar of Dick’s suit.
Tim was nuzzling Dick. While they were suited up. On a rooftop. Where anyone - potentially - could see.
Even Jason’s mouth was at the slightly slackened angle that spoke of extreme shock. And this from a guy who had died.
But this.
This...was different.
Tim, who was usually so careful to keep a well-maintained distance even from those whom he adored. Tim, who tolerated only the rarest and most fleeting of touches, who grimaced and wriggled and complained peevishly whenever Dick managed to sneak or wrangle a hug from him. Tim, who only ever seemed to welcome physical contact on the darkest of days, only when he felt like the world was collapsing around his ears. Tim, who never initiated contact.
Tim was nuzzling Dick’s arm like...like Dick might do. Once have done. When he was a child.
And that...that was what made all the angry words dry up in Dick’s throat, made him all but forget what he and Jason had been so adamantly opposed on that they had been ignoring...this.
Tim had never really been a child. Even Dick’s first memories of the boy are vague, wispy impressions of a stiff, clenched little figure in the tiniest tuxedo Dick had ever seen, and a pale, sombre little moon-face staring up at him with large, liquid eyes that were far too full for one with not enough years under their belt to fill them. A face that gave nothing away and only ever asked one thing if you peeled back enough layers.
Please. Let me. I know things. Talk to me. I can help you. Talk to me. Make me talk to you.
He had always been...to quiet for a child. No, not that. Not the right sound of silence for a child. Tim’s silence was not the absence of thought in the presence brightly-lit dream worlds, was never the kind of silence to sway an absent, dream-heavy head to, was never a silence broken by muted giggles or sudden bursts of activity at the point where imagination must translate into action. Tim’s dreams were never the kind to be acted out. They stayed dreams, they were never allowed to forget their place.
Child, teenager. It had never really mattered. Tim’s dreams always stayed the same - in that, for all Dick or anyone else living outside of Tim’s head would ever know, his little brother could have had the most fantastical, far-out dreams that were ever to be flung from someone’s head into the realm of fantasy, and were fickle and changeable, morphing into something new and amazing every night.
Dick doubted it.
He would have liked to think that Tim dreamt of far-off lands of fantasy, that his dreams were like those that Dick had loved as a child. When he had had the luxury of being able to dream of a reality so different from his own that he never really wanted it.
In Dick’s mind, Tim dreams of a world only a little different to the one they inhabit.
It makes Dick sad. It makes him angry. It’s not fair.
Tim, of course, would never admit to similar feelings. It is, after all, a childish notion, fairness. And Tim Drake has never been a child.
Except...now.
Now, this man-boy who should have had the time to grow out of behaviour such as this by time spent as an actual child, now he rubs his nose against Dick’s shoulder, he closes his eyes and nudges Dick with a pink-tipped nose and slightly flushed cheeks. And not just once, it’s a litany of soft touches, Braille bumps that fill Dick with...something, and makes him want to crush Tim to him and shake him at the same time, ask him,
why, why don’t you ever do this except when we’ve been ignoring you, when it’s all far too late, and we’ve already hurt you, torn you up? Why do you only ever ask for what you want when we’ve already thrown it away? Never when we ask you. When we ask you. When we ask you? When do we ask you?
Dick slowly pries Tim’s death grip away from his arm so that he can slide it around his brother’s back. He squeezes, possibly too hard, doesn’t let go.
He swallows, cringes at the thickness crouching in his throat when he finally speaks, can imagine what Jason will have to say about it later.
“Sorry, Timmy. What have you got for us?”
***
Jason’s bark is decidedly not worse than his bite, Tim decides as some of the blood soaks into his foot. His big toe twitches, but that’s about the only concession he makes to distress.
He feels so...exhausted, limp and weak, along with a vague frustration at how little control he has over how helplessly his limbs drape and dangle over Jason’s crouched form.
But they are all very foggy, murky feelings, swirling gently at the back of his mind like the whorls in the grubby ceiling that is the only thing he has any energy to pay attention to.
Apart from the blood. That’s kind of yucky. Rapidly cooling, beginning to congeal. He shifts, and feels another of Jason’s drum-like growls rattling through both their chests. His hands tighten on Tim, who stills, a large number of even larger heads and sets of shoulders poised at the edges of his vision.
“Jason,” he murmurs, not really sure how they came to be in this situation, but vaguely - that word again, why is everything that word, why is everything so milky-swirly? - aware that there are a lot of people here, and Jason doesn’t usually go in for big friendship groups, and also, that’s not his blood cooling on his toe, and he’s pretty sure it’s not Jason’s so, oh -
“Shut it, Pretender, I’m not done yet.” There is pleasure in Jason’s voice that should concern Tim, given his slowly expanding recognition of the fairly disturbing contexts that surround the situation - but all Tim can summon through the milky fog is a vague sense of wanting to go home.
There is a sound from somewhere nearby, and it is loud, and it is scary, and Tim doesn’t like it. He doesn’t like those sounds. He doesn’t know exactly where it came from, but he knows the sorts of things that have to happen, how often they have to be repeated, in order to tease out sounds like that.
“Jason.” Slightly more urgent this time, and speaking of sounds, is that his voice? A mewling whimper fit for a drowning puppy, not a Drake. Certainly never a Wayne. What would Bruce say - and oh, Bruce, he really wants to go home now, he really wants to go home and see Bruce, have him tell him that everything is okay, because actually, he’s starting to hurt now, and when he’s hurt sometimes Bruce touches him, and oh, he would really, really like that right now, because it’s actually really cold in here, and he’s aching, and the sounds are scary and everything’s going wrong, it wasn’t supposed to be like this -
“Jason!” He doesn’t even care that there’s mucus clinging to his upper lip right now, or that he sounds like he’s doing something they call sobbing, because he wants to be with everybody, and he knows it’s selfish, but he’d just really like for Jason to take him home, to the Manor, and then to not leave as soon as he’s deposited Tim into the arms of whoever will take him, but to stay, so that they can all be together, and it will be lovely, and -
“In a minute, Pretender, we wouldn’t wanna leave without making sure everybody’s learned their lesson, now, would we?” And Tim knows that tone of voice, he knows it, it’s the one that comes out to play when Jason is enjoying his work and really being very thorough, and it makes him shudder, but it’s not all bad, because at least half of the goosepimples that the voice teases on end are because his skin is happy that Jason thinks highly enough of him to want to work this hard for him.
Normally, those sounds aren’t for Tim.
But, maybe today’s looking up, and Tim feels very pampered, because today he’s being very spoiled.
He gets Jason-noises just for him, and if he’s lucky, if he plays his cards right, he might just get family time, and Bruce touches, and Alfred stories, and...
And he really, really wants to go and have those things now, and Jason appears to have stopped listening to Tim-noises, so Tim must think, he must think hard, he must be sneaky, he must get what he wants.
Jason sighs heavily, reluctantly, turns with a flicker of irritation from his tender ministrations to the unlucky chump on the floor in front of him.
Tim has just about managed to flop his head into the crook of Jason’s arm, apparently seeking warmth as he shoves his face halfway between Jason’s chest and under his arm - and ew, gross, Pretender, you know how long I’ve been wearing this shirt for, it’s hard, sweaty work, torturing the people who hurt your little brother -
Jason rolls his eyes and sheaths his knife as soon as he feels the little warm bump and nudge that means Tim has started up his cutesy kitty routine, and yeah, there it goes, he’s officially done for the night.
He throws one last, sidelong glance at the chew toy on the floor. Maybe he’s learnt his lesson. Maybe, in a few hours, it won’t matter. Either way, it stopped being fun when he couldn’t make the sounds anymore.
“Alright, princess, Jesus, we’re going back to daddy bats now, are you happy?” He huffs and tightens his grip on the boy as he buries his nose deeper into Jason’s chest. The nuzzling - a little faster than it would usually be, perhaps a testament to just how spooked the kid is, and now Jason feels like the worst kind of person for ignoring the kid’s whinging in the first place - doesn’t slow until they’re well on their way into the manor grounds, at which point it becomes sluggish, sleepy, until finally all that Jason really feels is the occasional twitch against his collarbone.
It’s enough.
***
In his capacity as detective, Bruce’s inability to switch off, and his miraculous ability to tune out anything and everything that doesn’t pertain to the case, are both huge assets.
As a father, not so much.
Or so some might think.
Tim, however, knows better. He knows other things, and he has his ways. He secretly loves these times.
On the days where he isn’t hating them.
He loves these times when he feels capable of forgiving himself for being so underhanded and sly and downright creepy.
On those days, the days where Tim’s moral compass and sense of propriety and dignity are dead by the roadside, Tim rejoices for the days when Bruce is glued to the computer.
He sits on the chair across from Bruce, for a few moments simply looking, savouring the anticipation, the warm tingle of what is about to come. And god, he disgusts himself sometimes.
He quietly rolls the chair until it slides - yes, sliding, slithering, oozing along the ground on your belly like the little viper you are, these are things that you’re very good at, oh, you know how to do those things well, don’t you, you little sneak? - into Bruce’s own chair with the gentlest of bumps.
Alfred told him to fetch Bruce. Dinner was ready. He wasn’t doing this because he simply had a whim, that would be sick - no, no. There always had to be a reason.
“Bruce.” He doesn’t know why he bothers anymore. It’s not like it could be through any sense of propriety, if he had any of that left intact, he wouldn’t be even contemplating this.
But. But, it’s just that it’s been so long, and he misses it so much, and he hasn’t been hurt badly enough in what feels like forever, and no one has died and - Jesus Tim, you are one sick little fucker - and he just needs this one, little thing, just to tide him over until - until what, the next time, you twisted child? - and Tim doesn’t even realise how much he misses it until one day that gradually building pressure, the one that built so slowly that he didn’t even feel anything up until a few seconds ago, one day that pressure suddenly crumples into a hard, sharp ball of jagged waste inside him, and Bruce can make it all go away, but he’d never ask for that, he’s never put Bruce in a position like that, how could he, how ungrateful would that make him, to ask for more, after all that Bruce has already given him -
He doesn’t even know when he made contact with the warm, hard, - safe, safe, it’s safe, it’s base, you’re it! - body in front of him, he never does,
He just watches his bony hands slide their way up Bruce’s arms, around his neck where his pale, twiggy fingers dig in, latch on and curl around, finding a hold and keeping it, desperately, watching his arms follow, slithering up, twining around Bruce’s body, smothering him, clutching tight like Ivy’s vines, and just let him rest here for a minute, let him feel the warmth of Bruce’s heartbeat through that barrel chest, feel it drum its steady rhythm against his cheek...
And Bruce is staring at him.
Bruce. Is staring. Right down at Tim. Big, clear blue eyes. He knows, how does he know, this has never happened -
Oh dear god.
He has been nuzzling Bruce Wayne’s shoulder. Nuzzling, softly, sleepily, probably with a stupid, demented smile on his face -yes, be proud of yourself, Tim. There’s probably nobody who is quite as creepy as you. That’s an accomplishment.
But he has been nuzzling Bruce Wayne, Batman, his mentor, his father - sorry, Jack - his everything, like a whiny child crying for attention.
Tim shrinks from those words and what they mean for him, almost chokes on the bitter bile -
“Alfred says dinner’s ready,” he blurts out instead of throwing up on Bruce.
There’s a slight pause.
Please, just don’t. You don’t have to say any of it. I know it already, just please don’t. You think I haven’t said it all to myself? Pleas, don’t.
“Alright, Tim.” There is a large, warm hand on his head. Bruce makes no move to get up. Tim tests the bonds of immovable human muscle and bone. He couldn’t lift his head if he wanted to.
ldquo;We’ll give Alfred a little time to dish up, first.”
***
Jim Gordon wonders how Batman can, in all good conscience, let this Robin even leave the house after dark.
He’s good, sure. He’s scary smart; Jim doesn’t remember any one of his peers ever being as intelligent as this slip of a boy. Hell, the kid probably has more brain power in his little pinkie than whole departments of the detectives he lets roam the streets, which should make him ashamed, except...
His detectives, astoundingly ignorant though they may be, are all built like brick walls. His detectives are grizzled, older men, hardened to the ways of the street and with enough years doing the rounds in their cracked and dilapidated corners that it mostly made up for their mental capabilities. Mostly.
But this kid...yeah, okay, he was Robin. Batman took him on, Batman trained him, Batman trusted the kid with his back.
But that didn’t erase the slender frame, the bones that looked like they were jutting out at all the wrong angles, trying to escape the lithe musculature that shifted and rippled with more grace than ferocity, more fluidity than strength. Some days, Jim could swear he looked more like a Cat than a Bat. Except smaller.
Don’t even get Jim started on the size.
Although - he frowns as the kid worms his way in between himself and Batman - he is one hell of a mover, he’ll give the fleet-footed little scamp that.
He’s vaguely aware that the kid is looking up at Batman from his position practically under the man’s chest as his mentor leans over the desk to look at Jim’s scant offerings in the way of clues.
They both have their hands resting on the desk as they pore over what little information they have so far, and Jim’s peripheral vision can just about make out the skinny, slender form darting in and out of their space, can feel the occasional warmth brushing by his skin and darting about underneath the cave their much larger bodies have made for him to squirm his way under as he attempts to get a look in.
He glances over once to see the kid standing directly under Batman, as if sheltering under the overhang the man’s huge chest provides for little chicks, little Robins, and the cape drapes over the boy, hiding him, and Jim knows he shouldn’t be deliberately trying to shelter this kid from the pictures on his desk, that he’s seen it all before, that he’s perfectly capable, because he’s a Robin, for Christ’s sake, Batman’s Robin, but it’s when he sees things like this that he seems unable to separate Robin from kid.
Commissioner from father.
It’s just that, he’s sure he doesn’t remember the others being this small, this vulnerable-looking, and -
There is a feeling in chest that is totally alien and wholly unwelcome in this context.
Because Robin, Batman’s Robin, is nudging his shoulder with his nose. No, it’s more than that. It makes Jim’s chest ache, and that doesn’t happen for just anything anymore. It certainly wouldn’t happen for a nudge.
The boy had at some point rested his head against Jim’s shoulder, like any child who was bored or tired - like your children, just like your children, just like your son - no.
No, those feelings can never be for here. Those feelings of cherish, of protect and fondness, they can never be for this place of corruption and drudgery and death.
Except...this isn’t an ordinary child. This is Robin. And this Robin is so...quiet, self-contained. Not a laughing-boy like the first, not loud and brash like the second.
More like Batman.
And yet, here he is. Heir and disciple to the Bat, nuzzling Jim’s shoulder with an alarmingly childlike nose, squashed and button-like, softly poking Jim’s shoulder like some sort of Eskimo kiss, and -
He had only just realised that the kid is staring. Or rather, staring at him staring, if the steadily growing blush and quickly lowered eyes are anything to go by.
Jim is torn. He knows he’s made the kid uncomfortable. Part of him wants to protest that it’s the kid’s own fault, that if he didn’t want to be embarrassed, he shouldn’t go around bestowing Eskimo kisses on people with whom he has a strictly working relationship.
But then he looks at the kid’s face and feels like the worst kind of person. This is more than embarrassment, he’s mortified the poor kid.
He’s blushing so badly that his whole face is a bright, childish red that spreads all the way down to his neck in blotchy patches. He shifts on his feet, head frozen in the stiff position that means he cannot bring himself to look at either his mentor or the man he just nuzzled.
Out of the corner of his eye, he sees Batman make the most minute of movement, a slight move forwards, towards the boy, and the tiniest twitch of the arm holding the cape. The most infinitesimal of movements, but it’s enough for the kid.
He immediately moves backwards, still not making eye contact with either of them, but backing up to take what was surely, in Bat language, a most explicit offer of comfort, and stands, slightly recessed in the hollow of Batman’s cape, not actually touching the man, but standing, hidden, protected by his shadow.
Jim looks up to Batman’s face, and despite the white-out lenses, the look that he receives could not be clearer. He fights the urge to fidget under the stony, heavy gaze, restrains himself from wiping his suddenly sweaty palms. He clears his throat.
“So what we’ve got here, son, is the pattern that we know these runners adhere to so far...”