A relationship that complicated - Dick Grayson/Tim Drake (DC Comics)
Title: A relationship that complicated
Author: Petra LeMaitre
Fandom: DC Comics / DCU
Pairing: Dick Grayson/Tim Drake (Nightwing/Robin III)
Spoilers: Through War Games and Identity Crisis, Teen Titans v3 #25
Regarding the images linked here: they come from various eras and are done by a wide array of artists and writers, so the quality of the artwork and coloring varies greatly. Also, many of the images are quite large, as I do not at present possess a decent image manipulation program. I provide them as supplementary data, rather than as the text of the manifesto. Please note that the image link marked with an asterisk is from an issue released in June 2005, so if you want to avoid spoilers, don't click that one.
The boys' history
Dick Grayson is the person nearly everyone thinks of when they think of Robin, though in comics continuity he outgrows the role (depending on the retcon of the moment, he either quits of his own accord or, as in the latest retcon, Batman fires him for his own protection). When he is no longer Robin, he becomes Nightwing and goes through a series of hideous costumes, as well as a long-term but ultimately doomed relationship with an alien princess who flies via the power of her amazing hair.
After Dick stops being Robin, Batman adopts a boy named Jason Todd, who then becomes Robin, though he is by no means the same sort of partner to Batman that Dick was. Jason is more impetuous than Dick was, and this gets him into terminal trouble with the Joker. After Jason's death, Batman is angry and reckless, and gets hurt a lot more. Dick is peripherally aware of this, though he is not working with Batman at the time. When Tim shows up at the circus and demands that Dick start being Robin again, Dick is surprised and unenthusiastic about the whole idea.
Tim Drake is a boy who happened to be at the circus on the day Dick Grayson's parents died. He meets and is impressed by Dick, and then, after tragedy strikes, by Batman. Years later, he is watching television, and he sees Robin doing a trick that only a few people in the world, including Dick, can do. According to comics logic, the next thing he does is stalk Batman and Robin for years, notwithstanding that he's only nine when he starts. When Jason dies and Batman goes crazier, Tim realizes there's something missing in his life. Dick, who is content as Nightwing and still angry at Batman, refuses to go back to being Robin. Tim, reasoning that “Batman needs a Robin... whatever he thinks he wants," takes on the infamous red, yellow, and green suit, though he sensibly adds tights.
As Tim, he dates a girl named Ariana for a while, but his duties as Robin make it impossible for him to maintain the relationship, and they part amicably. This is convenient for Tim, as there is a young, blonde vigilante in town who desperately wants to date Robin. After some flirting, he gives in, and they have a long, friendly, not terribly passionate relationship.
The boys in spandex
Dick's primary motivating force appears to be to give people what they need, starting with those closest to him -- Bruce, Tim, his sometime girlfriend and always friend Barbara. He has the flexibility necessary to literally bend over backward for them if it's what they require. In his childhood, he was a circus performer. When his parents died, he went on to do arguably bigger and better things, for which he received very little praise from Bruce and Alfred, his surrogate parents and primary caregivers. He needs people to need him, and when they don't acknowledge the amazing things he does for them, he assumes he's done something wrong and tries harder the next time.
Unlike Dick, Tim made himself Robin, a feat of great daring and willpower which he accomplished at the age of 13. He did it because he believed someone had to, and he was the only person who could see the need at the time. Dick will do anything for the people he loves; Tim will spend any amount of energy to figure out exactly what the people he loves need, and then do it. Along with being extremely thorough, Tim has something of a sense of humor; at the very least, he is a certifiable geek. He takes his girlfriends to science fiction movies and thinks about Robin things the whole time.
The boys together
For several years in comics time, Dick as Nightwing works in a city named Blüdhaven, whose chief feature is that it is even more unpleasant than the nearby notoriously awful Gotham. Tim, as one might expect of Robin, works in Gotham with Batman, though he makes the occasional surprise visit to Blüdhaven. Dick thinks of him more or less as a little brother -- which is, perhaps, problematic until one considers just what matters are between Dick and his "father" -- as described here by Dr. Strange, who has made a study of the matter and then stolen a Batsuit. Exactly what Tim thinks of Dick goes unarticulated. Though the hero-worship is clearly still present, it has grown more complicated over time.
When Tim visits Dick, they tend to hang out on rooftops, swing through the air, and trainsurf blindfolded. While they do this, they often talk about the many and often dangerous women in their already dangerous lives. For someone who thinks that these boys ought to hug each other, the litany of women is both complicated and reassuring; many of these women are more or less in the past by the time they discuss them, and Dick, at least, can hardly be described as stingy in his romantic attachments. It's also a sign that Tim remains aware of what Dick is doing, both professionally and romantically, even though he is in a different city.
On the occasions when Dick comes to Gotham - generally because something awful is happening, and Batman manages to admit he needs help - he generally takes time to check in with Tim, whether this means they play together in the halls of Wayne Tower, Bruce Wayne's other stronghold, or fight crime together. The tenor of Dick's interactions with Tim ranges from elder brotherly razzing to something a little more fraught, with the occasional detour into outright mutual admiration.
It would be impossible to deal with Dick and Tim's relationship without also discussing their respective relationships to Batman. In a storyline where Bruce Wayne is accused of murder, Dick is absolutely certain that Bruce would never, ever do such a thing. Tim, on the other hand, possesses no such certainty. This hurts Dick deeply, given that so much of his life's meaning has depended on trusting Batman's morality. When Bruce is proved innocent of the crime, there is no particular scene showing how Dick and Tim reconcile, though they have since interacted in a way that suggests they have done so. This tension also shows where their respective fixations lie: for Dick, it has always been about Batman, and always will be. Tim, on the other hand, saw Dick before he saw Batman, and followed Robin for years.
One telling storyline -- though one that is more or less eclipsed by recent upheavals -- involved a story in which Dick believed that the Joker had killed Tim. This made him angry enough to finally off the Joker, something that goes against the basic rules of Battishness. The Joker, as comic book villains are wont to do, got better, but the story remains.
Their connection does have some tenuous existence beyond their masked identities. At one point, Tim's father -- who has never been the most attentive parent -- says he can't make it to the Gotham Knights game, and Tim says blithely that that's okay, he'll just see if Dick can go. This doesn't come up very often, though, in part because Tim doesn't spend much time just being Tim. Dick has a job outside of being a vigilante; Tim seems to coast through high school on the force of his own dedication and exhaustion.
The boys at present -- Spoilers for recent issues
Dick has just gone through a truly miserable series of events, including losing the place where he lived in a fire and being dumped by his girlfriend. He has moved home to Gotham, leaving Blüdhaven to the present Robin and Batgirl. His current status is somewhat unclear, and will become more obvious in upcoming months.
Tim's dad made him stop being Robin, and his girlfriend took over. Then both his dad and his girlfriend died in the space of not much time at all, and Tim went back to the job. Now he is working in Blüdhaven, without Batman, and without much backup. He has recently lost his father -- his mother died years ago -- and his girlfriend of two years. At his last observed birthday, he is 16; he is more or less living on his own without visible means of support, though Batman -- being Bruce Wayne the billionaire -- funds what he needs.
Due to editorial decisions, Dick and Tim have only spent a little time together lately, and that was in the context of their respective teams working together. Dick calls Tim when he hears about Tim's dad, and Tim doesn't pick up. This is emblematic of the way they often work: Dick reaches out to someone who's hurt, and Tim hides his pain.
The boys in bed -- or, more likely, on rooftops
Tim has been fixated on, not to say obsessed with, Dick since he was quite young. It is easy for one inclined to slash to read that as something akin to a crush, muddled in with all the hero worship. Dick feels highly protective of Tim -- though not, of course, to the extent of stopping him from risking his life to fight crime.
As for them as a sexual or romantic pairing, it would be an absolute horror if it ever happened in canon. They both need years of therapy and some stability in their lives before they'd be able to have anything remotely resembling a healthy relationship. For example, take the case of Tim's last girlfriend, whom he dated for two years and never told his name. Dick's girlfriend, whom canon paints as 'the love of his life,' dumped him lately because he is becoming too distant and cold; too like Batman, in her words. Moreover, he was never able to convince her that he loved her for who she is now, and not who she was when they dated for the first time. Take into consideration that these are women they work with and love, and the lack in ability to achieve intimacy is quite apparent.
On the other hand, when these boys spend time together, they're able to talk about things with each other that no one else gets: Robin things, Batman-related issues, and the problems of sharing your life with someone who can't know both sides of your identity without being in danger.
This is not to say that no one writes them light stories with wild and exciting sex. Their lives are intertwined enough that they could easily have a brief, no-strings-attached affair without wounding each other unduly, and it might help them both feel more comfortable. Tim is very nearly incapable of relaxing at the best of times, but he'll do anything for Dick; Dick rarely tries to relax, and when things get really bad, he tends to get married, or at least that's what he's done the last three times in canon. As long as they kept it light enough, they'd be able to keep on as they are, pausing on the occasional gargoyle to snuggle.
On the other hand, there are those among us who like watching codependence in action, so long as it is safely fictional. If you, dear reader, are one of those people, have I got the pairing for you.
They love each other. They need each other. And if they get very close to each other, it's hard to figure out how they'd ever entirely untangle without breaking something. Tim's history and persona is already entirely bound up with Batman and Robin, particularly Robin. It's been about a decade of comics time -- sixty years of real time -- since Dick had much of a life outside of wearing spandex and kevlar at night, and when he's in trouble, he tends to have Robin hallucinations. They mean a lot in each other's lives, even though they don't spend much time together in the canon, and the roles they play are closely linked to their sense of honor and self-worth. It's hard to get very far into the Batman-family dynamics without hitting the difference between Nightwing and Dick or Tim and Robin, and exactly what it means to use each name.
Despite years of protestation from both of them, they have a potentially shared and terrifying mutual destiny. Neither of them wants* to be Batman, though they've both played the role briefly -- Dick in the 'Prodigal' storyline, and Tim in both 'Sins of Youth' and the dystopian 'Titans of Tomorrow.' It's not entirely clear which of them is expected to inherit it at this point, and it may come down to which of them is still standing when the necessity arises. Whatever happens, it's likely that they'll both be involved, and that it will not be a happy story.
Why my action figures are presently cuddling
I didn't like Robin, back when I watched Batman: The Animated Series as a kid, but I found Batman intriguing. Years later, I read The Brat Queen's essay on slash and realized she was absolutely right. Now I know what everyone who's ever made a joke about Batman and Robin knows: there's subtext in them thar hills.
What there wasn't enough of at the time -- a deficit that has not been rectified -- was Bruce/Dick on the web. Given that I didn't have the money to get into comics at the time, I let my sudden resurgence of interest fade. Last year, I read Derry's story More Than Two Men and found that it satisfied the parts of my brain that had been wanting Batman/Robin for a long, long time. Tim and Dick are, above all, monumentally fucked up in ways that have everything to do with having a secret identity and fighting crime. They obviously love each other, and were they to have sex, it would warp them even further, but doubtless in a fascinating direction.
I'm convinced! Now what?
Visit your friendly local comics store. Visit your library.
A Lonely Place of Dying - Tim's introductory arc.
Bruce Wayne: Murderer? and Bruce Wayne: Fugitive are excellent stories with copious Dick/Tim interaction.
Nightwing Trade Paperbacks -- particularly the one with issue #25.
For fannish behavior, there are no archives devoted to this pairing, but it shows up in a lot of other indices.
For fanfiction, check the DC Fic Index's memories, which has stories posted to LJ sorted by pairing, or the DC Slash Index, which has stories posted elsewhere.
For a wider DC Universe overview, hit the Newbie Guide.
DCU now has regular recommendations showing up on the livejournal community Crack Van. Here's the introduction to the fandom, and here's what's been recommended so far.
N. B.: I have one important caveat regarding Tim: the more you like him in fanfiction and the sorts of things you see here, the less likely you will be to enjoy the present run of Robin, from #120 to the current issue. This is because the present writer has, to all appearances, not read the previous issues, and therefore makes characterization mistakes quite frequently.
Similarly, there will be a highly promoted series coming out this summer called Batman and Robin All-Stars, written by Frank Miller, a well-recognized name as far as comic book authors go. It will be set in the past and have Dick as Robin, which sounds good, except that the last time Miller dealt with Dick, homophobic and ugly things happened.
Recommended stories
In present canon, Tim is 16 and Dick is somewhere between 22 and 25; thus, unless a story is marked as "future," it's safe to assume Tim is not yet an adult, although according to the laws of the state they theoretically inhabit, the relationship is legal. Also, note that these stories tend to contain content that may be disturbing to some readers.
More Than Two Men -- A theoretical future story. Derry's summary says it best: “Batman and Robin - always has been fucked up, always will be fucked up."
An unpretending time -- LC demonstrates just how twisted up both of these guys are with the other people in their lives, and how they can never really ignore those presences in their relationships.
Eidos -- Te's AU is a vision of just how far they'd go to help each other, if the other one needed them.
Waiting for you -- In the crossover event “Zero Hour," Tim is patrolling Gotham in his usual way when Dick at age 13 in Robin gear leaps into the fray. This is Te's take on what happens next. It plays with the normal dynamics of the pairing in a fascinating way.
Shades of Red -- Ruby's story is light-hearted, particularly by comparison to the above. It captures the feeling of camaraderie and collegiality nicely. It's worth noting that dressing Tim in drag is recent canon. Dick hasn't worn skirts in a long time.
How Much String is in the World.
Who Has It. -- Someinstant uses an amusing structure here to tell a short and sweet story with a different style of character development.
Sources of the images linked here: (Writer/Penciller)
A Lonely Place of Dying (Wolfman/Perez)
Young Justice: Secret Files & Origins (David/?), #22 (Dixon/Zircher)
Nightwing #6 (Dixon/McDaniel), #25 (Dixon/McDaniel), #69 (Dixon/Rosado)
Gotham Knights #1 (Grayson/Eaglesham), #9 (Grayson/Robinson), #26 (Grayson/Robinson)
Legends of the Dark Knight #120 (Rucka/?)
Robin #10 (Dixon/Grummett), #67 (Dixon/?)
Teen Titans (v3) #25 (Johns/Clark)
Author: Petra LeMaitre
Fandom: DC Comics / DCU
Pairing: Dick Grayson/Tim Drake (Nightwing/Robin III)
Spoilers: Through War Games and Identity Crisis, Teen Titans v3 #25
Regarding the images linked here: they come from various eras and are done by a wide array of artists and writers, so the quality of the artwork and coloring varies greatly. Also, many of the images are quite large, as I do not at present possess a decent image manipulation program. I provide them as supplementary data, rather than as the text of the manifesto. Please note that the image link marked with an asterisk is from an issue released in June 2005, so if you want to avoid spoilers, don't click that one.
The boys' history
Dick Grayson is the person nearly everyone thinks of when they think of Robin, though in comics continuity he outgrows the role (depending on the retcon of the moment, he either quits of his own accord or, as in the latest retcon, Batman fires him for his own protection). When he is no longer Robin, he becomes Nightwing and goes through a series of hideous costumes, as well as a long-term but ultimately doomed relationship with an alien princess who flies via the power of her amazing hair.
After Dick stops being Robin, Batman adopts a boy named Jason Todd, who then becomes Robin, though he is by no means the same sort of partner to Batman that Dick was. Jason is more impetuous than Dick was, and this gets him into terminal trouble with the Joker. After Jason's death, Batman is angry and reckless, and gets hurt a lot more. Dick is peripherally aware of this, though he is not working with Batman at the time. When Tim shows up at the circus and demands that Dick start being Robin again, Dick is surprised and unenthusiastic about the whole idea.
Tim Drake is a boy who happened to be at the circus on the day Dick Grayson's parents died. He meets and is impressed by Dick, and then, after tragedy strikes, by Batman. Years later, he is watching television, and he sees Robin doing a trick that only a few people in the world, including Dick, can do. According to comics logic, the next thing he does is stalk Batman and Robin for years, notwithstanding that he's only nine when he starts. When Jason dies and Batman goes crazier, Tim realizes there's something missing in his life. Dick, who is content as Nightwing and still angry at Batman, refuses to go back to being Robin. Tim, reasoning that “Batman needs a Robin... whatever he thinks he wants," takes on the infamous red, yellow, and green suit, though he sensibly adds tights.
As Tim, he dates a girl named Ariana for a while, but his duties as Robin make it impossible for him to maintain the relationship, and they part amicably. This is convenient for Tim, as there is a young, blonde vigilante in town who desperately wants to date Robin. After some flirting, he gives in, and they have a long, friendly, not terribly passionate relationship.
The boys in spandex
Dick's primary motivating force appears to be to give people what they need, starting with those closest to him -- Bruce, Tim, his sometime girlfriend and always friend Barbara. He has the flexibility necessary to literally bend over backward for them if it's what they require. In his childhood, he was a circus performer. When his parents died, he went on to do arguably bigger and better things, for which he received very little praise from Bruce and Alfred, his surrogate parents and primary caregivers. He needs people to need him, and when they don't acknowledge the amazing things he does for them, he assumes he's done something wrong and tries harder the next time.
Unlike Dick, Tim made himself Robin, a feat of great daring and willpower which he accomplished at the age of 13. He did it because he believed someone had to, and he was the only person who could see the need at the time. Dick will do anything for the people he loves; Tim will spend any amount of energy to figure out exactly what the people he loves need, and then do it. Along with being extremely thorough, Tim has something of a sense of humor; at the very least, he is a certifiable geek. He takes his girlfriends to science fiction movies and thinks about Robin things the whole time.
The boys together
For several years in comics time, Dick as Nightwing works in a city named Blüdhaven, whose chief feature is that it is even more unpleasant than the nearby notoriously awful Gotham. Tim, as one might expect of Robin, works in Gotham with Batman, though he makes the occasional surprise visit to Blüdhaven. Dick thinks of him more or less as a little brother -- which is, perhaps, problematic until one considers just what matters are between Dick and his "father" -- as described here by Dr. Strange, who has made a study of the matter and then stolen a Batsuit. Exactly what Tim thinks of Dick goes unarticulated. Though the hero-worship is clearly still present, it has grown more complicated over time.
When Tim visits Dick, they tend to hang out on rooftops, swing through the air, and trainsurf blindfolded. While they do this, they often talk about the many and often dangerous women in their already dangerous lives. For someone who thinks that these boys ought to hug each other, the litany of women is both complicated and reassuring; many of these women are more or less in the past by the time they discuss them, and Dick, at least, can hardly be described as stingy in his romantic attachments. It's also a sign that Tim remains aware of what Dick is doing, both professionally and romantically, even though he is in a different city.
On the occasions when Dick comes to Gotham - generally because something awful is happening, and Batman manages to admit he needs help - he generally takes time to check in with Tim, whether this means they play together in the halls of Wayne Tower, Bruce Wayne's other stronghold, or fight crime together. The tenor of Dick's interactions with Tim ranges from elder brotherly razzing to something a little more fraught, with the occasional detour into outright mutual admiration.
It would be impossible to deal with Dick and Tim's relationship without also discussing their respective relationships to Batman. In a storyline where Bruce Wayne is accused of murder, Dick is absolutely certain that Bruce would never, ever do such a thing. Tim, on the other hand, possesses no such certainty. This hurts Dick deeply, given that so much of his life's meaning has depended on trusting Batman's morality. When Bruce is proved innocent of the crime, there is no particular scene showing how Dick and Tim reconcile, though they have since interacted in a way that suggests they have done so. This tension also shows where their respective fixations lie: for Dick, it has always been about Batman, and always will be. Tim, on the other hand, saw Dick before he saw Batman, and followed Robin for years.
One telling storyline -- though one that is more or less eclipsed by recent upheavals -- involved a story in which Dick believed that the Joker had killed Tim. This made him angry enough to finally off the Joker, something that goes against the basic rules of Battishness. The Joker, as comic book villains are wont to do, got better, but the story remains.
Their connection does have some tenuous existence beyond their masked identities. At one point, Tim's father -- who has never been the most attentive parent -- says he can't make it to the Gotham Knights game, and Tim says blithely that that's okay, he'll just see if Dick can go. This doesn't come up very often, though, in part because Tim doesn't spend much time just being Tim. Dick has a job outside of being a vigilante; Tim seems to coast through high school on the force of his own dedication and exhaustion.
The boys at present -- Spoilers for recent issues
Dick has just gone through a truly miserable series of events, including losing the place where he lived in a fire and being dumped by his girlfriend. He has moved home to Gotham, leaving Blüdhaven to the present Robin and Batgirl. His current status is somewhat unclear, and will become more obvious in upcoming months.
Tim's dad made him stop being Robin, and his girlfriend took over. Then both his dad and his girlfriend died in the space of not much time at all, and Tim went back to the job. Now he is working in Blüdhaven, without Batman, and without much backup. He has recently lost his father -- his mother died years ago -- and his girlfriend of two years. At his last observed birthday, he is 16; he is more or less living on his own without visible means of support, though Batman -- being Bruce Wayne the billionaire -- funds what he needs.
Due to editorial decisions, Dick and Tim have only spent a little time together lately, and that was in the context of their respective teams working together. Dick calls Tim when he hears about Tim's dad, and Tim doesn't pick up. This is emblematic of the way they often work: Dick reaches out to someone who's hurt, and Tim hides his pain.
The boys in bed -- or, more likely, on rooftops
Tim has been fixated on, not to say obsessed with, Dick since he was quite young. It is easy for one inclined to slash to read that as something akin to a crush, muddled in with all the hero worship. Dick feels highly protective of Tim -- though not, of course, to the extent of stopping him from risking his life to fight crime.
As for them as a sexual or romantic pairing, it would be an absolute horror if it ever happened in canon. They both need years of therapy and some stability in their lives before they'd be able to have anything remotely resembling a healthy relationship. For example, take the case of Tim's last girlfriend, whom he dated for two years and never told his name. Dick's girlfriend, whom canon paints as 'the love of his life,' dumped him lately because he is becoming too distant and cold; too like Batman, in her words. Moreover, he was never able to convince her that he loved her for who she is now, and not who she was when they dated for the first time. Take into consideration that these are women they work with and love, and the lack in ability to achieve intimacy is quite apparent.
On the other hand, when these boys spend time together, they're able to talk about things with each other that no one else gets: Robin things, Batman-related issues, and the problems of sharing your life with someone who can't know both sides of your identity without being in danger.
This is not to say that no one writes them light stories with wild and exciting sex. Their lives are intertwined enough that they could easily have a brief, no-strings-attached affair without wounding each other unduly, and it might help them both feel more comfortable. Tim is very nearly incapable of relaxing at the best of times, but he'll do anything for Dick; Dick rarely tries to relax, and when things get really bad, he tends to get married, or at least that's what he's done the last three times in canon. As long as they kept it light enough, they'd be able to keep on as they are, pausing on the occasional gargoyle to snuggle.
On the other hand, there are those among us who like watching codependence in action, so long as it is safely fictional. If you, dear reader, are one of those people, have I got the pairing for you.
They love each other. They need each other. And if they get very close to each other, it's hard to figure out how they'd ever entirely untangle without breaking something. Tim's history and persona is already entirely bound up with Batman and Robin, particularly Robin. It's been about a decade of comics time -- sixty years of real time -- since Dick had much of a life outside of wearing spandex and kevlar at night, and when he's in trouble, he tends to have Robin hallucinations. They mean a lot in each other's lives, even though they don't spend much time together in the canon, and the roles they play are closely linked to their sense of honor and self-worth. It's hard to get very far into the Batman-family dynamics without hitting the difference between Nightwing and Dick or Tim and Robin, and exactly what it means to use each name.
Despite years of protestation from both of them, they have a potentially shared and terrifying mutual destiny. Neither of them wants* to be Batman, though they've both played the role briefly -- Dick in the 'Prodigal' storyline, and Tim in both 'Sins of Youth' and the dystopian 'Titans of Tomorrow.' It's not entirely clear which of them is expected to inherit it at this point, and it may come down to which of them is still standing when the necessity arises. Whatever happens, it's likely that they'll both be involved, and that it will not be a happy story.
Why my action figures are presently cuddling
I didn't like Robin, back when I watched Batman: The Animated Series as a kid, but I found Batman intriguing. Years later, I read The Brat Queen's essay on slash and realized she was absolutely right. Now I know what everyone who's ever made a joke about Batman and Robin knows: there's subtext in them thar hills.
What there wasn't enough of at the time -- a deficit that has not been rectified -- was Bruce/Dick on the web. Given that I didn't have the money to get into comics at the time, I let my sudden resurgence of interest fade. Last year, I read Derry's story More Than Two Men and found that it satisfied the parts of my brain that had been wanting Batman/Robin for a long, long time. Tim and Dick are, above all, monumentally fucked up in ways that have everything to do with having a secret identity and fighting crime. They obviously love each other, and were they to have sex, it would warp them even further, but doubtless in a fascinating direction.
I'm convinced! Now what?
Visit your friendly local comics store. Visit your library.
A Lonely Place of Dying - Tim's introductory arc.
Bruce Wayne: Murderer? and Bruce Wayne: Fugitive are excellent stories with copious Dick/Tim interaction.
Nightwing Trade Paperbacks -- particularly the one with issue #25.
For fannish behavior, there are no archives devoted to this pairing, but it shows up in a lot of other indices.
For fanfiction, check the DC Fic Index's memories, which has stories posted to LJ sorted by pairing, or the DC Slash Index, which has stories posted elsewhere.
For a wider DC Universe overview, hit the Newbie Guide.
DCU now has regular recommendations showing up on the livejournal community Crack Van. Here's the introduction to the fandom, and here's what's been recommended so far.
N. B.: I have one important caveat regarding Tim: the more you like him in fanfiction and the sorts of things you see here, the less likely you will be to enjoy the present run of Robin, from #120 to the current issue. This is because the present writer has, to all appearances, not read the previous issues, and therefore makes characterization mistakes quite frequently.
Similarly, there will be a highly promoted series coming out this summer called Batman and Robin All-Stars, written by Frank Miller, a well-recognized name as far as comic book authors go. It will be set in the past and have Dick as Robin, which sounds good, except that the last time Miller dealt with Dick, homophobic and ugly things happened.
Recommended stories
In present canon, Tim is 16 and Dick is somewhere between 22 and 25; thus, unless a story is marked as "future," it's safe to assume Tim is not yet an adult, although according to the laws of the state they theoretically inhabit, the relationship is legal. Also, note that these stories tend to contain content that may be disturbing to some readers.
More Than Two Men -- A theoretical future story. Derry's summary says it best: “Batman and Robin - always has been fucked up, always will be fucked up."
An unpretending time -- LC demonstrates just how twisted up both of these guys are with the other people in their lives, and how they can never really ignore those presences in their relationships.
Eidos -- Te's AU is a vision of just how far they'd go to help each other, if the other one needed them.
Waiting for you -- In the crossover event “Zero Hour," Tim is patrolling Gotham in his usual way when Dick at age 13 in Robin gear leaps into the fray. This is Te's take on what happens next. It plays with the normal dynamics of the pairing in a fascinating way.
Shades of Red -- Ruby's story is light-hearted, particularly by comparison to the above. It captures the feeling of camaraderie and collegiality nicely. It's worth noting that dressing Tim in drag is recent canon. Dick hasn't worn skirts in a long time.
How Much String is in the World.
Who Has It. -- Someinstant uses an amusing structure here to tell a short and sweet story with a different style of character development.
Sources of the images linked here: (Writer/Penciller)
A Lonely Place of Dying (Wolfman/Perez)
Young Justice: Secret Files & Origins (David/?), #22 (Dixon/Zircher)
Nightwing #6 (Dixon/McDaniel), #25 (Dixon/McDaniel), #69 (Dixon/Rosado)
Gotham Knights #1 (Grayson/Eaglesham), #9 (Grayson/Robinson), #26 (Grayson/Robinson)
Legends of the Dark Knight #120 (Rucka/?)
Robin #10 (Dixon/Grummett), #67 (Dixon/?)
Teen Titans (v3) #25 (Johns/Clark)