Recorders and reporters - DCU story, Tim vs. the World

[petra]

Title: Recorders and reporters
Fandom: DCU (Pre-Robin #116)
Summary: The time Tim wakes up straight.
Rating: All ages
Notes: Apparently Te is good for my writing habit. Thanks to brown_betty for encouraging this in the first place, and to katarik for beta reading.


"Status," Batman says, when Hugo Strange is back in Arkham and they're safely in the Batmobile.

"Whatever his ray was supposed to do, it seems to have failed." Tim shrugs. "I feel perfectly fine."

Batman nods. "Report any changes to me immediately."

"Of course."

*

The most disconcerting facet of the first day is Dana's breasts. Tim had never noticed them before, and he never wants to notice them again, but they're right there over breakfast.

He has no one to share this observation with, nor the concurrent one that Bill S. Preston, Esquire is suddenly a much more sympathetic character in this regard.

High school is even more full of bosoms, but it's much more comforting to notice them, in all their shapely sizes, than it is to be aware of Dana's.

*

Blüdhaven is a welcome break after a hard Friday of girls' torsos. Sleeping over there will also mean Tim doesn't have to deal with Dana for several days.

He's almost positive that his new awareness has to do with Strange, but he's also certain that the curves around him have been there for years, and that it is not out of the ordinary to be aware of them.

He doesn't mention it to Dick; Dick has lived with Starfire and knows more than enough about women's breasts.

When they hit the rooftops, Dick tousles Tim's hair and settles in for the stake-out with his arm around Tim's shoulders.

Five minutes in, Tim asks, "Nightwing?" in the tone of voice that means, "Dick?"

"Yeah, little brother?"

"Batman told you we fought Strange last night --"

"Sure." Dick gives him a squeeze. "Are you feeling aftereffects? Need to sit down?"

The answer to the first question is yes, but they're difficult to quantify. "No, I -- you always did treat me this way."

Dick frowns and turns Tim to face him, gang meetup be damned. "Well, yeah."

Tim bites his lip. "Do you flirt this much with everyone?"

"Do I what?" Dick laughs and punches him in the shoulder. "I'm not flirting. I mean -- no."

Tim raises his eyebrow at Dick. "Hm."

Dick splutters. "This -- I'm not flirting with you, Robin." His voice gets practically Batmanesque. "If you need space --"

"It's fine." Tim shrugs, but Dick's already ten feet away. "I never registered it consciously before, that's all."

"Sorry," Dick says.

He doesn't say anything else for the next ten minutes, which is long enough for Tim to get up the gumption to go squeeze Dick's shoulder. "It's really okay."

Dick doesn't immediately grab him in a headlock, and Tim starts to worry. "I wasn't --" Dick says.

Tim says, "I know. I was -- teasing."

It sounds off to him, but it's enough to get him a reassuring noogie. "Okay, Robin," Dick says, "we'd better get down to business."

*

There's a certain incongruity in the calendar on the wall in Dick's kitchen. The photos of Kory Anders belong either in a machine shop or an exhibit on xenophilia.

The notes she has written on various days, in a rounded hand -- "Garfield's birthday," "Donna's anniversary -- we should call her," and the like -- underscore how mundane the gift is for Dick, whose notes in this vein are written in one of the shorthands Bruce invented.

The single notation of "Terra" on a particular week holds Tim's attention long enough that Dick notices, and winks. "Got a crush, Timmy?"

"No," Tim says, reflexively, and then he looks at Kory, no more undressed than the last time he saw her in combat, and his spine tingles. "Um."

Dick chuckles. "Really."

Tim makes himself decode one of the shorthand notes, even though he knows from the date that it's Alfred's birthday. "I --didn't have a crush on her last week."

That gets Dick's attention off of laughing at him, at least. "Puppy love, or Doc Strange?"

Tim can feel himself blushing. "She's an incredible warrior. But, in this case, I think I'll credit Strange."

Dick raises his eyebrows. "What'd he do to you?"

"A ray." Tim looks away from Dick, then away from Kory's breasts. There's a blank patch of wall that's easier to focus on than either. "It's possible that it's augmenting my hormone levels, or -- that it shifted my orientation."

There's a beat of nothing, and then Dick hugs him. "It'll all be okay, bro. I love you even if you're -- what are you feeling, anyway?"

Considerably less interested in Dick's physical overtures. "Heterosexual, I think."

"Ah." Dick thumps him on the shoulder and lets him go. "Which explains your sudden interest in Kory, but not your girlfriend."

Tim avoids looking at his face. There are things about Steph, and how he feels about Steph, that he doesn't want to put into words, even around Dick. "It's entirely possible that I was bisexual before."

"If Strange has a sexuality-switching ray, he's going to make some very unhappy people happy." Dick shakes his head. "Though there are a lot of people who could stand a dose of it, just for perspective."

"The ray was smashed. Also, it could just be hormonal," Tim says, but even as he offers this explanation, he doesn't believe it.

"Sure." Dick vaults over the couch and grabs Tim's knapsack. "You ready to go?"

Tim nods. "Any time."

The ride back on Dick's bike is less comfortable than usual.

Tim spends the parts of it when they're not talking about the Titans trying to work out how to explain this to Bruce without embarrassing himself unduly.

*

"I suspect that Strange's ray had an effect after all," Tim says in the next minimally monitored conversation he manages to have with Bruce. The fact that it's three-fifty-two in the morning and that they're both in the shower is just incidental to the point of the conversation.

"Hm." Bruce adjusts the temperature slightly. "Such as?"

"It seems to have changed my sexual orientation," Tim says, as calmly as he can manage.

Bruce's glance at him is disconcerting for a heartbeat, and then, just as suddenly, it is not. "I see. He may be able to reconstruct the plans." The ray itself is in smithereens, but Bruce doesn't need to remind him of that. "Is the change uncomfortable?"

"Disorienting," Tim says. "If he's able to reconstruct the plans, perhaps I'll make a prototype."

Bruce raises his eyebrow. "Perhaps?"

Tim shrugs and turns off the water. "It's not an unpleasant change."

He leaves before Bruce says anything more. It is very late, and he needs to get home.

*

"R," Oracle says in his ear the next night, "step into my casbah."

"In twelve blocks," Tim answers, and two averted muggings later, he lands in the Clocktower.

Barbara has apparently been installing new servers; it is extremely warm. The heat doesn't get any better when he sees her eminently practical and ever so cleavage-enhancing sports bra.

He's spent some time wondering quite why Batgirl was as much of an attraction to his previous self as she was, given the obvious impediments to her charm for him, and has come to the conclusion that she shares certain traits with various divas. Her present charm for him, however, leaves him no need to contemplate.

From the grin on her face -- when he finally looks at it -- she knows exactly why he's pulling his cape closed. "I had a question for you."

Tim keeps his eyes firmly fixed on hers -- have they always been so startlingly green? -- and raises an eyebrow under the mask. "Yes?"

"Cassandra's going undercover tomorrow, and I need an opinion from someone who's up on modern teen fashion." She glances over his shoulder as his stomach drops in dread. Perhaps it feels the need to counterbalance other portions of his anatomy. "Cass?"

Tim can't stop himself from turning to look, even as Barbara says, "Sure, the underwear companies hype the appeal of matching underwear and bras, but I just don't see it."

He manages -- after an eternity of skin and scars and scraps of satin -- to look at Batgirl's face. "It doesn't matter." He sounds like someone who's not paying any attention to what he's saying. "At -- I have to go."

Barbara's laughter follows him out the window, as does Cassandra's.

Oracle is mercifully silent for the rest of the night.

*

"Hey, sweetie." Steph lifts her cowl enough to give him a kiss, then peels it off to give him a once-over. "Um, did you change your uniform -- oh god."

Tim blushes and steps back into the shadows. "Sorry."

"I -- god, I wasn't thinking. You just never -- um."

Her cheeks are always this rosy when she's been out on the town, but he's never wanted to kiss her quite so badly. The feeling is comfortingly reminiscent of the previously nameless yearning he used to feel when Dick jumped off of a building or knocked him down, or when Kon said the phrase "tactile telekinesis" for the fifth time in half an hour.

Neither Kon nor Dick would react poorly to being kissed. Neither would Steph.

Tim shrugs and essays a brief smile. "You're attractive."

She frowns at him for a moment, then grins. "You feeling okay?"

"I'm fine, yes," he says, and then kisses her.

Strange's ray's effects are, in the end, entirely negligible.

Comments

[petronelle.livejournal.com]

One of the things I have always loved about the conception of Tim that I believe in is how much he has to consider everything, and how much he does.

He had had suspicions that he wasn't straight, but there was no particular need to spend time worrying about it until the matter came to a head, as it were.

The question of what exactly Strange's ray would do to Bruce hasn't yet occurred to Tim, here, though I've pondered the concept.

Babs is very mean and enjoys watching Tim blush madly.

I'm glad that phrase worked for you. I enjoyed it, and was marginally afraid that it ought to have fallen into the 'kill your darlings' pile.

If Tim were to zap Babs with the ray, Dinah would be the only one whose life changed significantly. Kinsey 2 to Kinsey 4, I'd bet.

Thanks for the lovely feedback.