Work Text:
Ariana comes out wearing lingerie with her hair done up and makeup, and Tim’s brain sort of short-circuits for a few seconds.
“Ari, what – why?”
“You like girls, right?” And Ari’s just standing there, looking gorgeous but also kind of out of place and just. Ugh. Tim’s brain needs to reboot.
“I. Sometimes? Yes?”
“So I thought that we could.” There’s a little uncertain note in Ari’s voice. “You know.”
“Ari, we’re not even – “ What does she even say? It’s not like she wants to have Ariana pissed off at her for rejecting her sudden and totally-out-of-the-blue seduction attempt, but what the hell. “You get that this is totally out of nowhere, right?”
Ari sits down on the couch, all the nervous excitement draining out of her abruptly. “You don’t want me.”
“Oh my god.” Tim stares up at the ceiling for a few seconds, trying to figure out the one route out of this that ends in the least amount of hideous awkward or potential friendship-death. “Can we just start with why? You’ve never even – and now you’re trying to seduce me? Whatever happened to ‘hey, Tim, wanna date’?”
She glances back at Ari finally, who looks like she’s about to start crying. “I just wanted – I thought… with you. I feel safe with you.”
And Tim has the really, really awful feeling that this is about more than Ariana trying to feel out her sexuality. “Ari. This is about that thing, isn’t it? Whatever it was you didn’t want me to ask you about. Something happened.”
“I. I didn’t – “ Ariana buries her face in her hands, and Tim scoots closer. “I just, I went on a date with Jake. And. And he – I didn’t do anything, Tim, I swear. I wasn’t leading him on or anything, we were just talking. And then he was, he was so much stronger than me, and he wouldn’t listen. I just. I froze, I wanted it to be over so bad.”
No. Oh god no. “Ari, did.” She swallows. “Did he…?”
“It wasn’t my fault!”
Ari’s just, she’s shaking, and Tim doesn’t think about it, she just gets an arm around her friend and holds on tight. “Did you… Did you talk to the police or see a doctor or…?”
“He didn’t get that far,” Ariana says, and Tim feels like she might collapse with relief. Ari finally unburies her face and looks at Tim, tear tracks ruining the painstaking job she’d done on her makeup. “I was just so scared. I feel like… I still am, even though nothing happened. I thought – I thought maybe, if it was with you, if I brought it up, I wouldn’t be scared anymore.”
“Oh, Ari.” Tim gets both arms around her this time in a proper hug and holds on like she’s never going to let go. “I don’t want you to be scared. Okay? But this isn’t going to fix anything. If we did… I care about you a lot, Ari. I don’t want us to get messed up because of this. If we figure this out and you still want to be with me, then we’ll talk.”
Ari nods against Tim’s shoulder and stays quiet, and Tim’s okay with letting her stay where she is as long as she needs, even if a part of her is itching to go find Jake and make sure he understands that he doesn’t get to just have any girl he wants just cause he’s big enough to overpower them. They spend a few minutes like that before Ari finally wipes at her eyes and moves back. “I don’t. I don’t know what to do now.”
“Well.” Tim tries her best to smile. “I could go make popcorn and you could change into something more comfortable – uh, actually comfortable – and we could watch stupid sitcoms for a while.”
Ari smiles back weakly. “I’d like that.”
“Okay.” Tim grasps hold of her hand and squeezes. “Take your time. I’ll be here.”
Ariana starts to stand up, but pauses and looks back. “Tim, I just – “ After a second, she seems to come to a decision and leans forward to kiss Tim; tentatively at first, but gaining confidence after the first few seconds. Tim freezes for a moment, unsure if this is a good idea or if Ari’s still too freaked out to be making good decisions, before curling her hand against the back of Ari’s neck and kissing back.
The door opens.
“What the hell is going on here?!”
Ari turns white as a sheet, and her aunt is frozen in place, not looking much better. “Aunt Natty – Uncle Vari?”
Uncle Vari’s voice is low and furious. “This is what you and your friend do, Ariana? Spit on the face of God?”
Tim thinks she loses a few shades of skin color. “Mr. Dzerchenko – this isn’t what it looks like – “
“Really, Timothea Drake? Because it looks like you are alone with my niece and she is wearing barely any clothes. ”
Ari’s crying again. “Uncle Vari.”
“I do not want to hurt you, but you come to my house and you turn my niece into a, a dyke – “
“Mr. Dzerchenko, please, you need to calm down.” He’s rolling up his sleeves, hands clenching into fists, and she knows, she knows that there is nothing she can say to defuse this situation.
“LEAVE MY HOUSE!” The words are an almost inhuman roar coming out of him, and Tim just reacts, grabs Ari’s hand and drags them both over the back of the couch. Aunt Natty cries out as Uncle Vari starts forward, and her training takes over, shielding the civilian – Ari – while she tries to figure out how to maneuver them around Vari and Natty and out the door. Vari swipes at her and knocks over a table with a lamp on it instead, and Tim dives to the other side of the room, keeping herself between Uncle Vari and Ariana.
“I let you into my house, and you use this to ruin her!”
Ari almost crumples, looking hurt and shocked like Uncle Vari punched her in the gut, but they don’t have time. Tim throws an arm around Ari and physically lifts her, dodging around Uncle Vari towards the door. She knocks some magazines off the table on the way so that he trips on them, losing his balance. It’s enough time for them to get out the door. Tim practically shoves Ari into the passenger’s seat of the Redbird before getting in herself. Ari’s hands are shaking too bad to work the seatbelt, so Tim reaches over and buckles her in before slamming the car into gear and driving away as fast she can safely manage.
“Tim, I don’t… I don’t know what to…”
She can’t look. She can’t look at Ari right now, because if she looks, she knows what she’s going to see: Ari, who can’t stop crying, whose uncle just turned into something terrifying in front of her, who needs Tim to be the strong one right now. The one who knows what to do. And the thing is, Tim’s just as terrified as she is, because this isn’t something Robin can fight. This isn’t something she can fix, this might not even be something that can be fixed. All she can do is grip the wheel hard and focus on driving. “I know, Ari.”
She keeps driving until she’s pretty sure Uncle Vari and Aunt Matty aren’t following in their car. Then she pulls over to the side of the road and tries to figure out what the hell they should do now. Ari’s stopped crying, but she’s still white-faced and shaking. Her dad and Mrs. Mac are out of the country, but her house is probably the first place Uncle Vari would look for them.
She could go to Bruce, but she can’t stomach the idea of bringing her other life quite so close. So she goes with the next best thing.
Dick picks up on the third ring. “Hey, Tim. What’s up?”
“Dick.” She stares out the windshield. It’s starting to rain a little. “If you’re secretly crazy-homophobic, I need you to tell me now.”
“What?”
“Just tell me. Please,” Tim says, and she hates the way her voice breaks on please.
“God, of course I’m not. Tim, what’s going on? What happened?”
“I think. I’m coming over? And I’m bringing someone with me.”
“I’ll be here. Are you… are you okay? Is your friend okay?”
“No,” she says, and then she can’t think where to start. They’re just. Not.
“Do you need to go to a hospital first? I could meet you there. Do you need me to come pick you up?”
She shakes her head before remembering that he can’t see her over the phone. “No, we’re… we’re not injured.”
“Do you want me to pick you up? Can I come pick you up?”
She takes a few deep breaths, lets her head rest against the back of the seat. “Okay.”
“Okay. Good. That’s good. Just tell me where you are, and I’ll be there as soon as I can.”
The car gets quiet while they wait. Ari tries to say something a few times, but all either of them can quite manage are halting statements. After a little while, Tim goes digging in the back of her car for a spare shirt and some jeans Ari can put on over her slip, but that’s about the best they manage until Dick shows up.
Tim can’t really imagine what they look like, but Dick pulls her into a hug pretty much as soon as she’s got the car door open. By the time he’s willing to let her go, Ari’s standing awkwardly a few feet away. Dick takes one look at her and sweeps her into a hug, too.
He has Ari safely settled in his car before pulling Tim aside. “You know I need to know what happened, right?”
She tries, she really does, to think of it like a Robin report, line up the facts and make sure all the important details are there. “I don’t. Her uncle was really angry.”
His hand finds her shoulder and squeezes. “Angry about what?”
And. Her brain just stutters, because she didn’t want – this isn’t the conversation she wanted to have. She stares at him helplessly, and he pulls her into a hug again.
“Okay. We can come back to that later. I know I asked this before, but did he hurt either of you?”
“No,” she says, and he barely has time to look relieved before she adds, “But I think – he would have. If I wasn’t.” If she wasn’t Robin. Uncle Vari is a large man, and they were two teenage girls, and he was really angry.
Dick sucks in a breath and shuts his eyes for a second. “I’m going to have to report this.”
There’s a tightness in her chest because this has gotten so far away from her already, but if CPS gets involved it’s going to be so much worse. “Dick, no – “
“I’m actually legally obligated to. Hey,” he says, “I’d say trust the system, but we both know that won’t get you anywhere in this city. So trust me. There’s good people out there, and I’m going to makes sure this gets to one of them. Okay?”
It’s stupid to ask, because she doesn’t have a choice in the matter, but she nods a little, anyway.
“Okay.” The smile he gives her is nowhere near his usual level of brightness, but it’s kind of comforting all the same.
Tim’s just about to get in his car when she realizes she’s about to leave the Redbird on the side of the road. She looks back. “What about – “
“Auto-navigation systems. O will make sure it gets home – I already talked to her.” His smile softens a touch. “Like I said. Trust me. Okay?”
“Okay.”