Chapter Text
The first thing Tim notices about the man in the back booth is that he doesn’t clap. Everyone else does. The Narrows lounge isn’t classy; sticky floors, velvet seats gone threadbare, a pianist who’s older than most of the city’s grudges. but Jackie Malone plays it like Carnegie Hall. He croons into the mic with a crooked grin and a voice dipped in honeyed smoke.
He knows how to sell longing. It helps when you live with it. The crowd hums along with the last note of the set, glasses clink, someone whistles. Jackie dips into a shallow bow, all loose shoulders and easy charm. But his eyes flick once, just once, toward the back booth. The man there sits half in shadow, cheap suit, loud tie, grease in his hair, and a toothpick rolling slow between his teeth. Matches Malone. Except, not quite. Jackie finishes the song without missing a beat.
Backstage is barely a hallway and a cracked mirror. Tim wipes sweat from his neck, adjusts the tie, checks the small blade strapped to his forearm out of habit. He doesn’t leave immediately. No, instead, he counts. Three… two…
The hallway door creaks. Footsteps. Heavy, deliberate, unhurried.
“Hell of a voice ya got,” the man drawls. Tim looks up into the mirror first.
Matches Malone grins at him through nicotine-stained teeth. But the eyes? The eyes are wrong. Too sharp and controlled. Too familiar. Tim turns slowly, smile already in place.
“Buy you a drink?” Jackie offers lightly. “Tips are better when the flattery’s upfront.” Matches leans against the wall like he owns it.
“Don’t drink on the job,” he says. “Makes ya sloppy.”
“You here to critique my life choices or enjoy the show?” Tim tilts his head.
A pause.
“I’m here lookin’ for someone,” Matches says.
“Lot of someone’s in Gotham.” Tim shrugs.
“This one sings when he’s tryin’ not to think.”
That lands. Tim keeps smiling.
“Buddy,” he says gently, “I just work here.”
Matches pushes off the wall and steps closer. Not threatening. Not crowding. Just close enough that the space between them feels charged.
“You always pick places with bad exits,” he murmurs, voice losing some of its exaggerated slur. “Too many choke points.”
Tim’s pulse spikes, traitorous and involuntary.
“You got a thing for exits?” he shoots back.
“Yeah.”
The accent slips further.
“Ever since my partner started disappearing.”
The word hits harder than any punch. Partner.
Not soldier, not replacement, not liability. Partner. Tim’s jaw tightens.
“You’re mistaken,” he says evenly. “Name’s Jackie.” Matches studies him for a long, silent moment. Then, deliberately, Bruce Wayne drops the act. Not the greasepaint, just the posture. The slouch straightens, the eyes settle, and the room shifts.
“You changed your breathing pattern,” Bruce says quietly. “You lower your centre of gravity before you lie.”
Tim’s laugh is brittle. “You travelled through time and that’s what you came back with?”
“I came back with perspective.”
The words aren’t defensive. They’re tired. Tim looks at him properly now. At the faint new scars along his knuckles, at the heaviness in his shoulders. At the way he’s standing like he expects Tim to bolt. He probably would have a week ago.
“You don’t get to just show up,” Tim says softly. The smile is gone. “You don’t get to die, and leave everything in pieces, and then, what? Slide into a booth and watch like it’s a stakeout?”
Bruce doesn’t interrupt.
“I thought you were gone,” Tim continues. “I searched for you. I rebuilt everything from scratch. I held it together. And when I couldn’t-”
His voice falters, just barely. Bruce steps closer. Careful and measured.
“I know.”
“You don’t.”
“I do.”
There’s something in Bruce’s voice Tim hasn’t heard before. Not authority, not certainty. Regret.
Silence stretches between them, thick with smoke and history. From the main room, the pianist starts another tune; slow and melancholic. Bruce glances toward the stage.
“You’re good,” he says. “Better than before.” Tim blinks. That wasn’t what he expected.
“Time traveller critiques my lounge act,” he mutters. “That’s new.”
Bruce’s mouth twitches. Almost a smile.
“I watched the whole set.”
“I know.”
Bruce’s eyes flick up sharply.
“You stopped scanning the room halfway through the second song,” Tim says. “You only do that when you’re sure there’s no immediate threat.”
A beat.
“Your tells are still there too.”
Something like pride warms Bruce’s gaze. They stand there, two men pretending they aren’t exactly what the other needs.
“I didn’t tell the others,” Bruce says quietly. “That I thought you might be here.”
Tim frowns. “Why?”
“Because this is where you’d go when you needed to think,” Bruce answers. “Somewhere loud enough to drown it out. Somewhere broken enough to feel honest.”
That hits too close.
“You don’t get to know me like that,” Tim says.
Bruce’s voice drops.
“I always have.”
The air between them crackles; anger, grief, something dangerously close to relief.
“You replaced me,” Tim says finally. Not accusatory this time, just tired. Bruce’s expression doesn’t harden.
“I failed you,” he says instead.
Tim inhales sharply. It would’ve been easier if Bruce argued. It would’ve been easier if he ordered him home. Instead-
“You don’t have to come back tonight,” Bruce says. “Or tomorrow.”
Tim looks up, startled.
“But I will,” Bruce continues. “I’ll sit in that booth. I’ll listen. And when you’re ready, we’ll talk.”
It wasn't a command, or a plea. It was a certainty. Sirens wail faintly in the distance, as Tim studies the greasepaint, the cheap suit, the man underneath both of them.
“You’re terrible at staying dead,” Tim mutters.
Bruce’s eyes soften.
“So are you.”
From the stage, someone calls, “Jackie! You’re up!”
Tim doesn’t look away from Bruce.
“You going to clap this time?” he asks quietly.
Bruce nods once.
“Yeah.”
Tim steps past him, shoulder brushing shoulder. The contact is brief. Electric.
When he walks back onto the stage, the lights catch his face just right. Jackie Malone grins at the crowd. The second set ends softer. Jackie lets the last note stretch until it’s almost too much. The room exhales with him, low applause, murmured appreciation, the soft scrape of glasses across wood. In the back booth, Matches Malone leans into shadow. And when the song ends, he claps.
Tim notices. Of course he does. He steps offstage slower this time. Not fleeing. Not hiding. Just, aware. He approaches the booth like it’s any other table.
“You stay for the sad ones or the cheap whiskey?” Jackie asks lightly, sliding into the seat opposite.
Bruce leans back, all grease and shadow. “Depends who’s pourin’.”
Tim hums noncommittally. And then, a vibration. Bruce’s hand stills inside his jacket. Tim’s eyes drop instantly. Bruce considers ignoring it. It vibrates again. He exhales quietly and pulls the burner free. The screen lights his face for a split second.
D.
Tim looks away first. Bruce answers.
“Yeah.”
There’s no greeting on the other end. Just tension.
“Are you out?” Dick asks.
“Yes.”
A pause.
“You’re not at the cave.”
“No.”
Another pause, longer this time.
“I ran patrol twice,” Dick says carefully. “Checked the usual places.”
Bruce doesn’t respond and the silence stretches thin.
“You found something,” Dick tries.
Bruce’s gaze lifts to Tim. Tim’s pulse jumps, traitorous.
“I’m handling it,” Bruce says.
The bar noise swells around them. Someone laughs too loud. The pianist hits a wrong key.
On the other end, Dick’s voice lowers.
“…Is he safe?”
Not 'did you find him?', not 'where is he?', just that. Tim’s fingers curl against the edge of the table. Bruce answers without hesitation.
“Yes.”
The breath that leaves the speaker is almost imperceptible.
“Okay,” Dick says.
Just that. It carries relief, and frustration, and something close to helplessness.
“He doesn’t want to be found,” Bruce adds quietly.
Tim’s head snaps up. Dick absorbs that, there’s a soft thud on his end, like he leaned back against something.
“I figured,” he admits.
Another beat of silence.
“Just, tell him,” Dick starts, then stops.
Tim’s chest tightens.
“Tell him he doesn’t have to decide everything at once,” Dick finishes instead. “And that the cave’s still there.”
Bruce studies Tim as he says it. Tim keeps his face blank.
“And you?” Bruce asks.
A faint, humourless huff.
“I’m fine,” Dick says automatically.
Bruce doesn’t call him on it. There’s a small shift in Dick’s tone, quieter now.
“Bruce.”
“Yes.”
“If you see him.”
Bruce waits.
“…Don’t push.”
The words aren’t accusatory. They’re careful, almost pleading.
Bruce’s jaw tightens. “I won’t.”
Silence again.
“I’ll cover patrol,” Dick says after a moment. “Just, let me know when,”
He cuts himself off.
“If he wants to,” he amends.
“I will,” Bruce says.
The line clicks dead. Bruce lowers the phone slowly and the booth feels heavier somehow. Tim stares at the condensation sliding down the untouched whiskey glass.
“He shouldn’t be looking,” Tim says finally.
Bruce doesn’t pretend not to understand.
“He’s worried.”
“He doesn’t need to be.”
“He is.”
That hangs between them. Tim exhales through his nose.
“He sounds tired.”
Bruce’s voice is quiet.
“He is.”
A flicker of guilt passes over Tim’s expression before he can smother it, Bruce notices. Of course he does.
“He didn’t ask where you were,” Bruce adds.
Tim’s eyes lift sharply.
“He asked if you were safe.”
The smallest crack forms in Tim’s composure, he swallows it down.
“I am.”
“I know.”
A long, weighted pause. Bruce leans forward slightly; not crowding, not commanding.
“Do you want me to tell him anything?” he asks.
Not 'should I?', not 'what do you want me to say?'.
Tim considers it as the stage manager calls faintly from across the room, “Jackie! Last set!”
He doesn’t move yet.
“…Tell him,” Tim says carefully, “that I’m working on it.”
Bruce nods once.
“I will.”
Another pause.
“And tell him,” Tim adds, voice lower now, “not to cover my patrol routes.”
Bruce’s eyes soften almost imperceptibly.
“He hasn’t stopped.”
Tim’s breath falters. The music swells again, filling the space before it can fracture further and Tim stands.
“You’re staying?” he asks.
“Yes.”
Tim nods once. No arguments, no ultimatums, no dragging him home, just presence. He steps back toward the stage lights, slipping Jackie Malone’s smile back into place like armor. Behind him, in the booth at the back, Matches Malone watches. When Tim sings again, Bruce doesn’t look at the stage like he’s assessing a variable. He looks like a man who found something he thought he’d lost.