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flyingkiki · 2 years

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We Played Dangerously (5/?)

"I think some things (never) change"

I know a lot of you have been asking what happened between our favorite little TimRae birbs.

Well, here we are. We're slowing unpacking things. Slowly, I'd like to unravel this painstakingly slowly (I'm sorry!!) and put things into light little by little. Some things need to be drawn out, with the amount of history between these two. But today's chapter should cast a little light on things.

Here's Chapter 4

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Present Day, Gotham

Tam was furious when he told her to take all his calls just as he stepped out of his office for lunch. He wasn’t sure when he’d be back – or if he’d be back at the office later. He told her he’d work from home, if his schedule changed. (Was he hoping his schedule would change?) But Tim had promised an exasperated Tam that, yes, he’d go through the Tokyo contracts, and, yes, the budget would be signed by tomorrow afternoon. Yes, he really was going out for lunch and not slipping into tight fitting kevlar in the middle of the day.

Though all in all, despite his intelligence, Tim slowly started to doubt his lunch plans. He stared at Gotham Library with uncertainty growing heavily in the pit of his stomach. It was a terrible idea, he knew. But, when did a terrible idea ever stop him? God, he was on the edge.

It’s been a few days since his visit (break-in) at Raven’s apartment. For whatever reason, his nerves were killing him. He was unsettled. God, perhaps Jason was right – he needed to lay off the caffeine for a bit.

Sighing softly, Tim stepped out of his car and hurried up the old library steps before he would lose his resolve. He waved at the surprised receptionist in the lobby, not really bothering to stop to talk to her. Instead, he flashed her a patented Wayne smile, which seemed to do the trick and the flustered woman waved him along as he continued heading towards the third floor of the library where he knew the laboratory and conservation department was located.

Stepping through the large white doors and into the department, Tim briefly took in a spacious room with high ceilings and big tables with an array of books, equipment, and documents. Soft jazz music filled the air and he could see people’s heads move from the glass window that divided the main room from the main entryway.

The sole occupant in the room was a young woman with a Gotham University ID strap around her neck, the same one who pulled Rachel aside during that night at the gala. She was hunched over an old piece of parchment, busy dabbing away on the paper with a cotton swab.

“I’m looking for Rachel Roth,” Tim said, approaching the young woman.

The young woman hummed, not bothering to look up, too engrossed in whatever she was doing. Tim curiously stared at how she swiped the cotton swab across the edge of the frayed paper, silently wondering what that achieved. “I think she’s inside,” the young woman said.

Tim tilted his head curiously to the side and smiled in amusement. “Do you think I could see her?”

“Eh, do you have an appoi– OH,” Tim watched in mild amusement as the brunette blinked momentarily, staring up at him like he had grown a second head. He supposed he did stand out in his business suit. He smiled kindly at the woman, tilting his head ever so lightly for her to continue. “Mr. Wayne,” she breathed, staring at him.

“Hi,” he chuckled. When that didn’t get the response he hoped for, he offered her one of his smiles that usually helped close business deals. “I’m looking for Rachel?”

“Oh, yes!” the woman pushed herself away from the table, rolling her swivel chair away with a bit more force than necessary. “She’s in the main lab,” she said and stood up abruptly, ponytail aggressively swishing behind her. “I’ll take you to her,”

Tim smiled. “Thank you,”

“My name’s Alice, I’m a junior at GU majoring in Conservation Science with a minor in literature,” babbled the brunette, Alice, as they walked down the large hallway. Tim nodded politely, listening to her talk while curiously peeking into some of the rooms they passed.

“Here we are,” Alice directed to the large two-door entryway. “This is our main lab where we do most of our paper conservation work. The other labs are for art,” she explained, though Tim was barely interested. Through the glass panels, he could see Raven’s black hair and he was immediately reminded of his nerves as they leapt briefly.

“Yeah, it definitely looks glued together. Let’s look at what kind of glue they used or if we can get the compounds? That way we can find ways to remove the glue and separate all these sheets,” Tim watched Raven talk to a small group as they were leaning over a large scroll that lay on the huge white lab table. She held what looked like a scalpel close to the old paper, gently nudging at where the sheets were glued together. “Once that’s done, let’s study if we can give the paper a rinse and stop the acid from decomposing the paper.”

For a moment, Tim just stared from his spot in the doorway, taking in Raven’s blue dress and heels and the curious expression that crossed her face. A few strands of hair fell into her eyes as she turned and listened to one of her colleagues and everyone shared a laugh. He felt the oddly familiar way his stomach flipped, watching the smile dance across her lips – a rare sight he often enjoyed for himself. And it struck him how in her element Raven was.

Tim felt his breath catch. Just as Alice was about to announce their arrival and butt into the group’s conservation, Raven looked up and locked eyes with him. Of course, she must have sensed him as he stepped into the room. Surprise flickered in her blue eyes as she stared at him.

“Hi, sorry, to bother,” Alice next to him, smiling apologetically at the group. “Rachel? Eh, you have a guest?” She tilted her head towards Tim, not so subtly nudging her head his way and raising her eyebrows warningly.

“Mr. Wayne,” Raven breathed, a small smile played on her lips as she straightened and she schooled her face, slipping into Rachel Roth with ease.

"Hi, Ms. Roth," the formalities felt odd, grating against his lips, but Tim played along expertly and he smiled at her. He watched her stare at him, as if trying to figure out what he was doing here.

"What a surprise," she said, still staring at him as if trying to read him. Tim knew that look well, her blue eyes searching his face as if trying to find answers.

"Our meeting?" He lied, tilting his head ever so lightly and smiling at her. He watched her blink, a look of sheepish surprise crossing her face. Tim had to fight from smiling broader, watching Raven look sheepish, albeit fake, was always amusing.

“Right, my apologies,” she said. Glancing briefly at her colleagues, she nodded her head. “I think we’re good? I’ll be back later to help out. Hopefully we'll know the compounds by then.” she said before turning back to Tim and offering him a calculating gaze.

“Right. Let’s go to my office, Mr. Wayne,” Raven said, sparing him a brief glance and smile, before walking past him and through the doors of the lab. Tim followed her silently, listening to the rhythmic clicking of her heels against the tiled floor.

Tim spared her a glance, staring at the telltale signs of Raven’s mild confusion as her eyebrows barely drew in and her lips were pressed into a tight smile.

They stepped into her small office at the end of the hallway. It was bare, but tastefully decorated with a few plants and paintings. A standard desk with an obscenely large computer screen was set up close to one of the small windows. Tim could barely see one of the ugly stone gargoyles that were perched by the library entrance from her window.

Once the door was safely closed, Raven whirled around and sent him a confused look. “What are you doing here?” she asked, eyebrows drawn in utter confusion. Arms crossed, she studied Tim. “Do you need help with something?” She paused and looked over his shoulder. “With a case?”

Tim released a soft chuckle, unbuttoned his suit jacket and eased himself, uninvited, into her rather uncomfortable chair reserved for guests. The upholstery was old and uncomfortable and Tim wondered just for how long the chair had been in circulation. “Er, no,” he smiled sheepishly up at her, mildly amused at the sight of her drawn eyebrows. “I was wondering if you’d like lunch?”

Raven looked surprised and she gingerly stepped closer to the edge of her desk to sit down, presumably to digest what he just had said. “Lunch?” she repeated, arms still folded across her chest as if defensively. Tim thought that it was odd to see Raven this way – heels and business-like, and just edging on cautious.

“Yeah, you know. Something you eat sometime around 2-ish or so,” he explained, tilting his head just a little to throw a teasing smile at her.

The corner of her lips curled into a familiar amused smile and she uncrossed her arms, allowing them to rest on either side of her hips and gently grab the edge of her desk as she sat up and leaned towards him just a little bit. She narrowed her eyes and caught his amused stare. “Look at you, telling me to go have lunch. Who are you and what have you done with Tim Drake-Wayne,” she said, a teasing lilt in her voice.

There she was. Tim beamed, catching a brief glimpse of the Raven he remembered from years ago. His chest tightened at the memory of her and he quickly dismissed it. “I’m a changed man,” he told her.

Raven rolled her eyes and crossed her legs by her ankles, getting comfortable on her perch. “I doubt that,” she said, an air of finality in her voice that carried more than it intended to. They shared a brief glance before she huffed and shook her head. “Also, normal people have lunch at 12 noon, not ‘around 2-ish or so,’” she told him.

Tim shrugged. “So my timing needs a bit of work,” he said defensively. He stared at her, expectantly waiting for her reply. Silently wondering if she’d agree. Surely she wouldn’t say no to a friend, right? “So, lunch?”

“It’s quarter to two,” Raven deadpanned.

Tim wrinkled his nose. “Time is irrelevant,”

Raven made a face. “I’d like to think timing meals is important to avoid ulcers and other complications,” she countered.

Tim blinked, staring up at her amused expression and for a brief moment, he was reminded of their younger versions and their endless banter. Before he could allow himself to tumble headfirst into old memories, logical Tim laughed and forced himself to look at the much older version of the Raven he once knew. “Okay, you got me. My lunch game still needs work,”

Raven released a soft huff of laughter. “It’s vastly improved,” she assured him.

“So, is that a yes?” Tim asked.

Raven eyed him as she looked torn for a moment, her gaze drifting towards her office door briefly, without a doubt thinking of her team and her work. Her gaze settled back at him, an unreadable expression crossing her face as she sighed and pulled herself up on her feet. “Fine, but you better think of an excuse for my team,” she told him.

He shouldn’t have felt as excited as he was, but Tim thought it was alright considering they had not seen each other in years. Catching up was in order. Buttoning up his suit as he stood up, he threw her a winning Wayne smile. “Excellent. We can have a lunch meeting outside the library,” he told her.

Raven watched him, as if studying him for a moment, before sighing and rolling her eyes. “Fine,” she mumbled. Standing up, she grabbed her things – her phone and laptop satchel before joining him by her door.

They left without much fuss. Tim threw her assistant Alice a bright smile and nonchalantly informed her that they’d leave for a business meeting. Raven smiled at her assistant and told her she wouldn’t be back for the day and the team could leave early if they were done with today’s work.

They had lunch at Royal Thai’s, of course. The lunch rush was long gone and there were barely any people left in the restaurant as they entered. Out of habit, they walked towards their old table way in the back, the same table tucked away next to a potted mini-coconut tree.

They ordered their usual pad thai, fried chicken, pineapple fried rice, and an order of mango-sticky rice to share. As their familiar order arrived, Tim grinned at the familiar sight.

“Things really don’t change?” he mused while helping himself to a large drumstick.

Raven hummed, as if mildly agreeing. She helped herself to some pad thai, carefully adding a few more tofu cubes to her helping. “Maybe some things,” she said.

Tim sobered briefly, his chopsticks pausing as they tried to scoop up some fried rice. A lot did change, he realized, even if he unknowingly seemed desperate to look for remnants of the past.

Biting the bullet he was too nervous to ask, he eyed her curiously over their achingly familiar lunch. “So what did change?”

A lot, he learned. Raven learned to like running, she went on runs while at the university. She joined the New York City Marathon during her senior year and still goes on morning jogs in Gotham. She seemed to be a lot of comfortable around people, she had gone to parties while at NYU and her handful of galas. She learned how to shmooze more, a must at research fundraisers. Tim learned she briefly joined a Ayahuasca retreat in Peru, during that one period of time where he couldn’t find anything on her. She was vague about the spiritual retreat but laughed it off saying the effects of the psychoactive brew only lasted for a few minutes.

There was a curiosity and lightness about her that he remembered from many years ago, but at the same time, it was new to him. As she explained to him some of the research projects she worked on in Indonesia and Bulgaria. Raven has always been curious, ready to understand more of the world around her. Having this kind of freedom at her disposal seemed to give her a certain glow.

He learned that Raven had taken a liking towards knitting. It was a small hobby she had picked up, again, while at university, when finals were grating her nerves. Though she did admit that she was terribly at it. Her last knitting project resulted in a sweater with lopsided arms.

Tim pictured Raven hunched over her sweater, furiously knitting into the night. The picture made him chuckle.

She learned how to bake, albeit not perfectly. But this confirmed the sight of the KitchenAid in her kitchen. Her shortbread cookies were passable, she told him. But nothing to Alfred’s standards, the ones he liked.

“I’m sure they’re perfect,” he told her.

They shared a smile over the last bits of sticky rice, and Tim found himself desperately grappling for more information about her and her new life. There were years between them, and while it was still the same Raven who liked pad thai, books, glueing ancient documents together, and secretly enjoyed boba tea (and his terrible jokes), it still felt that there was a chasm between them and new things he had to relearn about her.

He watched her wrinkle her nose at one of his bad jokes, lips curling in that old familiar bemused smile masked by feigned annoyance. Tim silently knew he wanted, needed, to fill that chasm between them. The idea had his nerves pulsing under his skin and his stomach leap.

He always knew that bad ideas were terrible for him to jump headfirst into. But he always did.

Tim saw Ravan again, a few nights later. She knew he was there before he could fumble with her pathetic locks on her window. She was at the window, dressed in an familiar oversized Gotham Knights shirt, glaring at him with her bedhead hair.

“What the fuck do you want? It’s 3 in the morning,” she glared and watched him stumble into her bedroom. “On a Sunday,”

“I got shot?” he told her lamely, applying pressure to his left shoulder and trying his best not to bleed all over her carpet.

Blue eyes zeroed in on his shoulder and Raven exhaled loudly in exasperation. She stared at him, taking in his roughed up form (he and Jason had intercepted a drug shipment courtesy of Black Mask. They successfully stopped the shipment, albeit with a few scrapes and bruises. Neither were too keen on going to the Cave to get patched up). Tim watched her inhale deeply as she stared at him before turning on her heels and walking away from him.

“Strip, on my bed, let’s patch you up,” her retreating form announced. He watched silhouette silently pad out of her bedroom, likely out to retrieve her med kit. Not waiting to be told twice, Tim silently worked on removing his cape and cowl, along with the top of his uniform without aggravating his injuries too much.

Raven returned with her medical supplies and switched on her bedroom lights, bathing them in warm yellow light. She spared him a brief glance, watching him carefully drop the last of his uniform into one corner of her bedroom where was sure no surface would be stained with blood. Raven threw a towel on the edge of her bed and sat down, carefully disinfecting her hands and gathering necessary supplies to extract the bullet.

“C’mon, Boy Blunder,” Raven beckoned him over and Tim sat down next to her, right hand still pressed into his throbbing shoulder. She glanced at him, eyebrows pinched in displeasure as she took stock of his injuries. “Anything else I should know about?”

“It’s not as bad as it looks,” Tim breathed through the throbbing pain. It was just another Sunday morning, in his book.

“Seriously?” she breathed and swatted his hand away from his bleeding shoulder. “Is it a through and through?”

“Still lodged in there,” Tim winced as fingers gently prodded into the angry red flesh. He watched her frown as she stared at his injury. Dark blue eyes flickered to his light blues ones, and Tim allowed himself to take in the familiar sight of Raven’s displeasure over his injuries. It was an old picture he could never forget. “Okay,” he breathed, as Raven continued to stare, waiting for him to reveal more of his injuries. He knew that she knew him well enough to not disclose every injury. “Cracked a rib or two too,”

Raven sighed and rolled her eyes in clear annoyance, but he could see the whisper of a smile curling around her lips as her fingers worked deftly at removing the bullet and warm hands seeped familiar healing magic into his system. “Some things never change,” she breathed, her energy slipping underneath his skin and wrapping around him in that familiar warm way that he remembered from years ago.

Work at WE would keep Tim busy on most days, on other days he’d stop by at the library for lunch. 12ish, not 2ish.

He’d learned that taken an interest in art restoration, more than just restoring old papers and books. He’d enjoy listening to explain her work, going into detail about restoration work and her research on runes.

“So it’s not just glueing papers together?” he asked in amusement over the rim of his Thai coffee. Raven rolled her eyes at him in bemusement.

He learned, much to his surprise, she enjoyed cliff diving. She had told him she went a few times while in Indonesia. The cliffs were high and the thrill of jumping, without powers, was fun.

“It felt like it was a regular person,” she mused.

Tim was curious if she had dated, while away. The thought didn’t settle well with him, but he was curious. For reasons he would rather not confront, he wanted to know.

She did, though briefly. While at, again, university. He learned this while she was baking shortbread cookies one evening as he arrived at her apartment for a patch-up. His stomach flipped at the idea but he ignored the feeling immediately.

“Vigilante Half-Demon and civilians don’t really mix,” Raven chuckled and absently cut the shortbread cookie dough into squares. Tim released an absent hum.

From his perch at her kitchen island, he watched her pause and she stared at him with quirked lips. “How’s Steph?”

Tim blinked, not expecting that question. He stared at her, gaging her look as she silently waited for an answer. He and Step had broken up years ago. They were friends but whatever past they shared was just that -- in the past. Tim ignored the sudden tightness in his chest and he shrugged. “She’s good. I don’t see her a lot except on patrol. When she can. She’s working on her residency at Gotham General,” he told her.

Raven smiled and nodded. “Great for her,”

Tim stumbles into her apartment more often than he had planned. Oftentimes with casework he wanted her to look over, asking her for advice (“You know these cryptic messages better than us,” he told her once, when going over a recent case he helped out with the Justice League) but more often than not for healing injuries. He refused to go to the Cave. Some things never change, he supposed.

Tim had stayed over one night, on a night after a particularly bad encounter with Captain Boomerang that left him a little too raw and on the edge. After healing all his broken bones and injuries, she had offered him kindly if he’d like to stay the night. He looked dead on his feet anyway.

Raven looked up from watching the kettle on her stove as he stepped awkwardly into her kitchen, dressed in clothes that were achingly familiar.

“Looks like you grew a little,” Raven smirked just as the kettle whistled on the stove. Her gaze swept over his taller, larger form and her eyes danced in amusement.

Tim chuckled and tugged at his old Green Day concert shirt. He had not seen the shirt in years. He was dressed in his old shirt and sweatpants, both just a little too tight and both memories of clothes Raven had seemed to weasel away from him. “Yeah, well, that happens when you grow older,” he said while padding barefoot into her kitchen and depositing himself by her kitchen island. Despite her healing every injury in his body, he was exhausted.

Raven slid a steaming mug of tea his way and watched him gratefully take it. She eyed him in bemusement. “Carefully, you’re calling yourself old,”

“Hah,” Tim chuckled into his mug and carefully blew into it, taking a tentative sip. He kind of felt old, he’d admit.

Raven sat across from him, and carefully handled her own steaming mug of tea. A brief silence fell on them as he watched her glance at her open laptop next to her, she absently typed a few things into the machine with one hand. He had stumbled into her apartment earlier that evening while she was still working.

“What are you working on?” Tim asked her curiously.

Raven shrugged and shoved her Mac away from her. “Just my presentation for the lecture series at Gotham U. I have another class coming up,”

Tim frowned and absently tapped his mug. “I’m sorry to have bothered you,” he glanced at the laptop. “I could leave,”

Raven rolled her eyes and gently closed the laptop with finality. “Don’t be ridiculous. You can surprisingly barely stay away. It’s fine, I was done anyway. I was just going through some of my notes and finetuning some things,” she explained.

Tim sent her an amused smile. “Always the perfectionist,”

She threw him a wry smile. “Learned from the best,”

Tim chuckled into his tea. He glanced at her laptop again, curiosity piquing. “Do you enjoy teaching?”

Raven hummed and shrugged. “It’s nice. I don’t think I’d like to do it full time. Spending so much time with that many people in one place is a bit exhausting. I’m glad it’s just a special lecture series, nothing really graded, I’d rather not spend my evening grading papers,” she explained. Tim watched as a thoughtful expression crossed her face. “But it’s nice to have conversations with students and learn from each other,”

“Seems like you enjoy what you do,” Tim commented and ignored how that realization seemed to not settle well with him.

Raven shrugged absently, throwing him a small smile. Her fingers danced absently over the rim of her now warm mug. “I like it, but it’s a lot less exciting,”

Tim smiled. “Well, your spot with the Titans is still open,”

Raven tilted her head, staring at him and mulling over his words. “Thanks,” she said. “I’ll keep that in mind,”

Tim stared at her and felt the mood shift. Her blue eyes gazed at him briefly before drifting back to her mug and absently taking a small sip of her tea. “I mean it, Raven,” he said, and silently tried to leap over the distance that he had hoped to slowly close in.

The corners of her lips quivered just a little bit and she regarded him with an unreadable expression. “It’d be nice to see the team again,” she mused.

“Everyone misses you,” Tim said, his words weighing heavily in the air as they stared at each other.

He watched her finish the last of her tea with a heavy note, her shoulders a little bit more set and her gaze just a little bit more thoughtful. She blinked and stared at him. “Perhaps I should have been in touch more all these years,” she mused.

There was a pregnant pause as Tim watched her gaze at him, a wan smile playing on her lips, before dropping her gaze and thoughtfully staring at the potted plant in the corner of her dining room. “You had your reasons,” he told her carefully, and suddenly it felt like he was threading through thick waters, legs and arms heavy. Tim listened to her absently hum.

“I should have been more in touch, too,” Tim said, his chest suddenly just a little tighter at the sudden admission. The air just seemed a fraction of an inch thicker and he inhaled deeply, regret that had built up over the years suddenly crawling up his throat. He caught her gaze, as dark blue eyes stared at him, calculating and drinking in the swarm of emotions that suddenly bubbled up out of nowhere.

“Why didn’t you?” she asked, her question seemed like a stick gently prodding a sleeping hornets nest.

His throat tightened at the thought and Tim suddenly found himself tumbling headfirst into memories from years ago. His thumb dragged absently across the handle of his now cold mug, an action that seemingly tried to ground his sudden onslaught of thoughts.

“I was a coward. That was sutpid of me. This is all on me,” he told her, heavily.

Raven blinked and did not look away as she stared at him, taking in his admission. Her brows pinched in that familiar way when she would mull over her thoughts. “You kept your tabs on me. You had every chance to say hello, but you didn’t. You knew exactly where I was, all the time,” she told him. She didn’t sound accusing, she just said things how they were.

Tim swallowed thickly as guilt seemingly clawed at him. He tried to navigate and find the right answer, but at the same time he knew that they both knew the answer to her point. The answer settled low in his stomach.

He sighed and blinked, watching as a Raven offered him a tired smile. He knew she knew. “Why didn’t you?” he asked suddenly, asking before he could think and retract the question. He watched her blink thoughtfully and briefly look away.

She turned back to him, her lips quirking into a wan smile. “Maybe I was just tired of begging for scraps. Maybe I was tired of waiting at a possibility that could never happen,” she told him.

Tim felt his shoulders tighten the chasm that he had so desperately tried to close between them seemed to suddenly reopen, and he watched, with a tight, pained smile at how he was reminded of the distance that was all his – their – fault.

#TimRae #tim drake #raven #timrae fanfiction #teen titans #TimRae 2021 Year of Smut and Steam #HELLO THERE BAGGAGE! I'VE COME TO PICK YOU UP.

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