Chapter Text
"You," Steph says, eating a spoonful of stolen yogurt. Tim still hadn't sorted out their fake identities, yet, and petty crime was far from the worst thing she'd done. "Are a child. Like, a whole ass child. I can't, in good conciousness as apparently the only responsible adult in the entire city, let you go flying back to Batsy so you can both keep your unhealthy coping mechanisms."
"I'm not a kid, I'm Robin." Dick protested, glaring at her, but not attacking. That didn't end well for him, when he woke up. Maybe it would be a more effective glare if she hadn't grown numb to any glares between all the Bats and Birds of her time, but, given the literal baby fat in his cheeks, probably not.
"Okay, Robin. Sure. What's your favorite movie?"
"Dumbo." He says automatically, and she cackles as he instantly realizes he played himself.
Because he's, like, ten years old.
"One entire baby." She nodded, like it was an objective observation, because it was. "A literal infant. If you fly off before you get eight solid hours of sleep and at least one meal, how could I live with myself?"
"Right." He said, doubt thick in his voice. "But kidnapping is fine?"
"Kid-napping?" She hummed. "Yeah, that's a great idea! Take a nap, kid, and I'll make waffles for when you wake up!"
Dick looked, distinctly, a little constipated, trying not to laugh or be impressed by her cutting wit.
"Batman says not to take food from strangers." He tells her.
"Batman says that Star Wars is better then Star Trek, he doesn't get opinions." Tim yawned, walking into the room. "Why are we talking abo- Oh. Uh. Hey Robin." He hesitated in the doorway, hood covering the top half of his face entirely by chance. "Hey, babe, why'd you poach Robin?"
"Because look at him, that's why!" She insisted, not looking away from Dick. "He needs a cape like he needs a bomb in a warehouse."
Tim tilted his head, examining Dick again, and breathes through what was probably a wave of grief. She felt that, too, but she didn't want to scare the kid with her baggage, so she channeled it all into the Big Sister Instinct she had carefully cultivated with exposure to Dami.
She missed the kid. God, she missed everyone. If she didn't still have Tim, she probably would have lost it as soon as she got shotgunned a decade and a half into the past.
"Batman needs to have Robin." Tim reminded her, putting a pair of shaded sunglasses on, like the ones Stephanie was already wearing. "And we can't take care of him, anyway."
"Well clearly Batman can't either, if he's letting a toddler fight crime to work through his trauma."
"Batman can't stop him." Tim sighed, at the same time-
"Batman can't stop me! And neither can you!" Dick hissed, and decided to make a break for it. Probably assuming that Tim's arrival had distracted her. But she was far older and more experienced and knew all too well to always pay attention to agitated an Robin, and she had him in in a secure and mostly-comfortable hold before he reaches the window.
"I'm pretty sure I can, actually, considering that I don't anything better to do." She crowed. "I've got you right where I want you, birdie."
"You're supposed to go job hunting tomorrow." Tim reminded her dryly, opening the pantry with another yawn. "And stop talking like that. You sound like a rouge."
"If protecting children is wrong, darling, then I don't want to be right." She all but sang, rocking back and forth lightly.
Robin was still struggling, with increasing panic. She tried to calm him down, but there was still fear gas in his system, and there wasn't much she could do if she didn't want him stumbling into the night and having a panic attack in the middle of a street.
Dick himself taught her how to aggressively cuddle/restrain people in the first place, though. The irony of the situation was not lost on her, as the child tried to thrash out of her hold. There was something she could do, in fact, and she happened to know just how to run a hand through his hair to have him relax into the contact- however unwillingly. It was an essential learning experience, when her usual 'restrained Robin' was the especially stabby one. Head-pats were an art, really, and she was second only to Jason himself by now.
Baby Dickie, touch-starved fetus Robin, didn't stand a chance against her.
"We're gonna have to burn this safehouse." Tim whined, pulling out peanut butter, jam, and six pieces of bread. "You're so lucky the IDs aren't sorted yet, because if I scraped them together from scratch and had to burn them immediately, I'd throw you out of a window."
"Defenestration? Classy." She hummed. "And what were you expecting me to do? Batman was busy, the other civilians were evacuating, he was alone. If you found out that I just left him there, you'd actually throw me through a window, and I wouldn't even stop you."
A heavy sigh- one of her favorite heavy sighs, the "You're pretty much right but I'm too much of an ass to say it" sigh.
"Defene-what?" Dick scrunched up his nose.
"Defenestration. Verb. The act of throwing someone through a window." She informed.
He finally went limp in her hold, panting. Carefully, she picked him up and brought him back to the comfy chair in the exact middle of the room; equally distanced from all exits.
"English is dumb." He bemoaned, getting a laugh from Tim. He gave her a tired glare, visibly swallowing a yawn. "Where's my gear? How did you get everything?" He pouted. He probably didn't mean for it to be a pout, but it absolutely was.
His uniform had been taken off, along with his secret batarang, arm guards, cape, second secret batarang, belt, and boots. He was in a mostly-normal leotard, the plain black one that warmed itself that he wore under the Robin suit to prevent discomfort and frostbite, and his Domino mask.
(Secret batarangs 3-7 were, apparently, things of the future. Steph wasn't sure if she was surprised or not.)
He must be cold, but he didn't seem to care, between the adrenaline and paranoia.
"Trick of the trade, little bird." She shrugged, snapping her fingers at Tim. "Hey, I plucked most of his feathers, bring birdy a blanket."
That earned her twin glares that she barely even noticed, but neither protested. Dick shifted uncomfortably, probably noticing just how cold he was now that she brought it up. Tim hummed softly as he made their meal.
"Bone Apple Teeth." Tim dead-panned, not even trying for a terrible French accent, and he handed them both a sandwich. Steph reached out to slap him, but he smoothly dodges back and returns with drinks, and she decides to take the mug of honey-tea as an adequate apology.
Dick looked at the sandwich like it would bite him and left it on the side table of the chair, but took the sealed water bottle with a bit more ease. He turned the cap slowly, cautiously, and seemed to sag in relief when the seal snapped normally. Tim went to strip the comforter off of their bed, and by the time he got back Dick had finished the bottle. Steph snorted.
Tim took a step toward the little Robin, blanket in hand, and the kid's wary gaze snapped up the the man. Tim hesitated, gesturing with the blanket and giving his most reassuring (Robin) smile, and took the last few steps forward to toss the large blanket on his not-brother.
Dick wiggled under it's mass for a second, finally coming up for air with a glare at Tim and a strange glint in his eye. Tim grinned back easily and offered him another water bottle. He watches them carefully, drinking slower this time, and Stephanie nudges the sandwich closer to him.
"Batman told me not to take food from strangers." He repeated loyally, not even looking at the plate as his stomach growled. Stephanie snorted.
"Batman isn't here, birdy." She teased, then bit her lip. Ok, so maybe she does sound a bit like a rouge. She can hear it, now that Tim pointed it out.
"He will be." Dick claimed, not even a crumb of doubt in his voice. "Batman is going to find me because I trust him, like he trusts me not to break the rules."
Tim snorted, this time. "You're Robin. If you aren't breaking Batman's rules and keeping him on his toes, what are you doing?"
Dick's face twitched, in the way that meant he was rolling his eyes, and he exaggerated the gesture by rolling his head with it. "Those are for his stupid rules that don't make sense. Like trying to bench me for no reason, or telling me not to microwave cereal."
"Telling you not to microwave cereal?" Stephanie sputtered, having to physically bite back the following what the fuck, Richard, because. Seriously.
What the fuck. She signed up for cute chibi baby Robin, somehow forgetting that Dick was a freak of nature at all times.
"That's some clowny crap." Tim nodded. "Arguably a war crime. I'd expect better from Gotham's literal only ray of sunshine."
Dick glared, nose flaring adorably, and Stephanie's disgust was washed away by a new wave of awww.
"If you can stomach that sort of act against nature, then I'm sure you can stand a PBJ." Stephanie proposed, nudging the sandwich toward him again.
"I'm not dumb. It's probably drugged. Or has razors in it or something." He insisted, shifting back further into the comfy chair.
"If we wanted to drug or hurt you, Robin, we would have done it while you were tripping on fear gas, or directly after when you were knocked out." Tim countered, reaching out for the sandwich and taking a bite. "At this point, we really don't have much to gain by hurting you."
Tim held the rest of the sandwich out to the kid, who's stomach growled insistently enough that he flinched. He finally caved, taking the offered food, and Stephanie mostly succeeded at not smirking.
Dick would be fine, and that was all that really mattered. Anything could have happened to him, separated from Batman and alone during the first large scale fear-gas attack, and instead Stephanie found him, and he would be fine.
He probably would have been fine anyway, given the future and all, but the first dose of fear gas was always the worst, and there was always the possibility of the butterfly effect fucking them over, and a baby Robin was right there and all she could see was Damian and maybe she was also a little high on fear gas and- listen, it was a lot.
"How hasn't B found us yet?" Tim asked, once Dick had drifted off to sleep- for real, not the half hour of pretend sleep. Steph shrugged.
"As paranoid as B always has been, he's obviously gotten exponentially worse with time. At this point, I'm probably more paranoid then Batman." She claimed, then immediately scowled. "Wow that was weird to say. I hated that."
"That...makes sense." Tim nodded, obviously also struggling with the cognitive dissonance of the thought. "What year is it again?"
"Uhh...2006?" She guessed, not entirely sure. "Dick looks about ten, so...that should be right."
"If Dick is ten," Tim said slowly, face twitching with a grin she didn't trust in the slightest, "Then that means...B's twenty."
Steph felt a chill overtake her body. "No." She said firmly, trying to melt Tim's mounting sadistic glee with a wrathful glare. "No. I am not older then Batman. Fuck you. No."
Tim lost the battle against himself, and broke out into cackling laughter worthy of a Robin.
The bastard.