#tim drake pride special spoilers | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

soleminisanction · 2 years

Text

Addressing the Actual Elephant

Also available (with additional A/N rants) on AO3

Pairings: Stephanie Brown & Tim Drake, past Stephanie Brown/Tim Drake, background Bernard Dowd/Tim Drake, minor or background relationships.

Characters: Tim Drake, Stephanie Brown -- Cass Cain, Kon-El Kent and Bart Allen all appear but they're mostly a Greek chorus and don't actually get any characterization or focus.

Word Count: 1,929

Summary:

“Jesus Christ, Steph,” Tim sighed in frustration and raked a hand through his hair. “You care more about me not telling you there was an elephant than about the fact that there was a rampaging elephant. You only care about my problems when you can make them about you.”

Coming out isn't always sunshine and rainbows. Sometimes, break-ups should hurt, at least a little.

A/N: Meghan Fitzmartin seems a very sweet woman. But she’s also quite straight, and clearly wrote the back-up feature for the Tim Drake Pride Special to appease all the Steph fans who’re still throwing tantrums about their break-up, which means the whole thing came across as saccharine, shallow, and frankly, to me, infuriating. So here’s a take on how the whole thing should’ve gone down. Happy Pride.

------

“Is there something wrong with your comms?” Steph goaded snidely from behind her mask. “Surely that’s the only reason you didn’t call us , the Bat-Fam members that are famously always in Gotham City.”

Tim suppressed a groan as he stared at her, the last person he wanted to see right now, with her hips cocked and her arms folded, framed by the light of an overturned car that was still aflame and smoking. At his shoulder and hers, Kon and Cass stood expectantly by, like they expected him to say something, to answer her. Right now. While there was still a semi-corporeal white elephant rampaging through the inner city.

What was up with that ?

“We don’t have time for this,” he said instead. Up ahead the white elephant trumpeted, punctuating his point. “Superboy, come on.”

He darted past the Batgirls. Steph twisted after him with a startled, “Hey!”

“If you’re here to help, then help!” he shouted back over his shoulder. “Or at least clear the area of civilians!”

He caught hints of her grumbling complaints at his back, and ignored them. While he wasn’t opposed to calling for back-up, Steph would not have been his first choice for this even under ideal circumstances; not because she was incapable, but because this was an elephant that had tanked both his metahuman speedster best friend and his Kryptonian super-clone best friend. Stephanie Brown was a mundane co-ed with an undeclared major and a mean right hook. What, exactly, was she going to do?

The answer turned out to be “less than nothing.” It was Bart who found the critical clue and, though Cass and Kon made a half-hearted attempt to guilt Tim into taking Steph on the investigation, Tim put his foot down; the longer they played around, the more likely someone would get hurt, and the Speedster Express was ten times faster than even the fastest Bat-driver (which wouldn’t have been Steph anyway, that honor went to Harper Row.)

In the end, the two of them found the disk that was the elephant’s source, drew it back to its summoning location, and dispelled it with a final round of shenanigans, just like old times. When they met back up with Kon on an apartment rooftop, the Batgirls were still with him, and Steph was still fuming.

“There you are.” she snapped, yanking down her mask so she could scold more clearly. She stormed forward to meet Tim as Bart set him down on his feet, her blue eyes blazing with a fury he hadn’t seen since…well, the second or third time she’d falsely accused him of cheating on her. “No more excuses. You and I are going to talk this thing out, right now.”

"No."

Cass gasped. A startled laugh burst out of Bart. Kon’s eyebrows lept straight up to his hairline.

As for Steph, her jaw dropped. "Excuse me?!"

"I said no .” Tim kept his tone exactly as calm and neutral as it had been before, a perfect match for his practiced Bat-poker face as he purposefully avoided Steph’s direct gaze. “Take a hint, Batgirl. Back off. I don't want to talk to you right now."

"Well too fucking bad!"

She hit him then, a full body check that sent him stumbling off his feet and into a nearby wall. She pinned him there, one trembling hand on each of his shoulders, and leaned in to use her full weight against him.

“I want some goddamn answers, birdboy. Tell me, right now, why you’ve been avoiding me.”

“Because of exactly this.”

The words slid out between his teeth before Tim could stop them. Bart, Kon and Cass, who’d been moving to break up the potential fight, stopped dead and stared, goggle-eyed. Steph went rigid. Her grip weakened, giving Tim the chance to regain his footing, put a hand on each of her shoulders, and shove her back enough to let him step away from the wall.

Well. No turning back now.

“Jesus Christ, Steph,” he sighed in frustration as he raked a hand through his hair. “You care more about me not telling you there was an elephant than about the fact that there was a rampaging elephant . You didn’t come to help, you came to corner me , to pick a fight. You only care about my problems when you can make them about yourself, and turn me into the bad guy or the butt of the joke. Of course I don’t want to talk to you. Is that what you wanted to hear?”

He hadn’t wanted to get sharp with her. Hell, he hadn’t wanted to have this conversation at all. He’d thought there were supposed to be social moors in place for exes to give each other space even if they stayed friends; that’s what he and Kon had both done with Cassie. But not this time. From the very second they broke up, everyone from Kon to Babs to freaking Bruce had been pestering him to talk to Stephanie, talk to Stephanie, talk to Stephanie. That couldn’t be a coincidence.

He folded his arms across his chest and looked a startled Steph in the eye. “I’ve been dealing with something personal. Something important. Having you around would have made it harder.”

“You can’t know that!” she sputtered.

“ You don’t even know what I’m talking about.”

Steph made an unintelligible noise of protest and began to chew on her bottom lip. She did that the way she always had, the way she did almost everything: aggressively, so much so Tim was occasionally surprised she hadn’t yet chewed a hole straight through it. Her brows were still knitted, but now the anger had given way to almost panicked confusion. If she’d had a plan, this wasn’t going according to it at all.

Tim’s inner tactician was not about to give up his advantage, not now that he’d gotten going. He pressed on. “We’ve been broken up for all of a month and instead of giving me even an inch of space, you’ve spent the entire time manipulating my friends and family so they’ll guilt-trip me into talking to you. That doesn’t exactly inspire trust .”

Over her shoulder, he caught a glimpse of Kon and Cass exchanging mutual guilty glances. There would be time, later, to reassure them both; Tim couldn’t blame them. Steph liked to pretend that she was above manipulating people, that she was too good and noble for the more underhanded Bat-games. But that couldn’t be further from the truth.

“And it really doesn’t help that, half the time, your idea of ‘helping’ is to make fun of me.” Tim crossed his arms over his chest, feeling a sudden need to guard the vulnerable, pounding heart beneath. “You think you’re just making jokes, lightening the mood, being little miss quirky-happy-funtimes. But you do that by picking on my clothes, and my interests, and my life choices, and half the things I say, and if I get upset about any of it, suddenly I’m ‘being a stuck-up killjoy’ who ‘can’t take a joke.’”

“I…” For once in her life, Stephanie Brown was struck dumb. As if it had never once occurred to her that the target of her gapes might not enjoy her mockery just as much as she did. Her eyes glistened with something that might’ve been tears, might’ve been anger, was more likely a mix of both, fighting to see which would be the first to come out.

A part of Tim panged with guilt, but the part of him that still sounded a little bit like his mother quickly stamped that out. She’d asked. She’d demanded this, wanted the truth. He wasn’t responsible for her feelings. It wasn’t his job to make her happy. He didn’t owe Stephanie Brown anything.

“I’m sorry,” he said softly to her, without any real contrition in his tone. “Is this conversation not going the way you wanted? Let me guess what you were hoping to hear: ‘It’s not you, it’s me. You did nothing wrong, it’s all my fault that we broke up. It had nothing to do with you, you’ve always been everything I ever wanted.’

“But that would be a lie. The truth is, we both fucked up. A lot. And sometimes? I’m not even sure if I like you.”

It was hard, after all, to like someone who went behind your back to scheme against you, who poked fun at your self-doubts and refused to treat your problems with respect, or whose very presence reminded you of some of the hardest times of your life and all the apologies you’d never gotten for them.

“I won’t make any excuses for my mistakes, and I won’t ask you to apologize for yours. But if we’re going to be able to work together after this, let alone be friends, we need to move on, and to do that you need to start respecting me and my boundaries.” He tossed back his cape and squared his shoulders, his entire body tingling with anxiety. “When I’m ready to talk, I’ll call you. Until then? Unless there’s another rampaging emergency? Leave me the fuck alone .”

With that uncharacteristic final bomb, he brushed passed her for a second time. Nodding to Cass, he caught back up with Impulse and Superboy and caught their concerned gazes with a heavy, tired sigh. “Now do you get why I didn’t want to call her?”

“Yeeeeeeah.” Kon grinned awkwardly and rubbed the back of his neck. “Sorry man. Forgot the bro code.”

“Robin, wait!”

He glanced back at Spoiler, half-braced for a punch to the face, but the anger in her voice was completely gone. Instead, she sounded and looked simply…sad. Confused. Like a teenage girl who had just been broken up with. Cass had come to her side and now placed comforting hands on her arm and shoulder. Steph glanced her way, seemed to draw some bit of support from her presence, and turned back to Tim.

“I just…I don’t understand .”

…fair.

Tim took a deep breath, in through his mouth, out through his nose, and made a decision. He flipped up the lenses in his mask and looked at her with bare, clear eyes. “Stephanie. I’ve found someone else.”

Steph sucked a gasp and gripped Cass’s hand with her own, but didn’t look surprised. More like resigned.

“We’ve been dating for a few weeks now. When I’m with him, I feel… safe. Secure. Supported. Valued .” Thinking about his time with Bernard brought a faint smile to Tim’s lips, a wistfulness to his tone, and a warmth to his chest. There weren't a lot of things that could make him feel that way. Young Justice was one of them. Movie night with Bruce and Dick was another. But with Stephanie…the truth was…

“I’ve never felt any of that with you.”

Blue eyes widened in shock. Her lips moved without speaking, mouthing the word, ‘Him?’

Tim shook his head, refusing to explain further. “I’m not going back, Steph. And I’m not ready to let you into that part of my life right now. Things are too tense, and… I don’t trust you not to use it to hurt me. Or to turn it into another joke.”

“Tim.” Her tone now was hurt, short, and shocked. “I would never .”

He regarded her sadly. “I wish I could believe that. I really, really do.”

He left it at that, and left her on the roof, standing with Cass and watching as Kon took Tim’s wrist and carried him off into the night.