Marble Statuette | T. Drake

[05]

Tim woke up to the aromatic scent of lavender tea and waffles. He got out of bed, turning to see that Olivia's side was empty as she would be in the kitchen by then.

As usual, she had switched off all the alarms on his phone, easily guessing his password. It must have been the thirtieth time for him to change his password but she somehow always knew what it was and didn't hesitate to unlock his phone only to shut down all the alarms and put it on silent mode.

She had a rule that whenever Tim came over to stay at her place, he wouldn't worry about work, patrol, or anything else whatsoever. And she made sure he stuck to that rule by any means she thought necessary. 

So the time he got to spend with her was a break from his hectic life.

By the time he freshened up and came out of the room, Olivia was sitting at the table, probably waiting for him.

"Good morning," she smiled, pushing his thermos of coffee toward him.

"Morning. I didn't even realize when you woke up..."

"Yeah, you were so tired that I thought I should let you sleep," she replied, drizzling chocolate syrup over her share of waffles.

"Did you learn how to make waffles too?" 

She shrugged, "Nope, when do I have the time for that? I just ordered these."

"Right."

Olivia had asked Vanya to put on the daily news while Tim poured himself a cup of coffee and put some waffles on his plate. Breakfast passed in silence as Olivia was busy watching the news as per habit but by the time they were almost done, she spoke up, "Hey, I wanted to show you something."

She took her phone out and opened her inbox that had that strange email she had refrained from checking out initially.

"What is it?"

"I got an email from some firm called Stryker Tech," she showed him that email which held the encrypted message, "do you know anything about them?"

"Stryker Tech?" A thoughtful look crossed his face as he thought about all the tech companies working in Gotham, "I don't remember... I have heard of Kord Tech and LCorp but this is new."

"Thought so," she nodded, "they want to know more about Project VANYA, and whoever this Viktor Stryker is, he wants to book an appointment to come and see the product himself. He even said he was prepared to be a Beta tester and would pay twice the amount for entering the program."

Tim's eyes narrowed, "if his company was known or reputable, he would have been invited to the fall gala and seen the software there. And there would be no need to request to enter the beta tester program."

"I know... Looks like he wasn't invited or else why would he go to such lengths?"

"Did you reply to him?" He asked, slightly concerned as an inner gut feeling was warning him that whoever Stryker was, it would only cause trouble for them if they associated with him any further.

"Not yet. It felt fishy to me so I thought I would check in with you first."

"Right," it seemed as if he was pondering over what to do next, "I will dig out whatever I can about him and his company. Before that, please don't give him any reply."

"Of course, I wasn't planning to either," she mused, eyes lingering at the logo of Stryker Labs again. "I thought it weird that instead of dropping a mail at the official page, he's approaching me on my personal email... Where did he even get it?"

Tim's mental processes came to a screeching halt at that sudden piece of information, "wait, this is not your work email?"

"Nope."

Something was definitely off about the whole ordeal, Tim could sense it.

"Um Liv, if they contact you again, let me know," he remarked, "in the meantime, I will check what I can find about Stryker Tech and tell you as soon as I have something concrete."

"Okay," she put her phone down, noticing that he had gotten worried immediately. "Hey, why are you getting so anxious? It's not a big deal, they are just interested in Vanya, like everyone else."

Perhaps she was right and it was no big deal. But Tim couldn't help getting paranoid now and then.

It could be an aftereffect of him being a vigilante and getting exposed to the worst dangers Gotham could offer from a very young age. He was overly cautious bout everything and given his experience of almost losing Olivia in all the havoc caused by her mother's clone, he simply couldn't take any risks.

"Timothy, hey, look at me," her hands cupped his face gently, bringing his eyes to meet her jet-black ones, "There's nothing to worry about. I'm here with you, see? I'm not going anywhere."

"Liv, I... I don't have a good feeling about this," he mumbled, his hands reaching up to rest on hers, "I don't know why but it just doesn't feel right."

She smiled reassuringly, "It's okay. You're going to run a background check on this Stryker dude and if anything feels off, we'll be on our guard. And if everything is normal then maybe you can accompany me too if we set up a meeting or something."

He nodded his head, knowing full well that worrying so much about just an email all of a sudden wasn't the right way to act. Of course, Olivia would get approached by other tech companies given her brilliant work on Project VANYA. It wasn't anything out of the ordinary.

He knew he had to stop worrying so much lest he ended up making her get worried too. 

He had to give her enough space to shine in her light and as she was a new face in the tech world of Gotham, it was a given that her remarkable prowess in such a short time had attracted a lot of attention.

If he kept overthinking about every single thing, then it could end up making her feel smothered. That was something he never intended to do.

"You're right," he gave in, squeezing her hands gently, "maybe I'm just getting paranoid."

Her smile widened as she pinched his cheek affectionately, "But you do look so cute when you worry about me."

"Oh come on..."

"Real fucking adorable," she leaned closer and planted a kiss on his cheek but he turned his face, capturing her lips with his own.

A light laugh escaped her at his gesture but it didn't take her long to fling her arms around his neck, relishing in the warmth and love he had for her.

He certainly didn't want to lose her. He would do everything in his power to make sure of that but he also didn't want to stop her from the success and recognition that awaited her.

***