Text Me Back // Book One

» Chapter 30

---- From chapter 29 ----

D: Jason keeps looking at Tim when he's not looking, and Tim keeps looking at Jason when he's not looking, and I can't tell if they're planning to confess to or kill the other

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Dick took a large gulp from the coffee mug to his side and grimaced when he found that the liquid had turned cold over the hours he'd spent sitting at the kitchen table. With his focus now broken and a bad taste in his mouth, he was painfully aware of the burning in his eyes and tenseness of his muscles. He sighed, glaring at the papers sewn around him and found that he could no longer make sense of them. He straightened up, his back cracking loudly, and set the mug of cold coffee back down at his side, where it wouldn't leave rings on his papers.

For the first time since the early hours of the night, he looked around the kitchen where he had been working. The glow of his laptop was lost in the natural light that was filtering through the windows, where dark gray clouds blocked the sun from view. Faintly, he recalled being unable to sleep that night and wondering to the kitchen in search of food, only to end up with the once-hot liquid now staining the inside of his mug. He'd gotten caught up in working, he realized, standing up and stretching his legs, when he'd only meant to check up on the news. Now that his trance had been broken for good, the discomfort of sitting in a stool at the island for so many hours set in.

He closed the lid of his laptop with a satisfying click, but didn't touch the papers, and rubbed his eyes, digging in the heels of his palms until he saw phosphenes. He padded around the kitchen, an apple finding its way between his teeth as he pulled out his phone and flipped through his messages. He had one from Bruce, an inquiry about whether or not he had finished the report for the team's last mission, hundreds of Twitter notifiers, and one text from Roy, something along the lines of "how much fire does there have to be for it to be considered arson?" He ignored them all, typing out a new message to Wally and setting his phone aside to eat his apple. Green, like Wally's eyes.

He read over his papers one last time, trying to decipher them, and Tim's grades and most recent tests shone back at him. Nearly lazily, he picked up the top paper, his own notes, and scanned them over, squinting to distinguish the letters of his sleep-deprived handwriting. Tim really didn't need tutoring, but anything that kept Tim out of his house was a good thing. And it was working, Tim was quickly becoming a familiar face in Wayne Manor. Jason was a big part of that, although they would both kill him if Dick ever said it out loud. The two had fallen in hate at first sight, after all, and Tim had never opened up faster than he did while insulting Jason.

Dick smiled, a bit smugly, as he took another bite of his apple, and read over the notes of how Tim had improved even more since Dick had started tutoring him. He was nearly finished reading over his notes when he heard footsteps, twitching as he recognized them as Tim's and, more familiarly, Alfred's.

By the time they entered the kitchen, Dick had finished his apple and set to the task of brewing another pot of coffee, smiling to himself when the young teen entered the room. Alfred took one look at him and Dick immediately felt the urge to flee the kitchen, but Alfred was guarding the door and jumping out the window didn't seem to be the most foolproof plan.

"Master Dick," Alfred said, his tux free of wrinkles or imperfections as he looked down on Dick, "I trust you have not been loitering in my kitchen all night?" Dick glared at Tim as the younger shuffled to the side, avoiding becoming the center of Alfred's scolding, and struggled to come up with an answer for the stern butler.

He ended up responding with an intelligent "Uhh" and was pointedly banished to the couch, barely given the time to collect his laptop and papers before Alfred was insisting he sleep for at least a few hours.