Catch the latest, cherish the timeless
Masterpost | PART 1
A few months ago Tim Drake-Wayne, past Robin and current Red Robin, one of the best detectives and a spiteful fuck, met one Danny Nightingale. Who was a complete mystery.
Danny Nightingale moved to Gotham and started attending Gotham University and that is all Tim knows. He can't find where he came from, why he moved here, nothing. It's driving Tim, the FUCKING DETECTIVE, mad. Not to mention, Danny was kind when they first met. Amicable. That, for some reason, didn't last. He was mean, uncouth, and honestly a fucking asshole to Tim most days now. Tim needed to know why.
Then the Bats started meeting Danny. Started talking about a robbery or a stick-up or any number of instances all about a boy that fit into 'adoption bait' territory. Tim didn't have to guess who. Danny was a blue-eyed, black-haired boy of concerning food habits and questionable social habits. But it was another thing on the list of questions, questions, questions about this strange guy.
So, reasonably, the only option was to meet him as Red Robin so that Tim could see what Danny acted like with someone he didn't hate and get answers. On the first reported sight of him, Red Robin went running. And running.... and running... Okay, what the FUCK!
Whenever Red Robin showed up, Danny was nowhere to be seen. Even the others had shown confusion, turning in their spots trying to find the boy that was just right there, I swear! And sometimes, he just took off running! So Red Robin would chase, for hours, as Danny ran and ran and eventually some-fucking-how loses the vigilante.
Okay. Fine. Different approach. Danny didn't run from Tim Drake, just became an intolerable person. Tim would... make friends.
He started doing everything to make a connection with Danny. He wants to be friends, but Danny is borderline mean and dismissive of Tim no matter what he does. One day, Tim is complaining to the void about one thing or another, and… Danny laughs.
Danny—cold, unresponsive, non-expressive Danny—laughs at Tim’s misfortune and gods. It is the best thing he’s ever heard. It's soft and quiet and quick, but Tim is hanging off of it. Is holding still the way Danny’s face scrunched into it, the way his lips pulled and his nose scrunched around those pretty freckles.
Gods… Gods. Tim is lovestruck, head over heels, and on cloud nine all at once.
The moment passes all too fast when Danny speaks, quietly as if he were shy, “Do I have something on my face..?”
Tim is startled so hard out of the spell that he flinches back, hitting his head on the wall with a dull thunk, and spitting out in a flurry of sound, “What? N-No! No, it’s nothing.” Tim looks away, hiding the red that floods his face. He doesn’t understand why his face is flushed nor why the way Danny had looked had been so… perfect. Tim is hit with the feeling of wanting to run his fingers through the boy’s hair and kiss every freckle on the boy’s face and, fuck, he doesn’t understand why. The only thing that makes sense is...
To Danny’s complete and utter resentment (he’s actually very happy and very grateful that his soulmate isn’t giving up so easily on him), this only further emboldens Tim’s efforts on mission: ‘Make Danny Nightingale Like Me’ double down.