Fic: After the Dust Settles: 3/8; Tim/Jaime; R
Title: After the Dust Settles 3/8
Author: Aravis Tarkheena
Pairing: Jaime Reyes (Blue Beetle III)/Tim Drake (Robin III)
Rating: R
Warnings: overall- sex, violence, angst, the gay,
Disclaimer: Not mine, everyone's legal
Word Count: 2,800
Summary: Batman's gone. :( Timmy's all alone. :(( Jaime thinks Timmy needs a friend. :D
Index Post
Part One
Part Two
Part Three
It had taken Babs more than little convincing to get the new Blue Beetle running with the whole super hero program. Even now that he was operating publicly and working with the Titans, she still tended to treat him with kid gloves. So, when Blue Beetle called, Oracle answered. No matter what she was doing.
Luckily enough, Babs was neither in the shower or fooling around with her bike delivery boy when Blue Beetle called.
“Oracle?” he asked with his lightly accented voice.
“Here, what do you need Blue Beetle?” she asked efficiently.
“Actually I, uh, just had a question,” he stammered.
Babs leaned back in her chair and grabbed a slice of apple from the plate next to her right arm.
“I was just wondering about Robin…” Jaime trailed off and Babs stilled, apple half chewed in her mouth.
“What about him,” she asked cautiously around the mouthful of apple.
“Who’s been working with him? In Gotham I mean. What does he do for backup?” Jaime asked hurriedly, as if he just wanted to get the question out and be done with it.
Babs swallowed her apple and thought for a minute.
“He’s been operating solo for a while. When he really needs someone he calls me and I send Batgirl or Huntress his way. Why?” she asked, interestedly.
As far as she knew, Tim’s relationship with the new Blue Beetle was purely perfunctory and professional. While he was in the Titans, Tim had paid a little closer attention to Jaime than the other new members, but Babs thought it might have been out of deference to Ted. However, this kid was clearly worried about Tim. She could hear it in his voice.
“Could you-- I mean, you could call me. To help him. If you wanted to…” Blue Beetle started fast and then just sort of trailed off.
“I could, if you’d like to work with him. He’s very talented and a good teacher,” she said leadingly, hoping she would get a little elaboration.
“Yeah, he taught me a lot of really useful things while he was in the Titans,” the kid said, clearly warming to the subject.
“You want him to help train you some more?” Babs asked, reaching for another piece of apple.
It would be good for Tim to have something other than Gotham City occupy his mind. He spent entirely too much time by himself these days.
“Yeah, that would be great!” the kid sounded excited, Babs smiled.
“I’ll send you his way next time he needs help. You’ll have a better chance of convincing him to help you in person.”
“Thanks Oracle, I appreciate it,” Blue Beetle said with pure honesty in his voice.
“No problemo kid, Oracle out.”
She hung up feeling a great sense of accomplishment. Timmy needed a new hobby anyway.
^*^*^*^*^*^*^*^*^*^*^
Tim didn’t like to call for backup these days. He never knew who Babs would send his way and whether or not they would be ideal for the job he was working. She tried her best, but there were only so many non-metas willing to work in Gotham now that Bruce was out of the picture.
Unfortunately, at this point, Tim was operating under circumstances way below the ideal.
Dick rarely came when he called for back-up and when he did he was quiet in that judgmental way Tim was sure he picked up from Alfred. He had made it clear he thought of Tim’s emancipation as something of a betrayal, whether of him or Bruce Tim hadn’t been able to determine.
Tim liked it best when Batgirl took the call from Babs. Batgirl was quiet. She wasn’t judgmental. She knew, Gotham, she knew Tim, and she knew how to fight. She was sympathetic without being pitying and while she hadn’t gotten her adoption annulled or anything, Tim could tell she was taking Bruce’s disappearance as hard as he was.
However, Cass was often busy with the Outsiders these days and she and Jason had gotten inexplicably close. Tim was pretty sure they were living together, but he tried not to think about it.
Red Arrow took a lot of calls and while Tim like and respected him, he knew Roy was just worried about him. The man had a soft spot for emotionally damaged Robins. He had been getting busier and busier with the JLA and Lian lately, though, so he only came around a few times a month.
As a result, it was always something of a gamble when he picked up his work phone and dialed Babs’ number.
“What’d you need R?” her voice was cheerful, but distracted.
“Busy?” he asked.
“Depends on what you need,” she answered automatically.
Tim felt a small smile tug at the corner of his mouth.
“You wouldn’t happen to be in the middle of a delivery, would you O?” he asked suggestively. There was a short amused silence on the other end of the line.
Babs had been having a sort of affair with a bike messenger that she used in Metropolis. From all Tim had heard, he was big, dumb, beautiful and very attentive in bed. Babs’ mood had been better than it had been in years and Tim was happy for her. She clearly wasn’t up for the emotional stress of a real relationship, but the sex was doing good things for her.
“Billy just made a delivery yesterday,” she said casually, but Tim could tell she was smiling. “What do you need, Boy Busy Body?”
“Back up. Got anything for me?” he asked.
Babs ‘hmmmmed’ seriously on the other end of the line and he could hear her clacking away at the keys. “What do you need exactly?” she asked.
“Drug bust. Big shipment of dope coming in and there’s more muscle than I had anticipated. I need a heavy hitter just in case things get messy,” he answered hit the dial on his belt that made the lenses in his mask go telescopic.
He was watching the deal go down. The drug supplier was busy checking through all the crates in the truck, so Tim estimated that he had about half an hour before he needed to bust these guys. He wanted the money to change hands before he called anyone. However, there was way more muscle than he had planned for.
It made him wonder if the suppliers knew something the smugglers didn’t.
“Well, most of your usuals are busy. It is Saturday-“ Babs’ voice was suddenly drowned out by the patter of rapid gun fire. Tim could only make out the muzzle flashes through the darkened warehouse window.
“Change of plans. I don’t care who you send me so long as it’s fast. As in now, fast,” he said and cut the call and put in a connection to Officer Harper. He was on his jump cable in mid-air when the call went through.
“Drug deal going wrong. Big shipment. Gotham Bay. Be there now Harper, or we’ll lose our collar and gain a few bodies,” he informed her shortly and cut the line in the middle of her assurances that she would be there.
He hopped two other buildings landed on the roof of the warehouse where the deal was going down. The sounds of gunfire were loud. Semi-autos, high caliber.
Tim took a deep breath and threw open the door. He flew down the flight of stairs and hit a cat walk. Above the scene he could take in the whole fire fight.
The smugglers were barricaded inside the truck with the drugs. Several refrigerators were stacked and riddled with bullet holes. The smugglers were shouting loudly in a language that Tim was too distracted to identify and taking cover behind the appliances.
The dealers were crouched behind two large SUVs. They had more muscle, but less fire power. Most of them were using hand guns in contrast to the smugglers light machine guns.
Tim crouched low as he scurried across the catwalk and down the flight of stairs that lead to the controls for the warehouse door. He made his way to the controls without being hit by a stray bullet and quickly figured out how to close the doors and box the two warring parties in.
The large warehouse door was a little more than halfway shut before anyone realized it was closing. Tim had made it back up the catwalk and was taking cover in some shadows when the smugglers tried to make a break for the door controls. A hail of gun fire took down one of the men and the other two scurried back to the cover of the trucks. By the time they figured out how to drive one of the SUVs slowly to the controls, using it for cover from the gunfire, the door was a scant six inches from the floor.
Tim could hear police sirens in the distance, but they wouldn’t get here soon enough to stop an exodus if the dealers managed to get the door open. Tim used a well aimed, nondescript shuriken to take out the wires leading down to the control box and hoped to god that smugglers wouldn’t look to close and assume it was a piece of shrapnel or a bullet.
The shouting and gunfire got louder and louder as the sounds of the police cars neared. Tim got an excited feeling in the pit of his stomach. He was almost sure he had these guys.
Then a loud explosion rocked through the warehouse. Tim wasn’t expecting it and the concussion knocked him back on ass. He grabbed at the railing of the catwalk and held on for dear life. There was a bright yellow light and suddenly there was a huge hole melted into the warehouse door.
Tim looked down at the scene, stunned. Clearly he wasn’t the only one who was surprised as all gunfire and shouting had stopped.
Tim took a quick second to wonder how the hell those stupid smugglers had gotten a rocket launcher through customs before he realized that the smugglers hadn’t been the source of the blast.
Blue Beetle came charging through the hole in the wall, scolding his scarab.
“I told you that was too much. You seriously need to tone it down, dude.”
Tim instantly wanted to throttle him.
While Tim and the smugglers had been distracted by Blue Beetle’s dramatic entrance, the dealers had taken advantage of the situation to get into their cars. Tim heard their engines turn over and rev.
“Don’t let them drive out of the warehouse!” he shouted down to Blue Beetle and immediately regretted it.
A hail of gun fire embedded itself into the wall just to the right of him and Tim swore as he tripped and stumbled down the catwalk. He tossed a quiet cable up and climbed into the rafters, hoping that no one would be able to see him in the shadows of the roof.
Jaime, in the meantime, had somehow managed to take out the wheels of the cars. One of them flipped and rolled several times into the side of the building. The second crashed into the tail end of the other vehicle.
Jaime barely glanced at the two cars. He looked straight up at Robin and started in his direction. Tim’s stomach dropped out.
“No! Don’t!” he shouted down to Jaime.
The suit the scarab made for Jaime was pretty much bullet proof and had a nice little force field around it, rather like Kon’s TTK. Tim’s suit, on the other hand, was made with a type of reinforced body armor that Special Ops could only dream of but bullets still hurt even with the body armor and his head was always vulnerable. Time preferred to avoid jumping into outright fire fights. He had a better chance of getting shot when there wasn’t anyone aiming at him.
Jaime paused in midair, hesitating at his shout and a flurry of gunfire flew up towards them both. Tim didn’t bother to look down and see how Jaime was fairing; he just scrambled to get out of the line of fire. He grabbed at beams and swung on pipes, losing his grip as he felt a bullet hit his left side.
The pain was dull, so he knew right away that the body armor had deflected it, but it knocked the wind from his lung and he felt himself start to fall the good fifty feet towards the ground.
He only dimly heard Blue Beetle’s shout of ‘Robin!’ as he fumbled for his grapple gun. He twisted in the air and took careful aim admist the sounds of sirens and the GCPD yelling for everyone to throw down their weapons.
Jaime grabbed him just as his grapple caught and he turned back to look at him with a glare.
“Just put me down,” he wheezed at Blue Beetle and Jaime flew him to the floor. Even though he couldn’t see Jaime’s facial expressions behind the mask, he could feel the worry and concern radiating off of him.
Tim didn’t care.
Tim was pissed.
They touched down and Jaime said, “Are you alright man? What happened?”
“Just stay here and don’t say a word,” he hissed at Jaime, not even bothering to keep the anger out of his voice.
He stalked over to where Officer Harper and the other members of the GCPD were rounding up both the smugglers and dealers.
“Dope’s in there,” Tim said, nodding towards the bullet riddled delivery truck.
Officer Harper nodded and grinned at him. “Who’s your friend?” she asked.
”Meta or Price Charming? I can’t believe he grabbed you out of the air like that.”
Tim glared at her. “That’s Blue Beetle. He’s new,” he answered shortly. “Did you find the cash?”
Harper nodded, still watching Jaime. “In a duffle under the seats. What did you kick him or something? He looks like an abused puppy.”
Tim turned to look back at Jaime. He was hovering in a corner looking uncomfortable, more than a little dejected and muttering to himself.
Tim resisted the urge to bang his head against the nearest wall.
“Call me when they’re processed. I want to know the charges,” he said to her and she nodded in agreement, still smiling at Jaime.
Tim stalked back over to where Jaime was hovering. He touched down as Tim approached.
“We need to talk,” Tim said coldly.
Jaime nodded and smiled, then he grabbed Tim around the waist and lifted off, flying out the hole he had blown in the door amidst loud wolf whistles and cheers from the cops below.
Tim clenched his teeth.
Jaime set them down on the roof a tall building about a quarter mile from the warehouse. Tim winced as his feet hit the cement of the rooftop, the jolt jarring the heavy bruises and sore muscles of his injured side.
“Are you alright?” Jaime asked, concerned.
Tim looked up at him exasperated. This was one of those times when Tim wished he was taller. Jaime had a good three inches on Tim which made it impossible for Tim to loom and threaten the way he wanted to. He settled for filling his voice with as much venom and anger as he could manage.
“No, you got me shot you jerk!” he hissed.
Jaime looked horrified.
“You got shot!? Where? Are you alright?” Jaime stammered out, reaching for Tim.
Tim backed up and glared at him. “The body armor took most of the blow, but I’m bruised to hell. You’re lucky it was my side and not my head. What the hell possessed you to give away my location to the angry men with guns?”
“I-I-I, I guess I wasn’t thinking,” Jaime stammered out.
“Clearly,” Tim spat. “Why in God’s name would Oracle even think of sending you out on this?”
“She thought,” Jaime started hesitantly, then took a deep breath and looked Tim full in the face. “She thought you might be able to teach me some things while we worked together.”
Tim snorted derisively. “I’d be dead within a week.”
Tim turned his back on Jaime and pulled out his jump line. “Here’s a tip for you though, next time Oracle asks you if you want to take a job in Gotham city, say ‘no’.”
Tim shot his line and jumped off the side of the roof, leaving Jaime slumped and defeated behind him.
Part Four
Author: Aravis Tarkheena
Pairing: Jaime Reyes (Blue Beetle III)/Tim Drake (Robin III)
Rating: R
Warnings: overall- sex, violence, angst, the gay,
Disclaimer: Not mine, everyone's legal
Word Count: 2,800
Summary: Batman's gone. :( Timmy's all alone. :(( Jaime thinks Timmy needs a friend. :D
Index Post
Part One
Part Two
Part Three
It had taken Babs more than little convincing to get the new Blue Beetle running with the whole super hero program. Even now that he was operating publicly and working with the Titans, she still tended to treat him with kid gloves. So, when Blue Beetle called, Oracle answered. No matter what she was doing.
Luckily enough, Babs was neither in the shower or fooling around with her bike delivery boy when Blue Beetle called.
“Oracle?” he asked with his lightly accented voice.
“Here, what do you need Blue Beetle?” she asked efficiently.
“Actually I, uh, just had a question,” he stammered.
Babs leaned back in her chair and grabbed a slice of apple from the plate next to her right arm.
“I was just wondering about Robin…” Jaime trailed off and Babs stilled, apple half chewed in her mouth.
“What about him,” she asked cautiously around the mouthful of apple.
“Who’s been working with him? In Gotham I mean. What does he do for backup?” Jaime asked hurriedly, as if he just wanted to get the question out and be done with it.
Babs swallowed her apple and thought for a minute.
“He’s been operating solo for a while. When he really needs someone he calls me and I send Batgirl or Huntress his way. Why?” she asked, interestedly.
As far as she knew, Tim’s relationship with the new Blue Beetle was purely perfunctory and professional. While he was in the Titans, Tim had paid a little closer attention to Jaime than the other new members, but Babs thought it might have been out of deference to Ted. However, this kid was clearly worried about Tim. She could hear it in his voice.
“Could you-- I mean, you could call me. To help him. If you wanted to…” Blue Beetle started fast and then just sort of trailed off.
“I could, if you’d like to work with him. He’s very talented and a good teacher,” she said leadingly, hoping she would get a little elaboration.
“Yeah, he taught me a lot of really useful things while he was in the Titans,” the kid said, clearly warming to the subject.
“You want him to help train you some more?” Babs asked, reaching for another piece of apple.
It would be good for Tim to have something other than Gotham City occupy his mind. He spent entirely too much time by himself these days.
“Yeah, that would be great!” the kid sounded excited, Babs smiled.
“I’ll send you his way next time he needs help. You’ll have a better chance of convincing him to help you in person.”
“Thanks Oracle, I appreciate it,” Blue Beetle said with pure honesty in his voice.
“No problemo kid, Oracle out.”
She hung up feeling a great sense of accomplishment. Timmy needed a new hobby anyway.
^*^*^*^*^*^*^*^*^*^*^
Tim didn’t like to call for backup these days. He never knew who Babs would send his way and whether or not they would be ideal for the job he was working. She tried her best, but there were only so many non-metas willing to work in Gotham now that Bruce was out of the picture.
Unfortunately, at this point, Tim was operating under circumstances way below the ideal.
Dick rarely came when he called for back-up and when he did he was quiet in that judgmental way Tim was sure he picked up from Alfred. He had made it clear he thought of Tim’s emancipation as something of a betrayal, whether of him or Bruce Tim hadn’t been able to determine.
Tim liked it best when Batgirl took the call from Babs. Batgirl was quiet. She wasn’t judgmental. She knew, Gotham, she knew Tim, and she knew how to fight. She was sympathetic without being pitying and while she hadn’t gotten her adoption annulled or anything, Tim could tell she was taking Bruce’s disappearance as hard as he was.
However, Cass was often busy with the Outsiders these days and she and Jason had gotten inexplicably close. Tim was pretty sure they were living together, but he tried not to think about it.
Red Arrow took a lot of calls and while Tim like and respected him, he knew Roy was just worried about him. The man had a soft spot for emotionally damaged Robins. He had been getting busier and busier with the JLA and Lian lately, though, so he only came around a few times a month.
As a result, it was always something of a gamble when he picked up his work phone and dialed Babs’ number.
“What’d you need R?” her voice was cheerful, but distracted.
“Busy?” he asked.
“Depends on what you need,” she answered automatically.
Tim felt a small smile tug at the corner of his mouth.
“You wouldn’t happen to be in the middle of a delivery, would you O?” he asked suggestively. There was a short amused silence on the other end of the line.
Babs had been having a sort of affair with a bike messenger that she used in Metropolis. From all Tim had heard, he was big, dumb, beautiful and very attentive in bed. Babs’ mood had been better than it had been in years and Tim was happy for her. She clearly wasn’t up for the emotional stress of a real relationship, but the sex was doing good things for her.
“Billy just made a delivery yesterday,” she said casually, but Tim could tell she was smiling. “What do you need, Boy Busy Body?”
“Back up. Got anything for me?” he asked.
Babs ‘hmmmmed’ seriously on the other end of the line and he could hear her clacking away at the keys. “What do you need exactly?” she asked.
“Drug bust. Big shipment of dope coming in and there’s more muscle than I had anticipated. I need a heavy hitter just in case things get messy,” he answered hit the dial on his belt that made the lenses in his mask go telescopic.
He was watching the deal go down. The drug supplier was busy checking through all the crates in the truck, so Tim estimated that he had about half an hour before he needed to bust these guys. He wanted the money to change hands before he called anyone. However, there was way more muscle than he had planned for.
It made him wonder if the suppliers knew something the smugglers didn’t.
“Well, most of your usuals are busy. It is Saturday-“ Babs’ voice was suddenly drowned out by the patter of rapid gun fire. Tim could only make out the muzzle flashes through the darkened warehouse window.
“Change of plans. I don’t care who you send me so long as it’s fast. As in now, fast,” he said and cut the call and put in a connection to Officer Harper. He was on his jump cable in mid-air when the call went through.
“Drug deal going wrong. Big shipment. Gotham Bay. Be there now Harper, or we’ll lose our collar and gain a few bodies,” he informed her shortly and cut the line in the middle of her assurances that she would be there.
He hopped two other buildings landed on the roof of the warehouse where the deal was going down. The sounds of gunfire were loud. Semi-autos, high caliber.
Tim took a deep breath and threw open the door. He flew down the flight of stairs and hit a cat walk. Above the scene he could take in the whole fire fight.
The smugglers were barricaded inside the truck with the drugs. Several refrigerators were stacked and riddled with bullet holes. The smugglers were shouting loudly in a language that Tim was too distracted to identify and taking cover behind the appliances.
The dealers were crouched behind two large SUVs. They had more muscle, but less fire power. Most of them were using hand guns in contrast to the smugglers light machine guns.
Tim crouched low as he scurried across the catwalk and down the flight of stairs that lead to the controls for the warehouse door. He made his way to the controls without being hit by a stray bullet and quickly figured out how to close the doors and box the two warring parties in.
The large warehouse door was a little more than halfway shut before anyone realized it was closing. Tim had made it back up the catwalk and was taking cover in some shadows when the smugglers tried to make a break for the door controls. A hail of gun fire took down one of the men and the other two scurried back to the cover of the trucks. By the time they figured out how to drive one of the SUVs slowly to the controls, using it for cover from the gunfire, the door was a scant six inches from the floor.
Tim could hear police sirens in the distance, but they wouldn’t get here soon enough to stop an exodus if the dealers managed to get the door open. Tim used a well aimed, nondescript shuriken to take out the wires leading down to the control box and hoped to god that smugglers wouldn’t look to close and assume it was a piece of shrapnel or a bullet.
The shouting and gunfire got louder and louder as the sounds of the police cars neared. Tim got an excited feeling in the pit of his stomach. He was almost sure he had these guys.
Then a loud explosion rocked through the warehouse. Tim wasn’t expecting it and the concussion knocked him back on ass. He grabbed at the railing of the catwalk and held on for dear life. There was a bright yellow light and suddenly there was a huge hole melted into the warehouse door.
Tim looked down at the scene, stunned. Clearly he wasn’t the only one who was surprised as all gunfire and shouting had stopped.
Tim took a quick second to wonder how the hell those stupid smugglers had gotten a rocket launcher through customs before he realized that the smugglers hadn’t been the source of the blast.
Blue Beetle came charging through the hole in the wall, scolding his scarab.
“I told you that was too much. You seriously need to tone it down, dude.”
Tim instantly wanted to throttle him.
While Tim and the smugglers had been distracted by Blue Beetle’s dramatic entrance, the dealers had taken advantage of the situation to get into their cars. Tim heard their engines turn over and rev.
“Don’t let them drive out of the warehouse!” he shouted down to Blue Beetle and immediately regretted it.
A hail of gun fire embedded itself into the wall just to the right of him and Tim swore as he tripped and stumbled down the catwalk. He tossed a quiet cable up and climbed into the rafters, hoping that no one would be able to see him in the shadows of the roof.
Jaime, in the meantime, had somehow managed to take out the wheels of the cars. One of them flipped and rolled several times into the side of the building. The second crashed into the tail end of the other vehicle.
Jaime barely glanced at the two cars. He looked straight up at Robin and started in his direction. Tim’s stomach dropped out.
“No! Don’t!” he shouted down to Jaime.
The suit the scarab made for Jaime was pretty much bullet proof and had a nice little force field around it, rather like Kon’s TTK. Tim’s suit, on the other hand, was made with a type of reinforced body armor that Special Ops could only dream of but bullets still hurt even with the body armor and his head was always vulnerable. Time preferred to avoid jumping into outright fire fights. He had a better chance of getting shot when there wasn’t anyone aiming at him.
Jaime paused in midair, hesitating at his shout and a flurry of gunfire flew up towards them both. Tim didn’t bother to look down and see how Jaime was fairing; he just scrambled to get out of the line of fire. He grabbed at beams and swung on pipes, losing his grip as he felt a bullet hit his left side.
The pain was dull, so he knew right away that the body armor had deflected it, but it knocked the wind from his lung and he felt himself start to fall the good fifty feet towards the ground.
He only dimly heard Blue Beetle’s shout of ‘Robin!’ as he fumbled for his grapple gun. He twisted in the air and took careful aim admist the sounds of sirens and the GCPD yelling for everyone to throw down their weapons.
Jaime grabbed him just as his grapple caught and he turned back to look at him with a glare.
“Just put me down,” he wheezed at Blue Beetle and Jaime flew him to the floor. Even though he couldn’t see Jaime’s facial expressions behind the mask, he could feel the worry and concern radiating off of him.
Tim didn’t care.
Tim was pissed.
They touched down and Jaime said, “Are you alright man? What happened?”
“Just stay here and don’t say a word,” he hissed at Jaime, not even bothering to keep the anger out of his voice.
He stalked over to where Officer Harper and the other members of the GCPD were rounding up both the smugglers and dealers.
“Dope’s in there,” Tim said, nodding towards the bullet riddled delivery truck.
Officer Harper nodded and grinned at him. “Who’s your friend?” she asked.
”Meta or Price Charming? I can’t believe he grabbed you out of the air like that.”
Tim glared at her. “That’s Blue Beetle. He’s new,” he answered shortly. “Did you find the cash?”
Harper nodded, still watching Jaime. “In a duffle under the seats. What did you kick him or something? He looks like an abused puppy.”
Tim turned to look back at Jaime. He was hovering in a corner looking uncomfortable, more than a little dejected and muttering to himself.
Tim resisted the urge to bang his head against the nearest wall.
“Call me when they’re processed. I want to know the charges,” he said to her and she nodded in agreement, still smiling at Jaime.
Tim stalked back over to where Jaime was hovering. He touched down as Tim approached.
“We need to talk,” Tim said coldly.
Jaime nodded and smiled, then he grabbed Tim around the waist and lifted off, flying out the hole he had blown in the door amidst loud wolf whistles and cheers from the cops below.
Tim clenched his teeth.
Jaime set them down on the roof a tall building about a quarter mile from the warehouse. Tim winced as his feet hit the cement of the rooftop, the jolt jarring the heavy bruises and sore muscles of his injured side.
“Are you alright?” Jaime asked, concerned.
Tim looked up at him exasperated. This was one of those times when Tim wished he was taller. Jaime had a good three inches on Tim which made it impossible for Tim to loom and threaten the way he wanted to. He settled for filling his voice with as much venom and anger as he could manage.
“No, you got me shot you jerk!” he hissed.
Jaime looked horrified.
“You got shot!? Where? Are you alright?” Jaime stammered out, reaching for Tim.
Tim backed up and glared at him. “The body armor took most of the blow, but I’m bruised to hell. You’re lucky it was my side and not my head. What the hell possessed you to give away my location to the angry men with guns?”
“I-I-I, I guess I wasn’t thinking,” Jaime stammered out.
“Clearly,” Tim spat. “Why in God’s name would Oracle even think of sending you out on this?”
“She thought,” Jaime started hesitantly, then took a deep breath and looked Tim full in the face. “She thought you might be able to teach me some things while we worked together.”
Tim snorted derisively. “I’d be dead within a week.”
Tim turned his back on Jaime and pulled out his jump line. “Here’s a tip for you though, next time Oracle asks you if you want to take a job in Gotham city, say ‘no’.”
Tim shot his line and jumped off the side of the roof, leaving Jaime slumped and defeated behind him.
Part Four