[Email log: Genderswitch - Dick and Tim] Part one
She walks in beauty, like the night
Of cloudless climes and starry skies;
And all that 's best of dark and bright
Thus mellow'd to that tender light
Which heaven to gaudy day denies.
One shade the more, one ray the less,
Had half impair'd the nameless grace
Which waves in every raven tress,
Or softly lightens o'er her face;
Where thoughts serenely sweet express
How pure, how dear their dwelling-place.
And on that cheek, and o'er that brow,
So soft, so calm, yet eloquent,
The smiles that win, the tints that glow,
But tell of days in goodness spent,
A mind at peace with all below,
A heart whose love is innocent!
* * *
After sorting out the rest of the Titans, Tim pulled her hair back into a messy ponytail--apparently, ponytails were not like riding a bike, it didn't just come back to you. She'd kept her clothes from the last time this happened so she didn't have to waste time trying to find something that was going to fit her newly small frame. Both Cassie and Jill were more slightly built than Tim's female form. If she remembered correctly, the bikini top was vastly more comfortable than the bra that rested in the drawer with it. She pulled a t-shirt and shorts over the simple black bikini and turned her attention to the rest of the day.
The fact that Dick wasn't Johnny on the spot meant that the other treehouse's inhabitants probably had no idea what was going on. Tim considered radioing over first but figured it would just raise more questions than it would answer. She did take her comm, along with her R from her uniform. Unlike last time, the suit had not helpfully changed and so she was going to have some problems when it came time to patrol. Binding her...chest wasn't going to be enough for the close-fitting armor.
Her landing on the opposite roof was lighter than usual, just a bare touch on the wood, even accounting for the slightly harder than usual landing. It was going to take a while to get used to this center of gravity. She pulled up the hatch and trotted downstairs, "Nightwing? Arsenal? M?"
Towel wrapped around his waist, another towel in his hand, Dick's drying off his hair from his post-run shower when he hears an unfamiliar voice at the hatch. An unfamiliar female voice that knows all of their codes. If he'd been deeper in the Treehouse, he might've thought it was Lois or Cassie or Bev, but the voice has a sweeter, modulated soprano tone. Dairine and Jill's accents rule them out. He's alone and mostly naked, so he grabs his escrima sticks out of his uniform and ducks behind the wall. "Who wants to know?"
Tim's tone went amused and dry, "It's Tim. Don't hit me on the head, I can prove it." Trusting that Dick would give her a chance to do just that, she kept walking, hands away from her sides, comm in one hand, R shuriken in the other. "I'm guessing that you three haven't run into the same problems we are in the Titan's treehouse. About half my team is experiencing life from the other side."
The tone's enough to take the edge off, but not enough enough for him to relax his guard. He keeps his back to the wall and watches her walk by. The posture and movement are familiar, a little more feline in their grace, and the hair's messy like someone who doesn't know how to make a ponytail has done it. It could be Tim, and her mouth alone is enough to make him almost hope it is. Whoever she is, she has R's shuriken and a comm, which she could easily have stolen but she did say she could prove it. It could be a ruse but instinct says to give her a minute. On this island, he's willing to do that.
He steps away from the wall, arms free and sticks dropped into his hands. If she's not Tim, she'll go for the towel and his groin, but that would be a mistake. Dick's vulnerable but he knows how to fight past it. "All right. If you're Tim, when's the last time we had sex and what position did we have it in? Also, what part of my body do you lick obsessively whenever you get a chance?" It's a trick, of course. They had sex two days ago, in three separate positions - missionary's Tim's favorite, but Dick likes to take him from behind and cover him sometimes, and since Kon's statue, they've added Tim fucking him into their repertoire.
Color rushed into Tim's face and her full mouth thinned to an embarrassed line before she replied. "I was planning on proving it with a somewhat different data set that didn't require you to ask what could be a perfect stranger about our sex lives." She reached up, tugged the collar of the oversized t-shirt down enough to expose the knife scar on her throat and the claw marks on her shoulder. "And there is nothing particularly obsessive about my affection for your abs. They're extremely attractive."
"A perfect stranger wouldn't know anything about our sex life, but could fake your scars." Dick transfers the sticks to one hand and approaches her to tug down the shirt and see for himself. The scars, not the breasts, those he can look at after he's sure Tim's okay. His voice softens with his fingertips when they smooth over very familiar claw marks. "It's a fetish. Admit it." Another look - god, she's pretty. "You all right?" He slides his palm down to her lower back, trying not to let his own sense of weirdness affect Tim. He seems fine, but taking care of him is Dick's first priority.
She didn't bat a single long, dark eyelash at the touch. "I'm fine, this isn't my first time experiencing this particularly phenomenon. It'll take me a bit to get used to the flexibility and shift in my center of balance, not to mention adapting to the hormone level. It'll only last a couple days. I take it that your team has escaped unscathed from this latest trick?"
"They're fine. Or they're still asleep." Monet might be asleep. Dick smirks. He knows damned well Roy's fine, unless the change happened some time in the last three hours. Curiosity gets the better of him, and he slides his hand up Tim's back to feel the ponytail. Still soft. "When did it happen? From the way you asked, I take it you're not the only one who's swapped."
"Cassie and Bart. Kon is...extremely put out." At the light touch, more of her ponytail escaped, long black hair wisping free. She made a face. "Sometime between midnight and 5 am is our best guess. I didn't stay out as long as I usually do."
Her hair falls free and he smiles and strokes it back behind her ear. With a finger gesture for her to turn, Dick tugs on her shoulder - he can't make himself think of this (beautiful, female) body in front of him as a him, even though he knows she's Tim. When he puts on a dress for work or play, he has female personas to go with. This seems sort of the same. "How are Cassie and Bart?"
Tim rolled her eyes, but obligingly executed a quick turn for Dick's amusement, "Taking it in stride mostly. They're off to the compound for suitable clothing. I had these from the last time this occurred. It's still a very strange sensation, I have to admit. Takes a great deal of getting used to."
Sighing, Dick grabs her by the shoulders and turns her back to face him. "I'm not always thinking of sex, Tim," he says, mock-wounded, then releases her hair from the messy ponytail to fix it. Finger-combing it, he gathers the soft, thick mass and twists it up to make a passably cute slightly-more-interesting-than-a-ponytail ponytail. When it bares the back of her neck, his chest and face flush warm - he is naked except for the towel and he does love Tim more than is remotely safe or smart for him. He bends and brushes his mouth across her nape, and murmurs, "But now I am. Did you try it last time?"
Tim shivered a bit--it wasn't possible that this body could be any more sensitive on the neck but it certainly felt like it. She ducked her head and tugged away to face him again. "No, I didn't." She'd been on the island for about eight months by that point. Bart had yet to arrive, their relationship was further off still. "It helped with designing training for Dairine and Jill later on however once I realized the peculiarities of a female form over a male."
As soon as she shivers, his cock lifts and fills, tenting the towel. He should be focused on dealing with this crisis, but he's almost as hot as the last time he got dosed with sex pollen. "I'm sure it did. If it'd been me, I would've tried it. For research and reference, if nothing else. Understanding the female physiological response to sex could be useful in dealing with female villains." And Kory. "We should." His voice drops, soft and thick, and, god, he just had sex four hours ago. Tim being a beautiful girl should not be so irresistible. "Besides--" He cups her cheek again, thumb rubbing against the corner of her mouth. "You're gorgeous."
The expression on Tim's face was too muddled to pick out a single emotion, though the flush on her skin was clear enough. There were a number of ways that she could respond to his suggestion and in truth, she had no idea what she wanted her answer to be. On a practical level, diving into sex when she was still learning to use this body again in the first place was probably not the best idea. Tim also suspected that sex as a female, with all its attendant chemical reactions--and problematic attachment responses, would be somewhat psychologically difficult to bear, even in the name of science and justice.
On the other hand, it wasn't like Tim actually objected to sex with Dick and neither did this body, judging by its eager response to the barest touch. And further, the idea that she'd be able to make a completely conscious and unimpaired decision about an initial sexual encounter....that was remarkably tempting. "I think I need to give it some thought, if you don't mind." Tim said finally, speaking slowly and choosing each word with utmost care. "Provided this isn't a now or never offer."
Her face flickers through a series of emotions, some more definitive than others. She's Tim, but not, so he's having a little trouble reading her. What he does see and hear settles him, softens out his response. She's worried and maybe afraid, even if the flush and the mild peaking of her nipples against her bikini top say she's aroused. The combination floods him with possessive protectiveness for her, smaller than Tim's been in years and vulnerability showing in her wide-open eyes.
When he reaches out, it's not to pull her to bed, but to him. Tim may be saying she's fine, but this has to be unsettling even without Dick making passes at her. Once she's held flush against his chest and he's stroking her back reassuringly, he leans down to kiss her temple. Only her temple. "I'm sorry, sweetheart--" That's weird. So weird. But it's also right and intuitive. So he goes with it. "I shouldn't have hit on you. If you want me, I'm here. But I won't pressure you. Promise."
Settled against him, with his hard cock pressed against the thin towel and her thin t-shirt, the obvious contrast between that and his soothing words made her mouth curve into an ironic smile. "I still need to train, the morning got a little derailed. I'm going to have to modify my usual work out since I've lost muscle mass rather significantly." Better to just not acknowledge it. "I could use a spotter, if you're up for it." Okay, so maybe one teeny joke.
* * *
All joking aside, Dick spots Tim through her training and does his best not to let his gaze linger and mind wander over her curves. He keeps his hands to himself, even when he catches her out of a fall and wants to pull her in and hold her until his heart stops pounding. If Bruce is gone, Tim is all the family he has left and he's not ready to lose him...her. The day is more or less normal, as normal as it can be with Cassie a boy and Bart and Tim girls, and their lives in four-color comics spread on his bed for research, and he makes it through dinner without watching Tim's mouth every time she takes a sip of water or put a spoon in her mouth. Patrol's uneventful aside from the occasional freakout in progress that won't be helped by costumed vigilantes.
He falls quiet at the end of patrol, the soft blur of grief overtaking him at the prospect of a return home with Tim a girl and Bruce not with them and Alfred not waiting. Tim, because he or she, knows him, suggests they go for a walk, and maybe talk about what Dick's been not talking about. Dick agrees, but only because the dark's soothing and Roy's bed feels like a betrayal when he hurts like this.
Halfway down the beach, he finds Tim's unfamiliar, delicate hand and curls his fingers around it. "I can't let go of it," he says finally, quietly, and he's not talking about the suit, hanging in his bedroom, which is why they've been using Roy's, or Monet's, but mostly Roy's. "I need to know what happened." What if it's my fault?
Tim walked a few more steps in silence, both of them still in uniform such as hers was. After Spoiler's suit had appeared, before then even, it had been almost an all consuming need to know. To understand. To learn so it could be prevented. "When Bart told me what happened, I spent days at the bookshelf reading and taking notes. I saw his funeral. But eventually...I had to stop. It wasn't helping. I was just torturing myself." Her fingers laced with Dick's.
"I know." He runs his free hand through his hair, over his head, and to the back of his neck, trying to pull his thoughts together. Find the words to explain why this isn't the same. He knows the path Tim went down. He did it at home too, and it ended at the Lazarus pits with Dick's fists. Thumb worrying at the inside of her palm, he finally just spits it out. "I just need to know if he's really gone. I can't... it's like losing someone at sea. You never know if it's over."
She tilted her head back, "Knowing doesn't help much either, when you don't want to let go." Tim didn't have much to say, but that was all right, Dick was used to that from Tim, the fact that silence spoke volumes. She found herself more chatty today that usual but not so much that anyone would accuse her of loquaciousness. That simply wasn't her way. "I don't know that it's over even when you do know."
"Anything's better than not knowing," Dick answers, stubborn and resolute. He let go of Donna, even when he didn't want to. He moved on, and he'll move on past... The tears well up again out of nothing, a band tightens around his chest making it hard to breathe. He stops, abruptly, and toes into the sand, before looking at her again. "He wouldn't stop looking for us, Tim, you know he wouldn't."
"If you knew for certain, would it stop you?" It hadn't stopped Tim. Not in Dick's world, not on the island. Even being aware of it didn't help. Nothing helped. The truth was she almost welcomed the gender change. It was a distraction, something to keep her mind off the blood on Steph's uniform, off the Batsuit. Off everything that had happened and was happening. Off everything she felt and shouldn't feel.
Swallowing hard, Dick nods. "Yes." God, it hurts to admit it. It feels like a betrayal, of his own heart, not Bruce, to admit he could let go. "I'd grieve. Maybe go away by myself for a little while. I'd never stop missing him or hoping it was wrong somehow, but I'd stop. Even if I could bring him back by some supernatural means, he wouldn't want it." He focuses in on Tim, curls his hand around her shoulder, grounding himself in touch, even if she's unfamiliar. "When he brought me back, after the first time he fired me, he made me swear I would never disobey an order from him, even if it meant letting him die." His eyes sparkle, wet, over a pale smile. "I disobey his orders all the time, but not that part."
"That's where we're different I suppose." Tim would obey every order except the one to let go. She'd put everything on the line--her soul, her sanity, her life--for the chance that someone she loved might be saved. Her father, Steph, Kon... "I don't know what I'd do if he was gone. It's so different for me--the way we relate, how we work together. I'm not sure how I'd react."
He can't think about this anymore, and now's not the time to talk about his plans for the Batsuit, to prepare the way for Bruce, just in case. He's still trying to decide whether he's going to let anyone know he's doing it. Instead he cups her cheek and tilts her face up to him. "We'll do what we always do. What he taught us, and look out for each other. And we don't believe it until we have proof."
This angle, this story, it wasn't so different from years before, Dick adamantly holding to his faith in Bruce and Batman while Tim couldn't shake skepticism in the innocence of a man who had all evidence against him. Dick had been right then. Tim had been younger then. But they were still telling the same story even if it sounded different--Dick, the good son, believed unrelentingly and Tim, the good soldier, could not. "We wait then."
"No." Dick's thumb sweeps her cheekbone, grounding him in this, right here, Tim a girl and his partner in ways he never has been at home. And it hurts, to think it, but it's true. "At home, if he's gone, you and I and Babs and Cass and Alfred are doing whatever we've worked out to do. But Bruce isn't dead here. He could show up at any time, just like Kon and Bart. Or he could never show up. That hasn't changed at all. Here, we keep working the contingencies for if he shows up, and...it's just whatever you feel about Bruce maybe being dead that matters." Somehow, saying that makes it easier. Makes him breathe a little freer. Even if Bruce is dead at home, that doesn't mean he'll never see him again. Not on this island.
Dick was planning something and not telling her. The realization made her a bit short and her voice, richly toned in this body, went flat. "I don't feel anything about it. I can't. I only have enough in me to grieve for the people I've really lost. I worry about you and what you're going through but I can't worry about back home."
Her tone shift confuses him. It's not connected, that he can see, to what he said, unless Tim's just shutting down emotionally what he feels about Bruce. He'll deal with it when Tim's back to his own body and Dick can read him better. Until then, he'll stick to what he knows. He bends to kiss her forehead, a lot farther down than he's used to with Tim. "I miss him. I'm worried about what happened at home, and I need to find out because it's what he taught us. But I'll be okay as long as I don't lose both of you."
Tim didn't know what to say to that, so she didn't reply at all. Silence was one of her dearest friends anyway and it wasn't uncomfortable for her to let it join their moonlit walk for several minutes. After a time, she stopped and leaned against a tree, bark rough against her back. "How are lessons going?" It wasn't necessary to specify which ones. Tim checked in periodically on his team with exactly the same wording.
Dick's the talker of the Bat-family, definitely, but silence is an old friend of his, too, and he has no objection to her reigning between them for awhile. It gives the night air a chance to cool his cheeks and breath from being so close to tears. When she stops again, thoughts of Bruce are banished in favor of Tim, petite and pretty in the moonlight. It's far too easy to think of her as a girlfriend when he turns and closes the space between them. He plants a palm against the tree above her head and leans into it. "Same as usual. Bart's making a little progress, but he's still resistant to acrobatics as a fighting skill."
Tim responded to Dick's stance before she fully recognized what it was. Her habitual barely there smile was easier to see now, curving and softening the full set of her mouth, for his nearness, not his reply. Her own body relaxed more fully against the tree and she reflected that though her physical reaction to Dick was less urgent than usual, it was nevertheless more consuming, a long liquid pull that seemed to involve every part of her from the edges of her skin inward. Hormones, she supposed, chemical reactions in the blood and brain. "Bart is resistant to most things that would pull him out of his comfort zone. I wonder if we should give him a demonstration match. Show the potential of acrobatics." Tim tilted her head, to the side and back so she could look up at him without straining her neck, "Unless you can think of someone else who would be a better match."
He might have been having trouble reading Tim ten minutes ago, but even if Tim's unfamiliar with her body (she's definitely a girl, even though Benny was still a girl in her male body. It's interesting in analytical sense but not important right now), Dick's not. He's been reading the signs of female arousal for more than a decade. Head tilt, soft smile, low-slung hips and chest-thrust carriage - he's cupping her cheek before his brain even recognizes the individual signs.
"Better match than you for me?" He rubs his thumb back and forth along her cheekbone, slow and soft, trying to keep his answer contained to acrobatics and martial arts, but his smile and the husky velveted purr of his voice make it flirtatious. God, he hopes she's only hearing the flirtation and not the deeper pull between them. "Not on the island." Connor maybe, if he wants to get his ass kicked. Bruce, if he wants to get dropped the same way he drops Tim. He can name a handful of people who can beat him easily, but his thoughts are blurring at the edges, consumed by her pretty mouth and his need to taste it.
He'd asked this morning about sex--yesterday morning by now--and she'd told him that she needed to think about it. It had been the prudent choice then and it continued to be now. Which didn't mean that she couldn't kiss him and find out if the desire in his eyes tasted the same for her now as it did when she was in her proper form. Not quite consciously, she wet her lips before speaking, "It's something to think about. Personal history aside, it's possible that someone else might suit better." She was, honestly, talking about the exhibition match. Mostly.
"No." That's a firm no, not a negotiable one. "He knows who trained you. He knows how good you are. Anyone else, he'll write off as me just being that much better." He's still better than Tim, but it's mostly because of the acrobatics, and Bart knows Tim well enough to see it. While he's been saying no about the exhibition match, he's saying yes to the swipe of her tongue across her lips that's a clear invitation in his book. "I'm going to kiss you now, okay?" His thumb dips to swipe across her shiny bottom lip and he presses closer to let her feel the size and heat of his body before he pins her against a tree. Slow, careful, caring, always careful with Tim who doesn't think like normal people, doesn't connect her brain and body well.
Her breath hitched but she only nodded, agreeing with his statement and to his request. "Okay." Her hand lifted, resting palm-flat on his chest, the Nomex-kevlar weave of his uniform slick under her fingers. It was an invitation, not a warning, but she knew he wouldn't read more into it than she meant. It had been a long time since she was this much shorter than Dick and he'd been incredibly unobtainable--for a great many very good reasons, age not the least among those. A curious perspective. She lifted her mouth in silent offering.
It's not just their first kiss with Tim as a girl. It's her first kiss. That feels incredibly right, being her first. He smiles, slow and warm, then cups her face with both hands. "Love you," he breathes over her mouth, head and neck bent all the way down. Soft, he brushes his lips against hers, catches them in a lingering caress before parting his just enough to make it sweet, then waits, giving her time to adjust to the cascade of sensation women experience that men don't. Gives himself time to slow his heartbeat so he doesn't lift her up and wrap her legs around his hips.
Tim tended to believe that she was a practical person. An intellectual, yes, but in a way that was clear headed, not pie in the sky. Analytical. No nonsense. Then Dick's mouth touched hers and a waterfall of emotions crashed down on her and her heart flipped, stumbled, fell. A soft gasp was the only outward sign of the way she was being swamped, that liquid want pulling inside her again. Her mouth moved silently against his, maybe it was words, maybe it wasn't.
One gasp, one tiny sound and Dick's heart pitches in his chest and slams against his ribs. "Timmy," he whispers, breathless, then tilts his head to catch her lips in a series of slow, hungry kisses. His hands slip down to her waist, so small he can frame it with the span of his hands. And now he wants to lift her not for sex but because he wants to hold Tim and not let go. Family, partner, lover, home - god, he loves Tim.
One kiss, she'd promised herself but she couldn't keep it to that. He always touched her like she was something desirable but this is different. Tim wasn't sure how but it was. So one kiss became ten and she forgot they were in the open, still in uniform. She's not in red and green and yellow but she's still Robin and he's still Nightwing. And she's been worshiping him since they met. She wasn't sure when it had gone from hero-worship to desire. Or when he'd seen her in the same way. But she didn't question it and she didn't want to stop now that he did. That should have frightened her more than it did.
* * *
To be continued...
Of cloudless climes and starry skies;
And all that 's best of dark and bright
Thus mellow'd to that tender light
Which heaven to gaudy day denies.
One shade the more, one ray the less,
Had half impair'd the nameless grace
Which waves in every raven tress,
Or softly lightens o'er her face;
Where thoughts serenely sweet express
How pure, how dear their dwelling-place.
And on that cheek, and o'er that brow,
So soft, so calm, yet eloquent,
The smiles that win, the tints that glow,
But tell of days in goodness spent,
A mind at peace with all below,
A heart whose love is innocent!
* * *
After sorting out the rest of the Titans, Tim pulled her hair back into a messy ponytail--apparently, ponytails were not like riding a bike, it didn't just come back to you. She'd kept her clothes from the last time this happened so she didn't have to waste time trying to find something that was going to fit her newly small frame. Both Cassie and Jill were more slightly built than Tim's female form. If she remembered correctly, the bikini top was vastly more comfortable than the bra that rested in the drawer with it. She pulled a t-shirt and shorts over the simple black bikini and turned her attention to the rest of the day.
The fact that Dick wasn't Johnny on the spot meant that the other treehouse's inhabitants probably had no idea what was going on. Tim considered radioing over first but figured it would just raise more questions than it would answer. She did take her comm, along with her R from her uniform. Unlike last time, the suit had not helpfully changed and so she was going to have some problems when it came time to patrol. Binding her...chest wasn't going to be enough for the close-fitting armor.
Her landing on the opposite roof was lighter than usual, just a bare touch on the wood, even accounting for the slightly harder than usual landing. It was going to take a while to get used to this center of gravity. She pulled up the hatch and trotted downstairs, "Nightwing? Arsenal? M?"
Towel wrapped around his waist, another towel in his hand, Dick's drying off his hair from his post-run shower when he hears an unfamiliar voice at the hatch. An unfamiliar female voice that knows all of their codes. If he'd been deeper in the Treehouse, he might've thought it was Lois or Cassie or Bev, but the voice has a sweeter, modulated soprano tone. Dairine and Jill's accents rule them out. He's alone and mostly naked, so he grabs his escrima sticks out of his uniform and ducks behind the wall. "Who wants to know?"
Tim's tone went amused and dry, "It's Tim. Don't hit me on the head, I can prove it." Trusting that Dick would give her a chance to do just that, she kept walking, hands away from her sides, comm in one hand, R shuriken in the other. "I'm guessing that you three haven't run into the same problems we are in the Titan's treehouse. About half my team is experiencing life from the other side."
The tone's enough to take the edge off, but not enough enough for him to relax his guard. He keeps his back to the wall and watches her walk by. The posture and movement are familiar, a little more feline in their grace, and the hair's messy like someone who doesn't know how to make a ponytail has done it. It could be Tim, and her mouth alone is enough to make him almost hope it is. Whoever she is, she has R's shuriken and a comm, which she could easily have stolen but she did say she could prove it. It could be a ruse but instinct says to give her a minute. On this island, he's willing to do that.
He steps away from the wall, arms free and sticks dropped into his hands. If she's not Tim, she'll go for the towel and his groin, but that would be a mistake. Dick's vulnerable but he knows how to fight past it. "All right. If you're Tim, when's the last time we had sex and what position did we have it in? Also, what part of my body do you lick obsessively whenever you get a chance?" It's a trick, of course. They had sex two days ago, in three separate positions - missionary's Tim's favorite, but Dick likes to take him from behind and cover him sometimes, and since Kon's statue, they've added Tim fucking him into their repertoire.
Color rushed into Tim's face and her full mouth thinned to an embarrassed line before she replied. "I was planning on proving it with a somewhat different data set that didn't require you to ask what could be a perfect stranger about our sex lives." She reached up, tugged the collar of the oversized t-shirt down enough to expose the knife scar on her throat and the claw marks on her shoulder. "And there is nothing particularly obsessive about my affection for your abs. They're extremely attractive."
"A perfect stranger wouldn't know anything about our sex life, but could fake your scars." Dick transfers the sticks to one hand and approaches her to tug down the shirt and see for himself. The scars, not the breasts, those he can look at after he's sure Tim's okay. His voice softens with his fingertips when they smooth over very familiar claw marks. "It's a fetish. Admit it." Another look - god, she's pretty. "You all right?" He slides his palm down to her lower back, trying not to let his own sense of weirdness affect Tim. He seems fine, but taking care of him is Dick's first priority.
She didn't bat a single long, dark eyelash at the touch. "I'm fine, this isn't my first time experiencing this particularly phenomenon. It'll take me a bit to get used to the flexibility and shift in my center of balance, not to mention adapting to the hormone level. It'll only last a couple days. I take it that your team has escaped unscathed from this latest trick?"
"They're fine. Or they're still asleep." Monet might be asleep. Dick smirks. He knows damned well Roy's fine, unless the change happened some time in the last three hours. Curiosity gets the better of him, and he slides his hand up Tim's back to feel the ponytail. Still soft. "When did it happen? From the way you asked, I take it you're not the only one who's swapped."
"Cassie and Bart. Kon is...extremely put out." At the light touch, more of her ponytail escaped, long black hair wisping free. She made a face. "Sometime between midnight and 5 am is our best guess. I didn't stay out as long as I usually do."
Her hair falls free and he smiles and strokes it back behind her ear. With a finger gesture for her to turn, Dick tugs on her shoulder - he can't make himself think of this (beautiful, female) body in front of him as a him, even though he knows she's Tim. When he puts on a dress for work or play, he has female personas to go with. This seems sort of the same. "How are Cassie and Bart?"
Tim rolled her eyes, but obligingly executed a quick turn for Dick's amusement, "Taking it in stride mostly. They're off to the compound for suitable clothing. I had these from the last time this occurred. It's still a very strange sensation, I have to admit. Takes a great deal of getting used to."
Sighing, Dick grabs her by the shoulders and turns her back to face him. "I'm not always thinking of sex, Tim," he says, mock-wounded, then releases her hair from the messy ponytail to fix it. Finger-combing it, he gathers the soft, thick mass and twists it up to make a passably cute slightly-more-interesting-than-a-ponytail ponytail. When it bares the back of her neck, his chest and face flush warm - he is naked except for the towel and he does love Tim more than is remotely safe or smart for him. He bends and brushes his mouth across her nape, and murmurs, "But now I am. Did you try it last time?"
Tim shivered a bit--it wasn't possible that this body could be any more sensitive on the neck but it certainly felt like it. She ducked her head and tugged away to face him again. "No, I didn't." She'd been on the island for about eight months by that point. Bart had yet to arrive, their relationship was further off still. "It helped with designing training for Dairine and Jill later on however once I realized the peculiarities of a female form over a male."
As soon as she shivers, his cock lifts and fills, tenting the towel. He should be focused on dealing with this crisis, but he's almost as hot as the last time he got dosed with sex pollen. "I'm sure it did. If it'd been me, I would've tried it. For research and reference, if nothing else. Understanding the female physiological response to sex could be useful in dealing with female villains." And Kory. "We should." His voice drops, soft and thick, and, god, he just had sex four hours ago. Tim being a beautiful girl should not be so irresistible. "Besides--" He cups her cheek again, thumb rubbing against the corner of her mouth. "You're gorgeous."
The expression on Tim's face was too muddled to pick out a single emotion, though the flush on her skin was clear enough. There were a number of ways that she could respond to his suggestion and in truth, she had no idea what she wanted her answer to be. On a practical level, diving into sex when she was still learning to use this body again in the first place was probably not the best idea. Tim also suspected that sex as a female, with all its attendant chemical reactions--and problematic attachment responses, would be somewhat psychologically difficult to bear, even in the name of science and justice.
On the other hand, it wasn't like Tim actually objected to sex with Dick and neither did this body, judging by its eager response to the barest touch. And further, the idea that she'd be able to make a completely conscious and unimpaired decision about an initial sexual encounter....that was remarkably tempting. "I think I need to give it some thought, if you don't mind." Tim said finally, speaking slowly and choosing each word with utmost care. "Provided this isn't a now or never offer."
Her face flickers through a series of emotions, some more definitive than others. She's Tim, but not, so he's having a little trouble reading her. What he does see and hear settles him, softens out his response. She's worried and maybe afraid, even if the flush and the mild peaking of her nipples against her bikini top say she's aroused. The combination floods him with possessive protectiveness for her, smaller than Tim's been in years and vulnerability showing in her wide-open eyes.
When he reaches out, it's not to pull her to bed, but to him. Tim may be saying she's fine, but this has to be unsettling even without Dick making passes at her. Once she's held flush against his chest and he's stroking her back reassuringly, he leans down to kiss her temple. Only her temple. "I'm sorry, sweetheart--" That's weird. So weird. But it's also right and intuitive. So he goes with it. "I shouldn't have hit on you. If you want me, I'm here. But I won't pressure you. Promise."
Settled against him, with his hard cock pressed against the thin towel and her thin t-shirt, the obvious contrast between that and his soothing words made her mouth curve into an ironic smile. "I still need to train, the morning got a little derailed. I'm going to have to modify my usual work out since I've lost muscle mass rather significantly." Better to just not acknowledge it. "I could use a spotter, if you're up for it." Okay, so maybe one teeny joke.
* * *
All joking aside, Dick spots Tim through her training and does his best not to let his gaze linger and mind wander over her curves. He keeps his hands to himself, even when he catches her out of a fall and wants to pull her in and hold her until his heart stops pounding. If Bruce is gone, Tim is all the family he has left and he's not ready to lose him...her. The day is more or less normal, as normal as it can be with Cassie a boy and Bart and Tim girls, and their lives in four-color comics spread on his bed for research, and he makes it through dinner without watching Tim's mouth every time she takes a sip of water or put a spoon in her mouth. Patrol's uneventful aside from the occasional freakout in progress that won't be helped by costumed vigilantes.
He falls quiet at the end of patrol, the soft blur of grief overtaking him at the prospect of a return home with Tim a girl and Bruce not with them and Alfred not waiting. Tim, because he or she, knows him, suggests they go for a walk, and maybe talk about what Dick's been not talking about. Dick agrees, but only because the dark's soothing and Roy's bed feels like a betrayal when he hurts like this.
Halfway down the beach, he finds Tim's unfamiliar, delicate hand and curls his fingers around it. "I can't let go of it," he says finally, quietly, and he's not talking about the suit, hanging in his bedroom, which is why they've been using Roy's, or Monet's, but mostly Roy's. "I need to know what happened." What if it's my fault?
Tim walked a few more steps in silence, both of them still in uniform such as hers was. After Spoiler's suit had appeared, before then even, it had been almost an all consuming need to know. To understand. To learn so it could be prevented. "When Bart told me what happened, I spent days at the bookshelf reading and taking notes. I saw his funeral. But eventually...I had to stop. It wasn't helping. I was just torturing myself." Her fingers laced with Dick's.
"I know." He runs his free hand through his hair, over his head, and to the back of his neck, trying to pull his thoughts together. Find the words to explain why this isn't the same. He knows the path Tim went down. He did it at home too, and it ended at the Lazarus pits with Dick's fists. Thumb worrying at the inside of her palm, he finally just spits it out. "I just need to know if he's really gone. I can't... it's like losing someone at sea. You never know if it's over."
She tilted her head back, "Knowing doesn't help much either, when you don't want to let go." Tim didn't have much to say, but that was all right, Dick was used to that from Tim, the fact that silence spoke volumes. She found herself more chatty today that usual but not so much that anyone would accuse her of loquaciousness. That simply wasn't her way. "I don't know that it's over even when you do know."
"Anything's better than not knowing," Dick answers, stubborn and resolute. He let go of Donna, even when he didn't want to. He moved on, and he'll move on past... The tears well up again out of nothing, a band tightens around his chest making it hard to breathe. He stops, abruptly, and toes into the sand, before looking at her again. "He wouldn't stop looking for us, Tim, you know he wouldn't."
"If you knew for certain, would it stop you?" It hadn't stopped Tim. Not in Dick's world, not on the island. Even being aware of it didn't help. Nothing helped. The truth was she almost welcomed the gender change. It was a distraction, something to keep her mind off the blood on Steph's uniform, off the Batsuit. Off everything that had happened and was happening. Off everything she felt and shouldn't feel.
Swallowing hard, Dick nods. "Yes." God, it hurts to admit it. It feels like a betrayal, of his own heart, not Bruce, to admit he could let go. "I'd grieve. Maybe go away by myself for a little while. I'd never stop missing him or hoping it was wrong somehow, but I'd stop. Even if I could bring him back by some supernatural means, he wouldn't want it." He focuses in on Tim, curls his hand around her shoulder, grounding himself in touch, even if she's unfamiliar. "When he brought me back, after the first time he fired me, he made me swear I would never disobey an order from him, even if it meant letting him die." His eyes sparkle, wet, over a pale smile. "I disobey his orders all the time, but not that part."
"That's where we're different I suppose." Tim would obey every order except the one to let go. She'd put everything on the line--her soul, her sanity, her life--for the chance that someone she loved might be saved. Her father, Steph, Kon... "I don't know what I'd do if he was gone. It's so different for me--the way we relate, how we work together. I'm not sure how I'd react."
He can't think about this anymore, and now's not the time to talk about his plans for the Batsuit, to prepare the way for Bruce, just in case. He's still trying to decide whether he's going to let anyone know he's doing it. Instead he cups her cheek and tilts her face up to him. "We'll do what we always do. What he taught us, and look out for each other. And we don't believe it until we have proof."
This angle, this story, it wasn't so different from years before, Dick adamantly holding to his faith in Bruce and Batman while Tim couldn't shake skepticism in the innocence of a man who had all evidence against him. Dick had been right then. Tim had been younger then. But they were still telling the same story even if it sounded different--Dick, the good son, believed unrelentingly and Tim, the good soldier, could not. "We wait then."
"No." Dick's thumb sweeps her cheekbone, grounding him in this, right here, Tim a girl and his partner in ways he never has been at home. And it hurts, to think it, but it's true. "At home, if he's gone, you and I and Babs and Cass and Alfred are doing whatever we've worked out to do. But Bruce isn't dead here. He could show up at any time, just like Kon and Bart. Or he could never show up. That hasn't changed at all. Here, we keep working the contingencies for if he shows up, and...it's just whatever you feel about Bruce maybe being dead that matters." Somehow, saying that makes it easier. Makes him breathe a little freer. Even if Bruce is dead at home, that doesn't mean he'll never see him again. Not on this island.
Dick was planning something and not telling her. The realization made her a bit short and her voice, richly toned in this body, went flat. "I don't feel anything about it. I can't. I only have enough in me to grieve for the people I've really lost. I worry about you and what you're going through but I can't worry about back home."
Her tone shift confuses him. It's not connected, that he can see, to what he said, unless Tim's just shutting down emotionally what he feels about Bruce. He'll deal with it when Tim's back to his own body and Dick can read him better. Until then, he'll stick to what he knows. He bends to kiss her forehead, a lot farther down than he's used to with Tim. "I miss him. I'm worried about what happened at home, and I need to find out because it's what he taught us. But I'll be okay as long as I don't lose both of you."
Tim didn't know what to say to that, so she didn't reply at all. Silence was one of her dearest friends anyway and it wasn't uncomfortable for her to let it join their moonlit walk for several minutes. After a time, she stopped and leaned against a tree, bark rough against her back. "How are lessons going?" It wasn't necessary to specify which ones. Tim checked in periodically on his team with exactly the same wording.
Dick's the talker of the Bat-family, definitely, but silence is an old friend of his, too, and he has no objection to her reigning between them for awhile. It gives the night air a chance to cool his cheeks and breath from being so close to tears. When she stops again, thoughts of Bruce are banished in favor of Tim, petite and pretty in the moonlight. It's far too easy to think of her as a girlfriend when he turns and closes the space between them. He plants a palm against the tree above her head and leans into it. "Same as usual. Bart's making a little progress, but he's still resistant to acrobatics as a fighting skill."
Tim responded to Dick's stance before she fully recognized what it was. Her habitual barely there smile was easier to see now, curving and softening the full set of her mouth, for his nearness, not his reply. Her own body relaxed more fully against the tree and she reflected that though her physical reaction to Dick was less urgent than usual, it was nevertheless more consuming, a long liquid pull that seemed to involve every part of her from the edges of her skin inward. Hormones, she supposed, chemical reactions in the blood and brain. "Bart is resistant to most things that would pull him out of his comfort zone. I wonder if we should give him a demonstration match. Show the potential of acrobatics." Tim tilted her head, to the side and back so she could look up at him without straining her neck, "Unless you can think of someone else who would be a better match."
He might have been having trouble reading Tim ten minutes ago, but even if Tim's unfamiliar with her body (she's definitely a girl, even though Benny was still a girl in her male body. It's interesting in analytical sense but not important right now), Dick's not. He's been reading the signs of female arousal for more than a decade. Head tilt, soft smile, low-slung hips and chest-thrust carriage - he's cupping her cheek before his brain even recognizes the individual signs.
"Better match than you for me?" He rubs his thumb back and forth along her cheekbone, slow and soft, trying to keep his answer contained to acrobatics and martial arts, but his smile and the husky velveted purr of his voice make it flirtatious. God, he hopes she's only hearing the flirtation and not the deeper pull between them. "Not on the island." Connor maybe, if he wants to get his ass kicked. Bruce, if he wants to get dropped the same way he drops Tim. He can name a handful of people who can beat him easily, but his thoughts are blurring at the edges, consumed by her pretty mouth and his need to taste it.
He'd asked this morning about sex--yesterday morning by now--and she'd told him that she needed to think about it. It had been the prudent choice then and it continued to be now. Which didn't mean that she couldn't kiss him and find out if the desire in his eyes tasted the same for her now as it did when she was in her proper form. Not quite consciously, she wet her lips before speaking, "It's something to think about. Personal history aside, it's possible that someone else might suit better." She was, honestly, talking about the exhibition match. Mostly.
"No." That's a firm no, not a negotiable one. "He knows who trained you. He knows how good you are. Anyone else, he'll write off as me just being that much better." He's still better than Tim, but it's mostly because of the acrobatics, and Bart knows Tim well enough to see it. While he's been saying no about the exhibition match, he's saying yes to the swipe of her tongue across her lips that's a clear invitation in his book. "I'm going to kiss you now, okay?" His thumb dips to swipe across her shiny bottom lip and he presses closer to let her feel the size and heat of his body before he pins her against a tree. Slow, careful, caring, always careful with Tim who doesn't think like normal people, doesn't connect her brain and body well.
Her breath hitched but she only nodded, agreeing with his statement and to his request. "Okay." Her hand lifted, resting palm-flat on his chest, the Nomex-kevlar weave of his uniform slick under her fingers. It was an invitation, not a warning, but she knew he wouldn't read more into it than she meant. It had been a long time since she was this much shorter than Dick and he'd been incredibly unobtainable--for a great many very good reasons, age not the least among those. A curious perspective. She lifted her mouth in silent offering.
It's not just their first kiss with Tim as a girl. It's her first kiss. That feels incredibly right, being her first. He smiles, slow and warm, then cups her face with both hands. "Love you," he breathes over her mouth, head and neck bent all the way down. Soft, he brushes his lips against hers, catches them in a lingering caress before parting his just enough to make it sweet, then waits, giving her time to adjust to the cascade of sensation women experience that men don't. Gives himself time to slow his heartbeat so he doesn't lift her up and wrap her legs around his hips.
Tim tended to believe that she was a practical person. An intellectual, yes, but in a way that was clear headed, not pie in the sky. Analytical. No nonsense. Then Dick's mouth touched hers and a waterfall of emotions crashed down on her and her heart flipped, stumbled, fell. A soft gasp was the only outward sign of the way she was being swamped, that liquid want pulling inside her again. Her mouth moved silently against his, maybe it was words, maybe it wasn't.
One gasp, one tiny sound and Dick's heart pitches in his chest and slams against his ribs. "Timmy," he whispers, breathless, then tilts his head to catch her lips in a series of slow, hungry kisses. His hands slip down to her waist, so small he can frame it with the span of his hands. And now he wants to lift her not for sex but because he wants to hold Tim and not let go. Family, partner, lover, home - god, he loves Tim.
One kiss, she'd promised herself but she couldn't keep it to that. He always touched her like she was something desirable but this is different. Tim wasn't sure how but it was. So one kiss became ten and she forgot they were in the open, still in uniform. She's not in red and green and yellow but she's still Robin and he's still Nightwing. And she's been worshiping him since they met. She wasn't sure when it had gone from hero-worship to desire. Or when he'd seen her in the same way. But she didn't question it and she didn't want to stop now that he did. That should have frightened her more than it did.
* * *
To be continued...