Batfam Bonanza

Chapter 3: Tim

It wasn't like Bruce was terrible as a father, Tim told himself, it was just that he was terrible at giving advice. You couldn't ask him about issues with your relationships, or your friendships, or how to deal with high school drama, or just about anything that you might need to know about navigating life as an ordinary person.

But Hal had been hanging around the manor a lot more lately. He had been dating Bruce for a few months, and anyone who was able to stay in a relationship with Bruce for that long, probably had some good advice, Tim thought. He didn't know how wrong he was.

He tracked the Lantern down to the rooftop that he was lounging on, drinking a large coffee, a box of donuts was open on the cement beside him.

Tim knew that Bruce wouldn't be happy about Hal hanging around Gotham in costume like this, or about Hal eating on someone's roof. He crouched down on the roof next to Hal, staring at him silently.

"Jesus Fucking Christ," Hal breathed out, the moment that he noticed one of Bruce's tiny ninjas right up in his personal space.

"There are twenty donuts in that box," Tim said, sounding amazed, or possibly horrified, or maybe just hungry, "will you at least share them with me?"

Hal pushed the box towards him, and Tim snagged three of the donuts, wearing them on his fingers like rings. "I'm not just here to steal your food, I actually wanted to ask your advice about something."

Hal choked on his coffee. "Jesus Fucking Christ," he said again. Tim was starting to suspect that it was the only thing that he could say.

"Yeah," Tim said carefully, he was unsure about how to proceed with this after that less than enthusiastic response. "I'm having guy trouble."

Hal laughed, Tim wasn't sure if that was a good sign or not. "Okay. I get you. I can probably help you with guy trouble. No kind of guy trouble is worse than your first boyfriend stabbing you in a forest."

"What?" The former Robin asked weakly, he felt like he should be concerned, maybe ask Bruce if Hal was alright or if he was still feeling some residual effects from Parallax.

"I should probably mention that my first boyfriend ended up becoming Black Hand."

"Right," Tim said, feeling like his head was spinning, but just because Hal had a bad taste in men (that apparently leaned towards the gothic) didn't mean that he gave bad advice. "Well, okay, I'm not dating a supervillain. Actually, it's the opposite, I've been trying to find a way to tell Kon that I want to take our relationship to another level."

Hal looked like he was thinking about the dilemma carefully. "Well, with Bruce, I kinda just fought with him until he got that I was interested." Which obviously translated to 'I had hate sex with him on every available surface, but then we caught feelings for each other.'

Tim resisted the urge to smack his face with his palm. "That really isn't going to help me here, Hal."

"Have you thought about breaking into an Air Force base to take him flying?" The Lantern asked as if that was an entirely reasonable suggestion to make.

"I can safely say that I have never even thought of that."

Suddenly regretting everything that he had done in the lead up to his conversation with Hal, Tim stood up, getting ready to jump across to the next rooftop over.

But Hal spoke up again, stopping him in his tracks. "Look, there's really no way better than just telling him. You two are friends, so it's probably not going to go that badly, at least not if he values you as a friend. There's just no secret foolproof way to get somebody to go out with you."

Tim sighed, running his right hand through his hair. "I'll call him tonight. Thank you for trying." Even though he hadn't actually done anything to help.

Hal nodded at him. "I can ask John what you do on the first date to actually get a second one if you want me to."