Drabble for stalinglim

[icarus_chained]

It's a really crappy. Tim and Cass discuss Bruce's love life, and scary-Alfred. PG rating. Old-school Batfamily.

Tim frowned, adjusting the magnification again, trying to sharpen the resolution just a little more so he could see what he was dealing with. He knew what it looked like, but Bruce never set tests this easy. There had to be a trick somewhere, and he wasn't going to rest until he figured out what it was.

Suddenly, he stiffened, the hairs stirring on the back of his neck. He very carefully didn't raise his head, instead listening closely to the background noises of the Cave, and letting one hand edge closer to one of the spare batarangs on the workbench. He knew he wasn't alone. He just had to pinpoint the threat ...

There! He spun, arm whipping up and ready to launch. Something dark and lithe darted across the intervening space, catching his arm on the upswing, and he turned into the pull automatically to counter it, trying to swing his opponent away from all his painstaking work at the same time. The hand around his wrist let go as the intruder darted back, and Tim followed through on his turn to drop into a ready crouch, raising his hands defensively.

And dropping them again as soon as he saw who it was.

"Damn it, Cass! Can't you ever warn people before you sneak up on them like that!" he grumbled, straightening up. The girl opposite him echoed the move, exactly, and smiled coyly.

"Do warn," she tutted, wagging a finger in a frankly creepy imitation of Alfred. "You don't listen."

Tim rolled his shoulders in annoyance. "I was busy! I've nearly cracked this thing of Bruce's. You couldn't have waited five minutes?"

She shrugged. "Bad up there," she offered, by way of explanation. Tim huffed a little.

"What's Clark done now?" he asked, turning back to the workbench to check that nothing had been damaged. That was a far more pressing concern than whatever new row Bruce had started with the boyscout upstairs. Ever since Clark had moved in, it was getting to be practically a hobby for them. Dick was of the opinion that it was so they'd have an excuse to make up afterwards, and since Barbara agreed, and Tim wasn't 100% sure Bruce had managed to find all her hidden cameras, he figured it was as good a guess as any.

But Cass shook her head. "Bad," she repeated. "White-out bad." Tim shifted uneasily. White-out was when Bruce was actually mad or hurt enough to pull the whole stoic, frigid, nothing-you-said-or-did-could-possibly-have-hurt-me act. White-out was when Bruce Wayne could out-Bat the Batman. It usually didn't end well. The first time he'd pulled it, properly, Clark had actually been hurt and angry enough to leave. Like end-of-relationship leave. It had taken some fancy footwork on Alfred and Oracle's parts to fix that one, and they'd still had to cope with the fallout for weeks afterwards.

"How bad?" he asked, not at all sure he actually wanted to know.

Cass shrank a little, indictating something really bad. "Alfred mad," she said quietly, and Tim almost dropped the petri dish, repressing the urge to squeak with difficulty.

"Ah. Um. How mad is mad?"

Cass perched herself on the end of the workbench, her hands between her knees braced on the corner of the bench and her shoulders hunched defensively. "He brought tea in mugs."

Tim winced. Oh, Alfred was pissed, alright. Tea in mugs meant a lot of things. It meant 'You're in a mood to break things, and I am not in the mood to clean up yet another set of priceless porcelain'. It meant 'You are being incredibly childish, so I shall treat you as one until such a time as you should choose to grow up'. It meant 'Since handling any situation with any delicacy is so obviously beyond you at the moment, you'll forgive me for not trusting you with the finer china'. It was the tea-service equivilant of a raised eyebrow and a quiet, polite discussion, without necessitating Alfred to actually stay in the room and put up with you. It was a warning sign on a level with the bomb disposal squad making a sudden and very hasty exit. Which didn't sound like a bad idea, right now.

Tea in mugs meant trouble.

He looked at the workbench, with all its detritus and half-finished work. He looked at the Batcave stairs, somewhere at the top of which lurked a pissed-off Superman, a white-out Bruce, and an Alfred hovering gently just below Defcon-1. He looked at Cass, who watched him from her perch with an air of wary camraderie.

"Uh, didn't Oracle say she wanted someone to look at the security monitors for your cave?" he asked, not at all hopefully. He didn't need to hope. There was nothing wrong with staying right here, after all.

But he couldn't quite disguise the sigh of relief when her face brightened at the idea.