Wax Figurine | T. Drake ✔

[12]

Stephanie was waiting for Tim in his room, knowing it was rather late and he had been gone ever since he had received Olivia's call. She felt he would be back any moment by then and true enough, the door opened and a rather tired-looking Tim stepped in.

"Holy Fudgenuts, Stephanie, what are you doing here?" He had halted in shock as he thought they would all be asleep by then hence he had been very silent the entire way up to his room. But she was awake and he wasn't expecting to see her in his room.

"Waiting for you, what else?" She remarked breezily.

"Don't you have anything better to do?" He snapped but she ignored it, knowing he got meaner when tired.

"Nope but looks like you have a lot to do."

"When do I not?"

She ignored the sarcasm again, "where exactly are you coming from? You've been gone ever since your childhood friend called you."

"She's not my childhood friend," he remarked, "and well, I persuaded her to let me meet Bruce so..."

"Wait, so Bruce really is there?"

"Of course. He's not dead, Steph, and he's not being held captive either. He's, as she put it, staying there out of his own will."

She noticed that he looked somewhat displeased as he spoke, he definitely didn't want Bruce to stay away from the family. "And you met him... Then what happened?"

He sat down on the bed beside her, kicking off his shoes and turning to face her. He knew he had to tell it all to someone and Steph happened to be the person he shared most with.

So he recounted his entire time with Olivia at the diner and then with Bruce at her place.

"Apparently he has his reasons for staying away and he doesn't want to endanger us," he concluded with a soft sigh, "but I made him agree to talk to us all on call and explain things. I'll tell Dick about it too in the morning, he must be tired after patrol."

She nodded but the spark in his eyes was enough for him to judge that there was something else on her mind, "okay, you do that. But I kinda wanted to meet Olivia again. She seems like an interesting person."

He rolled his eyes, "an interesting person who burns visitors to a crisp. Indeed."

Steph laughed but deep down she knew there was something else altogether that bothered Tim regarding Olivia. She had known him for years by then and she knew he wasn't the sort of person to strongly dislike anyone.

Seeing his resentment towards Olivia made her curious about what terms they had been on earlier that still made him dislike her.

"What is it about Olivia that you hate so much?" She asked out of the blue and he paused, not expecting the question.

"Pardon?"

"You've said multiple times that you hated her and even by the way you talk about her right now, it seems like you still dislike her. I'm just curious why."

"Hate is a strong word," he remarked after thinking about it, "but maybe the only word that comes to mind when I think about those days."

"But Timmy, you're one of the sweetest people I've met," she nudged him lightly, "except for the times when you're on a caffeine withdrawal. Or when you're tense about stuff then you tend to get mean. Still, I've never seen you be hostile towards anyone, not even the bad guys we kick butts of."

That remark made a slight smile tug upon his features, "oh come on, I am very mean and you know that."

"Only in certain circumstances," she interjected, "but seems like there are certain people who fall in that list too, Olivia being the most prominent one."

He didn't know why Steph was so curious about her but he was aware that if he didn't answer her himself, she would resort to other means. And Steph had the knack of digging out dirt on people along with Jason's help so he didn't want to give them an opportunity to pry into his early life.

It would be better if he told her himself.

"Maybe I don't hate Olivia," he spoke up, brows knitting together in a thoughtful look, "maybe it was the fact that she was the only person who I considered competition. And we were both very competitive... And that rivalry just made me think I hated her."

Steph shook her head, "you won't make any sense to me until you give some context. What exactly did you have to compete about? Grades? You were like ten or eleven back then. I can't think of anything else that significant that you could be competing about."

He was tired but she wouldn't leave so he took in a deep breath, "grades too. And everything else there was to compete about. Steph, you know I am a nerve-wracking perfectionist and I am also an idealist. These two could very well be both my strengths and weaknesses at the same time. Me and Olivia are both like that. And perhaps I couldn't get over the fact that she was always a step ahead of me. Always someone I couldn't beat, be it in grades or in being the perfect little child to our parents... It's twisted, I know. Maybe I was just jealous. Wait, who am I kidding? I was definitely jealous."

Steph admired the fact that Tim acknowledged his shortcomings or failures although he hated admitting them. He looked thoroughly disgruntled as he struck upon the revelation that he might have been jealous of Olivia but things were starting to make more sense to him as well.

"And then my parents died and there was eventually a lot more for me to worry about than Olivia," he added, "then she too disappeared from my life and I forgot her. Until now."

Steph nodded, "to me, it seems like you were just ticked off that she was similar to you. So maybe you automatically considered her a rival rather than a friend. Just saying."

He paused, pondering over her words, "maybe. I just found it odd that she was too perfect, y'know, like she was programmed to be this way... To be the best at everything she did and exceed all competition, no matter how hard I tried..."

"That's a strange way of putting it, makes me think you're talking about a machine instead of a person."

His voice had trailed off as his thoughts deepened, not registering Steph's reply just yet. His mind had deviated on another track, a possible assumption forming that he hadn't considered earlier.

"Tim, what happened?" Steph shook him slightly to bring him back to the present.

He was startled, his eyes coming back to focus on her, "oh nothing. I'm just tired."

"Are you sure?" She raised an eyebrow skeptically.

"Of course. I just need some rest," he told her though Tim saying that he needed rest was suspicious in itself because the boy never took any breaks or put himself to rest.

He overworked himself until he passed out from exhaustion.

"Alright if you say so," she stood up, "I'll see you at breakfast then."

"Okay. Good night, Steph."

"Yeah, same to you," she remarked before stepping out and closing the door behind her.

But with her gone, he obviously didn't rest as he had told her to. His eyes were drooping from exhaustion but he had to verify his assumption so he looked for his laptop, opening up the folders he had saved on Project Cadmus ever since Connor had been retrieved and made part of the Young Justice.

Plugging the charger into his laptop, he checked his room for the emergency stash of coffee and put some water to boil in the electric kettle.

It was going to be long before he would get to sleep and he definitely needed coffee to keep himself going.

***