When Tim was little, he'd never been able to sleep in a moving vehicle. Read, yes. Listen to music, totally. But never sleep. The constant motion was disconcerting when he was trying to rest, and the lurching usually worked itself up to nausea within a half hour. What few summer road trips he had taken in his youth were characterized by a binge of caffeinated beverages to stay awake, or an increasingly green pallor that ended in an unscheduled pit stop on the side of the road.

Needless to say, he never figured he would one day be able to sleep in any sort of motor vehicle, let alone the hulking beast that was the Batmobile (part muscle car, part tank, part eyebrow of disbelief from Alfred – the bat wing fins and super-sized tailpipe had been removed soon after).

However, like most of his training, he learned to adapt if he wanted to survive.

He learned never to have both hands full at once because that just begged for a surprise attack and impromptu lesson on subduing an adversary with nothing but a pizza box and a two-liter of soda (mentos and diet coke, anyone?).

He learned that the Commissioner's glasses served the same purpose as Clark's (to downplay and disguise a highly intelligent, observant mind and present an innocuous facade) while still adequately correcting his eyesight to the point where his baby blues had picked up on the barest hint of a limp the younger vigilante manged to conceal from his mentor (one pleading please-don't-tell look had been answered by an admonishing okay-just-this-once-but-get-that-looked-at look).

He learned to sense the nigh-undetectable footfalls that preceded a jaunty cockney accent and trim mustache (obviously, it wasn't just from Ra's al Guhl that Bruce learned his stealth techniques) if he didn't want to startle embarrassingly and knock over something expensive-sounding.

He learned, six stitches and a lecture later, the perfect timing for a proper forearm block, but it was still three weeks and eight grueling remedial training sessions later before Bruce started treating him like he wasn't made of glass (and the vaguely tortured, guilty look that haunted Bruce's eyes whenever they fell upon the bandaged wound disappeared with the stitches).

And he learned the best spot in the 'mobile (tucked into the door between the controls for the battering ram and the forward missiles) for a quick, post-patrol cat nap (bat nap...?).

Which consequently lead to him learning what a conflicted Bruce looked like when, upon blinking awake to find the car parked in the Cave, he found the older man leaning over the open cockpit, obviously not wanting to leave his apprentice in the cramped car, in the dampness of the cave, (and at the mercy of the bats) but also painfully aware of the awkwardness that should ensue if Tim were to awake whilst being carried into the manor. Thankfully, as Tim rubbed the sleep from his eyes and clambered out of the Batmobile under his own power, the Bat's eyes and jaw lost the look and set of a stoic general making a grim decision.

If Tim noticed they ended their nightly patrol a little earlier the subsequent evening (Gordon was a big boy. He could handle the generic ski-mask robbery that had dropped.), he didn't comment (At least not intelligibly – that's difficult to do when one is scarfing down the best meal one's had in days).

It seemed that this new-found ability, and conquering of a childhood handicap, had opened a door into the dangerous world of avante garde sleeping (or, as Tim liked to call it, survival).

He'd fallen asleep on a dolly under the 'mobile when the toolbox seemed oh-so-far away and, really, he would just close his eyes for a second and then he would have stored up enough energy to reach the eighth wrench.

He'd fallen asleep tilted eyes-first against the microscope, and apparently exuded such a concentrated air that an English butler intent on bestowing gifts of grilled cheese and tomato soup had quietly retreated. The lump he received when he slipped sideways and cracked his head on the lab bench? Easily explainable when it became part of a collection that night on patrol.

He'd fallen asleep in front of the computer, basking in the heat it generated (he still swore up and down that they'd all wake up one day riddled with tumors and only have the large machine to blame) only to be startled awake by the blaring klaxon and swirling crimson lights that indicated a break-out from Arkham (and the beginning of a really, really long night).

His inner bad-ass crime fighter warred with his common sense and just wouldn't let him admit defeat and take a "proper kip in a proper bed" (His conscience sounded oddly like a certain older gentleman he knew). Yes, he was sleeping either way, but with the one it was a manful five minutes snatched here and there in spartan conditions versus the perceived weakness of a longer rest in a softer place. As far as Tim could tell, the Bat was made of unyielding iron and powered by the furnace of his rage upon which he shoveled the coal of others' sins.

Or something like that.

Oddly enough, the older man had taken this habit in stride. It had become something of a routine for him: bury himself in the details, patterns, evidence, and coincidences of a case; emerge triumphant with a lead; belatedly remember he had a partner; find said partner in the cave.

The last step was always the most interesting. Dick, endlessly in motion, could always be located looping in and about the trapeze in the center of the Cave. Jason, with all the fervor of an angsty teenager, threw himself into pounding a punching bag in the gym or laying apathetically about.

Tim, however . . . Tim was equally likely to be titrating a solution in the lab, working his pectorals in the gym, or tinkering at a work bench on a new gadget. Or, as was becoming an increasingly normal occurrence, slumped over or curled up or sprawled out in sleep, contorted in some awkward position that made the Bat wince internally in sympathy.

This had become such the norm that when, upon finding a lead, Bruce headed toward the lab bench where he had last seen the younger man, he half expected to discover him snoring. Only a quietly burbling experiment missing a scientist greeted him. He does a quick (not-panicked-because-he-is-the-Batman) run-through of the cave, even going so far as to check the overhead trapeze for any rigging resembling a hammock upon which the Boy Wonder could be sleeping. But he finds only Robin's uniform hung neatly in its place, cape folded on the shelf above it, boots lined up on the floor below it.

With a jolt, Bruce realized that their patrol had ended some hours before and that he had been too deep in the case to acknowledge Tim's weary good night. He trotted up the familiar stone steps, passed through the grandfather clock, and ascended the grand staircase to the second level. There, he padded down the hallway until he reached his goal: a door slightly ajar.

Through it, he could see that his apprentice, who was flopped facedown on the bed, apparently had had enough energy to make it into pajamas but not under the blankets. His hair was a mess, his clothes wrinkled, his wrapped wrist still mending, but he smiled in his sleep and appeared utterly content.

Bruce would never admit the warmth that unfurled in his chest at the sight of the younger man so at peace and relaxed (and inexplicably missing one sock).

Bruce would also never admit to carefully bundling Tim under the covers and hesitantly smoothing his hair away from his forehead before murmuring good night and slipping out of the room.

But the photos discreetly snapped by a devious English butler would prove otherwise.