Title: the saints we see are all made of gold

Author: annicaspoon

Rating: T

Word Count: 7,150

Characters: Tim Drake/Robin, Garfield Logan/Beast Boy, most members of the team.

Summary: He doesn't expect to have a green monkey crawl over him on his first introduction to the team. He also doesn't expect that green monkey to end up his best friend. Tim/Gar friendship. Set circa a year before season two.

A/N: So anyone who knows me on tumblr would know that the past few weeks I've gone a little nuts over an idea that came to me; that idea being the possibility that Gar and Tim are best friends, being the original younger kids to join the team and all. This was pretty much my "let me convert you all to my brotp" device. I also decided to fiddle around a bit with fic formatting, sooo yeah.

Some of the events in this fic connect up to the events in my fic, "Blood and Water".

-o-

nine.

Gar's still fiddling. Tim notes the twitching green fingers; the soft cracks that echo through the room as his pops his joints. Gar's legs bounce up and down as he's seated and he's muttering something to himself – knowing Gar, it's probably numerous strange factoids about animals. Even his tail is twitching; really, Gar's whole behaviour at this moment is making Tim think of a cornered and frightened fox.

In light of everything, Robin wouldn't blame him.

Gar seems to shake something off himself and settles back into his chair. "This is going to take forever," he darts a glance towards Tim, "isn't it?"

"Probably." Really, Tim has no idea how long it's going to take for Black Canary to talk to and debrief everyone who had been kidnapped by the Reach – both team members and civilians. He's not sure of all the details that they're planning to give out to everyone, or how long each of the 'debriefing' sessions are going to be.

Though apparently, Gar realizes this as much as him. "I just want this to be over," he groans, slumping and looking defeated in his seat. "I wish Canary could just hurry up so we get out of here and go ho-"

As if the silence didn't feel heavy enough before, now it feels like it's pounding – crushing and stifling them all.

"…right…" Gar whispers, bringing up his knees to press against his chest.

Tim wishes that he knew of something he could say to his friend to make him feel better, but he's at a loss towards what he can say. Gar's always been the genius at optimism and cheering people up; it's never really had to be the other way around.

His mouth is open and he's about to say something (he has no idea what, but it would have probably ended up disastrously) when he hears Batgirl call out to him. Babs is standing at the end of the hallway, waiting for him. "We've got to get back to Gotham now. Nightwing's going to meet us there later." Robin nods and pushes off the wall he has been leaning against. He glances down at Gar, who's sending a half-hearted, lopsided grin up towards him.

"Good luck," he mutters, nudging Tim with his elbow.

Tim also forces a smile. "I think you're going to need it more than me." He shifts his feet and glances towards the end of the hallway, where Batgirl is still waiting for him. "I try and come back around later."

Gar nods, and Tim finally turns to leave.

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one.

Dick did warn him that his initial introduction to the Team might be overwhelming.

Still, he doesn't expect to end up with a green monkey crawling all over him.

It's all going generally smoothly. Sure, he's looking at his feet most of the time and the few things he has said so far may have been mumbled and directed towards the floor - but other than that, it's going fine.

Of course, this isn't the whole of the team that he's facing - only about half, with Batgirl opting to not come with Nightwing and himself, and Aqualad, Aquagirl and Tempest all attending to something in Atlantis. But even with that half, he manages to introduce himself without too much embarrassment.

That is of course, until the short green boy standing next to Miss Martian jumps towards him, transforming into a monkey mid-flight, and landing on Robin's leg, crawling up from there on a mission to inspect this newcomer.

Robin stands stock still as arms, legs and tail scamper over him; he feels his cheeks getting heated while titters of laughter come from the older, more experienced members of the team. A green tail flicks in front of his nose, and he's ready to shrink down and hide underneath his cape when Miss Martian saves him from humiliation, stepping forward with her hands resting on her hips. Robin can see that she's trying to hold back a smile and remain stern. "Alright Gar, leave him alone." The monkey pauses on Tim's shoulder as she speaks, and looks at her with an almost despondent expression. "You've had your fun for today, now come on. You've got homework to do for Mr. Carr."

The monkey finally jumps off Robin's shoulder, allowing him to relax them a little, and lands on the floor back in the form of the boy he started out as. He shoots a grin towards Robin, mumbling a quick "Sorry" before following Miss Martian into the hallway at the back of the room.

Tim establishes that this green primate is probably easier to hang around with than a real monkey.

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six.

Robin maintains that this is a bad idea, and he is only going along with it to make sure Gar doesn't mess it up.

Gar however, didn't miss the way that Robin chewed on his bottom lip and stared with an unimpressed expression at La'gaan's retreating back - after the thirteenth time that week that the older boy had slapped him on the back or nudged him with a slimy elbow, calling him "Chum."

(At least it isn't "Minnow". No matter how many times Gar growls and establishes to the new Atlantean team member that he's only a year youngerthan Robin, and that he could turn into a shark, providing he ever gets a chance to touch one, La'gaan still calls him "Minnow")

Robin's staring suspiciously at the box that he's brought into Gar's room all the way from a Gotham pet shop. Gar had initially thought that he would just search around for a good enough prop ("This is a cave! There are bound to be at least some in here!"), but after Robin pointed out the problems that could go with that, he realized that buying one would probably be the better idea.

(Tim later regretted trying to help his friend out, when he was then put on spider-collection duty.)

Gar leans over the box and begins to lift the lid, a smile stretching across his face. As spindly, hairy legs poke out from the top of the box, Tim takes a quick step backwards, hoping that Gar won't notice. Not that he needs to worry of course, as the green boy's attention is focused solely on the large tarantula that is now perched in his cupped hands.

He's grinning, holding his face close to the hairy arachnid, and inspecting every detail and sealing them away in his head. Tim winces. "Should you be getting that close to it?" He asks, wary of every moment the spider makes. "What if it gets annoyed and bites you?"

The tarantula skitters from one hand to the other as Gar shakes his head. "Nah, it won't bite," he says. "The aphonopelma anax is really tame. That's why they're great as pets."

Tim seriously hopes Gar isn't considering keeping it after this.

He raises an eyebrow. "The aphono-…what?" Gar looks up from the spider and smirks.

"Texas tan tarantula." He stretches out his arms towards Robin, and snickers when the other boy stumbles backwards a step. "Wanna hold him?"

Tim shakes his head a little faster than he should. "Let's just get this done," he mumbles, causing Gar to snicker again as he puts the tarantula back into it's box and the two of them slip out of Gar's room and sneak down the hall.

They both know that La'gaan is in the library, reading through the mandatory 'homework' that each new member of the team is set. Nightwing had given him a stack of files and old mission briefs and debriefs to read through when he came into the cave earlier, as well as statistics and recent activities of the multiple villains the Team and League have previously faced.

Robin and Beast Boy both crouch down near the top of the stairs and Gar sets down the box. Slowly and quietly, Robin takes the lid off the box and Gar reaches in, plucking the spider from its little nest of newspaper and sawdust. The tarantula crawls off Gar's hands onto the stairs, and then skitters down to the floor below, making a beeline for La'gaan.

Gar holds a hand over his mouth to muffle a snicker, and Robin tugs on his elbow and pulls him behind on of the bookcases before La'gaan can spot them. Heads poking out from behind a shelf of Shakespearean plays, their eyes follow the tarantula on its path toward the hard-studying Lagoon Boy. As it scuttles closer and closer towards the Atlantean, Gar's cheeks are ready to burst, and his shoulders are shaking with held-back chuckles.

It's once the ridiculous-sounding squawks of terror erupt from La'gaan's seat in the library that Gar can't hold his laughter in anymore. He rolls further behind the bookshelf, attempting to stifle his giggles with hands pressed over his face. Even Tim is holding a hand over his mouth as he continues to watch the Atlantean scrabble around on top of the desk, looking wildly at the floor, screeching over and over: "What is that?! What is that?!"

Miss Martian ends up coming to his aid, a concerned, yet confused look on her face. After La'gaan's babbling report, and another quick scan of the floor by both of them, it's surmised that the danger has passed, and La'gaan relaxes a little (though he refuses to continue studying in the same room as whatever that thing was, and follows M'gann into the kitchen).

Once the room is empty, Tim gets to his feet and drags a still giggling Beast Boy up. "Come on," Robin whispers between Gar's chuckles, "we should probably find this thing; before Artemis spots it and ends up blowing up the cave."

"S-sure," Gar titters, trying to swallow down his laughter. "Let- let's go."

Tim's the one that ends up finding the spider; nervously coaxing it onto the lid of its box until Gar comes around to help him out. Thankfully, Gar isn't planning on keeping the tarantula as a pet, and the two carry the box into the forest outside the cave, and let the tarantula (which, in the short time, Gar has named Mr. T) free into the forest.

It's once they're back inside that something clicks in Tim's head, and he jerks his head towards Gar. "Hey, wasn't Mr. T a Texas tarantula?"

"Texas tan tarantula, yeah. Why?"

Robin frowns. "Would a spider from Texas be able to survive well in the climate of Rhode Island?"

He doesn't say it aloud, but the horrified look on Gar's face is priceless.

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three.

Everyone agrees that it's Kid Flash's fault that the boys get hooked on video games.

Not that it takes much; just a few improvised and possibly phoney facts about how the strategical requirements for Portal and Super Smash Bros. give skills that can be crucial when it comes to missions. It's not long before he has both Gar and Tim planted on the couch, hunched over controllers and staring intensely at the TV screen.

The excitement brings Conner and Mal to the couches, and what was initially said to be "strategical training" soon becomes a round of swapping controllers, calling out jovial threats and, among the older boys, putting up bets. M'gann, Karen, Tula and Artemis are leaning against the kitchen bench watching the show, and when it's Robin's turn to go up against Wally, Artemis leans over the back of the couch and whispers cheats and secret passages into Tim's ear (Wally calls out "Cheat!" and enlists Tula as his own lookout).

It's when Batgirl and Nightwing arrive that the challenge is set. Two-on-two. Nightwing and Kid Flash against the two newly-fledged gamers. This causes everyone to cluster around the living room to cheer on Robin and Gar - no-one's going to give Dick and Wally the satisfaction of rooting for them.

For a fifteen minute game, it feels like it's an hour of rapid button-pressing, voices that get louder and louder as the tension gets higher, and multiple groans and stifled curses, before Gar and Tim finally emerge from the challenge as the winners. Gar of course, gives a whoop before transforming into a ferret and doing a strange ferret-dance around the room and the small crowd that has gathered in it.

(Tim has his suspicions that the older boys went easy on them to make them feel good, but even so, there's always a next time.)

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five.

It's not like either of them are strangers to death. Gar still has nightmares about his mom's car crash, and every time Tim slips on the mask, he's remembering what happened to Jason Todd. They both know about death; they seen it and they've heard it and they are not naive about it.

Which is what makes it so frustrating when it becomes apparent that the rest of the team are tiptoeing on eggshells around them – skirting around the topic and putting up proverbial cushions whenever either of the younger boys is close by.

Really, it would make sense if this were Kaldur they were doing it around, but he has disappeared for the last couple of days; whether he's been somewhere in the cave, or back in Atlantis, no-one really knows. Garth would also make sense, but he's still recovering from his own injuries, stuck in the infirmary.

Hell, it'd even make a little sense if they were avoiding the topic around almost anyone else – maybe Wally, or Karen. They were both closer to Tula than Gar or Tim were; they knew her better, they'd be more rattled by her death.

But no. No, instead the topic is being dodged around whenever the younger and newer members of the team are in the room. And it feels so stifling and frustrating and babying, that as they're sitting down in the little room used for private talks – Robin on one of the green sofas and Gar cross-legged on the floor and running his hand through the water dripping down the wall – the younger of the two blurts out his annoyance at this fact.

"We're not babies," Gar hisses, digging a heel into the carpet on the last word. "They all don't have to continually treat us like we are."

Black Canary leans forward, grasping on that small release from Gar. "What makes you say that?" Gar pauses and looks up, while Tim stares at the arm of the sofa and focuses on the slightly different in colours among the threads. He would rather anything other than being here right now. This room, with it's cave walls and constant silence that bounces off them, is stifling, and Black Canary's steady gaze, as she waits for them to speak up about the mission and smell of blood and the screams and the funeral, is weighing over his shoulders, getting heavier and heavier with each silent minute.

He finally breaks it, his voice cracking through the proverbial sheet of stillness in the room and trying to push the weight off him. "They won't talk about it when we're around," he mutters. "Even if we try to bring it up. I mean," he ducks his eyes to closely inspect the sleeve of his shirt, "we were there. We know what happened. We saw it."

He picks at a loose thread. "They don't need to try and keep it under a blanket for us."

Canary nods slowly, her thumbs lingering just below her lower lip as she listens intently to his words. "So, the two of you believe that the rest of the team are avoiding the topic around you because they think you wouldn't be able to handle it?"

"Well that's the reason why, isn't it?" Gar frowns up to her. "They still think we're just kids. They've always thought we're just kids."

"Is it that? Or do you think they might be avoiding the topic because it's painful for them to talk about?" Gar freezes as the notion sinks in, and Black Canary continues. "They've all known Tula a lot longer than the two of you have; maybe the reason why they have been avoiding the topic is because it hard for them to talk about it."

Once again the silence slips through the gaps and takes over the room as the boys let this fact sink in. Canary waits a while before prodding further.

"But how are the two of you coping with it, anyway? Like you said, Robin, you were both there. It is okay for you to let yourself be upset by Tula's death. Neither of you have to try and be strong towards this." Tim stares at the carpet on the floor while Gar buries his nose into the back of his hand.

Gar shrugs and cracks out a whisper: "Blood really smells bad."

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four.

It's a sea-based mission, following trade activities between Black Manta and League of Shadow operatives, so Alpha squad is made up of Beast Boy, Miss Martian and the three Atlanteans - the five team members that can operate sufficiently underwater. Robin joins Artemis, Batgirl and Kid Flash in Beta squad on the other side of the docks, and both squads are tasked with forming a close perimeter around the dock warehouse and shutting down the operation.

Gar manages infiltrate the building and catch up with Robin in a way that's so close to invisible that it almost impresses Robin. Granted, Gar does have the advantage of being able to turn into a spider. The green arachnid settles on a wall close to Tim's shoulder, and he hears the changeling's voice in his head.

'So, do you usually find a lot of bats in warehouses?' Gar chirps through the link. 'You know, the little ones that actually fly - not the tall, scary ones.'

The edge of Robin's lips twitch up, just so slightly. 'Not really. I think they can smell criminal activity.'

'That would make sense as to why Bats is so good at finding out about this stuff.'

'Boys.' Tim immediately focuses back on the job. 'We're here on a mission, remember?'

Robin is certain that if Gar were in his human form right now, he'd be grinning sheepishly. 'Sorry, sis.'

The two of them edge closer towards the centre of the building, Tim sticking to the shadows formed by stacks of wooden crates, and Gar following close behind, shifting into different animals as he tries to find one he wants to settle on. They stop as they reach a small squad of four, armed goons, and after reporting and receiving the OK from Aqualad, the two young members of the team take them down. No complications or slip-ups.

In fact, the majority of the mission goes smoothly, for Robin and Beast Boy at least. It's going so well that Robin is tempted to run through his head of all the different circumstances as to what else could be going on; what they might have missed, the traps they could be walking into. He shakes his head of all these thoughts however, and tries to focus on the job at hand.

He later thinks that he should have dwelled on them more.

He and Beast Boy are just moving away from the fourth of the squads they've taken down when the link, which has previously been fairly calm, suddenly becomes really, really loud. Tim winces at the multitude of voices and their intensities while Gar springs up into his normal form, green eyes darting around wildly. The concentration of all the noise increases even more, until it finally drops and leaves behind a silence that feels even louder than the commotion before.

"The link's dead," Gar announces after a while, a perplexed look on his face. He meets Robin's eyes for a moment, before raising his head slightly to sniff the air. Robin isn't sure who the other boy is trying to find, but he does notice the way Gar's eyes widen and the flash of horror that crosses his face. "C'mon," he says quietly, darting off in one direction as Robin follows him. Their path appears eerily absent of any opposing forces, and as they draw closer, Gar clamps a hand over his nose with a grimace. As they reach the open door that leads to the wet docking bay, they can already hear Aqualad's agonized cries, Miss Martian's voice speaking softly and rapidly, seemingly trying to calm him down. They can hear Batgirl and Artemis discussing orders between them, and softer than that, Kid Flash's voice talking in short, simple and easy sentences to someone.

But even softer than that, yet somehow the sound that's piercing through to them the most, is a strained, bubbling croak that's coming from the man they know as Tempest, repeating the same word over and over again.

"Tula… T-Tula… Tula…"

As the two boys round the corner into the room, Gar looks torn between wanting to keep his hand over his nose, or cover his ears. Batgirl and Artemis both notice them right away, and hold equal expressions of realization and concern on their faces.

"You two, go to the bioship," Batgirl quickly says, darting a glance behind her as if to try and judge how much they've seen. "Now."

Tim takes a step forward, his eyes going past the two young women to what's behind them. "Is…" His voice cracks away, unsure of what he wants to say.

"Robin," Artemis cuts in before he can find his words again. "Go."

He nods shortly, breaking his gaze away, and follows Gar out of the room and straight towards the bioship.

Neither of them say anything as they take seats at the back of the ship, out of everybody's way. Wally tells them not to look when they bring an injured Garth on board, but they do anyway, both of them unable drag their eyes away.

When Tula is brought on however, Gar pushes his face into his knees, his kneecaps clamping his nose shut and his hands over his ears, while Tim stares down and counts the stiches in his gloves for the duration of the flight.

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seven.

"I don't think it looks quite right."

"What makes you say that?"

Gar narrows his eyes and purses his lips, inspecting the tree with an air of intense importance. "There's not enough tinsel," he surmises. "I think we need more." Robin glances down at the boxes of decorations sitting in front of him.

"You just finished the last of it."

"Really? But the tree looks so bare…"

Tim send the green boy an unimpressed look. "There are thirteen lengths of tinsel on it." When he doesn't receive an answer from Gar, who's still scrutinizing the tree, he adds: "That's a lot of tinsel, Gar."

He hears Gar mumbling to himself: "But it needs something more," and he slides his fingers underneath the lenses of his glasses to rub at his eyes. How he managed to get wheedled into decorating the cave's Christmas tree – and why on Earth Miss Martian had trusted Gar with this in the first place – is something that he is still trying to figure out, but he's certain it's got something to do with the fact that Gar was following him around for close to an hour in the form of a kitten. A ridiculously fluffy kitten that watched him with big, forlorn eyes until the Boy Wonder had groaned and relented to help his friend.

Stupid kittens.

He tosses a bauble to Gar, and the changeling transforms into a small, green monkey and climbs around the branches of the tree to place the decoration on the branch. Continuing that process, the box of hanging decorations is empty in no time, and having overdosed on tinsel and shinies and decorations, the tree looks like it's about to be smothered by colour, only a few little green branches being visible underneath the metallic mess.

(At least the tree is nice and cosied up for the cool weather.)

Tim finally throws the star for his green companion to pluck up and place on top of the tree, but apparently Gar has other ideas, and the star is tossed back to hit Tim on the back of the head. The boy turns around, glaring, to meet Gar who's now back in his human form, jerking his chin towards the star that had just been used as a projectile. "You put it up," he shrugs, still hanging upside down above the tree.

Tim rolls his eyes and bends down to pick up the star, plucking it from the ground and reaching up on his toes to fix it onto the top branch. Gar flips off from the ceiling and lands next to him, admiring their handiwork (or as Tim would like to think of it – the ugliest Christmas tree along the East Coast).

"Best tree ever," Beast Boy grins, poking a bony elbow into Tim's ribs. "Job well done, my holiday compadre."

Tim scoffs and shakes his head. This is going to be the last time anyone allows them to help with Christmas decorations.

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two.

Because they're the closest to each other in both height and stature, Nightwing directs the two young boys to spar against each other for the first few weeks. Gar isn't sure whether Nightwing is aiming to test Robin, or Gar himself, because as he's facing the younger Batboy on the sparring floor, he's certain that Robin has got a whole lot more skills with hand-to-hand combat than Gar does himself.

But of course, Robin doesn't have the advantage of a tail to help with balance. Nightwing told Beast Boy that he wasn't allowed to use his shape-shifting abilities while sparring, but luckily, with the simian-like form that he keeps on, he still has the long, flexible tail that he can use to keep him balanced. Granted, sometimes it can be more of a hassle than anything; he hasn't completely gotten used to all the extra tendons and muscles he can use, and sometimes, if he's not concentrating, it'll just hang down as a dead weight until he realizes and focuses on keeping it lifted.

(Though it's not as bad as Robin's cape. Gar has no idea how anyone could manage to fight with that hanging from their shoulders and down their back.)

Gar doesn't mean to trip Robin over. Really.

It's an accident. He just doesn't concentrate enough. He manages to catch one of Robin's kicks in a block of his forearm, and he's not really focusing on much else aside from trying to push Robin's leg back down in a smooth movement. He's not paying attention to his tail and where it is, until Robin suddenly tumbles back and lands straight on his ass with a surprised look on his face.

It's only as he follows Robin's gaze that he notices the green appendage that was obviously curled around behind the backs of the other boy's ankles. Gar immediately opens his mouth to apologize, but Nightwing steps in before he can form the words. "I think that's enough training for today," the older boy says, shifting his glance between Robin and Beast Boy.

Robin's still looking at his feet, his cheeks tinged red. He ducks his head and pushes himself off the floor, brushing himself off before moving to walk out of the room. Gar watches him with a worried look on his face; this is the first person his age that he's been around since his mom's accident, and he's lonely and worried and scared that he just messed it all up. "I'm sorry!" He chokes out after Robin. The other boy pauses for a short moment, before slinking out of the room.

M'gann scolds him later on - as if he couldn't feel any worse about it - and Gar sulks and grumbles that he'll practice controlling his tail more.

(He does - he practices a lot - and it's not long before he has full control over it, conscious or subconscious. Soon, it becomes as natural as breathing.)

He's still worried about the ramifications of the tail-incident the week after, when Robin comes to the cave with Nightwing, and they're set up to spar against each other once again.

But as they circle each other on the training floor, Robin nods slightly towards Beast Boy. "I'll be keeping an eye on your tail this time," he tells him, with a small smile tugging on his lips. Gar beams back, and knows at that moment that they're okay.

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eight.

Gar tries to sneak back into the cave and his room after failing to catch up with Impulse. He sticks against the walls in various insectoid forms to avoid Nightwing and Robin, and almost succeeds, making it to his room and giving a small triumphant cheer.

But his cheer is cut short when he notices Robin leaning against the wall just inside his room, smirking at him slightly. Nightwing stands in the middle of the room, facing Gar, with arms crossed and a stern look on his face.

His victory now extinguished, Gar's shoulders slump and he slinks into the room, plopping his backside down onto his mattress and looking up at the two batboys. "So.." he starts, drawing out the 'o', "is this the part where you guys Bat-scare me into never telling anyone your secret identities?" He tosses them a sheepish grin, and notices Robin pressing his lips together to prevent a smile himself.

Nightwing also has a hint of a smirk on his face. "Can we trust you with that?"

Gar nods frantically. "Yes! Yes, sir – you can trust me! I solemnly swear I'll never tell anyone your real names! Promise!" He gives a cheeky grin and signals a cross over his heart.

"And you promise you'll never use our names in public or for ulterior motives?"

"Apart from making fun of yours?"

Tim coughs down a laugh and Nightwing sends a glare towards the changeling at his comment. "I mean," Gar adds, "yes! I promise! Names? What names? I didn't hear anything!"

Nightwing gives Gar one final measured look (Gar was hoping he's be able to avoid those looks while Batman's off-world, but apparently not, as Nightwing has seemed to taken up that habit in his place) and walks out, leaving Robin and Beast Boy in Gar's room. Gar looks up and smirks at Tim. "Timothy," he snickers, causing the other boy to pout and cross his arms.

"Says 'Garfield'."

Gar stops in his laughter to send Tim a matching a pout. "But Garfield is a cool name."

"Uh-huh. So do you want some lasagne, Garfield?" Beast Boy pokes out a tongue childishly and tosses a pillow. It flies past Tim's head, missing it by a mile, and Garfield groans and lays back on his mattress. Tim seats himself down next to him, and, with a thought suddenly occurring to him, Gar lifts up head.

"So," he says, sending up a mischievous grin, "now that I know your name, does that mean you're going to stop wearing those ridiculous shades all the time?" The long, green tail moves up and twitches in front of Robin's nose, poised and ready to pull off his mask.

Tim lightly swats away the tail and frowns. "You know the answer to that," he mutters, but even so, he turns his head to quickly glance towards the closed door of Gar's room. Assuring himself that it's shut and staying shut, the Boy Wonder ducks his head and begins to fiddle with the corners of his mask.

Gar, noticing what he's doing, widens his eyes and shakes his head. "Whoa, dude - I wasn't serious," he says, leaning forward. "You don't really have to take off your mask."

"I want to." There's a soft sound of fabric pulling away from flesh and he pauses. "Just…don't tell anyone, alright?" Gar nods and mutters a soft okay, and Tim lifts his head, leaving the mask in his hands. His friend is silent as he takes in the maskless face, and after only a few seconds underneath Gar's wide-eyed gaze, Tim already begins to feel naked and exposed without it, and wants to push the mask back on and huddle under his cape.

It finally gets to the point where Tim shifts uncomfortably and breaks the quiet. He glances up at the still-staring Gar and pulls at the fingers of his gloves. "What?" He mutters softly.

"You actually have eyes under there," Gar's shocked face breaks into a teasing grin, and he chuckles, earning a kick from Tim. The older boy huffs and turns his head back downwards to fix on his mask, reminding himself to not take off his mask for the next person who figures out his real identity.

Mask back on, he raises his head back up to face Gar again, but the half-monkey, half-boy he's used to seeing has been replaced by a smaller, normal-looking (apart from the green skin) boy that is perched on the end of the bed. The tail and usual cover of thick body fur is gone, his hands and feet are smaller and his whole body in general seem slighter. Instead of the usual haphazard spikes that his hair is usually in, thick, green tresses fall loosely over his head. He eyes one piece of hair that's hanging in front of his eyes and puffs it away.

Tim doesn't know what he's expected to say.

Gar notes the stare and shrugs, inspecting his hands as if he's trying to figure out how they could be so small. "I figured since you let me see you without a mask…" He waves his hands around in an effort to silently finish the sentence. When Tim doesn't reply, he rolls his eyes. "What? You didn't think I was actually half a monkey, did you?"

Tim shakes himself off and smirks. "I just didn't think it was possible for you to get shorter." The green boy growls and instantly changes back to his previous form.

"Shut up."

Tim opens his mouth to ask why Gar doesn't stay in that form more often, but after thinking about it for a moment, he decides against it. "That was pretty cool of you," he says instead. "To show me that."

Gar shrugs. "Just don't tell anyone, alright?" He grins as he mimics Tim's previous statement. "You continue to let the others think I'm half a monkey, and I'll continue to let them think you don't have any eyes. Deal?"

"Deal."

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ten.

Gar is babbling even before Tim steps off the final stair and walks to the door.

"If I told you that I only found out where you live by accident, would you believe me?" He grins up at both Tim and Alfred, who's standing at the door and raising an eyebrow towards Tim. The taller boy crosses his arms and shakes his head, and Gar pouts. "Shoot." He tentatively steps through the open door and waits on the doormat, green eyes darting around, trying to take the interior of Wayne's Manor in.

"How did you get here?" Tim asks, knowing that if Bruce weren't off planet, he would probably snatch the boy up right away and take him down into the batcave to give him a lecture. Gar seems to figure this as well; even with the Batman absent, he's acting jittery and looking around as if he's expecting an attack.

"I took the zeta to Gotham. Flew the rest of the way." He shrugs, the answer simple and plainly obvious to him.

"I mean-" Tim pinches the bridge of his nose, feeling Alfred's judging gaze resting on his back. "How did you figure out where I- we- live?"

"I did some research," Gar sends a quick smile his way, before putting on a mock serious face. "You should be proud of me you know, seeing you're the one that always says research is 'the most important part of a mission'." Tim opens his mouth to protest, but can't quite figure out what to say.

Alfred, seeming to have finished inspecting the green boy standing on the doormat, nods once and walks away. "Let me know, Master Tim, if you need anything," he says, neatly walking off. "And I don't think I need to tell you that if there is any mischief that you boys decide to get yourself into, both Master Richard and Master Bruce will be hearing about it." Tim mumbles a thanks as he notices Gar mouthing 'Master Tim?' and also begins to move away from the door, beckoning Gar to follow him as he walks up the stairs to his room.

"So," Gar says softly as he continues to turn his head and look wide-eyed at everything they pass, "is it an 'accomplice of Batman' requirement to be really scary and intimidating?"

Tim frowns. "You've never found me scary."

"You don't count. I'm pretty sure a fly wouldn't find you scary." Tim throws an unimpressed look in Gar's direction, meeting the other boy's toothy grin. "Besides," Gar adds, sniggering, "I know your deep, dark secret."

They walk through the door to Tim's room and the Boy Wonder turns to face Gar. "And what's that?" He asks. Sure, Gar knows a lot about him compared to most of the other members of the team, but Tim likes to think that he's managed to keep at least some mystery about him.

"You slick your hair back when you're in civvies." Gar grins, and Tim immediately turns his burning face away and raises a hand to try and mess up the gel-flattened locks. He and Dick both had to go to a small gathering earlier that morning with some of the Wayne Enterprises council members, to "keep up the Wayne presence as Mr. Bruce Wayne continues on his travels in the Americas", and Tim certainly hadn't been expecting a tailed visitor, or any visitor, to pop in that afternoon.

"It's to help with the secret identity," he mumbles as he tries to pry away a finger that he's gotten stuck in a sticky, gelled lock.

"I thought that's what the obsessions with masks and glasses were for." Gar walks around the room and looks around while Tim finally manages to free his finger. While he sits himself down on his mattress, he thinks he hears Gar mumble something like 'way cooler than an old warehouse', and it suddenly hits him that bringing Gar into his room - a room way too big and fancy for Tim's own liking - was probably the worst thing he could have done. He realizes that he has basically shoved in Gar's face that he has a proper home and Gar doesn't at the moment, and that realization brings up a twisty, slimy worm in his gut to pull at his stomach.

He's a jerk.

Gar however, seems oblivious to his friend's sudden feeling of dickery, and continues to look around the room, making exclamations of 'cool!' or 'neat!' whenever he stumbles upon something new. Every noise of wonder that comes from Gar brings another twinge of guilt to Tim, and he tries to think about a different subject.

"So what made you go to all the effort to get here, anyway?" He asks as Gar plops down on a desk chair and spins himself around on it.

"M'gann's staying at Uncle J'onn's apartment, Conner decided to stay in Smallville for a couple of days, and Mal and La'gaan are both moping for some reason." Gar shrugs, toes pushing off the ground as he spins again. "I got bored."

He continues to spin himself, obviously not planning on venturing more into the reasons why he suddenly decided he needed to seek out someone for company. Tim can read easily from his behaviour that he's avoiding something, but doesn't press. Gar will open up sooner or later; he always does. Tim's found the changeling to be so open that he can never keep anything holed up for too long. Tim remembers one time when he found Gar sitting in front of his TV watching 'Hello Megan!' one afternoon, and had pummeled Tim with trivia and facts about the show for the length of two episodes before he finally ran out of things to say and quietly admitted how much he missed his mom. Tim learnt from that moment that Gar tends to unravel down to the core problem soon enough; it's only a matter of time.

As he's thinking back to that little event, Tim is reminded of something that he has been working on in the Batcave for just over a week. He quickly excuses himself, telling Gar that he won't be long, and dashes down into one of the living rooms and slips behind a cabinet of glassware. He follows the tunnel behind the cabinet down to the cave, where he dashes straight to his own little station and picks up a disk that sits next to his laptop.

Gar hasn't moved very far when he gets back up to his room, and sends him a puzzled look as Tim dashes to his TV and pokes the disc into the DVD player, beckoning Gar to sit on the bed. Gar obeys, however still looking dubious towards his friend's newfound enthusiasm, and sits down, while Tim turns on the TV and presses play.

As the bright titles appear on screen, Gar's freezes in all his fidgeting and stares, shocked. Tim watches his friend as he watches the opening credits with wide eyes and his mouth slightly ajar. Still refusing to take his eyes off the screen, Gar manages to find his voice. "How did you find this?" he whispers.

Tim shrugs. "Bat training."

"But you can't even get it online." Gar finally drags his eyes away from the screen to look sideways at Tim. Tim smirks.

"You can't on a normal database."

Garfield grins bigger than Tim imagined he ever could and looks back at the screen to watch 'Hello Megan!'.

Sometime in the middle of the episode, as Megan is slapping herself on the forehead for forgetting her cheerleading uniform for practice, Tim hears Gar's voice cut through the infamous catchphrase.

"You're the best, best friend ever," Gar whispers, biting his lips and shooting a grateful smile towards Tim. "Thank you."

Tim smiles back before both their eyes are directed back to the TV screen as the "Boyfriend To Save The Day", Conner, walks on screen to hand Megan her clothes.

.

.

.

After the first episode has finished, Tim runs downstairs to the kitchen, coming a breathless face-to-face with Alfred. The butler frowns in concern. "Is there something you need, Master Tim?"

Tim nods. "Popcorn. Lots of it."