Chapter Text
“This. This isn’t working.” Tim hissed, frustrated on what he saw. “Can you be less you when you are in public as Dick Grayson?”
‘“What’s it, Timmy?” Dick laughed in between slurping his Milo drink. The drink was sinfully good; like a liquid cereal. Dick parked his head on top of Tim’s smaller one, and saw what Timmy saw.
The tabloid page showing the Nightwing in all its glory (captioned: those boooootylicious, yes it deserves more ‘o’s) and a picture of Dick Grayson, the debonair of Gotham in silver three piece tuxedo (captioned: The Prince Charming), both side by side, with a paragraph basically saying that if this was Tim Burton’s movie, Nightwing shall be played by Dick Grayson. The title of the trashy article was “The perfect cast for the vigilante group” .
Tim scrolled down. Fortunately Dick was the only one they get remotely right. Hood showed no face at all, so he was paired with the upcoming male model called Erwan. Red Robin, on the other hand, was paired with an old, hulk-like golden belt boxing winner (Quite insulting, really, and Dick poked a laugh at him. Does the Red Robin costume make Tim look fat?). The newest Robin was said to be played by some kid actor, who was three years younger than Damian (Tim snorted, at least they got the built right).
“This, Dick. They got you right. This isn’t working. You need to separate the personas, otherwise your identity is at risk!”
“Well, what do you think? You are the smart one, Timmy.”
“Hmmm.” Tim opened his research pages and surely, over the years, there was a small pattern of people pairing their vigilante identity with romanticized persona or famous people. Some actually get it right; and 60% of the right guess was on Dick Grayson as Nightwing. But the rest was growing, Jason had almost 15%, Bruce had the rest, and recently Damian has made into the list too. (Only Tim wasn’t, because Tim was damn smart hiding behind his two different personas, but it was mostly because people don’t really pay attention to the serious, CEO of Wayne Corps). “We need to change strategy. Four Robins with four similary built Wayne Boys is suspicious after a while. Bruce couldn’t pretend as an air head too long. We need to change our persona.”
“Oh, I know what we should do.” Dick suddenly brightened up. “Ohh, this will be fun and it will work.”
“What’s your idea?” Tim asked suspiciously.
Dick grinned. “Be patient, little brother. I need everyone before I announced my idea.”
“hmph. You love the spotlight, don’t you.” Tim huffed and his cheek puffed like a chipmunk.
“You’ll loooove this idea, I swear.” Dick winked and left the control room.
************
Tim doesn’t looooove the idea.
In fact he loathes it so much.
But the whole family agreed; even Damian looked like he enjoyed it.
The idea was to treat Tim as the princess of the family in public, with the other three became his princes in waiting. Since Tim was the easiest to mould into new personality with (the public rarely get the glimpse of Tim anyway), they wanted to make Tim looked fragile but icy princess; and the others are his adoring brothers. With those kind of persona, nobody would ever get Tim as Red Robin, and consequently his brothers wouldn’t be ex-Robins (and other vigilantes) too.
Jason laughed until he was on the floor, wheezing but agreeing wholeheartedly. Damian smirked and happily added the mocking of Tim’s suitability as a princess. Bruce just nodded because secretly he already thought of Tim as his darling princess; but he tried to hide it from the rest. Alfred just filled up Tim’s cup of tea and added a piece of macaroon beside Tim.
Tim hated everything.
They called it “Project Precious Princess”.
They started it on the Charity Ball Night two days after—where all four Wayne kids were supposed to make appearance. Tim couldn’t bear to step out of the limousine; but Dick was faster and scooped him out of the car. They walked slowly, savoring the paparazzi and journalists, Jason smirked and be hid handsome rogue self, while Damian stoically walked behind Dick who was carrying Tim like a princess.
Dick put Tim down when they reached the door, and Damian –fucking Damian—dropped to his knees (he is already taller than Tim now), pulled out a pair of pristine white gloves and put it on Tim’s hands. Slowly. Gently. Almost alluringly. And Tim felt the lights non stop on them. Even some of the famous people behind them stood still and watched the spectacle.
Dick then put Tim’s hand on his arms, strutting into the room.
“I hate you all.” Tim whispered.
“We love you, Timmy.” Dick smiled his most charming smile. “We love you.”