Tim prides himself on his skill as a detective. He notices which hiding place Penguin looks at when he's boasting. He can tell whom Batman fought just by looking at the set of Bruce's shoulders. He can hear the tiny shifts in Oracle's electronic voice that hint at Babs' emotional state.

But, mostly, he can see the way Dick has been looking at him lately. He has a few hypotheses about those long glances, about the way Dick's casual touches have started stretching into caresses whenever Dick isn't paying attention.

Empirical evidence says Dick wants him.

But Dick himself doesn't seems to notice. Or maybe, he notices a bit too much. He wouldn't meet Tim's eyes for nearly two hours, after the first time Tim caught him staring. He snatched his hands away like he'd been burned, last time he started to pet Tim's hair.

And that is completely unacceptable. Tim is going to have a talk with his big brother. Either that maddening touching will stop, or Dick is damn well going to follow through with it.
Tim wants a chance to do some watching of his own.

"How can you like that stuff?" Tim stared at the vaguely orange mess that Bernard was happily scarfing.

Bernard held his cake protectively. "Just because you cannot appreciate the finer things in life, doesn't mean that the rest of us are similarly handicapped. And carrot cake with cream cheese frosting is about as fine as it gets." He took another bite and chewed it slowly with obvious enjoyment.

Tim watched him until he began licking his spoon demonstratively, nearly moaning in a parody of ecstacy. Then Tim looked pointedly away. "Hedonist."

Bernard swallowed the cake, and scooped another bite onto his fork. "Philistine."

"Sybarite."

"Stoic."

Tim snorted. "You ain't seen nothing yet. Voluptuary."

"You're just jealous."

"Right. Of course, Bernard. I am overcome with yearning for that lumpy brown stuff you're devouring."

Bernard ignored the heavy sarcasm. He nodded cheerfully. "Yep! And you're mad at me 'cause I won't share."

Tim rolled his eyes and gave up.

Tim has always had a great respect for history. He's trying to live up the Robin legacy, after all. How could he know what he's supposed to do, what Robin is supposed to be, without knowing what Robin had been before? How could he understand a villain's modus operandi  without studying hundred of past plots, both failed and successful?

But, beyond the sheer usefulness of the subject, Tim recognizes the power of a person's past. The attractive familiarity of old habits, the crushing impact of old emotions. He's even felt that impact himself a few times.

And that is why he really should have known better than this. He should never have presumed to enter-- to interefere with--any relationship between Dick and Roy. He should have known that he could never fit, could never compete, could never share in their closeness. Monumental hubris, even to wish for it.

Because Dick and Roy were once Robin and Speedy. They built a fraught, passionate relationship over years of trust and love and broken promises. Next to that, Tim has nothing to offer. Nothing that could possibly interest either of them.

The history is against him.

"Hey, Robin! What would you do if you ruled the world?"

"I'm busy, Impulse."

"I mean, if I ruled the world, there would be lots more food and nothing would ever stretch on for minutes and minutes and-"

"I'm busy, Imp. Go bother Superboy."

"- and people like you would never be too busy to play with me." He opened his eyes wide and tried to look pathetic. It was so boring at the old Justice League headquarters. Even the Supercycle was ignoring him.

Robin sighed and closed the laptop. At this rate, he'd never get anything done, anyway.

"Ruling the world isn't that simple. You'd have to settle disputes between people, so they wouldn't attack each other and you'd have to figure out who got access to which limited resources and how much you could justify harming the environment to improve human quality of life."

"Oh."

"It'd be a lot of work, most of it really boring."

"Boring? How could if be boring? I'd just make it so people had to entertain me!"

"Well, you'd have to sit through long meetings with self-important people who would talk on and on for hours about what they needed or wanted. You'd have to listen to long reports about exactly what was happening, so you would know how to respond to it. You would barely ever get to go have fun."

"Oh. Huh. Doesn't sound like much fun at all. Why do all those people we fight seem to want it?"

Tim raised both eyebrows high enough to tug his mask out of alignment. "You know, Bart, I have long suspected that insanity might play a role."