Chapter Text
Tam knocked on the open door twice before Tim registered her presence.
“You’re early today,” Tim greeted her absentmindedly.
Tam snorted. She’d arrived at the office at 6 AM sharp. It was now 9 AM. She walked until she was in front of Tim’s desk and closed his laptop abruptly.
“Hey!”
“You’re not paying attention again, Timmy.”
“Don’t call me that. I’m busy,” and Tim gestured at his desk.
Tam eyed the desk full of papers and sticky notes with boredom. “Lois called again.” Tim was groaning before she could finish her sentence. "Don’t whine.”
“I’m not whining,” Tim replied, rubbing his eyes. “What did you tell her?”
“Same thing as always,” Tam shrugged, finally taking a seat. “No leads. No progress. Call later this week.”
“I don’t think 'later this week' we’ll have any answers either,” Tim mumbled.
When he moved his hands away from his eyes, he found Tam looking at him with that all-knowing stare that always made him squirm internally.
“We need more people,” she stated gently for the tenth time this week. And for the tenth time, Tim shook his head. “Tim. You need to hire someone else.”
“I’ll call Selina again—”
“She's our consultant only, and she isn’t coming back to the city for another month. You know that.”
“And she owes me many favors, remember? I’m sure she can cut her vacations short for me.”
Tam gave him a pointed look.
“Alright, we both know I won’t do that,” Tim sighed. “Selina does deserve a year worth of vacation.”
“We finally agree on something."
Tim matched Tam's grin, before he frowned again.
"I don't think it's a good idea, though," he said. "Hiring someone else. I like having a close-knit community."
"You have trust issues, more like."
It was Tim's time to give her a pointed look.
"Okay, look," Tam raised her hand and started to count with her fingers: "Reason number one, we need someone, preferably higher class, to join Club Penguin—"
Tim suppressed a smile. "Not what it's called but go on."
"Right," Tam smiled widely and continued, "Number two, that someone needs to be a him—"
"My non-binary's and she's won't be very happy to hear that, Tammy."
"Shut up. Number three, he needs to be middle-aged because of course the club is for super lame and old men only."
A pause.
"So you want me to call in Lex Luthor."
"Ew," Tam made a disgusted face at the thought of the president. "Don't even joke, lad."
"You're being extra funny today, why?"
"Because I want you to stop being so stupid, Tim."
"I'm not being stupid. I'm being realistic. I don't want to hire a stranger because it doesn't make sense. Timeline wise, we don't have the time to teach this hypothetical middle-aged rich man how to be a detective."
"Alright, you have a point, but also timeline wise our time is running out," Tam retorted. "Lois has a deadline for this things. She can’t keep waiting forever. Her boss won't like that and then they'll scratch the whole investigation."
"It's not like that's ever stopped her before, though."
Tam raised her hands. "Okay, I tried. Next time she calls you’ll pick up."
Tim went silent, recalling the way Lois's voice usually rose every time she was annoyed about something not working out the way it'd been planned. Usually her annoyance got ten times worse when it was some sort of crime involved.
"Put on an ad on Craiglist,” he finally yielded, ignoring Tam's excited thumbs up and big smile. "Searching for middle-aged man, preferably high-class, with experience in social events and business talk. Add, uh," Tim thought for a second, "Charming, not too extravagant. Intelligent. Or capable of following instructions at least. I don't know."
"You've got it, boss," and Tam left his office nearly jumping in excitement.
Tim only shook his head again, briefly letting his lips turn upward for a moment, and went back to writing the reports of their last four closed cases. He made a mental note to ask Selina how was she doing back in Cancun, ignoring the part of his brain that was begging him for a break of his own.