Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

The weird kid was watching her again. 

   Cassie had been noticing him for a while now, but she hadn't mentioned it to anyone.  Her Mom was already paranoid enough without having a stalker to worry about, and she didn't want to seem like a fraidy-cat in front of Diana.

   Plus, she was pretty sure she could take him on even without her gauntlets and sandals. He wasn't very big, and Cassie had grown up getting into fights with all the neighborhood boys who would tug her pigtails. That was part of the reason she had cut her hair. Her mom had always told her that they would grow out of it, but Cassie was eleven too so if they weren't gonna get in trouble for pulling her hair she shouldn't get in trouble for sucker punching them in the gut either.

  The weird stalker kid didn't really look like the kind of boy who pulled hair though. More like the kids who sat by themselves and brought a book to lunch every day. Which meant that unless those kids had some sort of secret superstrength cult she didn't know about, she could beat the snot out of him if she wanted to. Probably.

  Cassie glanced over at the park bench where he had been sitting, but he wasn't there anymore. Shrugging it off, she turned her attention to digging around in her pocket for ice-cream money.

   "Hi."

Cassie whirled around and punched him in the gut.

The stalker kid was on the ground, one arm supporting himself and the other one wrapped around his stomach. Cassie would have felt triumphant if he hadn't been crying and at least three inches shorter than her.

"Owowowowow oh my god that hurt what the heck what the heck" The stalker kid said this all in one wheezing breath, still attempting to hold himself up on his now bleeding elbow.

Crouching down at his current eye level, she shoved her face towards his and assumed her best menacing face.

"Why have you been following me? Are you an assassin? Are you trying to kill me?"

The Boy's eyes went wide. "No! No I'm not, I swear! I just, I think I uncovered this weird conspiracy thingy," He scrambled into a sitting position, hurriedly swiping at his eyes. "And It's too big big for me to figure out by myself, and I didn't want to tell the authorities 'cause I didn't think they'd believe me, y'know? But then I saw you fighting that big statue thing and I followed you home, and I figured out you're Wondergirl! So-"

"What!" Cassie shrieked, throwing herself back onto the pavement in shock. "I- what, no! I'm not- I just- that's just- I-"

"Hang on a second, I-"

"Oh my god, my Mom is gonna kill me!"

"Wait, just let me-"

"And Diana won't let me be her sidekick anymore 'cause I can't even keep my identity secret so how am I gonna-"

"I won't tell anyone!"

Cassie stopped panicking momentarily to look at him. "You swear?"

He nodded seriously. "I swear on my- Urgk!"

Cassie lunged forward and hugged him. A passerby stared for a second before shrugging it off as nothing.

"Thankyouthankyouthankyouthankyouthankyou!"

The boy awkwardly patted her on the back before quickly detangling himself and clearing his throat. "Um, so anyways. The thing I need your help with. "

   Cassie sprung to her feet. "Right! Yeah, I forgot about that. You said it was some kind of conspiracy, right?"

The boy nodded, holding out his hand so Cassie could help him to his feet. "We might want to go somewhere else."

Chapter Text

"Somewhere else" turned out to be a really badly built fort in the woods near The Lab™. In Cassie's opinion, it didn't even count as a fort since it was only a few sticks leaned against a tree with a tarp thrown haphazardly over it. But the stalker kid had presented it so proudly, plopping himself down on some kind of soft pillowy blanket that served as the floor to his 'fort' and patting the ground next to him for Cassie to sit, that she didn't have the heart to refuse him. She had to scrunch herself up to fit inside; it was clearly made for someone the stalker kid's size. 

"So!"  He tapped the heels of his hands together for emphasis "I'm Tim. That's not important, but I figured you should know since we're gonna be a team now."

"I'm Cassie."

"I know. Nice to meet you, Cassie."

"Likewise." 

The Boy Tim cleared his throat and pulled out what looked like a miniature conspiracy board from his Batman-themed backpack. Lots of his things were hero-themed, Cassie noted. From the lightning bolt, S, lantern, and double W pins on his backpack to his light-up Robin Sketchers. Even his hoodie was red with one green sleeve and one yellow one. He also had a really dorky bowl cut. 

Tim pointed towards a page pinned on his board. "When I first ran- I mean, moved here, I decided to do little research on the city. I went to the library and overheard a conversation about there being a Cadmus DEO hybrid facility near here; it sounded fascinating so I decided to do some research, mostly for fun at that point, but it turned into an investigation pretty quick. 'Cause, here's the thing" He leaned forward conspiratorily "They're is using way- and I mean way way way too much energy for a facility that size." 

Cassie frowned, disappointed. "That's it?"

He floundered, clearly not expecting that reaction. "Well- I mean, there've also been reports of kids claiming it was some kind of testing center where they were experimented on. Oh, and it's partially funded by Lex Luthor.

Cassie narrowly resisted the urge to smack him. "You could've led with that. We gotta go investigate. You're lucky you found a bona-fide Super Hero to help you out; this is no job for some random kid."

Tim looked indignant "Hey, I'm the one who found out about all this in the first place, you'd be lost without me! And anyways, I'm pretty sure we're the same age."

"No way are you older than nine."

"I'm eleven!"

She rolled her eyes. "Sure."

"I am!"

"Are not."

"Am so!"

"Are not!"

"Am so!"

"Whatever." Cassie cut him off. "So, where is this 'Cadmus' place anyways?"

Tim looked puzzled. "We just passed it. That big, white, suspicious looking building with the huge electric fence?"

"You mean The Lab™?"

"Why'd you say it like that?"

Cassie cocked her head. "Like what?"

"With that weird emphasis."

"Oh. It's a'cause it's got a trademark after it."

"Like they do in funny Tumblr posts?"

"Yeah."

Tim nodded, apparently satisfied. Cassie made a mental note to ask him his URL later; she needed more mutuals. "Well, if it's so close then what are we waiting for? Let's go!" She nearly jumped to her feet before remembering they were in a stick pile fort, and crawling out instead, albiet hurriedly.

"Wait!" Tim shouted, and Cassie stopped, annoyed. "We can't just run off without a plan! We're talking about infiltrating a government agency here! We need contingencies!"

Cassie groaned and rolled her eyes.

Chapter Text

Timothy Jackson Drake had never been so excited in his entire life. 

There were multiple reasons for this. One was that he didn't lead a terribly exciting life. He spent most of his free time reading, climbing trees in the backyard, and attempting to do flips pretending to be Nightwing. He was good at the first two and increasingly decent at the third. 

You would think that, with all the money his parents had, Tim would never be bored in his life. And honestly, the feeling he felt wasn't really boredom. It was tightness. A restless, hard feeling in his chest like when he held his hands and feet still too much. He longed to move, to go somewhere. 

And here he was. Somewhere. The most exciting place he had ever been just by way of not being his home or a school.

And somewhere was Gateway City. With Wonder Girl. Which was so cool. He might even get to meet Wonder Woman eventually!

At the thought of it, Tim bunched his hands into fists involuntarily and began to shake them before quickly stopping himself. Something of his father's presence seemed to come over him like a shadow and he pushed back the thought of what he would say seeing Tim act like that. He glanced over at Wonder Girl and was glad to see she wasn't looking at him. Instead, she was looking in the direction of the lab The Lab™ and shaking her leg impatiently. Which reminded him, he was supposed to be making a plan. Or a proto-plan anyways. This task had been designated to him by Wonder Girl, who had at first demanded to be involved and then immediately gotten bored and told him that he could do it and she would tell him what ideas were stupid. That was basically how group assignments worked so Tim was fairly familiar with this method. 

It took about ten more minutes but Tim had finally created a 100% bonafide foolproof plan. "Wonder Girl!" he called "Come here, I'm done!" 

Wonder Girl sprang up "FINALLY!" she yelled unnecessarily "I'VE BEEN WAITING FOR HOURS!" 

Tim wanted to say it had only been one hour, but he honestly couldn't. He had no watch or sense of time. It was something that mommy his mom said he should work on. So instead he rebutted with "It hasn't been that long, you're exaggerating."

Wonder Girl's face scrunched up with displeasure. "Well, you don't have to be rude about it."

Tim wasn't sure how he had been being rude, but he decided to take it gracefully. He found that he was normally in the wrong in these situations. "Uh, sorry. Do you want to hear the plan now?" 

Wonder Girl nodded. 

"So" Tim began "first of all, we're gonna need your sandals to fly over the gates and into the facility. Once we're in, we look for any unlocked doors. If we find one, we sneak in and steal whatever clothes they dress the experiment kids in. Then, we pretend that we're experiment kids who have broken out. They'll bring us to whatever place they keep the kids, and we can see what they're doing to them! You can break us and the kids out with your super-strength, and we'll expose what's been going on to the authorities!

Wonder Girl gave him a look. "That took you three hours????"

Tim thought the number of hours seemed to be mysteriously going up but he ignored it. "I had to think! I've never made a plan like this before. Maybe if-"

He trailed off. He had been going to say 'maybe if you'd helped me it would have gone faster.' But that was rude. He was always doing that by accident.

"Maybe what?" Wonder Girl asked curiously.

"Nothing." Tim replied. His mind was beginning to drift back to the school meeting with his parents. "Timothy often accidentally comes across as rude or abrupt when he doesn't mean to."  He remembered how he had been uncomfortable and started rocking in his chair and the school counselor had given him a soft look and asked if he wanted a fidget toy. He did, but his father had snapped that he didn't need that kind of thing and so he stayed silent. Then when they had gotten home, he exploded. "I won't have a r*tard in this house!" Jack had bellowed.

So that night, Tim ran away from home. 

Chapter Text

Breaking into The Lab™ turned out to not be nearly as difficult as Tim had thought it was going to be. What few guards there were weren't looking up and although there were devices that looked like they should detect people flying in overhead, no one ran out with guns and started shooting at them. Tim was actually a bit nervous about that. It just didn't feel right.

Wonder Girl landed less than gently in the middle of the barren courtyard that The Lab™ surrounded. Everything was quiet and dark, with not even the sound of crickets to break the silence. Tim shivered, although whether it was from cold or fear and anticipation he didn't know. 

"Well" Wonder Girl whispered "we're here. What now?"

Tim took a deep breath. "Now we go inside."

Wonder Girl nodded solemnly. Somehow, now that they were here, it didn't seem as fun anymore. Tim kind of wished he had stayed in his fort.

Wonder girl chose a door, seemingly at random. She kicked it in effortlessly. 

Tim took a deep breath and walked inside.

The inside of The Lab™ was almost completely white. Florescent lights made Wonder Girl's skin look a pale ghostly white and Tim knew that his own even paler face must look worse. The only sound was the air conditioning system, which seemed deafeningly loud. There were multiple steel doors lining the hallway. Tim wondered queasily what was behind them.

They walked wordlessly down the long hallway before coming to a large double door. Wonder Girl looked at Tim, and he nodded. She pushed the doors open.

The room they walked into was large, white, and entirely empty. Tim's uneasy feeling got worse.

Wonder Girl looked around and Tim could tell she felt uneasy too. "Well." she said, "It doesn't look like anything's here."

"Yeah." Tim muttered "Maybe not. Maybe coming here was a bad idea. I think we should-"

The lock behind them clicked

In an instant, Wonder Girl was on it, first tugging at the handle, then attempting to kick the door down to no avail. Tim dug through his backpack frantically, finding a lockpick. He ran to the door and stuck it in the lock, only to have the lockpick suddenly become incredibly hot. He pulled it out, only to see that the tip of it had melted. Wonder Girl gave a final, useless kick to the door before slumping her shoulders in defeat.

They were locked in.

Chapter Text

To Tim's credit, he didn't start panicking. And neither of course, did Cassie. She was like, waaaaay too old for that.

Well, maybe she panicked a little. Who wouldn't?

"OMG! Tim Tim Tim we're locked in! They locked us in, Tim!" 

"Yes!" Tim snapped "I can see that!" His voice was strained and bordering on angry, Cassie managed to note through her mental mantra of "we messed up we messed up we messed up" .

"Well don't yell at me about it! It wasn't my idea to come here anyways it was like, totally yours! If you hadn't convinced me to come here this never would have happened and if this never happened we never would have gotten locked in and if-!"

"SHUT UP!!!"

Cassie stopped, stunned. 

Tim's breathing was heavy as he began clenching and unclenching his hands over and over. His whole body was shaking slightly and his bottom lip was quivering as if he was about to cry. It reminded Cassie strangely of the Autistic girl at her school when she got overwhelmed in the hallway.

"Shut up!" Tim shouted again "Shut up shut up shut up! You don't know anything!"

He raised his hands up to his head and Cassie reacted instinctively, grabbing him by the wrists.

"Don't hit yourself!" She yelped. Tim tried to wrench himself out of her grip. Cassie yanked back, sure he would hurt himself if she let go, until suddenly-

POP

Cassie froze. Tim's eyes had gotten as big as saucers and his face was pale. His left hand was limp in her grip. She released his wrist, looking in horror as the hand flopped sideways as if held on only by skin. Tim's eyes had begun to water and he was making a quiet, high-pitched whimpering sound.

"Oh my god. Oh my god oh my god oh my god. What happened!?! " Cassie was definitely panicking now. Tim's hand just looked wrong . And whatever was wrong with it was Cassie's fault. Tim's whimpering got louder. 

Just then, Cassie thought she heard a hissing noise. It was subtle; she couldn't even tell where it was coming from, but it was definitely there.

It was funny. A moment before, Cassie had been panicking about hurting Tim. But now, all she felt was tired. She felt the sudden urge to lie down and take a nap on the floor. 

Tim suddenly collapsed. Probably because of how much the room was spinning. In the back of her mind, Cassie knew something was off. But right now…

Chapter Text

Tim woke up slowly.

He was laying on a somewhat soft surface (bed?) in a bright room with a white ceiling. The color of the walls was a mystery to him, as moving from his position still seemed like an impossibility, but he assumed they were also white. Tim tried to recall what happened to get him into this situation. They were in a room, they got locked in, then…

Oh.

Shame hit him like the batmobile. He had freaked out. Really freaked out. It was exactly the kind of thing that made dad not want him in the house. Tim could still remember when his freak-outs had stopped being tantrums and started being fits. Fits, like mommy. Not that mommy's fits were like Tim's. Mommy didn't shout. She would go very quiet, hugging herself and rocking back and forth while dad made comments about how he felt like he married a petulant child.

Strength was starting to return to Tim's limbs. He abruptly brushed away the thoughts of mothers and fits. He had more important things to deal with now. 

Tim managed to push himself to his feet in a series of clumsy movements. Once standing, he looked around.

As he had suspected, three of the walls were white as well. However, one of them was clear glass and through it Tim could see a hallway lined with other rooms like the one he was in. Most were empty, but a few were occupied. And what strange inhabitants they were! Some covered in scales, some in feathers, and one in some kind of slime. Even the normal looking ones were doing strange things, such as appearing in one place, then another, or floating a few inches off the ground, or sticking to the walls. 

But the strangest part was that none of them looked above the age of eighteen 

Tim blinked, shocked. He had only seen powers like these on the news before. He had always been fascinated with people like this, but now that he was seeing them in real life he felt slightly scared.

The room directly across from him didn't see to have anybody in at at all. But it was hard to tell, as it was filled with what looked like either smoke or a swirling cloud of dust. As Tim watched, the dust collected in one spot and for a moment Tim thought he saw it form a humanoid figure. 

Of course, he could have been hallucinating. He had, after all, just recovered from some sort of sleeping gas. It could have been affecting his brain. But on the off chance he wasn't, the figure was the only one close enough to talk to. And since these kids were clearly the same ones who The Lab™️ had been experimenting on, they might have information that could help him escape. Tim took a deep breath.

"Hello?" He asked "Is anybody there?"

Suddenly, the mist seemed to swirl in on itself, getting tighter and tighter until it formed a distinctly childlike form.

"Hello?" The voice that spoke was that of a young girl, and it seemed to be coming from the figure.

Ok. Thought Tim. Start small.

"I'm Tim Drake. What's your name?" 

The dust fluttered a little in a way that seemed almost despondent.

"I don't know. The doctors didn't give me one." She replied.

Although he didn't show it, Tim was ecstatic. He was speaking with one of the experiment kids! This was a major step in solving the case! He tried to choose his next words carefully.

"Well, it's nice to meet you anyway. I'm eleven, how old are you? Tim asked.

"I don't know that either!" The figure cried, and Tim cursed himself mentally. Of course if she didn't know her own name she wouldn't know her age either. And now Tim had upset her.

"I'm sorry. I'll stop asking you questions now." Tim muttered, embarrassed.

"No wait!" The figure pressed herself to the glass "Don't stop talking to me! No one ever talks to me!"

Tim tried to contain his delight at not being shunned. Now he could cut to the chase.

"So." He said, trying to act casual "How long have you been here?" 

The figure fluttered "I heard one of the doctors say they've only had 5 months to work with me. And I don't remember a lot from before that."

Tim wished he had a notepad to write these things down on. Hopefully his brain would act as nature's notepad.

Tim decided it was time for the big question.

"Do you know a way out of here?" He asked

The figure paused, then spoke. "Yes."