Chapter Text
Another suspicious thing about Tim, Bernard had to come to realise, was just how often he disappeared with muttered excuses about family emergencies and forgotten Wayne Enterprise meetings.
Either Tim’s family had a hell of a lot of emergencies (which could be possible, considering the Waynes were constantly in the tabloids for one reason or another) and Tim was very forgetful about his meetings, or… Tim was lying to him about where he actually disappeared to (and he needed to learn how to lie better).
Bernard was leaning towards the latter option, considering Tim was one of the most over the top, organised people ever when it came to work. He might be one of the most disorganised people Bernard knew when it came to his life outside of work, but at work he was an organised freak.
He would never ever forget a meeting.
Bernard had seen his calendar. The man planned in his toilet and coffee breaks. Seriously, who the fuck did that?
The point was, there was no way he forgot about that many meetings. And there was seriously no way the Wayne family could have that many emergencies. What sort of family had emergencies serious enough to call in all their family members at a minimum of two to three times a week?
No. It just wasn’t plausible.
Yet again, something was off about Tim’s constant disappearances.
And as usual, Bernard Dowd was on the case.
“Hey Bernard, I’m sorry, I’ve got to run.” Tim apologised, moving Bernard’s legs off of his lap and stretching, slipping his phone into his pocket. He pressed a light kiss to Bernard’s head and hurried over to the door, bending to grab his shoes. “Emergency Wayne Enterprises situation, you know how it is.”
“Hmm.” Bernard rolled over onto his stomach to watch Tim put his shoes on, resting his head on his hands. He was stretched across Tim’s couch.
They’d planned a quiet Tuesday evening together into both their schedules to have a Criminal Minds marathon. Bernard had illegally downloaded the first five seasons in preparation.
Bernard had honestly been a little close to losing his mind and was never making the mistake of watching any mystery or detective show with Tim ever again.
His boyfriend had a terrible habit of figuring out the plot of each episode within the first three to ten minutes and then spending the rest of the episode scoffing at how long it took the characters to figure it out for themselves.
If Bernard didn’t love him as much as he did, he might have been tempted to strangle him.
So really, maybe this ‘Emergency Wayne Enterprises Situation’ was a blessing in disguise.
Bernard watched as Tim slipped on his scuffed red converse.
Bingo.
Tim never wore his red converse to work, even if he was turning up in casual clothing at 1am in the morning he always, always, wore something other than his favourite converse. The red converse were reserved for Just Tim, not Timothy Drake-Wayne.
Gotcha Timmy.
“Go get ‘em tiger.” Bernard drawled from his slouched position. He had wrapped himself in a blanket with only his face showing. The blanket was superhero themed (obviously) and was splattered with superhero symbols.
“I won’t be long?” Tim smiled, a guilty undertone to his expression. He slipped out of the door and let it swing closed behind him with a satisfying click.
Bernard immediately sat up, his blanket burrito falling in a messy pile around him, turning to grab his phone from where it had somehow ended up down the back of the couch cushions.
He fought silently with the couch for a few seconds before it finally relinquished his phone to him, at which point he grinned proudly and briefly held it up in the air in a dramatic victory pose.
Bernard settled back into his spot and pulled his blanket over his shoulders with one hand as he opened the Google Doc he’d created a few months ago that was now titled ‘Evidence that Tim might be in a gang?’ with the other.
It was time to investigate The Mysterious Case of Tim’s Suspicious Disappearances.
First things first, Bernard needed to compile a list of all the times Tim had suspiciously disappeared since they’d started dating.
Ok well, maybe not all the times. After all, it had been several months now and his list would be unbelievably long… so he needed to compile a list of the most memorable and suspicious times Tim had disappeared.
He switched the TV to a news channel in case something came up. Stuff tended to happen when Tim disappeared. Stuff that made the news, or at least made it onto the @GothamUpdatesUnofficial__ twitter account.
He created another subtitle just below ‘Possible reasons for Suspicious Behaviours Tim exhibits’.
Some of Tim’s Most Mysterious Disappearances: As Observed by Bernard Dowd.
- The ‘family emergency’ that coincided with part of City Hall being blown up by an unknown party and a large group of civilians being taken hostage.
According to Tim, the family emergency had ended up being that Damian got temporarily excluded from his school, apparently because he’d ‘purposefully used school equipment to cause harm to another student’. It turned out he’d hit a tennis ball at another kid so hard that it knocked him out and caused a concussion because the kid had insulted Bruce in front of him. While Bernard respected him for it, it was mildly terrifying and he’d made a mental note to never play tennis with Damian upon risk of death or grievous bodily harm.
(“Don’t worry, he’s made friends with some girl called Skylar who's been a pretty good influence on him.” Tim smirked when he caught sight of Bernard’s rightfully horrified expression upon hearing about Damian, “She’s pretty good at calming his more murderous instincts.”
And didn’t it say something about Tim’s family that that was a normal sentence?)
Despite this, Bernard wasn’t really sure why Damian getting temporarily excluded was considered a family emergency that required Tim’s presence and as a result, it classified as a Suspicious Disappearance™.
- The ‘Wayne Enterprises meeting’ that coincided with the attempted assassinations of several key figures in Gotham and multiple assassins and a few gang leaders being taken down by Batman & co.
This particular case had been a very memorable one. The r/GothamConspiracies and r/Batman threads and various other conspiracy forums and websites that Bernard was a very dedicated member of had blown up over this particular night in Gotham.
The most common conspiracy theory about this night was that The Court of Owls had put hits out on several key Gotham figures, only half of which had been successful due to the intervention of Batman and his team. There were several photos floating around of the Bat-Signal as the symbol of an owl before it had turned back into the Bat-Signal; they kept being deleted off of the internet by someone, probably someone working with Batman or the government, but for every one that was deleted, another two were posted.
Bernard remembered that night. It had been pretty scary, even by Gotham standards. Everyone had hunkered down inside their homes and locked and barricaded every door and window, as if that would protect them from the chaos outside.
Which is why, when Tim had made his escape from Bernard’s shitty apartment, where they happened to have been together when the chaos started, shouting about a meeting at Wayne Enterprises to discuss stock market prices that he’d forgotten about, Bernard had silently thought “What the fuck?” to himself.
He had then verbalised this thought by screaming at Tim, “What the fuck? Tim if you leave this room I swear to fucking God I’ll– No! Why are you putting your shoes on?! Tim– Tim, wait!!! TIM!”
He had then tried to get his boyfriend to return via text, only to then discover that Tim had left his phone on the kitchen counter.
Upon Tim’s return, he had been the recipient of many unhappy lectures, especially when Bernard had discovered he’d twisted his ankle and had a large cut and bruise on his right shoulder from some reason he refused to disclose and claimed was “not important”.
- The ‘Wayne Enterprises meeting’ that coincided with half of the warehouse district being blown up + a gang shootout.
Bernard had been at work when this one had happened. Tim had, as he so often did, turned up to distract and bother him. He’d ordered his usual chocolate shake (with three shots of espresso added because he was a freak) and then sat at the high-top table so he could distract Bernard while he tried to serve the other customers.
About a half hour after he’d sat down, the fucking Batmobile zipped past the diner, followed by what looked like Spoiler on a bright purple motorcycle, causing the entire diner to stop what they were doing and stare.
Tim’s phone started ringing in the ensuing silence.
He had looked at it and sighed, muttering something under his breath. He’d then asked Bernard for a takeout cup so he could take his fucked up milkshake with him to a Wayne Enterprise meeting he’d forgotten about.
Later that night when they’d met up for a date at Gotham Museum (they had a new astrology display Bernard was super excited to see), Tim had been poorly disguising a limp.
Bernard had just begun typing out a new bullet point when the TV caught his attention.
The ‘Breaking News’ banner had just popped up across the bottom of the screen and currently read ‘Mayor and her family held hostage by new Joker fanatic cult’. A warning sign popped up next to it stating that the following scene may upset viewers.
The reporter was outside of City Hall. To his left, the camera displayed a large group of people with their faces painted like clowns surrounding The Signal, who seemed to have dealt with most of them already, as many of them were lying prone on the ground (clearly knocked out cold). To the right of this, the Mayor’s daughter was being held at gunpoint right outside the main doors of City Hall. The Mayor was on her knees next to them, seemingly begging the woman with the gun to her daughter’s head not to shoot.
Bernard sat up quickly, his blanket once again falling into a crumpled pile around him, searching for the remote to turn the sound on.
He eventually found it down the side of the couch and got into another tug of war with the cushions. Upon finally retrieving the remote he unmuted the TV so he could hear the reporter’s commentary.
“And here we are coming live to you from the scene. As you can see, The Signal arrived on the scene just a few minutes ago and has made quick work of what seems to be a new gang, most likely derived from the Joker’s Streetgang, or as you might know them, the Jokerz, and has dealt with them easily. Hopefully he’ll be able to figure out what it is that they’re demanding…”
Bernard leant forward, squinting at the screen as the man kept talking.
He could have sworn he saw movement in the top right corner of the screen…
No sooner had the thought crossed his mind, a blurred figure catapulted itself into view, flying at the clown woman holding the Mayor’s daughter at gunpoint in a blur of dark red.
They collided with the woman before anyone could process the new player on the scene, boots slamming into her face and causing her head to snap backwards.
A gunshot went off and several civilians, who had apparently gathered to watch, screamed. The cameraman kept the camera shockingly steady, with only a slight wobble of surprise.
The Mayor’s daughter dropped to the ground and her mother scrambled towards her on her hands and knees, pulling her daughter into her lap and turning her back to the figures behind her, shielding her child with her body as she leant over her.
The Mayor needn’t have worried, the clown woman stumbled into the wall behind her and slumped to the ground as Red Robin delivered a singular powerful punch to her jaw.
For a moment, there was stillness as he stretched and then reeled in the grapple he’d used to make his dramatic entrance.
The reporter suddenly started babbling excitedly, clearly over the moon to have gotten the scoop of the day, but Bernard wasn’t paying attention, more focused on the way Red Robin had winced when he stretched.
Bernard frowned and wondered to himself if the gunshot that had gone off had hit the vigilante instead of the Mayor’s daughter.
The vigilante flipped the gun the clown woman had used up into his hand using his foot and pocketed it.
The Signal was talking to the Mayor, who was now stood up with her daughter held protectively to her. Her daughter seemed fine, Red Robin on the other hand…
He was closer to the camera now and the blood dripping from his left shoulder was clear even on his dark red suit.
Bernard wasn’t the only one who had noticed, as Signal was making his way over to his teammate and the reporter and his cameraman were also heading in his direction.
“Red Robin! Red Robin!” The reporter called excitedly, causing the vigilante's head to snap up and a clear expression of displeasure to mix with the one of pain already present.
He sighed and unceremoniously dropped the clown woman at a stunned looking police woman’s feet, turning away from the reporter and making to walk away.
“Red Robin!” The reporter cried again, sticking his hand out as if to stop him from leaving but accidentally brushing his injured shoulder in his haste.
Red Robin flinched away, a small huff of pain escaping his lips as his face contorted in agony, and Signal appeared out of nowhere, putting himself between Red Robin and the reporter. Bernard had never seen him with such a tetchy expression before.
“Back off man.” He crossed his arms, stance radiating pissed off energy.
The reporter clearly wasn’t getting the same ‘leave us the fuck alone’ vibes that Bernard was and kept pushing his luck.
Another flicker of movement caught Bernard’s eye and he leaned forwards even more, spotting a small figure crouched on the corner of the roof behind them. Probably Robin.
Suddenly, a small blade came flying towards them, getting bigger and bigger until– the camera feed fizzed out, replaced by static.
Robin destroyed the camera.
Bernard stared at the TV, mouth open in shock.
He added another bullet point to his list.
- The ‘Wayne Enterprises meeting’ that coincided with the Mayor and her daughter being held hostage and then liberated by The Signal and Red Robin.
(And if Tim was moving his left shoulder stiffly when Bernard saw him the next day? Well, that was surely just a coincidence).