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Chapter Text

“So, Timothy,” the interviewer says, flipping through his notes. “We’ve gone over some of your future projects, and your plans for DI internationally and in the US, but let’s hear a little more about you.”

It’s Tuesday night, and Tim finds himself sitting on a comfortable red chair, chatting with the interviewer in front of him. He’s doing a live interview for the 11 PM late night show airing on the GTV channel. He knows that by tomorrow morning, he’ll be seeing clips and quotes from it on social media, his frozen easygoing smile as the thumbnail of a few articles and videos.

Tim tilts his head, thinking. “There’s not much to say, really. I wake up, go to work, I like Zesti soda…” The sit-in audience laughs, and Tim shoots them a bright smile.

The interviewer shares a smile with them as well. “You’re very different from other CEOs, I mean. You have a much more… active presence with both your employees and the media. It’s hard to find – if there even is – another CEO taking as much time to sit down for late night shows. It’s not the usual crowd they’ll pick.” Tim nods, agreeing with the interviewer. “Why the departure from the norm?”

Tim shrugs, readjusting himself in his seat to seem nonchalant. “My PR manager would tell me to say something about transparency… Which– yeah, it’s true and important, but to be honest?” He pauses, and the interviewer nods at him as encouragement, leaning in to better hear the answer. “I forget CEOs are supposed to be untouchable and aloof. I’ve basically grown up on Twitter, and I’m used to posting anything and everything that goes through my mind.”

The audience laughs again.

“Don’t get me wrong,” Tim continues, “there is some curating. I’ve been given a few talks about not posting pictures of rats on the subway, but I usually forget my account is available to the public.” Tim shrugs. “My account was created when I was a much less important public figure and focused more on entertainment, so I’ve always had a more casual approach. I prefer it this way, even if PR doesn’t,” he adds lightly. The audience is eating out of his hand at this point, almost an hour into the recording.

“Right,” the interviewer agrees. “You used to be a gymnastics champion.”

“The Athlete’s Council is much less strict about what gets posted on my account than my PR team,” Tim says with a conspiratorial smile, as though he were telling a secret.

“Is there any chance we’ll be seeing you at nationals in between business deals now that your wrist injury has healed?” the interviewer jokes, and Tim forces a smile over the grimace that threatens to show.

“No, I don’t think I have quite enough time to compete,” his smile turns wistful, and the audience sighs in disappointment. “I still practice, but I’ve accepted my retirement. I don’t think the board would appreciate me taking meetings on a tumbling mat.” He snorts at the image.

Fortunately, the interviewer steers the conversation back to PR-approved topics, and the live stream concludes only a few questions later. “Alright, well thank you for your time, Timothy. It’s been a pleasure to have you on the show,” the interviewer concludes after checking his watch.

“Thank you for having me,” Tim answers, shaking the man’s hand as he gets up. He waves goodbye to the crowd, who appload him as he walks off the stage. His cheeks hurt from smiling so much.

The moment he steps off stage, Tam is at his side, escorting him to the guest suite in the backstage area as he loosens his tie and ruffles his hair into his normal style. “You’re already trending on twitter,” she tells him, the app open on her handheld tablet.

Tim glances at the tweets and grimaces. The timeline is filled with his past gymnastics career instead of DI related posts. “Be honest, is Priya going to kill me?” He’d gone just enough off-script that he knows Priya, head of communications and PR, would get on his case.

“She better not,” Tam scoffs. “You have an early meeting tomorrow morning with investors.”

He makes a face, though he plasters an innocent look when Tam turns to scold him. “Any good memes yet?” he asks lightly, changing the subject.

Tam narrows her eyes at him, knowing that he’s trying to distract her. “#FreeTimmy is trending on Twitter again,” she tells him. The hashtag had gained popularity three months ago when Tim had had his Twitter account confiscated from him by Priya after tweeting a list of the top ten chill spots in Gotham, number one having been the gargoyle on top of the Gotham Basilica near the harbor. People had started badly editing his old gymnastic competition tapes to make it seem as though he were backflipping across the Gotham skyline, much to his amusement and to Priya’s dismay.

She’d been so mad about it he’d lost his twitter privileges. Her face had been an interesting shade of purple when she’d stormed into his office to tell him.

He lets out a genuine smile for the first time that night at the memory.

“In other words, Priya’s going to kill me, bring me back to life to yell at me, and then kill me again,” he says drily, taking the tablet from Tam’s hands. He sits down on a swivelling chair in the guest suite backstage, absentmindedly thanking Tam as she passes him a makeup wipe. He places the tablet in front of him on the table of the vanity in the suite and wipes the light makeup off from his face.

Tam stands behind his shoulder, watching impassively. Her grim face tells him all he needs to know about Priya’s feelings about the interview. He sighs, and his face in the mirror looks about as exhausted as he feels, concealer no longer hiding away the dark eyebags he sports.

He throws the now-tan wipe in the trash and gets up from his seat, handing Tam her tablet back. He wants nothing more than to jump into his bed and sleep for the next twelve hours.

Instead, he spends the next twenty minutes speaking to the producer and thanking the interviewer again before managing to make his escape with Tam. They chat quietly in the backseat of the car, Tim’s driver knowing to drop Tam off first at her apartment before driving Tim to his own residence. Tim watches as Tam makes it safely to her door, nodding to the building’s security through the car window.

He makes it home soon after, the Gotham streets empty of other drivers at this time.

When he enters his apartment, it’s empty and dark. He doesn’t bother to turn on the lights before heading to bed, simply taking off his shoes and dropping his keys on the kitchen island. He stumbles into bed, barely taking the time to strip himself of his clothes. He keeps his mind carefully blank as he waits for sleep to claim him.

–

At only 19, Tim is one of the youngest CEOs in the world. He’s certainly the youngest CEO of a fortune 200 company.

Over a year ago, a freshly eighteen-year-old Tim Drake had taken over his own company, exposing the CEO, Phil Marin, for embezzlement, tax evasion and insider trading. Poor Phil had been sentenced to over twenty years in prison with the case Tim had mounted against him. It’s a shame he hadn’t covered his tracks better.

The world had watched in shock as Tim had wrested his parents’ company from the old CEO’s – his legal guardian’s – grasp and taken up the position of CEO within twelve hours of his turning eighteen. He’d become the media’s darling in an instant, every paper in the country and beyond trying to gain information on the young Timothy Jackson Drake, the true heir to Drake Industries and youngest eligible millionaire this side of the planet.

He’s truly his parents’ son, the media claimed, showing pictures of the vicious smile he’d stolen from his mother.

Ambitious like his father, they preached as Timothy saved DI from collapse. Clever like his mother, they wrote as Timothy bought up small seemingly unprofitable industries and made them bloom under his company’s care, bringing DI’s stocks back to their former glory within a year. A true son of Gotham, they said as Timothy developed his offices in the city and went above and beyond to pay his workers fair wages. Selfless, they called him as Timothy reduced his own salary to ensure DI would survive these changes, sacrificing his time and dreams to keep the company afloat. Tragic, they all but wrote in every article, unable to keep themselves from rehashing his parents’ deaths and his own tragic life.

It all paid off, of course, with Timothy now being the proud CEO of a fortune 200 company that is rapidly rising in the ranks well before the two-year mark of his ascension to power. The company stocks are high, his workers are happy and his products are selling.

There’s something missing, Tim’s mind whispers.

Drake Industries, once having only specialized in the production of medical equipment and collaborated with international aid organizations, has spread its scope of production to include technology, biotech, alternative energy, electronics, and automobiles.

You have everything you ever wanted, yet you still feel hollow.

The company is in good standing internationally, beloved for its supplying of materials to the Red Cross and other international aid organizations. Janet would have liked that.

You find it boring.

His company, the one he had to practically rebuild, is revered for its treatment of workers, which is rivaled only by Wayne Enterprises.

You want more.

But that’s all Timothy. Everyone loves Timothy.

You want it all.

No one is left to love Tim.

You chose your path.

Tim rubs his eyes, focusing on the marketing department’s report Tam had given him that morning after his meeting with the investors. He sighs as he reads their complaint about the logistics department. A twinning document on the corner of his desk made by the logistics department sits all but innocently in his peripheral vision. He can already feel a headache forming.

He presses the intercom button on the corner of his desk. “Tam,” he begins, “would you mind setting up a meeting with Priya from marketing and Arban from logistics this week?” He knows Tam’s heard him when he sees her freeze in her seat on the other side of his office’s window. “In the early afternoon, preferably,” he adds, remembering the last time the marketing and logistics departments had tried to start a civil war. He just hopes the sales department stays out of it this time. She reaches a hand forward to hesitantly press her own intercom button.

“Should I cancel any other appointments after that?” she asks.

“Yes, Tam,” he answers her, “and make sure security is nearby.” His voice does not shake when he makes that demand. His mind does not flash with the events of the last marketing-logistics war like a terrible vietnam war movie. He stays calm. He stays collected. Cool as a cucumber, he tells himself.

He picks up the next document for review. He sees “sales department” at the top and knows his good week is going down the drain. He presses the intercom button again. “Tam…” he begins, trying to keep the dread out of his voice. His words fail him.

“Is it the sales department?” she asks softly, and Tim can hear the desperation in her voice for him to tell her she’s wrong. He can’t.

“...yeah,” he says in a defeated voice. He should have known Pam would be too nosy to stay out of it.

“I’ll have Pam join the meeting, then.” He can hear Tam’s fingers tapping on her keyboard as she sets up the meeting, the soft clack clack getting picked up by the intercom microphone.

“Thanks,” he says miserably. He lays his head with a soft thunk on his desk. He wonders if all of the DI offices are like this, or if it’s just Gotham. It feels like he’s corralling children. Angry children. Angry children who will stop at nothing to impale each other with shitty plastic forks they stole from the cafeteria. The cafeteria doesn’t even offer plastic utensils anymore, having switched to reusable cutlery fourteen months ago. Where do they even get them?

He thinks about calling Simon from HR to coordinate some sort of espionage force. By all means, he should, Simon being the one who’s supposed to oversee disputes like this. He owes it to Tim for making him deal with the mess. Tim hesitates to pick up his phone, hand hovering over the numbered buttons.

He pulls his hand back. Tim’s too curious to see what kind of weapon Pam will be able to fashion from the office supplies in the meeting room to pass up the opportunity to see the legendary fight go down. The stapler lance had been truly enlightening last time.

Maybe he should move Pam’s offices closer to the RnD department’s where her innovations could inspire the engineers. He thinks about it for a moment, juggling with ideas for the new layout of the offices. While Pam likes her view on Robinson Park, a downgrade wouldn’t be too shocking after what she pulled with the product launch last month. She’ll be upset, but she'll live. Most importantly, she’ll be further away from the chaos of the marketing-logistics quadrant.

Unfortunately for Tim, Priya and Arban are in too high a social position in the company for him to move them apart from one another. The marketing and logistics departments have a cult-like following for their leaders, and riots will break out if Tim takes away their opportunity to defeat the other department in battle. He needs them to stay in competition anyway: their departments’ efficiency had been boosted by as much as 300% within a week of their offices being relocated next to one another. Civil war is a small price to pay in exchange for the achievement of Tim’s goals of corporate takeovers.

He finishes reading the sales department’s report and places it in a stack with the other two related documents. Checking his calendar, he notes that Tam was able to schedule a meeting with them in two days. Goodbye, Friday afternoon.

With that shelved for later, Tim pulls the last pile of paperwork on his desk in front of him.

Quarterly performance reports. Yay.

He reads through them carefully, taking notes as he does for his next meeting with Arban and Lixue from finance. Maybe things are looking up for him after all, he thinks as he makes his way through the boring paperwork. With figures like these, Tim will easily be able to convince the board to let him make another move to undermine Wayne Enterprises.

Across from Tim, on the other side of Robinson Park, Wayne Tower shines in the sun. A sharp grin graces Tim’s face as he imagines its imminent collapse. The media is right to call him ambitious and clever, but it fails to see how petty he is. Tim is going to take over Wayne Enterprises, and he’ll stop at nothing to do so. It’s his birthright, after all.

Chapter Text

The Gotham night is cool as Tim walks down the street, hood up and earbuds in his ears. The ground is wet, moist from a late afternoon rainfall, and Tim walks carefully to avoid stepping into deep puddles that would get his socks wet.

He reaches a street corner off Volczek Square, looking left then right before crossing and fishing his keys from his pants pocket. The lights to the gym aren’t open, and Tim knows the place is closed by now, but his coach should still be in. A few more steps and he turns into the familiar alley. It’s not as dingy as other alleyways in Gotham, and Tim waves to the security camera on the building he’s about to enter. He pushes the ‘employee only’ door to the gym open, sliding his keys out from the lock with the accompanying jangle of his keychain.

He takes down his hood as he enters, no longer needing the fabric’s protection from the cooling September Gotham air. He locks the door back up behind him.

“Popov?” he calls, removing his shoes at the entrance. He’s in a long hallway that leads to the office section of the gym and the locker rooms. The lights are off in the office, and Tim knows the front entrance is already closed up for the day. His coach must be in the gym itself, still cleaning up and rearranging the mats. He goes to the locker room to put away his bag and get changed, trading his street clothes for his training clothes.

Once done, he pushes the heavy doors to the main gym open, seeing Popov as expected. The large man is piling up mats on the far side of the gym, cleaning up after a younger group’s class if Tim remembers the class schedules correctly. The sound of the doors closing alerts the man, who turns towards Tim with a nod of greeting.

“Hey,” Tim greets the man with an easy smile. “Need help?”

“Da,” the older man tells him, nodding his head to the tumbling pad where Tim can see there are more safety mats to be put away. Popov has been looking for another employee to help him around the gym and to teach classes, but currently is the only one to work the evenings. Tim quickly finishes up the task while Popov checks the chalk stations at the base of the different apparatuses.

Once he’s done putting all the mats away, Tim starts his warmup, stretching out his muscles before running two laps of the gym. He lets his coach finish looking over the equipment as he does so. He comes to the gym almost every night nowadays, needing to burn off energy or to talk to someone that isn’t from DI. He loves Tam dearly, but he already spends eight hours a day with her. Even when Popov isn’t in the gym itself to spot him, Tim knows he can come to run laps or go to his apartment to have tea with the man. He’s fallen asleep in the foam pit many times as well.

Tim’s mind empties as he completes his laps, and his worries about DI all fade away. He walks up to his coach as they go over the plan for this evening’s practice session and as Tim puts his grips on his hands to better hold onto the high bar he’ll be practicing on. Tim has a program he wants to do, having looked over the moves with his coach over the weekend. It’s the first night he actually gets to practice.

Within minutes, Tim is hanging off the high bar in a mixed grip, feet suspended over the foam pit. His mind empties as he swings up to go over the bar once. The grips on his hands creak as he falls into a stalder, tucking his legs as close as possible to his chest so they pass between his torso and the bar as he completes the loop. The momentum carries him back over the high bar, and he turns, rotating on his left hand for three half twists before putting his second hand down again in an overgrip, facing the ceiling this time as he falls again.

Blood rushes in his body, and he feels a wide grin split his face as gravity tries its best to make him keep falling. He does a few simple aerials, flying over the bar with grace. Clouds of chalk form every time his grips touch and release the bar, and his hands and arms are coated in the substance.

His coach is to his left, protective pad in hand as he carefully watches Tim complete the routine.

It’s practically perfect.

Tim finishes the last few spins almost leisurely, letting his momentum do the work. His arms burn, and he’s starting to become dizzy from the spinning, but the feeling is exhilarating. The air whistles in his ears as he finishes his last rotation, and he knows his hair looks a mess.

He doesn’t bother with a dismount, as he’s over the foam pit anyways, but he does a classy flip into it, grinning madly up at Popov, who’s still looking at him from his perch next to the bar. Tim can’t see his expression from where he’s lounging in the comfy foam blocks, the bright gym lights shadowing his face, but he knows there’s a half-smirk on the older man’s face. It’s the closest thing to a smile Popov ever has.

“Meh,” his coach says with a so-so hand gesture, and Tim groans.

“It was great,” he whines. “I even managed to keep my legs straight on that stalder I have trouble with.” He sits up in the foam pit and begins making his way to the side where his coach is to try again.

Popov frowns at him. “You do not trust right hand.” Tim keeps his eyes on his coach, listening intently, but he rubs his right wrist with his other hand almost unconsciously, feeling the line where he knows it had once been broken. He suppresses a shiver as the memory flashes in his mind. While he’s physically healed from his career-ending injury, his mind hasn’t quite caught up, and he still subconsciously adjusts for it when he learns new routines or moves. “It will not be broken. Trust it.” Tim knows this is important, that this impacts his balance and weight distribution and his flips, so he gives him a small smile, nodding at his words. Popov eyes him critically before gesturing for him to get onto the bar again.

Tim swings up again, mindful of how he distributes his weight on his arms.

He’ll try to get it perfect this time.

Up.

Down.

Twist.

Down.

Keep your legs straight.

Release.

Catch.

Swing.

Release.

Catch–

He reaches his hands forwards to grip the bar, but he hadn’t timed the release right. The bar’s too far for him to catch it correctly. Time slows as Tim’s brain struggles to catch up to the situation, to correct the move. The metal bar is approaching quickly, and Tim manages to catch it with his left hand, but the momentum of his flip is too much for only one arm to bear, and he’s flung off the bar with a cloud of chalk and a curse.

He’s still spinning in the air, and his head hits the foam blocks first, his legs flailing above him. He lets out an undignified squeak.

He’s still a little disoriented when he manages to emerge from his strange half-buried position in the pit, the squishy foam making it difficult for him to push himself upright.

“Alright?” Tim gives a thumbs up in answer to his coach, who lets out a soft snort. “We will practice your Kovacs,” he tells Tim as he crawls out of the foam.

Tim’s tired to the bone when he finishes doing the flips, and he lets himself fall into the foam pit with a sigh as Popov comes down from his perch as a spotter. He cards his hair out of his eyes, no doubts getting chalk all over it.

“Come, утенок,” Popov tells Tim, offering him a hand to help him out of the foam pit. “My niece made pryanik. You will like.”

Tim accepts his hand. “Your niece should open her own bakery,” he tells his coach earnestly. “She’d do great.”

Tim stretches as he cools down, and he takes a quick shower in the changing rooms while Popov does some paperwork to finish off his day. Within twenty minutes, they’re sitting in Popov’s apartment, sipping tea at the small round table he has in his kitchen and eating little deserts coated in powdered sugar.

The apartment is nice, if not reminiscent of a grandmother’s house with the lacey curtains and doily table runner Popov is partial to. The walls are filled with pictures of Popov at different competitions in his prime and of his family. Tim knows there’s a picture of him and his coach at his first national championships, a gold medal dangling from his neck, hung up in the hallway. It’s right next to the picture of Tim at the US Olympic trials from three years ago, Tim with a wide smile on his face and Popov the proudest he’s ever looked. There are a few shelves in the small apartment, and they’re all filled with old medals and trophies.

Alexandr Popov had been a world-renown gymnastics champion from Russia who’d retired due to a torn muscle in his arm. He’d decided to teach after undergoing surgery and had set up shop in Little Odessa near Gate street.

Tim listens as Popov talks to him about his students, eating the sweets in front of him. His muscles ache in a satisfying way, and he can’t help but feel like his week’s looking up.

–

Tim’s good week is going down the drain at an impressive speed. There he was, walking down the street during his lunch break, daydreaming of Popov’s niece’s pastries, and now here he is, tied up in the back of a kidnapper’s white van that lives up to every stereotype. He hadn’t even had the time to get his lunch.

To make matters worse, he can’t text Tam that his lunch break has suddenly been extended since his kidnappers have quite literally chucked his phone out the window. On the highway. While driving at least sixty miles an hour.

He sends a prayer to whatever god deals with technology. His phone deserves to go to heaven for its untimely death.

He sends his next prayer to whatever gods deal with Tam’s wrath, because he knows he’ll be getting a stern talking-to once he returns to the office, no doubt too late for his two o’ clock meeting. He wishes Tam would be more understanding of the fact that Tim doesn’t control when the kidnappings happen. He certainly doesn’t want them to happen.

Sure, DI is one of the only companies in Gotham that continue to give ransoms when their CEO gets kidnapped, and that kind of is an invitation to get kidnapped, but Batman’s always been there to rescue him. Not once has a kidnapping ploy worked, other than when his parents had been taken as hostages in Haiti. Tim doesn’t want to think about Haiti though. Still, here Tim is, a dirty rag over his eyes and his hands tied behind his back.

I love my job, he repeats to himself like a mantra as a bump in the road sends him flying up high enough that he hits his head on the rusty ceiling of the trunk. I love Gotham.

It’s the third time this year he’s been kidnapped, and it’s only May. Tim’s not looking forward to beating last year’s record of six kidnappings.

Tim’s wondering what makes him look particularly kidnappable compared to literally any other CEO on planet earth. Is it that he’s young? That he’s famous? That he’s gaining power dangerously quickly?

I love my job. I love Gotham.

“Are we there yet,” Tim asks his kidnappers. He doesn’t even pretend to be scared anymore. He knows Batman is probably already on his trail, the kidnapping having been done not only in broad daylight but also in the middle of a public area full of rich people who have no qualms about calling the police. The police would be too late to come get him, of course, so Batman would have taken it upon himself to come save him. For a deadbeat dad, he’s surprisingly protective of Tim. Tim’s willing to bet his kidnappers’ erratic and terrible driving is due to Batman already chasing them. This will be finished before anyone crosses the city limits.

“Shut up,” one of them snaps at him through gritted teeth.

“Don’t talk to the prisoner,” another voice says.

“Prisoner implies I’m going to jail. However, I think that’s a title reserved for you guys in about twenty minutes,” he tells his kidnappers brightly.

He’s blindfolded, so he doesn’t see the punch coming, but he still smirks at where the kidnappers are probably looking at him. He loves his cheeky public persona in times like these.

“Leave him, alone,” a new voice orders. “He’s doing it on purpose.”

“Am I?”

“We should break that mouth of his. Or at least those pretty teeth. Can’t be Gotham’s most wanted bachelor without a smile.”

“Oh, so you’re a fan? You didn’t have to do all of this for an autograph, you know.”

He smiles even wider when a hand grabs at the collar of his jacket.

Maybe if he comes out of this with enough bruises Tam will feel forgiving.

He thinks about it for a moment while two voices yell at whoever’s grabbing Tim to let him go, turning the idea over in his head. He should calculate the pros and cons before doing something stupid, but it’s on brand for him to say whatever comes to his mind. Good ol’ Timothy Drake, too honest for his own good. Priya hates his persona so much it’s become half the reason why Tim plays it up, even if it gets him stabbed.

It’s apparently enough time for Batman to catch up to them and ram the batmobile in the rear of the van to make it spin out, if the driver’s insults are accurate, sending Tim flying against what he feels to be a rusty interior and making his kidnappers curse. I guess I’ll be getting those bruises, he thinks as he plays an impromptu game of ping pong with the walls of the van. It’s unfortunate that he’s the ball. At least he won’t get his teeth punched out now that his kidnappers are busy trying not to crash the van.

There’s another jolt as the batmobile rams into them again, and Tim’s starting to feel Batman is trying to get rid of his kidnapping troubles. Permanently. By killing Tim. Does the no kill rule not apply to estranged sons?

His kidnappers evidently realize that escaping is impossible, though Tim wishes they’d come to that realization and pressed the brakes less abruptly as he flies forward and almost breaks his nose on what he assumes is the half wall separating him from the driver’s cabin. He feels blood beginning to run down his nose into his mouth. Ew.

There’s a small argument as the three kidnappers argue about whose fault this is, but it’s cut off as they leave the van with their guns, the doors slamming shut so hard the entire vehicle ratters. They’re so dumb they even leave Tim in the van by himself. He scoffs. Clearly this is their first kidnapping, or they would have pointed a gun at Tim for leverage against the Bat. He’s almost insulted.

Now that the van isn’t moving wildly, it’s much easier for Tim to pick himself up and put himself in a sitting position, leaning into a corner of the van to keep himself up. It’s still hard, with his hands behind his back, but he manages it as the sound of a gunfight starts outside the van. He even manages to slide his blindfold up with his shoulder. The inside of the van looks like the location of a grisly murder, with Tim’s bloodied nose leaving red streaks on the metal interior. The large smear of blood on the half-wall of the back of the cabin is really selling the picture. It almost looks like one of those art installations in Gotham’s art museum. Very modern, very abstract.

The sound of bullets being fired dies down outside. It’s over in three minutes, if Tim’s count is accurate.

Thirty seconds pass between the last gunshot and the unlocking of the back doors of the van. The Batman casts a shadow on the floor of the trunk area, covering Tim completely from the gray light of Gotham’s day. He doesn’t appear affected at Tim’s bloodied grin and nonchalant attitude, but the corner of his mouth does twitch down. Displeasure.

Good to see you too, Dad, Tim thinks, fighting his own frown.

“My savior,” Tim deadpans as Batman takes in the sight of his very bloody face and shirt. Batman’s head turns ever so slightly as he takes in Tim’s blood all over the back of the van. “Do you like my interior decor? It came to me in a vision when you rammed the batmobile into the van.”

Tim’s not mad about it. Not at all. Not even a little bit sour that his week’s been so thoroughly ruined. And his face. And his clothes.

Nope. Super happy.

Batman doesn’t say anything, but Tim’s studied him for long enough he can tell Batman’s internally wincing. He hums in a neutral way that Tim has learnt is the closest a civilian gets to an apology, and Tim scoots forward to the doors of the trunk, forgiving him a little bit. Batman helps him get up and unties his wrists.

“You’re right,” Tim continues in a considering tone, rubbing his freed wrists to get the blood flowing back into his hands. He keeps a hand wrapped around his right wrist, stretching it out for longer. “I should have added one of those ‘live laugh love’ signs. Would’ve really brightened up the place.” He knows he’s rambling, but in his defense, he’s just been in a very stressful situation where he got knocked in the head multiple times. Hopefully he isn’t concussed

“Does your head hurt?” The Bat’s voice is a low rumble, curt and quick to the point. Tim can hear the police sirens approaching,

“Mostly my nose,” he answers truthfully. Batman gets closer to him, looming over him again. Tim knows he’s just looking over his nose to see if it’s broken, but he can’t help but feel some discomfort at the scrutiny. It’s like Batman doesn’t have a concept of personal space. “It’s not broken, is it?”

Batman takes his chin and tilts his head up, looking at his nose from an angle. Tim has to clench his jaw at the turmoil of emotions that roil within him at the act (hedoesn’treallycarehedoesn’treallycarehedoesn’treallycare–). His breath hitches, and he hopes Batman didn’t notice. “You’re fine,” he hums.

Tim turns his head out of Batman’s hand a bit brusquely. He doesn’t mean to be rude, but he can’t bear the touch of the Bat (hedoesn’treallycarehedoesn’treallycarehedoesn’treallycare–). “Great,” he says, not sure what to do. He leans on one of the open trunk doors of the van. “Is Gordon close? I’d like to give my statement before Tam comes to get me herself.” It would sound like a joke to anyone else, but Tim’s tone shows he’s fully serious, and he’s sure Batman understands the urgency. Both Batman and Bruce Wayne have been on the receiving end of Tam’s ire before, and it had been glorious to witness. Tim had sent both Lucius and Tam chocolate gift baskets for that.

“Hn.” Batman puts his hand to his ear, turning away from Tim, and mumbles something in his comm. Tim wipes his nose with his hand, trying to at least get rid of the blood on his face but failing miserably as it starts bleeding some more. He curses and pinches his nose to try and stem the blood, not bothering to bend forward. His dress shirt’s already ruined.

Tim hears police sirens approaching, and he knows his time with the Bat is coming to an end. It’s almost a relief. Without a look back towards him, Batman gets back in his car and speeds off right as the cop cars turn the block (hedoesn’treallycarehedoesn’treallycarehedoesn’treallycare–). Tim watches him go as long as he can.

“Timothy,” Commissioner Gordon greets him as he exits his car, slamming the door behind him, “it’s a shame to see you so soon.” Cops get out of the other cop car following Gordon’s and pick up the unconscious kidnappers still on the ground to bring them into custody.

Tim smiles at the man. “Shame’s all mine, Commissioner. I fear I’m in no state for polite company.” He gestures at his bloodied dress shirt. Gordon snorts at the sight.

“I’ve seen worse. You need to call that assistant of yours before I take your statement?”

“You know me too well,” Tim jokes as the Commissioner passes him a cellphone. He dials Tam’s number quickly, wincing as she picks up on the first ring. “Hey, don’t be mad,” he says quickly.

“Tim,” she says in a cold controlled voice. He winces. “Care to tell me why you’re calling me from the Police Commissioner of Gotham City’s phone on this fine Thursday afternoon instead of getting ready for your meeting?”

“Because I love you endlessly and worship the ground you walk on?”

“Wrong answer.”

“I got kidnapped and my phone got thrown out the window,” he begrudgingly admits. Gordon snorts, but he turns away before Tim can do something dumb like glare at the man.

The line is silent for a moment. “I’m buying you a Nokia.”

It’s Tim’s turn to be silent. It’s not a terrible idea. “They have Snake on that, right?”

Tam sighs. “That’s not the point, Tim. Stop getting kidnapped. Get some security to walk with you. Do anything to stop becoming hostage of the year.”

Tim wants to argue with her about the semantics of that statement. He’d rather not be kidnapped every damn time he takes his lunch outside of DI, but it’s not like he has much of a say in that. “Fine. Set up a meeting with Nosik for tonight, Security’s his department anyway.”

“Done,” she says, her keyboard clicking loudly enough to be picked up by Tam’s phone microphone. “And Tim?”

“Yeah?”

“I’m glad you’re okay.”

“Thanks Tam. I’ll see you soon.”

He hangs up the phone and passes it back to Commissioner Gordon. By the time he’s finished his call, more police cars have arrived to set up a perimeter around them. Tim’s still mostly hidden from the few press cameras where he is next to the van, but he appreciates the privacy Gordon offers him by guiding him into his car to take his statement.

By the time he makes it back to his office, he’s fully missed his two o’ clock meeting, and the blood on his dress shirt has dried and darkened into a brown stain. Tam hovers near him in his office as he changes into a clean shirt she’s learnt to keep closeby. She catches him up on his schedule and gives him alternating angry and worried looks as he starts working again.

He lets her do her work in his office instead of at her desk, not that he could stop her from doing otherwise, but he likes to pretend like he’s her boss at least in his head. He doesn’t quite want to be alone at the moment. He appreciates her company.

–

Bruce sits in front of the batcomputer, tapping away at his keyboard as he updates different files. There’s been no progress in the Maroni case, but Dick hasn’t returned from his stakeout so he keeps the tab open in case it needs to be updated later. Red Hood was shot at around two in the morning during patrol, and Bruce has algorithms tracking his different safehouses in case Jason needs to borrow a bat med kit. Cluemaster is out of jail and Spoiler has been tailing him for almost five days now. He makes a mental note to join her on Friday evening as he finishes adding her report to Cluemaster’s file. He closes the tab and looks to the next file he needs to add information to.

A young man’s face appears on the corner of the screen, a placid smile and bright blue eyes staring back at Bruce.

Timothy Jackson Drake. A curious young man.

Bright, driven.

Bruce pulls up the email Lucius sent him earlier today about Drake Industries buying out the trio of small startups Wayne Enterprises had had its eye on for a few weeks. They’d been designing prototypes of environmentally friendly tech that would have given WE an edge in the market. Yet, the moment they’d started talks to collaborate, DI had swooped in and bought them out, incorporating the small companies into their tech empire.

Bruce feels a headache start to form. Timothy Jackson Drake is… a little too bright. A little too driven.

It bothers Bruce. Everything Timothy Drake does is clean. He has no torrid secrets, a great reputation, and an extremely loyal workforce. He’s the next generation’s Bruce Wayne, tragic backstory and all.

It’s like he’s sensed this unofficial legacy, and like a shark after blood, he’s come to press on the jugular. Bruce’s jugular to be precise. He’s a problem, and the biggest issue Bruce has is that he’s not attacking Batman. He’s attacking Bruce Wayne, undermining him, stealing contracts from right under his nose, taking over Gotham piece by piece. He’s not a rogue, but he’s been hindering the Mission almost as much as they have been, constantly demanding his attention as he creates ripples in Gotham. Bruce’s stocks have steadily and incrementally been lowering, and it’s all because of DI’s expansion. It’s subtle enough the media haven’t caught onto it just yet, how expansive Timothy’s network has become and how DI is slowly catching up to WE in terms of power.

And all of this was done in just over a year.

If Timothy Drake can do this before hitting the two year mark as head of his company, Bruce worries about what will happen to Wayne Industries by the turn of the decade.

The impacts had been slow at first, but it’s becoming increasingly obvious how Drake Industries has started to shift the market in their favor, and Bruce doesn’t think Timothy will be satisfied with anything less than the incorporation of Wayne Enterprises into Drake Industries.

He eyes Tim’s classification as an individual of interest.

Not quite a villain, but not quite an innocent civilian; there’s something about Timothy that sits strangely with Bruce. Something that makes his brain itch. Something he’s missing.

He’s methodical, almost as subtle as Bruce is, playing a game of Monopoly that no one else seems to be aware of except for Bruce himself. He wouldn’t have minded the help Timothy provides with his endless charities and social programs in Gotham, but the young man seems determined to root out Bruce instead of collaborating.

Every time he’s looked the boy in the eye, he’s had the uncanny feeling that the boy knows something he doesn’t, that there’s a deeper motive, a wider web of plans he’s walking right into. That he has a grudge against Bruce he won’t let go of. He’d put that worry aside at first, remembering the small boy he had met three years ago, who’d been sobbing as he tried to pry the boomerang out of his father’s chest, but now, as WE’s hegemony is challenged, he knows he’s already walked into Timothy’s trap.

And Bruce can’t do anything about it except watch as his parents’ company is slowly chipped away. He’ll have to tell Lucius to become more aggressive in turn. Maybe he should send someone to do surveillance. Hmm. The boy had been into gymnastics, hadn’t he? Perhaps Nightwing would appreciate the assignment. He’d been looking into jobs as a gymnastics teacher, according to the search history on his son’s laptop. Perhaps something could be arranged. Not for long, unless Nightwing decides to stay, but just long enough to keep an eye on him.

His hands hover over the keyboard of the batcomputer. Nothing Timothy has done warrants an investigation by Oracle or by Batman himself. And yet, he has the feeling he’s missing a piece of the puzzle.

He sighs as he closes the document. He has other cases to worry about. Timothy is merely another businessman. Batman needs to focus on the Mission, not on WE business Lucius can take care of.

Chapter Text

Tim wakes up the next morning feeling like his whole body is a bruise.The melatonin he’d taken the night before had allowed for him to fall asleep, but he groans as he rolls over in his bed to shut his alarm, and the press of his mattress against his battered body is painful enough to keep him from falling back asleep. He stares at the ceiling, wondering what he could have possibly done in a previous lifetime to deserve this. Rain patters against his window, a soothing rhythm for his ears.

He must have zoned out, because a second alarm rings on his phone, set for twenty minutes after the first. He blinks at the ceiling, brain still moving too sluggishly to make himself move. He needs to get up.

This time, he swings his legs over the side of his bed and picks up his phone. Even with the pain his mattress causes him, he wishes he could return to the warmth of his blankets. Instead, he has to grab his phone and close his alarm, and–

He freezes, the alarm still ringing though he barely hears it, his hand wrapped around his phone.

Oh.

It’s his dad’s birthday today.

The little calendar notification sits there innocently against his phone background. He’ll have to go out tonight to buy some flowers (Dad didn’t like flowers. He’d never bought any for Mom.) Or a present (Dad would always say experiences were a thousand times better than any material object could ever be.) Anything for his dad, really.

He hadn’t– He hadn’t gotten anything in advance like he usually does.

Guilt seeps in insidiously, and he stares at the notification with a blank face. He hadn’t remembered that today would be his dad’s birthday. It shouldn’t be so jarring. It makes sense that it’s today, with the cooling Gotham weather that always accompanies the month of September and the yellowing leaves. He doesn’t know how he missed the signs of its approach.

Tim has to take a deep breath. It’s his dad’s birthday and he forgot. He closes his alarm, puts his phone down on his bed and presses his hands to his face, trying to wake himself up more. He needs to think. He feels a little bit sick, and his right wrist aches where it had been fractured.

After a minute, he pulls his hands away from his face and gets up.

Okay.

Alright.

Tim can deal with the birthday.

After swallowing down the nausea. After getting dressed. After getting ready for work. After getting through his day.

He can deal with that. Just later.

It’s not a plan, but it’s all Tim can come up with. Survive the day, and figure it out later. It’ll all be fine.

He pushes his grief down in his chest with his bile, and starts his day.

He’s pulling on his blazer, green smoothie in hand to drink in the car, when he remembers. He has the meeting with the logistics, sales and communications departments this afternoon.

Fuuuuuuuuck, is all he can think. He doesn’t want to go. He really doesn’t want to go.

He’d been excited, two days before, at the thought of Pam’s ingeniosity and the chaos that would unfold in the meeting room. But now? He just wants to go to bed and listen to the rain. He wants to forget what day it is. He wants to do nothing except stare at his ceiling for hours on end, brain devoid of any thoughts. He wants to go to his father’s grave, rain be damned, and pretend that his life isn’t ripping at the seams.

He should call Tam, tell her he needs the day off. She would understand. She knows how he can get on bad days.

He doesn’t make the call. He has work to do.

He grabs his keys, resting in a tasteful glass decoration, from the small table in his entrance. He probably shouldn’t be driving like this. Maybe it’ll wake him up, pull him out of his funk. If he rolls the windows down a crack, maybe Gotham’s cold polluted air will kickstart his brain. Maybe he’ll crash and die.

It does nothing, just lets enough rain in the car to make his sleeve damp.

He blandly greets the receptionist on the ground floor, hoping his smile looks as genuine as it usually is. She smiles back at him, so he assumes he’s done a good enough job at fooling her.

He hops on the elevator with a few other workers, and pretends that he’s looking through mail on his phone so he doesn’t have to talk to them. He feels so tired already. Time passes both quickly and slowly in the elevator, every blink of his eyes bringing him a few floors closer to his office, but the time spent with his eyes open seeming interminable.

He blinks, and the doors are open, Tam holding out her hand in front of the sensor to keep them from closing.

“Thanks,” he tells her, flashing her a small smile. He takes a breath and walks out, walking side by side with her as she heads back towards her desk. She looks at him from the corner of her eye. She knows something’s up. Tim can’t hide anything from her; she’s his best friend, after all.

Instead of sitting down at her desk, Tam follows him into his office, shutting the door behind them. Tim’s placid smile falls from his face, and he sits down on his office chair with a silent sigh and a wince at the pressure it creates on his bruises. Tam sits down on his desk, looking at him with concern as he melts in his seat. He really hates today.

“What’s wrong?”

Tim closes his eyes, and lets his head thump on the back of his chair. “It’s my dad’s birthday.”

“Oh.” She says it like she doesn’t know what to say. She probably doesn’t. Most people don’t. Most people at his work don’t have dead fathers yet, except maybe the older board members and the more unlucky gothamites. Even they’re not sure what to say. It’s not like they had to listen to their dads die over the phone before finding the body. Great times, those were.

“I’d forgotten about it.”

I forgot I forgot I forgot I forgot–

Tam tuts, and he hears her shift where she’s sitting. He doesn’t bother opening his eyes. “You didn’t forget, Tim.” He can hear the frown in her voice.

He gets what she means, but he’s not sure she understands what’s bothering him about it. He forgot about his dad’s birthday. It’s only been three years since his dad died, and Tim’s already forgotten it. The only reason he knows why it’s his birthday in the first place is because of a calendar alert. He’d been too focused on Bruce and the company, and–

He’s supposed to be a better son than this.

He should be a better son than this.

He loves his dad. He loves him so much, no matter what’s happened between them. And yet, he can’t even bother to remember the man’s birthday?

It doesn’t matter how busy he’s been, or how he’s had a long week, or how tired he is. He forgot his dad’s birthday.

What if that calendar alert hadn’t been there? When would he have remembered? Tomorrow? Next week? Next month?

What about next year? Or the one after?

He’s all that’s left of his parents. He’s the only person who can remember them.

He can’t forget.

He’s their son, he’s not supposed to forget. (Tim can’t forget. He’s barely his dad’s son as it is.)

Tam’s hand is on his shoulder, and her face peers at him when he opens his eyes again, concern clear in her eyes. “Tim?”

He gives her a shaky smile. “Sorry, I just got lost in thought.”

She frowns at him. “Don’t apologize,” she tells him like she always does. She purses her lips together. “I can’t convince you to go home for the day, can I?”

“What’s this? Tamara Fox, asking me to skip meetings?” Tam rolls her eyes, and Tim manages a small grin. “I can’t,” he sighs, turning to grab the pile of complaints that has been steadily growing since Wednesday. “I have the meeting this afternoon.”

Tam winces, looking at the pile. It’s almost as tall as Tim’s forearm is. “I could bully them into rescheduling.” She doesn’t sound very hopeful.

“I think one of them would find a way to reinvent the nuclear bomb before the weekend’s over, even with your threats” Tim jokes, which earns him a huff of laughter from Tam.

“Let them try,” Tam grumbles, looking at the pile. Her eye twitches. “I’ll make it a Cold War if they even think about it.”

Tim snorts, feeling a little more human than when he had walked into the building. “Technically, the logistics and communications departments are already–”

Tam groans, interrupting him. “I don’t care if my analogy wasn’t right, let me make the joke.”

“Alright, alright,” Tim relents, a smile tugging at his cheeks. Tam rolls her eyes at him and hops off his desk, pointing at him with a finger as she makes for the door.

“Light work, today,” she orders, “and I’m coming back with a proper breakfast, not one of your nasty green juices.”

“Hey,” Tim defends, “you’re the one who taught me how to make them.” He likes his green juices. Sure, they don’t taste good, but they’re easy to make.

“Clearly that was a mistake.”

She comes by ten minutes later, a cream cheese bagel in hand. “Eat it, or I’m calling your coach.”

“Nooo, don’t do that,” Tim fake pouts, taking the bagel from her hand and turning away from the work he had started, “he’ll try to poach you. You know he’s been wanting someone to help him at the gym.”

“I don’t know…,” Tam says as though she’s really deliberating the option. “I heard his niece is nice.” Tam’s smile turns devious. “And pretty. I’d love to meet her.”

“If you wanted to meet her, you could have just asked me. I have her number.” He takes a bite of his bagel. It’s pretty good. Much better tasting than his green smoothies, but he’ll never admit it to Tam.

“Wait, you do?” Tam turns to him, trying to judge if he’s pulling her leg or not. She’s not wrong to be suspicious, with Tim never having met the girl in the almost decade he’s been training with his coach. The only reason he knows she really exists is because of her pastries. He’s pretty sure her name is Ariana, and that her dad is Ukrainian, but it’s hard to tell from the little social media presence the family has on Facebook. “I thought she was kept under lock and key.”

“What, did you forget my skill set comes with stalking?” He takes another bite of the bagel, and he’s sad to see it’s almost finished. He does feel better with the proper breakfast in his stomach. He pulls the pile of papers he’d been working on – some progress reports from the R&D labs about the green energy water filtering facilities DI’s three new subsidiaries are working on – closer to keep looking over them.

“Ha ha,” she says drily. “I’m not forgetting that any time soon, Mr. ‘hey I dropped out, come work for me instead of working for your dad’ who showed up at my window like in a serial killer movie. You could have sent an email.”

Tim shrugs. “I didn’t really drop out, because I took over the company over the summer, and I’d also already gotten my High School diploma. And my methods worked: you came to work for me instead of being wasted at WE.”

“I was wasted,” Tam admits easily. “Now I get to boss people around,” she says almost dreamily. Tim’s glad he’s her boss, not that it stops her from giving him orders.

“I should update your plaque. ‘Tam Fox, the real CEO of DI’,” he muses, leaning back in his chair, regretting it instantly when the movement presses on every single one of his bruises again somehow. He hides his wince by finishing his last bite of bagel.

“As if I would want to deal with the board. Don’t try and pawn off more of your work to me,” she warns him, though she knows he’s joking.

“Speaking of work,” Tim says, as if the conversation had been about anything else in the past ten minutes, “what’s my schedule look like next?” There are always panels organized over the holidays for large tech conglomerates to present their plans for the year, and DI is no exception. There’s usually also some sort of after-party organized, and RSVPs need to be sent out early in the season. In any case, Priya is always making him do interviews and talk shows, so he’ll undoubtedly be busy in the coming weeks.

Tam pulls out her tablet, looking through Tim’s schedule on it. “DI’s press conference for annual goals is on December 18th, and you’ll have to travel to San Francisco from the 27th to the 3rd for networking and meetings with other conglomerates. Priya’s also forcing you to attend three Gotham-based galas over the holiday season,” she summarizes. While Tim isn’t happy about having to attend the stifling Gotham Galas, at least Priya’s gotten off his case about attending the Waynes’ New Year’s one. She’s found other ways to torture him instead. “Short-term,” she continues, “Priya set up another talk show in three weeks time with GTV’s late night hosts after this week’s tentative success. There’s supposed to be another guest, someone tech related, but the person hasn’t been confirmed yet. Priya’s contact says they’ve been trying to bring Queen or Kord onto the show, since they’re set to be in town for talks with WE and DI – you have a meeting with Kord on October 17th, by the way – but it’s still just speculation.” Tim nods, writing down a few notes on a post-it he sticks to his computer monitor. He’ll need to review the more current plans and projects DI is doing, and he’ll ask Lixie to send him a report of the current budgets to look over potential proposals.

“Have you been able to set up a meeting with Queen,” Tim asks, remembering Tam’s wine-fueled rant about the ‘stuck up, stick in his asshole piece of shit personal assistant’ Queen has that’s been dodging Tam’s emails. Tam’s face grows thunderous, and she looks about ready to start another rant. “I’ll take that as a no, then,” he snorts, cutting her off before she can even start. Tim isn’t that surprised, since Green Arrow is much closer to the Bat than Blue Beetle ever has been, and he seems to try and back up his friend when it comes to their companies. He’ll wear Queen down eventually.

“You have another conference in late November in Gotham about the development projects DI’s been working on in the city, but the logistics for that have pretty much been handled.” Tim hums, jotting a few more notes down. “Oh, and I almost forgot, you’re coming over to my place next Friday.”

Tim nods as he writes the date down, then frowns as his brain catches up with Tam’s words. “What, why?” Did he forget something else important? Her birthday is in April, so it’s not that. They met in late August, so it’s not that either. Tim wracks his brain trying to think what makes the day important. There’s no movie Tam wants to see that’s coming out that day, and it’s too early to be their engagement-allegation anniversary.

Tam gives him a flat look, pulling him out of his thoughts. “Because you’re my best friend, and I’m going to have to debrief you about a date I have next weekend.” Tim feels relieved he didn’t forget anything else important in his life (don’t think about Dad don’t think about Dad don’t think about Dad–). “I can’t let the department wars be your only source of entertainment, can I?”

Tim snorts. The department wars are much less entertaining now that he has to involve himself personally. “Should I bring the good stuff?” Nights over at Tam’s place is a not-so-secret code for ‘let’s get shitfaced and bitch about our problems while watching stupid romcoms.’ Tim lives deep within Gotham’s shadier parts, having bought his apartment back when he was starting to rebuild DI from the ground up, barely a cent to his name after having been robbed by Phil. He’d gotten attached to the place over time, with its easy roof access and the Batgirl mural graffitied on the side, so he still lives there even if he can move. The location also means no one IDs him when he buys alcohol, Red Hood or not.

“Of course,” Tam tells him primly.

Tam hangs around his office for another ten minutes, then lets Tim work alone as she goes to fill his schedule with more torturous meetings.

The morning passes quickly, and his lunch break comes and goes in a flash. Tim looks at his clock with dread.

It’s time for the meeting.

Walking down the hallways to the designated conference room is like walking into battle.

Tim’s heart pounds in anticipation, and adrenaline courses through his body, keeping him from feeling how his entire body aches. He’s the first one there, fifteen minutes early. He has to be, or someone will undoubtedly lose a finger if he’s not there to meditate.

He sits down at the far end of the meeting table. He’s far from the door, which is less than ideal for escape, but he can’t have his back turned when his employees enter. It’ll be chaos if he takes his eyes off them even one second too early.

Priya enters first, head held high, and she places down a copy of the complaints she had forwarded to Tim on the office table, sitting down primly at the head of the table opposite from Tim. A power move. He’s glad she sat so far from him, because he doesn’t want to have to be the one to restrain her in a fight. She may be short, but she’s surprisingly strong, and her temper is rather explosive. He’d seen her throw a chair before, maybe three months into his tenure as CEO, and it had put a healthy dose of fear in him. She has great accuracy.

Tim doesn’t try to start a conversation with her, keeping busy by organizing his own copies of the department complaints on the table in front of him. He ponders over how it’s almost comical how many complaints Pam’s been able to file when she’s not even directly involved. He’s definitely moving her offices down near R&D, far away from the constant logistics-communications drama.

Arban enters next, with five minutes to spare before the start of the meeting. He glares at Priya where she sits, and takes the seat two chairs down on her right. He’s tall and thin, with short cropped hair perfectly gelled. A finance bro at his finest, if a bit shy and humble in any matters that don’t concern his rival.

Last, and most dreaded, Pam saunters into the room, her short blonde bob perfectly styled to exude the ‘I cannot mind my business’ vibes she most definitely has as her life motto. Pam takes the seat in front of Arban, giving him a predatory smile. Arban narrows his eyes back at her, and the meeting begins.

It starts off well, minus a few interruptions (“Do not make me pull out the highlighter talking stick, Pam,” Tim hisses, sending her a glare so strong she physically recoils in her seat), but Tim has to admit defeat at some point.

“Disturbing Feng Shui is not a valid excuse for dismantling the communications department’s printer and spreading its parts around the building like an easter egg hunt,” Tim intones with a sigh, desperately holding back the urge to hang his head in his hands. He can’t believe that other companies are as chaotic as his. The world can’t possibly still be standing if everyone has to deal with this level of drama. The printer thing had been a low blow, Tim has to admit, even though he thinks it’s a rather ingenious act of war. Printers are sacred, in the corporate world, and touching one that doesn’t belong to your department – let alone breaking it on purpose – is akin to spitting in the face of God.

“They have no proof it was our department,” Arban says calmly, though a vein is twitching on his forehead.

“Oh, we have plenty of proof,” Priya spits at him, infuriated at how Arban has been looking only at Tim the entire conference, leaning over the table to get closer to him.

Arban leans the other way, sparing a glance at Pam for the first time, but never looking at Priya. Her face turns an interesting shade of red. “The culprits weren’t spotted on any cameras, and I trust my team when they say they’re speaking the truth.”

A pink highlighter flies from Priya’s hand and smacks him in the forehead, leaving a bright pink trace on his face.

Pam looks on in glee at the first act of violence.

Here we go, Tim thinks as Arban looks at the highlighter with a deceptively blank face. He’d been able to keep them on track for twenty minutes, a new personal record. It’ll have to be good enough for now, he thinks as he slouches to hide behind the towering piles of complaints. If anything, they’re good to use as a shield. Arban turns to Priya for the first time in the whole meeting, and her smug grin slides off her face as she sees his stormy expression. He pulls out a plastic spork from his pocket, a utensil Tim knows hasn’t been supplied in the cafeteria since his parents’ tenure as heads of the company. Tim has no idea how Arban had gotten his hands on the spork, since Arban had been hired by Tim himself, but he manages to spot DI’s logo on the back of the spoon end before Arban launches himself across the table, sending Priya’s well-arranged stack of complaints flying across the room.

The room descends into chaos.

Tim has to call security ten minutes later when Pam pulls out from her suit pocket a monstrosity of engineering disguised as a modified stapler, which shoots out ink cartridges. Tim will never understand why Pam went into the humanities instead of in STEM, her hidden talents are wasted there.

The following hour is spent trying to convince his janitorial staff not to go on strike, and arranging for Pam’s department’s move a few floors down. The logistics and communications departments are almost in riots, finally united as they wonder where their heads of department are, and Tim has to go down himself amidst the ceiling dust and hopefully-not-asbestos to scare them into going back to work. He has a good reputation, but he’s been said to have a mean streak as wide as his alleged trust fund since his hostile takeover of DI, and he uses that to his advantage.

He calls the three department heads back from what had essentially been time-out with security, and sits them down in the newly-cleaned-from-ink conference room. He feels like a teacher scolding his class the day after a substitute teacher had been supervising.

Tim channels his inner Janet, and leaves them to stew in silence as he stands in front of them with his arms crossed. Even if Tim has had a terrible day, the previous meeting has only made him more stubborn; they’ll break before he does.

Pam speaks first, surprisingly, no doubt affected by her change in offices. She clears her throat. “Please send my apologies to the janitorial staff, sir,” she says, looking almost guiltily at her contraption Tim has confiscated and subsequently displayed on the conference table for all to see.

“You may apologize to them yourself, Pam,” Tim answers coldly, and he sees Priya and Arban wince out of the corner of his eye. Good. “That goes for the two of you as well,” he tells Priya and Arban. They’re not off the hook either. “Your departments thought it was a good idea to use the ceiling tiles as weapons against one another. I don’t think I need to detail how dusty it was by the time I got there.” He gives them a thin smile with cold dead eyes, a combination he knows makes others’ skin crawl.

Arban, the shyer of the two, swallows loud enough for Tim to hear. “Of course. I’ll alert my managers that my department should be the one to clean up, not the janitorial staff.” He peeks at Tim, trying to judge if that had been the appropriate reaction. Tim has no mercy.

He waves his hand. They’ll have to find other ways to make it up to his staff. “No need. The staff has already finished the cleanup. They’re very efficient, if unhappy at the moment.” The following ‘like I am’ goes unsaid. Arban wilts a little in his chair.

“Perhaps they would appreciate respite in the longer term,” Priya suggests, clearly trying to think of alternative ideas, nudging Arban with her elbow. Tim wonders if they’d finally come to some sort of agreement during their time-out.

Arban glances at her grimaced face and nods quickly, building onto her idea. “Yes, our department would be able to clean up after themselves for a few wee–” Priya hits him hard in the ribs “– months. To give them a break.”

Tim looks at them for a moment. He’s already proposed this to the janitorial staff, of course, which is the only reason why he still has them on his payroll at the moment, but his heads of department don’t need to know that. “Very well,” he tells them, and they relax infinitesimally. “I’ll send word to them. I trust you’ll be able to break the news to your own staff?”

They both nod firmly.

“And I trust we won’t have a repeat of this incident?”

They nod a little slower this time. He lets them off the hook, knowing they’ll be back at each other’s throats within the week. It’ll be his source of entertainment at work again in no time.

With that, he lets them go back to their departments. Once the door is closed behind them, he finally lets his head drop into his hands. He’s so ready for his day to be over.

He has to take five minutes to recompose himself in the office room, staring at the wall in existential dread, before he’s ready to go back out.

Chapter Text

Tim is back in his office before the work day is over, and it’s a goddamned miracle. He’d been stopped no less than three times in the distance from the conference room he’d had a minor mental breakdown in to the elevator, and had been needed to oversee some extra cleanup from the department battles.

He sees Tam as the elevator doors open on his floor, and he shoots her a double thumbs up, approaching so he can slouch over on her desk dramatically. He has something sticky in his hair, and he’s not sure if it’s dried ink or a mix of sweat and dust.

“Still alive?” She turns away from her computer. “I’m surprised the building’s foundations didn’t shake.”

“The walls certainly did,” Tim bemoans. “I might have had to call maintenance about a few chairs being thrown, and a few decorative holes being added in the ceiling.” A few ceiling tiles had been deemed unsalvageable, broken beyond recognition by the riots, so the ceiling on the logistics and communications departments’ floor is patchy in some places.

“There there,” she says, patting his shoulder. “You made it through.”

“Yeah, I did,” he says morosely, not at all sounding remotely happy about that fact. He made it through his day. Almost, since he still has a few documents to look through, but the bulk of it is over.

That means he has to deal with the birthday (IforgotIforgotIforgotIforgot–).

He groans as he picks himself up from his desk. A wave of tiredness hits him, and he rubs at his face to wake himself up. He’ll be done soon.

“Right,” he tells Tam, shooting her a fleeting smile. “I have to finish looking over the projections for the next quarter. I’ll be done soon, so you can wrap up your day.” He walks the few feet to his office, intent on finishing his paperwork as fast as possible.

“Tim…” Tam calls as he’s about to enter his office. He stops, turning to her, a hand on the doorknob. “You know you can talk to me, right? About anything? I’m only a call away if you need me.” She speaks softly, voice hesitant.

Tim gives her a small but sincere smile. “Yeah, of course I know.” He would talk to her, for anything else. He wants to. He wants to talk to his best friend. He wants to go to her apartment and eat takeout with her, watch South Park on her couch and spill his soul like with every other problem he’s had before. But he can’t. Not for this. Not when it comes to his dad. There are some secrets that are buried too deep for him to let loose without his whole world collapsing.

Tam gives him a small smile back, and Tim can tell that’s not the answer she wants. He can’t give her the answer she wants. He turns the doorknob and opens his office door, entering without a second look towards Tam, who he knows has a sour look on her face. “I’ll see you on Monday,” he tells her over his shoulder.

He leaves his office again maybe half an hour later, his day finished. He tosses his blazer in the passenger seat of his car and drives back to his apartment in a daze. He doesn’t stay long, only changing into more comfortable clothes and grabbing his father’s drink of choice – some nasty whisky – before going back out on foot.

The fresh air will do him good; it should help clear his mind. He starts walking towards Gotham Cemetery.

–

“You’re too young to drink,” says a gravelly voice.

Tim doesn’t jump, just turns to stare at the Black Knight as he looks at him disapprovingly. His mind feels fuzzy, like it’s filled with the static snow that would make his fingers buzz whenever he touched the screen of the old TV in the basement at Drake Manor.

Man, he hasn’t thought about that TV in ages. He wonders if it’s still there, or if it finally broke in the last years he’s left the manor abandoned. It would be a shame if it did, Tim had learnt how to play his first videogames on that TV, his small child hands barely wrapping around the atari console’s controller.

Batman stares at him expectantly, and Tim realizes he’s just been staring at the guy for the last few minutes instead of answering. Oops.

Shaking himself from his thoughts, he shifts on the ground where he’s sitting so he’s sitting up straighter. “Whatever you say, Dad,” he says pointedly, and man, this is a terrible idea. He can’t believe he just called his dad ‘Dad’ right in front of his dad. He squints, trying to think. That makes sense, somehow. He takes another swig from the whisky bottle and huh, I didn’t think it was already empty. Only a small ring of the amber liquid remains at the bottom of the bottle, swishing as he raises the neck of the bottle to his lips. Might as well finish it. He deserves it after his day.

His mind finally feels dulled. His thoughts, usually lighting-fast, slow down to a manageable pace. Everything feels as though it’s blurry, though that might be because he’s so tired. What time is it? Well past midnight, if his internal clock is correct. Not that he has one, but he thinks he’s been at his dad’s grave for quite a while now.

Giving the Bat a side glance, he only feels dread at what’s about to come. It’s undoubtedly going to be a painfully awkward conversation. He’s too drunk to care. “No more drinking now,” he tells the Bat, with the biggest shit-eating grin he has plastered on his face.

“That’s not what I meant,” Batman says disapprovingly. Looks like all Tim can do is disappoint him.

“I know,” Tim answers lightly, laughing at his own antics. “Aren’t you meant to be…” he gestures to the Bat standing uselessly in an almost-empty cemetery, “finding criminals.”

“Underage drinking is a crime.”

“This is Gotham, who cares?” he says, rolling his eyes. He’d take another sip just to emphasize his point but– well. The bottle’s already empty. The Bat stares at him. “Alright, fine. You care,” he answers his own rhetorical question. This is a new low for him.

He uses his free hand to wipe his mouth and to card his hair away from his face, no doubt leaving it sticking out in strange directions. It’s getting long again. He should probably try to book an appointment soon, or Tam will start teasing him again.

“You can leave now,” he tells Batman, looking him in the eyes-slash-white-voids for the first time since this unfortunate conversation began. “No more minor misdemeanors to be committed here.” He gestures with the empty bottle to prove his point. Batman doesn’t move.

“You shouldn’t be out in the cold.”

“I’m not cold,” he lies bold-facedly to The Batman himself. He can’t feel his hands anymore but that’s besides the point. He’s been out here long enough that he would have already lost his fingers to frostbite if it had been cold enough. He still has all his fingers, so the temperature is warm enough not to be an issue. Tim has no flaws in his logic. Batman’s lips thin, and Tim can see he’s beginning to regret his choice of sticking around. Perfect. He can leave me alone.

“How are your palms?” the bat suddenly asks.

“What?” He stares at his palms confusedly. What about my palms? He has a few scars from when he’d scraped his hands pretty badly while learning how to skate, and a lot of calluses from gymnastics. Batman can’t be talking about that. How would he even know? The only large scars he has on his palms are from him trying to rip out the boomerang that has killed his father from his chest, and sure, Batman had been there, but he wouldn’t ask that.

The bat sounds almost awkward when he next speaks. “I never got the chance to ask how they healed after…” he trails off, shifting his weight to point bodily in the direction of Jack Drake’s grave.

“Oh my god,” Tim whispers, shocked. He did ask that. He bursts into an almost-hysterical laugh. “You can’t just ask me that in front of the dead man in question’s grave.”

Batman shifts on his feet slightly, a frown tugging at his lips. “You’re right… that was insensitive.”

Tim’s pretty sure his mouth just fell open. Holy hell, Batman – The Batman – just apologized to him. Apologized. To him. Is it because he’s drunk? Does Batman think he won’t remember this tomorrow? Well, he might be right, but now Tim is willing himself to remember this moment for eternity, extremely drunk or not.

“Am I hallucinating?” He feels like he’s justified in asking that question.

“Is that… a usual concern?”

Tim snorts. He doesn’t grace the dark figure with an answer. He can figure that out himself if he cares so much. The conversation lulls, and Tim hopes Batman takes the hint and sees himself out and away from here.

“... do you have a way home?” Tim never should have put any faith in Batman understanding social cues.

“Nope,” he says, leaning back on the tombstone behind him. His head thunks on the stone, but his eyes never leave his father’s grave. “I walked here, and if you’re out with enough time on your hands to chat with me then it’s too late for any cabs to be out.” His words slur a little as he talks, and even though the bottle had been half-empty when he’d started drinking, he still has a lot of alcohol in his system. “I’ll walk home in the morning.” It’ll be a bitch of a walk, he knows, but it’s a Saturday, so he doesn’t have to head to work at least. He’ll still have to walk, hungover, stiff and cold, all the way to the other side of the city where his apartment is though. He’s not looking forward to it, but he can’t bring himself to care about it.

Batman doesn’t leave, even though his last statement should have been a dismissal. Tim had intended it as a dismissal. He must be losing his touch.

He turns to stare irately at Batman. “That was code for ‘go away Batman’.” He makes a shooing gesture with his free hand, a frown on his face.

“No.”

Tim frowns even harder. “Wha- No? What do you mean, ‘no’. You can’t just say no to that,” he splutters. “Go away. I’m in mourning or something.” He doesn’t sound convincing to his own ears.

Batman doesn’t move.

“Ugh, whatever.” Tim gives up, turning back to look at his father’s tombstone. “You can stay and stare at me in the dark like a creep.” Batman hums, and Tim can just feel the smugness radiating from him. Is this karma for every time Tim had run his mouth when Batman came to unkidnap him?

He ignores the dark hulking figure next to him for as long as he can, though he feels its gaze on the side of his face. Tim keeps his eyes on his father’s grave. It’s dark out, the only source of light coming from a buzzing orange lamppost on the side of the cemetery’s main alley and from the light downtown bouncing off of the ever-present smog cloud. Browning yellow and orange leaves cover the floor, slightly damp from the drizzling rain Gotham had received that morning. His butt is wet, and his black slacks undoubtedly look as though he didn’t make it to the bathroom in time, but he doesn’t care. He finds that he cares about very little at the moment. There’s only a dark mass of nothingness in his chest where his emotions should be. Maybe that’s why he opens his mouth.

“I was supposed to go to the olympics, did you know?” Tim says out of the blue, voice quietly carrying in the night. He’d been supposed to do something with his life. To make a name for himself that isn't burdened by lies. He’d been good at gymnastics, already renowned in the junior levels by the time he’d turned fifteen. He’d had potential. He turns to look at Batman, letting his head loll so it rests on his shoulder. The Bat is still staring only at him. Tim wonders how he isn’t bored yet.

“Hmm,” the man answers. “But you broke your wrist.” So Batman does keep track of Tim. The thought makes him feel strange, both excited and nauseous. He feels like there’s still hope Batman cares about him, like there’s still the possibility he could come sweeping in and save Tim from his life. He feels like he had felt before Bruce had turned him away.

He squashes those feelings before they can take root. What happened to Tim had been on the national news. Not to mention that Steph would have inevitably told him. It would have been hard not to notice. It doesn’t mean Bruce cares.

Tim lets out a short dry laugh, eyes returning to fixate on the engraved letters of his father’s name. “I lied.”

I lied. I lied. I lied. I lied. I lied. I lied. I lied, his mind echoes. It’s the first time he’s said it to anyone. Not even his coach had ever gotten it out of him what had truly caused his career-ending injury. What had forced him to retire from competitive gymnastics. He’d loved it; the crowd, the bright lights, the feeling of adrenaline in his body. He’d loved it so much, and he’d had to throw it all away.

He hears the rustle of Batman’s cape next to him. He doesn’t turn to see the source of the movement. Maybe he left, finally bored of Tim’s depressed mumbling. He keeps talking anyway.

“I didn’t break my wrist.”

“No?” Batman’s still there, then. He probably should shut up now. Tim’s said enough already.

“No.” He lets the sound hang for a moment in the air. A gust of wind passes, chilling his nose and making whatever leaves remaining in the trees fall to the ground. He barely notices. “My dad broke it.”

There’s a creak of leather next to his ear. He feels an arm drape heavy fabric onto his back, and suddenly the great Batman himself is crouching next to Tim, shielding him from the wind. He blinks as his mind tries to comprehend, staring at Bruce with big confused eyes.

Because the person next to him could be none other than Bruce, with his worried pinch of the mouth, and he doesn’t know what to make of that. The same Bruce that, with a wide smile on his face, would watch Dick slide down the banisters, not a word of reprimand on his tongue as his son knocked over socialites by accident at galas, only soft pride and adoration. The same Bruce that, with a thunderous look on his face as he passed the children rushing out of school merely five minutes after the last bell, almost bowled a mother over as he made his way to the principal’s office to get Jason out of detention for defending others. The same Bruce who brought Stephanie to events held in Gotham’s natural science museum, even though she wasn’t his kid. Just because she likes it. The same Bruce who refused to take him in after his mother passed and his father fell in a coma.

He looks away at the soft set of Bruce’s mouth. If his eyes fill with tears, it’s from the dragged up disappointment of his failed olympic career and from his roiling emotions about Jack Drake. Nothing else.

Tim wraps his arms around his knees, making himself smaller. He shouldn’t be telling all of this to Bruce, but what does it matter? His father’s dead anyway.

“My dad did,” he admits again to the quiet night, gesturing to the grave with his empty bottle as though Jack Drake himself were standing there. Bruce takes in a sharp breath beside him, unnoticeable if Tim hadn’t been sitting next to him. He turns his head to glare at Bruce, giving the best impression of his mother he can muster at the moment. “I know how it sounds,” he says, and his voice is petulant even to him, like a kid who can’t accept they can’t have the birthday boy’s present. “He was a good dad,” he defends, voice shaky, even though he shouldn’t have to. Everyone knows Jack Drake had been a good father. Everyone knows he had loved his son. “He just… he found out I wasn’t his.”

He feels empty, admitting it for the first time out loud. I wasn’t his. Tim finds that he can’t stop talking. “He’d found the letter my mom had left for me in her will when she died. I guess she never expected to be the one to go first,” he says sardonically. “I’d read it the night before I left for the Olympic trials. I don’t even remember why.” It had been a stupid thing to do. “I’d stashed it in one of my drawers, and my dad– I don’t know what he was doing rummaging in there, probably looking for a spare pen or something. He used to lose them all the time,” he says with a little laugh. He feels as heat begins to prick his eyes, and he can only stare at his father’s grave to hide the tears he knows are coming from Bruce. “He found the letter.” Tim had never known when Jack had found the letter, if it had been the day he left, or during any of the six days he’d been gone for the competition. Had Jack been stewing on it for a while? Had he found out the day of? How long had he known? (Had he planned what he’d do to Tim? Had he planned what he’d done to Tim?)

He closes his eyes, willing for the tears to go away. The world seems to spin around him, the alcohol in his system making him dizzy. Maybe he’s had too much to drink. “I came back from the Olympic trials that night, telling him I’d be representing our name for the whole world. He didn’t like that.”

Opening his eyes with a sigh, he holds the bottle up in front of him, rubbing his thumb over the name of the brand. “This was his favorite. He’d had a lot of it by the time I came back, with the TV on in the living room announcing my name as a part of the national team.” The first tears make their way down his cheeks, leaving behind rapidly cooling trails. “He didn’t say anything, just showed me the folded up letter, and I knew I’d messed up.” He tries to keep his voice monotone, but he can’t help it from shaking a little bit. “It wasn’t even my fault.” But he’d messed up, and his dad had broken his wrist. He’d broken his wrist, destroying Tim’s chances of going to the Olympics. His Dad had ripped this dream away from him, and all of his trust with it. “I hadn’t told him,” he says with difficulty around the heavy feeling in his chest, “I hadn’t told him because-” He can’t finish his sentence. He hiccups, hiding his face in his hands.

“I just wanted him to be my dad,” he chokes out amid sobs. “I just- I-” He takes a shuddering breath, his body rattling as air tries to enter his lungs through his sobs. “I wanted my dad.” The same dad that taught him how to make pancakes, the same dad that would dance with him at galas, the same dad who brought him souvenirs from his trips. (He still wishes he could have his dad. Or even a dad. He just wants someone to care.)

Giving up on any remaining shreds of dignity he has, he leans into the cold armor of the Black Knight, his father, crying in a way he hasn’t since the night his father died.

“I miss him so much,” he cries. Bruce’s hand hesitates to rest on his shoulder in a hug. “I shouldn’t. I shouldn’t, but-” he hiccups again, “he was a good dad.” He’s not sure who he’s trying to convince, his other dad or himself. He knows fathers aren’t supposed to hit their children. Aren’t supposed to break their wrists and destroy their careers. Why did it have to happen to Tim? It wasn’t supposed to happen. His dad hadn’t meant it. “He tried so hard to be a good dad, even after.” He speaks quickly, barely conscious of what he’s saying but feeling the need to set the record straight. “But it never went back to normal, and I should’ve spent more time with him instead of being mad, because now he’s- he-” he stutters as he tries to suck in a breath, “he’s d-d-de-dead.” He can’t breathe. He barely manages to suck in small breaths, stomach shaking as shallow gasps of air make their way to his lungs. “He’s dead and I can never have him back.” He gives up on trying to talk, his sentence ending in a whine.

He doesn’t know when he stops crying in Bruce’s-probably-armpit – if he doesn’t look, he’ll never know – but his tears slowly peter out and his breath returns to normal, other than the occasional sniffle.

Bruce is-

He’s holding him. Just holding him, letting him cry his heart out on what is most-definitely his armpit, and Tim–

Tim doesn’t want to leave.

Does it feel like he’s betraying his dad? Maybe a little bit.

But how long has he dreamt of the day where Bruce would sweep in and save him, would take him away from Phil’s big lonely house and bring him to Wayne Manor?

He’d been disappointed the first time he’d let these thoughts roam in his mind. The first time he’d let himself dream of a caring family. He doesn’t care enough right now to protect himself from the pain he knows is to come. (Why isn’t Bruce turning away? Why is he even here?)

(Since when does he care?)

He lets his thoughts drift, clinging to this little bit of comfort for as long as he can. He knows he’s only allowing himself this luxury due to the alcohol he’d drunk and that he will regret it tomorrow, but he can’t bring himself to lean away just yet. It’s not like Bruce is shoving him off like he would have expected. Maybe Tim is just that pitiful. He sniffles as he calms down, mind slowing.

He wakes up suddenly as his head falls forward.

Embarrassment fills him, and he jumps away from Batman – because it’s Batman that’s with him again –, swaying slightly as he quickly stands on wobbly legs with his head tilted away. He’s indulged too much. He knows Batman doesn’t want him anywhere close to him. “Sorry,” he croaks. Janet would be disappointed in his conversational skills.

Much more gracefully than Tim, Batman gets up as well, plucking a stray leaf that had stuck to his cloak. “No worries.” He begins to walk away from Tim, though he pauses once his feet are on the main path and glances back in a way that leaves no room for Tim to argue about following him. Batman waits for him.

“Happy birthday, Dad,” he mumbles, gently placing the now empty bottle of alcohol to rest on the cold gray tombstone.

He trails closely behind the Batman, following him down the endless rows of graves as they leave Gotham Cemetery. There’s no sound other than the soft squelch of their footsteps on the muddy path and the occasional mumbled curse when Tim sways a little too much for comfort in the slippery mud.

The batmobile awaits Batman in front of the cemetery gates, glorious in its sleek lines and glossy finish. “Get in,” Batman grumbles as he gestures to the batmobile on the side of the road. Tim stares at him like he’s grown a second head. People don’t just ride in the batmobile. “Unless you’d rather walk?”

Tim weighs the pros and cons of getting a ride back home with Batman.

He gets in the car, even though every single one of his brain cells are screaming at him that he should run away as fast as possible to avoid the awkward silence that is sure to come. He slides onto the black leather seat and closes the door, sealing his fate.

Tim knows he’s incredibly privileged to be hitching a ride in the batmobile, such an honor only being awarded to civilians in extreme cases. Other than his new personal record of two rides, he’s only heard of three other people having been inside the car, the event a myth in itself.

Even Tim, who’s as blasé as can be about the bats (it’s impossible not to be when you get saved by them twice a month and have Batman as your main business competitor, not to mention other unmentionable relations he has to them), can readily admit this is the coolest car he’s ever been in.

Yet, even as the motor purrs in his ears, the silence in the car is suffocating, and every movement Batman makes as he steers is painfully audible, the leather and kevlar of his gloves and suit creaking loudly. It occurs to Tim that this is the first time he’s properly been in the batmobile. He’d been a little bit distracted the previous time, his dying father calling him to tell him he loves him for the last time.

Pushing that thought aside for a future crying session, Tim looks around the interior of the batmobile, cataloging everything now that he has the opportunity and undivided attention for it. He runs his hand down the stitches of his leather seat and-

“Is this Connolly leather?”

Batman takes a right, though he sends a quick glance Tim’s way. Surprise. “Yes.”

“Huh.” He suddenly feels out of place with his damp pants and muddy shoes. “Doesn’t it get damaged by all of Gotham’s…” he’s not sure how to accurately describe the gunk and grime of Gotham’s streets and the rogues’ gas or pollen of the week. Someone’s probably bled out in this very seat, and it looks completely undamaged, even though Tim knows for a fact leather doesn’t mix well with blood. “...hazards?”

“It’s proofed.”

Tim hums. “Smart.” His brain feels like it’s moving through molasses, and he can’t find anything better to answer.

He drums his fingers on the black leather, eyes roving over the inside of the batmobile. He takes it in quietly, eyes flitting to Batman every few seconds. The vigilante keeps his eyes on the road.

Right, so small talk is out of the question then. Probably for the best. Tim doesn’t know how to talk to fathers. He’d tried, with Jack, but it had never really worked. He doesn’t even know what he would say to Batman, who doesn’t even want to be his dad.

Tim shifts in his seat to look out the window and cringes at the loud sound it makes in the silence. He’s thankful for the lift and everything, but he’s currently dying inside.

But hey, what’s another horror-inducing moment to add to the growing list of events that keep him up at night? It’s not like he needs to sleep (it’s not like he’s been starting to take an alarming amount of melatonin pills each night).

Tim has resumed tapping on the leather seats, almost bored from looking at the inside of the batmobile. He can’t believe he’d ever be bored in here, but without being able to ask questions to Batman (is that an eject button? Are the speed dials bat-shaped? How fast does the batmobile go? What’s this button do?), there’s little that can retain Tim’s attention. Connolly leather, manual reclining seats, dark red piping on the seats, six cup holders total, heated seats…

He’s a little bit bored now, he has to admit.

His mind is running at a hundred miles an hour again and not even the alcohol he’d drunk can take the edge off.

He wonders how Batman does it, how he deals with all the thinking. Tim assumes that’s where his brains came from. He obviously didn’t get them from Jack, and while his mom had been smart, she’d always been people-smart, not analytic-smart. Tim has no idea what to do with people, as evidenced by the ongoing silence in the car.

On second thought, perhaps Batman wouldn’t have an enlightening answer for Tim. He doesn’t quite want to end up running around the streets in a fursuit. He could do the crime solving though. He’s always been sharp.

He’d been sharp enough to connect the dots between Dick Grayson’s quadruple somersault and Robin’s. He’d been sharp enough to uncover Phil Marin’s corruption. He’s sharp enough to notice how the Batman has been consistently taking wrong turns to get to his apartment to prolong the car ride. Tim hasn’t even told him where his apartment is.

He’s taking Tim on the scenic route yet refuses to do small talk. Rude, he thinks with a small frown toward Batman.

“What is it,” Tim asks, leaning his head on his seat while looking at Batman.

Batman sends him what he assumes is an interrogative look. He’s a surprisingly terrible actor. Or maybe Tim knows him too well. He’d obsessively kept track with Batman over the years. Unfortunately, that knowledge didn’t simply disappear at the same time as his hero worship.

“You’re making the wrong turns,” Tim explains, even though Batman already knows this because he’s the one driving the car.

“Hm.” He doesn’t even try to deny it.

“Is this an interrogation tactic?” Tim asks, lifting his head to look at Batman when the other doesn’t elaborate further. “Am I supposed to spill my guts again? With the amount of alcohol I have in my system, you probably don’t want that.” He’d never dare throw up in such a beautiful piece of machinery, but Batman doesn’t need to know that.

Batman glances at him again, not that Tim can figure out the expression under the cowl this time. Maybe he’s trying to judge if Tim would actually barf in his car. He takes a left turn. It’s the right direction.

Batman is no closer to starting the conversation.

Tim sighs, leaning his head against the window. He feels like a sulking teenage child. Because you are, some part of his mind tells him. He tells it to shut the fuck up right back.

The lights outside streak past as the batmobile speeds through the city, the wet shine of the asphalt reflecting the red, yellow and green hues of stop lights and street lamps. Batman’s taking a risk to drive him back to his home (it’s too cold and empty to be a home) apartment . The Red Hood doesn’t take kindly to the Bats entering his territory, and Tim’s residence is firmly on Hood’s side of the proverbial territorial line. Is it proverbial if he spray painted one in red from Cathedral avenue to Fenwick road? (Hood would probably know, he’s a nerd like that. Or Jason was. Is?)

The batmobile slows to a stop in front of Tim’s apartment building after a silent five minutes.

Tim goes to open the car door. “Well, it’s been nice chatting with you, Batman, but I have a busy weekend.” Nothing in that sentence is true, but Batman doesn’t need to know that. Tim really needs to leave the batmobile, or he fears he will never recover. From what Tim doesn’t know, but his skin is crawling and his brain is yelling at him to get as far away as possible now that he has the chance.

He pulls the silver handle next to him and pushes the door open. At least he tries to. He narrows his eyes. The door’s locked.

Batman says nothing as Tim turns his now wary eyes towards him. Tim gestures to the door, pulling the handle uselessly a few times to show how the door is locked.

“Are you gonna let me leave?” Tim asks, when Batman does not catch the hint and unlocks the door.

“...Stop drinking.” Batman orders, like he’s concerned for Tim’s well being.

It’s a bit late for that.

Batman (Bruce?) had his chance to care. He didn’t take it then, and he sure won’t get another chance now.

“Thanks for the PSA, Batman,” Tim bites out, his tone more angry than he would have liked. It’s obvious this isn’t what Batman had wanted to say. That this isn’t what he’d spent half an hour silently mulling over in his head while driving Tim back to his apartment. “I’ll keep that in mind the next time I crack open a bottle.” He doesn’t even sound sarcastic, only tired.

Batman eyes him wearily, and Tim can see he’s completely unconvinced. He unlocks the door anyway.

Tim is out like a shot, throwing a ‘thanks for the ride’ to the bat before fishing out the keys to his apartment and entering without looking back. Quickly, he takes the steps to his flat two at a time, embarrassment and discomfort fueling him more than any shot of adrenaline would. He can’t believe he just cried on Batman’s shoulder.

The door to his penthouse clicks shut behind him. He locks the door and kicks off his shoes. He doesn’t bother turning on a light. His blood feels like it’s electrified, full of energy and tumbling around in his veins.

He has to do something to get it out. Has to act, has to get rid of the anticipation and the feeling in his gut that everything is wrong.

Grabbing the nearest object, a glass tray tastefully decorating his entrance table, he throws it the hardest he can at the wall across from him, shattering the object into a million of shiny shards.

It takes him a moment to realize what he has done.

It worked. He feels nothing but dark gray void in his chest as he stares at the spread of shards littering his living room. They glint in the darkness of his apartment, lit up by whatever light manages to filter through his window, little lighthouses to guide Tim’s steps to safety. Don’t come close, they say, you’ll be hurt. He truly is Jack Drake’s son.

His father throws a glass at the wall, the sound echoing in the empty house. Tim waits for Janet to scold him for leaving whiskey stains on the white walls. Mom’s dead, Tim remembers. He doesn’t dare scold him as she would have, and the house is dead quiet after that, other than for his father’s sobbing that Tim tries to erase from his memory.

A tear falls. He walks past the mess towards his bedroom, telling himself he’ll pick it up tomorrow.

He pops six melatonin pills and dry swallows. He needs tonight to be over.

–

He’s finished his three consecutive releases. All he needs to do now is gain enough momentum with two giant swings to be able to pull off the dismount. It’s just like he practiced. He swings his legs forwards to start the first rotation around the high bar. The crowd is cheering in the stands, and the harsh lights of the arena blind him as he finishes his swing. It’s euphoric. He just needs to do this second rotation and he’s done. He’ll dismount, and he’ll stick the landing, and he’ll have his name forever written down in the Code of Points. He just needs to-

There’s a sickening crack.

His hands are ripped from the high bar, and he’s falling. Swinging on the high bar had always seemed like flying. This is anything but.

He tries to twist around, to find the floor. It’s all empty blackness around him.

The sickening feel of the fall is almost too hard to bear, a nauseating feeling of wrongness permeating every one of his bones. He looks around frantically, but gone are the high bar and the safety mats and the judges and the crowd. There’s just Tim.

No one is there to catch him when he lands. He doesn’t feel it, but the world spins around him as his momentum is violently stopped. He can see the high bar above him again, hopelessly out of reach, he can see the crowd leaving in disappointment, he can see the table of judges. They all wear his father’s face. The sick feeling in his gut doesn’t leave him. It worsens at the sight of his father’s expression.

A hand grabs Tim’s wrist and Tim is back in his old home. Jack is back in his wheelchair. There’s glass shattered on the floor, and it smells of alcohol so strongly he swears he can taste it. Jack is yelling words that sound like gibberish to Tim. He can only look at his wrist. It looks so wrong like that, twisted and broken and bruising and ruined.

The twisting feeling in his gut comes back with a vengeance, and the acrid smell of alcohol hangs in the air like a cloud. The sight of his broken wrist makes Tim nauseous, like he’s about to throw up. Tim’s about to–

With a jolt, Tim manages to hang his head over the side of his bed before his stomach expels whatever was left from the night before. He keeps going until he stops retching bile, and he keeps dry heaving for a while after that.

Chapter Text

“Timothy, darling,” his mother calls, a gentle smile on her face. Her back is to the wide windows of his childhood home, and the sun shines through the bleached blonde strands of hair that fall from her updo as she bends down to pick him up. She seems to glow, a golden halo forming around her face like those paintings of Saints in churches.

This is how Tim remembers his mother when he was a child, all smiles and sunny eyes. Her eyes squinted with happiness and her voice mellow.

It’s one of his earliest memories, his mother tucking him gently in her arms, dancing around the sunlit living room as she returns from a trip with Jack. It’s the first time Tim remembers her coming home, but he knows that each arrival equated to a giant hug and a twirl in the air, no matter his age.

He giggles as she bounces him gently in her arms and sways to a song only she can hear.

–

He’s three and he’s on Mom’s hip, hands gripping the sleeve of her jacket. She smiles at him when Dad isn’t looking, eyes gleaming with mischief. Her face is lit with every colour, and even though the circus is fascinating, his eyes keep returning to her.

She catches him looking at her again. Tim sees her eyes dart towards Dad before she turns to him and pulls her tongue at him. He giggles, pulling his tongue back at her. Her face is turned away again, but he can see a smirk play at the corner of her mouth.

His parents are talking to each other, and Tim can feel the vibration of his mom’s voice as she speaks. He doesn’t care to listen, too busy staring at the different colours and people around him.

One moment he’s in his Mom’s arms, looking over her shoulder at a pair of clowns walking by, and the next he’s being lowered onto the ground. He looks at his Mom with wide eyes, confused as to why he’s being put down. Mom smiles at him.

“Go on,” she tells him, her eyes shifting to look at something over his shoulder. He turns to follow her gaze. “Don’t be shy.”

There’s a boy there, with a smile almost as warm as Mom’s. He’s dressed in bright colours, and Tim walks towards him like Mom asked. The boy introduces himself, but Tim’s too busy looking at his bright smile and shining eyes to listen. He can feel himself smiling as the boy puts him on his lap.

He promises to do a cool flip just before the flash of a camera blinds Tim.

He’s back in his Mom’s arms soon after. He waves to the boy over her shoulder. The boy waves back.

He hides his face in his Mom’s collar, but he’s smiling. It’s like looking into the sun.

–

He’s four when his heart pounds as he wakes up from another nightmare, stopping himself from screaming by sheer force of will. He can feel the scream in his throat. He swallows it down.

His bedroom’s illuminated by the streetlamps' lights filtering in through his window. Brighter light travels across the ceiling as a car passes in the street, accompanying the sounds of tires splashing through puddles. He manages to calm down his breathing.

He closes his eyes again, but all he can see is the dizzying fall of the Graysons. Dick Grayson’s crying face fills his mind, and he has to open his eyes again to stare at his ceiling some more. He shifts to one side, tugging his blankets so that they cover him more.

He stares at his wall for a long time, and the nightmares start following him into reality. The third time he has to shift noisily in his bed to chase the image of the wires snapping away, Tim slides out of his bed and makes his way to his parents’ bedroom.

He turns the doorknob slowly, opening the door without a creak and slipping inside without a sound. In the darkness, it’s difficult for him to make out the edges of the bed, but he’s done this so many times before it’s almost routine.

He makes it to his mother’s side of the bed and stands there a moment, unsure what to say to wake her. Her arm lifts up a corner of the blanket before he has to, and he dives into the warmth of the duvet.

“Nightmare?”

He nods, knowing she can feel the movement when he’s so close. She draws him closer to her with one arm and presses a kiss to his hair.

He tries to match his breathing with hers as she falls asleep again. His lungs are too small, he knows, but he tries anyway.

He falls asleep before he manages to.

–

He’s maybe five, and Dad’s standing behind him, watching him with a careful eye as Tim, standing on his wooden stool, slides the spatula under the side of the pancakes to check the colour.

“Dad, is it ready yet?”

His dad peeks over his shoulder, and Tim lifts up the edge of the pancake again to show him.

“Be patient, son. If you keep lifting them up to check they’ll never cook.”

“Why? Is it like how water doesn’t boil when you look at it?”

“Not quite,” his dad laughs. “With pancakes, the heat makes them cook and turn brown. If you put your hand above the pan,” he explains, making his hand hover over the pan. Tim imitates him, and he can feel the heat on his palm, “you can feel it. The hot thing is the pan itself, which is why you want the pancakes to be touching the pan as much as possible.”

“So that the heat makes them brown,” Tim finishes excitedly.

Dad nods, eyes proud. “Attaboy.”

Tim eyes the pancake again. “So is it ready yet?”

Jack laughs. It’s one of those deep-bellied laughs that always make Tim’s stomach tingly with joy. He giggles with his dad, even though he doesn’t know what’s funny.

Tim’s pancakes have always been golden brown since then.

–

He’s five and the lights glitter as Dad takes him dancing. His dad takes his hands and raises him in the air, making him giggle as pretty ladies with shiny dresses coo at him. He doesn’t hear them, focused only on his dad.

His parents have brought him to a gala, not his first one, but the first he remembers clearly enough to know where he is.

It’s the Waynes’ New Year’s Eve gala, and the rooms are decorated with bright lights that shine on the floor, and the windows, and the dresses, and the shoes, and everything Tim can see. Mom says the colour of the lights is ‘champagne’, and Tim thinks everything looks like a fairytale.

His Dad smiles down at him as he tries to follow his large steps. They spin in a circle, Dad picking him up by the armpits to do so. When they stop turning, he’s tucked into his dad’s chest and brought over to his mother. The music stops as he squirms to be let go, running at his mom.

“Mom! Did you see? Dad danced with me,” he tells her excitedly, hands clutching her skirts. The material is scratchy under his hands, the gauzy fabric shining with glitter.

If Wayne Manor looks like a fairytale, his mom looks like the fairy queen.

“I did, Darling,” she tells him with a smile, bending down to pet his hair. He preens at her touch. “You’re a very good dancer.”

“Dancing like that must have made you hungry,” Tim hears his dad say, and he turns to find him approaching him and his mom. He hadn’t even noticed his dad leave, but his hands are holding two plates filled with food and sweets. “I sure am,” he tells Tim with a grin, sitting down at a nearby table in the corner of the ballroom.

Tim’s already eaten supper, but his parents tell him he should eat some of the food here so he has enough energy to stay awake until midnight.

Tim steals pieces of Dad’s desert while he’s looking at Mom, eyes glimmering with ‘champagne’ lights. Dad seems surprised when he turns back to his plate only to find his piece of chocolate cake missing, and Janet giggles at him while Tim smiles innocently.

While he eats, a few adults come to talk to his parents about business, but he tunes them out. Mom’s hand is on his head, and she absentmindedly pets his hair while Dad talks business on his other side.

He manages to stay awake until midnight, making a face of disgust as his parents kiss above his head as the last second of the year ticks away, but he drops off soon after, head resting on Dad’s shoulder. He doesn’t remember the ride home, but he wakes up when Dad picks him up from his seat in the car.

He looks around himself, surprised to see they’re home already.

The last thing he remembers is noticing that their porch lights are champagne.

–

He’s nine and his parents are watching the news while he reads in the living room.

His parents sit on different couches, and Tim knows it’s because of the fight they had in the kitchen earlier.

The news anchor says something about a robbery, which Tim ignores because when is there not a robbery in Gotham? He does look up, however, when the anchor says ‘Batman and Robin’. His book is way less cool than them, and he dog ears the page before letting it close on the floor. He approaches the TV, standing so close his Dad grumbles about him blocking the image.

His Mom usually won’t let him stick his face in the TV, but she lets him this time as live footage of the duo rolls on screen. It’s grainy, and Batman can barely be seen in the shadows, but Robin is there clear as anything.

Tim’s standing so close he can almost feel the static feeling of the TV glass on his nose.

And then Robin does a quadruple flip.

It’s effortless, like something that’s ingrained in his bones, like a move that’s been repeated since birth. It looks as easy as breathing as he does it.

He lands on his feet without even a stumble.

Tim knows that flip.

Only three people in the world could have done it, and he sees their faces every night when he dreams. He’s seen that flip every time he’s closed his eyes for the past six years.

Two of those people who could have achieved what Robin’s just done are dead.

The third is Richard Grayson.

The footage stops, and the news anchor’s face returns to the screen, making Tim jump. His face is troubled when he turns to his parents again, but he already knows how to lie. His parents will never learn what made him so pensive.

When he dreams of the Graysons that night, it’s Robin he watches fall and die.

–

He’s ten when he starts his gymnastics classes. He’s been begging his parents for months now, ever since he’d seen Robin do the quadruple flip on the TV.

His coach is nice, even though Tim doesn’t always understand what he says. Dad says Tim will get used to it, and that he’s the best teacher in Gotham.

Tim is still on the tumbling mats, needing to build up his strength and flexibility before he’s allowed onto the different apparatuses, but he already loves the feeling of jumping and tumbling.

He does a diagonal on the tumbling mat, stringing cartwheels and back springs one after another, watching as the ceiling lights streak in and out of his eyesight as he flips. He almost falls at the end of the diagonal, but he manages to stick the landing, nodding to his coach as though he were a judge at a competition. Tim’s not ready to compete yet, but his coach says that form is important, no matter the level.

His coach nods back, and Tim feels a wide smile spread on his face at the approval.

His parents aren’t there to watch his practice, being somewhere in Cambodia for business, but Tim knows his mom and dad will be happy about his progress when he calls them tomorrow morning.

He walks up to his coach, who gives him a few pointers to make his diagonal better, and then he’s back on the mats, practicing until his arms ache from the flips and his face aches from smiling.

–

Tim’s eleven when his parents send him to boarding school. He’s in middle school now, and they tell him he’s old enough for them to send him there while they travel more for work.

They say it’s for work, but Tim knows it’s because of the arguments that have been happening with increasing frequency. He won’t lie by saying he isn’t a little relieved that he won’t have to hear his parents screaming at one another while he tries to sleep.

His parents haven’t slept in the same room in months, and supper has become a tense affair.

He won’t be seeing them in person for two months, and when they call, he sometimes pretends the connection cuts out when they start arguing again. Their digs and meetings are remote enough it’s not surprising if the cell service is patchy.

Tim sighs as he presses end on another call, Mom’s voice glitching as she berates his dad. They didn’t even ask about his practice, or about his competition last week. He won gold. He drops his head on his desk, and the sun burns his eyes as the bright light comes through his window. He doesn’t bother moving his head, even if every time he blinks colourful spots dance before him.

Maybe next time they’ll remember to ask about his competitions.

–

Tim is watching TV in the dining hall while eating lunch. He doesn’t usually, but all his friends have turned to look at the screen as well, and a hush has fallen over the usually loud dining hall. There isn’t a single person talking or making noise.

Jason Todd-Wayne has died in a terrorist attack in Ethiopia, the reporter says, showing blurry footage of smoke and fire.

To a school full of rich kids and diplomats’ children, this means that billionaire Bruce Wayne’s son has just died.

To Tim, this means Robin has died, and that there’s something more going on behind the scenes. This means that whatever has been making Batman become more violent in the past few weeks isn’t temporary. Because Robin’s death is what’s made him go off the rails, no doubt.

Tim had thought Robin had been benched or injured, and that this was why he hadn't been seen in Gotham in a few weeks. All that time, he’d been dead.

His head hurts.

The funeral will be in three days, he understands from the rest of the reporter’s segment. Closed casket. Tim can’t go, but he wishes he could. He’s never even met Jason.

His lunch is still suddenly way less appealing.

He can’t focus in class that afternoon. Or the day after. Or the week after. Almost a month passes and all Tim can think about is Batman. Batman and the criminals he’s so close to killing.

Every evening, he scours the internet for any articles about the Dark Knight. He’s not doing good, and no one seems to be helping. Not Dick, who’s disappeared somewhere in New York, not Barbara, who can’t go out as Batgirl anymore, and not Alfred, who Tim admittedly doesn’t know much about but who’s probable interventions aren’t having any discernible effects (he has to be doing something, right?).

And there’s nothing Tim can do. He can’t leave school at night, and even if he did, he can’t just walk up to Batman and tell him he’s going to kill himself in his grief. The only times he’s allowed to leave the grounds during the week is for gymnastics practice, and he’s chauffeured to and from Little Odessa, constantly under supervision.

He needs someone on the ground. Someone stubborn.

He starts with Dick Grayson.

During his school’s reading break, he goes to his empty house like a good little student freed from his dorm and walks right back out with a backpack full of supplies and a camera to catch Batman’s violence on film. He looks for Dick in New York and even knocks on Koriand’r’s door for information, but he’s nowhere to be found. It takes him breaking into Dick’s apartment and rifling through the papers on his desk to figure out he’s gone to Haly’s Circus.

So Tim goes, and Tim fails to convince him to become Robin again.

He pushes his crushing disappointment aside, because he has a plan B.

He goes to Barbara.

On Saturday, the day before he has to go back to school, Tim takes the subway to the Widow Creek neighborhood. He finds the address he’s looking for, 115 South Holden street, and knocks on the door, leaving two letters on the ground before running across the street to hide in the bushes.

He watches as Stephanie Brown picks up the letters and looks around suspiciously before closing the door again. Tim hopes this works, because he doesn’t have enough time to send more letters before he has to go back to school, and he really needs them to save Batman. Hopefully they won’t be able to track him down to ask how he’s figured out their secret identities. That would be awkward.

He has no other way of contacting Oracle, other than through her protégée-slash-annoyance, and Spoiler could be a good Robin. She’s stubborn, funny, and attracts enough attention from villains that Batman would have to look after her, and thus look after himself. She’ll make sure the Bat won’t retreat so far into himself he forgets his Mission. He thinks Jason would like her, in any case.

Even if Barbara disagrees with Tim’s impeccable logic, his letter to Stephanie would plant the thought of being the next Robin in the blonde’s head. If Tim has judged Spoiler correctly, he knows she’ll work around Oracle and any other obstacle until she gets the mantle. She likes to stick it to the man like that.

Two days later, a new blonde Robin has defeated Two-Face, and Batman stops being so violent. Tim feels like he’s allowed to pat himself on the back for that one, even if he’s terrified of having to show his face in Gotham over the summer, for fear of Oracle finding him.

–

His roommate bursts into the room with a bang, the hallway light obscuring his face as it casts shadows from behind. Tim looks up from his book, which is really a cover for the notes Tim hides of Batman and his new Robin, lying down on his bed.

“You good?” he asks, watching with a confused face as his roommate pants in the doorway. He doesn’t enter, but he gestures for Tim to do… something. “What?”

His floor supervisor walks up to the door as well, also seeming to be somewhat out of breath, though less than his roommate. Tim dog ears his page and closes his book, sitting up on his bed with a foreboding feeling. Their grim faces are all he can see.

“Timothy,” the supervisor starts, entering his room. His roommate looks at him with wide worried eyes. Tim doesn’t like this. “Would you come with me for a moment?” His eyes are kind, but his body is tense, and his smile doesn’t reach his eyes. Tim looks to his roommate, confused. Does he know what’s going on? The supervisor follows his gaze and bends down to talk to his roommate. “Go back to the common room, I’ll take care of this.”

His roommate goes with a worried glance back.

His supervisor closes the door behind him.

“What’s going on?” Tim’s voice shakes, and he can feel his eyes fill with tears. He doesn’t even know what’s wrong yet.

“It’s about your parents, Timothy.”

–

He’s fourteen and his mom’s funeral is on Christmas Eve.

There’s snow on the ground, and the air is bitingly cold.

He’d always thought it rained during funerals. That’s always how it is in movies, something about symbolism and the skies being as sad as everyone else. Then again, he’d always thought he’d be older when his mom died (parents aren’t supposed to die this early in life, are they?)

It doesn’t rain. It doesn’t snow either. There’s not a cloud in sight to cover the blue skies of Gotham.

It’s the nicest weather they’ve had all year.

Some guest says his mom would have liked that. Would have liked to see the blue skies.

Tim smiles at them and lies, agreeing with them.

Mom loves the snow. Mom loves the rain. Mom loves the clouds she’d said are unique to Gotham. Nothing else compares. Nothing else feels quite so much like home.

She used to sit with him on the front porch when it rained. He’d been scared of storms when he had been younger, but he’d sat with her during every single thunderstorm on that porch, knowing she wouldn’t be in bed.

He’s come to enjoy the sound of thunder as she had.

Big storms are always less scary when he remembers the stories she would tell him of the different legends associated with them. She used to regale him with tales of the power of Zeus and Thor and Indra, her face illuminated by the champagne porch lights and the odd lightning strike.

The snow is bright, white blue light bouncing into his eyes painfully as her coffin is lowered into the ground. He doesn’t cry, but he carries the gray of Gotham in his chest, suffocating any other feeling he might have had. Today is like a nightmare, and he can’t wake up. He can’t sneak into his mom’s room and sleep in her bed, matching his breath with hers (she has no breath to match with anymore).

The guests watch him with pity, whispering, watching. They wonder what will happen to him. He wonders as well. His dad is in critical condition at the hospital, and his mom is buried six feet in front of him.

He can hear them talk. Does he know what Jack did?

Tim knows.

He knows how his dad had been the one to give Mom the poisoned water. He knows what happened. He doesn’t want to think about it. It had been an accident.

It doesn’t stop Gotham’s vultures from gossipping within his earshot, sending him sly looks as they try to gauge his expression. He gives them nothing.

He’s as cold as his mother.

Mr. Marin guides him by the shoulder to the car once the service is over.

He doesn’t remember much from the rest of that day. He doesn’t remember much from the entire week. There isn’t anything much worth remembering anyway.

–

Tim is sitting with Phil in his Mom’s lawyer’s office. He didn’t catch the lawyer’s name, and it’s a little bit too late to ask now.

It’s a quaint office, a few floors up from the ground floor in the Drake Industries building, just high enough to see over most of the Gotham skyline.

He wonders if he could see Gotham General Hospital from here. If he could see his dad. He stares for a moment, but it’s hard to make his eyes focus on any detail. They rove over the landscape, never catching onto anything.

Tim tunes back into the conversation. He’s been having a hard time keeping track of conversations recently. He’s been having a hard time keeping track of anything, really. He’s not sure what day it is, nor how many have passed since the funeral.

“-- the unorthodoxy of the situation,” the lawyer says. Tim recalls how Phil had frowned when the lawyer had called him three days ago at supper. He’d explained later that wills are usually read before larger groups, and that Janet’s request for only Tim and his guardian to be present is unusual. “Mrs. Drake – your mother,” he says, turning to Tim, “was a very private woman. She left specific instructions on how the reading of her will should be conducted.”

“I see,” Phil says easily. “Then we shall respect her wishes. Is it alright to conduct the reading here?”

Tim hopes it is. He doesn’t want to have to come back another time.

“Of course,” the lawyer says, then jumps into an explanation of the particulars of Janet’s will as he picks it up. Tim listens halfheartedly as the lawyer lists his Mom’s different assets and who they should be given to, staring out of the window. He’s given up on looking for Gotham hospital, and is staring blankly at the gray sky. He doesn’t know why he’s here. Phil and the lawyer don’t need him for this. They’d need Jack, an actual adult, his dad, his mom’s husband. Not Tim.

It takes a long time, but the lawyer is eventually done with the reading, only having one page left to read. “-- and to my son, and my son only, I give this letter. In the event that my husband Jack is still in good health and able to take care of Timothy, this letter should not be given.” The lawyer pauses as he reads, sending Tim an apologetic smile. Tim frowns. Why would his mother add that clause? Why shouldn’t he receive the letter if Jack is still taking care of him?

The lawyer puts the final page of the will down, and hands Tim a letter sealed in an envelope, his mom’s familiar scrawl on the back of it.

“You should open it here, Timothy,” the lawyer advises as Tim keeps the letter in his hand without opening it. Tim blinks. How long has he had the letter in his hands? “I’m already aware of your situation.” His eyes turn sad. Tim looks blankly at the letter, rubbing his thumb on the back of it, trying to feel the texture. His hands feel clumsy.

Tim looks to Phil for guidance, but Phil is simply looking at the letter with a frown. Tim rips open the envelope, pulling out a folded letter written on lined paper in black ink.

Hello darling, she had written, her handwriting curling and beautiful. Tim stares blankly at the words for a moment, memorizing their shape.

I love you so much.

If you’re reading this, then it means that I am no longer here to tell you this. Know that I love you more than anything I have ever loved, and that I will always be proud of you.

I’m so sorry. I’m sorry I couldn’t tell you in person. I’m sorry you have to find out through a letter. I’m sorry it means that Jack is also gone.

In the event that Jack and I are no longer able to take care of you, I have told my lawyer to contact your biological father, Bruce Wayne, in order for him to take care of you when we can’t.

I love you my darling, and I know Jack loves you just as much, if not more than I do. He doesn’t know that you’re not his, and I would have avoided even telling you if I could have, but I am not so selfish as to place you in foster care for the sake of my pride. I’m sorry, my darling.

Forever with you,
Mom

Tim is frozen. He doesn’t even think he’s breathing. He blinks once, then twice.

He reads the letter again.

Bruce Wayne is… my father?

He looks up at the lawyer, who’s staring at him with a pinched expression.

“What?” Tim is speaking for the first time in a few days, and his voice is barely a croak. It cracks so badly the lawyer winces and asks if he would like some water. Tim looks back down to the letter in his hands. He can barely see it. He can barely see anything. It all looks so far away.

Bruce is… what? What about Dad?

Tim doesn’t understand.

It can’t be true.

It doesn’t make sense.

None of this makes sense.

Not since his roommate burst into his room. Not since an Obeah killed his mom. Not since his dad is in a coma. Not since his mother has been buried six feet under ground.

Nothing makes sense anymore.

His shoulder turns, and his head follows. Phil’s arm extends across the space between them, and huh, I don’t feel his hand on my shoulder. Phil’s mouth is moving, and Tim thinks he could probably hear the words if he made an effort. His vision shakes a bit as Phil gives his shoulder a little nudge. “What?” he repeats, blinking quickly as he tries to focus on what Phil is saying.

“-- we can take a break if this is too much, Tim. Do you need to go home?”

It is too much. Entirely too much. He’s back in his own brain now, and Phil’s hand on his shoulder is too much, the feel of his socks is too much, the touch of the letter in his hands is too much. Everything is too much.

And Tim doesn’t have a home to get back to.

Phil’s house is not his home. It’s barely even a home, with its sterile white walls and furniture.

His home is the brownstone in Midtown, where his mom would sit with him under champagne lights to watch thunderstorms and where she would dance when she came back from trips and where his dad taught him how to make pancakes and where he has his gymnastics trophies displayed on the shelves.

He takes a deep breath in and turns back to the lawyer, dislodging Phil’s hand from his shoulder. Tim feels as though his vision has just gone from 216p to 1080p, and the world is slowly starting to make sense again. He turns to the lawyer.

“What arrangements did my mother make with you?” His voice doesn’t crack this time. It’s steady, business-like in the way his mother would speak on the phone to employees and investors.

He doesn’t mention what was in the letter. He ignores Phil’s confused look. He ignores the lawyer’s pity.

Tim is fourteen, and his dad is not his Dad, and Bruce Wayne is his father.

Holy shit Batman is his father.

“Well, you’re not old enough to choose which guardian to live with, but the state of New Jersey will want to place you with your biological family before anyone else.” He clears his throat, uncomfortable under Tim’s sharp gaze. He needs to get used to it, because Tim feels as though he’s finally awoken from the strange slumber he’d been in since the funeral. “Mr. Marin has kindly stepped up to be your temporary guardian, as a close friend of your parents, but it was Mrs. Drake’s will that you should be placed with Mr. Wayne in the event that neither she nor Mr. Drake would be able to fulfill their duties as parents and guardians.” Tim sees Phil sit up straighter in his chair at the new information. He mustn't have known, then. “I have already contacted Mr. Wayne’s lawyers, and have sent NDAs to be signed. Mrs. Drake was explicit in her wishes that this was to be kept secret.”

Phil frowns and leans forwards to join in on their conversation. “I– If I understand correctly, Timothy is not Jack Drake’s son?” The lawyer nods. Phil breathes in sharply. “And he’s Bruce Wayne’s son?”

“Correct,” the lawyer says.

Phil takes a moment to respond. “I see.” He mumbles something under his breath that Tim guesses to be a curse.

“As your current guardian, Mr. Marin will be handling these matters with me, Timothy.”

Tim nods, and the lawyer sets up a meeting between him and Phil in the next week to speak with Mr. Wayne’s lawyers. Tim gets to keep his mother’s letter as they leave the lawyer’s office and head back to Phil’s apartment in the diamond district.

“I’m sorry, kid,” Phil tells him once they’re in the car. Tim doesn’t answer, too busy staring out of the window. His brain is buzzing, thoughts racing through his mind faster than he can process.

Batman is his father.

He doesn’t know if that’s a good thing or not. He doesn’t know how to feel. On one hand, Dad had raised him and loved him. On the other hand, Batman is his father. Is it bad that he wants to get to know him?

He puts that thought away for now, because if he thinks about it for more than five seconds he might actually explode.

Because his mother kept it a secret from him. From Dad as well.

Can he even call Jack his dad?

Is he still allowed to? Can he still go visit his dad in the hospital when he’s no longer his son?

What if Dad wakes up?

He’s in a coma, and the doctors say they’re unsure of his odds of recovery, but Tim doesn’t believe his da– Jack would stay in a coma forever. Tim’s stomach twists into knots.

“What if Dad wakes up,” he asks Phil in the silence of the car, voice small and desperate. Phil’s hands tighten around the steering wheel, making the leather creak. “What if he wakes up and I’m–” Tim doesn’t know how to finish his sentence. He doesn’t want to say it out loud. Phil seems to know what he means, though.

“I don’t know, Tim. I really don’t know.”

And Tim, for the first time since he’s read the letter, feels anger burn inside him. Anger towards his mother who cheated on his d– on Jack, towards Jack for being in a stupid coma, towards the doctors who can’t make him better, and towards Phil who’s an adult but who doesn’t have any answers that Tim desperately needs.

(Beneath all that anger, he can’t help but feel an inkling of hope at the thought of joining Bruce’s family. He’d have siblings. He’d be living in an actual home. He’d have someone that cares for longer than an occasional phone call.)

–

Phil’s face is grim when he calls Tim into his office. Tim’s stomach is full of knots as he takes a seat in front of him. It’s been a week since he’s received the letter, and Phil had told him that Bruce’s lawyers would be sending them documents soon for the courts.

Without a word, Phil slides a stack of papers over his desk, handing them for Tim to read.

He only has to read the title before his eyes blur with tears.

“I’m sorry,” Phil tells him, and promises that no one except for those already involved need to know about this. He says something else about NDAs and judges and court cases.

Tim barely hears him. He just stares at the papers, a buzzing feeling spreading from his hands to the rest of his body. He can’t tell if he’s sad or disappointed or angry or feeling anything at all.

All he can think is that he’s no one’s son. Not really.

Janet’s dead. Jack raised him, sure, but he’s not biologically his. Bruce–

Bruce doesn’t want him. Mr. Wayne signed away his parental rights, which Tim can clearly understand is a flashing neon sign spelling out ‘don’t come near me ever again’. Tim won’t make that mistake again. He doesn’t think he could even look at the man without throwing up.

He gets up and walks to the guest bedroom he’s staying in without a word. He’d gotten his hopes up, in the week since he’d learned of Janet’s secret. Had started to think Batman would come save him from his sad life and bring him into a home of warmth.

He’d been fucking wrong.

It had been his mistake to put any sort of trust in his parental figures.

Two of his parents hadn’t cared enough about him to save their marriage or at least to stay home long enough to say ‘hello’ before jetting off to who-knows-where. His third one decided he didn’t want him, and threw him in the trash without even bothering to meet him.

Tim doesn’t care that it’s still sunny out. He pulls back his covers and slides into bed. He needs this day to be over. His nightmares seem less daunting than the waking world.

But instead of dreaming of the Graysons, Tim sees Batman and Nightwing in his dreams, his heroes, standing on each side of his mother’s grave.

They’re laughing at him, he knows.

He wants to cry. He wants to yell. He wants to punch their faces in until they stop. All that comes out of his mouth is a weak whisper. “It’s not fair.”

Batman smiles at him, too many teeth in his mouth. “Life isn’t fair.”

Nightwing hands him a stack of papers that are so heavy Tim almost trips into his mother’s open grave before laughing and backspringing away.

He reads the title of the document.

Voluntary Termination of Parental Rights

He’s so dizzy from the sight he falls into his mother’s grave anyway.

Her skeletal hands keep him there with her as Batman and Nightwing shovel dirt on top of him.

Chapter Text

The lights in Phil’s home are bright white LEDs. The walls are white, and so is the furniture. Sterile and blinding is how Tim would describe the place, and it’s almost like he never left the snowy cemetery where his mom is buried. He wishes that were true.

Everything has changed since he’s left the cemetery.

He goes to a different school now. He switched during the winter break. Gotham Academy isn’t as good as Brentwood, or so his classmates say, but it’s a lot closer to Phil’s apartment. It’s still filled with a bunch of rich kids who don’t have an ounce of common sense, so Tim doesn’t find there’s too much of a difference other than the fact that he has to leave every evening. He can’t say he enjoys the commute, or the early morning breakfasts.

“Phil,” Daria Marin says as Tim tries to eat at the kitchen island, “would you mind doing the groceries this afternoon? Tim’s teacher has asked for a meeting.”

Tim doesn’t look up from his bowl of cereal. If he pretends his Kellogg's Krave are delicious enough, maybe he’ll be able to stomach more than one bite, and maybe he can ignore the fact that he’ll be made to wait for at least half an hour in his class after school while Daria gets to hear about how much of a disappointment Tim is.

We had high hopes for him, his teachers will say, looking at Tim’s old report cards. We thought he would have adapted by now, they’ll tell Daria as if Tim’s life hasn’t been broken into a million shards of sharp glass that cut his hands every time he tries to piece it back together. He’s given up on even trying.

He doesn't care about his grades. He doesn’t care how the worried looks his teachers had been sending him earlier in the semester have morphed into glares of irritation. He doesn’t care about how he’s wasting his life away wallowing. He doesn’t care that he needs to move on.

What does it matter anyways.

He can’t stomach another bite of the cereal, the mouthful he already has is making him want to puke, so he pushes the rest around the bowl. The simple thought of chewing makes him feel sick, and Tim has to focus on not thinking about gagging for a minute to be able to swallow.

“Sure thing, Dove,” Phil answers his wife, dropping a kiss on her lips as he grabs the thermos of coffee she’s left for him on the counter. Tim’s staying with Phil, Drake Industries’ acting CEO, while Da– Jack’s in a coma in the hospital. The doctors don’t know if he’ll wake up. He might not.

Tim’s skin crawls at the thought of spending more time at the Marins’ apartment.

He doesn’t… dislike them.

“See you, champ,” Phil tells him, but doesn’t look at Tim any longer than he has to. Tim sends him a polite fleeting smile, hardly looking him in the eyes before dropping his head back down into his almost full bowl of cereal.

He simply doesn’t like them. Sometimes he thinks it’s mutual. Phil had been Jack’s friend before he’d been Mom’s.

He’s grateful, of course, and he remembers to say ‘please’ and ‘thank you’, but he wishes he were with his dad. Which one, his mind whispers traitorously, and he mentally curb stomps the thought.

He empties his bowl in the sink, uncaring that the mushy cereal ends up in the drain, and puts his empty bowl away in the dishwasher. There’s no trace of his presence left behind, not in the kitchen, and not anywhere else in the apartment. Even his room looks completely devoid of life. He’s like a ghost, passing through. His therapist would probably have something to say about that if he told her about it, but it’s not like Tim ever tells her the truth.

Tim should skip school.

He toes his shoes on, thinking it over. He doesn’t want to be there for the meeting between Daria and his teacher. Maybe the Marins will kick him out too. Maybe everyone will finally notice what Tim’s come to learn since his mother’s passing. What Tim has suspected for years.

That he’s a terrible student. Tim’s notebooks are completely empty, other than his name on the cover, and his teacher scolds him for not paying attention to class. Tim starts looking out of the window again the moment the teacher’s back is turned.

That he’s a terrible son. Tim stands outside his da– Jack’s hospital room. He stands there for an hour, staring at the closed door. A nurse taps him on the shoulder and gently tells him that visiting hours are over. Tim hasn’t been back since.

That he’s unwanted. Daria is arguing with Phil again, thinking that Tim’s asleep in the guest room. He listens in until she yells that she wants Tim out of her house, then he puts his headphones in and plays his music so loud it hurts his ears.

He walks out of the door with barely a noise, backpack slung onto one of his shoulders as though he’s going to school. It’s warm enough today that he doesn't need his jacket, as long as he keeps to the sunny side of the street.

He takes the red subway line instead of the bus, watching it pass him in the street, heading west instead of north.

He gets out of the subway at Volczek Square station, and barely takes a moment to look at both sides of the street before crossing the busy intersection. A few honks sound, but Tim doesn’t care. Either they hit him or they don’t. It’s not his problem either way.

Tim doesn’t know why he’s here, why he chose to go to the gym instead of hiding away somewhere no one knows him. It’s a bad idea. Popov is responsible, he’ll call his school or Phil or whoever he thinks is still responsible for Tim.

He doesn’t even know if the gym is open at the moment, or if Popov will be there. He just–

He needs to go.

He doesn’t have to do anything. Tim just needs to breathe in the familiar smell, then he can leave. He can find somewhere else to go. He just needs to stand in the gym for a minute.

Just one minute.

One minute on the mats. One minute under the lights. One minute like nothing has changed.

Just one minute.

He reaches the entrance, and he realizes he’d almost been running to it, his breathing shallow and his throat dry. His jeans are caked with the gray sludge snow becomes during the month of March, and his shoes are wet. He doesn’t care. He just needs one minute. He reaches his hand forward to pull on the door, to open it and finally breathe in the familiar smell of chalk and sweat and warmth.

But the front door is locked.

The schedule, a printed paper stuck to the backside of the glass door with scotch tape, says the gym only opens at 10 AM on weekdays. Tim looks at his watch. The 8:32 AM stares back at him. Class started two minutes ago, he notes.

Phil will get a phone call soon. Maybe Tim will get detention for it this time.

Tim walks around the building to get rid of the uncomfortable itch the thought of staying inside the lifeless school creates in his bones. He finds an alleyway halfway around the block, and spots the ‘employee only’ door only a few meters in.

If Popov were to come into the gym, he’d pass through here.

Tim could enter. He knows how to pick locks. Everyone in Gotham knows.

But Popov would be mad. Maybe even disappointed.

It would prove Tim’s theory, that he can only ever disappoint.

But he feels nauseous at the idea.

He’ll just… sit here. Waiting. Tim can do that without fucking up. There’s a half melted snow bank next to the door, and Tim sits in it, on top of his backpack. He doesn’t care if his books are wet. The material’s boring anyway.

Tim wonders if Popov will be mad. It’s been three months since his mother’s funeral, and Tim hasn’t talked to Popov since. He hasn’t been to the gym since even longer before. Tim doesn’t want to see Popov upset. He doesn’t need to see pity from him too.

Tim should leave. This is a bad idea. He can feel his bones itch with the need to move, to do something, anything. His breath catches in his throat as he thinks of where he could go; the options are almost overwhelming.

He should just start walking. There’s a park nearby where Tim won’t be found. He can spend his day there, and only come back to Phil’s flat when it gets dark and cold and face the consequences then. Or the shopping mall on the outskirts of Chinatown, where there would be heating.

But what would he do?

He has nothing to do. Nothing to do but think.

There’s an itch in Tim’s bones. A need to do something. It’s like there’s something chasing Tim, and he can’t stay still and wait, but it’s all he does. Because he can’t run away. He’s stuck.

He’s stuck in class. He’s stuck in bed. There’s nowhere he can run to where his thoughts can’t find him. He needs somewhere safe.

Just one minute.

So Tim stays in his snow bank, stubbornly and angrily staring at the asphalt of the alley.

So what if Popov is mad? So what if Tim missed months worth of practice? His life has just gone to shit. His life.

Tim had had a life. His future had been a clear path: graduate as valedictorian, go to university and place a spot in their gymnastics team, inherit DI from his dad, and make his parents proud. And now it’s been ripped away from him.

Because his mom lied, then had the audacity to die before telling anyone. She left Tim. She left him alone for months while she’d been alive, and she left him alone in her death. She left him to keep her secret, and to keep it alone because Tim can’t tell Jack. He can’t tell the man who raised him that his beloved wife had lied and that his only son isn’t his. (Is it so selfish of him to want to keep his dad?)

Tim can never tell Jack about what he really is, because how could Jack ever love him after? Life isn’t a fairytale where love trumps all and happy endings are guaranteed.

Life isn’t fair.

He can’t tell anyone else either, because Bruce Wayne is his father. And Bruce Wayne didn’t want him.

Tim’s hands are shaking, and he feels his breath catch in his throat.

He left Tim alone to rot, even though he’s perfectly content adopting every other sad kid in the city. Bruce Wayne does everything to give every child in Gotham a loving home, every child except for Tim.

And it doesn’t make sense.

Bruce Wayne is… he’s Batman. He’s good. He’s good, and compassionate, and caring, and– and Tim doesn’t understand why Bruce couldn’t love him too.

Tim’s breath comes in faster and faster, and a wave of dizziness hits him.

He doesn’t understand. He’s kept an eye out for Batman for years, keeping up with the news and forums and even following him at night when he’d been home from boarding school. He knows Batman, knows how he acts, knows how he walks, knows how he thinks. (Do I think like him, he can’t help but wonder in the dead of night, when no one else but Tim and the Bats are awake.)

Batman loves Gotham. Loves every single citizen from the bottom of his heart.

It’s like Tim’s vision is narrowing, darkness pulling in closer from the edge of his vision.

So why doesn’t he love Tim?

What makes him different from Dick Grayson, or Jason Todd, or Stephanie Brown, or Cassandra Cain?

It has crossed Tim’s mind, late at night, that perhaps Bruce doesn’t know. That maybe this is Gotham’s notoriously corrupt justice system at work. That maybe there’s a chance Bruce could love him after all. But he knows it’s all just wishful thinking. This is Batman. It’s his secret identity that’s concerned; he has to be keeping an eye out for any mentions of his name anywhere, especially when it comes to lawsuits. In any case, who would be stupid enough to forge the world’s richest man’s signature? And why? Why would it be to ruin Tim’s life?

What is so wrong with Tim that not a single parent he has cares? His mom and Jack would spend months at a time abroad, only calling him once a week to argue with each other on the phone, never asking about their son. And Bruce hadn’t even wanted to see him before sending him away. He’d just signed the papers without a second thought, letting his pen flow with the ink that would ruin Tim’s life as though he doesn’t mean anything.

Maybe he doesn’t.

Tim has to pant to get air into his lungs, and he curls into a ball in the snow. He can barely feel the cold.

He knows he’s not a good son. He knows he’s not a good student. He knows he’s a disappointment to everyone around him.

The only person who has ever cared is Popov, and now Tim might have ruined that.

Tim can’t breathe. There’s a strange pressure on his shoulder. It’s warm, almost burning even through Tim’s clothes. There are strange sounds coming from his left, and Tim raises his head, looking for the source.

He blinks, and Popov’s blurry face is right in front of him. Why is it blurry?

“What,” he tries to say, but a sob is all that comes out of his mouth. Oh, I’m crying, he thinks distantly. Once he realizes, he can’t make himself stop. He cries quietly, only letting out the occasional sob, and he can barely breathe. He can feel Popov’s arms around his shoulders, tucking him into his chest. It makes Tim cry harder.

“I’m sorry,” he croaks once he gets his breathing back under control. His hands are curled into Popov’s jacket, wrinkling the fabric between his fists, but he can’t bring himself to let go.

“No apologies,” Popov tells him, squeezing him reassuringly. He sounds sad, panicked, even, and Tim feels strange at hearing the tone. It’s the first time he’s heard it coming from his coach.

Tim shakes his head, willing his coach to understand. “No, I’m sorry.” Tim starts crying again a little bit, stuttering. I’m sorry you have to take care of me right now. I’m sorry I never said goodbye. I’m sorry I didn’t come sooner. I’m sorry I’m here now. “I– I should– I’m sorry. I’m so– I’m so sorry.” He doesn’t even know what he’s apologizing for. I should go.

“No apologies,” Popov repeats, rubbing Tim’s shoulder gently. Tim has to take in a deep shaky breath to keep himself from bursting into more sobs. He doesn’t think he’s touched anyone since before the funeral, and it’s almost overwhelming. “Do not be sorry for it,” his coach murmurs, pulling Tim away from the warmth of his chest to look him in the eye.

“Okay,” Tim says with a hiccup and a sniffle, nodding just to appease Popov. He still wants to say sorry, to apologize for every fault he’s ever done, to beg for his coach not to leave him like everyone else.

Popov smiles at him, his eyes crinkled sadly, and he gets up from the snow bank Tim hadn’t even noticed Popov had been crouching in. Guilt crashes back into Tim when he realizes he’d gotten the man’s clothes completely soaked and full of snow. How long has he been here?

“Come,” Popov says, holding his hand out, and Tim hesitates, his guilt eating him inside out. He should leave. He’s already bothered his coach enough for the day. “Do not worry for me,” Popov tells Tim, somehow knowing why Tim hesitates. “I am used to cold. You are fragile american.”

Tim nods weakly, taking Popov’s hand and allowing himself to be pulled to his feet. Popov must really be worried if he willingly cracks a joke. He wobbles a bit, lightheaded from all the tears, but Popov steadies his shoulder, guiding him towards a second door further down the alleyway. It’s unlocked, and Popov gestures him in and pulls the door closed behind them. Tim stands there uselessly, feeling like his head is filled with cotton balls – should his eyes feel disconnected from his body?– until he sees Popov take off his boots, and he scrambles to do the same.

Once his boots are placed on the shoe rack leaning on the beige walls, Popov gestures for Tim to go up a stairwell he hadn’t noticed behind him. There are seventeen steps to the top, and Tim doesn’t know why he counts them. They’re made out of… something. Linoleum? Tim doesn’t think it’s concrete, but it’s not like he knows many building materials either. There’s a closed door at the top, and the knob twists easily under Tim’s clumsy hands, unlocked.

A warm waft of air hits him, and Tim realizes at once how his clothes are all wet and clammy. He shivers from the cold that he suddenly feels. He can feel the dampness of his jeans rubbing against his legs, a scratchy feeling that makes his skin crawl, and how his shirtsleeves stick to his skin under his sweater.

Popov nudges his shoulder, and Tim realizes he’s been standing on the landing for a while. He quickly steps inside, keeping from looking at Popov in embarrassment, and lets the older man pass him. Popov enters what is apparently his apartment, and goes through a door across the hall to drop off Tim’s backpack. Tim hadn’t even noticed Popov had picked it up.

Tim follows his coach like a lost duckling, tugging the collar of his shirt to give himself space to breathe against the feel of his clothes, and enters a small room filled with light. In the room, on the left of the door, there’s a small kitchenette, with a bar style counter separating the area from the dining room. There’s a small round wooden table with a lace doily in the center in front of Tim, only big enough to fit four chairs around it. On the right, there’s a large window with the walls converging towards it at an angle, creating a sort of alcove that looks over the street. There’s a small standing piano, the top littered with picture frames and trinkets, pushed up against the wall on the right of the window, creating a cozy atmosphere. It looks like a home.

“It looks like a grandma decorated in here,” are the first croaky words out of Tim’s mouth.

He freezes in the doorway, eyes wide. He can’t believe he’s just said that. The realization of the situation Tim is currently in catches up to him in an instant. Popov had brought him inside his apartment, inside his home. Popov had done this instead of calling Phil or sending him to school where he should be. And Tim insults his home. Tim is waiting for the look of disappointment to cross Popov’s face. For him to finally realize that Tim will only ever be a let down, that he never learns, that he’s not someone that anyone should want around, because he can never do anything right. And Tim doesn’t even apologize, frozen as he is.

But Popov does a half smirk Tim’s learnt means he’s laughing. “I have been told before,” he says. He doesn’t wait for Tim to process that statement, walking back towards him to pass through the doorway. “Come,” he tells Tim, gesturing to him. “You will catch sickness. Take shower. I will give you warm clothes.”

He points to a door on the left in the hallway, and when Tim opens it he finds himself in a small bathroom. Popov doesn’t follow him in, but Tim barely notices, eyes stuck on his reflection in the mirror. He knows it’s not the overhead bathroom light casting such dark shadows under his eyes.

He looks like he hasn’t slept in weeks.

He feels like it too.

It surprises Tim, since sleeping is all he feels like he’s been doing for months, crashing into bed the moment he comes back from school, closing his eyes and trying desperately to stop thinking. He spends hours in the dark of his room, curled up under his covers, pretending to sleep.

Tim looks like shit.

His eyes are red too, from all the crying, and his lips have a purple tinge to them.

He looks like a bloated corpse found in the Harbor after a gang war.

Popov returns, and glances at Tim’s reflection. Tim looks away from both his reflection and Popov’s, and stares at the floor. His coach leaves him a pile of towels and some folded clothes. “Take the time you need,” he tells Tim and closes the door behind him, leaving Tim alone in the bathroom.

It takes Tim a moment to start moving, only unfreezing when he realizes he’s started to shiver again, his wet clothes stealing all the heat from his body. He doesn’t look into the mirror again, even more scared to see what sort of living dead Tim looks like under his shirt. He knows that he’s lost weight, that he can see his ribs, that a lot of his muscle mass is gone. He doesn’t need to see that he’s decomposing alive to know it.

The shower is easy enough to figure out, and he sits under the too-hot jet of water, watching the water go down the drain until it turns freezing. Once out, he dries himself with the towels and folds his dirty clothes. He moves mechanically, still feeling like everything is so far away.

The clothes Popov gave him are too big, and they hang off his frame. He has to roll up the sweatpants he’s borrowing so they don’t drag on the floor and get dirty. The hoodie he’d been given is soft though, and the red colour is nice. Bright, but not flashy. There are yellow gold cyrillic letters on the front, and Tim has no idea what they mean. He glances at the mirror before he leaves, hand wrapped around the doorknob. He’s swimming in his clothes.

He comes out of the bathroom feeling somewhat warmer, but no more human.

He stands in the hallway, one step outside the bathroom, unsure of where to go. Is Popov still here? Tim doesn’t even know what time it is. Did he go to work? It takes a moment for Tim to hear the creaking of the floor from the kitchen area, and he heads towards the sound.

Popov is there, cooking at the stove, flipping what seems to be some sort of crepe, thin and brown. Tim blinks in the doorway, watching his coach pour batter into a pan, spine bent as he focuses on the crepe. It’s strange to see his coach anywhere other than in the gym. To see him do anything other than teach. But it makes sense, in a way that nothing else in the past few months have.

Tim shifts his weight, unsure what to do, and the floor creaks, making Popov turn around to look at him. He doesn’t jump, but Tim sees his hands twitch in… surprise? Tim can’t read his face, but Popov’s lips thin. He plays with the hem of Popov’s sweater.

“You are silent, little one,” he tells Tim, turning back to his crepe to make sure it doesn’t burn. He doesn’t sound upset. “Sit,” he orders. “The blini are ready soon.”

Tim does as he’s told, and sits down on a tall chair at the counter. He watches Popov cook the blini, which just look like a french crepe in Tim’s opinion. He draws his knees on the chair, and curls himself on his seat, picking at his nails. He catches a glimpse of the time on the microwave; 10:21 AM.

Tim freezes. Popov is late to work.

He’s– He’s making bleenies or whatever for Tim instead of going to work. What about the other classes? Tim shouldn’t take up Popov’s time like this. He’s–

Tim can’t stay. He has to go, has to let Popov go to work, has to stop being a bother. But he doesn’t have any clothes except what he’s borrowed from his coach, and there’s a pinching feeling in his chest and he’s breathing fast again and he feels like he’s going to be sick and–

Popov puts down a plate in front of him, a golden brown bleeknee in it. When Tim doesn’t look at it, he follows his eyesight, noticing the time as well.

“Freddie is taking care of classes today,” Popov says, and Tim feels like he can breathe again. Freddie is another of Popov’s students, a few years older than Tim, who’s been working part time at the gym during his gap year. He’s saving up money to go on a half-scholarship somewhere West. Tim thinks the university is in California, but he can’t remember. He’s a good teacher.

“Oh,” Tim says stupidly, slightly dizzy. “That’s… good.”

Popov says nothing, just brings Tim an array of toppings to put on his bluenie. Tim’s hand hovers over the jars of toppings in front of him while he bites the inside of his cheek. How does he tell his coach he doesn’t want to eat the food? He’s not hungry. Tim glances at his coach, but Popov is looking at him with his arms crossed like when Tim’s being difficult about a flip, so Tim grabs the nutella and spreads it on the blei– on his crepe; he gives up on trying to remember the name of the thing.

Seemingly satisfied, Popov sits down next to him and pours some maple syrup on his own, rolling it up with his utensils before cutting it. Tim tries to imitate him, at least to postpone having to take a bite, but the side of the crepe keeps slipping from his fork, and the knife is useless at keeping it rolled. He spends maybe five minutes trying to roll it, Popov eating his own crepes the entire time and rolling them easily, before he huffs in frustration and gives up, rolling it with his hands. He grabs the crepe-wrap and takes a bite out of it with vindication, his stomach surprisingly accepting the food without complaint. It’s pretty good.

He eats his crepe quietly. Popov puts another on his plate the moment it’s empty, and Tim eats that one too, suddenly hungry enough to eat more than he probably has in the past week.

The kitchen is quiet while they eat, Popov content in watching Tim devour crepe after crepe. Once the reserve of crepes is eaten up, Tim knows his time is up. He takes a moment before turning to face his coach, hiding his hands in the hoodie’s pocket. He wants to hide, wants to run. He doesn’t want to see the disappointment he’s been waiting to find in his coach’s eyes all morning now that neither of them are distracted from the inevitable conversation they need to have.

Popov is as unreadable as ever, leaning on his elbows, his plate pushed away from the edge of the counter. Tim fights the desire to look away, and focuses on the plate instead of looking at his coach.

“Thank you for the… um– the been– beanies?” Tim stutters through the word, unable to remember what the name of the crepe had been. He needs to at least thank his coach for the breakfast.

“Blini,” his coach corrects, taking Tim’s plate and stacking it on top of the other but making no move to put them in the sink or the dishwasher. Popov stays seated, waiting for Tim to keep speaking.

“Thank you for the blini, then,” Tim repeats. He bites his lip, ripping out some of the chapped skin on it. It stings. He doesn’t want to bring up the elephant in the room.

Popov takes pity on him. “I have called your guardians,” he says in an even voice, like it’s a simple fact that happened and not something Tim should be judged for. Tim still can’t smother his wince. “They were not happy,” he continues, and this time there’s an undercurrent of criticism in his tone.

“Sorry,” Tim mumbles, looking at the plates harder. He can’t help but feel a little betrayed, even though he had known that there was no chance his coach would let this slide.

“School is important,” Popov starts, tone admonishing, and Tim’s jaw clenches so hard he thinks he might break a tooth. This is it. This is the end. The last tie that Tim has to his life from before is gone, broken by Tim’s stupidity. Tim has no one left he hasn’t disappointed, no one left in his corner, no one left who can remember him as good. He fucked it up.

Tim never should have come here. He should have found somewhere else to go, sentimentality be damned.

And Popov is just like everyone else, ready to lecture him at a moment’s notice about how he’s wasting his life, how school is important, how he needs to get his shit together or he’ll end up working for the next two-bit villain in town. Like Tim doesn’t already know all of this.

“I know that,” he snaps, and refuses to think about why he’s so upset. “I know how important school is, and how it’s the holy grail of life and success and not living in the fucking streets. I don’t care,” he yells, ignoring how his eyes are filling up with tears. He finally looks his coach in the eye. “I don’t fucking care. No one fucking gets it. I don’t care about geometry, I don’t care about english, or algebra or chemistry. I don’t–” his breath hitches. “I hear it from everyone, over and over and over again that I need to get my shit together, that I’m wasting my potential, that I need to move on and do something with my life or I’ll end up a fucking failure. I don’t care,” he spits, a lone tear rolling down his cheek. Tim wipes it away furiously. He doesn’t want to cry.

“You do, or you would not be hurting,” Popov says matter-of-factly, and Tim glares at him, breathing hard.

“I don’t,” he snaps. He doesn’t. He doesn’t care. He doesn’t like his teachers, or his school, or his classmates, or what he’s learning. They’re irrelevant to him, only there to remind him how much of a disappointment he is.

“You love school,” his coach tells him, like it’s obvious. Like he knows Tim at all anymore. Can’t he see Tim hasn’t come out unscathed from the winter? That he’s been irreparably broken? Tim had thought that if he came to the gym, that everything would magically fix itself, that Tim could be who he used to be. But he can’t run from the truth, and he can’t hide from it either. “You would come here to train, and you would talk for hours about this project or that chemical reaction.” No matter what he tries, what he does, Tim can never be who he was when Popov last saw him. How does he explain that the person Popov remembers had been from before, when he still had a life ahead of him, when he still had potential. Who cares what he does now? “We will make a deal, утенок,” Popov tells him before Tim can tell him that he isn’t that person anymore, and there’s no place for Tim to argue. “You will go to school. You do not need to do well, only try.”

The offer confuses Tim, and he forgets to correct his coach. A deal? “And what do I get out of it,” Tim asks, thinking it over before dismissing the idea. Tim doesn't even want to go to school, so why would he bother trying?

“Why did you come today,” his coach asks, like Tim has a simple answer for that. He barely knows why himself.

“I shouldn’t have come,” Tim bites, twisting to get down from his seat, ready to leave like he should have before he’d even sat down in that stupid snowbank. His coach catches his arm gently, stopping Tim’s movement.

“But you still did,” his coach says, his tone calm. “Why?” Tim could pull his arm and get out of the hold easily, his coach barely applying pressure where he’s keeping Tim’s arm in place. Tim knows how strong Popov is. He could go, and his coach would let him.

Tim could go, and never come back. He can leave behind this last link he has to his life from before.

The thought makes him want to cry.

“Because…” Tim starts, and all his anger dies within him. It feels like he’s about to cough up nails. It’s embarrassing, and it’s humiliating, and it’s stupid, and Tim has to at least say it or this will be another thing he’ll regret for the rest of his life. “Because nothing’s changed here, and I missed it,” he says in a small voice. He doesn’t snatch his arm away from Popov’s hold.

“Then nothing will change, and I will keep teaching you,” Popov says, like the deal can be that simple. Life isn’t a fairytale.

“But I can’t,” Tim bites out, his voice cracking. He’s not the same as before. Before, he’d been strong, happy, someone with so many friends he didn’t have enough time of the day to talk to them. Now, he can barely eat breakfast without throwing up, his hair is greasy, he’s mopey and a drag with no friends and no one who likes him. He wishes so desperately he could be the same boy he’d been barely a few months ago. But he’s just a corpse of who he used to be, dead but somehow still present. He even looks like it.

“At least try,” his coach tells him gently, letting go of his arm. “I am not the one stopping you.”

I am not the one stopping you.

That’s true, isn’t it. Tim is the one stopping himself. He wants it. He wants to go back to gymnastics, to wrap his hands around the high bar again, to fall and fail and try again on the pommel horse, to finish his day with chalk in his hair and on his clothes. He’s wanted to come back ever since he’d left.

“Okay,” Tim whispers, swallowing hard. It’s like a weight has been lifted from his chest, and he can breathe easily, can stand up a little straighter. “Okay.” He doesn’t need to disappoint another person in his life.

For the first time in months, Tim feels as though he’s done something right.

–

Tim flies over the ground, throwing his hands to the floor and twisting his body above him for his first handspring. He’s airborne for a moment, body straight as he turns to land. He connects it with a second handspring for more momentum, his wrist twinging in pain as his palms smack the padded exercise floor hard. His arch is higher this time, and Tim throws all of his weight forward for his last jump, twisting into his double salto to add three half turns to the element. He’s weightless for a moment, feeling like his feet will never touch the ground, and he can’t get enough of the feeling. He just needs to stick the landing, unlike the seven times he’s tried before, and he’ll be done for the night. Tim can see the floor approaching, and he finishes his last half turn, his back to the corner of the floor.

His toes hit the floor first, and he rocks onto his heels to try and stabilize himself, bending his knees to lower his center of gravity. He thinks he’s landed it for a moment, but he starts tipping backward, his momentum tipping him too far back on his heels. He doesn’t have the time to stick a leg out behind him to try and stumble his landing before he falls down hard on his back, the impact winding him a bit. His lungs wheeze as they try to draw in air again. It takes a moment for his brain to catch up to the position he’s in, blinded by the lights. Disappointment and anger fill him.

Tim grits his teeth and slams his hand on the padded material of the exercise floor in frustration. He needs to get this flip right. “Again,” he orders, getting up and returning to his starting position.

Tim will get it right this time. It’s been a little over three months since he’s made his deal with Popov, it being close to summer break now, and Tim is back to the same level he’d been at during winter, before– before christmas. He’s realized something important during that time, something that he hadn’t considered before: he can make a name for himself in gymnastics. He can be his own person, can make something out of his life without relying on lies. He can make his name matter for other reasons than it being his parents’.

Because Tim is good. Really good. And he could be great.

Tim will be great. He’ll make something out of himself, live up to his potential, be something he wants to be instead of what his parents had told him to become. He has a goal, and he’ll get to it no matter what. He’s already convinced Popov of his plan, although his coach seems skeptical. He can prove to everyone that he can be something worth caring about. (Who is it that he wants to care for him? Jack won’t be the one impressed by his skills.)

But he can only do that if he gets this stupid flip right.

Popov stands on the edge of the exercise floor, simply watching Tim and giving him pointers when needed. He says nothing, and Tim pushes his hair out of his eyes, readying himself in his corner.

Tim takes a deep breath in and takes a running start into his handsprings, flipping once, twice, before flying into his salto, slamming his heels into the bouncy material of the floor to give himself enough air time to twist. He falls on his ass again.

Tim takes a deep breath, blinking away his dizziness from the speed of his salto. He’ll get it right this time. “Agai–”

“Take a break,” Popov orders tiredly, interrupting Tim, who whips his head around to stare at him half-incredulously. Tim needs to get it right, he can’t take a break now. He needs to learn, to improve. How is he supposed to prove he’s worth something if he can’t even get this element right? If Tim wants to get to the elite level, he has to nail this. Popov simply stares at Tim, who realizes how hard he’s panting all of a sudden. He tries to swallow and realizes he barely has any saliva, his mouth dry. His hands are shaking, and he presses them to the floor to hide it. His body begs him to rest, to take a break, but he knows he can’t give in. He has to keep going. He can’t give up now, not when he’s so close.

But his coach won’t let him do that.

With pinched lips, he gets up and walks to his water bottle, left next to his coach’s feet. He’ll get the salto right after the water break, he tells himself, glaring at the tumbling pad as if he could stare it into submission. He doesn’t even notice Popov has walked off to finish closing the gym until he’s ready to go again and looks to his coach so he can be spotted.

Tim stands there, confused, when he sees Popov walking to put away the extra safety mats. Then angry.

He’s good enough he doesn’t need to be spotted anymore. He can do it without Popov.

He does his diagonal again. He falls. He’s back up in an instant, recentering himself on the line he’s going to travel. He runs, feet pounding the mat noisily, then throws himself into his basic handsprings, feet thumping as he bounces into his next jump, wrists smarting again from the impact on his hands. He grits his teeth, using all of his power to launch himself into his last jump. He has to make it.

He twists once, then twice, flipping forwards twice as he sails through the air. He just needs to finish this third half turn, and he’ll be good to land. Except he doesn’t finish his turn in time, still facing to the side as his feet make contact with the ground, and he slips on the landing, crashing hard on his side. His breath is knocked out of his lungs for real this time, and it hurts. He’ll end up with a nasty bruise on the side of his leg tomorrow. He rolls onto his back to try and breathe, gasping like a fish out of water.

His eyes prickle with tears, and he has to run a hand down his face to try and hide it, panting as he’s finally able to catch his breath.

Again. He has to do it again.

He has to get it right.

He will get it right.

He has to be better.

He lays there, on the floor, catching his breath for a moment longer. His muscles are trembling, tired, and everything aches. He’ll stop after, he promises himself, he just needs to get the flip down first.

His coach walks up to him, a towering figure from where Tim is laying.

“I’ll get it right soon,” Tim promises, successfully hiding any wobble in his voice. I’ll get it right, I’ll get it right, I’ll get it right, I’ll get it right–

“I know,” he tells Tim. “But not like that.” Tim looks at his coach with barely concealed betrayal in his eyes. His coach is supposed to tell Tim what he’s doing wrong, how to adjust his body so he can land his flips. He hasn’t said a peep in almost an hour, and he’s telling Tim he’s been doing it wrong now?

“What am I doing wrong then?” His tone is biting, resentful even, and he still sounds a little too close to crying for comfort. Tim’s technique is good, he knows. He’s been watching endless videos, and has been recording his training sessions with Popov to see his form. He doesn’t know why he can’t land the stupid double salto, and apparently his coach won’t tell him either. He’s too tired to truly be angry, but he can feel the emotion building in his chest, building pressure.

“Anger,” he tells an indignant Tim, crouching down to poke at his chest, right where his heart is still pounding. “You are mad at world, so you are mad at mat. There is too much force and tension for your shape.”

“There isn’t too much force,” Tim tells his coach, frowning. “I have to get in the air somehow. This is how you showed me–”

His coach holds up a hand, silencing Tim. “You are not like me. I am big and built strong. You are younger, lighter. You move like water. You are meant to move like water. You must adapt what I teach. It is how your body is built.”

Tim thinks it over in his head, jaw clenched and eyes hard. It’s true he’s always had to adapt the moves Popov has shown him, to make them easier for him to do, but he should be good enough now to perform them properly the way he’d been taught. He should be able to do them like every other athlete. But that isn’t what Popov is telling him to do. Tim thinks the words over, assessing, analyzing, comparing. He has to move like his body is built. Tim’s weakest apparatuses have always been those strength-focused, like the pommel horse and the rings, but he knows he’s one of the best at his level when it comes to the exercise floor and the high bar, where momentum counts as much as strength. He needs to move like water.

He can only think of one person who can move like that, and the words taste bitter on his tongue. “Like Nightwing?”

Nightwing. Dick Grayson. He could do the flip. He’s better than Tim. He’s worth being loved. Tim burns with jealousy. Is that what makes Dick worth loving? The talent? The skill? If Tim becomes as good– If Tim becomes better, will he be worth loving then? He has to be. He will be.

Popov makes a so-so motion with his hand, and Tim’s frown eases. “He moves like an acrobat, not a gymnast. He is air, not water.” Tim has watched Robin and Nightwing long enough to understand what Popov means. “You must flow, not break. You will break before the floor does,” he tells Tim with a shadow of a smile, offering his hand out to help Tim get back to his feet.

Tim snorts and takes the hand, almost a reflex after so many years. “You sound like Uncle Iroh,” he grumbles halfheartedly, knowing Popov will get the reference. Pop culture can be hit or miss with his coach, but Tim remembers how Popov’s niece had forced him to watch the show with her a few years ago.

His coach gives him a wry half-grin, clapping his shoulder. “He is a wise man. Now go shower. It is late. You can try tomorrow.”

Tim does as he’s told, muscles aching and a bone-deep tiredness seeping into his bones. He trudges home in the cooling Gotham streets, checking his phone for alerts of rogues absentmindedly. Nothing big seems to be going on, except for the Penguin trying his hand at running a legal business, which is mildly surprising. He’ll probably still find a way to do something illegal. It’s not Tim’s problem anyways.

His keys rattle as they open the lock to the Martins’ apartment, and he silently swings the door open, careful not to make any noise so he doesn’t wake up his legal guardians.

It’s Saturday night, and Tim has nowhere to be tomorrow until the late afternoon to train again. He stays up until he passes out, falling asleep at his desk while going over his endless notes about Nightwing, cracking open his notebooks for the first time in months. He even has a few clips of the hero flipping through the skies saved on his laptop from a few years back, everything unopened and untouched since the day Bruce Wayne had signed the papers. He’ll be better than even Nightwing, he promises himself, a plan forming in his head.

Maybe Bruce will love me then, is his last thought before he falls asleep. He’s too tired to banish the thought away and pretend it doesn’t matter to him.

–

It’s only the second week of school, and Tim is regretting his existence. He has to train forty hours a week as an elite gymnast, which had been fine over the summer when he could spend all of his days at the gym, but with school starting up again, his schoolwork is starting to dig into his sleeping hours. He feels like a zombie, and he doesn’t even have that much work yet.

To make matters worse, there’s a new transfer student at school, and not any of the regular kind. The halls are filled with whispers and rumors. The new student is set to be placed in Tim’s year, though which homeroom the girl will end up in isn’t conclusive. She’d been expelled from her previous school for fighting and skipping class. Tim knows there’s only one way she could have gotten into Gotham Academy with a school record like that.

Money, lots of it, and a name to back it up. A Wayne “scholarship” kid. (RobinRobinRobinRobinRobinRobinRobin–)

Tim knows his luck. Like he’d expected, Stephanie Brown is sitting in his homeroom class. Worst of all, she’s sitting right next to Tim’s desk. (Holy shit, Robin is sitting next to him. Holyshitholyshitholyshitholyshit–)

She’s loud, energetic, and everything Robin should be. That also means she’s smart. (ROBIN!)

Do they know? Does she know?

Tim’s hands get clammier as the day goes on and he notices they have the exact same schedule. He has to spend every day of the week with her in class, seated next to her because of their last names. Tim will eternally despise the Davies and the Burns for not having children that could act as buffers between him and Stephanie, and he curses whoever decided the seating plan at GA should be arranged alphabetically. Stephanie’s presence grates on his nerves, and he can’t focus at all.

Does she recognize him? Does she know he’d been the one to send her the letter that had convinced her to become Robin? Could she recognize his handwriting? The letter had been written in all caps, but the risk is still there. What would she do if she knew?

Does she know who his father truly is? Not that it really matters, but the thought trots around in the back of his mind anyway.

In any case, Tim knows what he has to do: avoid her as much as humanly possible and pretend not to notice any parallels with Twilight. He’s pretty sure she’s dating Cassandra Cain-Wayne anyways.

Stephanie doesn’t get the message, it seems.

“Hey,” she whispers in chemistry class, the last one before the last bell rings and Tim is allowed to run away from the blonde as fast as possible. They’re seated next to one another, desks pressed together at the edge of the classroom in the last row. She’s leaning on the wall, twisted in her chair, facing Tim. He pretends not to have heard her like he’s done all day.

She kicks his shin, and he turns to fake glare at her, unable to pretend nothing happened. “What,” he whispers, lifting his pencil from his worksheet. He’s going to be thinking about today forever.

She rolls her eyes, huffing. “What’s your name?” Tim stares at her, not answering by sheer force of will. She’s seriously testing his self-control. Being friends with her is dangerous, something that could destroy his precariously reconstructed life with a single wrong word. “You know, since we have all our classes together? And we’re always next to each other because of the seating plan,” she says, like it’s obvious. It is. He’s thought about it at least twenty times today, if not in the last hour. He resolves to keep ignoring her. She huffs when he turns back to his work, and slumps against the wall, looking around at the rest of the class. Her foot taps against the floor, and her fingers drum a rhythm on her lap. She glances at him, worries her bottom lip with her teeth, and turns away, staring at the clock resolutely. “Fine, be like that,” she mumbles, and her voice sounds choked.

She’s holding back tears, Tim realizes, unable to look away from her blinking eyes. I made Robin cry, is his next thought. It’s devastating. His resolve to keep quiet breaks. He knows what it’s like to join a new school, and Tim at least had had the advantage of knowing a few of the other students because of the galas and primary school, even if a little distantly. Stephanie knows no one here. She’s just trying to make friends, to make school a little bit less lonely. She’s just been kicked out of her previous school, and Tim can’t imagine that Bruce had been happy about it. Being Robin can’t make having friends easy either, with all her nights being busy.

Tim knows about her secret, though, even if she isn’t aware of that fact. He can be understanding when they can’t hang out or when she has weirdly explained injuries. He can make Robin’s life easier.

He’ll just… keep his distance once she finds other friends. Tim can do that without spilling any secrets.

He scribbles the three letters of his name down in the corner of his worksheet and turns it so it’s jutting out towards Stephanie. The sound catches her attention, and she leans forward to read Tim’s name. He can see her smile from the corner of his eye when she leans back against the wall.

He has to admit, after spending the next few days with her, that she’s even cooler than he had thought.

The only issue with being friends with Steph is that it’s like a dam has been broken. It’s only been one and a half weeks since she’s arrived at school, but the Waynes are everywhere, haunting Tim’s steps and plaguing his thoughts. Do they know? They have to. They have to know something. Why else would they be so… interested in Tim?

Dick Grayson had waved at Tim today when he’d come to pick her up from school like he does every Wednesday, and it had shocked Tim so much he’d promptly forgotten to be jealous of the man. Cassandra Cain-Wayne sits with him and Steph during lunch, waltzing into the cafeteria as if she went to school there, which she doesn’t. It’s surreal to be hanging out with his… sister? Can he call her that? His could-have-been-sister-that-never-was-and-never-will? He feels guilty even thinking about it. Bruce isn’t his father, and he has no reason to claim the Waynes as his family. He doesn’t understand why they’re being so nice. Are they trying to taunt Tim? Are they keeping him under surveillance? He doesn’t know what’s going on all of a sudden.

They have to know… right?

Tim won’t be the one to bring it up though. He clings to the small taste he can get of what it feels like to be in the Wayne family. (They’re not his to love, they’re not his to love, they’re not his to love, they’re not his to love, they’re not his–)

He has a huge bruise on his arm walking into class this morning, courtesy of the pommel horse’s grudge against Tim. He’d been practicing his routine for the World Championships in October last night – he still can’t quite believe he’s going to the World Championships – and he’d hit one of the pommels when he’d fallen out of a flair. He’d picked himself right back up, of course, but his arm bears the trace of his unfortunate encounter with the despised pommel horse.

He sits down in his usual seat, the bruise fully visible since he’s wearing the summer uniform. Sue him for not wanting to suffer through the last Gotham heatwave with full-length sleeves. It doesn’t even occur to him to cover it up, since his classmates are all used to him showing up with a random assortment of bruises from his practices.

“Good morning Timbi– oh my god what is that,” Steph screeches, interrupting her own greeting to stare at Tim in horror, grabbing his arm to tug it closer to her face. He freezes for a moment, not knowing what she’s talking about. Does he have a spider on his arm? Is there a cancerous mole? Steph’s mom is a nurse so she would probably know a thing or two about that.

Panicked as well, Tim twists his head to stare at his arm as well, eyes passing over the giant bruise without a second thought. It takes Steph peering closer at the thing for Tim to finally catch on. His face falls into an unimpressed stare. “It’s a bruise,” Tim deadpans.

She pokes him at the edge of the bruise, far enough from the black and blue coloring his skin that it doesn’t hurt, but close enough that he still feels a twinge. “Thank you, Sherlock,” she answers in the same dry tone. “How did you get it?”

Her voice is nonchalant, but her body is tense. Her eyes are wandering over Tim’s face, analyzing his expressions. She’s fishing for information. She doesn’t know I do gymnastics, Tim realizes. Or at least, doesn’t know his level. Her eyes turn a touch more worried as Tim fails to answer immediately, and he realizes what the situation looks like from her point of view. She must think he’s being abused by his legal guardians. That doesn’t bode well for his plan to lay low and not have his family situation be looked at too closely.

“Chill, Steph, I just wiped out on the pommel horse,” he tells her with a nonchalant roll of his eyes. It’s the truth, but Steph still seems suspicious of him, her brows furrowing as she thinks his explanation over. He already knows he’ll regret this later, and that Steph will mock him endlessly, but he needs to set the record straight before she finds the papers Bruce had signed and brings his life crashing down again. “I have a video, wanna see?”

Steph smirks, letting go of his arm as he pulls his phone out of his pocket surreptitiously so it doesn’t get confiscated by the teacher who’s just walked in to start the class. “Obviously.” She doesn’t truly relax until she sees him wipe out, snorting so loudly the teacher stops her lecture to look over at them.

“You’re pretty good at that,” she whispers once the teacher turns his back to them again.

“Thanks,” he answers, feeling warm. A bashful smile spreads on his face at the acknowledgement. Steph thinks he’s good. That means so much more to him than she thinks.

Chapter Text

“Hey, emo boy” Steph greets him on Friday morning, sliding into her seat at the back of the class and leaning her cheek on her propped up arm.

“Emo boy?” Tim wrinkles his nose; he doesn’t wear eyeliner. And he won’t, no matter how hard Steph tries to convince him he should. She’s so determined to have him try some on she’s even brought Cass into it. “I think people would classify me as a jock before an emo boy.”

“Jock boy doesn't quite have the same ring to it, does it,” Steph says, flicking his shoulder. “I’d call you a himbo, but you’re neither nice nor dumb.”

“Didn’t you call me a ‘dumbass bourgie white boy’ like, yesterday?” He doesn’t even know what he’d done to deserve that insult.

“Semantics,” she says, waving away his comment. “Besides the fact you completely missed my awesome musical reference, you dress in all black 24/7 and have daddy issues.” Tim snorts at how on point that is, and she doesn’t even know half of it. “That’s prime emo boy material right there.”

“I take offense to that,” he tells her, not offended at all. She goes to flick his shoulder again, but he dodges out of the way, sending her a grin.

“Unsurprising,” she says as she crowds over him to try and flick him again. He bats her hand away, leaning as far as he can away from her without falling from his chair. She gives up and settles down to sit with her back against the wall. “Can I ask you a favor?”

“Sure,” he tells her. She probably needs his homework, since there had been an Arkham breakout last night. No one had been killed, thankfully, but the evacuation efforts to help civilians escape from Poison Ivy’s plants had continued long into the night, and Robin had been there to help from start to finish.

“Please please please please let me hang out with you on Sunday,” she says quickly. The words come out of her in one breath, and she brings her hands up in front of her as if she’s praying.

“I have practice,” he tells her like every other time she’s asked him what his plans are for the weekend, hiding his surprise. Why would Steph want to come watch? She had seemed pretty deterred last time she’d asked when he’d explained she’d have to sit around doing nothing for hours. “I can’t slack off so close to the Championships.” Tim can count down the days until the competition on his hands.

“Please can I tag along? I pinky promise I’ll be on my best behavior,” she pleads, giving him her best version of the puppy eyes. It must be bad if she’s using them on Tim, usually reserving the look for Alfred or Cass. They’re impossible to say no to.

“What’s wrong with your usual Sunday plans,” he asks, looking for an escape from her puppy eyes. He knows she learnt them from Dick, how else could they be so effective? Maybe if he can get her to start ranting–

“Ugh, it’s Bruce,” she says exasperatedly, and her puppy eyes fade away, much to Tim’s relief. She’s given up on trying to pretend she doesn’t know personally who is paying for her scholarship, especially since Tim saw her making out with Cass once, so now he gets to hear how much of a helicopter parent he is. Which Tim is not jealous of. At all. “He’s trying to do a whole thing about family bonding–” Tim’s eye twitches, but Steph hardly notices, waving her hands in the air as she explains the situation to Tim. “– which always ends up with someone getting a concussion, and I maybe said we were already going to hang out to get out of it?” She looks at Tim hopefully as she finishes talking, and Tim knows he’s powerless against her.

“Fine,” he sighs, and she pumps her fist in the air. “But it’s gonna be boring,” he warns her. She doesn’t look put out by that at all.

That evening, Tim warns his coach about Steph’s upcoming invasion of the gym. Popov gets a strange glimmer in his eye and tells Tim he’s glad she’s coming over. Tim knows he’ll be eating his words in the face of Steph’s unyielding extroversion.

Sunday morning starts excruciatingly, with Mr. Pennyworth coming to pick Tim up to bring both him and Steph to the gym, even if it’s a detour to pass by the Marins’ apartment to come fetch him. Steph starts talking excitedly the moment Tim opens the car door, dressed in blue jeans and a purple hoodie now that she doesn’t have to adhere to the GA dress code. Tim chats with her, glancing periodically at Mr. Pennyworth the entire time, deeply uncomfortable.

Tim has deduced, after a few weeks of friendship with Steph, that neither she nor Cass have any idea that their mentor is Tim’s biological father and the reason why he has to live with ‘bland boring rich white people who haven’t discovered seasoning’. Steph’s words, not his.

Alfred Pennyworth, however, is a whole other ball game. He’s Bruce’s father figure, someone that’s incredibly close to him and someone who Bruce asks for guidance. Tim’s status as a biological child would have inevitably been discussed. Mr. Pennyworth has to know, so Tim is on his best behavior, thanking him for the ride and being careful not to get the car dirty. Does he know that Tim knows? Does he approve of Bruce signing away his rights? Had he recommended it? So many questions fill his mind, and he can’t ask a single one of them. Thankfully, Steph thinks he’s endlessly thanking Alfred out of politeness, not out of the visceral fear of further rejection. Is it strange to want to be liked by the man who is technically-not-really his grandfather? It feels wrong when his dad is in the hospital, unable to wake up.

Steph manages to talk for most of the ride, meaning that Tim doesn’t have the opportunity to put his foot in his mouth in front of Mr. Pennyworth. He thanks the man profusely again when he steps out of the car in front of the gym, Steph practically dragging him away to enter through the front doors and meet Popov.

Tim had already changed into his training clothes at the Marins’ apartment, only bringing his water bottle and clean clothes to change back into after his practice. As a guest, Steph is allowed to enter the gym and either watch from above, on the seats on the second floor, or to be on the ground floor off the apparatus areas. Steph chooses to stay close to Tim, and quickly takes charge of videotaping Tim’s routines so he can watch them over later to find mistakes.

It’s during their lunch break that Steph comes up with the idea.

“Tim,” she says with a gasp, grabbing his shoulders to turn him towards her and almost making him drop the contents of his sandwich on his lap in the process.

“What,” he says around a mouthful of his turkey BLT, the lettuce muffling the fear in his voice. He’d been listening to her ramble about how Pythagoras had been scared of beans and that he’d started a cult over it, and her sudden exclamation of pleased delight scares him. Please don’t ask me to start a cult, is his first thought. He’d almost been recruited by a weird pain cult two months ago, and he’s been put off from the whole concept since.

“You should make a twitter account and post epic fail compilations,” she blurts, a large grin forming on her face.

Tim swallows his bite. “What?” It’s not a cult, thankfully, but he fails to understand what twitter has to do with bean cannibalism.

“I have a vision,” she says dramatically, shaking his shoulders for impact. A slice of tomato slips out of his sandwich, falling into his lap with a wet plop. There was probably mayo on that. “I could be your social media manager,” she tells him excitedly.

He blinks at her. “Sure,” he says, a little dazed by her enthusiasm and the change of subject. Does mayo stain? He can feel the wetness of the tomato juice and mayo seep into his pants, but he can’t look away from the intense gleam in her eye. “Go for it.” She beams at him, already pulling out her phone to make Tim an account. Oh, he’d thought she’d been joking.

The first post goes up that evening, a shitty edit of Tim’s best fails in gymnastics, making both Tim and Steph laugh until their sides hurt as they watch Tim repeatedly faceplant as he falls off the rings.

Tim will probably mostly use it as his personal account, but he leaves it public under Steph’s orders. What does he have to lose?

–

Tim is ready to go out the door when Phil corners him, calling for him to wait. It’s November now, and Tim is still riding the high of having been at the World Championships and placing. Sure, he’d been on the junior elites’ podium, but he can’t stop looking at his silver medal, having to touch it every night to make sure it’s real.

He can’t stop grinning whenever he looks at it.

It’s confirmation that Tim can make something out of his life.

It’s confirmation that Tim is going somewhere, that he has a future. With this, it’s not that big of a stretch to imagine that Tim can go to the Olympics.

The Olympics that are happening in less than a year.

Tim is good enough.

Tim stops, pulling out one of his earbuds from his ears, hand hovering over the doorknob. It’s a Wednesday morning, and Phil should be out by now, already on the way to work at DI. So why is he still here to talk to Tim? Tim doesn’t remember having received any terrible grades back, and he’s been making an effort to listen in class to make up for the days he’s gone for competitions.

“What is it?”

Phil looks nervous, a strange mixture of happiness on his face and tension in the rest of his body. He’s faking something in his expression, hiding something from Tim. He can’t tell if Phil has good news or bad news.

Tim knows Phil doesn’t like him, a fact that’s been growing more apparent over time; he tenses up everytime Tim walks too close to his desk, he doesn’t speak to Tim other than when necessary, and he’s curt when Tim asks about how DI is going.

And Tim– Tim gets it. He’s not a Drake. Not really. Not by blood.

The fact of his biology changes things, makes people see him differently. Makes Phil see him differently.

It hurts, but Tim can push that feeling away easily. He doesn’t want to take over the business, he wants to become an athlete. He wants to go to the Olympics, perform a dismount that’s thought to be impossible, and make a name for himself.

But Tim and Phil don’t talk other than when necessary, and Tim can’t help but feel dread. Why would he feel the need to stop Tim from leaving for school? Why would he have to skip work to tell him?

“Jack is awake,” Phil says, and Tim freezes in shock, his ears ringing. Jack is… awake? Since when? The doctors had been so sure he’d never– He’s awake? “The doctors called me this morning, and I’ve already talked to your school–”

“Dad’s awake?” Tim’s voice is a whisper, and it cracks on the second word. He sounds like a kid, but he doesn’t care. He’s awake he’s awake he’s awake he’s awake he’s awake–

Phil smiles at him, placing a hand on Tim’s shoulder. “Yeah, he’s awake.”

Tim needs to sit down, his legs feeling weak all of a sudden from the sheer relief the news brings him. He drops to the floor, scaring Phil a little by the way he twitches forwards to try and catch him before Tim waves him away. Jack is awake.

The moment the thought process again, he’s back up on his feet in a flash, practically vibrating with excitement as he asks Phil when they can go visit. His cheeks ache from how big his smile is when Phil fishes out his car keys from his pocket, and Tim is out of the door in a flash, rushing to get into the front seat of Phil’s car.

For the next hour, everything is both moving too fast and too slowly. Traffic is annoying, and Tim wants to open his car door and run to the hospital. He can’t believe Jack is awake. It takes forever to sign the papers for visitation. Jack is awake. This changes everything.

Tim speed walks to the hospital room he knows Jack is in, and hears voices coming from the open door. One is light, high pitched. It belongs to a nurse, probably. The other is deep, rough, familiar. It’s the voice that had told him to wait patiently for his pancakes to cook, the one that had soothed him to sleep so many times. He recognizes it, but not quite. It’s different, but then again, so is everything. Everything has changed since then.

Tim freezes at the door, listening to his dad’s voice as he speaks to a nurse. He’s afraid suddenly. Is he still allowed to enter? Has Phil told him? Is Tim still Jack’s son?

“I didn’t tell him,” Phil whispers to Tim when he sees him hesitating to enter. “I promised you.”

Phil had promised, and he’d kept his word. Jack never has to know. Jack can stay his dad. (Selfishselfishselfishselfish–)

Tim peeks from the edge of the door, looking into the room where his dad is laying on a hospital bed, looking so frail and weak, but so alive.

His dad’s alive, and awake, and smiling at Tim, telling him to come here, champ.

Tim can only oblige, tears pricking at his eyes. Dad’s arms wrap around his shoulders, and he’s home. He’s never had a home before, but he thinks it would feel like this.

The doctor comes in, and explains to both Tim and his dad about what will happen in the future. His dad can’t walk anymore, and he’s paralyzed from the waist down due to nerve damage, but he’ll be able to move back into his home after a few weeks of observation.

He’s home.

Tim will be able to move back in with his dad by December, and dad will have to start PT to relearn how to use his upper body. If he works hard enough, the doctors have hope that he can relearn how to use his legs. Dad’s breath is shaky, and Tim can tell this is hard on him, but his dad smiles whenever he looks at Tim, and it’s enough for Tim to know that everything will be alright.

He’s home.

His dad makes everything alright.

–

Everything is good for a while, and Dad really tries. But then christmas rolls around, and Jack mistakes Tim for Janet, marking the first time he says her name since he woke up, and–

Well.

Things stop being great.

Tim wants to talk about her, wants to ask his dad about that night, about the poisoned water, about his mom’s last moments. But he can’t. It hadn’t been his dad’s fault, but he can see he carries the weight of it on his shoulders.

This is how most of Tim’s nights go nowadays: leave school, go train, come home, and empty whatever bottle Dad’s fallen asleep with in his hand. It’s usually whisky.

Tim doesn’t say anything about it. His dad is always fine during the day, happy to see Tim and bringing him along for endless activities. Tim feels like he barely has time for himself now, all his free time taken up from hanging out with his dad. It’s at night when the alcohol becomes an issue. His dad has had a rough year, and the alcohol is just so he can process it. He just needs a little bit of time.

But it’s been months, Tim’s mind whispers to him as he walks into the kitchen, and his drinking has only gotten worse.

Tim cleans up the kitchen, putting away the clean dishes in the dishwasher to make it easier for Mrs. Mac, the nurse that comes by and takes care of Dad while Tim is out during the day. Dad seems to have chosen to eat take-out again. Maybe Tim can make him pancakes tomorrow morning, or the blini his coach had taught him how to make. He dries his hands and wheels his dad to his bedroom, ignoring his drunken ramblings as he wakes up. Tim helps him into bed, and tucks him in the covers.

He goes to his own room, tossing his dirty training clothes in his laundry basket and face planting on his bed, exhausted. He falls asleep with the lights still on, and he’s up before dawn the next morning, feeling like he’s had only five minutes of sleep. He has to leave to catch his bus before his dad even wakes up, waving at Mrs. Mac when she pulls up in the driveway. He’d left the crepes in the kitchen, covered with the plastic bell from the microwave, with a sticky note on it to tell his dad to eat them for breakfast.

He goes to school, and Steph keeps him up to date with his twitter account, even though Tim has the app on his phone and can check it himself. She seems to enjoy being his social media manager. The account has exploded in popularity since he’s won the World Championships, and Steph has him post memes regularly.

When Tim comes home that night, his dad’s asleep in the living room again, a few beer bottles around him. There’s a dark patch on the wall where beer has dried up, and a mess of glass on the floor. When Tim walks into the kitchen to grab the broom, he notices that his crepes have been left untouched and that Mrs. Mac had left another note on top to tell Tim that his father hadn’t been hungry that morning.

He presses his lips together and cleans up the mess. The blini go into the trash.

He just needs to adapt, he tells himself. He knows it’s a lie.

–

It’s not that he’s avoiding his dad.

He’s just… taking a stroll in the middle of the night in one of Gotham’s less reputable neighborhoods instead of going back to his house. Like a normal person.

It doesn’t sound convincing, even to him. Tim is tired of lying to himself.

Tim is absolutely avoiding his dad. He’s doing everything in his power to avoid the house whenever Dad is awake. So much for those promises of spending more time together, but whenever Tim sees his dad, all he hears is how much Jack wishes he could still move, how he feels weak, how his life is absolute shit. Sue him for wanting to make his excitement about finally landing his quadruple forward salto dismount on the high bar last longer. He’d done it, had achieved what some would consider impossible, almost no quadruple elements existing in gymnastics. But Nightwing could do it at eight years old, and now Tim can do it at fifteen.

So here Tim is, in the early days of spring, wandering the streets of Little Odessa instead of returning straight home. He knows it’s dangerous, and that gangs and crime run rampant in the neighborhood, but it still sounds more appealing than returning to his house to find his dad passed out drunk in the living room.

Tim loves his dad.

But he’s tired of taking care of him.

Is it selfish that he doesn’t want to bring his dad back to his bed every night? That he doesn’t want to have to be the one to tuck him in? His dad says Tim owes it to him for having done it in his childhood, and that Tim is only giving back what he got. But what did Tim get?

He got absentee parents that trotted the globe and called here and there. He got sorries and apologies for missing his competitions. He got late birthday wishes and a room in a boarding school.

If Dad wants to claim back what he gave, then Tim is fulfilling his duties right now, walking around in a different part of town. What would even happen if he stayed out the whole night? Would his dad care about what happened to Tim? Or only that his dutiful son hadn’t wiped the vomit from his chin before Mrs. Mac came to find him the next morning? He feels bad for thinking it, but the thought can’t escape his mind.

Tonight is like many similar nights Tim has had in the past few weeks, now that winter is over and staying out in the cold night isn’t akin to suicide. He reaches the end point to his meandering, an abandoned tenement on the edge of the Midtown Bypass stretch that cuts through the ground. The tenement is taller than the other buildings around, looking over the crevasse that is the highway, and the fire escape is structurally sound enough that he can climb it without issue.

He breathes in the cold air, his breath creating puffs of vapor. Gotham is beautiful.

It glitters, and Tim could watch the lights in the different apartments go on and off as people move within them for hours. He sits down, letting his feet dangle from the side of the building over the ever-present traffic of cars.

Tim wishes he could stay here forever, stretching time out long enough he can forget about his worries about his dad. He’s not taking the changes in his life well, drinking daily and becoming more and more prone to breaking things. He’s becoming colder towards Tim too.

Does he know? Can he sense it?

Can his dad sense that Tim isn’t truly his son?

Tim knows it’s a terrible way to think about his parentage. He knows that families are more than just blood. But is Jack truly family when he barely bothered to raise Tim?

Is Tim just unloveable?

There’s a sound behind him, a scuffling of boots, and Tim turns, expecting a mugger. It’s a walking karmic disaster instead.

Robin stands behind him, lips pinched so tightly they disappear. Her body is completely still, tense as she observes him, like any move she makes will send him careening of the tenement. He stares back at her, frozen in surprise. This isn’t a good look for Tim, sitting on the edge of a building tall enough that a fall would be fatal.

“Robin,” Tim says, when Steph has been staring at him for what feels like a few minutes but probably isn’t more than a few seconds. “Anything I can do for you?” If he acts casual, maybe they can both pretend this isn’t terribly awkward. It’s less awkward for him since Steph doesn’t know he’s aware of her secret, but he still feels deeply uncomfortable. Tim is already dreading the subtle investigation she’ll have on him over the next few weeks.

“Would you mind stepping away from the edge,” she asks, voice a little bit strangled.

Tim winces a little at the tone. Her usually calm Robin demeanor is gone, replaced with worry for Tim. He feels like he’s been caught with his hand in the cookie jar even though he’d done nothing wrong. He complies, and he’s quickly left standing with her, closer to the middle of the roof. He doesn’t try to offer up an explanation as she walks him down the building and insists on walking him to his house even though he desperately wants to fill in the silence between them. But Tim doesn’t know Robin, he knows Steph. Anything he says would just sound like a lame excuse to cover up his true intentions for being at the top of a twelve storey building in the middle of the night. Tim feels a little helpless as he watches Steph try to plaster a smile on her face. It looks fake, but he doesn’t say a thing about it.

They’ve walked three blocks, Steph opening her mouth and turning to Tim three times without saying anything, when Tim can’t bear the silence anymore. “I was looking at the people,” he tells Robin quietly, and her head snaps to look at him the moment she hears his voice. He doesn’t want her to worry about him. “I like to come here and watch the lights go on and off across the city. I try to guess what the people are doing.”

Robin stays silent a moment, her jaw clenching as they keep walking. Tim doesn’t add anything more, having said his piece. “The neighborhood is dangerous,” Robin says finally, seemingly deciding to believe Tim. “You shouldn’t be out here in the cold.”

“Don’t worry,” he tells her, “I have a good coat.” Steph had been the one to give it to him, scolding him for using one of Popov’s old leather jackets layered with a warm hoodie instead of a proper coat. He’d come to school with it on after the first snowfall and she’d had a fit when she’d spotted him, gifting him a dark red jacket the next day. He’d tried to convince her he didn’t need it, but she’d insisted, wrestling him into it and running away before he could return it.

“Why aren’t you at home,” Robin asks him, tone deceptively neutral.

Tim snorts and speaks before he can think better of it. “I’d need a home for that first.” It just slips out, an instinctual reaction. He backtracks instantly. “Sorry– I– I didn’t mean that. I have a house–” he corrects, tripping over his words. He’s just digging a hole deeper for himself at this point. Steph has to be so concerned right now, since Tim never speaks about his life with his dad. Should he play the dead mom card? Robin’s smile is taught, and her hands are tightened into fists. Tim sighs internally. Dead mom card it is. “It hasn’t been the same since my mom passed, is all. My dad… isn’t taking it well.” That’s the understatement of the year.

“So you go sit on buildings miles away from your house?” Robin’s voice is skeptical. Tim knows Steph is absolutely judging him for his life choices at the moment.

Tim shrugs. “Seems so.” He doesn’t really have an explanation for it. “By the way, you don’t have to walk with me the whole way. You can drop me off at the subway station,” he tells Robin as they approach Volczek Square. He has to argue with her for a moment, but she lets him leave when he points out that Robin is supposed to be an urban legend and probably shouldn’t take the subway. He knows she only lets him go so easily because she’s planted a tracker in his pocket, but he takes the win anyway.

When he gets home, he texts Steph, telling her how he’d met Robin, leaving out a few key details. Now she’ll be certain Tim’s made it to his house safely.

–

The next months blend together as Tim trains for hours on end every week. Mrs. Mac has been hired as a live-in nurse now, and it’s really helped Tim’s dad to curb his drinking and work on his PT, even if he still has bad days. He’s been trying, and it’s enough for Tim. Steph is a constant by Tim’s side, helping him with homework and exams, accompanying him to his practices on the weekends, and helping him grow his twitter account. He feels slightly guilty for keeping his quadruple salto dismount hidden from her, but he wants it to be a surprise. To make up for it, he’s already made a compilation of his best fails for her to enjoy.

Tim’s monotonous existence is interrupted every few weeks by his competitions, most of which he wins.

And now, here Tim is, not even sixteen and competing in the Olympic Trials.

He’d entered the National Championship in early June in the junior elite category and had won gold, making Tim the top elite gymnast under sixteen in the United States. He’d had to petition to compete in the Olympic Trials, being a junior, but the committee had accepted his candidature thanks to that performance. Tim could go to the Olympics if he does well.

He’s been preparing for this moment for months, and has been preparing for the Olympics for even longer. Tim wants to make a name for himself. He has a plan, and he needs to get to the Olympics for it.

Tim wants to leave his mark, and there is no move ballsier than debuting a new element during the Olympics. A quadruple forward salto dismount with a half turn. He’s been able to land it successfully for over two months, practicing it every day, the only person on Earth – Nightwing is on a mission in space with the Titans, if Tim has interpreted Steph’s lies correctly – capable of doing it.

The Drake name will forever be immortalized, and it’ll all be thanks to Tim. He’ll have proved himself.

But first, he needs to get onto the team.

Tim lets out a deep breath, clapping his palms together to get rid of the excess chalk. He bounces slightly on his toes, and steps up onto the corner of the apparatus area to begin his routine. Tim’s on his last apparatus, the exercise floor. It’s exhilarating, competing at this level, listening to the crowd cheer as he takes a running start into his flips. He feels a grin forming on his face as he lands the double salto with three half twists that had been giving him trouble over a year ago now, barely even having to think about it now to achieve it flawlessly and move on to his next sequence of flips. It doesn’t budge from his face until he bows to the judges and returns to Popov’s side, gratefully taking his water bottle from his coach’s hands. He sits down on the bench, waving to the camera that’s been tracking him. The crowd cheers for him; he’s one of their favourites.

His heart beats loudly in his ears, and his arms feel like jello. It’s been a long day, and Tim wants to do nothing more than return to his hotel room and sleep for the next week, but the anticipation keeps him awake and alert, his adrenaline not going down until he sees his results.

Tim watches the screen intently, waiting for his final score to show. He’s done well in the previous apparatuses, accumulating a very high score. He knows he did well on the exercise floor, not a single error in his routine, and that he’ll most likely end up on the podium, but he doesn’t want to get his hopes up just yet.

The crowd goes crazy as the television screen gets updated, Tim’s score being announced in small lettering at the bottom of the screen where a live camera shows his face. He can barely hear the sound of the cheering over the beating of his own heart, and it takes him a moment to decipher his score.

Tim got 14.450 points for his routine on the floor.

It brings his total to 169.500 points.

It brings Tim up to bronze.

Tim is the bronze medalist of the US Olympic Trials. The official team won’t be announced until tonight, but the top three athletes have consistently been chosen to participate.

Tim stares at the screen with his mouth wide open, his face slowly forming into a splitting grin as his coach gives him a proud hug.

Holy shit.

I’m going to the Olympics.

He can’t wipe the smile from his face for the entire day.

Chapter Text

Tim feels like he’s floating on air.

He hasn’t stopped smiling in what feels like days, too giddy to fall asleep in his hotel room or on the plane.

He steps out of his taxi across the street from his house, a bounce in his step as he swings his duffel bag on his shoulder.

He can hardly believe it.

He’s going to the Olympics.

The taxi leaves, its red tail lights glowing in the dark. It’s well past midnight now, Tim’s plane having landed after nightfall, but the lights are still on in the living room. His dad had promised Tim he would be awake when Tim came back, and he must be waiting for Tim there. Tim crosses the street, bouncing up on the opposite sidewalk and bounding up the front steps.

“Dad–” he calls, unlocking his front door and swinging it open. “–I did it!” He’s smiling so wide his cheeks hurt. Is his dad proud? Did he watch the Trials on TV? He’d gotten a text from his dad right after the program results had been shown, and Tim can’t wait to see his dad in person.

Tim is going to the Olympics!

He walks out from the entryway, dropping his bag next to the door to pick up later, looking for his dad. He hasn’t answered, maybe he fell asleep waiting up for Tim?

He’s in his wheelchair, faced away from Tim. He doesn’t look asleep. Why didn’t he answer Tim? Did Tim wake him up? Oops. “Dad–” Tim calls a little bit quieter, approaching the man.

“Don’t call me that,” his dad says in a low voice. His words aren’t slurred, but it’s a close thing, and Tim notices the half-empty bottle of whisky on the coffee table next to him. He hadn’t been sleeping, then.

Tim pauses, his smile wiping from his face. His dad had promised he’d be sober for Tim’s return. The disappointment he feels is nothing in the face of his building anxiety as he processes what his dad said. Tim’s heart plummets to his feet. “What? Dad–”

“Don’t call me that,” his dad says, firmer. Tim hovers on the edge of the room, unable to make himself walk in. Don’t call me that, Tim’s mind echoes, like he hadn’t heard it well enough the two first times.

“What do you mean,” he tries, but Tim knows something happened, that even if he fakes ignorance Jack won’t be fooled. What does Jack know? How does he know?

Did Phil tell him? Or the lawyer? Or the courts? Did someone break their NDA?

No one was supposed to know. No one was supposed to tell.

How does Jack know? What does he know? What can Tim salvage from this? Can he pretend that he never knew, that he didn’t keep the secret from his dad?

It’s over for Tim. Life isn’t a fairytale, he remembers. The words play in his mind like a mantra, getting louder as his dad takes his time to start talking.

“What happened?” His dad’s voice is cold, rough, a tone Tim has never heard leveled at him. It’s scary. It’s nothing like his dad’s voice, even when he’s at his worst. “What happened?” It’s all Jack Drake, the cold-blooded business man that can make Lex Luthor wince on live TV. It’s not the voice of a father talking to his son. Jack’s strong hands grip his wheelchair’s wheels, clenching around the metal to turn himself towards Tim.

In his lap is an unfolded piece of paper.

Fuck.

Tim recognizes it. The way it’s creased in three folds, the way the letters loop in his mother’s handwriting, the way it’s worn out in the corners from Tim’s constant rereading. He hadn’t hidden his mother’s letter well enough before he’d left for the Trials, slipping it in the bottom of one of the drawers of his desk and covering it in pencils and stray sheets of homework. His dad had found it.

Jack knows, and it’s Tim’s fault.

“Da–” he tries, and realizes his mistake too late, instinctually calling Jack by the wrong name.

“Don’t fucking call me that,” Jack yells, grabbing the letter and gesturing towards Tim with it, crumpling the paper within his fist. Tim tries not to flinch, but he can’t help the way he takes a step back in the face of Jack’s anger. “You’re no son of mine,” he spits, sending Tim a glare that makes him shiver. “Fucking Bruce Wayne,” he growls, voice so low Tim barely hears the words.

“But–” Tim feels helpless, watching the man he had so desperately wanted to be his dad look at him as though he were nothing more than a squashed bug under his shoe. It’s not Tim’s fault.

“Not another word, you fucking liar,” Jack says, face turning red. “I didn’t fucking raise you like this,” he spits, grabbing his wheels to turn away from Tim again, heading towards his whisky bottle. “I shouldn’t have raised you at all,” he mumbles, and that hurts more than it should. Tim had expected this, had made up every possible scenario in his mind, had prepared himself for Jack’s anger. It still hurts.

All Tim feels is anger, sudden and all consuming. Tonight was supposed to be his moment, his victory. He’d done it, had made it onto the Olympic team, had done something with his fucking life, and Jack can’t even bother to pretend like he’s happy for Tim. He has to bring it back to himself, has to ruin everything. “You think I asked for this?” He’s yelling, and it doesn’t bother him as much as he’d thought it would. It’s the first time Tim has ever raised his voice at Jack. “You think I wanted to find out you weren’t my father?”

“You shut up you fucking–”

“NO,” Tim yells, his voice screeching. He won’t shut up like he’s still a child. “I won’t– You can’t do this,” he tells his dad. Jack is his dad, end of story. Tim isn’t letting him weasel out of this. He has no one to fall back on if he does. He needs his dad. “You can’t just decide I’m not your fucking son like that, like you didn’t fucking raise me. Nothing has changed.” He wills his dad to understand that Tim isn’t suddenly a completely new person, that he’s still the same kid Jack raised.

“Everything has changed, Tim,” Jack roars, turning back to face his son and wheeling his way closer, face red from anger. “You’re never home, too busy running around the city at night doing your fucking flips to see me.” Jack lets out a wry laugh, and Tim can’t help but shiver at the coldness of the sound. He doesn’t– Yes, he’d been with Popov often, but he’d been making a name for himself, improving himself, becoming one of the top gymnasts in the country. Jack had been supportive. He’d approved. “Is that why you started doing gymnastics? Brucie Wayne already has a gymnast, did you think he’d want another?” Jack’s voice is mocking, and Tim can’t stand it.

“Shut up,” Tim yells back, tears in his eyes and voice shaky. “Shut up.” He doesn’t deny the accusation. He can’t. The Waynes had always been the reason, hadn’t they? From Robin’s quadruple flip to his need to prove himself to Bruce, his dedication to gymnastics had always been because of the Waynes. He’d wanted to show Bruce what he’d missed out on, that he could be better than his prodigious child.

“Oh, you thought you could get Brucie Wayne to adopt you, once I was out of the picture,” Jack mocks, thinking he’s understood everything. “Why didn’t you? You fucking should have while you had the chance, instead of leeching off me.”

“I don’t want Bruce Wayne,” Tim yells, getting in Jack’s face. He knows he’s about to say something he’ll regret, but he can’t make himself stop talking. It’s something he shares with Jack. He takes every fight too far. “You think I stayed with you for fun? You think I wanted to see my dad drink himself to sleep every night? I wanted my fuckind dad, Jack. But clearly he died at the same time Mom did.” Don’t say it, don’t say it, don’t say it. “If you were just going to kill yourself, why did you have to kill her too.” They both take every fight too far.

His words strike the wrong chord in Jack.

The retaliation happens so fast it’s over in a blink.

Jack grabs his wrist, lunging in his chair to snatch it from the air, and Tim tries to pull away from him, tugging on his hand uselessly as his da– as Jack screams in his ear. He’s so close to Jack the man is all he can see, all he can smell, all he can hear. He’s everywhere, overwhelming his senses. His anger flows out of him, replaced with fear. He shouldn’t have said that.

He makes the mistake of blinking.

One moment he’s standing, listening to Jack berate him for even existing, and the next all he can hear is screaming.

He doesn’t know what happened.

Why is he on the floor? All Tim can see is the dark floorboards of his living room floor, his forehead pressed to it as his brain catches up to the situation. He can’t feel his body, a cold foggy feeling filling his bones.

Who’s screaming? It’s the worst sound he’s heard in his life, and he wants it to stop. It sounds like someone’s dying.

He has to– he has to get up. What if it’s Jack? Is his dad okay?

He tries to push himself up, to push himself off his knees and stand up. He collapses back into a heap, clutching his arm to his chest. Something’s wrong.

Why does it hurt?

Ithurtsithurtsithurtsithurtsithurtsithurtsithurts–

All Tim can see is the dark hardwood floor, and he’s clutching his wrist, and it hurts. It hurts so bad.

It takes Tim a moment to realize he’s the one screaming.

Nonononononononononononononononononononono–

He can’t take his hand from his wrist. He can’t look. He can barely see as it is, his vision clouding with dark spots, but he knows he can’t look.

Ithurtsithurtsithurtsithurtsithurtsithurtsithurts–

He’s gasping for air, and the screaming stops momentarily as he sobs. Everything is still so loud. His heart is pounding in his ears, and his breath seems so loud, and Jack is yelling something nearby. They’d been arguing, they’d been yelling at each other. Tim had– He’d said–

Is the fight over?

He can’t breathe.

It hurts so much.

Tim realizes he’s crying too.

He’s crying, and it doesn’t seem like he’ll be able to stop any time soon. What happened? He’d been standing, had been fine. But he’d said– He’d said something about Mom– Now he’s on the floor, and he knows he can’t look at his wrist.

Why can’t he look at his wrist?

He can’t breathe. He needs to catch his breath, do something other than stay curled up on the floor, gasping.

He can’t explain it, can’t explain the feeling in his stomach, the pit that forms there at the mere idea of moving his hand. It’s like the world will end if he does.

It only took a second. A blink of the eye.

He clutches his arm to his chest, curling around it and muffling his cries.

He can’t look. He’s not allowed to look.

If he does, it’ll be over. Everything will be over.

He can’t look.

Pleasepleasepleasepleasepleasepleasepleasepleasepleasepleasepleaseplease–

There are hands on his shoulders, pulling him up, trying to push him to stand. He wants to move away, to hide, to stay away from Jack. He knows what happened, knows that Jack’s hand was wrapped around his wrist mere seconds ago, that he’s the reason Tim is on the floor now. Yet here he is, trying to drag Tim up again. Tim whimpers.

He can’t run. He can’t unfurl from where he is on the floor. He can’t move. He can’t get away from Jack. He tenses, waiting for a slap or a punch.

The hands move to his hair, and they gently cradle his head, tugging it upwards and pulling his nose from the floor. He can only try to blink the tears away from his eyes as Jack’s face comes into view. A sob escapes his lips, because–

Jack is crying.

Jack is crying, seated on the floor next to Tim, his wheelchair abandoned nearby. His mouth moves, but Tim can’t hear him. He can barely see the way his lips move through his own tears.

Dad doesn’t cry.

He yells, and drinks, and breaks things, but he never cries. Never in front of Tim.

So why is he crying now?

Nonononononononononononnonononononononono–

Tim knows why.

Please.

He knows it’s why it hurts.

Please don’t be real.

He knows it’s the same reason why he can’t look at his wrist.

Please don’t be true.

It’s his dad’s fault.

Please don’t be happening.

Tim falls forwards to cry into his dad’s chest, his right wrist still cradled while his dad whispers that everything will be alright. The pit in Tim’s stomach forms again at the words, and Tim knows it’s a lie. Not if Dad is crying. Not after their fight.

Nothing will be alright.

Nothing can be alright.

But he stays there, cradled in his father’s arms, listening to the apologies. It doesn’t make him feel better, but it helps him pretend that his world hasn’t crumbled around him.

He doesn’t know how much time passes, but suddenly there are flashing lights in his living room, blue and red, and more voices and hands. Someone takes him from Jack’s arms, talking to him in soothing tones. Tim starts crying harder. He wants his dad, even if he shouldn’t.

He doesn’t have the strength to protest. He just cries and lets them do what they want to him.

He’s so tired.

He knows something is wrong. He knows it’s his wrist.

He shouldn’t look at it.

He shouldn’t.

Hands pull his arm from his chest, making it extend in a way that sends shards of pain shooting through his bones. His eyes fly wide open in a panic, automatically fighting the hands that are causing pain.

His eyes land on his wrist.

It’s all he can see for a moment, and he freezes solid, unmoving, unable to look away from it.

It’s…

It’s broken. Badly. The joint is already bruising and swelling, twisted in an unnatural angle. It looks disgusting. That can’t be Tim’s wrist.

It can’t be Tim’s.

Nonononononononononononononononononononononono–

He– he needs that wrist.

It can’t be broken. His wrist isn’t broken. That’s not his. It’s not.

It’s not it’s not it’s not it’s not it’s not it’s not it’s not it’s not it’s not it’s not it’s not it’s not–

It’s not his.

It can’t be. He’s going to the Olympics. He can’t have a broken wrist at the Olympics.

The hands shift the wrist, trying to wrap it in a brace to stabilize it.

It hurts.

No. Please. Please don’t be true. Please let me wake up from this nightmare, his thoughts beg. He can’t tell if he’s speaking the words or not, his ears filled with the sounds of his cries.

But he knows this is all too real.

And it’s– it’s too much. Too much to think about, too much to process, too much to understand.

He’s shaking, his breaths coming in through quick sobs. He feels sick, like he’s about to throw up all of his organs. This can’t be happening.

What about the Olympics?

What about his career?

Can he still compete? Maybe it’s not as bad as it looks. Maybe he can put some ice on it and it’ll be enough. The image of the twisted limb pops back in his head, unbidden, and Tim knows he’s only trying to fool himself.

What about his life?

This is Tim’s life. Tim’s life that he had built with his bare hands, piece by piece. It has been his own.

It’s nothing now.

And all he can do is cry as the EMTs bring him out of his house on a stretcher, his dad being wheeled into the back of the screeching ambulance to sit beside him. Tim grips his hand strongly, holding onto him like he’s his only lifesource.

Why?

Jack cries, petting his hair. He looks so sorry. He says he’s sorry. Tim doesn’t know what to do, what to believe. There’s so much going on he doesn’t know what to focus on. The pain makes his thoughts fuzzy.

God, what would Popov think?

The thought sends him spiraling again. Popov.

His coach, his friend, his… Tim doesn’t even know what he is anymore. He’s more than just Tim’s coach, more than a friend. He’s family.

He’s terrified.

What will he think? Will he be disappointed? Will he be mad?

He needs to know. He needs to be here. He still thinks– he still thinks Tim is going places. And Tim is going to have to tell him he isn’t going anywhere. That he’s grounded, forced to remain with his two feet on the floor.

“Dad…” Tim croaks, his voice rough. Jack shushes him, his own voice teary, shaky fingers carding through Tim’s hair. Tim can’t help but lean into the touch. “Dad,” he tries again, his voice coming out a little stronger. “Coach… tell him. He needs to know.”

“I will, son. I will,” his dad reassures him, voice choked up. “Just… rest. Don’t speak. I’ll take care of everything.”

Tim nods. He knows he shouldn’t… that his dad is the reason he’s like this. But it’s his dad.

Tim loves his dad.

He hadn’t meant it. He hadn’t meant anything he’d said. He couldn’t have; he’s a good man.

Still, Tim can’t stop crying.

It’s over for Tim.

He knows it before they get to the hospital. He knows it before they wheel him into the x-ray room. He knows it before Popov comes running into his private room, kneeling at his bedside to look at the limb. He knows it before the doctor comes back with the results.

He’d known the moment his dad had grabbed his wrist. He’d known the moment he’d fallen to the floor in pain. He’d known the moment he’d seen his dad’s ashen face filled with regret.

He doesn’t have any tears left to cry.

His dad hovers, and Popov keeps his face carefully blank.

–

There’s a press conference about the broken wrist a few days later. Time passes in a haze. He can’t look at Jack. He can’t look at his wrist. Tim has to be there and give a speech, has to explain that he can no longer participate in the Olympics, has to give a reason why (hecan’thecan’thecan’thecan’thecan’t–). The news of his broken wrist had travelled quickly, every sports reporter still focused on him and his unexpected placement on the Olympic team, the youngest on the team, the underdog. They’d picked up the story, and had spread it around the country, and even the world. Everybody knows.

Nobody can know.

He has to do a press conference now, too many people asking questions, Tim’s situation being too high profile to be swept under the rug. And Tim has to be there. He has to speak.

No one can know the truth.

Tim can do this. He’s sitting down, face blinded by endless camera flashes. Reporters crowd him, desperate to get pictures of the Drake Heir at his lowest, desperate to see the cast wrapping his wrist.

Tim can do this, but he still wants to throw up. It’s barely been a week.

Barely a week since his world has crumbled around him. Popov has been at his side the entire time, disbelieving of the story Jack had fabricated. His dad has been hovering, close but not quite enough to touch, kept away by Popov’s glares. He’s apologetic. Tim wants to forgive him. He wants to, but he can’t bring himself to.

Popov stands behind him, a hand placed on his shoulder reassuringly. Jack had blamed it on a car accident. Had said Tim had been crossing the street, coming home under the cover of night after a long week competing. It had been late, and Tim had been tired. He hadn’t checked both sides of the street before crossing, and he’d been the victim of a hit-and-run, running into his house to find his dad and call the ambulance, mostly unharmed. Mostly. He’d allegedly thrown a hand out, a reflex to protect himself.

His wrist had been broken by the impact with the car.

The doctors had to put a cast on it, covering the limb’s ugly bruising. It would take a few weeks to heal, and Tim would have to do PT afterwards to regain the joint’s mobility. They’re confident he’ll make a full recovery. But it will have been too late.

Tim has to resign from the Olympics.

He has to give up on his dream.

It’s embarrassing. It makes Tim feel sick.

He hears the reporters talk about wasted potential, and tragedies, and pity.

And Tim–

Tim’s fifteen, his birthday still two weeks away. He can’t do this.

He can’t bring himself to speak.

It’s too much. Too much for him to understand, too much for him to bear. He’d been so close. So close to becoming something. To becoming someone. He’d touched glory, had seen his future and had wanted it more than he’d ever wanted anything before. And now he’s nothing. Even worse, he’s someone who failed. He’s a disappointment. He doesn’t even know how Popov can bear to look at him right now, let alone touch him.

He bursts into tears on live television before he even says his first word.

Within seconds, Popov has him turned away from the cameras and the reporters, and Tim can hear their noise get louder and louder as they throw questions at him. He can barely hear himself cry in the chaos of noise and light and touch. He can’t do this.

Popov has to carry him out of there, Tim clinging to his neck as he sobs. He thinks Popov might be crying too.

–

He avoids Steph all summer. She tries texting, then calling, then knocking at his front door.

He tells his dad he doesn’t want any visitors.

He ignores the taps at his window.

She’ll get the message soon enough.

He can’t see her. He can’t let her see him. She would know, the moment she’d lay her eyes on Tim, that something is up, that nothing is as it seems, that there’s more to Tim’s story.

He can barely look his dad in the eye, after all, no matter how many bonding activities he tries to do with Tim. No matter how he tries to make it up to him.

His wrist is broken, an ugly neon green cast around it. Tim can barely look at it without wanting to throw up. He stays cooped up inside, far from the gym, far from Popov, far from his dreams.

He can barely look at his dad without feeling like he’s about to lose his breakfast.

It doesn’t stop his dad from trying anyways. It’s funny, how for years all Tim had wanted was more attention from his parents, from his dad. Now he has it, and he wishes for nothing more than for it to stop.

There’s another tap at his window. It’s the third night in a row Steph shows up. He keeps pretending to sleep.

He’d told himself, when he’d met her, that he’d drift away from her when she’d find new friends. He’d forgotten to, enraptured by her joy and enthusiasm, drawn in by the glimpses he’d get of the family that was supposed to be his. It had been an escape from the hell Bruce had left him in, a desperate attempt to catch fleeting wisps of the Waynes’ love. He’s overstayed his welcome, clung on longer than he should have. It would have hurt less if he’d kept away from her, and now he’s paying the price of his sentimentality.

He tells himself it’s for the best.

–

Tim lies on his bed, staring at the ceiling. It’s silent, and there hasn’t been a tap at his window in weeks.

It’s September again. He doesn’t know how to feel about it. Should he feel something about it? This time last year, he’d been training every day for hours to compete in the World Championships. This time two years ago, he’d been cutting newspaper clippings of Jason as Robin to glue into his notebook while he waited for his parents to call him.

Now he can barely get out of bed in the mornings.

He wonders what went wrong.

Was it his wrist breaking? Maybe. Probably not. He’s been spiraling since before, breaking apart for so much longer than these last few months. The wrist had simply been the final crack, the one he hadn’t been able to fix, and it had shattered his life into a million pieces. Broken bones aren’t something you can run away from. He rotates his wrist, making sure it can still move, a reassurance he has to give himself all too often.

Was it his mom dying? That’s when his life had noticeably started going downhill. She’d died leaving a single letter to Tim, a letter that has since torn his world apart twice. A letter that revealed the lie that had been Tim Drake. It doesn’t feel right to blame his mom. She’d done her best, probably. It’s not her fault she died.

Was it before? Some moment he doesn’t remember? Some moment he wasn’t even born to witness? Has he been cursed from the very beginning, destined to be nothing more than a depressed waste of space by the simple fact of his biology? Tim’s starting to think this is the most likely option. He’s simply cursed; cursed by the Wayne blood that’s in his veins.

Why couldn’t it have been Jack’s? Why did it have to be Bruce Wayne’s? Why couldn’t Tim have been who he was supposed to be?

Why does life have to be so hard?

He sighs, blinking at his shadowed ceiling. He needs some fresh air.

He takes his sneakers out from his closet, slipping them on quietly as he pulls Popov's red hoodie from his closet to keep away the night’s chill. He hasn’t seen the man in a while, not since he’s been forced to take a break from gymnastics to let his wrist heal. Tim doesn’t think he’d be able to bear going back anyway. He couldn’t bear to feel the pitiful stares the other trainees would send him as they watched him relearn how to use his wrist, couldn’t stand the whispers and the comments about the Olympics, couldn’t stand the embarrassment.

He still misses Popov, though.

This hoodie is the closest he’ll get to seeing his coach again in a while.

He jumps down from his window ledge, dropping into the front yard easily and ignoring the twinge in his wrist as he leverages himself out the window. It’s been a few weeks since his cast was removed, but the joint is still weak, needing PT and exercise. It’ll still be at least another month before Tim can start training again. He massages his wrist absentmindedly as he walks through the grass in his front yard to the sidewalk, keeping out of sight of his dad’s bedroom window.

It’s not the first time he sneaks out, and it won’t be the last.

It’s addictive, knowing that no one knows where he is, that his dad thinks he’s asleep in his bed.
No one hovering, no one looking, no one knowing.

Right now, he’s free.

He’s no one.

The thought isn’t as world ending as before. Tim would even say that it’s comforting. He’s someone now, even if he’d rather not be; he’s the failed star, the failed athlete who was so close to having it all but who tragically had his career put on pause. People know of him, even outside of Gotham. But they don’t know him like he’d wanted them to. His reputation is not glorious, it’s fucking sad.

And he hates it, hates who he’s become.

Hates that no one knows the truth. Hates that no one can know it, or he’ll lose whatever he has left of his family, whatever semblance of love he can get. He’ll be taken away from his dad in a heartbeat, and get thrown into the foster system to slip through the cracks like every other poor soul that ends up there.

Even worse, if the secret gets out, the Drake name would be even more tainted than it already is, and he can’t do that to his dad. Not when he’s quit drinking and has started following his PT regiment so religiously that he’s able to walk for a few minutes at a time now. Not when he spends as much time as possible with Tim, trying to be better.

And he is better.

Tim just wishes it could be enough to make him forgive his dad.

Sighing, Tim sits down on the ledge of a roof, looking down at the busy road below. He has no reason to go to Little Odessa anymore, no reason to visit his favourite tenement off the side of the highway. It’s probably for the best. Who knows what he would do, looking off the side of the building at a fall that would spell certain death. The idea to go visit never leaves the back of his mind though, just to know. Just to see what he would do, what he would feel.

He’s not suicidal… but he’s curious. Would he be tempted to jump, morbid curiosity pushing him to lean over, to tip forward until he couldn’t escape the greedy hands of gravity? Would it make him feel better?

He contents himself with a four storey building off Mortimer Avenue, in the busiest part of Upper West Side where he lives. It’s not far from downtown, and he can see the high rise buildings easily from his vantage point. Behind him stretch out rows and rows of brownstones and apartments, his own house indistinguishable from them some twenty minute walk away.

It’s not the first time he’s come here. He leans back on his hands, simply watching Gotham, listening to the sound of sirens grow closer and further as crime comes and goes. He doesn’t know how long he stays seated there, just breathing in the smog of the city.

Maybe this is home.

The slow inexorable descent into madness, the cold gnawing at his nose, the smell of smoke and car fumes, the trash littered on the street, the dizzying glamor and deplorable poverty. It’s all Tim’s ever known. It’s like looking into a mirror.

It calms him, to be up here; keeps his mind from running in circles.

It’s peaceful.

It’s the only reason why Tim doesn’t get out of dodge the moment he hears the soft swoosh of a cape. It’s probably Robin, not knowing when to give up on a lost cause. He’s surprised she hasn’t blacklisted him from her life at this point since she has a notoriously short patience for bullshit. She should stop caring about Tim. He’s not worth her time.

But Robin isn’t the one who landed behind Tim.

“It’s late out, kid,” a deep voice says, gravelly and rough. “Don’t you have somewhere safer to be?”

It’s like a cold bucket has been dumped on Tim’s head, chilling him from head to toe, making his skin crawl as horror fills him. He turns slowly, scared to check who is behind him, even if the voice is a dead giveaway.

The Dark Knight himself stands there, lips thinned and mask unforgiving. He’s more imposing in person than he is in pictures, taller and serious, seeming to melt into shadows Tim could have sworn hadn’t existed before. But Tim isn’t scared, remembering every newspaper clipping he’s ever read about the Bat, knowing the good he does, knowing the children he’s raised.

He’s still deeply uncomfortable, and slightly freaking out because this is Batman. A small part of him still bursts in excitement whenever he sees even a picture of the man, no matter what he may think of Bruce Wayne.

He sits there, transfixed by the bat, staring at him with an expression he can’t even guess. He feels like a child being caught with his hand in the cookie jar, shameful and angry all at once that he’s been found out.

“I’m fine,” he tells the Bat. He doesn’t need Batman to cut into his brooding hours. “It’s not that cold.” He says nothing about having somewhere else to stay. Odds are, Batman’s recognized him. He knows where Tim should be, sleeping at his dad’s house far away from anything that could ever resemble a home. Far from anything that could resemble Bruce’s home.

Batman approaches him slowly, telegraphing his every move. It’s almost silly, seeing the Batman try to tone down his scariness. Tim guesses that’s why it works; Batman just looks human. It feels somewhat wrong to see so clearly that there’s a real person behind the mask. He sits down beside Tim, far enough not to touch, but close enough to be in arm’s reach. In case Tim jumps, no doubt. The thought bothers Tim.

Batman’s mere presence bothers Tim.

Make yourself at home, Tim grumbles internally. If Batman wants to sit with Tim and say nothing until sunrise, he can suit himself. Tim’s not moving.

“How’d you get up here, kid?” Tim’s jaw clenches at the moniker, making him flinch a little. He knows Batman noticed. He doesn’t know what to make of it. Is he taunting Tim on purpose?

“I used my legs,” Tim deadpans, unwilling to give any further information. He pulls one leg up to rest on the edge, wrapping his arms around it and curling around himself. “And don’t call me kid.” He’s not a kid. He’s certainly not Batman’s kid.

“Why aren’t you at home? Tall buildings are for vigilantes, not civilians.” Tim wants him to shut up.

It’s not fair.

It’s not fair how Batman uses his kind voice with Tim, how he’s dangling everything Tim has ever wanted from anyone right in front of his face. Tim only ever wanted for someone to care.

“What, you’re gonna call CPS on me? Worried about how my home life is?” Tim snorts. Too late for that, Batman.

Tim isn’t looking at Batman, but he swears he can hear the frown in his voice. “People your age are usually asleep at this hour. It’s a school night.”

Tim shrugs. “So I’ll skip.” Simple as that.

Batman says nothing, but Tim can imagine how his lips press together, frustrated at Tim’s irreverence for the school system. It’s a look he gets often. He gives it fifteen seconds before Batman starts lecturing him about the importance of school. Why would Bruce care anyway? Tim’s not his problem anymore.

“And then what?”

His question throws Tim for a loop. And then what what?

“What?”

“So you skip tomorrow. Then what? What’s your goal?”

Tim blinks at him.

In all his life, his teachers have always been there to tell him that if he keeps skipping, he’ll end up working as a thug for a villain and die a terrible death, probably. It’s framed as something that’s inevitable, but still somewhat in the future.

Batman’s asking about the now. He’s asking why Tim is skipping, like Tim has a choice, like he has options, like he’s not doomed.

Tim doesn’t know. He doesn’t know about the now, doesn’t know what to do, doesn’t know how to bring himself out of his funk, doesn’t know if he even wants to.

Tim sighs, looking back out at the city. He feels smaller suddenly, less sure. Does he have a choice? It seems like every time he tries to do something, life comes back to hit him in the face with a vengeance.

“I’ll figure something out.” He won’t. There’s nothing to figure out. He has no hopes, he has some old broken dreams, he has nothing he can make a life out of. He’ll just… exist.

“Hmm,” Batman rumbles, distinctly judgy.

“Oh, because you’re the paragon of good decisions, aren’t you?” He can feel Batman’s doubtful eyebrow raise. Tim does one right back.

“I’m saving the city,” Batman says, and he sounds mildly amused. Is it Batman that’s speaking or Bruce? Tim can’t tell. Is there a difference? He hopes there is. He can’t make himself hate Batman, but he can make himself hate Bruce Wayne. Bruce Wayne is so much easier to hate than the man that’s sitting next to him.

“You’re dressing up in a bat costume and running straight at the country’s most dangerous criminals on a regular basis,” Tim deadpans.

“Hmm,” Batman says again, but this time it’s thoughtful.

They watch the city for another few minutes, neither of them speaking. It’s a quiet night, all things considered.

The silence is broken by Tim’s phone buzzing in his hoodie pocket. Who would even call him at this hour?

“You should take that,” Batman says, gesturing to Tim’s phone, “there’s probably someone worrying about you out there.”

He fishes his phone out, fully expecting Batman to disappear while he takes the call. It’s his dad. Why is his dad calling him so early in the morning? He doesn’t usually wake up until seven, and it’s not even four AM yet.

“Hey Dad–”

“--Tim,” his dad’s voice rasps over the phone, cutting him off. Instantly, Tim straightens up, scrambling away from the edge of the building to stand, alert. He cups his hands around the phone, desperately trying to hear better. Something’s wrong.

“Dad? Dad, what’s wrong?”

“Tim–” his dad gasps, cursing under his breath. “Get out of the house. Whatever you do, don’t come home. Run.” There’s the sound of rustling, like his dad is moving around the house. Why is his dad awake? Why is he telling Tim to run away? He doesn’t know Tim has already been out for hours, hanging out on a rooftop with the man his dad hates so much.

“Dad, what’s happening?” He tries to keep his voice even, but fear creeps in his tone. He barely notices how the black shadow of the Batman has moved behind him.

“Put it on speaker,” Batman orders. Tim obeys immediately, fingers fumbling with his phone, his hands shaking as he pulls it away from his ear to see the dial pad.

“There’s someone in the house,” his dad whispers, “one of the fucking crazies.” Tim snaps his head to look in the direction of his house. He can’t see smoke, or strange lights, or signs of rogues. There’s nothing. Why would they target Tim’s neighbourhood? There’s nothing but residential houses. That’s not the Rogues’ MO.

“Dad, you have to get out,” he stresses, voice taught. It’s getting hard to breathe. There’s something wrong about this whole situation, but he can’t focus. His dad has to leave, has to get to safety. He’s all Tim has left.

“-- whatever happens, Tim, I love you, alright? I’m so sorry. I’ll always love you, son,” Jack says before hanging up. He doesn’t tell Tim he’s going to leave the house himself. He doesn’t tell Tim he’s going to be alright. Tim is frozen, looking at his phone screen. The call lasted less than two minutes.

“Hang on,” Batman growls, and Tim doesn’t understand what he means until he pulls Tim closer to his side, Tim clinging onto his arm for dear life as Batman grapples them down to street level. In seconds, the batmobile stops in front of them, Batman ordering Tim to get in it. He follows the orders, even though he can barely process them.

His heart pounds, and Tim slides into the front seat, giving the Dark Knight his address when prompted. The drive is dizzying, Tim clutching his phone desperately as he tries to call his dad back. He gets sent to voicemail ten times by the time Batman gets to his house, driving like a madman through the residential streets of Tim’s neighborhood.

Tim doesn’t know what to feel right now, doesn’t know what to think. Anything could be happening right now, back at his house. Is Dad dead already? Is he fighting? Will Batman make it on time?

Batman can save his dad, right?

He’ll save him.

Dad will be fine. Tim will be fine. Everything will be fine.

Everything will be okay. Tim will forgive his dad for everything, he’ll go back to school, he’ll take over Drake Industries, he’ll do whatever his dad wants to do. Tim will be better. He’ll make the most of this chance he has with his dad.

He already had a second chance, his mind whispers, will he get a third?

Tim already knows the answer by the time Batman slows the car down in front of the house. He doesn’t want to believe it.

The front door is busted open, and no lights are on inside. It’s pure silence.

Tim scrambles out of the car before the batmobile has stopped moving, running inside as Batman calls for him to stop and stay behind him. He can barely hear anything over the pounding of his heart.

He barely makes it inside before he freezes, staring. There are two bodies on the floor, blood pooling from each of them. He can’t look away.

His dad is one of the bodies, spread out on the floor, unmoving, gun in hand. He’s closest to the front door, back to the hallway where the bedrooms are. Tim doesn’t know where his wheelchair is.

Tim rushes to his side, palpating the side of his neck for a pulse. He can’t find one, but that’s just because his hands are too shaky. Batman will come in and find the pulse. The blood on the floor around his father soaks in his jeans, still warm to the touch.

There’s a boomerang sticking out of his father’s chest, and it looks so wrong. Tim has to fix this. He presses his hands around it, applying pressure to the wound. That’s what he has to do, right?

Apply pressure to the wound.

Staunch the bleeding.

“Dad,” he says. “Please wake up.” Tim doesn’t cry. His dad is going to wake up. He doesn’t need to panic, he just needs to keep his cool and keep applying pressure to the wound.

His dad’s chest isn’t rising.

It’s completely still under his hands.

He presses down harder, ignoring how the sharp sides of the boomerang are cutting into the skin of his hands. He curses how one of his hands is too weak to apply enough pressure.

“Wake up, Dad,” he manages to sob, his eyes starting to fill with tears as his dad stays unmoving on the ground. “I’m here,” he whispers.

He presses down harder on the wound, the boomerang splitting the skin between his thumbs and palm.

“I’m sorry,” Tim sobs, hands trembling too hard to apply any real pressure to the wound. He has to– he has to keep pressing down. The ambulance will be here any time soon. Did Batman call an ambulance yet? “Please wake up.” Tim can’t breathe.

“Timothy,” a deep voice says, softly, like someone is talking to a rabid animal. Tim looks up, eyes full of tears. It takes him a moment to see the Batman shaped lump in the darkness of his living room. Why isn’t he helping his dad?

A gloved hand gently takes his, pulling it away from his father’s chest. He blinks for a moment, too lost to understand what’s happening. No. Batman can’t do that; Tim has to apply pressure.

“Timothy, it’s too late,” Batman says, tugging on his hand again. Tim tries to pull it out of his grasp. He needs his hand.

Tim shakes his head. “No.” It’s not true. It’s not too late. It can’t be. His dad is fine. He’ll be fine. “No, no, no, no, no, no,” he mumbles. How is Tim supposed to forgive his dad when he’s not there?

“Timothy,” Batman says again, almost like he’s scolding Tim for being unreasonable. Like he has any right to tell Tim what to do.

“No,” Tim screeches, clinging onto his father’s clothes as Batman tries to pull him away from the bod– from his dad. “He’s fine,” he says, voice wracked with sobs. He tries to tangle his hands in his dad’s shirt, but his hands slip on the boomerang, his palms slicing open under the sharp edge, covering his dad with more red.

Red red red red

Batman pulls him away, stops him from being by his dad’s side, shushes him with a comforting voice. Is that what Batman thinks Tim wants? Comfort? Tim wants his dad.

“Go away,” he screeches, pushing hard against the arms that hold him back from his dad. The black metal of the batsuit becomes slick with red. Tim can’t tell if it’s his blood or his dad’s. “I want my dad.” The arms hold him tighter, in the semblance of a hug, and Tim breaks. The wrong arms are wrapped around him. “I want my dad,” he sobs.

The arms rock him silently as he cries.

He meets Commissioner Gordon for the first time that night, the kind police officer wrapping his hands in bandages while they wait for the paramedics to arrive on scene. His coat smells of cigarettes when he wraps Tim in it, freeing him from the arms of the Dark Knight. He’s left curled up in a ball on the front steps of his house, Gordon sitting next to him quietly talking as police officers go through the crime scene. It had never been a home, in the end. Tim never got the chance to be home.

He watches the flashing lights of the police cars and ambulance despondently. He doesn’t even react when the EMTs bring two bodies out of his house on stretchers. He already knows they can do nothing.

Batman was too late.

And now Tim has nothing. Has no one.

Tim should have died with his dad. It would have been so much easier.

–

Two weeks later, Tim is back in his blank room at Phil’s apartment, now with cops surveilling the building. The police investigation is still ongoing, but it’s no secret that it had been an assassination attempt. It’s no secret that someone had wanted Jack, and maybe even Tim, dead. It makes his blood boil whenever he thinks about the unfairness of all of it.

His dad’s will had been read a few days ago, on the same day as his funeral. He’d kept Tim as his heir, passing down Drake Industries’ shares to him. At sixteen, Tim is too young to be a majority shareholder, or even be a shareholder at all, so Phil is assigned to manage them, to be his guardian.

He knows Phil expects him to be passive, to take a moment to grieve before showing any interest in the company. He’d never had much of an interest in DI before, after all.

But his dad had given Tim the shares, had given Tim the company. He’d given Tim his legacy, trusted him with it. He can’t– he can’t disappoint him.

Tim will keep it alive if it’s the last thing he does. He’ll make it grow, make it everything his father had ever wished for it to be. He won’t be complacent. He won’t let the Drake name be associated with failure. Tim will be the perfect Drake, ruthless and untouchable, charming and calculating. He’ll be who Jack wanted him to be.

He’d never managed to forgive his dad while he’d been alive, and Tim will forever regret that, will forever regret wasting those few extra months he’d gotten. He can at least right his wrongs now.

Even if he has to listen during class when he’d rather cry. Even when no one talks to him anymore, not even Steph. Even when he wishes he could give it all up and die like he should have long ago.

Every night, Tim sits on his windowsill, thinking, and maybe Robin had been right to have been worried about him being so close to tall ledges. The ground seems to call to him when he looks down. He can’t claim he’s people-watching anymore.

He has nothing to live for this time around, nothing except expectations and guilt.

There’s no father struggling to survive in the hospital, no gymnastics career, no friends.

He feels nothing. He feels empty.

He could fall.

No one would miss him.

He’d be a failed talent like any other.

A shadow flickers over his face, and he looks up to see a flash of green, yellow and red. Robin stares at him, not even bothering to hide herself. Why would she? Robin has no reason to be avoiding Timothy Drake.

He makes sure she can see him turn his nose at her before he closes his window with a smack, pulling the curtains with an angry gesture of his arm for good measure.

His dad wanted Tim to live. He can’t disappoint him.