Chapter Text
Tim wakes abruptly, calloused hands shaking him in the night. An intruder? Instinct kicks in, he’s half-way to flipping his assailant before he catches a glimpse of their face.
No. Faces.
“Mom? Dad?”
Jack and Janet state back at him, expressions drawn. When did they get back? Tim can’t remember the last time his parents stood in his bedroom, and they’ve never looked this… scared?
He lets go of his dad’s arm and brushes sleep from his eyes, taking stock. He’s in his bedroom, only two hours back from patrol, according to the clock. His parents are back from Cambodia three days later than they said they would be, which is about two months earlier than Tim expected, so he’s lucky that Batman sent him home early after that run-in with Two Face after all. Tim was unharmed, but only by the flip of a coin, and he knew Bruce would be brooding about it for at least another week.
He looks between his parents, categorising their expressions. Jack, flushed and sweaty, pupils shrunk to pinpricks. Janet, ghostly and still, one earring missing, is that a black eye?
“What’s going on?”
“We have to leave, now” Jack says. His voice wobbles.
“Like, for a dig?”
Jack shakes his head. “All of us, sport. We have to get out.”
“What?”
Tim flounders for an explanation. Is there an intruder? A rogue? Is Robin compromised?
“Please, Timothy,” his mother whispers. “There isn’t time. The car is outside. Pack a bag, and climb out your window if you can- do not take the stairs- meet us in the back yard in five.”
“What?”
“Five minutes, or we’ll have to leave you behind. Please, sport, just do it.”
You always leave me behind, Tim wants to point out, but he can’t argue with that tone, can’t fight back when his parents are this terrified.
He nods. Jack and Janet leave, footsteps echoing on the stairs. Tim throws off his quilt and gets dressed. If his Robin suit wasn't in the cave, he’d be putting that on instead. Should he call Bruce? Tim does seriously consider it. But what if it’s a false alarm, or something he can deal with alone? He’s worried Bruce enough tonight. Plus, his parents came for Tim. Specifically.
Four minutes later, he’s standing at the back gate, Janet’s hand holding his in a way she hasn’t done since… ever. His breath plumes in front of him, white as the November frost gathering on the toe of his boots. He didn’t have time to find his gloves, so the fingers of his other hand are numb where he clings to the strap of his rucksack, burning questions churning in his brain. A car pulls up. Black SUV, fake plates. Gotham is teeming with cars just like this, conspicuously anonymous. Jack sits in the front, next to a driver with a dark hood. Janet and Tim squeeze in the back with the bags. The engine revs and they are racing away. Tim barely has a chance to look back at his house before suddenly- suddenly- the questions aren't the only things burning.
BOOM!
Like an Ethiopian warehouse, Drake Manor erupts into flames.
“Holy-“
“Not now, Timothy.”
“Mom, Dad, what the actual-“
“Later,” Jack hisses, in a tone like he usually reserves for when Tim has screwed up in public. Except it’s not that tone, it’s different, almost pleading. Jack is shaking like a leaf. Tim swallows. Every part of his training tells him to get out of this car, now. Break the window, the door, press his panic button, call Bruce, call Dick, hell, even Jason. His house just exploded.
And his parents knew it would…
To Tim’s horror, a figure shifts in the flames. That’s a person. There’s someone in there, in that burning wreck where his house used to be. Tim can’t move. All those months of training, and he can’t move an inch. His dad yells an instruction to the driver and tyres screech on a dirt road. For a moment Tim worries they’ll follow, but the figure keels over. Dead? The car rounds a corner, taking the back ways. There aren’t any cameras around here. All but the plume of smoke is obscured by a wall of trees. In the fleeting yellow of reflected headlights, Tim gapes at his mother’s white face.
Janet Drake is crying.
“Mom?”
“They were going to hurt you.”
Before Tim can ask who they are, or why they apparently want him, Janet lunges for him across the car. Tim doesn’t know what he expects. An attack? But her arms wrap around him, squeezing until it hurts and Janet’s whole body wracks with sobs. This is… this is a hug. Only one person has ever hugged Tim, and that person is Dick Grayson. Janet Drake does not hug. Janet Drake does not cry. On autopilot, Tim grips her back, supporting her, but not clinging too tight. This is the way he hugs victims after disasters. The Robin part of him shifts into place, a mask allowing detachment, instead of shock.
“Mom, I need you to tell me what’s going on. Can you do that for me?”
Face buried in his hair, Janet shakes her head. One pearl earring presses cold against his skin, the other is missing. The stone on her ring grinds into the back of his neck and why is Tim focusing on that when his mother is hugging him?
“Dad?”
Jack sucks in a breath. “Not yet,” he says, with a nod to the driver. This is Gotham, so whoever his parents have hired to drive them away- assuming they did the hiring- is unlikely to snitch. It must be bad. It must be really bad. “I can’t… I’ll explain everything once we’re at the safe-house, okay, kiddo?”
Bruce is the only one who calls him kiddo.
“Okay,” says Tim.
They stop in an alley, not far from where the harbour meets Crime Alley. The driver speeds off as soon as Janet pulls the last of the bags out the back seat. Baa baa black sheep, because that’s bags, plural, three of them: Tim’s rucksack, and the two worn duffels Jack and Janet take on trips. Jack pulls a paper map from his pocket, holds it upside-down. The sweat on his fingers leaves dark patches over the city.
Jack tuts. “Jan, is it…?”
“I want to say north-west?” Janet takes a decisive step south. Tim takes the map, noting a red circle that must be their goal.
“I can get us there,” he declares, full of confidence he doesn’t feel. They start to walk.
The ‘safe-house’ is a desolate apartment in an abandoned building, directly beneath a meth lab that Tim busted last week. It’s the sort of place he could have never imagined his parents setting foot in. Tim avoids a broken bottle as he pushes open the main door, revealing a grimy hallway with peeling walls and carpets so matted they appear almost like tile. The lift is bust, so they climb a stairwell. Six floors lit by crackling bulbs. Spent needles and the smell of urine lead him upwards until his dad stops at their floor. They follow the hall to its end, to a door with claw marks under the letterbox. The neighbours have a dog, Tim solves subconsciously, glancing at their porch. A Rottweiler, three legged, chronically underfed. Jack reaches through that letterbox and pulls back a spare key tied to a string. Which idiot designed this? Tim has seen public toilets with better security. Where are the cameras- the retina scanners- the fingerprint locks? Safe-house? Yeah right. This is a… a danger-house! It’s laughable. And Tim actually does want to laugh, when Jack pushes open the door and Tim sees the inside. There are windows. Without locks. Where was the architect from, Metropolis? At least the furniture is rooted firmly in proper Gotham shithole territory. A sagging blue sofa with a large copper stain and a cracked TV on a lopsided coffee table. Forging ahead, Tim finds a bathroom with no working light and a dead rat in the sink, a cupboard with four bullet holes, and a kitchen which is… Okay, the kitchen is quite nice, actually, but Tim’s still mad about it. There’s an air fryer at the breakfast bar. This is little comfort when Tim realises he has now checked all of the rooms, and there are no beds. No fire escapes. Nowhere to hide.
He shifts the couch slightly so it’s out of the window’s view, then guides his mother to the sit down. Jack flops down next to her, panting like he’s just run a marathon. Janet does have a black eye and there’s dried blood under Jack’s nose, which is swollen as if he’s been struck. Jack is also limping. Tim clamps his panic down. Robin has control. Robin has control.
Tim pulls the curtains closed and locks the door, then pushes the heaviest of their bags against it. The pantry is empty and he didn’t pack any coffee in his rush to leave, so three steaming mugs of hot water will have to do as comfort. Tim gives one last cursory glance around to check for bugs- mechanical and organic- and then crouches down in front of his parents, handing them their mugs.
“Okay.” He takes a steadying breath, sips his own mug, grounds himself. “Okay. I need you to tell me what’s going on. Do you think you can do that?”
Janet blinks slowly. Concussion?
“I can see your faces are injured. Do either of you have headaches? Blurred vision?” He checks their eyes with his torch just to be sure. Nothing. Just, shock, he guesses. “Are you hurt anywhere else?”
Jack points to his leg. Dislocated, Tim thinks as he lifts the fabric of Jack’s khaki pants. “This is going to hurt,” Tim warns him, then twists it back into place. Jack groans and retches, but he doesn’t scream which is about all Tim can ask for. He runs a cloth under the cold tap and hands it to his father. Jack looks at it gormlessly, so Tim takes it off him and wraps it around. “Hold it there.” He instructs. “It’ll slow the swelling.”
Jack does as he's told. It doesn’t matter that Timothy Drake shouldn’t know how to reset a dislocated knee, that’s his Dad.
“Who did this to you?”
Janet shakes her head. Tim breathes, softens himself, finds the tone that victims respond easiest to. “You said someone wanted to hurt us. Do you know who?”
The smallest of nods.
“Can you tell me who?”
Nothing.
“Was it someone you met in Cambodia? On your dig?”
“We were on a dig,” Janet says, her voice hollow. Her hands knit and twist in her lap, the same way Tim fidgets when he’s nervous.
“You were on a dig,” Tim repeats. “A short one, yeah? Only six days. You were supposed to be back three days ago, but you didn’t show. Your secretary couldn’t get a hold of you, but she thought you might want a few extra weeks. Did something happen there, or is the threat here, in Gotham?”
“We found… we found…” Jack swallows.
“We found a school. At least, we think it was a school, you know how these things are,” Janet says, and that’s his mom’s voice. “Thank you for the tea, Timothy, you always make it just the right way.”
Tim has never made her tea before. Janet sets her mug of water down, undrunk, and speaks to the air above his shoulder.
“It was thousands of years old, quite possibly one of the oldest on Earth. The artefacts in there prove that humanity advanced much faster than we originally thought. Can you imagine how valuable the collection is? When I publish my paper I’ll be… I’ll be…” She trails off again, her eyes going dark.
“You’ll be what, Mom?”
“They came for us, at the dig site,” Jack says. “Bags over our heads. Put us in the car. I tried to fight back so they…”
Janet touches her face, tracing the black eye.
Tim’s breath stutters.
“Who’s they, Mom? Dad, who’s they?”
His dad shrugs. “Mafia or something. I dunno. Wanted money, credit, that was all, so we called in a favour back home. DI’s stocks are a little down right now so things are tight, but they'll pick up, sport. They’ll pick up. So we called… I called Charlie- you know our old school pal Charlie, Timbo?”
Charles Deyes. Same class as his parents at Gotham Academy, runs Deyes-East Shipping & Financials with ex-wife Linda East. Collects eccentric sculptures. Always tries to outbid Bruce at charity auctions.
Lieutenant to Black Mask. Known human trafficker. Serial creep. Directly responsible for over fifty deaths, seventeen of whom were minors. Top forty on Hood’s hit list.
Yeah, Tim knows Charlie.
“He got us out, but he wanted money, Timbo. He wanted money, and if we couldn’t pay he wanted us to sell…”
“Sell what?”
Janet looks away, tears rolling again. Jack audibly gulps.
Oh.
Oh shit.
Tim recoils. “You said no, right? Right? Tell me you said no.”
His dad reaches out slowly and cups Tim’s cheek. “He’s a smart boy, our Timothy. You’re a damn smart boy.”
“Dad, did you say no?”
Janet nods. “Of course we said no. How could you…?”
How could Tim question that? Should Tim question that? His parents love him, but they don’t care about him. They want him, but they always leave him behind. Why didn’t they leave him behind?
“But we can’t pay. And we can’t go to the police-“
“Why not?”
Neither parent will look him in the eye.
Oh.
“How involved are you?”
Jack and Janet squirm. Tim wants to throw up.
Tim should call Bruce. Tim should call the police. He’s a fifteen year old with criminal parents. This is bad. This is bad.
Bruce is going to kill Tim when he finds out.
If. If he finds out.
Because Jack and Janet came back for him tonight. This he clings to, swallowing down bile. They came back. For him.
“And the explosion?” he asks instead.
“We’re faking our deaths.”
“…Of course we are.”
“I’m glad you’re onboard, son. Your mother and I will handle all the nippy bits. You don’t have to worry about a thing.”
Somehow, Tim doubts this.
“I saw someone at the house. Were they…”
“Hitman,” Janet says. “History of arson, your father’s idea. Hired him so the police think it was murder.”
As if the police won’t know it’s a hitman, then wonder who hired the hitman, then trace it back to Jack and solve the whole thing. This is the dumbest plan he’s ever heard. Why couldn’t they have died silently and faded into oblivion? If it hadn’t been for the explosion, no one would have even noticed. Tim takes a deep breath, remembering Steph pointing out how judgy he is when stressed. His parents are trying their best. They’re civilians. (Suspects?) Civilians. At least they remembered to come back for him.
“That’s… that’s great, guys. Brilliant. Where are we going? Switzerland?”
“Belgium. Switzerland is cliche.”
“Have you ever been to Brussels, sport? It’s not just sprouts out there, I promise.” Jack’s laughter echoes in the silence of Tim’s incredulity. Jack mistakes his expression for something else. He tries to ruffle Tim’s hair, but Tim ducks away. “We’ll be alright, sport. Your mother and I are handling it. You don’t need to worry.”
They are absolutely not handling it. Tim is absolutely worried.
Janet takes over. “We know someone with a boat- I can’t expand on that any further. This safe-house belongs to an enemy of hers, but he knows she knows about it, he won't bother s here. She says she’ll meet us in Gotham Harbour on Wednesday, midnight. That’s- what?- six days, and a bit. The boat goes to Cuba whether we’re on it or not, and then I’ve written to Lavender- Lavender Amèloir, not Lavender Layton-“ Tim knows neither of these people. “-to get us to Europe. Lovely woman, we met on a dig, and she can take us to Luxembourg on her private jet- that’s where she’s from- have a DI branch in France, we’ll stop on the way. Jean-Alaine is discreet, he’ll sort us out for money if we make it that far. You’ll have to change your name, sweetheart. I was thinking Robin for you. It’s bright, isn’t it? I’ll be Sarah, your father fancies Ben. Nice names, and strategic. I mean, Robin from Gotham? No one can connect that to you on the internet, it’s very hard to look up. That’s important- we need to make sure we’re not found. I…”
Janet goes on to list several other possible fake name options, but Tim can’t make it stick. This plan is… it’s bad. It’s so bad. Tim can find so many holes in it and he’s barely trying. The whole thing screams fake. How are they going to explain the lack of bodies at the house? Did they at least tell the driver to push the car in the harbour? If Tim had been consulted, he’d have done a much better job. His dad probably hired the hit man with his own credit card. Amateurs.
Everyone is going to think Tim is dead. He can’t- they can’t-
The root of their problem is money. His parents need money, to pay off their debts. If Tim only asked, Bruce would pay. Could he ask?
But will Bruce honestly believe Tim didn’t know whatever his parents were involved in? And how will he explain it to them? To Charles Deyes? What happens the next time Deyes asks for money? Or if word gets back to Black Mask? Tim can’t be on Black Mask’s payroll. Bruce cannot end up on Black Mask’s payroll. There is no way Tim can ask for his help on this.
But option two? Faking his own death? Running away with his parents to a foreign country, leaving his friends, leaving Robin? Can he do it? Can he? Does he have a choice?
Five hours ago he had been dangling above a comically large vat of acid, waiting for a coin toss to decide wether Bruce would arrive to Robin, humiliated but unharmed, or to scraps of cloth and bone fizzling out to nothing. Somehow, that feels preferable to the situation he’s in now.
Okay, okay, so what if… what if…
Option three. There has to be an option three. He could… If Tim is clever enough…if he lies… Yeah. Yeah. He can do it. He’s Robin, for crying out loud! He survived Jason at the tower; he can survive anything. This is a minor blip. He has it all under control. Tim hatches a plan.
Eventually, his parents snuggle into each other, eyes drifting shut. Lame. They’re never normally like this. Not that Tim would really know, but he’s never seen them be this affectionate with one another. Or him. It’s kinda nice, in its own, weird way.
There isn’t space for Tim on the couch and he has more important things to do than sleep. Quietly as he can, he reaches for his rucksack. He couldn’t bring much. Water bottle, first aid kit, torch and spare batteries, his camera, his backup-backup grapple, some protein bars, a sleeping bag, two changes of clothes- all black- and some spare cash are the extent of his supplies. He kept his watch, though he probably should get rid of it now. No phone- easily tracked- and no laptop- it was out of charge, and he wasn’t sure he’d have electricity when he left. He had to leave his photos too, but Bruce knows about the safe in Tim’s wardrobe, and will, presumably, destroy them before the authorities can get there.
Like it’s a training exercise, Tim starts to make a list of things he needs to do. Priority one has to be retrieving all the intel on Charles Deyes from the Batcave. He’d dearly like to get the Robin suit as well, but Bruce would know if he took it. Second, he needs to return to his house. If Tim’s death is going to be believable, there needs to be a body, which means Tim needs to find the cops investigating this and bribe the hell out of them. He also needs a dead body, or a convenient excuse why there isn’t one left.
He thinks of the figure he saw in the flames.
Whoever the hitman was, Tim doubts they survived. Normally, Tim would feel a wave of guilt at doing nothing to save them, but in a morbid sort of way he thinks he may have gotten lucky. Mentally, he’s calculating police and fire crew response times against how long it takes for a body to burn beyond recognition. If Tim is right, that body should still be obviously not Tim, so he’ll need another excuse. If he’s lucky (haha, imagine) the cops might be satisfied that Tim was reduced to ash, but even then Bruce will be harder to trick. Bruce is bound to be paranoid, because of Jason, and he’s bound to be upset, also because of Jason. Yikes, Tim’s fake explosion death is not going to be good for anyone’s PTSD. At least Tim’s only the placeholder Robin, so he won’t be too traumatised in the long term. Jason will definitely be mad about it, Tim thinks, cringing, another thing he’s ‘stolen’, but it’s not Tim’s fault his parents decided to blow up his house! Who knows, in the long run, it might be a good thing. Jason can finally come home without Tim as a reminder of everything he lost and Dick and Bruce will be free of their obligation to check up on Tim all the time. It’s not a bad deal, so long as Tim and his parents are definitely presumed dead and everyone has closure. Tim will miss the bats awfully and thinking about that is like stabbing himself repeatedly with an electrified pitchfork but…
But yeah. This is fine. This is absolutely fine.
Steps three through fourteen of his plan are mainly dodging other Bat-contingencies. Steps fifteen through seventeen are ironing out his parents’ terrible Belgium plan. They don’t even have fake birth certificates yet. Amateurs. It’ll mean a venture to Gotham library (risky) but Tim is going to forge records so good that even Oracle will believe them if she ever gets suspicious, which she won’t, because Tim is going to forge them so well.
After that…
Tim isn’t sure what life in Belgium will look like. Not that they’re going to go to Belgium, that would be stupid, just… living with his parents? What if they don’t go on digs anymore? What if they’re interested in his life? He used to wish for that, but now Tim can’t imagine anything more oppressive. He loves them, really he does, and he doesn’t want them gone, but he cannot imagine a world where he has to live as a normal teenager. He’ll have to actually go to school, instead of hacking attendance records, and that school will be in Belgium. All he knows about Belgium is they have waffles. Steph will be jealous. (Not that she’ll ever know). They definitely still have crime there, right? Poirot is supposed to be Belgian, and he solves murders quite a lot so maybe Tim will get to use his ‘little grey cells’ all the time. Hopefully, Tim can still be a vigilante. Tim Drake, defender of Belgium. He’ll need a new name. Does Belgium have a national bird? What language do they speak?
Step eighteen: google Belgium.
He checks again that his parents are asleep, then slips on the domino on and pulls up his hood. It’s risky, this. Training tells him to wait twenty-four hours before sneaking out. If they wake up… if he’s seen… but what choice does he have? He needs to know what’s going on. Brain kicking into gear, he has enough presence of mind to leave a note saying he’s off to get supplies. His parents might just believe it, the shock-addled state they’re in. Then, Tim kicks the window open, and grapples into the night.
The first thing he does, before even making it to Bristol, is track down that cab driver again. Four hundred bucks later, and the car they’d sped away in is rolling into Gotham harbour. The driver pinky-promises not to snitch, and in return Tim gives him advice on how to avoid Batman and fake a new identity. The plates on the car were fake anyway, so it won’t be traced back to him.
Now even if the lack of bodies at the scene raises alarm, there’s enough evidence to suggest a botched kidnapping ending in tragedy as Tim’s plan B. To really sell it, Tim had purposely cut his hand to leave a bloodied handprint on the car’s window and trapped his watch in the back seat. In the off chance the car is found, it may be suggested that Tim fought free of the kidnappers as the car filled up with water, but there will be no evidence that Tim Drake or his parents ever resurfaced. If Bruce finds the car, finds Tim’s watch in it, he will absolutely assume that the third Robin is dead and put the case to rest.
Hopefully.
It occurs to him, somewhere as he dodges security cameras and main streets, that he’s treating this as a mission. It might be shock, maybe. Is Tim in shock? Lame. Accurate, but lame. Shock might be a good word for what he feels right now, but accepting that would mean he’s a victim here, not a participant in the deception, and he plans to participate alright.
Somehow, magically, he makes it to Bristol undetected. Siren lights flash outside his house. The fire trucks are gathered, a ballet of flames still gracefully burning. Tim needs to get in there eventually, but not for a while. He trusts B to dispose of anything incriminating. He has a plan.
Dick’s car is parked at an angle in Wayne Manor’s drive with a new scratch on the bonnet, a skid-mark and a spray of gravel left by the front left tyre. This is an unexpected development. Shouldn’t have been unexpected, Tim mentally slaps himself; Dick’s priority will be making sure Bruce doesn’t do anything dumb.
Or, maybe, he’s here for…
Tim hesitates, second-guessing himself, but he knows he is right. The neighbours’ house just exploded, and nosy neighbour Brucie Wayne, who can’t be conveniently-out-of-town because he was at a press conference yesterday morning, will need to appear, possibly accompanied by conveniently-in-town Nightwing. This gives Tim a clear run at the cave.
See, it’s a good plan.
He climbs the trellis outside the guest room he is sometimes allowed to use at Wayne Manor, careful to avoid the forty-six sensors, six tasers and a bear trap. Once he’s busted his way into the family wing, it’s a simple case of sneaking into the Batcave without being caught. Alfred is in the kitchen, stress-baking, probably. A waft of heavenly vanilla drifts his way. For a moment Tim imagines knocking on that door and coming clean. How badly he wants to break down in tears at that kitchen table. His eyes prick. That won’t do anyone any good. He continues on. Bruce’s study is in disarray. A scatter of papers next to a phone left off the hook. He must have been at his desk when he heard the explosion. Crap, had Bruce had to make the nine-one-one call? He would have been first on the scene… Tim swallows his guilt as he makes his way down to the cave. So he re-traumatised his boss- big deal. The long term effects will be minimal. If it keeps annoying him, he’ll put it in a spreadsheet to shut his brain up.
The cave, at the very least, looks exactly like it should. Tim’s uniform is still half-hanging out the laundry basket in a tangled ball, acid burns and all, just how he left it when he stormed out earlier. He slightly regrets throwing that tantrum now. Bruce has been so overprotective ever since the incident with Jason, and Tim’s close call with Two Face earlier had gotten him benched until the end of the week. It was unfair, but now Bruce is going to think Tim died mad at him, which really sucks.
Tim calms himself by hacking the Batcomputer. Hacking, because he’s not dumb enough to use his own login, even in shock. It’s really not that hard. Barbara showed him how when they were photoshopping all Bruce’s photos of Dick with, erm, photos of dick… It had been funny at the time, okay? Anyway, Tim hacks in and scrubs the CCTV from everywhere he has been in the last two hours, anywhere he might have been seen. Then he starts on the much more difficult job; getting rid of anything that might make his criminal parents look like criminals.
See, Jack and Janet’s fake scenario has them conveniently returning from a trip three days late at exactly the same time their house just happens to mysteriously explode. It will be much more believable if they die in Cambodia at the hands of an out-of-pocket benefactor, and then a disgruntled hitman finishes the job on their son. Tim can fake that, easy.
A few minutes of work and he has learned from a warehouse security camera that the Drakes have only been in Gotham for seven hours, which is sixty-five fewer hours than they should have been home. His parents never made it through airport security on either side of their journey. Tim adds this to his story. Is it too simple if he leaves it at them having simply missed their flight?
Better to complicate it, he decides. The more leads, the easier it is to bury the truth. Bruce always dedicates a week to cases like these before they’re archived, declared cold. It rarely comes to that, but this is Gotham; murders aren’t rare; he’ll need to prioritise when something else comes up, and something else always comes up. A week of investigation, and Tim will be gone and forgotten. Easy.
He can’t just delete his parents’ plane tickets- too obvious- but he can alter some randos’ photos that went through passport control to some stock pictures, scrub any camera footage, and make it look like some shady Cambodian mafia really wants it to look like Jack and Janet Drake returned to Gotham days ago, when in actual fact they’ve been dead for longer, a period starting from when they disappeared from their dig on Monday. It is now Wednesday, so all Tim has to do is flag up two unidentifiable Cambodian murder cases to suggest that the Drakes’ bodies have been discovered and missed and let confirmation bias do the rest. He has to brush up on his Khmer to anonymously email the detective in Phnom Penh, but it’s not as hard as he thought it would be. Jack and Janet Drake should, if all things go to plan, be pronounced dead by Friday afternoon.
Tim goes over the story in his head. Jack and Janet go on a dig using funds they don’t have, and Cambodian mafia have them and their son killed in revenge. No trafficking, no obvious drug deals. A few misdirects will help Bruce feel more confident when he comes across Tim’s version of events. Otherwise he’s bound to catch it if Tim makes things too easy. No, better to complicate the investigation a bit more. This way, by the time Bruce has solved as much as Tim wants him to solve, he’ll have spent ages on the case and be ready to move on. That’s like, psychology. Bruce won’t want to waste any more time than he needs to once he’s sure Tim is gone for good.
Is Tim going to be gone for good?
Whatever, he’ll work something out.
Would implicating the League of Assassins be going too far? Probably, but then the aim is to distract from whatever went down with Charles Deyes. Should he…. Eh, why not.
He creates a false encrypted social media profile for a league-adjacent crime boss just in case, just so there’s another thread to pull. To complicate the investigation further, he links it to a fake illegitimate uncle, Edward, with a grudge against Jack, and backdates some fabricated emails between them which culminate in a disagreement about who’s in who’s will.
He could have used the records for his actual uncle, his mom’s brother, Joshua, but Joshua Alcott died in an accident years ago and he’s worried Bruce might remember that. It had caused quite a stir at the time.
Edward Drake is twenty-four, and just finished a year abroad in Thailand, but he has contacts in Poipet, Cambodia, (Marion and Ai Lee Shah, fake), who move in similar circles to Chekhov Volosky (fake) who knows a guy Marko (fake) who has a cousin, Isack, (fake) who bought a dog, Stephy (fake), off of someone, Priscilla (fake), whose wife’s, Brenda’s (fake), cousin Denise (fake) knows the arsonist hitman Tim’s dad hired (real). It’s like a super-simple trail. The best part is Tim already had Edward Drake’s profile ready to go, just in case his parents like died or something. He supposes this falls into the ‘or something’ category. Big W for past Tim.
The last job on his list is to destroy everything they have on Charles Deyes. He left this to last on purpose, not because he thinks it’ll be difficult, but because he’s scared of what he might find. Tim isn’t stupid. There’s a very real possibility his parents are lying to him about what they were actually involved with. It could be smuggling drugs and ancient artefacts, it could be weapons, or it could be…
He gulps, and pulls up the file.
He scrolls past the personal info. Skips over past crimes. Skims briefly ongoing enquiries. And there, at the bottom, known associates.
Charles Hessian Deyes has been known to associate with:
-Oswald Cobblepot (See: Penguin)
-Linda East
-Matilda MacIlvaine
-Joshua Alcott (Deceased)
-Roman Sionis (See: Black Mask)
Nothing new there. No mention of Jack or Janet. Tim wipes the file, but still his mind races. What are his parents keeping from him? What doesn’t he know? A sinking feeling in his gut, he changes tack. He searches: Janet Drake.
RESTRICTED: FOR EYES OF B01 ONLY
Jack Drake.
RESTRICTED: FOR EYES OF B01 ONLY
It never occurred to him that Bruce would have files he kept classified from Tim, but now it seems obvious; Tim had never accessed Bruce’s notes on Hood, and there had been plenty of those.
But Janet Drake isn’t Hood, so if Bruce is restricting her file then…
Does he know?
Tim clicks the link.
PASSWORD: _ _ _ _ _
He… doesn’t know the password, and he’s not stupid enough to guess and guess wrong. He could try another hack, but one look at the code for this tells him he may need Oracle’s guidance here. Barbara must have written it herself. Tim is good, but he isn’t that good.
So Bruce definitely knows. Bruce always knew? And he kept it from Tim. That’s… yeah, okay, Tim can see why. Still.
So much for solving the case without Batman suspecting his parents are criminals. If… if Bruce has evidence that Jack and Janet are criminals, evidence he wouldn’t share with Tim, then Tim can’t prove their innocence. There’s no innocence to prove.
Which means… It means he’s actually going to have to do this. The Drakes are actually going to have to die. Fake die.
Oh.
He sways, suddenly dizzy. He wants to throw up, but that would definitely be noticeable and yeah Tim cannot be throwing up in the Batcave if he’s also dying in a fire and drowning in the harbour. He swallows it down, his knuckles white where he grips the table.
Tim startles back to reality at the noise of an engine. He closes the computer down and searches for a hiding spot, but there’s barely time. In a last-ditch effort, he ducks behind the nearest display case as the vehicle roars into view.
Shit. The cave was supposed to be empty. This doesn’t make sense.
Nightwing practically throws his bike across the cave as he dismounts it. Then he actually does throw his mask as he tears it off, and it slaps onto the case that Tim is hiding behind, sticking to it. Tim hardly cares, because he’s too busy staring at Dick’s furious face, the absolute thunder in his eyes as he presses his phone to his ear.
“If you did this,” he hisses, his voice low and dangerous. Tim swears he can hear the Nokia brick creak under Dick’s iron grip. “If I find out you had anything to do with it, you are dead to me. Do you understand? Dead.”
A buzz at the end of the line. Like flies.
“Is this a fucking joke to you, huh? You think this is funny? I know you’re lying about something. Tell me what you know, or I swear to god I will-“
The threat is cut off as Batman stalks down the stairs. It doesn’t matter if it’s Brucie Wayne in pyjamas and a floppy nightcap, that’s Batman. Tim sinks as low as he can.
“Speaker,” Batman grunts. He stands at the computer and begins to type. The keyboard groans as he punches in codes.
Dick puts the phone on speaker, and Tim holds his breath.
“I know how this looks, but I didn’t do it, B.” Jason’s voice is careful across the line. “I swear I’m doing better, this wasn't- I wouldn’t-“
A grunt.
“If you’re lying…”
“Spare me the fuckin’ lecture, Dickie already called dibs on my second murder. I swear on my life, I didn’t do shit.”
Dick looks up at Bruce, biting his lip. Bruce, slowly, nods.
“Promise me you’re telling the truth?”
“Do you want me to fuckin’ pinkie swear Dickface? I ain’t behind this.”
“Then… will you come?” Dick asks, anger replaced by guilt. “Little Wing, I… Come home?”
“No.”
Dick flinches.
“We’re on a time limit here, not to mention I’m in the middle of bustin’ a trafficking ring right now. If the kid survived then we haven’t got time to waste. I’ll stay out here, keep looking.”
“Jason-“
“He’s right, Dick,” Bruce says. He leaves the computer to pull the cape and cowl from the spare uniforms. “The girls will be back soon. You go to the Drake estate in case Tim comes home. I’m going out.”
“Out?”
“I know I heard a car after the explosion, no matter what the police say, and we both know that body is too tall to belong to Jack Drake. This was no accident. Someone did this, and I will find them.” Bruce presses a comm into his ear. “Oracle, any news on the watch?”
Barbara’s voice rings loud and clear. “Tim still hasn’t set off his emergency beacon. You’re sure it wasn’t at the house?”
“Fire damage automatically sets off the tracker. If he had it in there, I’d know.”
Tim hadn’t known that. Bruce had never told him that. He regrets tossing it in the harbour now. Would water damage do the same?
“And the body?”
“Not Tim or Jack. Adult male, confirmed. Still working on an ID.”
“Work faster.”
“Are we sure they were after Tim Drake and not Robin?” Barbara asks instead of rising to the bait, though what she really means to ask is was Tim dumb enough to get them all compromised. “I’m struggling for motive otherwise. Burglars don’t blow up houses and terrorists don’t rig explosions in mansions which are supposed to be empty.”
“It’s unlikely that they wouldn’t broadcast Robin’s identity if they knew it, but I’m not ruling anything out,” Bruce admits. He’s right to be worried, Tim knows how useless he is most of the time. If a rogue were to guess any of their identities, it would be Tim’s. “Anything on his parents?”
“Still nothing. They definitely came back to Gotham?”
“Tim told me they were home,” Bruce repeats.
“Hang on, that’s new…” The clack of the kegs carries down the phone, along with Barbara’s frustration. She must have found Tim’s doctored flight details. “This… wasn’t here a second ago. I might have a lead here. Let me…I’ll call you back.”
“Hn.”
Barbara hangs up.
Jason grunts, gun shots and screams pitching through the phone. “I’m killing whoever did this. And if he’s dead, I’m killing you. You can’t stop me.”
“Get in line,” Dick mutters, but then Jason hangs up too. Dick puts the phone down. Oh, Tim realised dully, he’s crying. “Tim’s alive, right, B? Probably went off to sulk after that thing with Two-Face, you know what he’s like. He probably doesn’t even know yet. He’s going to be fine.”
“Do you believe that?”
“Don't you?”
Bruce doesn’t answer.
“Dad?”
Bruce remains conspicuously silent.
Dick doesn’t ask again.
He turns to go, muttering something about searching the woods again. Tim thinks that might be it, when, quiet as the first fall of rain, Bruce says, “It’s my fault.”
He is clinging to the edge of the desk like a lifeline. His gazed is fixed on the laundry basket, on the unfurled arm of Tim’s suit. The glove, fingers splayed, like a hand asking to be held.
Dick hesitates, one foot frozen on the stair.
“If he isn’t …. If he didn’t….he wouldn’t have been there.” Bruce clears his throat. “I sent him back to that house.”
And this time, it’s Dick who doesn’t answer.
Once Nightwing has left, Bruce dons the armour in morose silence. A silence palpable, that has Tim holding his breath. Carefully he stands, still hidden behind the contents of the display case. Tim keeps expecting Bruce to whip around and point at him, to shout ‘Gotcha’ and drag Tim out by the scruff of his neck, but he doesn’t. By the time he is dressed, Tim is itching to get out.
Just when Tim thinks he’s gotten away with the whole thing, Bruce stalks towards Tim’s display case, his cape but a hungry shadow. The cowl seems monstrous. Vengeance hangs from the shoulders of the Dark Knight.
Tim’s heart skips, certain the game is up.
But Bruce isn’t looking at him.
“No more,” Batman breathes out, like it’s a prayer, and a threat.
The case is glass. There’s no way Bruce can’t see Tim behind it. And yet, the case fogs with his breath, and it’s clear Bruce doesn’t see him. He sees the ghost that never was. The boy who never came home.
They are mere inches apart. The finger pads of Bruce’s gauntlets press against the glass. If Tim wanted to, he could reach around the side of the case and grip that hand in his own.
“Never again. No more.”
Bruce turns. The Batmobile roars into the night. Tim is left alone.
He steps out from behind the case, and stops, seeing in it what Bruce had seen.
A good soldier, the plaque reads.
Guilt twists everything out of reach. Bruce shouldn’t have to go through this. Not again. Not for Tim. How long will he make them mourn?
Jason isn’t a soldier. Tim isn’t a good one.
No more, Bruce had said. But he doesn’t get to decide that. Gotham has made her choice.
‘No more.’
No, more.
It hits him with the rain, as Tim makes the unseen journey back to the safe-house, that he might never see any of them again. That Bruce will never ruffle his hair again, Dick will never hug him, Steph won’t ever hold his hand, Barbara won’t ever guide his fingers around the keyboard, Cass won’t ever kiss his cheek, Alfred won’t ever straighten his tie, Jason won’t ever-
Okay, so far all Jason has done is slit his throat, but he definitely feels bad about it.
The point is, is that this is it. Faking his death means dying. Permanently. He can’t find a clever workaround. This isn’t a Robin mission. This isn't even a Tim Drake mission. Tim Drake is either burned alive in his own bed or drowned in Gotham Harbour, depending on how hard the cops look. It isn’t even a mission. This is his life now, forever. Running away and never looking back again to see the damage he’s leaving behind.
Is this what it means, to be a Drake?
He’s leaving them behind. It’s his choice, and he’s choosing it. Tim is choosing to leave the Waynes behind, and until there’s a body, a part of them will always be waiting for him to come home.
Tim thinks of the boy he was not three nights ago, sitting on the stairwell of an empty house, waiting for parents he knew wouldn’t show.
Jack and Janet came back for him, this time. They aren’t leaving him, this time. Tim wants to go with them, he wants this, he does.
The alley he’s following splits into two at the end. Both forks lead back to the safe-house, but the one on the left has a CCTV camera hanging over the dumpster. If he turned left, Barbara would have him in seconds. If he turned left, Bruce would show up out of the shadows and force him to come home and explain. If he turned left, Tim could say he didn’t want to be found, kid himself that he got sloppy, made a mistake, it’s not like he wants his parents to be caught. If he turned left, Bruce might just believe him.
If he only turned left…
Tim looks longingly at the street camera.
He turns right.