Chapter Text
On a screen in a dark underground cave, a video played. A young boy, about fourteen, walked out of a fancy-looking school and down a sidewalk, out of the security camera’s range of sight. A black gloved hand shifted the viewpoint to the next camera.
At first, there was nothing alarming. Then, a white, unmarked van pulled up next to the boy, and masked men spilled out of the back.
The resulting struggle was brief but vicious; by the time the boy was hauled into the van, more than one of his captors had shed blood. The van drove away as quickly as it came, eventually slipping out of the cameras’ view.
The screen went black.
Bruce leaned back heavily, frowning at the Batcomputer as he took a sip of extra-black coffee. It had been almost a week since Tim was taken. He still had no solid leads.
It hadn’t helped that it took Bruce more than twenty four hours to realise he was missing at all—and by the time he did, the trail had gone cold. Normally, the boy’s parents would have alerted authorities and he would have picked up on it earlier. Unfortunately, it turned out that Tim had not been… entirely honest about his home life.
In fact, he had outright lied about it directly to Bruce’s face.
He wasn’t sure whether to be upset or impressed. Probably both.
Either way, the fact remained that Jack and Janet Drake were on a trip to Jamaica, and had been for the past three months. They wouldn’t return for another two. Tim had hacked his school attendance records (since when?), so the school never reported him absent, either.
In short, no one but Bruce knew he was missing, and the guilt was eating him alive.
Bruce had not exactly been pleased when Tim appeared, blackmailing his way into becoming Robin and dragging Bruce kicking and screaming into healthier habits. It was too soon after… after Jason. Ironically, it was only now that Tim was no longer around that Bruce realised how much he had been doing to help.
He couldn’t fail another Robin. He just couldn’t. Which meant he needed to figure out why Tim was kidnapped.
It couldn’t be because he was Robin—Tim was taken in civvies—and as far as Bruce knew, his parents hadn’t received a ransom demand. The options left… were all even less pleasant. Bruce did his best to avoid thinking about them.
Wherever Tim is, he must be terrified. I just hope he’s not in as much danger as I fear…
___
Tim grinned maniacally as he looked down at the assembled objects in front of him him: glitter, several cans of paint, butane (extracted from a can of aerosol cooking spray; it had been a pain to get it out while in the suite’s walk-in freezer, but he hadn’t wanted to cause an explosion too early) and a mechanised, remote-controlled lighter he had stolen from the guard who dropped off a new pile of groceries yesterday.
Luthor had informed him and Conner that they would be brought to his office today, and Tim planned to take full advantage of that.
Tim was in the suite’s kitchen, which Luthor thankfully kept well-stocked with all sorts of convenient, easily-exploitable products for him to use. He had managed to hack the cameras a day or so ago; they were currently playing a loop of him and Conner diligently practicing with the Conversation Cards. The window of time that loop left Tim was short—about half an hour—and he had already wasted ten minutes tracking down all of the ingredients.
Now it was time to really get started.
Tim moved fast, assembling everything in its proper position with five minutes to spare. Just as he added the finishing touches—a bit of camouflage so that Luthor wouldn’t notice it when Tim rolled the object into a corner—Conner poked his head into the kitchen.
“What are you doing?” he asked.
“Glitter bombs.”
“Rainbow glitter bombs?” Conner asked excitedly. “Made with paint? For Luthor’s office?”
Tim nodded.
Conner was so delighted he began floating a few inches off of the ground. His powers had begun diversifying a few days ago, which meant he still couldn’t control most of them. The result of that lack of control was usually funny, except when he ‘accidentally’ used his tactile telekinesis to knock Tim’s energy drink coffee out of his hands. That was just sad.
Still, Conner had said several times that he still felt sort of stifled, like he was somehow limited. Through several hacking sessions, Tim had learned that the walls weren’t just lead-lined (which seemed very unhealthy); they were studded with kryptonite. Luthor really couldn’t resist being extra. At least it didn’t seem to affect Conner as badly as it would a full Kryptonian—but he was still pretty annoyed about it, and larger pieces, like the one still hidden in the experiment room’s ceiling, were definitely enough to take him out of commission.
Perhaps the resentment of being unable to truly test his limits made Conner even more excited at the prospect of causing copious amounts of chaos for Luthor, because there was a certain amount of unholy glee in his eyes as he looked at Tim’s glitter bomb. Tim tended to reserve that kind of vicarious satisfaction at the prospect of ruining someone’s day for the downfall of mortal enemies and door-to-door salespeople. Then again, Luthor was pretty close to a nemesis at this point, so maybe that made sense.
“Oh, that glitter will leave stains on everything. Can I help?” Conner asked.
“Sorry, I’m mostly finished,” Tim said apologetically. “I could use your help cleaning up, though. We need to make it look as if we’ve been practicing with the Conversation Cards for the past thirty minutes.”
Conner sighed, but reluctantly accepted being stuck on cleanup duty as the price of ‘pranking’ (committing vandalism against) Lex Luthor. With his help, Tim was able to hide all the evidence of his activities, stash the glitter bombs in his backpack and get into the approximate positions the cameras thought they were in before the loop Tim had programmed ended.
By the end of it, Tim was breathing slightly heavily, though it was hard to tell if that was from exertion or just anxiety that someone would notice something was off. Conner, of course, was entirely unbothered.
“Why did you come to the kitchen, anyways?” Tim asked after a beat of silence.
Conner widened his eyes innocently. “Maybe I just wanted to see you, ever think of that?”
“You see me literally every day.”
Conner pouted. Tim regretted teaching him to do that. “Fine, fine. I just… wanted to do some experimenting in the kitche—”
“Absolutely not,” Tim said firmly. “I can still taste the last culinary monstrosity you made in my nightmares.” He shuddered. “Stick to a recipe or don’t cook at all.”
Unfortunately, cooking was not a skill Conner was proficient at. Oh, he had several recipes in his brain, but his propensity for creative interpretation meant that Tim no longer ate anything Conner made unless he swore up and down that he followed one of those recipes to the letter.
One experience of ‘Sweet Clam Chowder Pudding with Blue Cheese’ was enough, thanks. Tim would no longer be deceived by ordinary-looking food.
In fact…
“Actually,” Tim said, “I changed my mind.” Conner perked up. “Make whatever you want—as long as you give it to Luthor.”
“What!?” Conner gasped, in fake offense. “Why would I ever share my culinary masterpieces with him?”
“You know why.”
Conner nodded, with fake seriousness. “I do. My techniques are so advanced that ordinary plebeians such as he cannot possibly comprehend their complexity, and thus experience gustatory shutdown.”
“...Sometimes I forget you literally have a whole dictionary in your brain.” Tim shook his head—even he barely remembered what gustatory meant. At least Conner had started initiating conversations more; Tim was really bad at doing that. Admittedly, they still mostly talked about ways to make Luthor’s life miserable—but hey, it was progress!
“Sometimes I forget about it, too,” Conner said thoughtfully. “Then random TikTok memes pop into my mind and I remember why I wanted to forget in the first place.”
Tim laughed. “That’s, like, the weirdest kind of intrusive thought imaginable.”
“Oh, believe me, it can get weirder.”
“...You know what?” Tim decided. “I don’t want to know.”
They sat in companionable silence after that; Tim briefly slipped out of the kitchen to grab his game console so that he could keep working on hacking Lex Corp’s security—he was so close; if he just pushed a bit more, maybe he could get the prison anklet off by tomorrow—while Conner created his atrocity in the kitchen.
The… thing he was baking was in the oven and only had two more minutes left to bake when Luthor’s guards barged in (rude), grabbing Tim before either of the two teenagers—who had previously been minding their own business like perfectly normal people who definitely weren’t plotting to deface Luthor’s property or ruin his taste buds—could react.
It was a smart move, honestly. Conner was only really held in the apartment by the tiny, almost intangible grains of kryptonite embedded in the lead-lined walls, and even that wasn’t enough to fully suppress his powers (which Tim was beginning to suspect were even cooler than Superman’s). Trying to force him to go anywhere was like trying to move a mountain, except the mountain could pound you into a pulp and would probably try to rip your throat out with its teeth.
So, naturally, the guards went for Tim, who was just as bitey, but rather less… physically intimidating.
He still made it plenty hard for them, but… well, when one of the guards pointed a gun at his head, even Tim knew to play along.
So, he was dragged out of the suite (the indignity!) with Conner following anxiously behind him.
At least Tim managed to grab his bag before they restrained his arms. He was definitely feeling in the mood for some light destruction right now.