Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

[Intro]

When Tim was little, maybe 5 or 6, he got a report card. It said ‘ Timothy is a wonderful student to have ’ at the bottom, underneath a row of straight A’s. ‘ he is kind, smart, and he often keeps to himself.’

His 1st grade teacher had written it herself, in a nearly unreadable cursive, the blue pen ink feintly glittery. Tim had brought it home between two books, to make sure it didn’t get damaged in his backpack. 

‘ Timothy is a wonderful student to have, he is kind, smart, and he often keeps to himself.’

He read through the report card sometimes, letting his finger glide over the smooth paper, the little indents that the pen made on the paper. 

‘ he often keeps to himself.’  

The way it was phrased, it just made it seem like it was his choice that he was alone. His choice that the house was empty more times than not. 

Tim felt the urge to rip it up once in a while, but he stopped himself, because maybe, he believed it was his choice.

…

There are certain things that just come with the territory of being a 7 year old kid. Dodgeball is one of those things, revenge is another.

Kids are just way too good at holding grudges and way too bad at planning ahead.

On the day of Christmas Eve, Tim Drake, still in his pyjama pants and a warm sweater, decided to run away. It took him 10 minutes to leave the house, most of them spent trying to put on his shoes over his fuzzy socks, the rest of them spent shoving assorted granola bars into his Batman backpack.

He took another pair of fuzzy socks with him, just in case, and shoved his house key in his pocket. The door of the mansion he lived in shut with a satisfactory click and he began running away, charging into the city of Gotham.

Gotham was technically where Tim lived, but that was only the technicality, he lived on a safe dry plot of land in the suburbs, far away from the island with the highest crime rate in the country. 

His parents despised Gotham, they hated the people, the skyline, the permanently grey skies, the polluted air, Tim himself had never really been there on his own. He had a driver that took him to his gymnastics practice, and only a year earlier he still had a nanny to take care of him.

But he was big now, and he wasn’t anything like his parents, who decided to leave on Christmas- the day before Christmas- whatever. 

Tim knew, since he was little that his parents’ jobs were important, they worked all day and if they weren’t working all day, they were working all night and they had big trips all the time . But not on the day before Christmas, they never left just before Christmas.

Well- the joke’s on them, because Tim was also leaving the day before Christmas and nobody was gonna stop him. Not Mrs. Mac, or the gardener, or the pool cleaner man, or anybody.

He walked along the side of the road for what felt like hours. He passed a big forest, crossed the Gotham river, yelled at imaginary parents for a second and walked. But by the time he was standing on City lines, lowrise apartment buildings in front of him, it felt like he’d only just left the house.

Gotham wasn’t anything like he’d imagined, first of all, there weren’t copies of Swiper from Dora all around the street, trying to steal his backpack full of granola bars, second of all, there was a line of tall oak trees lining the street, a few feet apart every time. It looked nice , not criminal or dirty or anything he’d seen on the television.

His stomach gave a loud rumble and he stopped, right on the pavement, and reached behind him for his backpack. He pulled out a handful of granola bars and zipped the backpack up. With a good shove, he could put four granola bars into his jacket pocket. He held the fifth one in his hand, unwrapping it and biting down on it.

It almost felt like his teeth were falling off, his chocolate honey granola bar was almost frozen . 

Sure the walk had been long, but it really hadn’t been cold, at least, Tim hadn’t felt very cold. As he continued to walk, he shoved the granola bar back into its wrapper and rolled it around in his hands, trying to warm it up. If you did that with two sticks, you got a fire, so who says it won’t work on Tim’s organic, ultra healthy, 100% kid friendly, 5 dollar a piece granola bars.

When he finally stopped on a different part of the street, where the line of old tall oak trees had been broken by a newly planted tree, a small layer of melted chocolate had formed just at the tip of his fingers. 

The granola bar was cold, but it wouldn’t break off the only front tooth he currently had, at the very least. He threw the wrapper out with a little run and kept walking. He only noticed after that, that his hands were freezing, he tried to rub them together to warm them up, but it was no use, he could barely move his fingers. 

He shoved his hands into his jacket pocket and Tim cursed the granola bars he’d put there earlier. As a last resort, Tim pushed his hands into his jacket and rested them under his armpits.

After that, he was absolutely, undoubtedly, positively freezing . 

His saviour was the automatic revolving door of the public library that blew a warm breeze into his face as he walked by. He stopped dead in his tracks and turned around, walking quickly and scared out of his mind for that matter, through the revolving door.

He’d never once been in an automatic revolving door in his life and it scared him to death.

Heart still beating fast in his throat he followed a bright yellow sign to the kids section of the seemingly ancient library. He let his hand stray past the columns of books, feeling every ridge in the tall hardwood book cases. 

The difference between the old, large library, and its ridiculous kids section was enormous. He stepped onto the linoleum floors, looked at the metal racks that barely reached past Tim’s head, filled with cartoonish books, the fluorescent light columns above him, the neon green faux leather couches and thought it was really an eyesore. 

He headed for the couches in the back of the library and sat down, resting his legs on the radiator. He took his backpack off and laid down properly on the couch, letting his head rest onto his backpack. 

It was arguably a nice spot to lie down and have a nap, even if Tim wanted to do anything but to have a nap, he wasn’t a baby and he wasn’t tired- okay maybe he was a little tired. 

He tried to stare at the lights above him, but they hurt his eyes, leaving big blue stripes on his eyelids every time he closed his eyes. He blinked a few times, and noticed that, when he opened his eyes, he could still faintly see the blue stripes, but they disappeared very quickly.

Because looking at the lights wasn’t a very good idea, so he looked down. He didn’t mean to, but his eyelids fluttered shut and he turned around on the couch to get into a better position, only to open his eyes and see a head floating right in front of him.

"Can you read?" The head said, their voice was high pitched and strongly accented, his parents would probably have a fit if he spoke like that. Tim jumped up and noticed with a change of perspective that the floating head was in fact attached to a body.

"Yes." Tim grumbled.

"Read this." The not-floating head shoved a book at him

"Can you not read it yourself?" Tim asked, sitting up straight. His hair was defying gravity in more ways than possible

The not-floating head was a girl, about his age, she had long curly blonde hair, and a purple sweater over a pink sparkly T-Shirt, that read ‘ princess ’. 

Tim looked down at the book. It was a hardcover picture book, with swirly letters on the cover. "This is in French." He said simply.

" You're in French." The not-floating head told him very confidently.

"I mean it's not in English, it's in French, that's a different language."

"So you can't read, you're just messing with me." The girl's accent was so thick that Tim had to repeat the words in his head for them to make sense. He'd never heard somebody speak in that way, ever. 

"I can, it says," Tim looked at the swirly letters. "The story of the cat called Stephanie." 

The girl frowned. "I hate cats,” 

Tim shook off his jacket. “Do you prefer dogs, then?”

She shook her head. “I hate animals, my dad says they’re loud and they stink and you have to clean up their poops,”

"Then why do you want me to read about the cat called Stephanie?" Tim asked

"Because I thought it was a hidden message for me, because my name is Stephanie," The girl explained like it was the most basic thing in the world. "Duh."

"Maybe there's a hidden message in the book- that would make sense, right? Because maybe they know that you don't like cats and that's why they made it about cats." 

"That's smart," The girl said. "I'm Stephanie, like the book." 

"I'm Tim, like- uhh- like Tom, but with an 'i' ."

The girl stuck out her hand, Tim shook it slowly.

"I've an uncle named Tom, he has 8 fingers," Stephanie sat down next to Tim on the couch. "My daddy says it's 'cause he used to flip his parents the bird, so they cut them off." 

Tim did not know what flipping the bird was, but once he knew, he wouldn't do it ever . Especially not to his parents. 

"Come on, read the rest of it, I want to know the hidden message." Stephanie opened the book.

The cat called Stephanie didn’t do very much in the book, she just went to tea parties with her friends and Stephanie (the human, not the cat) pulled the book from Tim’s lap after only three pages saying. “This is boring, I wanna do somethin’ else,” 

“We could see if there are other books with hidden messages,” He suggested.

“That’s stupid, I’m not a baby, I wanna do somethin’ cool,”

Tim frowned. “How old are you then?” 

Stephanie looked at him sideways, like she was trying to decode what he was saying, and then answered, in her thick Gotham accent. “I’m seven,”

“Oh,” Tim lit up. “I’m seven too,”

The girl gave him a look. “You can’t be seven two, you’re my age,” she said.

“Yes, that’s what I meant,”

Still, Stephanie shook her head. “No, my granny’s ma woulda been seven two, you’re like six- ”

“Your great grandmother can’t be seven, that’s impossible,”

“No- I said she’s seven two, you’re not listening to me,”

“But- but she can’t be our age”

Stephanie shook her head. “I didn’t say that, I said my granny’s ma woulda been seven’y-two ,” she tried to sound out every syllable in the word. “And you’re not seven’y-two, ” 

Tim laughed, but cut himself off when Stephanie glared at him. “It’s just a mix up, I’d been meaning to say that I’m seven just like you, I’m seven too- as well,”

“Oh,” The girl said plainly. “it’s because you speak weird,” 

He bit down on his inner cheek. “I don’t speak weirdly,” He said, his voice high pitched and awkward. “You’re the one who ‘speaks weird’,” he added air quotes.

“I’ve never met anybody who sounds like you- except for the bank lady- and everybody hates the bank lady,” Stephanie told him like it was an insult. “You sound like you know what taxes are,”

Tim crossed his arms. “I know what taxes are,” he looked at her for a second. “You don’t?”

“No, but at least I ain’t- I ain’t sound like you,”

“You know, you are very rude, and your school should really start giving grammar lessons, I just wanted to sit here on my own and you’re bothering me,” 

Stephanie rolled her eyes. “I bet you’re not even from here, and I am, so I get to be here more than you,”

“I am from here,” He said matter of factly. “I live just down the street,”

Just 4 miles down the street, but Tim wasn’t going to tell her that. 

“Oh, sorry,” she paused. “are you like from England or somethin’?”

“No?”

“But you sound so-” she waved her hand in the air. “I’m sorry- if you’re from Gotham, I don’t mean to be- well mean or anything, but you- I don’t know a lot of people who sound like that- all heur-deur and stuff,” she did her best impression of his accent.

Tim looked at her, the girl’s messy blonde hair, her mismatched bright clothes, the ratty scarf, he didn’t know a lot of people who looked or sounded like her, in fact, he didn’t know anybody like that at all and he told her so.

“It’s-” Stephanie said. “I guess we got off on the wrong foot, jus’ now, let’s call it a language wall-”

“Language barrier,” Tim corrected.

“Wanna be friends anyways?” Stephanie offered, sticking out her hand. 

“I’d like that,” And Tim shook her hand.

…

For the few hours he spent with Stephanie, he didn’t think about his parents, at least, he didn’t think about them leaving. He thought about what word Stephanie could possibly mean sometimes, when she made out something that sounded like pure gibberish, and he thought about how fun Stephanie was. 

They invented a game together called ‘ the floor, but also anything that is green is lava, and we have three lives and the pink chairs you can only stand on for 5 seconds and then it sinks ’.

Tim was standing on top of a tall metal bookcase, making careful, calculated steps over to other bookcases, while Stephanie had figured out that the bookcarts had wheels and she drove herself through the children’s section of the library like a blind man on a race track.

That was, until she slid down the wheelchair ramp and right past the help desk. Around that moment was when the fun ended. 

Stephanie had warned Tim with assorted bird noises and he did a swan dive back onto the couch before the (very angry) librarian could catch him too. 

And then they were both sitting on the pavement munching on Tim’s organic, ultra healthy, 100% kid friendly, 5 dollar a piece granola bars. “I gotta go home soon,” Stephanie said sadly.

Tim stared ahead of him, suddenly reminded of why he’d left home in the first place. “I ran away today,” he told her. “This morning. I’m still in my pyjamas underneath this,”

“Really? Aren’t your parents worried?” Stephanie wondered. “My daddy says rich people never let their kids do anything without adults and I should be glad he even lets me go to the library by myself,”

Tim shrugged. “I think they don’t even know I ran away,”

A beat of silence fell between them. “Did you leave a note?” Steph asked.

“No?” 

Steph punched him playfully in the arm. “That’s the first thing you gotta do- say you’re leaving- it’s like in every movie,” 

“I didn’t think that far ahead,” 

“Yeah I can see that, pyjama boy,” 

“You’re really mean, you do realise that?” Tim pointed out. 

Stephanie stood up and messed up his hair. “You should come out here more often, since you’re my friend now an’ all that,” 

Tim looked up at her. “I don’t know,” he said honestly. “Maybe I’ll run away and join the circus,”

“Sure you will,” Steph said and turned around to leave.

He watched her go, so short compared to the swarm of adults on the street, disappearing almost completely in the masses. Tim picked up his bag and walked back home, drafting his goodbye note.

…

Tim left better prepared that next morning of Christmas day. He put on a pair of jeans and three sweaters, and he brought his electric toothbrush with him in his bag with some of his birthday money in a Superman wallet and two pairs of fuzzy socks.

He left a short note to really drive the point home that he was running away, and this time, his parents would come after him.

The walk to the library seemed shorter somehow. There was a long line of cars on the road when he walked, people were honking and yelling at each other, but they didn’t seem to notice the little seven year old boy walking by.

Tim wondered if the police were going to talk to them, when his parents started looking for him, if his face would be on the news. He felt bad just thinking about it.

The library was open, but just for the afternoon and only on the ground floor, where the cafe was. A librarian, not the one that had chased Tim and Stephanie out just the day before, handed him a cup of cocoa and pointed him at a little play area for kids.

He reluctantly let go of last week’s newspaper that was on the white table in front of him and sat down in front of a colouring book behind a plastic neon green Ikea table. He didn’t know what he’d been expecting to happen, waiting there in that library.

He coloured within the lines, like he always did, and he drank his cocoa and he waited. The librarian, again, not the one who had chased him and Steph out the day before, but the one who had given him the cocoa, checked up on him every few minutes and complimented him on colouring within the lines and refilled his cocoa twice, until she started offering him lemonade.

Maybe he was waiting for his parents to burst in through the library doors with a squad of superheroes yelling “oh how we missed you Timothy!” or he was waiting for Stephanie to punch him in the arm and talk in her thick Gotham accent until he had no idea what she was saying anymore.

By the time the afternoon came knocking around, the librarian sent him home with a sad smile, and Tim heard her whisper to her coworker “ The homeless ones are always toughest to send home, ” and Tim whipped around as fast as he could, but didn’t say anything, because if he was running away and his parents hadn’t started looking for him yet, he didn’t have a home.

He planted himself on the sidewalk in front of the library, where he’d sat the day before with Steph, and for a second he wondered if he’d dreamt her up, when she kicked him in his side and sat down next to him.

“What’re you doin’ here?” 

Tim shrugged and shoved his hands deeper into his pockets. 

“Are you still running away?”

Stephanie didn’t look very good, there was a big scratch on her chin and she looked dirty in a way that would make Tim’s parents turn away in disgust. “You shouldn’t be,” she said. “Running away, I mean,” 

“Why not?” Tim asked. “I did what you said- I left a note and everything,”

She looked down. “Don’t run away- okay, you’re- you prob’b’ly have some big house and a keephouser and you can’t run away- it’s not safe and-” she took a deep breath, which to Tim, sounded more like a wheeze and hid her face in her arms. “Just don’t, alright?”

“I want to run away,” Tim insisted. “I- my parents will come after me,”

Stephanie shook her head. “My daddy did this,” she pointed to her chin and then she pulled up her pant leg and showed a big bruise growing on her calf. “your parents don’t do that, right?”

Tim shook his head. 

“Don’t run away,”

He frowned. “But you- you said-” 

“Don’t- I- My daddy’s a bad guy,” She said. “Batman bad- I mean, and if your daddy isn’t a bad guy, you don’t have to run away- and I can have you as my friend,”

There was a beat of silence between them, as a line of cars drove past, in a hurry to get to Christmas dinner. 

“My parents left me,” Tim told her. “That’s why I’m running away- so they’ll see how it feels,”

“Is it working?” Stephanie asked.

And for the first time that Christmas, Tim had to admit to himself that it wasn’t. He shook his head. “I don’t think they know,” 

Steph linked their arms, taking his arm in her tight grip. “So you’ll stay- you’re not running away?”

He shook his head again. “I’m sorry your dad’s a bad guy,” 

“I’m sorry your parents are bad guys,” Stephanie echoed back to him and rested her head on his shoulder.

They watched the cars pass in silence, Christmas songs in the distance.

“We could run away together,” Tim offered.

Stephanie shook her head sadly. “We’re not big enough,” 

“Then, when we’re grown, when we’re 12, that’s like ancient,” 

The little girl on his shoulder didn’t answer him.

They just sat there on Christmas day, on the freezing cold pavement in front of some library, as two seven year old kids who barely knew each other.

Chapter Text

Tim had never had a friend before.

He had had stuffed animals, and nannies, and housekeepers and his neighbour Bruce Wayne, who Tim was secretly a little bit scared of, but he had never had a real friend.

Stephanie Brown was one hell of a first friend to have. 

Tim bought them a box of Lucky Charms for lunch on that Christmas Day, but they didn’t have milk, or bowls, or spoons, so they sat in a park and ate dry sugary cereal. And then Stephanie knew just how to walk past the church ladies so they’d give them tea and a Christmas basket, filled with snacks. 

Even though she punched Tim in the arm and stole his organic, ultra healthy, 100% kid friendly, 5 dollar a piece granola bars, he kept coming back, and she kept coming back and Tim realised for the first time in his life that this was what friendship felt like.

His parents called him the day after Christmas and they said it would be a while before they were done, Tim wanted to cry, but he wasn’t a baby and he wasn’t gonna. His mom read him a goodnight story over the phone and Tim couldn’t get himself to tell her that 6 ‘o clock hadn’t been his bedtime in years.

He brought a pack of band-aids from home the next time he saw Stephanie. 

Wordlessly he cleaned up the cut on her cheekbones and placed the last Lightning McQueen band-aid on it without hesitation. That was how it was, she had a bad guy for a parent and he was supposed to be her good guy until they were old enough and Tim’s running away plan had been perfected.

They sat, shoulder to shoulder on the library’s dirty bathroom floor, a faint smell of diapers in the air.

“Next time, I want the Mater one.” Steph demanded.

“I don’t have the Mater band-aids.”

“Liar! The Mater band-aids come in a pack with all the Cars band-aids, we have them at home.” 

“Then use those.”

It scared him how there was a next time for Stephanie, and how there was a next time for him. Next time Stephanie’s dad hurt her, next time Tim’s parents left him, next time he had to sit on a dirty bathroom floor with her, next time he was going to bite down his tears as his mom’s voice flowed through the phone.

Stephanie knew the city better than anyone, she promised him that, but they still got lost on the way to Chinatown to buy the best egg rolls in the entirety of the planet (she said they were even though Stephanie had never left Gotham herself). 

They could barely see past the counter, but the lady didn’t even look twice as they bought their drinks, Stephanie swore that if you poured the drink on metal, the metal would completely disappear, all Tim knew is that his parents would never let him drink it.

They sat down on a bench in the park and Tim dropped one of the egg rolls, so Steph kicked it to a duck, who gladly pecked at it. “My daddy has a gun,” She said and Tim didn’t look away from the duck munching on the eggroll.

“And he calls himself ‘The Cluemaster’,”

Tim frowned at the ducks in front of him. “Is he even good at Clue?” 

Stephanie laughed. “He sucks, the last time we played, was after he got out of prison and he lost so bad he flipped the board,”

Tim munched on his egg roll. “We should start a petition and get him to change his name,”

“A peti-petitione? What’s that?”

“Like, a thing people sign to say they don’t like something,”

A beat of silence passed between them.

“I think he killed someone,” The little girl confessed.

Tim whipped around to look at her.

“What do you mean he killed someone?”

Stephanie shrugged. “I mean- like blood, dead- like in the movies, when they don’t wake up,”

“How do you know?”

“I just do,”

And the world kept on turning.

...

His parents weren’t back when he was supposed to return to school after the winter break, so Mrs. Mac reminded him every time she saw him, she cleaned his bike, steamed his school uniform, got all his notebooks out. Neither Tim’s mom nor his dad mentioned it in their phone calls.

Tim wondered if they even knew, if maybe the emails the school kept sending weren’t arriving, maybe they were sending it to the wrong computer- if they were sending it to the one in gotham then obviously his parents wouldn’t get the email on their computer in Chile.

Tim knew his dad had a computer that told him everything about where he was going to go, what he was going to do, what he was working on, Jack had shown it to him once. Maybe if he could open his computer he could help his parents to keep up with his life.

Steph told him he should become a naked mole rat. Then she suggested he watch G-force, the only movie about guinea pigs who are simultaneously superspies ever made. 

He needed to become a hacker- well needed was a strong word, there was also a degree of wanting in there,

He sat in front of a library computer at least two months later, following every step that the book open in his lap said to do, and the fake email he was trying to send just wouldn’t load.

A woman rolled past in her wheelchair, saw the bars of code open on Tim’s computer and rolled back, stopping next to Tim. “You missed a bracket there.” The woman said. She had bright red hair tied into a bun, a random pen stuck in it. She wore thick black rimmed glasses that slid further and further down her nose as she looked at Tim’s work. 

“Thank you.” Tim said, surprised. The woman pushed her glasses back. 

“You know if you add a few extra bars of code you can change the date, make it say anything.”

“That’s a great idea, ma’am, but that’s not in the book, I think.” Tim held it up to make a point.

“Oh, I can teach you.” She offered. “And call me Barbara please, ma’am makes me feel so old.” 

Tim didn’t want to be rude so he did not say that compared to him, Barbara was old. At least she was to him.

As it turned out, Barbara was a history student at Gotham University and she was only 20 years old, which, in Tim’s eyes, was practically ancient. She told him how hackers were the driving force behind cyber crimes units, helped out superheroes and helped protect data every single day, the legal ones she meant, Tim found himself almost shrinking, trying not to let her think that he may or may not be trying to learn hacking for his own reasons.

It was like she knew what he was thinking and she looked at him over the rim of her glasses and went “Now, don’t go around using what I’ve taught you for evil, you owe me that at least,” and all Tim’s plans were temporarily shoved into a trashcan and burned.

Barbara was great, she answered all of his questions, like if librarians had a secret investigative unit where they hunted down people who stole books and thankfully for Tim, who was keen on bringing home books without a library card, but always returned them, they did not have a Librarian Detective Unit.

Maybe, if the whole future CEO of Drake Industries didn’t work out, he’d become a librarian and he and Steph could stay in the library forever, far away from her dad.

“Oh jeez.” Barbara said eventually, having looked down at her watch. “It’s almost 8, it’s time to go, kid.”

She motioned for him to start walking and eyed him carefully as he walked besides her wheelchair. She yelled at a man sleeping in the toilet to get out and Tim got to ride in the elevator with Barbara. 

“Could I-” Tim started as they were standing outside. “Could I ask you something?”

Barbara sighed. She didn’t want to answer questions about her wheelchair, about her injury, about her recovery, even if this kid was sweet and smart, she was tired of it. She opened her mouth to say something, but the boy had already cut her off.

“Do you maybe want to be my teacher? For the hacking stuff?” 

And Barbara let out a breath of relief. “I’d love to, honestly,”

“Cool,” he said and he turned around to leave. 

“Wait,” Barbara stopped him. “What’s your name kid?”

“T-” Tim paused. If she knew- if she knew he wanted to hack his parents, he was an awful son, he knew that, but if she knew it was him, she would turn him over no questions asked. “Tom, my name’s Tom,”

“Well, Tom,” Barbara said. “I work on Wednesdays and Sundays, come by any time,”

Tim went home with a weight on his chest like he’d never felt before.

…

Stephanie didn’t think about lying the same way Tim did. To her it was just another thing, to Tim and the very Christian nanny he used to have, it was another thing.

She was an excellent liar and when Tim told her about Barbara, she clapped him on the back and told him she was proud of him.

“I’ll be your twin sister then,” She thought for a second. “Jackie, like your second name.” It was like she was slipping into character.

She thought some more. “Oh- and our mom is named Stephanie and our parents are divorced and our dad is a pilot in Germany and he sends us cool presents for our birthday.” 

“And our dad should be named Tim.” She decided.

“We don’t really look alike, though.” Tim said, like a buzzkill. 

“Then we’ll dye your hair blonde.”

“But she already saw me.”

“Maybe she mislooked, or we can say you’re colourblind.” Stephanie suggested.

“That doesn’t make any sense.”

“ You don’t make any sense.”

“ That doesn’t make any sense.”

Barbara found them a few minutes later, still bickering.

“Hey kids.” She greeted.

“Hello Ms. Barbara,” Tim said.  “this is my little sister S- Jackie.” 

“He’s 9 minutes older.” Stephanie explained, through a very excessive smile. “But the doctor says I’ll be taller.” 

Tim elbowed her. “No he didn’t.” 

Stephanie shoved him. “Yes he did.” 

Barbara smiled. “Your mom must have her hands full, huh?” She looked between the two of them.

“Yeah.” Stephanie nodded, a grin on her face.

“Uhm- if you guys are not too busy, maybe you could come help out in the literature section?” Barbara wondered if it was ethical to leave two kids in the library without supervision. “You could sort some books-”

“We’d love it!” Stephanie agreed for the both of them and dragged Tim with her.

...

Half an hour later they were handing each other ancient looking leather bound books to place on the high up shelves where Barbara could not reach. 

“I bet if Batman saw your face he’d freak out so badly Superman has to come fix it.” Stephanie said. 

“I bet if Batman saw your face he’d beat you up, because you look very evil,” Tim retorted. “That wasn’t a very good one,” He said before Steph could bully him for it. “I need some time to think up a good one. 

Barbara handed him a book and pointed to where it had to go. “Maybe you could try giving each other compliments instead?” She suggested, not wanting to get caught with two children bullying each other.  

“I bet that if Batman saw your face he’d adopt you within two seconds and turn you into his sidekick.” Tim tried and shook his head.

“It just doesn’t have the same energy to it.” Stephanie explained.

Barbara was tied between laughing and texting the entire conversation to Dick this instant, or teaching these children to be nice. 

“Ooh, I have a good one,” Tim said. “Jackie, if Batman saw you walking in the street and he was in the batmobile, he’d just run you over.”

The librarian assistant next to them coughed trying to hold her laughter. ”Do you guys really think Batman would hurt a kid?" 

"Well, yeah. He's always beating up people, and I heard one time he saw a kid on the street and he kidnapped it.” Steph explained.  

“Ti- Tom says Batman adopted him and that he’s Robin, but I think that’s a load of crap-”  

“Watch your language.” Barbara interjected quickly. 

“I think that Batman found the kid and then he brought him to Metropolis and they gave him superpowers and he’s gonna be the newest member of the justice league and he’s going to beat up Cluemaster.”  

“Cluemaster?” Barbara asked.  

“Yeah, we-” Stephanie pointed to her and Tim. “Think that Cluemaster should change his name, because you can’t just say you’re better at Clue than everybody else, it’s a game and until he wins every game ever he can’t call himself that.” 

The librarian nodded. “That’s solid reasoning," It was genuinely solid reasoning and she really felt like bringing it up the next time she was on the comms, when Dick and Bruce couldn't stop bickering like- well like the children in front of her. "Maybe we can try and send an email to Batman about it." She hinted at what she’d taught him the day before.

“Great idea, Ms. Barbara,” He paused. “but maybe we should also send an email about the crocodile problem we have in the sewers.”  

“No we shouldn’t,” Stephanie said, shaking her head. “I like crocodiles.”

Chapter Text

“This,” Tim’s mom held up an old digital camera. “Is for you,”

Tim held it up in his hands, it was heavier than he’d expected it to be. 

“Your dad bought that for me when we went on our first dig together, and now it’s for you, young man, so be careful with it,”

He could barely believe it himself, both his parents were home for his birthday, after endless trips back and forth to a site in the middle of the South American jungle. Tim had barely seen them for longer than a month at a time all year. To get a gift that special, with both his parents there, it meant the world to him. 

His mom took him into her arms for a rare hug and hung the camera around his neck. “I trust you to figure out the controls, but if you need anything, I’m practically an expert,”

Tim swung his arms around her neck and kissed her cheek. “Thank you, mom,”

And then his mom’s face fell. She looked at his father across the room and they seemed to have some sort of silent conversation that he just couldn’t understand. 

“Is it the Shanghai office?” His mom asked, worried, and somewhere inside, Tim wanted to point out that he knew where Shanghai was on a map. 

Tim’s dad shook his head, and Tim’s mom let go of him, standing up to stand closer to her husband.

And the moment was ruined. 

He felt so selfish too, that he was so angry at them. He stomped up the stairs with his camera and he sat down in his room on the verge of tears. A row of perfectly polished gymnastics medals seemed to almost glare at him. He turned on his camera, pointed it at the row of plastic and fake gold and took a picture. 

A little red battery flashed in the corner of the camera’s little screen and Tim just felt so angry that his mom hadn’t even bothered to charge it that he chucked the thing across the room. 

Later, he would be thankful it landed on his bed. 

…

Once his parents had flown out to Shanghai to set up the new office, he finally uncovered the camera from a cabinet full of old dvds, where Mrs. Mac must’ve put it. As he reached for it, he knocked over a banana yellow dvd case.

He rested the camera on his lap and grabbed the dvd. There was a tacky red and pink circus tent on the front, but nothing else. Tim knew he recognised it in a way, but he had no idea where he recognised it from.

He opened it and saw a dvd with ‘ Haly’s - 2004’ written on it in red marker. He didn’t know any Haly, and he certainly couldn’t have known any in 2004, when he wasn’t even born yet.

Despite the itch to sit down behind his dad’s computer and watch the dvd to figure out what it was, he placed it on his desk and grabbed the camera, getting ready to go.

Stephanie probably liked the camera more than she liked him, she took it off his hands the second she saw it and didn’t let it go for half the afternoon.

She’d been waiting outside for him, in a pair of shorts and a sweater that Tim was pretty sure was actually his . She had a band-aid right across her forehead and Tim looked at her with concern for a second, before he realised she was stealing his camera right off his neck.

“Hey!” He said. “You have to ask permission first,”

“Who’s Permission?” Stephanie joked and hung the camera around her own neck. “Say ‘cheese’ !” 

Tim glared at her. “I hate you,”

“That’s not cheese,” 

Reluctantly, Tim showed her how to use the camera and she immediately took pictures of the first things she saw which were, in order; Tim, a dog, a pile of dog shit and a street lamp. 

Tim rolled his eyes, turned the camera off while it was still dangling on Stephanie’s neck and maneuvered her to the library. 

They walked up to the front desk and asked for Barbara, just like they always do and the man behind the counter pointed them in some direction where they could probably find Barbara, and if not “Our librarians are always here to help,”

Barbara was in the staff room on the second floor for ages and Tim and Steph waited around on the floor. Tim had almost gotten Stephanie to give him back his camera when Barbara finally came wheeling out with a cup of coffee in one hand and Steph practically jumped up to give her a hug. 

Tim greeted Barbara from the side with a little wave and then pulled the camera from Stephanie’s neck in a complete sneak attack and hung it back around his own. 

“Hey Tom,” Barbara said, shooting him a smile. “Long time no see,” 

Tim nodded. Steph grabbed the camera and pulled it closer to show Barbara, pulling Tim forward by the cord that hung around his neck. “Look-” She said, before Tim could say anything. “Tom’s got a new camera,”

Tim blushed. “It’s not new, it was my- our mom’s, but- yeah,”

“That’s awesome!” Barbara studied the camera for a second. “This looks like a very good model to start with,” with a smile she looked back at the kids. “I could see you becoming an excellent photographer,”

Stephanie nodded. “He’s gonna be on National Geographic- no strike that- INTERNATIONAL Geographic -”

“That’s not a thing, Jackie,” Tim interrupted her.

“It should be,” She said and crossed her arms. “Now, take a picture of me- no me and Ms. Barbara,”

She swung an arm around Barbara’s neck as the librarian repeated for what felt like the millionth time “It’s just ‘Barbara’, kids, please,”

Tim turned the camera on and removed the lense cap, he raised it to his face and took a picture of Stephanie and Barbara. Then he bent down a little bit, and stepped back, so more than just their faces showed up in the picture. 

He tried to show the picture to Barbara and Stephanie, but Stephanie stuck her head in front of the view and practically obstructed the entire camera screen with her messy blonde curls. 

Once Stephanie was satisfied with watching her own face, Barbara wheeled a bit closer to the kids to see the picture. “It looks great, Tommy, you’ve got a real talent there,” 

Tim beamed. 

“Do you think we can upload that one to my computer? I’d really like a copy,” 

“I don’t really know,” Tim confessed. “But you can help, right?” 

…

It took forty minutes to upload 10 pictures onto Barbara’s library computer, at first because they had no idea how to upload the pictures, and then because Tim kept taking the memory card out of the computer to put back in his camera and take more pictures, marvelling at the fact that the pictures on his small camera screen were appearing on Barbara’s practically gigantic computer screen.

She tried to tell him not to, but technically, he wasn’t doing anything wrong. 

(The picture of her and Stephanie would later hang at the bottom of one of her computer screens at home by a piece of scotch tape)

Stephanie and Tim filed out of the library almost an hour after it had closed, Barbara close behind them to lock the doors.

She bid her farewells and began to wheel to the parking lot where she’d parked her car, only after Stephanie spun some lie about the kids’ mom picking them up.

The pair disappeared into an alley and ran as fast as they could towards the Chinese place on the corner of 4th street and Park Row, before it closed for store customers at 9. If you wanted their food after that, you had to call, or break through the wooden plates the owners put up at night. 

“So,” Stephanie started. “How’s it feel to finally be 8?”  

Tim smiled into his fried rice as they sat on top of somebody’s fire escape somewhere around 6th street. “Boring,” he said. “I should’ve stayed 7,”

“Shuddup,” Steph kicked the side of his leg and pushed her plastic spoon into the take out box. “This is your birthday party, you know?”

“It is?”

Steph shrugged. “I couldn’t see you all week, when it actually was your birthday, so this is your party,”

He squeezed her hand. “It’s the best party ever,” 

She retracted her hand and dug around in the pocket of her shorts. With a bit of a struggle she pulled out a folded envelope and handed it to him. “Happy birthday, stupid,”

Tim put the take out box down between them and grabbed the envelope. He unfolded it and tried to carefully peel it open, but Stephanie grabbed it from him and tore it open herself.

Inside the envelope was a carefully crafted bracelet. A braided piece of red and black yarn, and in the middle a square bead with the letter T in yellow. “It’s-”

Steph turned away from him. “It’s not a camera or a dog that can play basketball, but-”

“I love it,”

Surprised, Steph turned back to him. Tim held out his wrist, asking her to tie the bracelet to his wrist. 

“You have very tiny wrists,” Steph noted as she finished tying up the bracelet.

“No I don’t,” Tim insisted.

Steph wrapped her hand around her wrist demonstratively. “I can wrap my whole hand around it,” 

“You have big hands,”

“ You have a big mouth,”

“Rude,”

“Nanananananana-” Stephanie plugged her fingers in her ears. “Can’t hear you,”

“You’re a big baby,”

“Still bigger than you,” She said and stuck her tongue out. 

Tim rolled his eyes. “I hate you,”

“What was that, tiny Tim, did you say something?”

“I’m going to push you off this staircase,”

Stephanie ate another spoon of fried rice. “I love you too,” 

…

They split up when it started to get really dark, plastic cutlery in hand to use as weapons. Stephanie lived in an apartment on Park Row, otherwise known as Crime Alley. Tim still had a 4 mile walk home.

Steph hugged him goodnight and Tim zipped his jacket shut and then he was on his way.

There was a fair amount of people on the street as Tim walked home, even if it was a Sunday night. He grasped his plastic knife tightly in his hand, until a lady sitting by a dumpster with her friend pulled a little can out of her purse and gave him her so-called ‘back up pepper spray’ because he looked like he needed it.

Tim thanked her and offered his spare plastic fork in return, but she didn’t seem to want it. 

Just as he was almost to the bridge the hairs at the back of his neck rose suddenly. He unclipped the safety from the pepper spray can and checked three times that he had pointed it the right way, before picking up his pace.

With a strange sense of clarity his mind screamed “ It’s above you, ” and Tim looked up. There was a figure moving across the roof, two figures even. It didn’t even take him a second to figure it out. The fact that Batman and Robin were right there, above him. 

Hastily, he unzipped his jacket, took the lense cap from his camera and turned it on. He pointed it at where he saw movement on the roof and pressed the button.

A blinding flash illuminated the entire street and Tim would swear to anyone who asked him, that he saw Batman turn to him and glare. 

…

Tim looked at the picture only when he was safe and sound in his house behind a locked door, behind a locked gate. It was just dark, Tim could only see a drainpipe, the wall and two glowing oval shaped on top of the roof.

It took a minute for him to realise, but those were his eyes . Batman’s eyes. He was sure of it.

He poured himself a cup of cocoa and carefully carried it up the stairs to his room, the camera he left downstairs.

There was still the dvd on his desk from that morning, he looked at it, contemplating whether he would or wouldn’t watch it. It was late, but it was the summer holiday and Tim didn’t have school in the morning, he shrugged, grabbing the dvd.

With the dvd clamped under his arm, his cocoa in hand he opened the door to his father’s office. He turned it on, like he’d done so many times before. He’d hacked his dad’s password once, it was a combination of letters and numbers with no significant meaning, though Tim had tried to see if it did, have meaning, that is.

Tim put the dvd in the computer, kicked his feet up on the desk and got ready to watch.

Chapter Text

Tim woke up with a start. He could feel tears welling up in his eyes.

It was horrible.

His dreams- no his nightmares had been horrible ever since he watched the dvd, and he couldn’t explain it.

It was just a circus show, Haly’s Circus, filmed in 2004, some knick-knack one of Tim’s nanny’s had probably left in the house. There were some clowns, a guy that could eat fire, a very strong lady and a bunch of animal tricks, but what really took the cake was this family of trapeze artists; the flying Graysons.

Tim knew one of them, Dick Grayson, his neighbour, or former neighbour, he used to live with his foster dad Bruce Wayne, in Wayne Manor. But in all the years that Tim had known Dick, lived right beside him, he’d never known that Dick could do- well that .

In the video he jumped around, flew through the sky like it was just a regular Tuesday for him, which it probably was, he was only 7 years old, younger than Tim was.

He knew what had happened when Haly’s Circus had stopped in Gotham all those years ago, Dick’s parents had been killed by some gangster, and Dick had seen it all.

Now, every time Tim closed his eyes it felt like he was right there with Dick, getting a front row seat to his parents’ murder. Sometimes he was even in Dick’s place, looking at his own parents fall from that tremendous height.

Steph had said “Just build a house,” when he told her about how he was having trouble sleeping.

He had given her a strange look. “Like Legos?”

She had rolled her eyes. “No- just.” She had made an exasperated noise. “Close your eyes, right, now imagine this big wide space where there’s nothing, just like- grass, and then build you dream house there,”

“My dream house? My own house is fine,”

“No-” She’d given him a shove. “Just imagine whatever you want, like a slide leading out of your bedroom to the kitchen- or mine is a big treehouse, but on a cloud,”

“Just imagine whatever I want?”

“Yeah, dummy, that’s what I said,”

Tim closed his eyes again. He pictured the circus again, Mr. and Mrs. Grayson going up to the platform- he opened his eyes. He closed his eyes. “Big wide space,” he mumbled to himself.

Weirdly, the house he was starting to picture looked a startling lot like the Wayne Manor he could see right outside his window.

...

Kids could be mean. 

Tim knew that kids could be mean, he was a kid himself.

He tried not to care about it too much. Especially when Jimmy with his stupid shaved head was sitting behind him on the stands of a gigantic gymnastics hall, kicking his seat.

“Stop that,” Tim told him, and Jimmy did, for a second. Before resting his feet on the back of Tim’s seat.

“What’s the matter, Drake, mommy didn’t show up?” 

Tim turned around swiftly. “At least my mom has a job,”

“Only poor people work,” 

Tim took a deep breath and moved to a different seat.

“Oh, you’re too poor to sit in my presence now?” Jimmy asked. “We were in the middle of a conversation,”

“No we were not,” 

“Yes we were,” Jimmy crossed his arms.

“I’m sitting somewhere else,” Tim started and stood up. “Because every minute in your presence just gets worse and worse,” Jimmy started laughing.

“You’re one to talk,” The older boy said and he rubbed a hand over his shaved head. “Is that why your parents haven’t been to a single competition of yours? Because they can’t stand you-”

“The only reason I’m not going to fight you is because I don’t want to catch lice, Jimmy, I think I can see them running around on your ugly, bald head!

Their coach stepped over to them, an exasperated look on her face. “That’s enough, Timothy, we don’t joke about our friends’ predicaments , and James’ mom assured me he’s completely lice free,” Tim smirked as she said that, while Jimmy seemed to shrink.

“Go sit over there for a second and think about what you did,” Coach pointed at an empty part of the gym next to the emergency exit. Tim turned around and gladly walked away.

Who was Jimmy even to bully him? Tim had been at that same gymnastics school since he was 3 years old and Jimmy only joined last year.

He spread himself out across the plastic seats and sucker punched the air, pretending it was Jimmy's stupid face.

It didn't help that pretend Jimmy caught his hands and stood over him with a look of concern. 

Tim sat up straight. Pretend Jimmy sat down next to him.

"If you're gonna punch something, don't tuck your thumb in, you're gonna break it." 

Tim frowned at pretend Jimmy. His frown fell immediately. "You're Dick Grayson!" He exclaimed. His face fell, he was looking at Dick Grayson, the boy from the dvd, and the boy from his nightmares. He shook the sad feeling off, putting up a happy face.

"You're Timmy Drake right?" 

The boy nodded, smiling up at him. "Timothy Jackson Drake," he told him, sticking his hand out.

Dick shook it with a grin.

"I didn't know you did gymnastics," He stated.

"I've been doing it since I was 3, my nanny put me in a toddler class, because I kept climbing on things." Tim explained.

"So you're a little prodigy, huh?" Dick said. "Not so little anymore, though, you're getting pretty tall there, Timbo."

He smiled. Everybody kept saying he was so small, Stephanie did, kids at school did, even Barbara said he was short. 

"Do you really think that? Because my friend and Ms. B keep calling me short stack and it's really getting on my nerves." Dick laughed. Was he laughing at Tim ? Tim had no idea how to read the teenager.

"Well if you make a fist like this ," Dick held up his hand, his thumb resting on his middle finger. "and you hit like this ," Dick punched the air in front of him. Tim mimicked the motion. "They won't say that ever again."

“Thanks, but I don’t think I’ll make it out alive if I hit Steph, she’d break my kneecaps.” 

Dick laughed even harder, grabbing a hold of his belly with both hands and almost toppling over. He laughed like Santa in the mall did, but he didn’t look remotely like Santa. Dick was tall and had pitch black hair pooling down to his shoulders, it was a bit shorter in the front and it made him look a bit like he was from one of those tv shows from the 90s Ms. Barbara showed them, the one with all the uncles in the house. 

Santa in the mall didn’t have Dick’s light brown skin, or his clear blue eyes that looked almost grey, but Santa in the mall did have the same eternal smile that Dick seemed to have, never fading even if you turned around.

“I really hope not, because I still want to see your routine.” Tim’s thoughts moved back to what he was even doing here and Jimmy’s stupid face, but the one side of his brain that had been trained for diplomacy from birth took over his mouth. 

“I really look forward to performing for you.” 

Dick stood up, looking at the judges table, where his fellow judges were frantically preparing their stuff for the matches.

“I think your category is up second,” He said, pointing towards the rows of young girls getting ready. “Boys under 10, right?” Tim nodded.

“I know I’m not supposed to have a bias, but I’ll be rooting for you.” Dick clapped him on the back and jogged back to the judges’ table.

The announcement system made awful cracks as the announcers took their place and Gotham’s Annual Junior Gymnastics Competition had officially begun.

Tim’s last name coming directly after Jimmy’s was his biggest enemy for the entire competition. Jimmy smirked at him from the side, his mother doting over him. When it was his turn on the floor, Jimmy was drinking his juicebox all evilly and Tim couldn’t concentrate on anything . He fell right as he was going to do a backflip and Dick looked all sad and pouty about it from the jury stand, which didn’t help very much either.

And then when he was on the pommel horse, Jimmy laughed at him and his landing went all wrong. He was a way too mature 8 year old to cry about it, but he might just tell Stephanie about it and they could egg Jimmy’s house and maybe Batman would come and then Tim could finally take a good picture.

It was a supersecret secret, something he only told Steph, but sometimes he would try to find Batman and Robin. 

He didn’t know why he wanted to be so bad, but something in him just wanted to run after them, to uncover the mystery that they were. It helped with the nightmares, to be outside, to run and to take pictures and to find his way home at the end of the night and just feel a sense of calm.

But he had never taken a picture- he had seen them though, once or twice, even if he’d been looking for months.

The point was, he kept messing up. He was 8 year old and this was a city wide gymnastics match he’d been attending for the past 5 years, but looking at Jimmy’s stupid face made him mess up worse than he’d ever done.

At the ending ceremony, Jimmy only won 2 medals anyways, but Tim only got the participation one, even though he won gold twice last year. He slumped down on the stands and wanted to mope about his loss in peace and quiet, but Dick walked over to him all bright and happy and sat down next to him again .

“Is it wrong of me to assume you weren’t really feeling it today?” 

It was true, but Dick didn’t have to come out and say it. Tim crossed his arms and turned away from him. “You’ve got a lot of potential, and you really nailed that round off on the floor just now.” 

Tim turned back to face Dick, but he was still wearing the longest face Dick had ever seen on a kid. 

“At regionals this year I was really piss- well I was angry at some people, and I was doing my routine on the mat and I accidentally cartwheeled off it,” he said almost as if it was a secret. “I almost kicked someone in the face and nearly got disqualified,”

“Really?” Tim asked.

“Really. You can’t let other people ruin your fun, kid, then they’re winning,”

Dick stood up again and pulled Tim up with him. “How about you show me what your routine was, without all the pressure and the people.” 

Tim looked around warily.

“Don’t they have to clean everything up?” 

“There’s some more rounds tomorrow,” Dick turned around, a twinkle in his eye. “Or are you too scared to show me?”

“I am not. ” Tim said and he kicked off his shoes and ran to stand in the corner. 

“Do you want the music for it?” Dick yelled from the other side, already pulling out his phone.

“Yes, please, thank you.” Tim yelled back. Dick laughed and stuck the aux-cord to the speakers into his phone. A commercial for hand soap played loudly through the gym. Dick frantically lowered the volume.

Tim’s music was a fast paced piece of classical music his coach had picked for him. He got into position, shook out his legs and began.

He started with a forward roll across the mat, Dick watched him intently. He moved into a handstand and jumped back up into a cartwheel. The routine was familiar to him, something he’d been practicing for months, he’d done it for tons of other competitions. 

Once he finished, Dick pretended to wipe a tear from his eyes and clapped. “See, I knew you could do it. That’d land you a solid 9 anywhere.” 

“You really think so?” 

“Yeah, they’d be stupid to give you anything else.”

Dick led Tim to the judges table, where he offered Tim a seat and he sat down on the table like something out of his parents’ etiquette nightmare. He pulled a bag of candy bars from his bag. “I get hungry easily.” 

It was the truth, he was a 17 year old boy and he needed to eat. He held out the bag to Tim and waited for him to grab a candy bar. 

“Y’know,” Dick said through a mouth of chocolate. “Maybe I can teach you a thing or two, whenever I’m in town again,”

“For real? Like really? You’d want that?” 

“Of course,” The older gymnast said. “I could even teach you some trapeze stuff.” 

“Like they do in the circus?”

“I was in the circus for a while, did you know that?”

Tim did know that, of course he knew that. He didn’t say it out loud, simply looked at him. Dick was an excellent gymnast- he could even go to the olympics if he wanted to, he had one competition after competition with his skills, Tim had seen loads of videos on YouTube, but what he’d seen most often was the dvd. Even as a little kid, Dick Grayson was a better gymnast than most people could ever hope to be.

“You know, I met you once,” he paused. “When I was still in the circus- I mean,”

Tim frowned. “You did?”

“Yeah!” Dick said brightly. “You were with your mom- or maybe your nanny, and you came to take a picture with us before the show, you were still a baby- toddler kid thing.,”

“When was that?” Tim asked brightly.

Dick’s face fell. “The night my parents died,” He gave Tim a sad smile. “But I will forever remember how, a few months later you recognised me and basically clung to my leg for half an hour,”

For a second Tim couldn’t make out a single clear thought in his head, but he shook it off. “I did that?”

Dick laughed. “You did .” He confirmed. Tim had met Dick a bunch of times at galas, when he was younger, his parents were in town a lot more often, meaning that Tim got to come along a lot of the times, nowadays, he only ever went to the really important ones, like the Martha Wayne foundation’s big annual gala.

“Shi- fu- merde.” Dick yelled out, once they were almost through the entire bag of Mars bars.

“Wha?” Tim asked, still chewing on the chocolate, Dick’s horrible manners were contagious.

“I agreed to meet up with my friend, I haven’t seen her in ages.”

As far as horrible children go, Tim wouldn’t say he was one of them, however the “ooOooooOoooooOo,” was spilling out of his mouth before he could stop it. “You’ve got a girlfriend .”

“No!” Dick picked up Tim with one arm and gave him a noogie. “She’s not my girlfriend, she’s almost 22 .” 

“You’re almost 18, though, right?” Tim said, Dick frowned.

“It’s not like that, Timmy.” He grabbed the last Mars bar and stuck a post-it note on it. “Call me when you get home safe, and I’ll call you when I’m back in town for a super awesome gymnastics lesson.”

“But what if I get home unsafe?” Tim wondered, walking towards the exit of the sport’s hall alongside Dick. 

“If you get home unsafe, I’ll kill you.” 

Tim gulped, he did not want to die before he was 9, then Stephanie could spend the rest of her life gloating about how she was older than him forever. No, he was going to get home safer than a safe. 

“That was a joke,” Dick added. “It’s been really great to see you again, Timmy.” 

“Yeah, you too, Dick.” While Dick turned towards the parking lot to get his motorcycle and make Gotham’s road unsafe, Tim walked back home through the park, thinking about the overload of information he’d been given.

It was like the puzzle pieces were sliding into place. His nightmares weren’t just nightmares, they were memories. He had been right there when Mary and John Grayson fell to their deaths, a little kid, barely old enough to walk on his own- how could he even remember that.

Dick was so nice too, it made Tim feel bad about being there, talking to him. It wasn’t like Tim was doing anything to hurt Dick’s feelings, but he felt bad about feeling bad about Dick’s parents’ deaths, he felt bad about having the nightmares.

But god did Tim want to train with Dick. He was an Olympic level gymnast for goodness sakes, it would be a wasted opportunity- and Dick was a really really nice person.

He contemplated calling Dick when he got home, placing the Mars bar on the counter and grabbing it, but then putting it back. 

He took a deep breath, if anything, Dick probably wouldn’t even answer- he was hanging out with that friend of his, he grabbed the Mars bar and pulled the Post-It off, walking towards the landline in the hallway.

…

On the other side of the line, Barbara Gordon saw Dick beam at the voice coming from the telephone and snorted, using chopsticks to fish a cheeto from the bag. With extreme skill and absolute maturity she launched the cheeto at her best friend’s head.

An orange dusty imprint was left on his perfectly gelled hair and Dick whipped around. He hung up his phone and shook his head at her with a fake air of anger. 

He launched himself onto the couch next to her and rested his feet on her lap. “Guess who I ran into today?”

Chapter Text

"There is a fine line between the legal side and the illegal side of hacking, and that line won't be crossed today." 

Tom and Jackie sat on the pavement in front of the library, leaning against the closed hardwoods doors. 

"I have been teaching you for the past months for this exact moment, or a moment like this." 

She rolled around in front of them with the energy of a military leader addressing her soldiers. 

"You see, the only way for us to uphold our morals in this world is by way of our intent, and I know that you both have only the best intentions at heart."

Barbara stopped.

"Tom, I need you to hack into the security system and change the code." 

Tim, who'd been listening with utmost interest glared directly into Barbara's eyes. Steph began to laugh.

"You forgot the code again?" 

Barbara had indeed forgotten the code. Despite how good she was with numbers, she couldn't for the life of her manage to remember them.  She'd spent 30 minutes calling her co-workers for help and met a dead end, slumping down in front of the library until the security company's help line opened. 

Salvation came in the form of Tom and Jackie, babbling about Poison Ivy growing a forest inside a Gotham U lecture hall and how desperately they wished it happened to their school. 

"There's millions of dollars of literary works in this library, Tom, I wouldn't do something as stupid as forget the code. Again."

Tim rolled his eyes and grabbed his laptop from his bag. 

Steph looked at the screen for about 5 seconds only to say "Why doesn't it look like in the movies?" 

"I'm still on the login screen, St- Jackie." 

She stood up and crossed her arms, standing up to face Barbara.

"And why'd you have to forget the code?" 

"We have to change it every month, I'm not good at remembering numbers and stuff okay?" Barbara defended.

"We know." Tim and Steph chorused. "Last year you forgot when Christmas was." Tim added, now rapidly typing on his laptop.

"I didn't forget, it's just very confusing, because there's two da- you know what, I'm owning up to it, I'm a grown woman."

Barbara didn't feel like pointing out the fact that despite her status as a grown woman, she still lived in the same apartment, went to the same university, had the same job and terrible eating habits as her teenage self.

The only thing that had really changed was her wheelchair, which her lower back thanked her for. 

"Why do the library people even let you open up anymore if you keep forgetting the code?" Steph complained. 

"They-"

"It was a rhetoric question." Stephanie interrupted.

"Rhetorical." 

"No, rhetoric means you don't have to answer." 

"I wasn't- nevermind." Barbara just said she was a grown woman, that meant no arguing with children about rhetorical questions. "Did you learn about rhetorical questions in school?"

“Yeah, it’s really interesting, I can just go ‘Did you buy bananas again?’ and you’re not allowed to answer.” Steph grinned. “My teacher says I’m good at making up examples.”

“She does?” Barbara asked and Steph decided to sit down on her lap to tell her all about it. It’s after her full 3 minute speech about the difference between ‘your’ and ‘you’re’, that she halted in speaking and just squinted at Barbara, turning her head ever so slightly to change the perspective.

“Did anyone ever tell you you’d make a great teacher?” Barbara raised her eyebrows. “You think I’d be a good teacher?”

Steph sat silently for a second. “You’d be a good teacher if you went out and became a teacher now. But you’d be a great teacher if you bought one of those scoot mobile carts that old and fat people use and let me take rides during recess.”

Jesus, children were blunt sometimes.

“If I were a teacher I’d get a job as far away from your school as I can, Metropolis is nice, right?” Barbara joked, Steph frowned and kicked Barbara in the shin. 

“Jackie, you know I love you, but I can’t feel it if you’re kicking me, and I don’t really want to face my doctor and say a 9 year old broke my leg trying to get a rise out of me.”

“But I was serious,” Steph whined. “You’d make a great teacher.”

“Second that,” Tim said from the ground. “What do you want the passcode to be?”

“Just do all zeroes for now.” The librarian ordered.

“You said that’s a bad idea.”

“Then do my birthday, September 23rd, it’s in a few weeks.”

Tim shook his head. “Too obvious, what if people found out your birthday?”

“Then do your birthday.” Barbara couldn’t believe that this singular child had taken every world she said to heart, but she had to face it when the boy answered. “But what if people found out that you knew us and they used that?”

“Just put something in there.” She sighed, right while Stephanie grinned and said “Make it say s-h-i-t in numbers.” The girl spelled out the letters, like Barbara didn’t know how to spell. 

In Stephanie’s defense, if Barbara had had a few hours less sleep, she probably wouldn’t have known what it spelled. 

“I’m going to let the profanity slip, because we have a code now, but next time I won’t hesitate to throw you off this wheelchair, young lady.”

“I’d like to see you try, old lady.” Steph replied and latched onto Barbara with a death grip. In all honesty, Barbara did try to throw her off, or to at least unleash herself from the young girl, but it was like taking candy from a toddler; unbearingly difficult and involving a lot of screaming.

“See Tim, I’m way better than tyre kid.”

“No you’re not.” Tim said.

“Who’s tyre kid?” Barbara asked, but the kids just went on bickering.

“Tyre kid managed to steal three of the Batmobiles wheels, you just proved that you’re a bit stronger than Ms. B.”

Barbara went sheet white. They were talking about Jason.

“Well, I wouldn’t get myself kidnapped, and I’m way younger than tyre kid.”

“He didn’t get kidnapped, Jackie, I told you he’s probably the new Robin.”

Oh dear god , Barbara thought, these kids were smart .

“Why would Batman make a kid that couldn’t even steal all of his tyres the new Robin, it’s a dumb theory, Robin probably just got magically spelled by some witch and he’ll be back to normal next week.” 

“No way, there’s no witches allowed in Gotham.”

“There’s no crime allowed, but people do it anyway.” Steph replied. Barbara snorted.

Barbara opened up the door with her key and went to the alarm immediately, she motioned for Tim to come over.

“Go ahead, Tom, you earned it.” He carefully pushed in the numbers and grinned at the beep, signalling he’d gotten it right.

7-4-4-8 was the code for the remainder of the month and the next, Jackie suggested writing it down on her arm in permanent marker, just to be safe. 

… 

Tim was yelling at Stephanie. 

An occurrence that had never happened before. His screams of anger, disappointment, and fear were a stark contrast against the sound of the Gotham streets,

Stephanie did not cower back, she simply took the yelling for what it was, a desperate boy thinking fairy tales still existed, or that was what she saw. 

She had the Mater band-aids already picked out, lying between her and Tim on his blue Batman backpack. Tim poured bottle after bottle of water and disinfectant out on napkins, cleaning the dried blood off her face as he went along. Stephanie shivered when he drenched her blonde hair in water, but could only look at the red tinted droplets gliding off her hair.  

He had put her arm in a makeshift swing, his sweater tied criss cross across her body. It was what the internet said to do, in the case of a broken arm, and in Stephanie’s case, her arm was definitely broken.

“You can’t just lie to me,” Tim was yelling, his throat sore and his eyes teary. “You’re my best friend, my sister,” He dried her face with a roll of toilet paper and wrapped her in his sweater, even though he already looked to be cold and he had goosebumps all over.  

“I could’ve done something- you could’ve come to me, but instead you- you lie to me and you leave me and I had to find you all broken.” Tim poured some iodine on the first band-aid and stuck it on the bridge of her nose, where she had a particularly nasty cut, he did the same over and over with every scratch and cut on her face, painting a colourful picture of Pixar merchandise. 

 “You- I know the steps in front of your house are steep- but you don’t fall, Stephanie- you don’t fall .” 

She’s still shivering and Tim sheds his coat and lays it over her, she wants to thank him, but instead she’s wheezing for air again, her nose quitting the breathing game whether she liked it or not. 

“You’re burning up and you’re- I- You- I’ll get you help, I promise, Batman will help he’s- 

“Stop saying Batman is going to save me, because he doesn’t give two shits about me, or you- or anybody else,” Stephanie yelled back. He’d said it so often the sentence didn’t sound real anymore. He opened his mouth and closed it again.

“Stop saying you just fell off the steps when we both know your dad pushed you.” 

Both of them crossed their arms and turned their backs to one another on the roof Tim had dragged the both of them onto. He had to carry her up most of the way, but she was a tiny kid, like he was.

…

When he got Stephanie’s call Tim was sitting just underneath a roof, leaning with his back to the wall and his feet against a decorative gargoyle. He had his camera in hand and he was listening intently to a conversation happening on the roof.

“- I’m just saying, we should make Christmas themed superhero costumes. It would make us a fortune in the caped community and we’d look really good for all of December.”

Honestly, Tim thought, Christmas themed superhero costumes were a great idea.

“Robin, settle down.” A gravelly voice replied.

Tim breathed and turned around, leaning his back against the gargoyle and raising his camera lense to reach just above the gutter. He watched the conversation through the small screen on his digital camera. 

Batman and Robin, standing on a roof, T-A-L-K-I-N-G. 

“Come on, B, I’m just trying to lighten the mood, I know Nightwing is coming into town for this bust and he doesn’t like me and all-” Robin’s voice was getting lower every time Tim managed to catch a glimpse of him, which was not often.

“He likes you just fine, he just has a problem with me.” The gravelly voice belonging to Batman said.

Nightwing was coming into town and he had a problem with Batman who was standing on a roof not far away from Tim and whose outline he could see if he zoomed in with the nightlense he’d brought.

“But I mean- he used to be Robin and I took his place and I feel like he still has a grudge.”

Oh wow, he’d thought Nightwing was a lot like the first Robin, but he’d never thought-

“It’s a big step that he’s even coming to Gotham, we should not even be worrying.”

“We? So you’re worried about the prodigal son returning, huh B?” Robin mused.

“He is not my-” ‘B’ stopped himself. “Robin, you little tyke.” He said. “Behave or I’ll send you home anyway.” Robin started laughing. 

“The big bad Batman, afraid of talking about his feelings? more at 11.”

“Robin,” Batman warned.

Both of them were quiet for a second and then Robin said something into his earpiece and then Tim’s phone began to quack, loudly.

Batman turned around to look for the source of the sound. Tim shut off his phone and scaled down the drainpipe, letting himself drop onto a dumpster and making a run for it.

He was huffing and puffing in an alleyway when he answered the phone. And then he had to run again.

…

Tim found her sitting on the floor of the phone booth, her back pressed against the dirty glass. She held her arm like she was the only thing keeping it together, her face was bloody, her shirt that used to be white had red streaks down it.

“Broken arm?” Tim guessed.

“Broken everything,” Stephanie held out her better arm for Tim to pull her up. He didn’t. He pulled his sweater from his Batman backpack and cut off the lower half with a swiss army knife keychain and used the strip of cloth to put her arm in a swing.

She threw up twice on the way to a public bathroom, and then she had enough of walking and Tim decided to carry her up a fire escape to an open roof. 

It was quite frankly, the safest place to be in Gotham at night.

He’d listened to her story, she was sick, she tripped and fell down the stairs by the front door. It was a load of crap. Stephanie’s dad was a horrible man and he had been the one to hurt her, and they both knew it.

…

Dick called him at least once a month to schedule a gymnastics practice. He was good, maybe too good to bother to teach a 9 year old. 

He took Tim to a hall for aerial training once and he strapped Tim into a harness and let him try the trapeze. 

Dick helped him do a trick, but Tim tripped and fell, leaving him hanging in mid air. Dick laughed and called him a natural.

If what Tim was doing was ‘being a natural’, what Dick was doing was ‘being a god’. He stood on a little platform, so high up Dick was practically the size of Tim’s thumb.

“A somersault is basically a roll in the air,” He explained. “Lots of trapeze artists can do that one,”

“But when you put multiple together, you get a double somersault, a triple somersault, a quadruple somersault, only one person in the US can do that one,”

“And who is that?” Tim asked, wide eyed.

Dick answered the question with a giant grin on his face. “That would be me!”

It was a magnificent sight to behold, a move so swift and quick it didn't even register with Tim that it was over. Dick moved through the air in a completely different way than he did on the ground. Like there was no gravity, no weight pulling him down, like he was a bird who'd been chained for the ground and could finally spread his wings again. 

Tim realised that it was the same move that Dick’s parents did in the Haly’s Circus dvd- the same move Dick did in the show, the fateful show where Dick’s parents met their end. He shook off the thought.

He moved closer to the net and began to clap.

…

“Steph,” Tim asked, his legs leaning over the edge of the roof. She was sitting against the chimney on the same roof, unable to move thanks to her injuries, with a giant scowl on her face. 

“Do you ever feel like you’re a bird trying to fly again?”

She didn’t answer. Of course she didn’t answer. It was a stupid question. He turned back to look at the street. He shouldn’t have argued with her, he should have just called an ambulance, even if she said ‘no’ to the suggestion a billion times.

“Kind of-” Steph said. Tim turned to face her. “I feel like a bird that can’t even get off the ground in the first place,”

“Like- Like you know you could do it, but you still can’t manage to do it,” Tim said.

Steph went quiet again.

“Did you know cuckoo’s lay their eggs in another bird’s nest and the cuckoo bird pushes all the other birds out of the nest before they can even hatch or fly?” She said.

“I did not know that,” Tim answered honestly.

“I feel like the birds that were pushed out.”

Tim looked at the night sky, unlike the view from his house, the stars were nowhere to be seen under the orange glow of the street lights. 

"I feel like the cuckoo bird sometimes," Tim confessed. "I don't really belong here do I? I'm a rich kid that feels sad about his parents so he just goes out and ruins other people's lives." 

"You belong with me, we've always said that." 

" You've always said that." 

The night sky is so vastly different from the view at Tim's house, it's like he's in a different world, and it's not his world, right? He shouldn't be here, he should be at home, but what does he have at home? 

"You don't just belong with me because I said so. You belong with me because- because- I love you and you're my best friend and you're like me." 

"But I'm not like you,” Tim stood up. “your dad did that to you and mine let me do anything I want- I have money and a roof over my head and a maid that checks in on me all the time. My parents love me and take care of me and I'm well off." 

Steph’s voice only grew louder as Tim came closer to her. "You think being well off means being hurt less? You have bad parents, Tim." She winced for a second and Tim crouched down next to her to help her. She shook him off. “They only care about you when it works out for them,”

"I'm not- I- they love me and they're good people."

“No they- What if my parents did that, huh? What if my mom left me all alone for weeks- months, even if I was sick or hurt or having bad dreams- what if my mom left me crying in the middle of the night?” 

Tim shook his head. “It’s not about that- I can handle myself,”

“What about that time,” Stephanie interrupted him. “When you were still 7, after I turned 8, you broke your arm skateboarding, where were your parents then?”

Tim sighed. “Mrs. Mac brought me to the doctor-”

“But for a whole week you were walking around with a broken arm and no cast and no adults anywhere,” 

“Shut up,” Tim said and crossed his arms. 

“No,” Stephanie insisted. “What about when you had the flu last fall? What about the nightmares, Tim?”

“Shut up,” He said again. “I know they’re not always the best parents, but it doesn’t compare, alright Steph, your dad’s a supervillain, my dad donates money to animal shelters, they don’t hurt me- I’m fine,”

“You’re not,”

“I am,”

“You’re not,”

“I am,”

“You’re not,”

“I am,” For a second, when Stephanie didn’t say anything, he thought he’d won. And then he saw she’d collapsed. 

He bent himself over her, sitting her back up, taking her pulse, asking her- begging her to wake up, but she didn’t move, 

“Steph?” He repeated. “Wake up!” 

“Wake up! Wake up! Wakeupwakeupwakeupwakeupwakeupwakeupwakeup,”

Again, she didn’t respond. Tim sank to his knees, he was all alone.

...

He did not know how long he was sitting there, on that roof, with his best friend probably dying in his arms. He was screaming for help and then he was yelling at Stephanie and then he was staring at the phone in his phone that had run out of power hours ago.

And then he saw it. A chopper, and a man hanging onto said chopper.

The man was wearing a suit, streaked with neon blue and Tim recognised him in an instant. Nightwing. A hero.

He rose to his feet and waved his arms in the air frantically. “HELP!” He screamed. “HELP PLEASE! MY FRIEND IS HURT!” 

From that moment on, it all happened very fast. He was still waving, but Nightwing was jumping, moving through the air like there was no gravity, no weight pulling him down, he rolled once, twice, three times, four times . 

The quadruple somersault.

Only one person in the US who could do it. A man Tim had personally met, his neighbour, his teacher, his friend. 

The puzzle pieces clicked into place. 

Nightwing caught himself before he fell, shooting his grappling hook at a tall skyscraper and swinging through the air before landing on a building not far from where Tim was standing with Steph, limp on the ground next to him, still breathing.

Fight. Flight. Freeze.

The body’s natural response to danger.

Tim kissed Stephanie’s forehead, picked up his backpack, and ran.

Chapter Text

When Tim was only 12 weeks old, he attended his first gala. 

He’d spent most of the night fast asleep in his stroller, or in his mother’s arms. Never anybody else’s, they were like vultures, everybody wanted to have a chance to hold the little baby.

Bruce, who was only 22 at the time, was the only one at that gala that didn’t ask to hold Tim, but somehow got to be the only one who did.

He didn’t ask the same questions about Janet’s figure, Tim’s schedule, their plan for his education. He just looked at the baby and went “What’s his name?”

Janet looked up in surprise, she’d been trying to find a quiet place to sit for a second, but she hadn’t expected the host to find her. 

“Timothy Jackson,” Janet laughed. To her surprise Bruce started laughing too. 

“You named him Jack son, because he’s Jack’s son .”

Janet had to remind herself for a second that this wasn’t just some kid, this was a potential business partner for her husband’s company, even though this boy was barely older than she was when she met Jack years ago.

“I’m glad somebody gets the pun, one of my students came up with it.” Janet explained.

“Yeah, you teach Archeology at Gotham U right?” 

“Taught.” She corrected. “I’m taking some time off to be with Timothy, and to work on the company, with the whole new Archeological research facility opening in Toronto next month. 

“Oh,” Bruce replied. “That makes sense.”

“And you just got your law degree right?”

When Janet had heard that, she was honestly jealous, a 22 year old finishing a law degree at Yale without an undergrad, that was pretty much unheard of, but Bruce with his set of IB’s and ridiculous amount of money had managed it anyway.

“Yes, just last school year.”

Timothy blew little bubbles of spit, Janet wiped them away awkwardly with a wet wipe.

“They do that to prepare for chewing, drinking and talking, you know that?” Bruce explained.

“Huh.” Janet hadn’t heard that before. “Did you learn that at law school?” She joked.

“I started at Gotham U actually, med school.” Bruce told her. 

“Following in your father’s footsteps then?” She asked.

Bruce’s face fell and he looked down, when he looked up again his face had this mask plastered on it, there was a softness in his eyes and a grin painting his mouth. “No, actually, I’ve always liked the idea of helping people and I love learning, I took pre-med classes and I just had my first classes a few weeks ago.”

This young man was far from what Janet knew men his age to be, and far from what she expected him to be like. 

They went silent for a second and Timothy gave a long cry, blinking at his mom with his bright blue eyes. “The little guy really doesn’t like silence, do you buddy?” Bruce addressed the little baby.

Timothy blew an exceptionally big bubble and popped it, he shook slightly, staring wide eyed at the ceiling.

“He’s gonna be a people person, I can feel it in my bones.” Bruce said. “Very smart too, he’ll never want to be alone, but if you look away for a few seconds he’s gone.” Janet smiled down at her kid, she could see it too, all the potential in this little body.

“Do you want to hold him?” Janet blurted. 

“Hold him? But I don’t know-” The archaeologist ignored his sputters and thrusted the baby at him. “Support the neck and don’t drop him.” 

Janet shook her arms out, she’d been holding that 9 pound child for hours and it was getting to her. 

“I really have to pee.” She said, and made a break for it after leaving Bruce with a singular instruction ‘just let him be.’

It surprised her just as much as it did Bruce, she’d been a mom for barely 3 months and she was prepared to kill for that baby. Bruce had been in med school for 6 weeks and he’d never met a baby in his life. 

“So, it’s just me and you, huh kid?” Timothy burst into tears. “Is this because your mom isn’t here? She’s just going to the bathroom.” Timothy halted to blink at him and continued to cry. 

“Am I holding you wrong?” Timothy just cried and Bruce really shouldn’t have been expecting much from a 3 month old baby. “I am vengeance.” Bruce said jokingly in a deep voice, it made Timothy laugh. Maybe he’d try out his vigilante catchphrases on babies instead of actual murderers, they were a way better crowd anyway.

“Prepare to get booked by the bat.” Bruce said in an even lower voice. Timothy didn’t like that one and began to cry again. “I know, the theme just doesn’t fit, right?” 

“How about this one; Tell the cops Batman was here.” Tim didn’t like that one either. It wasn’t fair that the league of assassins didn’t have a class on catchphrase making, because it’d surely help him. 

“Maybe just not speak, that’s an option too,” He disputed this by himself. “But then I’ll just be beating up people and leaving without saying a word.” He shook his head.

“Timothy, I am the Batman.” He said, his voice so deep it sounded like he was choking on a pound of gravel.

“That’s the one, right, just say it like that? It really helps to bounce things off you, kid.” 

By the time Janet was back, Bruce’s throat hurt and Timothy was back asleep. He should invest in one of those voice machine things. 

“I’ve gotta get back to the party, but feel free to use the sitting room, or I could have someone escort you two back home if you’re tired.”

“Of course.” Janet replied, head held high and her son back in her arms. 

“Bruce,” She said, before the young man left. “It was really nice to talk to you.”

“Likewise, and if you ever need anything, I’m only one house over.”

Bruce turned around the corner and he was gone.

...

At 2 years old Tim and his nanny went to the circus. He got to go backstage before everything started, he met a family, and he saw them fly- he saw them fall too. And learned an important lesson that when you fall, you always fall too hard.

He saw the boy from the flying family again two months later at a gala. His suit was itchy and he went looking for the first familiar thing he saw. When he saw the boy in the same itchy suit he had on, looking close to flying away, Tim clasped onto his leg, before he could float off. 

“Who- What? You’re Tommy? Right?”

“Tim.” The tiny boy corrected. 

“What are you doing here, Timmy?” 

“I’m inven-ed”

“You’re invited?”

Tim nodded against his leg. Dick reached for the child and picked him up, lifting him on his hip.

“This is my- B’s house, if you’re invited, I bet he knows your parents.”

“What’s a B?” Tim yelled into Dick’s ear, who flinched away from the noise.

“It’s kind of- sshh- like a parent, but not really because he’s not.”

Dick looked across the room, he knew Bruce was somewhere at the bar trying to avoid the weird ladies, but he had a hard time telling apart the people in black suits sitting with their backs to him. Still he spotted Bruce’s awful hair full of stupid gel, which wasn’t fun to mess up at all, because it stuck to your hands and smelled like glue.

Dick waded through the sea of people, with a toddler hanging on to him like a backpack, only to discover the man with the greasy stupid gel hair wasn’t actually Bruce. No, instead Bruce was all the way across the room looking at the 2 year old steering around another boy and realised, ‘oh, i’m in charge of that child’ .

Bruce and Dick locked eyes from both sides of the room, an epic staredown between a 10 year old about to yell at his foster dad and the foster dad in question, who has been taking care of this child for a full total of 8 weeks and has no idea what he is doing.

The adult raised his hand into the air and waved, moving past the people all around him to get to his ward before the boy could decide to scream.

Dick looked incredibly pleased with himself once Bruce had arrived. Bruce looked between Dick and the child on his back and sighed. “Dick, where did you find Timothy?” 

“So you know him?” Dick asked, not answering the question.

“Timothy and his parents live next door.” Bruce answered.

“So he’s invited?” Dick continued.

“Yes he i-” Dick dropped Tim’s legs and let Tim fall to the floor. Bruce quickly grabbed the toddler from the air before he fell. 

“He’s a baby, Dick, you can’t just drop him.” 

“I’m 2.” Tim corrected, holding up 3 fingers. Bruce put one finger down. 

“You drop me all the time.” The boy crossed his arms.

“Because you can land on your feet, Timothy’s just learning how to walk.” 

“I can wawk.” Tim said, moving his legs in Bruce’s arms, hitting him in the stomach. Bruce set him back down on the floor, Tim immediately fell over. “What?” He demanded, seeing Dick and Bruce looking at me. “I can wawk. Not now, but I can.” He stood back up and raised his arms at Bruce.

Bruce looked around, trying to see if there was some other person Timothy wanted to pick him up, but no, he’d been chosen. “Let’s just get him back to his parents.” The grown up decided, taking his foster son’s hand and going to look for the Drakes.

“I don’t want to,” Dick said, standing still. “He’s a stupid baby,” 

 “Then you can go find Alfred in the kitchens.” Bruce suggested. Dick frowned, turned around and made a break for it. “You’re not a stupid baby,” Bruce confided in him. “He’s just having a hard time, is all.” 

“Oh,” Tim answered. “You hawf to hug him.” 

“I don’t think that’s what he wants from me right now.”

“No, you hawf to.”

Bruce laughed. “Okay, I will.” 

“And teww him to be nice to me.” 

“Okay, that too.”

Bruce dropped Timothy off in the hands of his mom, who looked at the toddler like he was radioactive waste in an elementary school, not supposed to be there.

“Where’s Olivia?” Janet asked her son, she lifted him onto her hip, slightly, brushing his hair away from his face.

“Baffwoom.” Tim shrugged.

“Baffwoom? You mean the bathroom?” 

“Duhh.” Janet sighed and turned to Bruce. “I’m so sorry about him, his nanny was supposed to take care of him tonight.” 

“It’s fine,” Bruce assured. “He’s a delight as always.” 

“He was? He’s just been so clingy lately, whenever we go for work it’s just this whole teary goodbye and it isn’t cute anymore,” Janet said. “We always come back, don’t we Timothy?” She continued, turning to her son, he wrapped his arms around her neck, resting his head on her chest.

“But you go away so long.” Tim whined, his mom ran a hand through the boy’s long curls. 

“See,” Janet addressed Bruce. “I admit we work a lot, but you do too and I haven’t heard any bad things about your ward.”

“Well, Dick’s only just settling in, but I definitely try to make time for him and otherwise there’s always Alf- my Butler.” Janet nodded. 

“But, how do you handle everything, the company, your studies, the child?” She wondered, still looking very put together despite the toddler almost falling asleep on her chest.

Bruce scratched the back of his neck. “I might’ve dropped out.”

“But you were- You were halfway there, you dropped out because of the boy, he’s not permanently placed, is he?”

“He’s not- He’s going to stay with me for as long as he wants to, it’s important for kids to have consistency in their upbringing- but that’s not the point, I’ve not been fully invested in my studies for a while and I’ve been wanting to drop out, but taking in Dick certainly helped a bit.” 

Janet felt almost bad for this man, she would never have given up her ambitions for anything, especially not for some- some kid she didn’t even know.

“Well, it’s certainly an interesting choice.” She lightly reprimanded Tim for playing with the collar of her dress. “Are you going to work for a law firm now? With the whole JD?”

“No,” Bruce answered. “I’m going to take the role of CEO at Wayne Enterprises.”

“You’re what?” Janet asked, almost choking on her own voice.

“I was going into the position anyways, but it’s an accelerated course, you could say that.” 

The woman was taken aback, a 24 year old CEO to one of the largest companies in the country, that was certainly something. “And will you move the headquarters as well?” 

“Move?” Bruce frowned.

“Jack and myself have already moved to working in Toronto half the time, but some other companies have fully moved out of Gotham.” 

“But what for?”

Janet looked at him like he was absolutely mad. “Gotham just isn’t the ideal place to do business, the employees are almost always caught in internal drama, the police force is not dependable and there’s been lots of break ins the past few years, last month at ACE chemicals some loony even tried to commit suicide, they had to dump the whole batch.” 

“Wayne Enterprises can’t just move, we have almost fifty thousand employees at our headquarters and almost a hundred thousand in the tri state area.”

“Employees are replaceable,” Janet told him, she couldn’t believe how this idiot would take the place of CEO of one of the biggest companies in the country.

“You can’t just replace a hundred thousand jobs.” 

“Jeesh, Bruce, it’s not like you’re going into politics.” 

Bruce looked at her like she’d grown an extra eye in the middle of her forehead and he was staring at this extra eye with anger hidden behind his smile. “The night’s still young.” He joked and gave Tim a little wave. “Bye little man.” 

“Janet,” He said his goodbye.

...

Tim wouldn’t see Bruce very often, in fact he wouldn’t speak to him at all, not until 3 years later when his parents trusted him enough to bring him to a Christmas Fundraiser in a stuffy ballroom. He had to smile and shake hands and not touch the food with his hands. 

He missed his nanny a lot after the first 5 minutes. She was the longest sitting nanny in his personal history with a record time of 9 months and counting and she was the greatest nanny to ever cross the ocean with a plane and decide to work for a rich family. 

She spoke one language to him and it wasn’t English, but that didn’t matter. He had plenty of English at school and not enough of French. They’d play out brilliant adventures of pirates and princesses and do gymnastics on the staircase. She’d cry out in French, conjugating verbs as she went down, and in her final words as a dying pirate she begged him to learn how to conjugate verbs properly.

So he stomped around the ballroom, mumbling to himself in french, shaking hands and hiding from old ladies, for hours. It was unbearable. 

He decided to hide in the hallway, on top of a bench, so he looked like he was doing something. 

In his head Monsieur Le Bleu, also known as his blue teddy bear, had just killed Batman and it was a very sad occasion. He was halfway through his eulogy, spoken partially in English and partially in French, when two very uninvited guests to the funeral interrupted in English. Laughing as they went to sneak into the ballroom, almost 2 hours after the event started. 

Tim coughed to catch their attention. “That one only opens from inside, you need the one by the bathrooms.” 

Two pairs of eyes were on him. “Oh thanks,” One of the people, a younger boy with jet black hair was about to get going, but the older man stopped him. “What are you doing all alone out here?” He asked.

“It’s boring in there.” He complained. 

The boy looked at the man smugly. “I told you, Bruce, it’s some stuffy old people thing, that’s why I didn’t wanna come.”

“You didn’t have to come with me, you just saw me getting ready and decided to ruin your saturday evening with this.” 

“No I didn’t,” the boy replied. “The kid agrees with me, don’t you kid?” 

Tim nodded vehemently. 

“You’re still a kid yourself, Dick.” The man, Bruce said.

“Excuse me-” Tim interjected. “My nanny says that’s a bad word and if you’re going to insult someone you should use your words better.”

“It’s not-” Bruce sighed. “It’s my name.” Dick shouted.

“Oh, my name’s Timothy, that’s not a bad word, I hope.” 

“Wait,” The adult said. “Timothy Drake?” The youngest boy nodded.

“You’ve certainly grown a lot, chum. We live next door at Wayne manor. I’ve known you since you were a baby.” 

“Really? I don’t recognise you.” Tim crossed his arms.

“It’s been a long time, yes.” 

Dick looked at Tim sideways. “You have teeth now.” He noted. 

Tim blinked. He’d always had teeth, right?

“We met a few times, when you were 2.”

“Okay.” Tim didn’t know what to do with this information.

Bruce motioned for Dick to get moving and started walking. He turned around after a few times to look at Tim still sitting there. “Aren’t you coming?”

“No? I was just getting to the good part.” Tim answered and went to lie flat on his back, kicking his feet at a wardrobe in front of him.

“He doesn’t have anything.” Dick whispered to his foster father. 

“He’s 5, just let him be.” He replied.

“Well, he’s weird.”

“You’re weird too,”

“You’re weirder.”

For the rest of the month at Christmas fundraisers, galas, foundation parties and soirées, Tim watched from afar as Bruce charmed the pants off of everyone he met. Even Tim’s father seemed insistent on buying him a beer, even though the bar pretty much always served drinks for free.

It was like that every year. Tim would be dragged to parties to look cute in a suit and hide away for the rest of the evening, but Bruce would always find him for a chat, not bothering to ask him about his ambitions and his future in his parents’ company, he was a kid for Christ’s sake, but asking after his hobbies and his favourite movies. 

When his nanny lost his VISA, his parents didn’t hire a new one. Instead, he was expected to get ready for the fancy parties himself, pour himself into a suit and brush his hair. His mother always tutted at him while he was doing it, grabbing the brush from his hands and doing it herself. 

Sometimes she’d mutter “We ought to get you a haircut,”

And Tim would scrunch up his nose and shake his head.

He turned 7, 8 and 9, and he knew that, even if his parents were not always around, there was something dependable in overpriced food, itchy suits and slick backed hair.

… 

There was a small wall between the Wayne Estate and the Drake Estate. Tim walked along the wall with long hurried strides, and then he turned back around and walked back the other way.

He still hadn’t heard from Stephanie- oh God, he had abandoned Stephanie on a roof. Maybe she was dead- she was most likely dead, or she hated him for leaving her on a roof.

And Dick- Dick was Nightwing and he had been Robin before. The thought of it almost gave Tim whiplash. Dick had become Robin after his parents died, probably to take revenge, and after that, he became Nightwing and tyre kid probably became Robin- and- Tim had uncovered one of the biggest secrets in the history of Gotham.

“I haven’t seen you around in a while, chum.” Bruce said, leaning against the brick wall. It was still sturdy, despite having been there for decades, and about 4 foot up.

Tim turned around in surprise. “Mr. Bruce- What- I-”

Bruce smiled up at the kid. “How’d you get up there?”

“I’m short, not an idiot.” Tim shot at him. Bruce raised up his hands and went to sit on the wall.

“Sorry, I didn’t mean it like that.” He apologised. He was too uptight, what if Bruce Wayne knew that he knew about Dick and he was here to- to, well Tim didn’t really know what Bruce Wayne was going to do. 

“People really like to make fun of my height these days.” Tim found himself explaining.

“Well at least you’re not as tiny as you were as a baby.”

“That doesn’t assure me at all.” The boy said, doing a cartwheel across the wall like he’d been doing before. Bruce’s eyes almost popped out of his sockets, that kid was definitely going to fall and then he’d have to explain that whole mess to his parents, god. But he didn’t fall, instead he landed right back on his feet, standing steady on the brick wall. 

“That’s an interesting trick you did there there.” Bruce stated plainly.

“It’s gymnastics.” Tim said and what was he even thinking, of course Bruce knew that, he was Dick’s dad. And Dick was Nightwing and how was he even talking to him now. He had to figure everything out and then the guy’s dad just goes to bug him about it. 

“I didn’t know you did gymnastics.”

“I must’ve told you once, right?”

Bruce thought about it. “I bet you did.” 

“Did you know I won at the regionals?”

“I did not know that, your parents must’ve been proud.” Bruce said.

Tim bit the inside of his cheek. “Of course they were proud, why wouldn’t they be proud of that.”

“Will they be at the Wayne Foundation Gala this weekend? I sent them an invitation, but they haven’t RSVP'd.” 

Tim frowned. “There’s a gala this weekend?” 

“Yes, we’re going to be raising funds for housing development and supporting social workers in impoverished areas.” 

“Sounds cool,” Tim said, way too quickly. “but my parents are in Guatemala, they’re coming back tonight though, so I don’t know if they’ll be up for it.”

“No offense,” Tim said. “But I’d just like to be alone right now- before everyone’s back home and I don’t have the house to myself anymore,” 

Bruce laughed. “None taken, and I do, but I was just seeing why there was a 9 year old walking on our wall-”

“It’s my wall too,” 

“Walking on our shared wall.” Bruce corrected.

“I always walk here, I use it to practice gymnastics too,”

“I did too, for the longest time, then I fell off and broke my wrist and Alfred still bullies me for that one.” 

“That’s not very kind,” Tim said.

Bruce laughed. “I’ll tell him you said that.”

“Please don’t,”

Bruce laughed again.

“I’d like to see you at the gala, Timothy.” Bruce lifted himself off the wall and waved goodbye. 

Tim wouldn’t go to that gala if his life depended on it, but that was besides the point. His gymnastics teacher was a superhero and his dad was now weirdly suspicious, that was the point.

He’d known Bruce all his life, since he was 12 weeks old and it couldn’t be that this man was anyway related to the gritty dark vigilante side of Gotham. Bruce was all happy and funny and he asked good questions and he was the only one in Gotham high society that didn’t bore him to death. Batman was all low voice, big muscles and violence. 

It didn’t make sense for there to be a connection at all, but somehow, Tim could feel it in his bones that there was a connection, heck, he could feel it in the cartilage of his nose that there was a connection. 

But Stephanie, Tim felt the weight on his chest as he walked back inside. He needed to know where Stephanie was.

And that was when all sense of Tim’s morality jumped out the window.

...

Okay so maybe it was a horrible crime to hack into a hospital’s patient files, but Tim was desperate, desperate enough to commit said horrible crime.

There were at least 10 public hospitals in Gotham, not to mention all of the clinics and private hospitals. 

He went down his list, Gotham Mercy West, Gotham Mercy East, St. Agnes Hospital, Jonathan F. Johnson Memorial Hospital, he got a hit on her name at Johnson Memorial. An S. Brown, age 10 in the Pediatrics ward.

He breathed out, closing off the program and deleting any and all evidence of what he’d just done. Barbara would kill him if she knew.

It was too late to go visit her now- but he knew she was there and she was alive and that’s all that mattered.

He hadn’t slept much the past night- and he felt it, from his eyes to his bones. For a second he thought about just collapsing right there in his dad’s office chair. But he remembered the disappointed look his dentist would give him if he did the day before his dentist’s appointment- the day before his parents came home.

He brushed his teeth, not long enough, he knew that, but he could barely hold onto his toothbrush. He wiggled out of his jeans and let himself drop down on his bed curling up under his bedsheets.

For the first night in a really long while, he was out like a light.

Chapter Text

It was the moment of silence, waiting in a white tiled room, uncomfortable plastic seats strung around the room, that solidified the thought in Tim’s mind. He did not have a real dad.

His dad could not possibly be real. He wasn’t a terrible dad like Arthur Brown, or a good dad like, well Tim could not really think up any examples at the top of his head. His dad was just unreal. Fake.

They were sitting in the waiting room at the dentist’s office, parental guidance necessary and the reminders from their dentist’s office for Tim were piling up, Janet had finally decided to call in an appointment, but a last minute meeting saw her swap places with her husband.

“So,” Jack said, stretching out his arms above him.

“So,” Tim replied, toying with a few lego bricks strewn around the table in a makeshift kids booth.

“Well, what do you like to do for fun?” Jack asked, as if he was back at one of those terrible seminars where you had to actually talk to people in the introduction segment that dragged on for hours.

“Uhm…” Tim could not answer that question from the top of his head, and he should not have to, this was his dad that he was talking to, sure he’d been harbouring a runaway 9 year old for a period of time, was committing slight identity fraud in a public library and snuck out at night to follow around his neighbour, though he was not sure about that part, in spandex.

“I like reading,” Close enough. “And taking pictures, I do gymnastics too, but you knew that already.”

“Yeah.” Jack had maybe slightly forgotten that fact, but Tim didn’t need to know that. 

“What kind of classes are you taking?” The man asked. Tim looked at him with a look of utmost confusion. Had he forgotten that Tim was 9 years old?

“Well, we start with reading time in the morning,” Tim explained. “And then maths and then snack time and then recess, but only for a few minutes and then we do grammar and spelling stuff and then lunch and then recess again. And on Mondays and Wednesdays we have gym class after, but on Tuesdays we have Geography, and on Thursdays History and on Fridays we do science.”

“Oh, fun.”

“It is.” Tim agreed and it went momentarily silent.

“When I was in school, I was on the track team, you know what that is?” Tim nodded.

“You should maybe think about joining, it builds character, I think.”

“I- uh, I think there’s not a school track team for 5th graders.”

“Oh, then it’s fine. I just thought it’d give us something to talk abou-”

“I’m going to Nationals this year with gymnastics, that’s something at least.” The boy interrupted. 

“Wow, that’s great!” Jack congratulated. “What exactly does that entail?”

“It’s the national championship for children in the US.” 

“Then it’s really great?” The man tried.

Tim’s dad was not a real dad, right? If he was, he was terrible at being a dad, or terrible at trying to be one. 

Salvation came in the shape of a dentist, coming into the waiting room and inviting Tim in. In the end Tim got to pick out a toy from a machine and he got a plastic ring with a bright pink butterfly and the gross taste of what was meant to be bubblegum flavour staining his mouth.

His dentist appointment had not turned his fake dad into a real functioning dad. Maybe you needed a different type of doctor for that.

His dad dropped him back off at school, even though there was only an hour left to the school day and Tim felt almost disappointed. Why, he did not exactly know. But he was.

Tim had a pretty short route by bicycle, about 25 minutes if he took it slow, but 15 if he really worked at it and took the shortcut through the hole in the fencing behind his house. His dad didn’t know that though.

He got on his bicycle and drove towards the city. 

Johnson Memorial Hospital was an old and boring building. In front of it was a man selling balloons and a flower shop. Tim bought a balloon version of Mater from Cars to make him seem less out of place, but also because Stephanie would get a kick out of it.

He stood at the front desk and gave the lady a cheeky smile. “I’m looking for Stephanie Brown,” he said.

The lady told him that she wasn’t authorised to give Tim that information.

Tim frowned. “But- my teacher said it was alright, I have a card and everything, we all signed it, even Frankie and I don’t think he can read,” 

The lady grimaced. “I’m really sorry, kid, but you’re not on the visitors list,”

“Please,” Tim started. “Maybe- If she’s still here you can just ask her if she wants to see me, right?” 

“Alright, what’s your name, kid?”

“It’s- well,” he paused, he had hacked into this place yesterday. “Tell her it’s her friend Tom, from the library,” 

“I’ll do that,” The lady said. “It’s so sweet of you kids to do this for your friend,” She had the phone clamped against her ear. “Yes Janice, could you ask Stephanie Brown on pedes, yeah, right in the pediatrics ward- oh her, sweet girl- could you ask her if she wants Tom from the library to come by?” 

The desk lady turned back to Tim. “It’ll just be a second, alright kid,”

Tim nodded and pulled the Mater balloon closer to him.

The lady hummed into the phone. “Thanks, Jan,”

There was a moment of suspense when the lady hung up the phone.

“She’d just love to see ya, kid, it’s fourth floor room 42, you gotta follow the pink teddy bear signs there, okay?”

Tim nodded and bid the lady goodbye.

He filed into an elevator with a nurse and a very old lady, they got out before him, leaving Tim as the only one in the elevator.

He took a deep breath and got out of the elevator, the uncomfortable hospital smell practically surrounding him.

The pink teddy bear sign led him to at least four different turns, until he arrived in an indoor playground full of screaming kids and Tim had to watch out where to step trying to avoid screaming toddlers. 

Just at the end of the hall was room 42, a little pink card stating that that was where ‘S. Brown’ resided. 

Tim gave the door a small knock. 

It wasn’t Stephanie who opened it, no, Stephanie was lying in a hospital bed in the middle of the room, sipping on a juice box. 

It was a tall woman, who looked like what would happen if you took Stephanie’s face and put it on an adult. She had wrinkled and straight blonde hair that was tied into a ponytail. She was still in her scrubs and Tim knew on instant that this was the Crystal Brown he’d heard so much about.

“Hey!” She greeted him happily. “Come right in, I’ll just let you two catch up for a second,” 

Tim didn’t even get a word in. 

He turned to Stephanie, lying in a bed, her Cars band-aids replaced with boring white ones and her arm in a purple cast. “I’m-” he didn’t know what to say. “I’m sorry,”

Stephanie frowned at him. She looked far better than when he had last seen her. “Come here doofus, you saved my life,”

Tim dropped his backpack and gave Stephanie the biggest hug he could possibly give without squashing her. “I’m so so so so sorry,” Tim told her. “I left you there, I should’ve stayed-”

“None of that, we wouldn’t have fit in the Batmobile together anyways,” She said.

His eyes widened. “You got to ride in the Batmobile? With Batman?” 

“And Robin, and Nightwing,” 

Tim grabbed onto her hand. “I have to tell you about that too, about Nightwing-” 

“Yes?” Stephanie said expectantly.

“I know who- well I’m pretty sure- at least- I think-”

Stephanie punched him in the shoulder. “Let’s hear it already.”

“Ow-” Tim rubbed his shoulder. “I know Nightwing’s secret identity- and that really hurt,” 

“Really?”

“I think so,”

“So,” She said. “Who is it?”

Tim looked around and moved closer to Stephanie. He whispered the name into her ear.

“No way,”

“Yes way,”

“I have something to show you,” Stephanie said solemnly.

“What is it?” 

She pulled up her hospital gown. “Look at this sick scar!” 

There was a red line trailing from her belly button for about an inch. “Emergency appendectomy baby!” 

“You had appendicitis?” Tim asked. “That wasn’t in your file.”

“You read my file? How’d you get that?”

He looked around the room again and then moved back to whisper in Stephanie’s ear.

“That’s like,” she paused, trying to find the word. “ So cool,”

…

Crystal Brown was awesome, Tim decided. She came back after almost an hour with ‘illegal’ ice pops for all three of them and she was positively beaming.

Stephanie confided in him that her mom had thought she was dead until she got a call from the hospital. As well as the fact that the police had arrested Arthur Brown on counts of abuse and robbery. Added was the mysterious benefactor who paid Stephanie’s hospital bills. It was a wonderful day for Crystal Brown.

“So, Tim,” Crystal sat in one of the hospital chairs across the room, while Tim was piled into the hospital bed with Stephanie. “How was school?”

Tim looked at Stephanie with wide eyes. She shoved him. “Oh- it was alright, I had a dentist appointment this morning, so I didn’t attend much of it and I was really worried about Steph- I came here as soon as I could,”

“Good,” Crystal smiled. “I’m really glad we could be introduced, Stephanie has just told me so much about you,” she shot her daughter a pointed look.

The boy bent over to Stephanie. “Did you?” he whispered. She shook her head. 

“Steph told me a lot about you too, is it true that you delivered a baby in a grocery store?” 

The nurse shot her daughter another look and then turned to Tim. “That was ages ago,”

“It’s awesome though,” Stephanie pointed out.

Crystal snorted. “Shush, you’re making me blush,”

…

The world without Arthur Brown didn’t really change Tim’s life that much.

He noticed that Stephanie was happier and that made him happier by default. 

An added bonus was the fact that his parents were back home. His mom kissed him good night and his dad talked to him about sports and it was good- it was almost normal.

On Monday and Wednesday nights, Tim had gymnastics. On Wednesday nights, Tim liked to scale buildings and stalk actual superheroes. He had a bit of a routine. 

After the gymnastics lesson, Tim snuck up on the roof of the gymnastics centre and took out his camera. He turned the lense towards himself and took a picture. He observed it on the little screen and nodded approvingly, he was getting better and better at selfies with the camera.

He made sure to put the lense cap on and jumped towards the roof opposite the gymnastics centre, a leap of barely 6 foot.

If he crossed over to the roof to the right and walked across the little wall seperating a daycare’s backyard from a dark alleyway, he would be on top of the roof with all the chimneys, which was arguably the best hiding spot in the book.

The wait wasn’t long. 

Before Tim knew it, a dark figure was moving across the roofs, grappling onto a taller building, behind him a smaller figure in bright colours was pulling a pair of handcuffs from his tool belt and spoke quickly into his communication device. 

“I’ve got eyes on the suspect between house numbers 25 and 36.” 

Tim held his camera over the edge of the building, taking a few pictures of the street below him before bringing it back up to his face and observing what was in the photo.

A man, about 30 or 40, his head bald, but not like he shaved it or anything, Tim was pretty sure that he was just bald like that, he had a big tattoo on his neck, it looked kind of like a shark bite if Tim squinted, but if he didn’t it just said ‘Rhonda’. That was an unfortunate name, Rhonda.

“Suspect is moving, he’s most likely armed.” Robin said into his comms, Batman seemed to have disappeared.

Tim pointed his camera down at the street, taking bursts of pictures as sounds of a struggle emerged out of the street. 

“You just got bagged by the Bat!” Robin yelled out at the small metallic click of the handcuffs, tying ‘Rhonda’ man to a street lamp.

“No.” Batman just said.

The young boy looked over his pictures, just a few feet above them now. ‘Rhonda’ man had been smashed into a dumpster, but went down pretty easily. Tim wondered what he must’ve done for the Batman to come after him like that.

“This is a civilian arrest, the cops will be here soon to read you your rights.” Robin said, trying his best to make it sound like a catchphrase.

“Robin,” Batman warned.

“Every superhero has one- we’re superheroes, why can’t we have a catchphrase?”

“I’m Batman.”

“You’re no fun, that’s what you are.”

Tim stifled a laugh. 

“Excuse me?” ‘Rhonda’ man asked. “What are you bringing me in for?” 

“What?” Robin squeaked, he cleared his throat and tried again in a lower voice. “What?”

“It’s just, one of my buddies, Jake, you brought him in on the wrong charge, I just wanted to know, y’know?”

Batman sighed. “You are under arrest for robbing a retirement home, Leslie”

“That’s fair.” 

“It is.” Batman answered.

“It really is, you stole Agnes’ wedding ring, she’d been married 50 years you know, that’s just rude,” Robin said. “And Robbie’s oxygen tank, I mean, he had spares, but that’s as low as you can get.”

“Okay, I get it, when’s the police getting here? Judge Judy is on at 9 and Janice from holdings always puts it on.” 

Wordlessly Batman disappeared, Robin stuck his tongue out at Leslie. “I’ll tell Janice not to put it on, she thinks I’m adorable. ”

As Robin moved into the air, Leslie cried out. “You little shit.” He yelled after him.

“No you .”

Tim tried to follow the crime fighting duo with his eyes, but had lost them when he peered over the edge of the roof at Leslie. If he sprinted for it now, he could still make it to the 32nd street offshoot of Crime Alley and relax on the gargoyles for a second, but if he went home to make his third graph of the week trying to properly calculate Batman’s height to compare it to Bruce Wayne’s he could still watch Judge Judy, just to spite Leslie.

He weighed the options in his mind, deciding on the latter. He picked up his bike at the gymnastics center and drove home. His parents weren’t back home yet, something about a business dinner, but his parents had one of those almost every night they were home and Tim was beginning to suspect they just didn’t want to eat at home.

His calculations according to the average Gotham City dumpster and minus an estimation of 10 centimeters of fake batears, Batman was 190 centimeters, about 6 foot 2, but that just wasn’t a good measurement system for calculations like this.

Bruce Wayne was 188 centimeters. It was roughly the same and it was definitely above average height. Maybe there was some truth to the gut feeling he had. But his gut also said to go home, arriving over 40 minutes before Judge Judy even started. 

His gut was an idiot.

…

Stephanie laughed at him when he told her a few days later, he came over to her house after school on Friday. They were hanging over the furnace with marshmallows on skewers. 

“You’ve been trying to convince yourself that Bruce Wayne isn’t Batman for weeks now, maybe you can just let it go.” 

Tim turned his face towards her slowly, almost like he was trying to have his head do a full circle. He blinked. “If I ‘just let it go’,” he made quotation marks with his hands, spitting the words out like they were venom. “How will I know?”

“You don’t have to know everything,” Stephanie shrugged.

Tim grunted. “But I wanna.”

“That’s your mistake.” 

“Okay, but what do you think?” The boy asked, trying to get a bit of sticky marshmallow fluff off of his nose, but just making it worse.

“I think Batman is Bruce Wayne,”

“Why?”

“It makes sense- how else would Batman pay for all the fancy gadgets?”

Tim hummed. “That’s a really great idea,” he grabbed his phone from the counter and typed it into the notes app.

“Tim,” Stephanie said seriously. “Don’t go putting yourself in danger over this,”

“I won’t- and I don’t put myself in danger,”

The girl rolled her eyes. “Now go make me some hot chocolate,” she ordered.

“What?” Tim was just about to pile another marshmallow on his skewer. “Why do I have to do it, I’m a guest?”

“I’m injured,” Steph said dramatically, showing him her purple cast for emphasis. “And you love me,”

“Shut up,”

…

Chapter Text

Two-Face kind of sucked. That was Tim’s professional opinion.

He was in the library with Steph, hanging over a radiator like his life depended on it. Gotham was covered almost completely in a layer of snow, so the second Steph saw Tim, she dumped a heap of snow into his coat.

Obviously he pushed her into a pile of snow as retaliation.

They were just starting to dry up when they noticed Barbara.

She didn’t laugh when she saw them, like Tim would’ve expected her to, she simply stared blankly in Steph’s direction.

“Ms. Barbara?” Tim said, trying to get her attention.

Barbara looked very startled, like she was only then noticing they were there. She smiled at him. “Tom! Jackie,” She frowned. “Oh god- gosh- What happened to your arm, sweetie?” 

Steph looked very confused for a second, looking at her good arm. Then she looked at her other arm. “Oh- yeah, I fell off the stairs, I had appendi-blabla, I have a really cool scar now,” she tried to pull up her shirt to show it to Barbara, but shivered as soon as her hands touched her skin.

Barbara nodded and took a deep breath. “Uhm- Do you kids want to help with some filing?” 

“Can we have hot chocolate if we do?” Steph asked.

It took a moment for Barbara to answer, as she was looking very intently at Stephanie. “Sure you can,” she answered almost too happily and she turned around.

As Steph and Tim worked, Steph by the printer, Tim by the perforator and Barbara by the binders, the librarian was typing away at her phone, constantly rewriting and deleting the message she was writing.

Occasionally she shot a glance at Steph, but not Tim. Tim didn’t notice however, he had his eyes fixed on two almost identical missing kids posters on the wall. A pair of twins, two years old, born February 22nd. Tim frowned. 

“When did those kids go missing?” He pointed at the poster. 

Barbara looked at it, her brows furrowed as she tried to recall the information. “A few days ago- it’s horrible, isn’t it?” 

“What happened to them?”

Barbara put her phone down on the desk. “They were taken from their stroller while their mom was shopping at this boutique, nobody’s seen them since, the father’s completely out of his mind with worry, I can’t imagine how the mom must feel,” she shook her head.

“It’s hardly anything you kids should concern yourself with, it’s not for your little nine year old ears,”

Tim kept quiet, though he would normally have said something back. The date him and Steph had told Barbara was their birthday had passed weeks ago, they would be 10 now, if they hadn’t been lying. Steph’s birthday was in a few weeks, but Tim’s was in the summer, full months away.

He couldn’t help but think of the twins, of the fact that there was no chance they were taken by accident, and of the fact that a certain supervillain with a love for the number ‘two’ might have had something to do with it.

It was a weird day. Barbara kept looking at Steph and Tim was staring at the posters on the wall, his mind moving a million miles a minute, thinking about how the twins were stuck somewhere in Two-Face’s weird torture dungeons. Stephanie was making photocopies of her face with the printer.

They filed out of the library at the end of the afternoon, Tim helped shovel snow away from the sidewalk so Barbara could wheel to her car, he said a quick goodbye to Stephanie and began to walk back home.

The twins had been taken on a tuesday, from a store named Janus, after the god of two faces. Tim sighed. It was obvious, wasn’t it? There were interviews with the kids’ dad, but not the mom. She was pretty suspicious, Tim thought.

He pulled some warm clothes from his closet, sat down for a microwave meal and left as soon as it was dark.

In his bag was a list of all the buildings that could possibly belong to Two-Face. He crossed ‘ Folie à deux ’ and ‘Janus’ off the list first, they were positively abandoned in the evening.

There was one building Tim was absolutely sure was owned by Two-Face, not only because it was called ‘ The Two Mirrors ’, but also because it was literally in Two-Face’s name; Harvey Dent.

Maybe, just maybe, he could find the twins and warn Batman.

It was in front of ‘ The Two Mirrors ’ he spotted a few guys coming out of the store, only one of them was wearing a half dyed outfit. “I’m sorry guys,” The guy in the half dyed outfit said.

“It’s just, Frankie said there was a dress code,” Tim laid down on the roof, his camera pointed right at them from the shadows. 

“Frankie works for Bane, you dumb fuck.” Another guy said, he hit the half dyed outfit guy on the back of his neck.

“I assumed he was saying it from the goodness of his heart,” 

“Leslie, I am telling you this from the goodness of my heart, stop fucking trusting people that aren’t obliged to take care of you because you’re their idiot cousin,”

Leslie frowned. “I swear to god, Marco, I didn’t know it was a retirement home,” Tim’s eyes widened. Half dyed outfit guy was the same guy that he saw Batman and Robin arrest a month before.

“How do you steal an oxygen tank and a set of knitting needles and not know you’re in a retirement home?” Marco breathed in deeply though his nose, and let all the air out through his mouth.

“Well, at least we got the job,” The other guy with them said, trying to cheer Marco up. “And Leslie didn’t get himself shot,” Leslie let out a loud ‘yeah.”

“Yet,” The other guy added.

“Besides, did you know Two-Face had his goons run around in a black and white suit like the one he wears?” The other guy asked.

“He did?” Leslie asked, almost hopefully.

“Yeah, he stopped when Batman started staking out his dry cleaners, half his crew got arrested,”

This meant Tim was at the right address. (Though he hadn’t doubted it too much, wasn’t it criminal business 101 to not rent a building in your own, very well known , name?) 

He waited until Leslie, Marco and the other guy had piled into the same car and driven off, so that he could climb down and up onto Two-Face’s building. He would save those kids, he would.

He took a quick sip of water, shortened the straps on his back bag once he found himself on the building next to Two-Face’s storefront. He stepped back, jumped up and down, stretched out his arms and legs and made a run for it. Once he was in the air everything seemed to be in slow motion.

He saw the wall coming closer and closer and Tim realised then that he was not going to make it up on the roof. He met the wall with a smack, and god it hurt, but he was hanging onto a roof by his hands, the rough metal of the gutter digging into his fingers.

Tim tried to pull himself up, he was a gymnast for Christ’s sake, he could do it, he could make it.

With a sickening crack, the metal gutter broke off and Tim fell down to the ground, the rusty gutter still in his hands.

He landed on his feet, but he fell backwards immediately after.

It took far too long for the boy to stand back up on his feet, they felt like they were just wobbly worthless extensions of his body. 

With a limp, Tim walked away from the building. His body was burning, it was truly on fire. 

It took longer than it normally did to get home. He was wobbling and probably crying and he shouldn’t have even gone out that night, because his parents were just in the other room. 

And the twins- he was supposed to find the twins. He screamed, at no one in particular and kicked the metal railing of the bridge, wincing immediately after.

Tim just made it onto the estate before he collapsed, dropping down in the snow and watching the night sky. Maybe he was a little biased, but he much preferred this view to the endlessly bright skyline that had haunted him in Gotham.

He sighed and made his way inside, opening the door as softly as he could, careful not to wake his parents. He just wanted to get inside the shower and then sleep for a billion years. 

The first thing he noticed was the light on in the hallway. 

The second thing he noticed was the lack of his mother’s long winter coat in the cabinet in the hall, the stack of leather suitcases gone as well.

His heart beat faster than he wanted it to and he braced the stairs, running up them, ignoring the stinging feeling in his feet. He closed his eyes and took a deep breath before opening his parents’ bedroom door.

Tim checked the closets, the bathroom, the guest rooms. Empty. Empty. Empty.

He could hear his heart in his throat and for a second he forgot how to breathe.

In and out , he reminded himself, in and out . It wasn’t an automatic process anymore.

His breath halted and then it sped up again. It was like the air around him didn’t contain oxygen anymore and he was breathing in as much air as possible in the hope that a single molecule of oxygen would make its way into his bloodstream.

He slapped his hand onto his chest, demanding that his lungs open up and let him breathe. 

There was nothing in his body but pure panic.

His parents had left. He reminded himself of the fact. His parents had left. He’d left first- had they tried to say goodbye? they said they- they said they’d stay.

He pictured himself, like he’d done far too many times to count, standing on the ground, looking on as his parents flew through the air- and fell. He opened his eyes, looking out at the empty halls through teary eyes. With one hand he hit himself lightly on the head, he wasn’t supposed to think that anymore , that was Dick’s story, not his.

He breathed even faster. He hit his hand against his chest again. It left a stinging feeling on his skin and he could feel himself breathing slower.

When he closed his eyes his parents fell- and Tim could see the fear in their eyes-

So he beat his hand against his chest as hard as he possibly could and tried not to think of- of his parents. He breathed in deep, wheezing, and broke out in tears.

Tim desperately wanted to stop, he just wanted to breathe , God, he just wanted to breathe. 

He reluctantly lowered himself into the shower in his parents’ bathroom, just this once.

The water of the shower wasn’t warm, but Tim didn’t mind, he didn’t use soap, just this once, letting the grazes, scratches and scrapes run through with water. He honestly didn’t know what was tears and what was the water of the shower streaking his face.

His body was already turning a twisted shade of purple. 

Stephanie was going to laugh at him, that was what he thought. He didn’t want to even consider the option that she’d take pity. He’d crashed into Two-Face’s wall, he went home, and then, because he was a baby that couldn’t go two seconds without his parents, he had had some sort of- some sort of- he didn’t know, that was laughable, right? 

Stephanie was going to laugh at him. She was.

Chapter Text

“Hey,” he greeted Stephanie, stepping aside so she could enter the house.

She swung her arms around him. The purple cast was gone, Tim noticed.

“You still sad?” She asked as soon as she was inside.

Tim nodded halfheartedly. “That sucks,”

Steph pushed past him and entered the kitchen, climbing up on the counter to grab a glass. “It’s like great weather outside, you don’t even have to wear a coat,”

“That’s cool,” 

She sat down on the counter, leaning against the very expensive coffee machine. “So?” She stuck her glass underneath the faucet and filled it almost to the brim. 

“ ‘So? ’ what?” Tim asked, mimicking her body movements and accent.

Stephanie rolled her eyes. “Are you gonna come with me? Outside?” 

Tim frowned. “Why?” 

She stared at him. “It’s Sunday,”

“And?” 

“We always go to the library on Sunday,” 

The young boy grabbed a cup for himself from the cabinet and began to pour himself a glass of juice. Stephanie hastily finished her cup and held it out to him expectantly. “You can still go,” Tim said. “I mean, you went without me before, right?”

Steph held up her finger to stop him from talking as she took a sip of her juice. “I want to go with you ,” She took another sip of her juice. “And Ms. B is being really weird all of a sudden,”

“She was being weird the last time I saw her,”

“Even though that was like a whole month ago,” Steph pointed out. “I haven’t seen you in ages,” 

Tim shrugged. “You’re seeing me now,”

“Come on,” Steph whined.

“I don’t wanna,”

“Come on,” She drew out the ‘on’. “I’ll beat you up if you don’t come- my mom has me in boxing classes now, you know,” 

Tim did not know that.

She stole his cup from his hands and finished its contents, then linking her arm with his and pulling him with her. Within minutes they were standing outside in the soft rays of sunlight. 

“I want one of those for my birthday,” Stephanie said, pointing to a birdfeeder standing in the front yard near a small pond. 

“You don’t have a garden,” Tim pointed out, still pulling at his shoelaces to tie his shoes.

“I’ll put it on the roof,” She decided. “I also want those beads you put into water and then it’s gigantic in the morning,” 

Tim realised he should’ve brought a piece of paper and a pen if Stephanie was going to continue to ‘casually’ mention her birthday next week.

“You mentioned boxing…” Tim prompted as soon as their conversation began to fall flat, launching his friend into a rant about her teacher at the rec centre whose name was Maddie and who had a tattoo that had the f-word in it.

…

The walk to the city didn’t seem as long as it usually did with Steph by his side. They played a game called ‘gunshots, fireworks, or construction’, thinking about what was behind every loud bang. Stephanie was far more creative than Tim, who just suggested ‘crime, probably’ most of the time.

“That one sounded like a teacher slamming an eraser on a chalkboard,” Stephanie said at one point and Tim stared at her blankly.

“You have chalkboards at school?” His private school only had chalkboards in the art classroom for students to draw on, the rest of the boards were mostly digital or whiteboards.

Steph shrugged. “You don’t?”

“We have whiteboards- and these Samsung digital boards,”

“Are those the ones you can use with your finger?” 

“Yeah.”

“Cool,” Stephanie paused for a second. “We should ask Batman to buy my school those big digital boards,”

Tim frowned. “Why would Batman buy your school digital boards?”

“‘Cause he’s Bruce Wayne, right? You said he was Bruce Wayne.”

He shook his head. “I said he might be Bruce Wayne, there’s just not enough evidence to confirm or deny it, though,” 

“I thought we agreed Batman was Bruce Wayne,” Stephanie pouted. 

“I mean,” Tim sighed. “I don’t know for sure, is all, I tried to get into his financial records, but the security was crazy , it’s easier to hack into the government than Wayne Enterprises,”

For a second Steph just stared at him in awe. “It’s still so cool you can do that,” She gave him an amicable slap on the shoulder. “You’re like the Star Nosed Mole Rat from G-Force, but only slightly taller,”

“Hey!” Tim said, offended. He gave her a good elbow shove. “The last time I went to the doctors they said I’ll grow into my height,” 

Stephanie had a considerable 5 inches on Tim, she had for ages, every time he had a bit of a growth spurt it seemed like nothing compared to her. While she was taller than the average 12 year old, Tim was still stuck at the same size as when he was 8.

“Maybe we can ask Batman to buy you better food,” Stephanie suggested. “My mom always says you should eat more greens,”

Tim, who lived off of a considerable amount of lucky charms, his Ukrainian housekeeper’s leftovers, and microwave meals crossed his arms. “I don’t need Batman to buy me food- even if he is Bruce Wayne,” 

“huh- do you think Batman will give us money to keep his secret?”

“Like blackmail?” Tim asked.

Steph seemed to light up. “Exactly like blackmail- we could be rich-”

“I am rich,” Tim interrupted her. 

“Then I could be rich,” she corrected.

Tim paused. “But you can’t blackmail Batman,”

“Why not?”

“It’s illegal for one, and rude for two, and stupid for three- he’s a superhero, he’s not going to let himself get blackmailed,”

While Steph could agree he had a point, she rolled her eyes. “I’m pretty sure vigilantes are illegal,”

Tim sputtered trying to think of a counterpoint. “I- He- He’s a superhero, not a vigilant-” 

Steph stuck her tongue out. “Nerd,” She laughed. “I’m still blackmailing Batman,”

“No you’re not,” Tim told her. “At least not until we find out if he’s actually Bruce Wayne or just some guy,”

Steph went quiet for a single second. “Do you think Bruce Wayne would adopt me too if I went and tried to steal his car?”

“Like tyre kid?”

“No- some other child that tried to steal the Batmobile,” 

“The Batmobile’s tyres ,” Tim corrected. “It’s in his name,”

“ The Batmobile’s tyres , ” Stephanie copied in a whiny high pitched voice that was supposed to be Tim’s. “ It’s in his name, ”

“Stop doing that,” Tim told her.

“ Stop doing that, ” She copied.

Tim sighed. Steph copied him in an exaggerated way.

“I hate you,”

“ I love you, too.”

…

The fact that Barbara had gotten a new haircut was the first thing Tim noticed when he arrived, the fact that there was a giant rental sticker on the back of her wheelchair was the next thing.

Barbara noticed them before the kids noticed her and she wheeled towards them from across the library, cursing under her breath at her ‘ damn wheelchair ’. 

The third thing Tim noticed, when Barbara was engulfing both of them in a hug as Tim muttered an excuse about a football championship, even though he had never managed to score a single goal in his entire nine years of living on earth, was that Barbara was no longer being weird about Steph. In fact, Barbara was being extremely not weird.

“I’ve missed having you guys around,” Barbara said as she guided them towards the staff room to grab some drinks. “It’s very boring around here without you terrors- terror twins ,”

Tim smiled. “We’ve missed you too,”

“If we avoid the head librarian I can maybe score you kids a muffin,”

Stephanie cheered and Tim followed shortly behind them, a seemingly permanent smile on his face.

...

It was the day after his parents had elongated their stay in Egypt with another two weeks and Tim had spent all evening recalculating his Batman height calculations by hand and trying to look into Wayne’s financials. 

(Tim didn’t know whether it was tax evasion or being a vigilante, but Bruce Wayne was definitely hiding something)

He was still deep in thought that morning on his way to school. It was a very unfortunate (not completely unrelated) incident that he almost caused a traffic accident. He was driving as quickly as he could to feel the gusts of wind rush through his clothes, cooling himself down just a little bit. 

With his head in the clouds, nobody could have expected him to see a car speeding off a driveway coming. Tim’s eyes widened, pulling the brakes fast it pulled his bicycle a little bit off the ground.

For a short moment, he breathed, feeling his heart beat in his throat, before a bicycle braked just a millisecond too late and cycled right into him.

The person riding the bike stood up quickly and extended a hand to help him up. “Are you okay?”

It startled Tim how similar the accent was to Steph’s, a twang to their voice that was native to the city of Gotham.

“- okay?” The person repeated. The person was a kid. Not as young as Tim, but judging by the high voice and face spotted with acne, definitely young. Tim nodded quickly. 

The kid observed his elbow and saw that there was a small scratch from where he’d hit the ground. “Y’sure?” He asked again.

“I’m okay,” Tim squeaked.

The kid dusted off his arms and pants and ran a hand through his curly black hair, it was long, longer than Tim’s. Subconsciously, Tim copied his movements, smoothing out his hair and clothes.

He was wearing the same uniform as Tim, the white blouse and blue dress pants, even the same crest on his left breast pocket.

“You go to Gotham Prep?”

Tim nodded. “I’m in 5th grade,” he told the kid.

“I’m in 8th grade,” the kid said. “I’m Jason,” he introduced. 

“My name’s Timothy,” Tim said.

Jason frowned. “Really?” he asked. “That sounds like something your accountant would be called.”

“I don’t think I’m old enough for an accountant,”

The other boy began to speak in a terrible British accent. “Pip-ho I’m Timothy, here to do your finances.”

Tim frowned “I don’t think all accountants are from England, actually.” 

“Did you hear that at your last accountant’s conference or something?” Jason stepped back on his bike. “Don’t you have a middle name?” 

“My middle name’s Jackson,” Tim offered, letting the accountant comment slide, it would hurt more if he knew what an accountant actually did.

Jason shook his head. “That's exactly my name, were your parents copying me?”

Tim shrugged. “Maybe your parents were copying mine.”

“Have you looked in the mirror recently? I’m way older than you, kid.” 

Tim mounted his bike. “Well if you’re way older than me, I don’t think you can keep up,” he paused. “Old man.” he sped off, Jason took the hint and raced after him. 

…

Something Tim hadn’t expected after his run in with Jason that morning, was to see Jason waiting for him by the bicycle shed at the end of the school day. 

Jason scratched the back of his neck. “You wanna bicycle back together?” He asked. “You know- even though you’re like 5, there’s nobody I know who goes our way, and I don’t wanna be bored.”

Tim stared, wide eyed. “That would be cool,” he squeaked. 

“Alright, don’t start crying about it,” Jason said, getting on his bicycle. 

Tim crossed his arms. “I’m not crying.”

“Sure looks like it.”

“Shut up, my best friend knows boxing, she’ll beat you up.” 

Jason tutted. “Well my foster dad knows martial arts.”

Tim blinked. “Foster dad?” He came to a very damning realization.

“Yeah? You got a problem with that?”

“No!” Tim said quickly. “You wouldn’t happen to be Jason Todd?”

“Who’s asking?”

Tim stuck his hand out. “Timothy Drake, we’re next door neighbours.”

With a rough grip, Jason shook Tim’s hand. “Nice to meet you-” he paused. “I’m still not calling you Timothy though, it’s a terrible name.”

“Well I can’t exactly change it now,” Tim said.

Jason began to cycle across the lawn of the school. “We’ll think of something.”

Chapter Text

“I’m just saying, boss, respectively and all that,” Leslie was almost bowing to the floor, not daring to meet his eyes.

“Wouldn’t it be better to have one of the cars drive in from the interstate and the other from the highway? Then they can’t exactly pinpoint headquarters,” He said. “Completely with respect, boss.” 

He heard a low hum that morphed into a horrible growl. Or maybe it was both a hum and a growl. “Look me in the face when you’re talking to me,” His boss ordered.

“Which one, sir?” Leslie asked, as if he was joking.

Two-Face began to laugh, loudly and unapologetically, the scarred skin on the one half of his face shaking like pudding on his face. 

“Do you think you’re smart? Did you get gold stars in kindergarten?” 

Leslie looked at him wide eyed. “I- well not really, I used to steal crayons,”

Two-Face quirked his scarred brow, stretching out the upper half of his face. “Do you want one?”

He brought out a shaky laugh. “What do you mean, sir?”

“Do,” he paused. “You,” He brought a silver coin to Leslie’s chin. “Want a gold star?”

Leslie gulped. “Well, I like anything that’s free, sir, that’s why I got into this profession,” He felt the cold metal against his face. “Everything’s free if you try hard enough,” 

Two-Face flipped his coin into the air and caught it within the same second, grabbing onto Leslie’s right hand and slamming the coin down. 

“Tails,” Two-Face announced. “Good thing you don’t have a tail,” 

Leslie held his breath, waiting for what would happen and knowing, that if he’d run, he’d be dead. 

The Rogue turned around and made a few sounds that made Leslie feel like he was waiting to be tortured. “It’s a good idea you had there, kid, you can run point on the operation, I think  ‘cluebreak’ has a nice ring to it,” 

Leslie breathed out. He wasn’t going to die now. 

His boss turned back to him and threw a golden object at him. “Don’t ding the cars,”

The goon took this at his time to leave, thanking his boss as quickly and excessively as possible. 

Once outside he looked at the thing in his hand. 

A golden, bloody, throwing star.

…

He’s face to face with a closed door. The dirty, gold coloured numbers stare at him, waiting for him to ring the doorbell.

The door rips open, Bruce Wayne jumps back from the door. Dick crawls across the ceiling, his face split open and beaten. Bruce sinks through the floor.

He wakes up.

For a second, Bruce still thought it was real. The image of his- of Dick injured, alone, inhuman . 

It was still dark out, him and Jason had returned early from patrol that night, because Jason almost- because Jason did not see the danger in his actions sometimes. He’d sprained his ankle jumping off a roof, but Bruce had freaked out and taken him home immediately.

Bruce would never tell anyone that it was because for a single moment, when Jason was lying there on the ground, he thought he was dead. 

He didn’t try to go to sleep that night. He checked on Jason first, just for confirmation that he was still there, actively drooling on his pillow. 

Then he went downstairs into the kitchen and prepared himself a cup of instant coffee with a box of packets he’d been hiding from Alfred- just to keep down the noise. Jason easily startled and Alfred would wake up and give him an impromptu therapy session.

He was on his way down to the batcave, when he walked past the landline. He paddled back, looking at the hideous green thing for a second and he wanted to continue, but he didn’t.

He took the horn of the wall, rested it between his ear and his shoulder, and placed his cup of coffee on the windowsill. 

The number he was putting in was familiar- like it was automatic. The phone rang and Bruce didn’t expect much of it, it was almost 5 in the morning anyways.

On the other line someone picked up, but didn’t say anything.

Bruce let out a breath. “Dick,” He started.

“ What ?” The young man snapped. Bruce flinched.

“I just wanted to see how you were doing,” he explained. Not what he was doing, though, he needed to know Dick was alive.

Dick paused. “ Do you always need to have tabs on me? God, it’s like you can’t handle the fact that I’m an adult too. ”

“I just, I haven’t heard from you in a while and you’re my- I do ca- I do care about you, you know.”

Dick’s breathed. “ Just- Just -” he groaned. “I’m okay, alright, if that’s what you wanted to know, ”

The last time he’d seen Dick, when visiting him at school, he’d frowned too much at the stains on the walls and Dick had kicked him out. It was probably his fault, that time. The last time he’d talked to Dick was a simple ‘congratulations’ on some exam he had heard about from Barbara, Dick got angry. It was probably his fault then too.

“So,” Bruce said. “How have you been?”

“ I haven’t dropped out of college yet if that’s what you mean,” Dick answered. “But I’m doing fine, ”

Bruce smiled. “That’s good,” 

“That’s good,” He repeated. “I- I- How’s Blüdhaven, at night I mean,”

“ Murders have been down, but this cop keeps getting on my case- I’ve been sharing my files with her, because I know for sure she’s not corrupt, but it’s- I don’t know, it’s not a very good city, you know, that’s what you get for being Gotham’s sister city, ”

Bruce nodded. “It is notorious for being a party city though, I do hope you’re taking advantage of that,” 

Dick snorted. “ Have you forgotten the drinking age in this country? I should’ve gone to- well, basically any other country in the world if I wanted to party, ”

“I thought the youths had found some way around that rule,” Bruce joked.

“ Are you actually encouraging fake IDs right now? ” Dick laughed. “ Who are you and what did you do to my fath -” he cut himself off, though Bruce could hear what he had meant to say. His father.

There was an awkward silence while both of them were trying to reach for the right thing to say. 

“ How’s the kid anyways? ”

“You mean Jason?” Bruce was surprised, Dick had never shown an interest in Jason, but he could just be making small talk anyways. “He’s doing good- gave me a big scare on patrol last night, but- he’s great. He’s settling in and being more social. It’s good for him to get back to a normal life,”

Dick laughed. “ Besides pretending to be a superhero on school nights?”

“Besides helping out at night- but never on a school night,”

The other end of the line was quiet for a moment. “ What about that night, when I came out to help? That was a wednesday ,”

Bruce remembered, Nightwing was following a lead to Gotham and had asked for help, a rare occasion. Then he showed up out of nowhere with an unconscious child, who turned out to be the daughter of Cluemaster. School was out the next day and Jason had begged to come along.

“He didn’t have school the next day,”

“ Oh, ”

“I think you’d really like him, you know,”

Dick let out a childish groan. “ I can decide that for myself, thank you very much, ”

“Does that mean you’ll hang out with him sometime?” Bruce beamed.

“No it- ” Dick cut himself off. “I just mean I don’t really like the kid very much, ”

“You’ve only met him a few times,” Bruce argued. “And he’s your brother-”

Dick interrupted him. “ He’s not my brother, he’s just a little replacement of- of me!” He yelled.

Bruce straightened. “Jason is not anybody’s replacement- and I could never replace you, you’re my-” He paused. 

“You’re my kid, Dick, not some object I can replace.” Bruce told him earnestly. “I know your parents were- they are still your parents, but to me, you’re like my kid- my son.”  He took a deep breath. “I could never replace your dad, and I don’t want to replace him either,”

It was very very silent for a moment. “ You’re my dad too ,” Dick said very quietly. “ I can have more than one dad, ”

“Oh,” Bruce breathed. “Oh,” he smiled. 

“ Yeah, ” Dick said. 

“I do- I love you, I want you to know that, you’re my son and I love you,” 

For just a second Bruce thought that maybe this was all just a mistake and he should’ve gone back to bed, then he heard Dick yawn through the phone and say a very quiet “ I love you too ,”

…

Barbara was sitting in her horrible rental wheelchair, hoping- nay, begging the gods that her custom wheelchair would finally be delivered and she could finally be properly mobile again, when she realised she should really have kept up with her training.

She was in her own apartment, emptying a tub of ice cream in her kitchen, even though it wasn’t even 10 in the morning, when she finally noticed there was somebody in her apartment. In fact this same somebody was grabbing a spoon from her kitchen drawer and sticking it into her ‘cookie dough brownie swirl’.

“Jason!” She yelled. “Get your own,” 

Jason laughed and began to dig around in her freezer, sticking the spoon in his mouth. He found a tub of lemon sorbet and decided it was good enough. He hopped up onto the kitchen counter and dug into the ice cream.

“Hey Babs,” Jason greeted finally. 

“ Hey Babs ,” she copied him in a high pitched voice. “What are you doing here?”

“I’m here for the good company, obviously,” 

Barbara reached out to hit him in the leg. “You’re such a little asshole,” 

“Don’t let Alfie hear you say that,” Jason warned, pointing his spoon at her.

“I think he’ll love hearing about you eating ice cream for breakfast,” Barbara said, Jason went quiet. “That’s what I thought,”

“What is it, Jason?” Barbara asked softly. If Jason was coming all this way on a Saturday morning, when Jason was usually fast asleep in bed until at least 3 in the afternoon, there was something going on.

Jason shrugged. “Just- something I heard,” 

“And what was it you heard?”

“Just something,” He ran a hand through his hair, the mop of black hair he would usually gel down was messy on his head. “It’s nothing really- it’s- I should’ve expected it from the start,”

Barbara frowned. “Expected what?” Jason stabbed his spoon at the ice cream. 

“This,” He answered. “This thing I heard,”

“I have no clue what you’re saying right now,” Barbara said. “And I am a certified genius, so dumb it down for me, get on my wavelength for a second,”

Jason looked down. “I don’t think Bruce- I don’t think he wants me,”

Barbara stared at him. “What did he do?”

“I heard him on the phone this morning- more like before this morning, because it was really early. He was talking to Dick- I think, and he went all ‘ Jason’s not your replacement, nobody could ever replace you, you’re my son, blablabla, Jason is just some street rat nobody gives two shits about ’.” He tried to mimic his guardian’s deep voice.

“He didn’t say that,” Barbara argued. 

“Not exactly,” Jason said. “But it felt like that,” 

He shook his head. “I should’ve known- foster parents always love their own kids more- nevermind their perfect adopted kid that looks and talks and walks and even fights crime exactly like them,”

Barbara looked at him. It seemed like the boy was jealous of Dick and she couldn’t blame him.

Dick was almost as tall as Bruce, he had a mop of black hair like Bruce, a charming smile, even the thick accent brought on by the majority of his upbringing spent in Europe had gone. He sounded ‘proper American’ now, as gossiping gala attendees never failed to point out.

Jason was short and scrappy, his hair, though it was black, was curly, his skin was more tan than both Bruce’s and Dick’s, though he could never pinpoint where he’d gotten the trait, with his sheet white Irish father and pale blonde mother. 

He spoke English with a thick Jersey accent, and what other languages he’d picked up along the way paled in comparison to Dick’s fluency in a dozen languages, or Bruce’s talent for dialects.

“Dick’s not adopted-” Barbara started, but cut herself off, that wasn’t important right now. “Do you think Bruce doesn’t care about you?”

Jason shrugged. “I don’t know- yes?”

“Well, you’re clearly very wrong,” She said. “Remind me again, who tried to steal the Batmobile’s tyres?”

“I did,”

Barbara nodded. “Exactly- and did Bruce try to kick you out after he reported you to CPS?”

“He didn’t,”

“No. Instead he asked to foster you. Do you think he decided to take in a 12 year old kid from the street out of nowhere, completely derailing his life, just so he could what- have a random replacement child around?”

Jason looked at her blankly, shoving ice cream around with his spoon. “I don’t know-” 

“So, Bruce Wayne, billionaire CEO, just takes in a child, feeds him,  picks him up from school, reads to him, hangs out with him, for what? for shits and giggles?”

“I don’t know-”

Barbara hit his leg. “It’s because he loves you, doofus,”

“Oh,” Jason said bluntly.

“He is a grown adult, he can love both of his kids, and he can love both of his kids equally, even if one of them is a ridiculous idiot,” Barbara said.

“You better be talking about Dick there,” Jason threatened with his spoon.

He was quiet for a moment. “Do you really think he loves me?”

Barbara smiled. “Of course he does- I’d kill him if he didn’t, screw those rules of his.”

Jason got off the counter and punched her in the arm in a friendly way. Barbara grabbed his arm and pulled the boy down to hug him. “You’re a good kid, Jason, and don’t let anyone forget it/”

…

It was almost closing time in the library. Barbara liked to do the last round to see if anybody was still around, reserving her rounds to the first two floors, she’d sent enough creeps in the computer lounge packing and now it was somebody else’s turn.

Softly, she shook awake a young student who had fallen asleep at the workstations. The girl apologised and hurried off. Barbara had to hold back her laughter seeing the red lines on the girl’s face where she’d fallen asleep on her sweater. 

Her last round was on the kids floor, which seemed like an image from a horror movie when there weren’t any kids around. It still seemed that way with only one kid around.

Jackie- otherwise known as Stephanie Brown- was sitting, despite many warnings to not sit on top of the bookshelves, on top of the bookshelves. In her hands a kids book Barbara faintly recalled the plot of. She didn’t move when Barbara approached her, like she’d been waiting for her.

Stephanie Brown, daughter of Arthur Brown, a known criminal, was just another one of his victims, Barbara had come to realise.

It stung that two kids Barbara cared deeply for, Tom and Jackie, had lied to her since she met them. Even if it was for a good reason. However hard the realisation had been when Nightwing picked up the girl, injured to hell and back from a Gotham roof, she’d decided to maintain the act on her part, if only to offer Stephanie Brown a safe space.

“Hey Jackie,” Barbara greeted. Jackie didn’t move the book away from her face.

“Hey Ms. B,” The young girl said back.

Barbara looked at her. “I didn’t really see you around today,”

“I only came in just now,” She said and sniffed loudly.

“I didn’t see your brother either,”

Jackie shook her head behind the book. “Well, you know Tom, he has lots of stuff to do,” she sniffed again. “We can’t exactly make time away from everything to sit in the library the whole day, we’re not 7 anymore,”

It kind of stung, especially with the tone of voice Jackie used. She’d known Tom and Jackie since they were struggling with basic multiplication, and couldn’t even reach her shoulder. They’d grown so much in that time.

“What are you reading?” Barbara asked, changing the subject.

“Percy Jackson, Tom started reading too, but he’s still on the first one.”

Barbara looked up at the girl, her face still hidden behind the book. She sniffed again.

“What do you think so far?” Barbara continued to question her, trying to engage the girl in any other activity than hiding from her.

Jackie sniffed. “It’s just-” She waved her hand in the air. “Unfair.”

“How so?”

“It’s-” Steph shrugged. “Everybody blames him - Percy, just because his dad sucks.” 

Barbara could imagine how Stephanie identified with the story. 

“But his mom is pretty sweet though, and all of his friends- who have some pretty bad parents too, they’re great. That book is about that more than their stupid parents.”

Steph smiled absently. “Well this one is actually about a huge maze.”

Barbara snorted out a laugh. “Do you wanna come down? The library’s closing soon and when the lasers come out it really starts to feel like a huge maze.”

Stephanie’s eyes widened. “Really?”

“Really.” She held out her hand to help Stephanie down. 

Jackie climbed down carefully, not even needing Barbara’s help. From up close, Barbara could see how red and puffy her eyes were. “Are you okay?” She asked.

Jackie wiped down her face with the bottom of her T-shirt. “I’m fine.” 

“It’s okay to be sad sometimes, you know.” 

The little girl leaned against the bookshelf. “It’s just- I don’t have anything to cry about- not right now .” She over enunciated the last two words.

Barbara grabbed ahold of her hands. “There’s plenty of things to cry about- like how sad something is, or how stupid something is, or because you’re laughing too hard, it’s good for you.”

“My mommy says it dries out your skin.”

“Okay maybe that part isn’t so great-” Barbara smiled at Stephanie. “You know what happens to little girls who keep all their tears inside?”

Stephanie shook her head, fighting back against her urge to tell Barbara she ‘wasn’t little!’

Barbara paused. “They explode from the inside.” 

“You can’t explode from the inside.” Stephanie argued. 

“I’m talking about the emotions- all the emotions those little girls have just build and build and build until they can’t take it anymore. I don’t want you to get to that point where just feeling things hurts.”

Stephanie wiped at her eyes with her sleeve. 

“When I was a little girl I never cried, because I told myself I couldn’t, because I thought it was weak. And I had a really hard time because of that. When my dad almost died I didn’t even cry- I couldn’t even cry, and I thought I’d broken myself.”

“It took me a long time to just cry and- I can see a lot of myself in you, so I want- I need you to know it’s okay, it’s all okay.”

Jackie threw her arms around Barbara’s shoulders. Barbara pulled the girl into her lap, rubbing circles around her back as she let out a few silent sobs. “It’s okay, you’re okay.”

“I’m sorry- I ruined your shirt.” Steph pulled at the shoulder of Barbara’s blouse where the tears had stained a small patch.

“Don’t worry,” Barbara assured. “It’s just a little bit of water.”

She rolled towards the elevator, checking her wristwatch and looking at the girl hitching a ride. “I have the perfect remedy for all this sad stuff, you know.” 

Jackie perked up. “What?”

“Ice cream, at least 2 scoops, doctor’s orders.”

“You’re not a doctor,” Jackie argued.

“I’m almost a doctor,”

“Yeah, in history , that’s like giving a monkey a knife and calling him a chef,”

Barbara blinked. “Are you calling me a monkey?”

“I’m not not calling you a monkey,” Jackie grinned, the twinkle in her eyes had returned.

“The doctor is going to reconsider that ice cream,” Barbara threatened.

…

At least two scoops is not setting a limit and Barbara learned that very quickly when she and Jackie went back into the shop for seconds and thirds. 

“Papa’s Gelato just doesn’t give big enough scoops,” Jackie told her. “The Ice Bear Café on 2nd street has way bigger scoops,”

An older lady sitting outside the ice cream shop bent over to Barbara. “They’re ungrateful sometimes aren’t they?” She smiled. 

“They’re the worst,” Barbara agreed, sticking her spoon into her own serving of Smurf ice cream and Cookie Dough, her personal favourites. 

“Hey!” Jackie exclaimed, turning to steal a spoon of ice cream from Barbara. 

“For what it’s worth,” The lady said. “You do have an adorable little sister,”

Barbara smiled. “That about makes up for it, doesn’t it?”

The lady laughed. “It sure helps,”

As they were walking through the busy streets of Gotham, enjoying the summer sun on their skin, Jackie piped up. “You didn’t correct her,”

“What was that?”

“You didn’t correct her, when the lady said I was your little sister,” She repeated.

Barbara looked at her, she was about the same height standing up as Barbara was sitting down. “Would you rather I told her I lured you away from the library with the promise of ice cream?”

“Well, no, but-”

Barbara interrupted her. “I would be honoured to be your big sister. You’re a really good kid, Jackie.” Barbara had thought about asking her about being Stephanie Brown, about lying to her, but at that moment, she knew she shouldn’t. Arthur Brown was in prison, but Stephanie Brown deserved her safe space nonetheless.

Jackie stopped in her tracks. “Really?”

“Absolutely.” The librarian confirmed.

Barbara saw in her eyes that Jackie was tearing up, so she pulled her close and gave her a firm hug. “I’m sure that your mom must be waiting for you, so I could bring you home or-”

“It’s fine,” Jackie insisted. “I can get home just fine without my big sister,” 

She gave Barbara a big toothy grin. 

“The library’s on my route, though, so you’re not rid of me yet.”

…

Dick saw a little blonde girl skip away from Barbara as he approached his best friend. 

He placed his hands in front of her eyes and whispered “Guess who?”

She grabbed onto his wrist and twisted it behind his back in a terribly painful manoeuvre. “Dickhead,” 

“You’re only 50% correct,”

“Dickface?”

“Getting closer,” 

Barbara rolled her eyes and hugged his side. 

“Who was the girl?” Dick asked. 

“My new little sister,” Barbara joked. Dick believed her for a split second before he shook his head. 

“Haha. Very funny, who’s the kid?”

Barbara grinned. “You know, one of the kids I’m always talking about, the one who committed identity fraud at age 7, I took her out for ice cream,” 

Dick frowned. “You don’t even take me out for ice cream and you’ve known me for years,”

“You were raised by a billionaire, if anything, you should be buying me ice cream,”

The young man laughed. “I- well me and the billionaire are back on speaking terms, if you were wondering,”

“That’s great to hear,” Barbara said happily. 

Dick squinted his eyes at her. “You knew already, didn’t you?”

“Jason came over yesterday,” She shrugged. “We had a talk, he might have mentioned it.”

“So Bruce talked about it with Jason?” He asked seriously.

Barbara rolled her eyes. “Kids have ears, you know, he just overheard some of it,”

“The little eavesdropper,” Dick balled his fist. Barbara took his hand in hers.

“He’s a really good kid, Dick. You should actually talk to him sometime,” Barbara said.

Dick shrugged. “I don’t know,”

“Promise you’ll talk to him and I’ll order you one of those fruity drinks you like so much,” She offered.

“It’s called a Raspberry Cosmopolitan and you know it,”

…

Alfred had his back to the large computer, basking in the bright blue light. 

His hands were snug around a cup of tea, his eye on Jason, sleeping on the cot in the corner, his chest rising up and down. Next to him the Robin uniform stacked neatly on the ground. 

Jason always did that, when he was worried about Bruce, though he’d never admit it. He wanted to be ready at any second. Alfred would never wake him though, and Jason would always wake up in his own bed, far removed from the little stack of green, yellow and red next to the cot.

Today, he might have to wake the young boy, and the man wanted to avoid that at any cost. 

It was unexpected, Two-Face and his goons breaking out four low profile criminals, and then the four low profile criminals turned out to be high profile criminals stealing other prisoners’ identities and suddenly there’s 24 of the most dangerous criminals the Gotham State Penitentiary had to offer out on the street.

Nightwing had gone out with Batman and Robin at the beginning of the evening. Robin was sent home at 2 AM, two hours after his usual bedtime because of the circumstances, but both Dick and Bruce were still out.

While they were out finding the escapees, fighting the escapees and trying to stop every attempt to wreak havoc dead in its tracks, Alfred and Barbara were on the comms, desperately trying to identify all of the escapees.

By the time the sky started to turn a lighter blue with every passing second, there were 23 escapees in police custody, and Alfred was on his fourth cup of tea, listening to Bruce’s gravelly voice and Barbara’s tired commentary. Nightwing was silent though and Alfred had gotten worried.

He listened to the chatter and gave a singular comment “Where’s Master Richard?”

The comms fell silent. 

“According to my tracker, he’s on 32nd and Park Row,” Barbara said. “Nightwing, could you sound off,”

It was silent again.

“I’m going to get him, the commissioner says he has everything under control here,” Batman told them.

“Take care of him, Bruce,” Oracle ordered.

Bruce didn’t answer. When Alfred looked at the screen, he saw the red dot moving across the city map. He only let himself breathe out when he saw that the red dot had reached the blue dot.

“We’re going to get some food,” Bruce said eventually. “Agent A, could you get Robin to bed, tell him- just say I’ll be home soon,”

Alfred heard Dick chatter in the background and he smiled. “I will, goodnight, sir.”

“Goodnight, Alfie,” Dick said into his own earpiece.

Though only 23 of the 24 escapees had been found, and Alfred was positively exhausted, it was a good night, because at the end of it, he was sleeping soundly in his bed, knowing that Bruce, Jason and Richard were all safe at home once again.

(even if Bruce and Dick had gone to White Castle of all places, he felt bile rising his throat at the sheer thought of it)

Chapter Text

As Tim’s parents returned to Gotham, suitcases packed with trinkets and gifts, the house felt emptier than ever. 

His parents had other engagements during most of the week, and with Mrs. Mac on a holiday in her home country, Tim spent more time alone at home than he did before they came back.

Usually when his parents were out Tim spent his time with Steph, but she and her mom were under house arrest, as Steph had secretly informed him over the phone. “ It’s like- nuts, there’s police cars for miles.”  

After a mass break out the previous week, Steph’s father was on the loose and the police believed he’d visit his family’s apartment. But with a week of no contact from the escaped criminal in question, Tim told Steph that would be unlikely. She nervously agreed and hung up the phone. 

With Steph’s birthday coming up soon, Tim felt even weirder about spending so long not speaking to her. They’d been nearly inseparable since age 7 and with one phone call in the last ten days, it might’ve been the longest Tim had gone without speaking to his best friend since they met. 

On his bike ride into the city, he usually avoided the alleyways and narrow streets that made up the Narrows, this time he found himself staring for a little too long at the rundown storefronts and the peeling layers of paint on the fire escapes. 

Tim parked his bicycle behind the gymnastics centre, chaining it to a pole for good measure. He’d gone a whole year without having it stolen or destroyed, and he was not planning on letting it happen now.

With his gymnastics gear slung over his shoulder, Tim waited by the reception. The lady who worked the front desk wouldn’t let him in without an adult, despite having known him since he was still in the twirling toddlers class.

Dick arrived not much later, nothing but a duffle bag and a smile on his face. The receptionist lit up when she saw him. “Always nice to see you, Mr. Grayson,” she said.

The young man shot her a grin. “And you, Claire.”

“You ready to head inside, big guy?” Dick asked Tim, who shot up out of his plastic seat. “I’ve got some new warm ups you’re gonna love .”

“Not the ones you learned at that training camp right? Those sucked .”

Dick snorted. “Well, the instructor said they were ‘very beneficial for young warriors’ such as yourself.” 

‘That training camp’ was most likely a quickly manufactured lie to explain Dick’s absence for over two months the year before. With Tim’s knowledge of Dick’s identity as Nightwing, and Dick being a 20 year old man, it seemed weird to think he’d gone to a summer camp for the majority of the summer.

“It’s not beneficial ,” Tim whined. “It’s torture, I couldn’t feel my arms for a week .”

“Me too, kid. Me too.” Dick ducked into a private changing room. “I’ll see you on the mat in five.”

Tim was shoving his bag into a locker when Dick finally emerged, geared out in a blue tracksuit, zipped up to the neck. Tim was fairly certain he’d seen a Russian mobster wear the same exact tracksuit a few weeks earlier. 

They looked at each other for a moment.

“You’re not on the mat,” Dick pointed out.

“It hasn’t been five minutes yet.”

Dick checked his wristwatch. “Okay fine,” He relented. He leaned against the locker. “Do you need some cash for the locker?” 

Tim held up a quarter and demonstratively put it in the slot. He turned the dial and closed the locker, pulling the little wristband with the key out of the lock. He handed the yellow wristband to Dick, as he always did, for safekeeping.

They entered the gymnasium which was, safe for a zumba class happening on the other end of the gym, empty. 

“Let’s get started with some warm up stretches and then I’ll show you what my instructor taught me,” Dick said. 

Tim didn’t need to be told twice, dropping to the floor and going through his stretches at lightning pace. He didn’t want to admit it to Dick, still starstruck by his presence even after two years of training with him, but Dick Grayson’s training was, while a little brutal, the best thing that ever happened to Tim’s gymnastics career.

He didn’t want to say he was bad at gymnastics before Dick intervened, but he’d never pushed himself harder than when he was working with Dick. Even if he had gymnastics class twice a week at the gymnastics center, it was during his occasional training sessions with Dick that he improved the most.

A few months after he started to train with Dick, Tim won gold twice in his age group at regionals, he felt like there was a correlation there.

Tim insisted Dick do the entire gruelling warm up alongside him, and Dick, not willing to deny the ten year old a challenge, agreed. “My instructor, Diana, said she used to do this workout when she was young, so clearly you should rush right through it.”

After running 6 laps around the gym, Tim had become convinced Dick’s instructor also ate rocks for breakfast. Tim grunted this out during the three minute plank, to which Dick snorted out a laugh and fell flat on his face. 

In true kid fashion, Tim was up and at ‘em after a small sip of capri sun and all the sugar that came with it. “See!” Dick panted. “I knew you could do it.” He massaged the muscles in his neck.

Tim sat down on the bleachers and took another sip. “Are we gonna do the high bar today? You said you were gonna show me something on the bar last time.” 

Dick winced, remembering the promise he’d made last time he was in Gotham. “Alright.”

He grabbed his duffle bag from the plastic chair he’d left it on and handed it to Tim, who slung it over his shoulder, despite how big it was. He shuffled across the gym, duffle bag at the height of his calves. 

Dick laughed at the sight and walked after him. Tim sat down on the floor next to the horizontal bar, already digging through the bag for his bar grips. Dick flopped down next to him and found the smaller bar grips easily in the side pocket of his bag. He held the pair out to Tim, who snatched them from him and began pulling them on.

“Patience, young padawan,” Dick said. He loosened the velcro and opened up the bar grip, sticking it out to Tim. He closed the velcro strip and grabbed the other bar grip. 

“Other hand.” 

Tim eyed the bar. “My teacher and I started on the competition routine the other day, but I just can’t get my swing even, and I can’t get my grip right on the turn.”

“Then we’ll just work on that,” 

Dick pulled his own grips on, closing his velcro with his teeth. He stood underneath the bar and looked up. “Don’t suppose you can give me a hand, huh Timmy?” The bar was at least 3 feet above his head.

Tim looked on from his spot on the ground. “I could get you a chair?”

Dick shook his head. He unzipped his training jacket, getting a bit of chalk on the front. “I can make that jump.”

He tugged off his jacket and tossed it over to his duffle bag. “It’s a little unorthodox, but you’re not exactly a professional jury, right, Timmy?”

Tim nodded, eager to see what Dick would show him on the high bar. At one point, Dick had been one of the best gymnasts in the junior division. Tim had seen his routine for the 2007 nationals and nearly dropped his apple juice seeing the jumps Dick could do, even at that age.

Dick jumped up and pulled himself up to the bar. He waved at Tim, holding himself up with only one arm. He swung a few times to gain some momentum and quickly managed a giant swing. During his next swing, he let go of one hand and turned right at the peak of his swing, effectively turning around. After two swings where he was clearly gaining more momentum, Dick let both hands go and somersaulted in the air, regaining his grip on the bars. 

He swung again and jumped, landing with his back to Tim. If Tim hadn’t already been completely in awe, his jaw would drop at the sight of Dick’s back.

His right shoulder was a sickly mesh of blues and greens, the bruise reached down his ribs and more peaked out from below his tank top. Tim could only stare. 

Dick turned around. “I should have probably turned back after that twist with where you were sitting, but I always lose track when I’m up there.” He leaned against the pole holding up the beam.

“I didn’t impress you too much, did I?” Dick flashed his signature grin. “In five, six years you can do that too, I swear- and probably way better than me.” 

“No-” Tim stammered. “It was just- you have something on your shoulder?”

Dick shot him a confused look and slapped his shoulder, trying to get whatever it was off. “Other shoulder,” Tim said.

He slapped his right shoulder and winced. “Oh. That.” He said. “I went lasergaming with my friends the other day and I fell through a wall.”

“You wanna try your hand at the bar now?” Dick asked, ripping off his bar grips. 

Tim stood up rather than answering. Dick’s lie fresh on his mind. He hadn’t heard of Nightwing getting injured, but then again, Dick was right here doing flips 12 feet in the air. The bruises looked serious, but clearly it wasn’t affecting Dick all that much.

He wondered if having a bruise like that didn’t faze Dick, what would? Did vigilantes just get injured like that every time they went out, and just continue on like nothing happened?

He shuffled over to the bar and looked up at it, it was definitely higher than the bar he usually trained on, over twice as tall as Tim was. With his trusty camera by his side, Tim had crossed roofs higher than that of the gymnastics center, they were standing in. Despite that, the premise of the 9 foot bar scared him a little bit.

Even worse than being scared, Tim found he was excited to get up there. 

Tim raised his arms up and got into stance, Dick picking him up and raising him to the bar, he pulled himself up immediately and Dick stepped aside. “Good, Timmy, good,” he clapped his hands. “Try to straighten out those arms a little.”

Tim began to swing, getting a little bit more momentum with each swing. It must have been a little underwhelming for the zumba class in the corner to witness after the Olympic level gymnast had just done his thing. 

He prepared himself to do the turn. On the height of his next swing he let go of the bar with his right hand and moved to place it on the other side of his left hand. His right hand slipped off the bar just as he was trying to grab it, he dangled helplessly from the bar with his left hand. 

Dick grabbed him right out of the air like he weighed nothing. “You were doing really well until that turn,” he said. “You were too rigid on that one, you have to let go just a little so you can turn.” He set Tim back down on the floor. 

“Look, imagine you’re-” Dick waved his hand in the air. “Hanging onto a helicopter, a billion feet in the air. You’re not exactly going to think of point deductions then, right?”

Tim nodded. 

“Alright, so from now on- get ready-” Tim stood under the bar and raised his hands up, Dick lifted him up. “You’re hanging onto a helicopter, and you’re- turning so you can get in the door.”

Tim swung a few times as Dick faked ‘helicopter noises’ in the background. He imagined that if he fell, he would fall a billion feet . When the turn came he let his right hand go and went to place it on the other side of his left hand, turning 180 degrees. His right hand gripped the bar, but slipped. Tim quickly regained his grip but he could feel his heart beat in his throat.

“There you go!” Dick applauded. 

Tim looked down at the mat. “There I go.”

…

Despite his better judgement, Tim took a seat on a park bench very close to Steph’s house. Steph always said she spent a lot of time there, because it was close enough to a 7/11 that she could excuse having a break to eat her chips there while running out to get something for her dad.

He poked a straw through his carton of juice. He wondered if she was okay, her street barricaded by what Tim knew to be cop cars. They were too new and expensive to pass for anything people drove in the Narrows, too old and cheap to pass for anything people drove in Bristol. 

Slowly but surely, it began to rain. Tim thought he could tough it out, pulling his hood over his head, but when it truly began to pour, he grabbed his bicycle and ran towards the crossing to take shelter under the nearest ledge. He found himself sitting on the bottom step of a large building, soaking wet with rain. 

With his shirt sleeve he wiped the water from his forehead and regretted the choice to have waited around in the city instead of going home after practice with Dick finished.

A young woman came to stand next to him, fumbling in her pocket for a lighter. “You don’t mind if I smoke here do you?”

Tim looked up at her, finding that from where he was sitting, she looked like a giant. “No, not at all,” He said. “Go ahead.” 

The woman took a long drag of her cigarette as soon as she’d lit it. Huffing out a cloud of smoke through her nose. Tim looked up at her with amazement. “How’d you do that?”

She looked down at him. “Do what?” As she spoke, little clouds of smoke came out of her mouth.

“Blowing it all out through your nose like that?”

It took her a moment to answer, first taking another drag of her cigarette. “I breathe the smoke in through my mouth and then I just breathe out through my nose.”

The young boy gave her a confused look.

“Your nose and your mouth are all connected, right?” She said then. “Like how you can take a breath through your nose and make it come out your mouth, or the other way around, just try it.”

Tim nodded solemnly, taking a big gulp of air through his mouth and then blowing it out through his nose. 

The woman grinned, seeing the surprised look on Tim’s face. “And that’s how I do that,” she said. “But- uhh smoking’s bad, kitten, remember that.”

“I know,” Tim said. “You should probably quit smoking, my friend says it gives you gross teeth.” 

“It does,” She confirmed, taking another drag. “I just can’t ever manage to quit,”

Tim frowned. “I hope you do- quit you know, because it’s better for you and all that.”

“Maybe I will, kitten.” She let her cigarette stump fall to the ground, stomping it out with her shoe. “You should get home and out of the rain before you get sick.”

“I will,” he said. “I’m just waiting for the rain to stop.”

“On your own?” she asked.

Tim nodded. “I can manage just fine.”

The woman crouched down next to Tim. “Listen, if you want, you can use your phone to call your parents, or a cab or something-” 

“You don’t have to call anyone,” Tim protested. “I can get home just fine on my own,” he insisted. “I’m just waiting for the rain to stop.”

The woman scoffed. “This is Gotham kid, it’ll be raining for the next week .”

Tim crossed his arms. “Then I’ll just go now.”

“Tell me who I should call for you.” She sat down next to Tim, grabbing her phone from her pocket. “If it isn’t the weather that takes you out, it’ll be a car who can’t see you for shit.”

“I have my own phone,” He told her, grabbing his own from his bag.

He scrolled through his options in his contacts app.

His parents’ personal phones were on silent during the work day, and his father’s work number was exclusively for emergencies. Steph’s mom was out of the question, so was Mrs. Mac. There weren’t a lot of other people on the list.

His thumb hovered over Dick Grayson’s contact. 

He didn’t even know if Dick was still in Gotham, or had a car, or was willing to go out of his way to pick Tim up, but it couldn’t hurt to try. 

As the phone rang, the woman was squinting at him, as if she was trying to place who he was. 

“What?” Tim asked.

The woman laughed. “You just remind me of someone.”

Tim got Dick’s voicemail. He looked down. 

“Nobody answer?” 

The boy shook his head. 

“Let’s just try it again,” She said, and prompted Tim to call again. “People never answer a call on the first ring.” 

Tim tried again, but Dick didn’t answer. “Third time’s the charm,” the woman told him.

The woman ran her fingers through her hair, it was short and very dark. Tim would bet that even his own hair was longer. “I- what do I do with you?” She whispered to herself. 

“I have an arrangement at 34th street in an hour, but I can keep an eye on you until then?”

He shook his head. “I don’t need a babysitter.”

“You’re a six year old alone in Gotham, of course you need a babysitter.”

“I’m ten .” He crossed his arms as she looked at him with a funny look on her face that Tim couldn’t quite place. “Shuddup.”

The woman stood up and held out her hand to help Tim up, the rain slowly coming down on her head. He reluctantly took it. He grabbed his bike from where it had been awkwardly placed against the wall of the building he’d been sitting under.

The woman fished an umbrella out of her jacket pocket, it was small but kept both their heads dry. 

They walked in almost complete silence towards 34th street, not coming across a great many people who dared to walk in the rain, until Tim curiously asked what the woman’s arrangement at 34th street even was.

“That’s my business,” She said, “Not yours,”

That made Tim even more curious. “Is it a secret?”

The woman eyed him. “It is a secret, so don’t tell anyone,”

“Is it a top-secret secret? Like the CIA and the FBI and ARGUS-”

“I’m not a spy.” She told him.

Tim’s eyes widened. “So you are a spy?” He whispered.

“ I’m not a spy, ” she repeated a little louder. 

“That’s exactly what a spy would say.”

The woman quirked an eyebrow. “If I were a spy, I would’ve already killed you.”

Tim frowned at her. “Spies don’t kill people,” he said. “That would be illegal-”

“Kitten,” the woman said. “I can’t wait for you to find out what the CIA is really all about.”

They came to a halt in front of a small boutique, its windows were covered with metal bars, but Tim could still see the rows of jewelry laid out in formation. 

It was the type of store Tim’s mom would go to to buy herself a present.

That was what she always called it when she bought herself stuff, clothes, jewelry, a set of fancy sunglasses, those were her little presents. It made her giggle to herself with joy.

“Are you going to buy yourself a present?” Tim asked, looking up at the woman. 

She met his eyes. “You could say that.” She laughed. “You could definitely say that.”

The woman stared down at the jewelry behind the window, and peered through the glass paned door. Tim’s phone buzzed in his pocket, though he didn’t register it for a moment, with the constant patter of rain against his clothes. 

He shook awake suddenly, realising that his phone was ringing and brought it to his ear. “Uh- Tim,” he paused. “I mean- hello this is Tim,”

“ This is Dick, you called me?”

Tim could feel the woman’s eyes on him, she leaned back against the metal bars. “Yeah! I had a- if you’re not too busy, and you’re still in the city- if you’re not that’s fine-”

“ I’m not following you completely, buddy.” Dick said softly.

Tim nodded. “If you’re still in the city- could you maybe come pick me up? It’s just that it’s raining- and I’m here on my bike and, yeah.”

“ Of course I will. I’m like halfway across the bridge but I can circle around, where are you?”

“Uhh I’m at 34th street?”

He heard Dick move around on the other side of the line. “ Where exactly on 34th? I’d hate to be on the wrong end.”

Tim turned around to look where exactly he was standing. “Where on 34th street are we?” he asked the woman. 

“By the Taco Bell.” 

“By the Taco Bell.” Tim echoed into the phone.

“ Are you with anyone right now?” Dick asked.

Tim looked back at the woman. “Yeah this lady is letting me borrow her umbrella.”

“ Alright then. I’ll be there in about 20 minutes.” Dick said. “ And Timmy?”

“Yeah?”

“ Stay dry, I don’t want to see boogers at your next training.”

Tim snorted. He realised that Dick couldn’t know that through the phone and gave him a soft affirmation. 

“Somebody coming to pick you up?” The woman asked. Tim nodded. “Well… let’s get to Taco Bell.”

“We’re not already at Taco Bell?” Tim asked, looking up at the sign for the taco place next to the jewelry store. 

“No, kitten. That's Taco World.” She pointed at the purple sign. “Taco Bell is over there and has a good deal on burritos on Sundays.”

She gave him a little push in the direction of the Taco Bell. Tim walked in front of her, but was surprised to find his head still dry. He looked back at the woman and noticed she was holding the umbrella over his head, rather than her own. 

Tim stepped a little closer to her, so they’d both fit under the umbrella.

As the doors to the Taco Bell opened, they blew a warm gust of air into their face. The woman walked right up to the counter, looking like the most elegant person in the establishment, Tim scurried along behind her. She placed her order without looking at the menu. “And some crayons for my friend here.” She added as she was paying.

Tim crossed his arms. “I’m not a little kid.”

The woman ignored him. “Also some paper maybe.”

The employee handed him his crayons and paper over the counter, Tim thanked her, but that didn’t mean he liked getting the drawing utensils. He was just raised right.

He sat silently next to the woman as she received her order of four burritos and a coke, and ate them with the precision of a hunter. It was just because he didn’t have anything better to do that he picked up the yellow crayon and began colouring in the taco on the colouring page.

“Nice,” The woman said. “You can colour between the lines.”

“Do you even know anything about kids?”

“I know I don’t want any,” she said.

Tim coloured the taco’s sombrero with red crayon. “Did you always not want kids or did you meet one particularly bad one that made you not want any?” Tim asked.

“Both.” The woman took a bite of her burrito. “There’s just some kids that hammer in the last nail on that coffin.”

“Like who?”

“My ex’s kids.”

Tim’s phone buzzed in his pocket, he picked it immediately when he saw the contact. “Hello?” 

“ It’s Dick. I’m by the Taco Bell on 34th, where are you?”

“I’m inside- wait.” He slid off the faux leather seat and grabbed his bag from the floor. The woman wiped her hands with a napkin and stood up as well. “You don’t have to come with me,” Tim told the woman.

“Somebody’s gotta make sure you don’t get in the car with an axe murderer.” She took the brown bag that held her final burrito under her arm, and held her drink in hand.

“I’m coming outside now.” The woman opened her umbrella as they exited the Taco Bell.

“ I see you. ” Dick hung up the phone. 

A silver Audi drove onto the parking lot in front of them. Dick climbed out of it, leaving the motor still running. “Long time no see, right Timmy-” Dick looked surprised. “Selina.”

“Dick.”

Tim looked between the two adults. 

“ He’s the one picking you up?” The woman asked, looking at Dick.

Tim nodded. “He teaches me gymnastics.”

“ She’s been watching you?” Dick asked.

Tim nodded. “She didn’t want me to get rained on.”

They stood in silence for a moment. 

“Well, we better get your bike in the car-” Dick started, one hand on the loop of Tim’s backpack. 

Tim rushed towards where he’d parked his bike, taking the lock off and bringing it back with him. Dick had placed his backpack in the backseat and placed the bike on the floor of the backseat, the wet tires dirtying up the beige interior. 

“At least I know you’re not getting in the car with a creep,” the woman said.

“Thank you for watching him,” Dick said. 

The woman shrugged. “It was the right thing to do.” 

Dick held open the door to the passenger seat for Tim, who gladly got into the car to hide from the rain. He got into the driver’s seat and gave the woman a final look. She smirked. “Give your father my love!” She blew them a kiss. 

Tim waved at her from the car. Dick gripped the wheel tightly, but couldn’t hide the knowing grin on his face. “What are the odds?” He mumbled to himself.

As the woman retreated from their vision, Tim turned to Dick. “How do you know her?”

“Well,” Dick said, as they got on the freeway. “That woman is my father’s ex.”

…

Despite all he had hoped, Steph wasn’t allowed out of the house for her birthday. On the single occasion her mother went out for groceries, she used the landline to call him. While there was only one police car left outside the house, the police came by ‘ like every day’ . 

“ I’m gonna get back to school in a few days, though ,” she had said. “ They hope my dad will try to talk to me on my way to school, so they’re sending a bunch of plain clothes ones along with me.”

“Be careful alright.” 

“ Yeah, yeah. ” She’d grumbled. “ My birthday present better be worth it. ”

“If you can then,” Tim said. “Meet me in the library?”

“ I’ll try .”

“That’s good enough.”

Tim worried for Steph a lot. It felt like that was all he could do for her sometimes.

He bicycled towards the library eagerly. He hadn’t been back in a while. With Steph behind locked doors, he didn’t feel like hanging out with Ms. Barbara and going over code like they usually did. 

The chance that Steph was going to be there however, fueled him to drive as fast as he could. 

Ms. Barbara spotted him immediately as he came through the front doors of the library. She was stuck to the front desk, she explained. “But I’ll come find you during my lunch break- is your sister with you today?” She sounded very hopeful at the prospect.

“She-” Tim halted. “She might come by today, but she was pretty busy with school.”

Barbara nodded. “That makes sense.” She smiled. “Now, let me or a colleague know if you can’t find something, alright?”

“Alright.”

Tim made his way towards the kids floor. If he was going to meet Steph anywhere, it was going to be here.

He waited, pulling out the book he was reading at school out from one of the shelves and settling on one of the couches. 

By the time he’d finished the book, he realised he could be waiting the rest of the afternoon for Steph- that she might not even be able to come. 

He missed knowing when he’d see his friend and when he could call her. In the three weeks since her father’s escape, all of that had just disappeared. He’d spoken to her only twice making up for a short few minutes.

The weight of his camera felt heavy in his bag as he walked towards the exit of the library, a bad idea in his mind. 

“Hold on just a second-” Barbara said, appearing in front of him. “Were you planning on leaving without saying goodbye?”

Tim clutched his heart. “You’re like a ninja.”

Barbara smiled. “Thanks.”

“I finished my homework,” Tim said.

“Very good.”

“Bye.” He turned around and tried to leave.

“Now was that so hard?” Barbara asked from behind him. 

Tim looked back. “No?”

“Have a nice day, Tom,” Barbara said.

“You too, Ms. B.”

…

Tim made himself very flat against the outer wall of Steph’s apartment, standing on the balcony by her mom’s bedroom. He tried to get a peek inside, looking at the familiar interior of the apartment. 

On the small wooden chair stood an overfull ashtray. Steph’s mom was incredibly against smoking, it seemed unlikely that she’d be the one filling the ashtray. 

Tim felt a sinking feeling in his stomach. Inside the apartment, he heard heavy footsteps coming his way. He shrank, desperate to hide himself. “Arthur, please.” Tim could hear Steph’s mom say. 

“That job is nothing- nothing compared to the money we’re going to be making when this thing goes through.” Tim heard a man’s voice, deep and raspy.

“But before then- I make a steady paycheck, it’s not much but it’ll keep us comfortable, just until it all goes through.” 

The doors to the balcony swung open. The curtain obscuring the balcony door window was the only thing keeping Tim from being found out. He felt his heartbeat in his throat, but he didn’t move. 

“I know those fucking nurses, Crystie- they push the panic button for a little bruise, and what then? What fucking then? You want me to keep half of the GCPD on payroll so you can be working ,” Arthur spat. “Those fucking cops are already getting too much of my money.”

“But what about Steph- she needs to be able to go to school.”

Arthur laughed maniacally.. “You were at least fun when you were hooked on pills.” Tim heard something slam against the metal railing of the balcony. “Playing the good mother, huh? You wanna be Mother Superior?” 

He pushed Crystal’s cheek against the little window of the balcony door, his hands entangled in her hair. She and Tim locked eyes. She looked like she’d been through hell. Her mouth moved against the window. ‘ Run ’. 

Tim saw her turn her head back through the small bit of window. “I want what’s best for my child,” She yelled. Tim realised suddenly that she was posing a distraction. Tim quickly climbed off the balcony while Arthur was distracted, using the same small ledge to climb back towards the fire escape where he had to get down two floors without making even a single sound. 

He found himself walking the same sidewalk as Crystal Brown, a grocery bag pinned under her arm. Tim turned to talk to her, but Crystal grabbed him by the arm and continued to walk. “Not here-” She hissed. “The cop in the Honda works for him .”

Inside the 7/11 by the slushie machine, Crystal finally found it safe to speak to him. “You won’t mention this to anyone.”

“But the police-”

“The police can be paid off, Tim.” Crystal sounded rough, her hair was messy and her eyes had sunken. “This isn’t just Arthur anymore-”

“What do you mean?” Tim asked. 

“I mean that the best thing you can do for Stephanie is to stay as far away as you can.”