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There were many things that Janet and Jack Drake didn’t approve of and pets were one of them.
The first time, he had been barely six years old. He had found an injured bird (that had yellow and green feathers) on the side of the road on his way home from school.
“Put that thing back outside, Timothy, it’ll ruin the upholstery,” Janet said when Tim had brought it into Drake Manor.
He had resisted but that action turned out to be futile as Janet had swooped forward, took the bird - who was barely a chick - into her hands, and chucked it out behind a snow-covered bush at the back of the grounds.
For weeks and months afterwards, Tim felt the phantom pain of her long, sharp, white-painted nails scratching his hands as Janet stole the baby bird right out of his hands.
The next time was when Tim was eight and he had asked Jack if he could get a pet; he had heard all the other kids talking about theirs for the show-and-tell project that they had that week. The other children all had cool pets like parakeets, cats or dogs.
Instead of a verbal answer, Jack had slapped him across the cheek. “After all that we do for you, you still ask for more?”
That night, Tim goes to bed with a bruise on his cheek, his parents are off on a flight before he’s up the next morning, and most importantly, no pet.
A few weeks later Tim in all of his newly nine-year-old glory and armed with a folder of research, walked into a pet store and politely asked an employee where the fish were.
When the employee asked where his parents were, Tim told her that they were waiting outside in the car as they didn’t like the smell of the pet store (which isn't a complete lie) and had given him money for a birthday present (which is a lie).
She was frowning as she took him to the fish aisle. Tim spent the better part of twenty minutes gawking at how many different types and colours of fish were on sale.
Tim’s parents had left him a single hundred dollar note to pay Mrs Mac with (they had forgotten that they paid her online again) on the kitchen counter before they had left Drake Manor to catch their flight.
That note was the same one that Tim had taken to the pet store with him; he couldn’t pay with the credit card he had access to as his parents would most certainly notice the transaction for a pet which would lead to a conversation that he didn’t want to have.
After twenty-five minutes of carefully-planned consideration, he has chosen a fish: a fire hydrant red betta fish.
A fighting fish was the only type of fish he could get. The folder that he had with him had the research into the different care needs, life expectancy and tank requirements of all the fish species that the particular pet store had on offer.
A fighting fish could survive in any size tank, especially a small one. It only needed to be fed once a day and not that much every time. If he got a cleaner snail or some other kind of small cleaning animal the tank wouldn’t have to be cleaned too often. Logically it was the best choice.
“Is this your first fish?” the employee - Sasha, her name badge read - asked him as she carefully handed him the plastic bag with the fish inside.
Tim nodded. “It is!” he answered happily.
A smile settled on Sasha’s face. “So you’ll need a tank to put that little one in, stones to go in the bottom, something fun to put in the tank, and a water filter,” she told him.
Sasha leads him to the fish supplies aisle. There are all sizes of tanks here, from what some would consider tiny to aquarium-sized ones. There are bags of many colours of stones and sand. And there are an array of tank ornaments, from a statue of an antique diver to a mini shipwreck.
“Do you know how much room you have?” she asked.
“Dad said we only have enough room for a really small tank,” Tim told her. He had rehearsed that while looking at the different fish.
“Okay then, how about this one?” Sasha pointed a neon green nail to a three-gallon tank that has a water filter built into it.
He agreed and she took it off a box off of the shelf underneath it.
After Tim chose blue stones Sasha took it all up to the counter.
In that moment, he doesn’t notice her frown when he hands over the hundred-dollar note to pay for it.
An hour later, Tim was lying on his bed watching the newly named Robin swim around its tank.
Robin the fish lasted a year and four months. It happens when Jack and Janet Drake are home from yet another archaeological dig site.
Tim came home from school that day, a Wednesday, to a drained fish tank and Robin the fish lying dried out on the stones.
In that moment, his anger clouded his judgment and Tim goes charging downstairs looking for Jack.
That altercation ended with Tim struggling to breathe through the pain on his chest as he tried to fall asleep, shards of glass on the kitchen floor and in his hair.
Jack and Janet Drake leave for yet another dig site during the night.
The next day, before school, Tim carefully picked up Robin’s limp body and carried him out to the backyard, grabbing an empty matchbox on his way.
He buried the fish in the ground near the flower patch by the far wall on the end of the yard, a flat piece of bark with “R.I.P Robin the Fish” written on it messy ten-year-old’s handwriting in thick black sharpie marked the grave.
Tim doesn’t try to get another pet after that. Then he goes and trips up in front of his heroes, and ends up getting adopted by Bruce.
The longing - no the want - for a pet of his own followed him all the way to Wayne Manor.
It’s Dick who notices it first, the teenager pulls him out of school early one Friday and stops in at a pet store.
“Dick?” he questions as he follows Dick into the store.
It’s at that moment that Dick realises that he’s been found out. “Okay, I don’t actually need anything from here. But I’ve seen how you look at dog owners and I’m 90% sure that you want a pet?” he explains. “Am I right?”
Tim hates that his older brother is spot on.
“Yeah…you are,” he agrees.
A smile breaks out on Dick’s face and Tim is reminded of a moment from years ago in this very store of a lady with purple hair and neon green nails.
“Great!” Dick continues on, deeper into the store. Tim has no choice but to follow his oldest brother.
They walk out fifteen minutes later with a plastic bag in Tim’s hands that had a red tail shark swimming laps around the perimeter of the bag.
Tim is trying (and somewhat failing) to hide his happy smile.
That fish - who Tim names Goth Swedish Fish because yeah - lasts for a whopping whole five years. The red tail shark lasts through Dick’s abrupt departure, Jason’s death, the Red Hood’s appearance in Crime Alley, and even Damian’s arrival at the manor.
He has to leave it behind at the manor when he leaves to find Bruce when the man is trapped in time. As much as he wants to bring it with him, it’s impossible for him to do so.
When Tim returns to Wayne Manor from that mission, having passed on the information on Bruce’s whereabouts to various members of the Justice League for them to deal with, he finds the red-tail shark floating in the water just shy of the water filter that was still running.
Tim’s second fish is dead and it hurts. It gets buried in much the same way that Robin the Fish was, only this time on the grounds of Wayne Manor rather than that of Drake Manor.
After that, he doesn’t dare entertain the thought of getting another pet, fish or otherwise. Even if jealousy stabs his heart a little every time he sees any of Damian’s many pets or random pet owners out on the streets.
Eventually, Tim grows apart from the rest of the family, especially after he sets up his own base of operations.
As he is never staying in one apartment for more than two weeks at most, he can’t get a pet, even one as basic as a fish needs a more stable environment and care than that. And, deep down, in the back of his mind, he knows that he can’t go through the heartbreak of losing another pet.
Somehow, Tim rebuilds the bridges that he had been so convinced he had burnt for good all that time ago.
Alfred’s now-mandatory Sunday lunches probably have something to do with it.
Tim arrives as he has for the last three Sundays, just in time for lunch but not late. And definitely not early enough to have the time to chat with anyone.
During this particular lunch, there is a noticeable undercurrent of anticipation in the rest of the family, even Alfred, as they eat. It puts him on edge as he doesn’t know why.
After they have all finished, Tim was on his way out the door when Dick caught up with him.
“Timmy! You’re leaving so soon?” his eldest brother (can he even call Dick that? Are they brothers again?) asked.
“Yes?”
“You can spare a minute or two, can’t you?” Dick said before Tim finds himself being (very gently) pulled back deeper inside the manor.
Dick didn’t ease his grip on his sleeve until he reached his destination, which was the family room.
The rest of the family were already gathered there, even Alfred and Bruce. But Tim didn’t pay that any mind as his whole focus is on the fish tank that is on top a cabinet. That definitely was not there when he was here last week.
When he was here last week, he left as soon as lunch was finished. As he had all the weeks before that.
The frankly massive fish tank has a school of very brightly coloured…guppies?
It’s been years since Tim’s seen fish this colourful outside of pet shop windows or children’s bedrooms.
Hang on a moment, there are nine fish in the tank and there are nine of them, including Duke.
“Do you like it?” Jason asked, unable to wait any longer. They cut Tim off before he could voice his hypothesis.
“Yeah, but why are they here? Pets need constant care and-” A very familiar fish caught his eye.
Even though he had turned back to the fish tank, he doesn’t miss the way everyone looks sad at what he had said (he’s not sure why they are, what did he say?).
“Goth Swedish Fish?!” There is, in fact, a Red Tail Shark swimming around with the other fishes. It can’t be Goth Swedish Fish, the original died years ago, he remembers burying the body.
“Goth Swedish Fish II,” Dick tells him.
Well, okay, that makes sense.
“Why do we have a tank full of fish?” Tim asked, again.
“Master Tim, excluding the new additions, how many pets are there in this household?” Alfred asked instead of answering his question.
Short answer: a lot.
“Um…a lot?”
“That is correct; and these pets belong to many people, don’t they?”
Where’s Alfred going with this?
“Yeah?”
“Masters Dick and Jason had told us about your pet fishes-”
“-and how you always stop outside a pet shop on patrol,” Jason chimes in, not before apologising to the butler.
How do they know about that? They probably got Babs’ help.
“Voila, we get you a pet fish-” This time it’s Dick who cuts in.
“And some others to keep him company,”
Tim’s 90% sure he hears someone whisper “like you and the rest of this family”.
He didn’t know what to say but made a mental note to start coming around to the manor more often again to feed the fishes. And so that he can make sure that they actually exist and he hadn't dreamt the entire tank up.