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September 8th was the date of Gotham Academy’s annual Academic Excellence Awards Ceremony. It was, essentially, an assembly where all the academic awards from the previous school year were handed out to their respective students. For those in the audience, it was pure boredom brought on by their mandatory attendance, but for the parents in the audience, it was waiting for almost an hour to see their child go up on stage and receive their award. You know, a stereotypical parent thing.
There were a handful of students who were expected to receive such prizes at these assemblies, and more often than not they did. It was those who consistently performed at the top of their class or the top of their year. Timothy Drake was one such student.
Tim stopped at the door to his dad’s office before he left Drake Manor to head to the bus that he would take to get to Gotham Academy.
Jack sat at his desk made of African Blackwood, alternating between typing on his desktop computer and writing on paper — most likely signing something for Drake Industries.
“Dad, could you please come to my awards presentation ceremony this afternoon?” he requested as a tiny flicker of hope developed deep within his chest. He tried to ask every year, most years Jack had been off with Janet on another archeology expedition or he simply said no.
Jack didn’t look up from whatever it was that he was working on. “Sure,” he muttered, distractedly.
This was the first time he had ever flat-out agreed to attend!
The flicker of hope grew. “Great! The assembly starts at 1 P.M. in the auditorium of the Performing Arts Center,” Tim made sure to tell his dad all the information he needed to be able to be there.
Tim left his spot lingering in the doorway of Jack’s study to head out of Drake Manor and down to the bus stop, if he had lingered any longer he would have missed the bus. As he got jostled about on his way and throughout most of the school day, he (foolishly) believed that he would see his father at the presentations that afternoon.
Hours later, the end-of-lunch bell rang and the students filed into the auditorium to take their seats, the sound of teachers attempting to do a head count only added to the din that existed in the large room. Once they were all settled, the parents were allowed in. Each parent had a pre-assigned seat that a member of staff was directing them to.
The award presentations started. With a surname that started with the letter ‘D’, Tim had a bit of time to wait before he went up on stage. As he waited he watched the other students, not just those who were younger than him but also older than him, go up to receive their awards as their parent/s smiled and/or discreetly filmed. Even those who received a Bronze award, the lowest level award that they could receive, got the same reaction from their parents. It stung and he wasn’t entirely sure why ; he hated the feeling nonetheless.
Then it was Tim’s turn. He ascended the stairs, shook hands with the headmaster and received his award, a Gold award. Then he went to stand facing the audience as the others who had gotten a GPA in the last school year that earned them a Gold award. As he stood there, his eyes scanned the audience to land on the designated seats for Jack and Janet Drake. Both were empty. While he had been expecting his mother’s seat to be empty, he had not been expecting his father’s seat to be.
Dad agreed to come; so where is he?
As Tim plastered on a smile for the photographer (he felt oddly detached from reality at that moment), a dark voice whispered in his ear.
He’s never attended before, so why did you think that this was going to be different? It was a foolish hope anyway.
The next hour passed in a blur, more and more students were called up onstage, more and more parents smiled and their phone screens caught the light and flashed in his eyes.
Tim felt like he was submerged in an invisible ice bath. The voice hadn’t left him yet, its words were slightly different each time but the base message was the same: he was foolish for genuinely believing that his dad would come, especially given the man’s track record.
And then the bell was ringing and bodies were moving — people were getting up and leaving, in a rush to get out of the auditorium that was still stifling hot despite the aircon blowing freezing air on everyone — and Tim found himself caught up in the sea.
Dinner that evening was once again a quiet, tense affair. It was Tim’s night to cook dinner (again) so he and Jack sat opposite each other eating mostly-not-that-charred stir fry. Tim had been waiting for the best time to address the elephant in the room; but with this sort of thing there was no such thing as the best time, so he went for it.
The sound of his fork hitting the bowl’s ceramic rang out loud in the quiet dining room. Like the bugle call that signalled the start of a battle.
“Dad, where were you at one o’clock this afternoon?” Tim forced his words to take a level, ‘normal’ tone.
Jack looked up from his meal. “I was in a meeting with Drake Industries stakeholders,” he told his son curtly, clearly not happy with having his dinner interrupted.
Oh. Right. Of course, he was. Tim thought. He was ready to accept what his father had said and end the conversation there.
The voice, on the other hand, was not willing to be placated that easily or quickly. When you asked him this morning, he agreed to come. He couldn’t go back on that just because he had a meeting. How dare he agree when he knew that his schedule was already full!
Anger bubbled up within him.
“What about my awards presentation assembly? I wanted you to be there and you weren’t there!” he demanded. “You said you’d come watch,” he added, quieter.
“I never agreed to attend such a petulant ceremony,” Jack refuted, also abandoning his fork. Their dinner was officially on pause.
“Yes, you did! When I asked you this morning you said ‘sure’!” Tim said.
“You’re making things up, boy! I never saw you this morning, I was at the office until eleven,”
“I’m not making things up! And you were working from home this morning; I stopped in your office on my way to school so you did see me,” the teenager insisted.
“Lies! You know that I don’t usually attend Gotham Academy assemblies and ceremonies as I believe them to be a waste of time. Next time you want me to consider it, you need to ask me ,” Jack told him, anger barely contained within his body.
There’s not going to be a next time. Tim thought sullenly.
“Yeah, okay,” he agreed begrudgingly before they both turned back to their food. He only had a few mouthfuls left before he got up from the table, put his bowl in the dishwasher and headed upstairs.
Thankfully, Tim only had to wait for an hour before he could slip out and head over to Wayne Manor for that evening’s patrol. He had been bored just sitting in his room as he had finished all of his homework; waiting for Jack to either go up to bed or to grab a drink and be out of the way through that route.
When he entered the warmth of the nextdoor manor, Alfred directed him towards Bruce’s office, with a note to get the man “away from his Wayne Enterprises paperwork and down to the Cave if he wanted to actually leave for patrol at a reasonable time that evening’.
Bruce looked up as one of his sons (not that Tim considered himself that) entered.
“It’s time for patrol, Bruce,” Tim said.
“Alright, you head down first, I’ll join you once I’m done here,” Bruce told him.
With an “okay” Tim ducked back out of Bruce’s study and headed down to the Cave.
To his surprise, he found Dick already there and in the middle of pulling on his Nightwing uniform while typing on the BatComputer with his other hand.
“Hey Baby Bird,” the older vigilante greeted, turning to look at Tim (seriously what was it with him the Waynes and facing him when he entered the room?).
Before he had a chance to say anything, Dick’s face fell as he studied Tim’s face. The teenager whose face it was being studied was very confused; what was Dick seeing on his face?
Dick’s shoulders relaxed, ever so slightly. Like it did when his brother was about to talk about something serious.
“Timmy, did something happen today?” Dick asked, having finally finished getting his uniform on and stopping whatever he was doing on the BatComputer.
There were many possible answers that he could give in response to that question and not all of them were negative. I got a Gold award at my school’s awards ceremony; I asked my dad to do a normal parent thing and he forgot about it; I listened to anger for once; my dad tried to gaslight me into believing that I never asked him to come to the assembly; I’m upset about all of this and I don’t understand why?
He didn’t say any of that, instead, he heard himself say “Yeah, something did happen,”
After those four words his memory went slightly fuzzy, he remembered sitting down at the table usually used for debriefing and starting to speak. He remembered telling Dick about his day but not the specifics.
Only two sentences were preserved in his memories in crystal clear quality: “I thought that after everything that’s happened and all his attempts to spend time with me, he’d want to be there. You know, finally do a normal parent thing?”
After that, Dick hugged him, for as long as Tim wanted. And when they broke apart, Bruce finally appeared in the Cave so they headed out on patrol. If asked, Tim would say that punching criminals was a surprisingly good way to work through the confusing emotions that dealing with Jack Drake brought about.