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Tim was cold. He was wearing his thickest and warmest winter coat and snow pants as well as a hat and gloves indoors, yet he was still cold.
The heating had broken down four days ago, right before a snowstorm had hit. His parents hadn’t picked up when he tried to call them the day that it had broken down to ask what he should do about it. He got an email nearly two days later, sent by their secretary, that boiled down to ‘surely you could deal with whatever it is that you tried to call us about?’ and ‘we’re in Peru, the issue better be life-threatening’.
Tim sat at the kitchen bench, the duvet from his bed wrapped around him. Despite all the layers that he was still wearing, the winter chill bit at his bones. He was surprised that there wasn’t a layer of frost covering everything in the kitchen, with how cold it felt.
He was trying to work on the mathematics packet spread out on the table in front of him but the cold and his hunger were making it hard to stay focused.
Mrs Mack was supposed to bring over food and some groceries on Monday like she did every week, but the snowstorm had started Monday morning and it wasn’t safe for her to drive over to Drake Manor. That snowstorm also meant that school was cancelled for the rest of the week, so the last time he had eaten anything resembling a proper meal was at lunch on Monday. And both the cupboards and the fridge were bare.
Tim was cold and hadn’t eaten anything save for a packet of trail mix that he had found in the back of a cupboard in three days. He didn’t know when the next time Mrs Mack would be able to get to Drake Manor, or when school would go back.
He put down his pencil, thinking.
He could go to the Waynes. Mr Wayne had said that he was happy to help Tim if he encountered another situation like the lock one.
That was an incident weeks ago, where he had been locked out after an argument he’d had with his dad over a Mathematics grade. Jack had gone as far as to have all the locks in Drake Manor changed as well but then they had left on the trip to Peru and had forgotten to let Tim back in the house and give him a new key. Jason had spotted him sitting out on the driveway as he passed Drake Manor on his way home. If Jason hadn’t seen him and gotten Mr Wayne’s help, Tim would probably still be locked out of Drake Manor.
It had been three weeks since then and Tim was still not entirely sure how Mr Wayne had gotten into Drake Manor. His current and most likely theory was that the man had just picked the lock, which he already knew Mr Wayne could do after having watched him do it countless times from different rooftops.
But his dad had been furious when he found out that Tim had ‘disturbed the neighbours’ with a trivial problem that he ‘should have been able to handle himself’ now that he’s a big boy.
So Tim hesitated now.
Did this count as a big enough issue that he should get the Waynes’ help? What if it wasn’t? What if it was just another trivia problem that he should be able to handle himself? Should he find another blanket, wait until the snowstorm’s over, and then call a repairman?
A draft tickled its way across the exposed skin of the back of his neck as it blew through the room. Tim looked up. There was a window still open somewhere.
He got up from his chair and started checking every window in the kitchen and when he found that they were all tightly shut, he moved on to checking the sitting room ones. There was one window in that room, in the very corner of the space, that was still cracked slightly open. An icy wind was blowing in through it. He shut it.
On his way back to his spot in the kitchen, Tim mulled over the thought again. If he went next door to Wayne Manor, then he wouldn’t be cold anymore as well as (hopefully) getting something to eat. He wasn’t sure how much of an issue Mr Wayne would consider a broken heating system.
It would mean going out into the storm that was still swirling ferociously outside.
But he had no more food left. That packet of trail mix was the last of it. He had already eaten all of his emergency stash. And if he stayed here any longer he was worried that he would freeze to death before the snowstorm ended.
With his mind made up, Tim cleared up his mess and headed upstairs to grab his boots and a scarf.
When he opened the door, fifteen minutes and a pair of boots and a scarf later, the snow raced inside to settle on the wood of the entryway.
The wind whipped against his face as he walked, turning his nose pink (it would have turned his ears pink too but they were covered by the beanie and the hood of his jacket). The ten-year-old held an arm up in front of his face as he continued onwards, in an attempt to shield his eyes so that he would be able to see where he was going.
Jason had been on his way upstairs to the library from the living room to get another book when someone rang the doorbell.
Who could be at their door in the middle of a snowstorm?
He abandoned his course to the library to answer the door. When he opened it, he found a kid wrapped in a winter coat that looked far too big for him standing there. The kid’s lips were blue too. What was he doing at their doorstep now ?
Then it hit him. This wasn’t some random kid, this was their next-door neighbour!
“—Timmy?!” Jason exclaimed. “What the fuck are you doing here?” he asked.
“Language, Master Jason,” Alfred chastised after appearing right behind him.
“Sorry, Alfie,” he apologised before turning back to Tim. “Come inside before you freeze to death,”
When Tim stepped inside, it was so obvious that he was relieved to feel how warm it was inside the manor. It really was warm inside, so warm that Jason could have worn shorts and not been cold where he had been sitting in front of the fire.
“Master Tim, what are you doing here?” Alfred asked.
Tim ducked his head.
“I’m sorry,” he apologised. Why was he apologising? “Our heater broke down nearly a week ago and it was so cold at home,” The last part is said so quickly that Jason nearly didn’t hear it.
Alfred frowned.
“Did your parents not do anything about it?” he inquired.
Tim shook his head.
“They away on the trip to Peru, they left two weeks ago,”
“They’re still there? I thought they would have been back by now?” Jason said.
“No, they don’t get back until February,” Tim explained.
“February? That’s three months away!” he exclaimed. “They’ve really just left you by yourself in that house for three months?”
“Wouldn’t be the first time, and they’ve been away for longer before,” the ten-year-old muttered.
His stomach rumbled. Loudly.
“Master Tim, I’m about to serve up some pumpkin and corn soup, would you like a bowl?” Alfred offered.
Tim blinked owlishly at the butler, processing his offer.
“Yes, please,”
Alfred smiled, relieved of another kind. “Splendid. Now, how about you go with Master Jason and warm up in front of the fire?”
Jason mourned his lost prospect of getting another book for a moment but when he saw the way that Tim was still shivering, shoved away those thoughts. He could go get a book later, right now he had to ensure that Timbit didn’t actually freeze to death.
Two of them go into the sitting room, Jason reclaimed the side of the loveseat that he had been sitting in before getting up to go upstairs. Tim briefly eyed the armchair before perching on the other side of the loveseat.
Tim kept his coat on for a lot longer than he thought that he would. Was he still that cold, even in front of the fire? He did end up taking it off not long after finishing up his bowl of soup.
Bruce came downstairs an hour later after finishing a phone call with some W.E. board members to find two black-haired boys curled up in front of the fireplace. Jason was reading while the other one — Tim ? What was he doing here? How did he even get here? — was fast asleep.
His second son looked up from his book when the man entered the sitting room.
“The heating broke, and he ran out of food, so Timmy came here,” Jason explained in a whisper.
The implications behind that made Bruce frown. His suspicions were confirmed when he headed into the kitchen and got the full story from Alfred. He now, finally , had a viable reason to sue the Drakes for custody.