Chapter Text
Tim just might have ended up with Gotham’s only competent social worker. What wonderful luck he had.
Betty Fitz was young—young enough that Tim might have been one of her first cases. It wasn’t her youthful glow that gave her away, but rather the gleam in her eye; shining and bright, still believing in the integrity of the system.
Tim couldn’t help but admire it, her ability to hold onto her hope. From his nighttime wanderings of the Gotham streets, Tim had gotten a firsthand look at just how little Gotham cared for the many orphans littering their roadways—unless you were caught loitering around the rich part of Gotham, or taking after hour trips into any sort of public building. Now that was a one way ticket to juvenile detention for ‘disrupting the peace’.
Okay, so Tim might’ve almost gotten himself landed in juvie by an asshole cop once—and it might have something to do with how he may or may not have tried breaking into the Gotham City Museum’s special edition Batman exhibit—but in his defence, it was a limited edition exhibit and Tim had been out of town on a school trip, so it was either go at night or suffer through blurry photos from the internet.
At the end of the day, he got to see the exhibit and a well timed explosion a la Two Face taking an interest in that same exhibit meant Tim got away unharmed—and no, his singed clothing didn’t count. He was wearing a Green Arrow shirt. It was no real loss.
He did use it as an excuse to go on a merch spree the next day, though. Unlimited credit cards were damn awesome.
“So, Tim,” Betty smiled down at him, tight-lipped and pitying. He gave her a year before she wouldn’t even bother looking at the kids before greenlighting them for the first group home that came across her desk. “I know you said your uncle will take custody of you, but we still haven’t been able to contact him with the number you gave us.”
That’s because Tim gave her the number to his parents’ disconnected landline.
“Uncle Eddie was always pretty hard to reach at the best of times,” Tim said, a sad smile playing on his lips. Anyone else would immediately see through it, but Betty, somehow, managed to look even more sympathetic. He wondered if she’d still look at him so favourably if he wasn’t a Drake. “It’ll probably take him some time to answer, but he’ll come around eventually.”
Actually, it’ll just take Tim some time to find an actor willing to go along with his scheme. If Tim had any other case worker, he was sure he could hire some random guy off the street to play the part for an hour before he was rubber stamped and this actor was a hundred bucks richer, but Tim was pretty sure Betty here was the kind of person to, of all things, follow up.
And with handling the funerals, fending off the board and Betty Fitz, Tim hasn’t exactly had time to peruse IMDB.
“Yes, but Tim, until then, you cannot live here by yourself.”
Ah, he’s planned for this.
“Mrs. Mac has already agreed to—”
Betty shook her head. “Mrs. McIlvaine has had multiple DUIs and has expressed an interest to me to return home to Ireland in the near future. I cannot, in good faith, leave her as your guardian when her own plans are so uncertain.”
Shit.
Tim needed Betty to understand that there literally wasn’t a single adult in Gotham without some sort of minor crime under their belt. They just didn’t exist. So what if Mrs. Mac was drunk on the road—at least she wasn’t murdering puppies like the rest of Gotham’s adults. Honestly, Mrs. Mac was probably the most responsible adult he knew.
“With this in mind, I have located a suitable temporary foster guardian for you, especially given your unique situation—” She means his inheritance. Placing Tim with just anybody was kind of a murder sentence. It was just another reason he was determined to be adopted by his totally real uncle. “—so I contacted somebody from your neighbourhood, who is already a registered foster parent, and—luckily, given the short notice—he agreed.”
A registered foster parent in Bristol? Who the hell could she be—
No.
“Bruce Wayne has agreed to take temporary custody of you while we wait on your uncle.”
Fuck.
His life was the worst.
Seriously, the worst.
First, he’s orphaned, and then, of all the unluckiest things that might’ve happened, he gets placed with Bruce Wayne, of all people!
At this rate, Tim’s tombstone will read Tim Drake, the unluckiest boy in Gotham.
And, look. Bruce Wayne is Batman. That’s awesome. Like, super cool. If Tim were eight years old, this might’ve been the happiest day of his life (if his parents weren’t dead, obviously). But in those few years between eight and thirteen, Tim made a rather unfortunate discovery.
He was eleven years old, and definitely supposed to be sleeping given the hour, but obviously he wasn’t, given that he’d just climbed in through his bedroom window after some amazing night time wildlife photography—and wouldn’t you know it, his parents were up too.
And they were arguing.
Very loudly.
Like, so loudly that Tim was pretty sure that even if he had been snoozing away, he would’ve been woken up anyways from the sounds of his parents screaming at each other.
To sum up that rather terrible night and what he learnt from it, Janet Drake had discovered her husband was sleeping with his secretary, which sparked off an explosion within the Drake household. Many artefacts did not survive the night.
And Janet was winning the argument, given the rather impressive dossier of evidence she held. Tim was convinced that that night would be the end of his parents' marriage.
Then Janet decided to put her foot in her mouth. Tim assumed she was trying to make Jack feel bad, but whatever the reason, she confessed to having slept with somebody else twelve years previous.
“All this time, Jack? You’ve been raising Bruce Wayne’s son!”
There was silence for a long time after in the manor.
Tim had gone back to bed after that, sort of numb from the revelation.
He didn’t know how Jack and Janet resolved the situation after that, but the next time he saw them, they were acting perfectly amiable with each other, and Jack hadn’t treated him any differently.
Tim would’ve believed it had all been a fever dream if not for Jack’s refusal to clean his hairbrush and the rather hefty price of a privatised paternity test.
Jack Drake was not his father.
Bruce Wayne, Batman, was.
How fun.
“Oh.”
“Is that alright with you, Tim? I’m not gonna leave you with anybody you’re uncomfortable with.”
And little orphan Tim Drake had no reason not to want to live with Bruce Wayne.
So he shook his head and smiled.
“That’s great.”
His life officially sucked.