Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

Tim had always known his parents didn’t love him.

Not in the way children were supposed to be loved—not with warmth, or comfort, or the kind of safety you could fall asleep inside. His father was all cold disappointment, jagged with internal battles he refused to speak of. His mother was flighty and distracted, drifting in and out like a perfume you couldn’t hold onto.

They gave him the best schools. The best tutors. A custom-built computer by age seven and a solitary seat at every gala table. But never warmth. Never home.

So when the plane went down somewhere over the Mediterranean, and the papers said “Tragic Loss of Gotham Elite: Jack and Janet Drake Presumed Dead”, Tim only blinked.

He made himself toast. Ate it alone.

Then he went upstairs and packed.

It was Alfred who came for him.

Not Bruce. Not Batman. Not anyone in a cape or cowl. Just Alfred Pennyworth, with his perfectly pressed suit and sorrow in his eyes, standing in the doorway of the cold, marble Drake estate.

“We’ll be handling the estate transition,” Alfred had said. “And there’s… something else.”

That something turned out to be a will.

And a sealed envelope.

And a DNA test.

“Timothy,” Alfred said gently, a day later, once they were seated in the cavernous Wayne library, “your mother left this… for legal reasons. There is no delicate way to phrase it. Bruce is—”

“My biological father,” Tim said flatly. “Yeah. I figured.”

Alfred’s brows rose. “You…?”

Tim shrugged. “Mom used to say I had Martha Wayne’s eyelashes when she was drunk. Thought it was a joke.”

Alfred was quiet for a moment.

Then: “Master Bruce is… processing. He did not expect this. But this home is yours, now. You will not be alone.”

Tim didn’t say he already had been. Didn’t say that this wasn’t the first time a parent passed him over like a warm body with no real claim. Just nodded.

Bruce didn’t come to dinner that night.

He didn’t come the next night either.

When Tim passed him in the hallway—a flash of a frown, a tight jaw, averted eyes—he said nothing. Bruce offered a stiff nod and kept walking.

Tim was used to silence.

So he filled the spaces.

He helped Alfred in the kitchen. Learned how to fold napkins the way his grandmother used to. Took over setting the table. Ran inventory for the wine cellar and helped clean the medical tray after Stephanie returned from patrol bleeding and annoyed.

He didn’t go down to the cave. That was their world. He knew about Batman, knew about Robin—Stephanie Brown, blonde and scowling, who gave him one look and muttered “another stray?” before walking away. She wasn’t unkind, just wary. Just another kid in a system too big and cold to promise permanence.

Tim didn’t blame her.

Late one night, while folding laundry in the manor's sunroom, Alfred came in with a glass of warm milk.

“You know, Master Tim,” he said gently, “when Master Bruce was your age, he tried to build a glider on the roof. It ended in three broken ribs and a very stern letter from the physics tutor.”

Tim blinked. “…Why are you telling me that?”

“Because no one is born knowing how to be a father,” Alfred said. “Or a son. We learn. And I believe you are both learning. Even if the lessons are painful.”

Tim looked away. “He doesn’t want me.”

Alfred smiled, soft and kind. “Not yet. But he will.”

And maybe, just maybe, Tim dared to believe that was true.

Even if, for now, he found his family in the smell of fresh linen, the clink of teacups, and Alfred’s steady footsteps always nearby.

Chapter Text

Tim had been in the manor for three weeks.

He hadn’t spoken to Bruce in twelve days.

Not once.

Not even in passing.

Bruce was always in motion—a blur of dark suits and colder silences. A file in hand. A briefing to take. A mission to prepare for. Tim would enter a room, and Bruce would be leaving it. Their glances passed like trains at opposite ends of a track. Brief. Impersonal.

The first time Tim knocked on his door, wanting to ask a question about school forms, Bruce hadn’t answered.

The second time, Bruce had opened the door, stared at him for half a second too long, then said, “Ask Alfred.”

That had been the last time Tim tried.

Alfred noticed.

Of course he did.

He saw the way Tim flinched when he heard Bruce’s footsteps. How his eyes flicked toward doorways with the smallest glimmer of hope—then dimmed again when Bruce passed by without even a glance.

Worse than anger.

Indifference.

But Tim didn’t cry. He just folded Bruce’s pressed shirts with quiet hands and started alphabetizing the wine cellar by vintage. Alfred had to stop him from reorganizing the silver drawer by handle style.

“Master Tim,” Alfred said one morning over tea, “you are not staff.”

Tim blinked at him, startled. “I know. I just… I like helping.”

He did. He liked how Alfred made space for him, even in the silences. How he let Tim linger in the kitchen and hum under his breath while cutting strawberries. How he always made enough tea for two.

And slowly, gently, Alfred began to notice the way Tim held the teacup—with two hands, pinkies delicately curled under. Just like Martha used to when she was tired. The same way she’d hold her pearls before a gala, resting her chin on Thomas’s shoulder and murmuring about the seating charts with sleepy disdain.

Tim always curled his feet under him when he sat, too. Like Martha.

But the way he stood when he was cornered—chin up, hands behind his back, voice flat and composed—that was Thomas. That was exactly Thomas.

Alfred stood in the kitchen one afternoon, staring at Tim through the open doorway as the boy dried the silver, carefully polishing each spoon until it gleamed.

And for a moment, it felt like them. Like the echoes of a long-ago life had crept back into the halls.

He had to set the teapot down before his hands shook.

The worst of it was that Bruce didn’t see it.

He didn’t see the boy with Martha’s smile and Thomas’s quiet intelligence. He didn’t see the way Tim folded napkins just the way she used to, or how he watched Bruce from across the room like he was trying to memorize a map he’d never be allowed to touch.

Bruce had lost so much. And now that the past had gifted him something so rare and irreplaceable, he turned away from it.

Because he wasn’t ready.

Because he didn’t want a mirror that looked like Martha when she used to hum down the halls in the mornings.

Because Thomas’s son didn’t know how to be a father.

Alfred found Tim asleep in the conservatory one afternoon, curled under a blanket with a book fallen to the floor. His glasses were askew, eyelashes fluttering in sleep, a soft frown between his brows.

He looked so heartbreakingly small.

Alfred sat beside him in silence, watching the late sun paint him in gold.

Tim stirred slightly and mumbled, still mostly asleep, “Was I good today?”

Alfred blinked. “Pardon?”

“I tried really hard. To be helpful. Like Mom wanted me to be.” A pause. A breath. “I’m trying not to take up space.”

Alfred’s heart cracked open.

He reached out and gently brushed Tim’s hair back from his forehead. “You are not in the way, Timothy. You are home.”

Tim didn’t answer. He’d already slipped back into dreams.

But Alfred stayed. Just like he had all those years ago, in the early mornings before galas, when Thomas would fix his tie and Martha would drift in sleepy and smiling, and they’d drink tea before the day began.

Tim was theirs.

Tim was them.

And Alfred would make sure he stayed loved this time.

Even if Bruce couldn’t see it yet.

Chapter Text

The manor was heavy with silence these days.

Not the gentle kind—the soft, warm hush that used to settle after Martha’s laughter faded down the stairs. No. This was thick. Unforgiving. Saturated with things left unsaid.

Bruce drank more now.

He never used to drink, not like this. A glass of bourbon to unwind, maybe. Scotch after long meetings. But now the glasses emptied faster than Alfred could clean them. They stacked up beside case files. Beside photos of Jason. Beside memories Bruce couldn’t bear to put away.

Tim never went in the study.

He wasn’t stupid—he could read the signs. Could see the way Bruce recoiled every time their eyes met, like Tim had taken something sacred just by breathing near it.

He knew what Jason had meant to him.

Knew that the boy had been loud and brash and brave and full of all the things Bruce had lost. Knew that Jason had died in that suit, and that the idea of anyone else filling that shadow—especially Tim, with his soft voice and delicate hands and unassuming presence—felt like a betrayal.

So Tim didn’t try.

He stayed out of the study. Out of the cave. Out of Bruce’s way.

“Would you prefer I move back?” he asked Alfred one night, carefully slicing strawberries for the tarts Alfred liked to leave out on Fridays. “To the Drake house, I mean. I could have a caretaker. I don’t mind.”

Alfred froze, fingers tightening on the porcelain teapot he was carrying. “Why would you ask that?”

Tim shrugged. “I think maybe I’m making it worse. For him.”

The “him” didn’t need clarifying.

Alfred set the pot down and turned fully to him. “You are not making anything worse. Master Bruce is grieving. But your presence here is not a wound.”

Tim didn’t argue. Just nodded and kept slicing. His movements were slow, precise, oddly graceful—like someone taught not to take up more space than absolutely necessary.

Alfred exhaled slowly. “You remind me of her, you know.”

Tim blinked. “My mom?”

“No,” Alfred said, voice quiet. “Martha.”

Tim flushed and looked down, unsure what to say. He didn’t want to assume. Didn’t want to claim something he hadn’t earned.

“You have her quiet,” Alfred continued. “Her warmth. And the way you hold a teacup like it’s the most important thing in the world. That was hers too.”

Tim offered a shaky smile. “I… think I’d like to be like her.”

“You already are.”

That night, Bruce watched from the shadows of the study as Tim passed by the hallway outside—barefoot, wrapped in one of Martha’s old silk robes, his hair mussed from sleep. He didn’t look like a Robin. Didn’t look like a soldier. He looked like… home.

And Bruce hated himself a little more.

Because Jason had died just months ago.

Because Stephanie was trying so hard to earn a mantle that might already be cursed.

Because Tim—this gentle, soft-spoken, delicate boy—was sleeping under his roof, eating his food, folding napkins the way Martha used to, and Bruce didn’t know how to breathe around it.

Didn’t know if it was love, or replacement.

Didn’t know if he deserved either.

The scotch burned down his throat, numbing the thought.

He closed the door before Tim could turn around and see him.

The next morning, Alfred found Tim in the garden pruning the roses in silence, face tilted toward the weak Gotham sun. A teacup sat beside him, steaming gently. He looked so peaceful. So old, in a way most fourteen-year-olds never should.

“I’ve made breakfast,” Alfred said.

Tim smiled up at him. “I’ll be right in.”

Alfred lingered for a moment, then asked softly, “Do you want me to speak with him?”

Tim hesitated.

“No,” he said eventually. “I think… he’s just hurting. He doesn’t want a son right now.”

Alfred knelt, gently wiping some dew from Tim’s cheek with the pad of his thumb.

“Then he’s an utter fool,” he said. “Because he already has one.”

Chapter Text

Tim had always been invisible at Gotham Academy.

He didn’t mind it, really—he preferred the quiet. The anonymity. The way no one noticed the sad-eyed boy in the corner unless he raised his hand too often. But now…

Now they noticed.

Now that he was living in the manor. Now that the tabloids had latched onto Janet Drake’s will, now that someone had leaked a photo of him in pink silk stepping out of a Wayne limo.

They noticed. And they hated him for it.

“Hey, Drake—how’s your real mom?” someone jeered near the lockers, tone dripping venom. “Still working her way through Gotham’s rich-boy roster?”

Tim didn’t flinch.

He kept his books close to his chest and walked forward.

“Your mom was a whore, wasn’t she? Asian slut who thought she could bag a Wayne—guess she got lucky. Bet your eyes come from someone she didn’t even know the name of.”

That one made him stop.

Not because it was crueler than the others, but because it found the bruise he’d never stopped carrying: that he didn’t look like them. Not Jack, not Janet. Not even Bruce. His reflection was always a stranger.

He walked away.

But it followed him.

The slurs. The sneers. The whispers in the library about his “real father.” About “buying his way in.” About “playing dress-up” in his mother’s jewelry like he didn’t know what gender meant. Like he was just confused, unwanted, weird.

He threw up in the bathroom that day.

He didn’t go to dinner that night.

Bruce didn’t notice.

He was in the cave, gloved hands smeared with engine grease, growling at a faulty data cable. Stephanie had a broken wrist from patrol and a sarcastic quip ready. Tim didn’t mention the bruise blooming on his hip where a senior had shoved him into a locker.

Bruce was distracted. Still drinking. Still grieving.

Tim wasn’t Robin.

Tim wasn’t Jason.

So Bruce didn’t look close enough.

And when the school report came in—detailing rising tension, missed classes, a physical altercation, and “unresolved conflict with peers”—he didn’t ask why.

He looked at boarding schools instead.

Alfred was the one who found the printout.

He picked it up off the dining room table like it was radioactive.

“Out-of-state?” he asked, voice quiet.

Bruce sighed and ran a hand over his face. “It’s not working. He’s… not safe there. And he clearly doesn’t belong here. Maybe he needs distance.”

“He’s your son, Bruce.”

Bruce flinched. “He’s not Jason.”

“No,” Alfred said, very calmly. “He’s not.”

And that night, Bruce got a message from the Watchtower's Security System.

Dick Grayson’s boots hit Gotham soil at 3:12 a.m., still half-dressed in his Titans flight gear.

He didn’t even go to his apartment.

He stormed straight into the manor.

“Where is he?” he demanded, breath sharp, voice shaking.

Bruce met him in the hallway, bleary and defensive. “You should’ve called.”

“I did, Bruce,” Dick growled. “You didn’t answer. You didn’t tell me. I missed his funeral—I missed everything. What the hell is wrong with you?!”

“I didn’t— I couldn’t…” Bruce faltered.

“Don’t,” Dick snapped. “Don’t even start.”

Dick’s voice cracked. “He was my baby brother.”

“I know—”

“Then why is someone else living in his room?! Why is there some strange kid in his bathrobe in the kitchen, cutting up strawberries like nothing ever happened?”

Bruce’s mouth opened. Closed again.

“You just replaced him?!”

“No!” Bruce snapped, louder than he meant to. “He’s not a replacement. He’s—” He stopped himself.

Because even now, weeks later, he didn’t know how to finish that sentence.

Not son. Not yet.

Not anything that mattered.

Dick found Tim sitting on the sunroom couch, wrapped in a blanket and holding a hot water bottle. His cheek was bruised, and his glasses were slightly askew. He didn’t flinch when Dick entered.

“…You must be Dick,” Tim said quietly. “Alfred said you’d come back.”

Dick stared at him.

This kid was so small.

So quiet.

So sad.

“You don’t look like him,” he muttered.

“I know,” Tim whispered.

Silence.

Then, softer: “I’m sorry I’m here. I didn’t mean to take anything from you.”

And that broke something in Dick’s chest. Because Jason would’ve hated that. Would’ve hated this soft, strange, tired child hurting in his place.

Would’ve told Bruce to look at him. To see him.

So Dick sat down beside Tim, still shaking from grief, and said:

“…Did Bruce tell you Jason used to put hot sauce on his strawberries?”

Tim blinked. “…That’s disgusting.”

Dick snorted.

And maybe—for just a moment—they were brothers.

Broken. But not entirely lost.

Chapter Text

Bruce had always done his research.

He was methodical. Strategic. It gave him control in a world that refused to be kind.

So when the idea of boarding school first took root—whispered by guilt and rationalized by grief—he didn’t just look at catalogs. He looked into the Drakes.

And discovered that Jack Drake, for all his cruelty and emotional neglect, had come from a long line of French merchants. One branch had even maintained a modest estate near Lyon.

Maybe, Bruce thought, Tim needs that.

Not the cave. Not Gotham Academy. Not the weight of Jason’s ghost around every corner.

Maybe he needed to breathe somewhere else.

Somewhere… simpler.

Quieter.

Somewhere that wasn’t here.

Dick was not impressed.

“You’re sending him where?”

Bruce didn’t look up from the file. “He has French ancestry. Jack’s side. There’s a very reputable boarding school near Lyon with strong academic ties—”

“Don’t do this.”

“I’m thinking long-term,” Bruce said tightly. “Tim’s not Jason, Dick. He’s not meant to be here.”

“I know he’s not Jason!” Dick exploded, pacing across the library floor. “But he is a kid whose parents just died, who found out you’re his biological father, and you want to ship him across the world because he’s not convenient?!”

Bruce’s jaw tensed.

“This isn’t about convenience.”

“Oh, isn’t it?” Dick hissed. “Because it sure looks like you’re trying to make him someone else’s problem. And you haven’t even given him a chance to be yours.”

They didn’t realize Tim was outside the door.

He hadn’t meant to eavesdrop.

He’d just been passing, wearing one of Martha’s old cardigans over his pajamas, hair tied back in those soft 1940s waves Alfred liked so much. A book tucked to his chest. His bruises were healing. His silence, less so.

And now—hearing Dick argue like he didn’t want him here, like Bruce might send him away—felt like his chest folded in on itself.

Not that it was surprising.

They’d never said he could stay.

Only that he hadn’t been asked to leave.

Yet.

Alfred found him later in the attic, sitting cross-legged under the stained-glass dome with his head bowed low over nothing at all.

“I used to hide here too,” Alfred said softly.

Tim didn’t look up. “Is it true?”

Alfred didn’t pretend not to know. “Master Bruce is… confused. But he cares.”

“Caring would mean saying it,” Tim whispered. “Caring would mean seeing me.”

Alfred walked forward, set the package down gently beside him, and knelt.

Inside: a stack of worn, leather-bound medical textbooks. Faded notes in the margins. Pages littered with sketches, diagrams, tiny pressed flowers used as bookmarks.

“These belonged to your grandfather,” Alfred said.

Tim’s brow furrowed. “Jack?”

“No,” Alfred said gently. “Thomas. Bruce’s father. He was a brilliant doctor. And a kind man.”

Tim touched the cover like it might crumble under his fingers.

“I thought you might like to know where you come from,” Alfred continued. “The good parts. And I suppose it’s only fair—one of them was mine too.”

Tim blinked. “…You and Thomas?”

Alfred gave a rare, faint smile. “And Martha. Though that arrangement wouldn’t have passed polite society.”

That made Tim laugh, just a little.

It was a shaky, tired laugh—but it was something.

“Thank you,” he said, holding the books close. “For… all of it.”

Alfred rested a hand on his shoulder. “Whatever happens, Timothy… you are a Wayne. Even when the Waynes forget how to say it.”

That night, Bruce stared at the boarding school brochure again.

Then, slowly, he tore it in half.

Because even if he didn’t know how to be a father—not yet—he was starting to understand that sending Tim away would be the same as letting him be forgotten all over again.

And Bruce couldn’t do that.

Not again.

Chapter Text

Tim didn’t cry when he found the torn brochure.

He stared at it—crumpled, jagged down the center, tucked haphazardly into the waste bin beside Bruce’s desk—and he understood.

He understood what Bruce meant to do, and that—at some point—he’d changed his mind.

But not for Tim.

Not about him.

Just… about the idea of boarding school.

There was no note. No apology. No conversation.

Just a torn flyer. A ghost of a decision.

And that ghost said more than Bruce ever had.

Tim didn’t hesitate.

He’d already looked into the schools weeks ago, after overhearing Bruce and Dick. Had memorized their admissions requirements, their scholarships, their digital backdoors. He knew exactly where to go, and how to get there without setting off alerts.

He forged the tuition payment authorization using Bruce’s digital credentials, digging into one of the smaller Wayne Foundation trust arms. Not enough to flag anything. Not enough to matter to someone who bled money on Bat-tech and military-grade Kevlar weekly.

But enough for a year abroad.

He called the school. Fluent French. Polite. Chillingly calm.

And then he packed.

It didn’t take long.

He didn’t have many things. A few of Martha’s old cardigans. The fur coat Alfred insisted he keep. Three of Thomas Wayne’s medical textbooks. A framed photograph he’d stolen from Bruce’s study: Martha in pearls, seated in the garden with a book on her lap, mid-laugh.

He took it because it was the only photo in the house where she looked happy.

Like maybe he could still make her proud.

He wrote Alfred a letter. Handwritten. Folded neatly. Tucked into an envelope on his bedside table.

Alfred,

Thank you for everything. For the tea. For the tarts. For the books. For making me feel human when no one else remembered I was.

Please don’t worry. I’ve enrolled myself. I forged the paperwork but I promise everything is secure. No legal fallout. I was careful.

Tell Bruce I’m not angry.

Tell Dick I’m sorry.

I think you’re the only person who really saw me. And I want you to know that mattered. You mattered.

You’re my family. No matter where I go.

Love,
Timothy

P.S. I’ll write. If that’s okay.

He left at 4:13 a.m., slipping past the East Wing hall before the security cameras refreshed their logs. He disabled them for exactly nine seconds using a code Stephanie had shown him in passing, not thinking he’d remember.

He did.

Of course he did.

He left through the garden gate, carrying nothing but one suitcase and a small knapsack. His curls were pinned back, and he wore a long cream coat that had once belonged to Martha, lined with rose silk.

It was cold.

He didn’t shiver.

At the airport, he boarded with no issues. His forged paperwork was clean. His flight was pre-scheduled. He sat by the window and watched Gotham vanish below.

He didn’t cry.

Not until the flight attendants dimmed the lights and everyone else fell asleep.

Then he curled up, clutching Thomas’s textbook, and finally let the tears fall silently down his cheek.

He wasn’t running away.

He was just… letting himself go where someone might want him.

And maybe—just maybe—find himself somewhere in the spaces between Martha’s laugh and Thomas’s hands.

Somewhere far from a cave full of ghosts.

Chapter Text

Paris was exactly as Tim remembered it.

Cold in the mornings. Loud in the afternoons. Indifferent in the way only ancient cities could be—its beauty held at a distance, like marble behind glass.

The school accepted him without hesitation.

He arrived in a long cream coat and silk-lined gloves, dragging a suitcase that once belonged to someone dead. His French was flawless. His posture impeccable. He charmed the administration with subtle poise and old money elegance, and by the end of the day he was settled into a corner dorm overlooking the quiet east garden.

He unpacked slowly.

Hung up his vintage clothing—mostly Martha’s things, re-hemmed and altered to his size. Folded his sweaters into neat stacks. Arranged the medical textbooks on the desk by subject and year.

He stared at the empty second bed for a long time, then politely requested a single.

The room was too quiet otherwise.

Classes were easy.

Too easy.

He read ahead. Corrected his professors—respectfully, and in flawless syntax. One teacher suggested he transfer into the lycée's early university track. Tim said he’d consider it.

Instead, he built a new laptop out of sheer boredom.

Then installed a tracking-resistant shell OS on the school’s network.

Then rewrote half of his chemistry curriculum into an interactive game just to see if he could.

By week two, he had a VPN burrowed so deep into Gotham’s municipal server system that even Oracle wouldn’t find it unless she was looking.

But no one was looking.

Not for him.

Back in Gotham, Alfred found the letter tucked under Tim’s pillow.

He read it twice.

Then a third time.

Then he sat very, very still at the end of the boy’s bed—hands folded, mouth tight, tears in his eyes—and said nothing at all.

That evening, he left a perfectly set tea tray in the study.

Bruce didn’t touch it.

He didn’t touch the next one either.

“Alfred?” Bruce asked finally, on the third night, voice hoarse. “Where’s Tim?”

Alfred looked at him with something cool and sharp in his gaze. “Gone.”

Bruce blinked. “Gone? What do you mean—gone where?”

Alfred turned a page in his book. “To the school you wanted to send him to.”

“What—”

“Your son,” Alfred said, calm but cold, “enrolled himself, forged your digital authorization, packed alone, and boarded an international flight with nothing but a single suitcase and his dead grandfather’s coat. Because he believed—correctly—that he was not wanted here.”

Bruce stood frozen.

Alfred didn’t rise. Didn’t soften.

“He left me a letter,” he added. “Me, not you.”

“…Did he say where?”

Alfred shut the book. “I believe you have the resources to find out. If you can be bothered to look this time.”

Dick came in through the kitchen door the next day, hair wet from the rain, still in his hoodie and jeans from Titans work.

Alfred handed him a mug of tea. The temperature was perfect.

“…So you are still speaking to me,” Dick said quietly.

Alfred raised an eyebrow. “I am acknowledging your existence.”

Dick winced. “That bad?”

“You allowed your father to make a child feel like a placeholder,” Alfred said. “You weren’t cruel, but you were complicit.”

“I was grieving.”

“So was he.”

They stood in silence.

Then Dick asked, “Did he take the fur coat?”

Alfred’s expression softened just a little. “Of course he did.”

Meanwhile, in Paris, Tim sat in his dorm window, one leg curled beneath him, staring at the city lights through the thin pane of glass. A jazz trio played across the street. Someone below was smoking clove cigarettes.

He missed Alfred.

He missed warm scones and quiet breakfasts. He missed the rustle of morning newspapers and the way Alfred folded his laundry like it was sacred.

He didn’t miss Bruce.

But he still dreamt of him sometimes.

Of how different it might’ve felt if Bruce had looked at him and seen a son instead of a shadow.

Chapter Text

The thing about Paris was that it didn’t notice you.

Not in the cruel, pointed way Gotham did. Not with cameras and whispers and side-eyes in school halls. No, Paris didn’t notice because it simply didn’t care. It had seen too much. It had outlived kings and revolutions and starving poets. One more quiet American boy meant nothing to her.

Tim liked that.

He liked being nothing.

The school didn’t ask questions.

He had top marks. Kept to himself. Submitted thesis-length essays without being prompted. Attended language club meetings and corrected his professors in fluent Mandarin by week three. By the end of the semester he was tutoring two older students in Classical Greek and French military history.

He was fifteen.

And bored out of his mind.

So he slipped out at night.

First carefully. Then confidently.

He swapped Martha’s silks and vintage jewelry for sturdy boots and an oversized hoodie. His curls were tied back in a careless knot, his cheeks pink from wind and late-night métro rides.

He wandered the Marché Bastille, the narrow stalls along Rue Mouffetard, the back alleys near Montmartre where no one looked too hard at lonely boys with soft hands and perfect posture.

He ate crêpes filled with goat cheese and honey at 2 a.m.

He drank espresso from tiny chipped cups and watched people argue in cafés until dawn.

He tried red wine once, and spat it back into the Seine laughing.

He bought bootleg DVDs and old books with missing pages. He helped an elderly florist carry her buckets of dahlias up a hill.

He danced once—with a violinist’s apprentice, under string lights near Place des Vosges.

And when it rained, he wandered quietly in it, soaked and soft and free.

He didn’t have friends.

But he had people who knew him.

The cheese seller who called him “le prince fatigué.”

The old bookseller near Saint-Paul who gave him stolen Russian spy novels.

The Moroccan boy who ran the corner stand and taught him how to haggle with a wink.

He liked being Tim, here.

Not Drake. Not Wayne. Not almost-a-Robin. Not the boy who wore dead women's pearls and lived in the manor that buried sons.

Just Tim.

A little odd. A little elegant. A little adrift.

And no one minded.

He still wrote Alfred.

Once a week. Every Friday. He never mentioned Bruce. Never asked for anything. But the letters were full of delicate observations—about pastry textures and book restorations and the way the violinist on Rue des Archives always played just a little sharp.

Alfred always wrote back.

His letters were warm and precise and tucked with recipes, tissue-thin newspaper clippings, and once: a pressed lilac.

Tim kept them all in a satin-lined box by his bed.

He didn’t think about Gotham often.

But when he did, it was mostly in pieces.

The library. Alfred’s steady voice. The faint smell of oil and leather that clung to the walls of the cave.

Sometimes, if he was very tired, he’d let himself imagine what might’ve happened if Bruce had looked up at him once and not seen a problem to solve.

But those thoughts didn’t help.

So he let the night markets swallow them.

Along with the lanterns, and the rain, and the gentle hum of a city that had no interest in devouring its ghosts.

Chapter Text

Le Fantôme de la Rue Mouffetard

By: Iris Cormier
For: Le Clair de Lune // Republished in Gotham Culture Weekly

Originally published in French, translated and excerpted for Gotham readership.

A boy appeared at the night markets three months ago. No one knows where he came from—not really. He speaks perfect French, carries himself like a lost royal, and knits with such delicate grace that even the grumpiest old women at Marché Popincourt hush when he joins them.

No name. No history. But everyone knows him.

They call him le fantôme fatigué. The tired ghost.

He wears thrifted jackets too big for his shoulders and carries a bag always heavy with books. Sometimes he wears silk scarves, the kind you only see in Parisian estate sales and old war brides’ closets. A few regulars claim he smells like Earl Grey and garden roses.

And he’s always alone.

“I offered to walk him home once,” says Nassim El-Khoury, who runs the lavender stand near Rue du Chevalier-de-la-Barre. “He said no, very gently. But he gave me a biscuit he baked himself. Cardamom and lemon. I’ve never tasted anything like it.”

The viral photo was taken on a rainy Wednesday, under a street lamp near the Bastille market. He sat beside Madame Riviére, an 82-year-old retired seamstress who sells handmade buttons. The boy was knitting—hands quick and precise—while she chattered in French about the best kinds of wool.

They didn’t seem to notice the camera.

“I thought he was a girl the first time,” Madame Riviére admits, shrugging. “He doesn’t care what you think. He wears what he likes. That’s the trick, you see. You stop trying to define him and just let him be.”

Local barista Jean-Baptiste Chéreau swears the boy drinks only espresso and reads Russian novels upside down. (“For memory training,” he told someone once. “Or maybe to be mysterious. Who knows.”)

A child prodigy? An exiled heir? A homesick ghost?

No one’s sure.

But the butcher once watched him comfort a crying child with a handmade origami bird. The violinist says he always tips. The baker leaves an extra almond croissant on her tray every Sunday, just in case he passes by.

He speaks Korean to the noodle stall, Greek to the old man with the coin collection, and English only when it’s raining.

Since the release of this photo, readers have written in from Gotham claiming to recognize the boy—some calling him Tim Drake, presumed ward of billionaire Bruce Wayne, who has not been seen publicly in months. The Wayne family has not issued a statement.

But when asked directly, the boy in question only laughed.

“Je ne suis à personne,” he said.
I belong to no one.

And just like that, le fantôme walked back into the fog.

Chapter Text

It started with boredom.

That kind of loneliness that sinks into your bones when even your brilliance becomes exhausting. Tim had rewritten his school’s security protocols in under a week. Taught himself Mandarin in three. Coded a language-learning app from scratch. There were only so many books he could read in a single night before even boredom became tedious.

So he walked.

Further this time.

Down into the arrondissements where the postcards didn’t go, where the street names blurred in broken neon and the cafés closed before night settled in. He wasn’t looking for trouble. But trouble in Paris was like fog—it didn’t ask permission before it surrounded you.

He bought roasted chestnuts from a man who never made eye contact. Sat beneath a broken streetlamp where a cat curled beside him. And then, inevitably, they appeared.

Three of them.

Not drunk. Not amateurs.

Professionals. Clean. Calculated. The kind of men who watched how you walked before deciding how you’d fall.

---

Tim noticed them before they noticed he’d noticed.

He wasn’t wearing anything expensive. No jewelry tonight. Just a black wool coat, boots, and a too-big scarf Alfred had mailed him in a tea tin. But there was something about Tim that always drew attention—the stillness, the posture, the way he folded his hands like he’d been taught by someone very old and very exacting.

And maybe they thought he’d be an easy mark.

But he wasn’t.

---

He handled it. As much as he could.

A warning in French. Then a flash of motion—knee to the gut, elbow to the jaw. But he wasn’t fast enough to avoid the blade drawn behind him.

Except it never landed.

Because the man holding it collapsed mid-strike.

No warning. No sound. Just a clean, brutal takedown in the span of a single breath.

Tim whipped around—

—but no one was there.

Just shadows.

And silence.

And the faintest trace of motion across a rooftop far above him.

---

Back at school, Tim sat at his desk with a half-drunk espresso and an untouched assignment on statistical cryptography.

He rubbed the bridge of his nose.

He wasn’t imagining it.

Someone was watching him.

He’d felt it since the alley. Sometimes during his walks. Sometimes during his lessons. A sense of weight. Of attention.

Not hostile. Not obvious.

But present.

Like the city had grown eyes just for him.

Cassandra Cain didn’t speak. Not to him. Not to anyone.

She watched.

From rooftops, from alleyways, from quiet corners of schoolyards he never even noticed. She saw the way he held tension in his shoulders like he’d forgotten how to relax. She watched him knit by candlelight. She watched him walk between dangerous men like he didn’t believe they’d touch him.

She didn’t understand him.

But she understood what Shiva had seen.

Smart. Still. Unafraid.

The boy didn’t run from shadows.

So she would stay.

Until he did.

Chapter Text

The manor was too quiet now.

No knocking in the hallway. No tea cups rattling on the tray from hands too delicate to carry them properly. No quiet humming from the sunroom, half-forgotten melodies wrapped in Tim's voice. Just wind through the old windows, and the occasional creak of a floorboard Bruce hadn’t stepped on in months.

And Alfred.

Always Alfred.

Alfred hadn’t raised his voice. He hadn’t needed to.

Instead, he'd weaponized gentility.

The morning tea was always made just a few minutes too early, left to over-steep and go bitter in the pot. Toast was burned once. Exactly once. Bruce said nothing. Alfred said less.

The newspaper—the one with the viral photo of Tim in Paris, seated beneath fairy lights knitting beside an old woman—showed up everywhere.

On the breakfast tray.
Folded on the arm of the chair in the study.
Flattened and laminated beside the display case that still held Jason’s old gear.

Once, it even replaced the usual mission readout in the Batcave printer.

Bruce had blinked and stared down at Tim’s soft smile, captured beneath string lights and mist.

He didn't say anything.

He never did.

Because in Bruce’s mind, Tim was doing better.

Look at the photos. The article. Paris.

He was brilliant, wasn’t he? Fluent in too many languages. Straight A’s. A quiet, elegant boy who read books older than his teachers and walked like he was dancing with ghosts. He didn’t need Gotham.

He had friends now. Or something like them. He had peace.

He had France.

He had Jack Drake’s legacy to cling to.

And Bruce… he wasn’t part of that story.

Maybe he never had been.

Bruce sat in the library that evening, in silence, surrounded by shadows and firelight.

A tray rested beside him. Untouched tea. Three sugar cubes, the way Tim used to take it, even though Bruce never did.

There was a note tucked beneath the saucer.

“Your son prefers his tea at seventy-eight degrees. Room temperature is not enough.”

It wasn’t signed.

Didn’t need to be.

Bruce pressed his fingers to his eyes, swallowed hard, and tried—tried—to tell himself that he’d done the right thing. That Tim needed space. That Tim wasn’t his to begin with.

That he was fine.

But that word—son—still rang in his ears.

Because someone believed it.

Even if Bruce hadn’t said it aloud.

Chapter Text

Tim was being watched.

He didn’t know it, not in the way he knew the number of cracks on the dorm ceiling or the precise amount of time his tea needed to steep for the flavor to come out right—but he felt it.

A chill at the nape of his neck that never left.
The heavy silence that came too soon after laughter.
The way shopkeepers greeted him before he reached their doors.

At first, he’d thought it was paranoia.
Too many late nights. Too little sleep.

But when he took the long way home—through winding alleys and past graffiti-splashed tunnels—he heard footsteps that always stopped just before he turned around.

He told no one.

After all, who would he tell?

The teachers were paid to tolerate him, not care. His classmates barely spoke to him. And Alfred…

He missed Alfred with a terrible ache, but he couldn't bring himself to reach out.

So Tim adapted.

He changed routes. Left through windows instead of doors. Slept with one eye open and a sharpened letter opener beneath his pillow. His long skirts were replaced by slacks and coats that hid his frame. He still curled his hair for comfort—but he wore sunglasses now, even at dusk.

And still, the feeling stayed.

Far away—beneath the snow-slicked peaks of Nanda Parbat—something ancient stirred.

A scream cracked the temple walls like lightning splitting stone.

Then silence.

A long, shuddering breath.

The green glow of the Lazarus Pit dimmed slowly, casting warped reflections across the water. The shape that rose from it was soaked to the bone, curls plastered to his skull, eyes burning with violent, unfiltered life.

Jason Todd coughed. He choked. He screamed again, this time wordless and raw.

The monks said nothing.

They simply watched.

Because what had risen wasn’t whole.
Not yet.

And as Jason dragged himself from the pit, skin pale as a corpse, voice broken and hoarse—he whispered a name that didn’t match the scream in his chest.

“…Bruce…”

Back in Paris, Tim lay curled on his narrow dorm bed.

One hand beneath his pillow.
One ear tuned to the wind.

And outside his window—perched impossibly still, like a shadow stitched to the wall—Cassandra Cain watched.

Lady Shiva had told her observe.
To learn.

And Cass, silent and still and carved from quiet, had never been so curious.

Because this boy—the one who walked like a ghost and dreamed in code—was nothing like the Gotham warriors Shiva wanted her to kill.

He was… delicate.

Soft.

And yet, somehow, entirely without fear.

Cass tilted her head.

She would not harm him.

Not yet.

Chapter Text

The air in Nanda Parbat was sharp, scented with cold stone and the faint trace of incense burned too long.

Jason Todd moved like a shadow in the temple’s training halls, muscles screaming from the pit but burning with a furious vitality. Every swing of his blade, every roll across the polished floor, every controlled strike against the wooden dummies was amplified by the lingering fire in his veins. He had been dead. And now he was alive. The pit had given him strength, but it had not yet healed the fractures in his mind.

And Thalia was patient.

“You’ve returned,” she said softly, voice like silk over steel, watching him strip sweat from his shoulders. “But do you think you are whole?”

Jason spat blood onto the stone, chest heaving. “I… I am stronger than before.”

“Stronger,” she echoed, circling him slowly, “but do you think… Bruce sees it that way? That he wanted you back?”

He froze mid-breath. Something in her tone pricked at the edges of memory. He tried to shake it off.

“Of course he does. He… he wouldn’t leave me—”

“Would he?” Thalia’s smile was faint. Cruel. Perfect. “Or is it possible… that he forgot you?”

Jason blinked. His vision flickered. “Forgot me?”

“Yes,” she said, stepping closer, letting the shadows cling to her like a cloak. “Do you remember the boy who came after you?”

Jason’s hands tensed. “Tim…?” The name tasted bitter on his tongue. A dull ache lodged in his chest. Memories he shouldn’t have… fragments. Laughter in the cave. Tiny hands clutching gadgets. Bruce staring at him… differently.

“Yes, Tim,” Thalia whispered, feeding the wound in his mind. “The boy who took your place. Who made you… replaceable. Who stole the attention, the affection, the title of Robin. You’ve been dead, Jason. And while you slept, your place… was taken.”

Jason shook his head violently. “No! Bruce… Bruce wouldn’t… he wouldn’t forget me.”

Thalia’s hands brushed against his shoulder. “He forgot. Because of Tim. The boy you see in your dreams… the one Bruce allows to live in his house, in his life… he is the reason you were erased. Do you remember how it felt when you weren’t there? Forgotten, discarded? That’s him. That’s the child who forced Bruce to replace you.”

The words sank deep, each one a dagger wrapped in velvet. Each lie carefully timed. Jason’s fists clenched, nails digging into his palms. Rage, confusion, hurt—it burned in him like a fire that refused to die.

“Tim…” he whispered, bitter. “…the Robin now.”

“Exactly,” Thalia said, leaning closer, voice low and insidious. “He has taken everything from you. He forced your memory away. He is the reason Bruce’s heart forgot yours. You don’t deserve what he has. You deserve… revenge.”

Jason’s chest heaved. He could feel it now. The anger. The loss. The impossible longing to reclaim what was stolen. Every movement in the training hall felt sharper, every strike more precise, but beneath the surface, a storm brewed: not just the fire from the pit, but something older, darker.

And Thalia smiled.

Because he believed her.

Because he needed to.

Because soon, he would act.

Chapter Text

Tim had been careful.
He knew he was being followed. Constantly. The prickling awareness that had settled into his skin over the past weeks had never left. He moved through Paris’ quieter streets at night, boots silent on slick cobblestones, hoodie pulled low, eyes sharp. But tonight… tonight the feeling was undeniable.

He turned a corner near an abandoned print shop, and froze.

A figure stepped from the shadows. Small. Silent. Impossible.

Cassandra.

She made no announcement. No words. Just eyes. Calculating. Watching.

“Who—what—?” Tim began, but she spoke first.

“Shiva ordered me to bring you to her.”

The words weren’t a threat. Not yet. But they were ice and fire in one.

Before Tim could respond, she moved. Faster than his eyes could follow.

A strike—a test.

Tim barely dodged, adrenaline slamming through him. He wasn’t trained. Not really. Not like this. But years of life in Gotham, years of nights with Alfred and avoiding danger… instincts kicked in.

He countered, small, calculated, using her momentum against her. It wasn’t enough. He wasn’t expecting her to hold back.

Shiva’s order was clear: he would fight, and she would judge.

Every block, every counter, every careful step told Cassandra exactly how far he had come. How capable he truly was. Tim fought back—not to win—but to survive. To measure himself.

When the fight finally ended, Cassandra stepped back.

“You survived,” she said softly, almost reverently. “You’ve piqued Shiva’s interest. You will either train with her… or die.”

Tim swallowed hard. His lungs burned. His muscles ached. But his mind was still his own.

“Can… can I…?” he panted. “Can I write a letter first?”

Cassandra raised an eyebrow but made no move to stop him.

Tim sat down on the wet cobblestones, knees pulled up, and pulled out a small, folded sheet of paper he had stashed in his coat. Pen scratched quickly as he wrote to the only person in the world who had truly been a constant for him.

Dear Grandpa,

Something… strange happened tonight. I met someone… someone important, and I had to defend myself. I can’t explain everything right now, and it may be a while before I can send this letter. Please don’t worry. I am okay. I promise.

I love you to the moon and back.

Tim

He folded it carefully, hiding it in a secret pocket of his coat.

Cassandra didn’t say a word. She only waited. Her eyes never left him.

Tim stood.

“This… this is my life now?” he asked quietly.

“Yours,” she said. “And Shiva will decide how it continues.”

Tim nodded, shoulders steady despite the fatigue, and allowed himself the tiniest sliver of pride. He had survived. And even in the shadow of one of the deadliest women alive, he was still Tim.

And somewhere, somewhere far away, Alfred would receive his words.

And that was enough.

Chapter Text

Tim’s heart hammered as he stepped into the courtyard.
It was barely dawn in Paris, the stones still slick from last night’s rain, mist curling around the temple-like grounds where Shiva waited.

Cassandra stood at her mother’s side, expression unreadable.

Shiva’s voice was calm, almost detached.
“Today we see if you have any right to the life you begged for.”

Tim swallowed hard. His palms were damp, his chest tight. But he nodded.

The first blow came so quickly he barely had time to flinch.

Tim blocked wrong — too high — and Shiva’s strike nearly knocked him off his feet. The second blow was harder, a sweeping kick that left his ribs aching and his lungs empty.

“You think too much,” Shiva said, circling him. “Thinking gets you killed.”

Tim staggered up. He wasn’t a fighter — not like this — but his stubbornness kept him moving. He dodged, rolled, countered as best he could, but she was relentless.

Hours passed. Or maybe minutes. Time stopped mattering.

Every time he hit the ground, Shiva ordered him up again.
“Again.”
“Again.”
“Again.”

Cassandra crouched nearby, silent except for one soft correction here, one pointed gesture there. Her English was halting, broken, but she tried.

“Lower,” she said when his stance faltered.
“Breathe,” when his hands shook.
“Move… faster,” when he froze.

There was no praise, but she stayed close — as if silently willing him to keep getting up.

When Shiva finally called an end to the session, Tim was shaking so hard he could barely stand. Sweat plastered his curls to his forehead, and his knuckles bled from hitting stone.

“You are alive,” Shiva said simply. “Good. We will make you better.”

It wasn’t approval. Not exactly. But it was permission to stay alive for another day.

Alfred Pennyworth sat in the Wayne Manor study, Tim’s letter open on the desk before him. His hand rested on it as though it might vanish if he let go.

Bruce stood silently in the doorway, waiting.

“This,” Alfred said finally, his voice clipped, “is all we have. A vague letter, a promise that may already have been broken.”

Bruce didn’t reply.

“You have failed him,” Alfred continued, his tone glacial. “Whatever danger he is in, he faces it alone — and that is on you, Master Bruce.”

The silence that followed was heavier than any argument. Bruce turned away first, jaw clenched, shoulders tight.

Back in Paris, Tim sank down on his narrow bed, every muscle screaming. He wanted nothing more than to sleep, but Cassandra appeared in the doorway.

“Good,” she said simply, nodding toward him. “You… strong.”

It wasn’t much, but for the first time that day, Tim smiled.

Chapter Text

Tim grunted as he swung the bo staff, muscles screaming from the relentless repetition. Shiva didn’t allow him to rest; Cassandra’s shadow loomed close, correcting each misstep with silent, precise gestures. Her English was fractured and sparse:

“Hold tighter.”
“Foot steady.”
“Don’t drop.”

Every swing was measured, every strike an echo of countless deaths, rehearsed and perfected. Tim was learning fast, instinctively blending his nimbleness with careful strategy—but it wasn’t enough.

Shiva’s attacks came without warning: strikes, kicks, throws. Every time he blocked successfully, she’d nod once and launch another, sharper, faster.

Cassandra was always there—silent encouragement, hand signals, shifts in posture. Tim noticed how she never struck him directly; she let him fight, but she was always ready to correct, always observing, always calculating.

Hours bled into exhaustion. Tim’s arms shook, knuckles raw from gripping the bo staff too tightly, sweat blurring his curls into damp tendrils against his forehead. And still, he rose, swung, and survived.

Far away, Jason moved through a similar rhythm, only his teacher was Thalia, and the stakes were infinitely darker. He learned guns first: pistols, semi-automatics, silent revolvers. Thalia’s lessons were brutal and precise. Every shot had to hit—perfect accuracy, no hesitation.

“Speed,” she hissed. “Efficiency. You are the weapon. You are the blade and the hammer. Bruce made you nothing. You will become everything.”

Every miss was punished. Every hesitation drilled into his mind: he deserved to be dead, he deserved to be replaced, he will take it all back.

Jason’s body was rebuilding in the Lazarus Pit’s shadow—stronger, faster, sharper—but his mind was a delicate warzone. Thalia whispered truths, half-lies, visions of Bruce forgetting him, of Tim replacing him, of the life stolen.

“Do you see?” she murmured. “He has what should have been yours. You were dead. And still, he lives. Still, he takes your place.”

Jason gritted his teeth. Rage burned like acid in his veins. His hands tightened around the cold metal of the guns. Every lesson reinforced not just skill, but purpose: Tim and Bruce had taken what was his, and soon he would reclaim it.

Tim stumbled, arm aching, breathing ragged, and Cassandra’s sharp eyes corrected him silently.

Jason staggered, muscles ablaze, pistol shaking in his grip, and Thalia leaned close, whispering poison.

Both boys were learning. Both were surviving.

Both were becoming something else.

One with a staff, graceful and precise, still anchored to a fragile heart.

The other with a gun, rage-fed and sharpened, a mind twisted into obsession.

Two children of Bruce Wayne, shaped differently, moving inexorably toward a collision neither could yet see.

Chapter Text

Jason knelt before Ra’s al Ghul, head bowed, fists tight at his sides. His eyes burned with Lazarus rage, but his voice was steady.

Ra’s circled him slowly, inspecting him like one would a fine blade.
“Reborn. Tempered in pain. Forged in grief. You are ready, Jason Todd.”

Jason raised his chin. “Ready for what?”

“To reclaim what was stolen from you.” Ra’s smiled faintly. “Your place. Your legacy. Gotham will know the son it cast aside has returned.”

Thalia’s hand brushed Jason’s shoulder as she stepped forward, voice sweet as venom.
“You will go home, Beloved. And you will take back everything that was yours. The cowl. The city. Your father.”

Jason’s jaw clenched. His mind filled with Tim’s face—not truly Tim’s, but the image Thalia had painted for him: smug, false, a usurper. Jason’s anger solidified into purpose.

Tim’s chest heaved as his bo staff clattered against Shiva’s blade one final time. His arms ached, bruises bloomed purple under his shirt, but he did not fall.

And then Shiva… stepped back. Lowered her sword. Smiled faintly.

“You live,” she said. “Good.”

It took him a beat to realize what had happened. He’d survived. He’d won.

Tim dropped to his knees, breathless but elated. For the first time since boarding that plane to Paris, he felt something stir in his chest that wasn’t loneliness or exhaustion. Pride, maybe. Or belonging.

Shiva said nothing more, simply turned away, leaving Cassandra to silently crouch beside him and offer him a hand up. Her quiet nod felt like a medal.

The letter sat in Alfred’s gloved hands, read and re-read until the paper softened with wear.

Dear Grandpa Alfred,
Something… strange happened tonight. I met someone… someone important, and I had to defend myself. I can’t explain everything right now, and it may be a while before I can send this letter. Please don’t worry. I am okay. I promise.
I love you to the moon and back.
Tim

Alfred’s jaw was set, eyes glassy with restrained anger. When Bruce came into the kitchen, still half-dressed as Batman, Alfred laid the letter on the table.

“This,” Alfred said sharply, “is the last communication I have had from your son. A vague message from a boy who was forced to defend himself against God-knows-what in a foreign country—alone—because he thought he was unwanted here.”

Bruce froze, staring down at the words. The room felt colder.

“You will find him, Master Bruce,” Alfred continued, his voice like ice. “You will find my grandson, the last piece of Martha and Thomas Wayne left in this world, and you will bring him home. Or you will never be forgiven.”

Bruce swallowed hard, throat tight. The weight of Alfred’s words landed like a punch.

Bruce sat before the Batcomputer, hands braced on the console, Tim’s letter laid out beside him. The cowl was off, his face lined with exhaustion and regret.

He’d thought sending Tim away was protecting him. Thought that distance would shield him from Gotham’s endless tragedies.

But Alfred was right. Something was wrong.

“Computer,” Bruce said quietly, “begin search protocols: Timothy Jackson Drake. Priority One.”

He paused, staring at the blinking cursor before him, and reached for his phone.

“Dick,” he said when his eldest answered groggily. “I need you back in Gotham. Now.”

Halloween was coming. Crime would spike. Gotham couldn’t afford a distracted Batman—nor could Tim afford a father too lost in grief to look for him.

For the first time in months, Bruce Wayne was fully awake.

Chapter Text

“You let him leave.” Dick’s voice cracked like a whip.
“I didn’t let him,” Bruce bit out. “He left.”

They stood facing each other, the study filled with the heavy scent of old paper and wood polish. The Batcomputer downstairs hummed faintly through the floorboards.

“You’re splitting hairs,” Dick snarled, hands clenched into fists at his sides. “You had a kid in your house—your son—and instead of fighting for him, you pushed him away until he thought he wasn’t wanted!”

Bruce’s jaw tightened. “You think I don’t know that? You think I don’t regret—”

“Regret doesn’t bring him back!” Dick’s voice rose, echoing through the hall. “God, Bruce, you always do this. You’re so obsessed with the dead that you neglect the living!”

The words hit like a physical blow. Jason. Martha. Thomas. All ghosts Bruce carried, all excuses. He opened his mouth to answer, but nothing came out.

The sound of raised voices carried into the kitchen, but Alfred ignored it. His hands worked methodically, dismantling and cleaning an old Webley revolver, the motions familiar, mechanical. The metal gleamed under the dim light.

But his eyes weren’t on the gun. They were fixed on the photograph propped against the sugar bowl: Tim in front of the Eiffel Tower at night, smiling faintly, hair wind-tossed, wearing Martha’s pearl necklace and Thomas’s weathered jacket.

The picture trembled slightly where Alfred’s fingers brushed it.

When Bruce and Dick entered—still bristling from their argument—they froze at the sight. Alfred didn’t look up.

“He writes me often,” Alfred said quietly, polishing the revolver’s barrel until it shone. “Tells me about his studies, the markets, the museums. He sends pictures, too. Always smiling. Always trying to reassure me.”

Bruce took a step forward, throat tightening. “Alfred—”

Alfred’s eyes lifted then, sharp and glistening. “I will not bury another grandchild, Master Bruce. Not because of your grief. Not because you could not see what was right in front of you.”

The silence that followed was suffocating. Dick’s anger flickered into something softer, weighed down by the pain in Alfred’s voice. Bruce’s shoulders slumped.

Finally, Dick spoke, steady but firm. “I promise Alfred, we'll find him. Whatever it takes.”

Bruce nodded once. “Whatever it takes.”

Tim’s bo staff cracked against Cassandra’s forearm, the impact vibrating up his arms. She didn’t even flinch. Her counterstrike was a blur, a kick that sent him sprawling across the mat.

Tim groaned, pushing himself up, sweat dripping into his eyes. “You’re… not holding back, huh?”

“Never,” Cassandra said, her English halting but clear. She circled him, silent as a shadow. “Real fight. Or die.”

Tim tightened his grip on the staff, heart pounding. Every spar was like this—brutal, raw, forcing him to adapt or be crushed. And yet, every time he got up, Cassandra’s gaze softened a fraction. Respect, earned through bruises.

He lunged again.

The ship groaned as it pulled into harbor, mist curling around rusted cranes. Jason Todd stepped off the gangplank, leather jacket hanging heavy on his shoulders, eyes sharp and restless.

The city’s smell hit him like a memory—salt, oil, smoke. Not Gotham, not yet, but close enough to taste it.

“Home,” Jason muttered under his breath, fists clenching. “Time to take it back.”

Behind him, League operatives melted into the shadows, keeping their distance but watching their weapon return to the world.

Jason lit a cigarette, exhaled slow, and started walking.

Chapter Text

The Joker was loose again.

Bruce’s cape snapped against the wind as he crouched on the ledge, scanning the chemical plant below. His earpiece buzzed with chatter, Steph’s voice sharp and full of energy as she trailed a suspect through the alleys.

“You know,” Steph quipped, panting slightly, “for a guy with your world-class paranoia, you really suck at watching your blind spots. He doubled back twice before I cut him off.”

“Stay focused,” Bruce said, eyes narrowing as the fugitive ducked into a warehouse.

“I am focused. Focused on the fact that I’m carrying this partnership.” Steph vaulted up beside him, mask half-pulled down so he could see the smirk on her lips. “Honestly, you’re lucky I look good in green.”

Bruce grunted in acknowledgment, already pulling his grapnel.

Steph rolled her eyes.

They’d caught the fugitive, tied him up, handed him off to the cops. It was a clean patrol, all things considered.

Steph kicked her boots up on the dashboard, munching on a protein bar. “Y’know, sometimes I think I could be more. Bigger. Not just your second stringer running rooftops and playing babysitter.”

Bruce adjusted the steering wheel, eyes locked on the road. “You’re doing fine as Robin.”

“Fine?” she repeated, mock-offended. “Wow, thanks, Dad of the Year. Really feeling the validation.”

“You’re effective,” Bruce corrected, a little softer. “Better than fine.”

Steph glanced at him, something sparking in her eyes, but he missed it. He was already shifting the conversation.

“The Joker’s movements are too erratic. He’s escalating. We need to focus on his patterns, his hideouts. No distractions.”

Steph leaned back, chewing her bar, expression carefully blank. In the glow of the dash lights, the purple streak she’d sewn into her gloves caught the faintest shimmer.

Bruce didn’t notice.

Bruce stood before the case that once held Jason’s uniform. He stared at it for a long time, shoulders tight.

Behind him, Steph was perched on a workbench, sketching patterns for gauntlets in a battered notebook, humming under her breath. The hum was light, stubborn, almost defiant.

“Suit up tomorrow,” Bruce said finally, still not turning. “We’ll check the Narrows. Joker’s activity is clustering there.”

Steph tucked her notebook away before he could see the design—the one edged in purple.

“Sure thing, B,” she said, voice wry but steady.

And Bruce, exhausted, guilt-ridden, and blind, let himself believe—for one more night—that everything was under control.

Chapter Text

The city was screaming again. Sirens. Gunfire. Shattered glass.

Bruce crouched beside Dick on a rain-slick roof, scanning the streets below as GCPD swarmed the alleys. The air reeked of iron and smoke.

“They’re saying someone dumped heads on the precinct steps,” Dick muttered, flicking through the police scanner on his wrist. “Half the East End’s gang hierarchy, decapitated. Just—left there like trophies.”

Bruce’s eyes narrowed behind the cowl. “Message killing.”

“Yeah,” Dick said grimly. “Question is, who’s sending it?”

Bruce didn’t answer. He could feel the pattern forming already—the precision, the brutality, the vengeance. It wasn’t random. It was personal.

The news blared across every monitor: RED HOOD KILLINGS SPARK CITYWIDE PANIC.

Dick leaned against the console, arms crossed. “You think it’s League work?”

“Possibly,” Bruce said, tone flat, calculating. “The timing fits. The discipline. Whoever it is knows Gotham’s anatomy—where to strike and how to send a message.”

He didn’t say it aloud, but the thought burned behind his teeth: Jason.

He’d buried him. Seen the coffin. But the League had the means. The Lazarus Pit had been used before.

And if Jason was alive… if he’d come back like this…

Bruce’s hand clenched on the edge of the console.

Alfred laid Tim’s returned belongings gently on the bed—folded uniforms, old notebooks, a single worn sweater that still smelled faintly of lavender soap. He paused at the last item: a small wooden box carved with the Drake crest.

He lifted the lid. Inside were photographs—Paris streets, café lights, the Seine at twilight. In each one, Tim’s smile was soft but distant, his eyes thoughtful and tired.

Alfred’s throat tightened.

He smoothed the sweater and tucked it away, every movement careful, reverent. “You’ll be home soon, my boy,” he murmured to the empty room. “You’ll be home soon.”

“Mesdames et messieurs, l’embarquement pour Gotham City commence maintenant.”

Tim closed his book, standing with a quiet sigh. His boarding pass crinkled slightly in his fingers. Around him, the bustle of the airport was familiar and foreign all at once—the echo of years spent in exile.

He’d said his goodbyes that morning, in perfect French. To his professors. The market vendors. Cass, who had simply hugged him, whispered “live well,” and disappeared into the crowd.

Now he stood at the gate, hair neatly combed, wearing Thomas’s jacket and one of Martha’s silk scarves knotted loosely at his throat.

He’d already filed the paperwork declaring himself no longer missing. He’d bought the ticket with his own money. No fanfare. No drama. Just… home.

Home, even if it was uncertain what that meant anymore.

As the line moved, Tim looked down at the ticket one last time and smiled faintly.

“À bientôt, Paris,” he murmured.

Then he boarded the plane.

Jason Todd stood in the rain, crimson helmet gleaming beneath the flickering streetlights. The air reeked of blood and gasoline.

Behind him, the GCPD precinct loomed. Somewhere inside, chaos reigned as cops tried to identify the seven gang leaders whose heads now sat neatly on the station’s marble steps.

Jason holstered his pistols, tilting his head toward the dark skyline. Gotham’s heartbeat thrummed beneath his boots—familiar, poisoned, alive.

“Let’s see how fast you come running, old man,” he muttered through the helmet’s vocoder.

Then he melted into the shadows.

Alfred stood by the window, the light of the fire flickering against his lined face. On the mantle sat the photo of Tim in front of the Eiffel Tower, framed now.

He didn’t hear the sound of the Batmobile returning. Didn’t see Bruce enter quietly, still in partial armor, exhaustion etched into his features.

Bruce stopped in the doorway, watching Alfred.

“Any news?” Alfred asked, without turning.

Bruce hesitated. “Not yet.”

Alfred exhaled slowly, hands clasped behind his back. “Then you’d best hurry, sir. I have a feeling our family reunion is about to become… quite crowded.”

Bruce didn’t ask what he meant. He didn’t have to. Somewhere deep down, he already knew.

Chapter Text

Tim stepped into the cold Gotham air and shivered—the city smelled like rain, smoke, and something sharp that felt like memory. His suitcase thumped behind him as he dug out his phone, hands trembling slightly.

He hit the only number he really wanted to call.

“…Grandpa Alfred?”

There was a gasp on the other end, soft and broken.

“Master Timothy.”
A breath.
“My boy.”

“C-Can you come get me?”

“You needn’t even ask.”

Forty minutes later, a familiar black sedan pulled up. And Alfred—stoic, unshakeable Alfred—stepped out, coat whipping in the wind.

Tim barely took two steps before Alfred enveloped him.

A full, desperate embrace.
One arm around his back, the other cradling the back of his head like he was five years old again.

Tim buried his face into Alfred’s shoulder and broke.

“I’m sorry,” he whispered. “I’m so sorry I left.”

“Shh,” Alfred murmured, holding him even tighter. “You came home. That is all that matters. Oh, Tim… my boy… my sweet boy.”

Alfred didn’t let go until Tim finally relaxed—until the shaking stopped, until Tim’s breath evened out in that soft, sleepy way Alfred had missed so terribly.

“Let’s get you home,” Alfred said, voice thick.

Tim nodded, quietly slipping his fingers into Alfred’s hand like he was a little boy afraid to get lost.

They talked the whole ride home.

What pictures he took. Which new music he discovered, new hobby's he started. Tim's favourite things to do in Paris, the night markets, the old woman who taught him how to knit.
Alfred listened to every word, storing the sound of Tim’s voice like treasure.

They spent the afternoon together in the kitchen—Tim perched on the counter in Thomas’s old jacket, stirring chocolate batter while Alfred corrected his whisk technique.

It felt peaceful. Right. Whole.

And then—

The front door opened.

Footsteps. Two sets.
Heavy. Familiar.

Tim went still.

Dick rounded the corner first. He froze.
“Tim?”

Tim swallowed. “Hi.”

Bruce followed—still in a disheveled suit, eyes exhausted.

When he saw Tim sitting at the kitchen table, holding one of Martha’s teacups, looking small and a little frightened and heartbreakingly calm…

Bruce’s breath left him.

“…Tim.”

Tim nodded slightly, polite. Guarded.

Bruce sat across from him, posture tense.
“I need to ask you some questions.”

Alfred stiffened.

Tim’s fingers curled around the teacup.

“Where were you staying? Who were you with? Did you leave Paris alone? Who—”

Tim’s whole posture shifted. Shoulders tight. Eyes down. The shutters slamming shut.

“Tim,” Bruce pressed, “you were missing for weeks. We deserve to know—”

“I’m tired,” Tim said quietly.

A calm, quiet shutdown.

He stood. Walked to the sink. Set the cup down with steady hands.
And slipped out of the room without a backward glance.

Dick watched him go, guilt settling like a stone in his stomach.

Bruce turned, confused and frustrated. “What did I—?”

Alfred cut him off.
“Perhaps, sir… consider speaking less and listening more.”

His tone was ice.

Bruce stood on a rooftop, staring out at the city’s lights like they might give him answers.

Stephanie swung down beside him in a graceful arc of purple and black, landing with ease.

“Hey, B.”
She nudged him lightly. “You look like Gotham just dumped you.”

Bruce didn’t respond.

Steph sighed. “Okay, look. I’m gonna say this before you get all moody Bat-dad on me.”

He blinked.

“I love being Robin,” she said. “Really. It’s been important. But… it’s time.”
She tapped the purple accents on her suit.
“It’s time for me to be something of my own. To grow beyond the limits of Robin”

Bruce stared at her, silent.

She waited for him to protest. To lecture. To drag.

Instead—

“…I see,” he said softly.

It wasn’t approval.
It wasn’t disapproval.
It was simply the truth.

Steph smiled—sad but bright.
“You’ll figure things out with him, y’know. Tim.”

Bruce looked down at the city.

“I hope so,” he answered.

Tim curled up in bed in soft pajamas, jetlag tugging him toward sleep. The Parisian streetlight photo Alfred had framed sat on his nightstand.

He stared at it for a long time.

Then turned the light off and let Gotham’s night settle around him.

He was home.
But nothing was simple.

Not yet.

Chapter Text

Jason Todd had always been good at studying people.
Thalia had carved the instinct into him—watch, anticipate, strike.
But Bruce had taught him the why behind it. Why you watched. Why you waited.
Why you planned.

So Jason watched.

From rooftops, from the shadowed ends of alleys, from the dark corners of Gotham that pressed cold against his ribs like old memories. He watched the kid. The replacement. The little interloper who’d slipped into the manor like water through a crack.

Tim Drake.

He was quieter than Jason expected. Smaller, too. Fragile-looking in a way Jason hadn’t anticipated—like something made carefully, deliberately, like a figurine Alfred would keep behind glass. But the kid walked with purpose. Chin tucked down, shoulders rounded inward, gaze always two steps ahead.

And people loved him.
Alfred fussed over him like he’d hatched from an egg in the manor itself. Dick talked softer when Tim was in the same room. Even Bruce—even Bruce had a different tone around him, strained and thin and… yearning.

It made something ugly twist inside Jason.

So he watched and learned Tim’s routines. His rituals. His little habits, each one folded with precision and care, like he was trying to fit himself into a smaller and smaller space to avoid taking up room he didn’t deserve.

Jason hated how familiar that looked.

Tim always went on grocery runs with Alfred. Every other day, like clockwork, helping unload the bags, offering some quiet comment that always made the old man smile.
But Thursdays…

Thursdays he split off.

“Going to the library,” Jason mouthed silently as he watched from a rooftop, tracking the kid’s small figure down the block.

He didn’t go to a flashy Gotham library. Not the big central one where tourists wandered and college kids took pictures.
No—Tim broke off to a tiny neighborhood branch. Barely a building. More of a converted townhouse with dusty windows and an old bell tied to the door.

He’d stay there for two hours on average. Sometimes longer. He’d pick up books about things Jason didn’t care about—linguistics, early Wayne history, obscure criminology texts in French that nobody checked out but him.

And he sat in the same corner every time.
Bathed in light.
Completely oblivious.

Perfect.

Jason crouched on the fire escape of a building across from the branch, mapping out the entrances, the exits, the blind spots. He came at different hours, different angles. Traced paths along the rooftops. Tim always walked the same way back—always. Alone, headphones in, small and silent under a Gotham sky just waiting to swallow him whole.

It would be easy. That was the thing that pissed Jason off the most. It would be so easy.

Just one moment. One misstep.
One confrontation in a narrow alley.
One well-timed strike.
A bag over the head.
A hand to the neck.
A whispered, “You don’t get to take what was mine.”

And then everything would slot back into place.
The natural order restored.
Jason back where he’d always belonged—Bruce’s soldier, Dick’s brother, Alfred’s boy.

He imagined the manor without Tim.
Quiet.
Uncomplicated.
The way it should have been.

Jason leaned back against the rough brick and closed his eyes, breathing slow and deep through the fabric of his helmet.

He wouldn’t kill the kid.
He wasn’t cruel.
But he’d undo him.
Remove him cleanly.
Send him away, make him realize he’d never fit, never belong—

Never replace him.

He cracked his knuckles.
Two more days.
Thursday loomed ahead like a promise.

Jason Todd had a plan.
And Tim Drake had no idea the storm gathering over him.