Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

Tim wakes abruptly, calloused hands shaking him in the night. An intruder? Instinct kicks in, he’s half-way to flipping his assailant before he catches a glimpse of their face.

No. Faces.

“Mom? Dad?” 

Jack and Janet state back at him, expressions drawn. When did they get back? Tim can’t remember the last time his parents stood in his bedroom, and they’ve never looked this… scared?

He lets go of his dad’s arm and brushes sleep from his eyes, taking stock. He’s in his bedroom, only two hours back from patrol, according to the clock. His parents are back from Cambodia three days later than they said they would be, which is about two months earlier than Tim expected, so he’s lucky that Batman sent him home early after that run-in with Two Face after all. Tim was unharmed, but only by the flip of a coin, and he knew Bruce would be brooding about it for at least another week. 

He looks between his parents, categorising their expressions. Jack, flushed and sweaty, pupils shrunk to pinpricks. Janet, ghostly and still, one earring missing, is that a black eye?

“What’s going on?”

“We have to leave, now” Jack says. His voice wobbles.

“Like, for a dig?”

Jack shakes his head. “All of us, sport. We have to get out.”

“What?” 

Tim flounders for an explanation. Is there an intruder? A rogue? Is Robin compromised?

“Please, Timothy,” his mother whispers. “There isn’t time. The car is outside. Pack a bag, and climb out your window if you can- do not take the stairs- meet us in the back yard in five.”

“What?”

“Five minutes, or we’ll have to leave you behind. Please, sport, just do it.”

You always leave me behind, Tim wants to point out, but he can’t argue with that tone, can’t fight back when his parents are this terrified.

He nods. Jack and Janet leave, footsteps echoing on the stairs. Tim throws off his quilt and gets dressed. If his Robin suit wasn't in the cave, he’d be putting that on instead. Should he call Bruce? Tim does seriously consider it. But what if it’s a false alarm, or something he can deal with alone? He’s worried Bruce enough tonight. Plus, his parents came for Tim. Specifically. 

Four minutes later, he’s standing at the back gate, Janet’s hand holding his in a way she hasn’t done since… ever. His breath plumes in front of him, white as the November frost gathering on the toe of his boots. He didn’t have time to find his gloves, so the fingers of his other hand are numb where he clings to the strap of his rucksack, burning questions churning in his brain. A car pulls up. Black SUV, fake plates. Gotham is teeming with cars just like this, conspicuously anonymous. Jack sits in the front, next to a driver with a dark hood. Janet and Tim squeeze in the back with the bags. The engine revs and they are racing away. Tim barely has a chance to look back at his house before suddenly- suddenly- the questions aren't the only things burning. 

BOOM!

Like an Ethiopian warehouse, Drake Manor erupts into flames. 

“Holy-“

“Not now, Timothy.”

“Mom, Dad, what the actual-“

“Later,” Jack hisses, in a tone like he usually reserves for when Tim has screwed up in public. Except it’s not that tone, it’s different, almost pleading. Jack is shaking like a leaf. Tim swallows. Every part of his training tells him to get out of this car, now. Break the window, the door, press his panic button, call Bruce, call Dick, hell, even Jason. His house just exploded.  

And his parents knew it would…

To Tim’s horror, a figure shifts in the flames. That’s a person. There’s someone in there, in that burning wreck where his house used to be. Tim can’t move. All those months of training, and he can’t move an inch.  His dad yells an instruction to the driver and tyres screech on a dirt road. For a moment Tim worries they’ll follow, but the figure keels over. Dead? The car rounds a corner, taking the back ways. There aren’t any cameras around here. All but the plume of smoke is obscured by a wall of trees. In the fleeting yellow of reflected headlights, Tim gapes at his mother’s white face.

Janet Drake is crying.

“Mom?”

“They were going to hurt you.”

Before Tim can ask who they are, or why they apparently want him, Janet lunges for him across the car. Tim doesn’t know what he expects. An attack? But her arms wrap around him, squeezing until it hurts and Janet’s whole body wracks with sobs. This is… this is a hug. Only one person has ever hugged Tim, and that person is Dick Grayson. Janet Drake does not hug. Janet Drake does not cry. On autopilot, Tim grips her back, supporting her, but not clinging too tight. This is the way he hugs victims after disasters. The Robin part of him shifts into place, a mask allowing detachment, instead of shock.

“Mom, I need you to tell me what’s going on. Can you do that for me?”

Face buried in his hair, Janet shakes her head. One pearl earring presses cold against his skin, the other is missing. The stone on her ring grinds into the back of his neck and why is Tim focusing on that when his mother is hugging him?

 “Dad?”

Jack sucks in a breath. “Not yet,” he says, with a nod to the driver. This is Gotham, so whoever his parents have hired to drive them away- assuming they did the hiring- is unlikely to snitch. It must be bad. It must be really bad. “I can’t… I’ll explain everything once we’re at the safe-house, okay, kiddo?”

Bruce is the only one who calls him kiddo.

“Okay,” says Tim. 

They stop in an alley, not far from where the harbour meets Crime Alley. The driver speeds off as soon as Janet pulls the last of the bags out the back seat. Baa baa black sheep, because that’s bags, plural, three of them: Tim’s rucksack, and the two worn duffels Jack and Janet take on trips. Jack pulls a paper map from his pocket, holds it upside-down. The sweat on his fingers leaves dark patches over the city. 

Jack tuts. “Jan, is it…?”

“I want to say north-west?” Janet takes a decisive step south. Tim takes the map, noting a red circle that must be their goal.  

“I can get us there,” he declares, full of confidence he doesn’t feel. They start to walk.

The ‘safe-house’ is a desolate apartment in an abandoned building, directly beneath a meth lab that Tim busted last week. It’s the sort of place he could have never imagined his parents setting foot in. Tim avoids a broken bottle as he pushes open the main door, revealing a grimy hallway with peeling walls and carpets so matted they appear almost like tile. The lift is bust, so they climb a stairwell. Six floors lit by crackling bulbs. Spent needles and the smell of urine lead him upwards until his dad stops at their floor. They follow the hall to its end, to a door with claw marks under the letterbox. The neighbours have a dog, Tim solves subconsciously, glancing at their porch. A Rottweiler, three legged, chronically underfed. Jack reaches through that letterbox and pulls back a spare key tied to a string. Which idiot designed this? Tim has seen public toilets with better security. Where are the cameras- the retina scanners- the fingerprint locks? Safe-house? Yeah right. This is a… a danger-house! It’s laughable. And Tim actually does want to laugh, when Jack pushes open the door and Tim sees the inside. There are windows. Without locks. Where was the architect from, Metropolis? At least the furniture is rooted firmly in proper Gotham shithole territory. A sagging blue sofa with a large copper stain and a cracked TV on a lopsided coffee table. Forging ahead, Tim finds a bathroom with no working light and a dead rat in the sink, a cupboard with four bullet holes, and a kitchen which is… Okay, the kitchen is quite nice, actually, but Tim’s still mad about it. There’s an air fryer at the breakfast bar. This is little comfort when Tim realises he has now checked all of the rooms, and there are no beds. No fire escapes. Nowhere to hide. 

He shifts the couch slightly so it’s out of the window’s view, then guides his mother to the sit down. Jack flops down next to her, panting like he’s just run a marathon. Janet does have a black eye and there’s dried blood under Jack’s nose, which is swollen as if he’s been struck. Jack is also limping. Tim clamps his panic down. Robin has control. Robin has control. 

Tim pulls the curtains closed and locks the door, then pushes the heaviest of their bags against it. The pantry is empty and he didn’t pack any coffee in his rush to leave, so three steaming mugs of hot water will have to do as comfort.  Tim gives one last cursory glance around to check for bugs- mechanical and organic- and then crouches down in front of his parents, handing them their mugs.

“Okay.” He takes a steadying breath, sips his own mug, grounds himself. “Okay. I need you to tell me what’s going on. Do you think you can do that?”

Janet blinks slowly. Concussion?

“I can see your faces are injured. Do either of you have headaches? Blurred vision?” He checks their eyes with his torch just to be sure. Nothing. Just, shock, he guesses. “Are you hurt anywhere else?”

Jack points to his leg. Dislocated, Tim thinks as he lifts the fabric of Jack’s khaki pants. “This is going to hurt,” Tim warns him, then twists it back into place. Jack groans and retches, but he doesn’t scream which is about all Tim can ask for. He runs a cloth under the cold tap and hands it to his father. Jack looks at it gormlessly, so Tim takes it off him and wraps it around. “Hold it there.” He instructs. “It’ll slow the swelling.”

Jack does as he's told. It doesn’t matter that Timothy Drake shouldn’t know how to reset a dislocated knee, that’s his Dad.

“Who did this to you?”

Janet shakes her head. Tim breathes, softens himself, finds the tone that victims respond easiest to. “You said someone wanted to hurt us. Do you know who?”

The smallest of nods. 

“Can you tell me who?” 

Nothing.

“Was it someone you met in Cambodia? On your dig?”

“We were on a dig,” Janet says, her voice hollow. Her hands knit and twist in her lap, the same way Tim fidgets when he’s nervous. 

“You were on a dig,” Tim repeats. “A short one, yeah? Only six days. You were supposed to be back three days ago, but you didn’t show. Your secretary couldn’t get a hold of you, but she thought you might want a few extra weeks. Did something happen there, or is the threat here, in Gotham?”

“We found… we found…” Jack swallows.

“We found a school. At least, we think it was a school, you know how these things are,” Janet says, and that’s his mom’s voice. “Thank you for the tea, Timothy, you always make it just the right way.” 

Tim has never made her tea before. Janet sets her mug of water down, undrunk, and speaks to the air above his shoulder. 

“It was thousands of years old, quite possibly one of the oldest on Earth. The artefacts in there prove that humanity advanced much faster than we originally thought. Can you imagine how valuable the collection is? When I publish my paper I’ll be… I’ll be…” She trails off again, her eyes going dark.

“You’ll be what, Mom?”

“They came for us, at the dig site,” Jack says. “Bags over our heads. Put us in the car. I tried to fight back so they…”

Janet touches her face, tracing the black eye.

Tim’s breath stutters.

“Who’s they, Mom? Dad, who’s they?” 

His dad shrugs. “Mafia or something. I dunno. Wanted money, credit, that was all, so we called in a favour back home. DI’s stocks are a little down right now so things are tight, but they'll pick up, sport. They’ll pick up. So we called… I called Charlie- you know our old school pal Charlie, Timbo?”

Charles Deyes. Same class as his parents at Gotham Academy, runs Deyes-East Shipping & Financials with ex-wife Linda East. Collects eccentric sculptures. Always tries to outbid Bruce at charity auctions.

Lieutenant to Black Mask. Known human trafficker. Serial creep. Directly responsible for over fifty deaths, seventeen of whom were minors. Top forty on Hood’s hit list.

Yeah, Tim knows Charlie.

“He got us out, but he wanted money, Timbo. He wanted money, and if we couldn’t pay he wanted us to sell…”

“Sell what?”

Janet looks away, tears rolling again. Jack audibly gulps.

Oh.

Oh shit.

Tim recoils. “You said no, right? Right? Tell me you said no.”

His dad reaches out slowly and cups Tim’s cheek. “He’s a smart boy, our Timothy. You’re a damn smart boy.”

“Dad, did you say no?”

Janet nods. “Of course we said no. How could you…?”

How could Tim question that? Should Tim question that? His parents love him, but they don’t care about him. They want him, but they always leave him behind. Why didn’t they leave him behind?
 
“But we can’t pay. And we can’t go to the police-“

“Why not?”

Neither parent will look him in the eye. 

Oh.

“How involved are you?”

Jack and Janet squirm. Tim wants to throw up.

Tim should call Bruce. Tim should call the police. He’s a fifteen year old with criminal parents. This is bad. This is bad.

Bruce is going to kill Tim when he finds out.

If. If he finds out. 

Because Jack and Janet came back for him tonight. This he clings to, swallowing down bile. They came back. For him.

“And the explosion?” he asks instead.

“We’re faking our deaths.”

“…Of course we are.” 

“I’m glad you’re onboard, son. Your mother and I will handle all the nippy bits. You don’t have to worry about a thing.”

Somehow, Tim doubts this.

“I saw someone at the house. Were they…”

“Hitman,” Janet says. “History of arson, your father’s idea. Hired him so the police think it was murder.”

As if the police won’t know it’s a hitman, then wonder who hired the hitman, then trace it back to Jack and solve the whole thing. This is the dumbest plan he’s ever heard. Why couldn’t they have died silently and faded into oblivion? If it hadn’t been for the explosion, no one would have even noticed. Tim takes a deep breath, remembering Steph pointing out how judgy he is when stressed. His parents are trying their best. They’re civilians. (Suspects?) Civilians. At least they remembered to come back for him.

“That’s… that’s great, guys. Brilliant. Where are we going? Switzerland?”

“Belgium. Switzerland is cliche.”

“Have you ever been to Brussels, sport? It’s not just sprouts out there, I promise.” Jack’s laughter echoes in the silence of Tim’s incredulity. Jack mistakes his expression for something else. He tries to ruffle Tim’s hair, but Tim ducks away. “We’ll be alright, sport. Your mother and I are handling it. You don’t need to worry.”

They are absolutely not handling it. Tim is absolutely worried.

Janet takes over. “We know someone with a boat- I can’t expand on that any further. This safe-house belongs to an enemy of hers, but he knows she knows about it, he won't bother s here. She says she’ll meet us in Gotham Harbour on Wednesday, midnight. That’s- what?- six days, and a bit. The boat goes to Cuba whether we’re on it or not, and then I’ve written to Lavender- Lavender Amèloir, not Lavender Layton-“ Tim knows neither of these people. “-to get us to Europe. Lovely woman, we met on a dig, and she can take us to Luxembourg on her private jet- that’s where she’s from- have a DI branch in France, we’ll stop on the way. Jean-Alaine is discreet, he’ll sort us out for money if we make it that far. You’ll have to change your name, sweetheart. I was thinking Robin for you. It’s bright, isn’t it? I’ll be Sarah, your father fancies Ben. Nice names, and strategic. I mean, Robin from Gotham? No one can connect that to you on the internet, it’s very hard to look up. That’s important- we need to make sure we’re not found. I…” 

Janet goes on to list several other possible fake name options, but Tim can’t make it stick. This plan is… it’s bad. It’s so bad. Tim can find so many holes in it and he’s barely trying. The whole thing screams fake. How are they going to explain the lack of bodies at the house? Did they at least tell the driver to push the car in the harbour? If Tim had been consulted, he’d have done a much better job. His dad probably hired the hit man with his own credit card. Amateurs. 

Everyone is going to think Tim is dead. He can’t- they can’t- 

The root of their problem is money. His parents need money, to pay off their debts. If Tim only asked, Bruce would pay. Could he ask? 

But will Bruce honestly believe Tim didn’t know whatever his parents were involved in? And how will he explain it to them? To Charles Deyes? What happens the next time Deyes asks for money? Or if word gets back to Black Mask? Tim can’t be on Black Mask’s payroll. Bruce cannot end up on Black Mask’s payroll. There is no way Tim can ask for his help on this. 

But option two? Faking his own death? Running away with his parents to a foreign country, leaving his friends, leaving Robin? Can he do it? Can he? Does he have a choice?

Five hours ago he had been dangling above a comically large vat of acid, waiting for a coin toss to decide wether Bruce would arrive to Robin, humiliated but unharmed, or to scraps of cloth and bone fizzling out to nothing. Somehow, that feels preferable to the situation he’s in now. 

Okay, okay, so what if… what if… 

Option three. There has to be an option three.  He could… If  Tim is clever enough…if he lies… Yeah. Yeah. He can do it. He’s Robin, for crying out loud! He survived Jason at the tower; he can survive anything. This is a minor blip. He has it all under control. Tim hatches a plan.

Eventually, his parents snuggle into each other, eyes drifting shut. Lame. They’re never normally like this. Not that Tim would really know, but he’s never seen them be this affectionate with one another. Or him. It’s kinda nice, in its own, weird way. 

There isn’t space for Tim on the couch and he has more important things to do than sleep. Quietly as he can, he reaches for his rucksack. He couldn’t bring much. Water bottle, first aid kit, torch and spare batteries, his camera, his backup-backup grapple, some protein bars, a sleeping bag, two changes of clothes- all black- and some spare cash are the extent of his supplies. He kept his watch, though he probably should get rid of it now. No phone- easily tracked- and no laptop- it was out of charge, and he wasn’t sure he’d have electricity when he left. He had to leave his photos too, but Bruce knows about the safe in Tim’s wardrobe, and will, presumably, destroy them before the authorities can get there. 

Like it’s a training exercise, Tim starts to make a list of things he needs to do. Priority one has to be retrieving all the intel on Charles Deyes from the Batcave. He’d dearly like to get the Robin suit as well, but Bruce would know if he took it. Second, he needs to return to his house. If Tim’s death is going to be believable, there needs to be a body, which means Tim needs to find the cops investigating this and bribe the hell out of them. He also needs a dead body, or a convenient excuse why there isn’t one left.

He thinks of the figure he saw in the flames. 

Whoever the hitman was, Tim doubts they survived. Normally, Tim would feel a wave of guilt at doing nothing to save them, but in a morbid sort of way he thinks he may have gotten lucky. Mentally, he’s calculating police and fire crew response times against how long it takes for a body to burn beyond recognition. If Tim is right, that body should still be obviously not Tim, so he’ll need another excuse. If he’s lucky (haha, imagine) the cops might be satisfied that Tim was reduced to ash, but even then Bruce will be harder to trick. Bruce is bound to be paranoid, because of Jason, and he’s bound to be upset, also because of Jason.  Yikes, Tim’s fake explosion death is not going to be good for anyone’s PTSD. At least Tim’s only the placeholder Robin, so he won’t be too traumatised in the long term. Jason will definitely be mad about it, Tim thinks, cringing, another thing he’s ‘stolen’, but it’s not Tim’s fault his parents decided to blow up his house! Who knows, in the long run, it might be a good thing. Jason can finally come home without Tim as a reminder of everything he lost and Dick and Bruce will be free of their obligation to check up on Tim all the time. It’s not a bad deal, so long as Tim and his parents are definitely presumed dead and everyone has closure. Tim will miss the bats awfully and thinking about that is like stabbing himself repeatedly with an electrified pitchfork but…

But yeah. This is fine. This is absolutely fine. 

Steps three through fourteen of his plan are mainly dodging other Bat-contingencies. Steps fifteen through seventeen are ironing out his parents’ terrible Belgium plan. They don’t even have fake birth certificates yet. Amateurs. It’ll mean a venture to Gotham library (risky) but Tim is going to forge records so good that even Oracle will believe them if she ever gets suspicious, which she won’t, because Tim is going to forge them so well. 

After that… 

Tim isn’t sure what life in Belgium will look like. Not that they’re going to go to Belgium, that would be stupid, just…  living with his parents? What if they don’t go on digs anymore? What if they’re interested in his life? He used to wish for that, but now Tim can’t imagine anything more oppressive. He loves them, really he does, and he doesn’t want them gone, but he cannot imagine a world where he has to live as a normal teenager. He’ll have to actually go to school, instead of hacking attendance records, and that school will be in Belgium. All he knows about Belgium is they have waffles. Steph will be jealous. (Not that she’ll ever know). They definitely still have crime there, right? Poirot is supposed to be Belgian, and he solves murders quite a lot so maybe Tim will get to use his ‘little grey cells’ all the time. Hopefully, Tim can still be a vigilante. Tim Drake, defender of Belgium. He’ll need a new name. Does Belgium have a national bird? What language do they speak? 

Step eighteen: google Belgium.

He checks again that his parents are asleep, then slips on the domino on and pulls up his hood. It’s risky, this. Training tells him to wait twenty-four hours before sneaking out. If they wake up… if he’s seen… but what choice does he have? He needs to know what’s going on. Brain kicking into gear, he has enough presence of mind to leave a note saying he’s off to get supplies. His parents might just believe it, the shock-addled state they’re in. Then, Tim kicks the window open, and grapples into the night.

The first thing he does, before even making it to Bristol, is track down that cab driver again. Four hundred bucks later, and the car they’d sped away in is rolling into Gotham harbour. The driver pinky-promises not to snitch, and in return Tim gives him advice on how to avoid Batman and fake a new identity. The plates on the car were fake anyway, so it won’t be traced back to him.

Now even if the lack of bodies at the scene raises alarm, there’s enough evidence to suggest a botched kidnapping ending in tragedy as Tim’s plan B. To really sell it, Tim had purposely cut his hand to leave a bloodied handprint on the car’s window and trapped his watch in the back seat. In the off chance the car is found, it may be suggested that Tim fought free of the kidnappers as the car filled up with water, but there will be no evidence that Tim Drake or his parents ever resurfaced. If Bruce finds the car, finds Tim’s watch in it, he will absolutely assume that the third Robin is dead and put the case to rest.

Hopefully.

It occurs to him, somewhere as he dodges security cameras and main streets, that he’s treating this as a mission. It might be shock, maybe. Is Tim in shock? Lame. Accurate, but lame. Shock might be a good word for what he feels right now, but accepting that would mean he’s a victim here, not a participant in the deception, and he plans to participate alright. 

Somehow, magically, he makes it to Bristol undetected. Siren lights flash outside his house. The fire trucks are gathered, a ballet of flames still gracefully burning. Tim needs to get in there eventually, but not for a while. He trusts B to dispose of anything incriminating. He has a plan.

Dick’s car is parked at an angle in Wayne Manor’s drive with a new scratch on the bonnet, a skid-mark and a spray of gravel left by the front left tyre. This is an unexpected development. Shouldn’t have been unexpected, Tim mentally slaps himself; Dick’s priority will be making sure Bruce doesn’t do anything dumb. 

Or, maybe, he’s here for… 

Tim hesitates, second-guessing himself, but he knows he is right. The neighbours’ house just exploded, and nosy neighbour Brucie Wayne, who can’t be conveniently-out-of-town because he was at a press conference yesterday morning, will need to appear, possibly accompanied by conveniently-in-town Nightwing. This gives Tim a clear run at the cave. 

See, it’s a good plan.

He climbs the trellis outside the guest room he is sometimes allowed to use at Wayne Manor, careful to avoid the forty-six sensors, six tasers and a bear trap. Once he’s busted his way into the family wing, it’s a simple case of sneaking into the Batcave without being caught. Alfred is in the kitchen, stress-baking, probably. A waft of heavenly vanilla drifts his way. For a moment Tim imagines knocking on that door and coming clean. How badly he wants to break down in tears at that kitchen table. His eyes prick. That won’t do anyone any good. He continues on. Bruce’s study is in disarray. A scatter of papers next to a phone left off the hook. He must have been at his desk when he heard the explosion. Crap, had Bruce had to make the nine-one-one call? He would have been first on the scene… Tim swallows his guilt as he makes his way down to the cave. So he re-traumatised his boss- big deal. The long term effects will be minimal. If it keeps annoying him, he’ll put it in a spreadsheet to shut his brain up.

The cave, at the very least, looks exactly like it should. Tim’s uniform is still half-hanging out the laundry basket in a tangled ball, acid burns and all, just how he left it when he stormed out earlier. He slightly regrets throwing that tantrum now. Bruce has been so overprotective ever since the incident with Jason, and Tim’s close call with Two Face earlier had gotten him benched until the end of the week. It was unfair, but now Bruce is going to think Tim died mad at him, which really sucks. 

Tim calms himself by hacking the Batcomputer. Hacking, because he’s not dumb enough to use his own login, even in shock. It’s really not that hard. Barbara showed him how when they were photoshopping all Bruce’s photos of Dick with, erm, photos of dick… It had been funny at the time, okay? Anyway, Tim hacks in and scrubs the CCTV from everywhere he has been in the last two hours, anywhere he might have been seen. Then he starts on the much more difficult job; getting rid of anything that might make his criminal parents look like criminals. 

See, Jack and Janet’s fake scenario has them conveniently returning from a trip three days late at exactly the same time their house just happens to mysteriously explode. It will be much more believable if they die in Cambodia at the hands of an out-of-pocket benefactor, and then a disgruntled hitman finishes the job on their son. Tim can fake that, easy. 

A few minutes of work and he has learned from a warehouse security camera that the Drakes have only been in Gotham for seven hours, which is sixty-five fewer hours than they should have been home. His parents never made it through airport security on either side of their journey. Tim adds this to his story. Is it too simple if he leaves it at them having simply missed their flight? 

Better to complicate it, he decides. The more leads, the easier it is to bury the truth. Bruce always dedicates a week to cases like these before they’re archived, declared cold. It rarely comes to that, but this is Gotham; murders aren’t rare; he’ll need to prioritise when something else comes up, and something else always comes up. A week of investigation, and Tim will be gone and forgotten. Easy.

He can’t just delete his parents’ plane tickets- too obvious- but he can alter some randos’ photos that went through passport control to some stock pictures, scrub any camera footage, and make it look like some shady Cambodian mafia really wants it to look like Jack and Janet Drake returned to Gotham days ago, when in actual fact they’ve been dead for longer, a period starting from when they disappeared from their dig on Monday. It is now Wednesday, so all Tim has to do is flag up two unidentifiable Cambodian murder cases to suggest that the Drakes’ bodies have been discovered and missed and let confirmation bias do the rest. He has to brush up on his Khmer to anonymously email the detective in Phnom Penh, but it’s not as hard as he thought it would be. Jack and Janet Drake should, if all things go to plan, be pronounced dead by Friday afternoon.

Tim goes over the story in his head. Jack and Janet go on a dig using funds they don’t have, and Cambodian mafia have them and their son killed in revenge. No trafficking, no obvious drug deals. A few misdirects will help Bruce feel more confident when he comes across Tim’s version of events. Otherwise he’s bound to catch it if Tim makes things too easy. No, better to complicate the investigation a bit more. This way, by the time Bruce has solved as much as Tim wants him to solve, he’ll have spent ages on the case and be ready to move on. That’s like, psychology. Bruce won’t want to waste any more time than he needs to once he’s sure Tim is gone for good. 

Is Tim going to be gone for good?

Whatever, he’ll work something out.

Would implicating the League of Assassins be going too far? Probably, but then the aim is to distract from whatever went down with Charles Deyes. Should he…. Eh, why not.

He creates a false encrypted social media profile for a league-adjacent crime boss just in case, just so there’s another thread to pull. To complicate the investigation further, he links it to a fake illegitimate uncle, Edward, with a grudge against Jack, and backdates some fabricated emails between them which culminate in a disagreement about who’s in who’s will. 

He could have used the records for his actual uncle, his mom’s brother, Joshua, but Joshua Alcott died in an accident years ago and he’s worried Bruce might remember that. It had caused quite a stir at the time.

Edward Drake is twenty-four, and just finished a year abroad in Thailand, but he has contacts in Poipet, Cambodia, (Marion and Ai Lee Shah, fake), who move in similar circles to Chekhov Volosky (fake) who knows a guy Marko (fake) who has a cousin, Isack, (fake) who bought a dog, Stephy (fake), off of someone, Priscilla (fake), whose wife’s, Brenda’s (fake), cousin Denise (fake) knows the arsonist hitman Tim’s dad hired (real). It’s like a super-simple trail. The best part is Tim already had Edward Drake’s profile ready to go, just in case his parents like died or something. He supposes this falls into the ‘or something’ category. Big W for past Tim.

The last job on his list is to destroy everything they have on Charles Deyes. He left this to last on purpose, not because he thinks it’ll be difficult, but because he’s scared of what he might find. Tim isn’t stupid. There’s a very real possibility his parents are lying to him about what they were actually involved with. It could be smuggling drugs and ancient artefacts, it could be weapons, or it could be… 

He gulps, and pulls up the file. 

He scrolls past the personal info. Skips over past crimes. Skims briefly ongoing enquiries. And there, at the bottom, known associates.

Charles Hessian Deyes has been known to associate with:
-Oswald Cobblepot (See: Penguin)
-Linda East
-Matilda MacIlvaine
-Joshua Alcott (Deceased)
-Roman Sionis (See: Black Mask)

Nothing new there. No mention of Jack or Janet. Tim wipes the file, but still his mind races. What are his parents keeping from him? What doesn’t he know? A sinking feeling in his gut, he changes tack. He searches: Janet Drake.

RESTRICTED: FOR EYES OF B01 ONLY

Jack Drake.

RESTRICTED: FOR EYES OF B01 ONLY

It never occurred to him that Bruce would have files he kept classified from Tim, but now it seems obvious; Tim had never accessed Bruce’s notes on Hood, and there had been plenty of those. 

But Janet Drake isn’t Hood, so if Bruce is restricting her file then…

Does he know?

Tim clicks the link.

PASSWORD: _ _ _ _ _

He… doesn’t know the password, and he’s not stupid enough to guess and guess wrong. He could try another hack, but one look at the code for this tells him he may need Oracle’s guidance here. Barbara must have written it herself. Tim is good, but he isn’t that good.

So Bruce definitely knows. Bruce always knew? And he kept it from Tim. That’s… yeah, okay, Tim can see why. Still.

So much for solving the case without Batman suspecting his parents are criminals. If… if Bruce has evidence that Jack and Janet are criminals, evidence he wouldn’t share with Tim, then Tim can’t prove their innocence. There’s no innocence to prove. 

Which means… It means he’s actually going to have to do this. The Drakes are actually going to have to die. Fake die.

Oh.

He sways, suddenly dizzy. He wants to throw up, but that would definitely be noticeable and yeah Tim cannot be throwing up in the Batcave if he’s also dying in a fire and drowning in the harbour. He swallows it down, his knuckles white where he grips the table.

Tim startles back to reality at the noise of an engine. He closes the computer down and searches for a hiding spot, but there’s barely time. In a last-ditch effort, he ducks behind the nearest display case as the vehicle roars into view.

Shit. The cave was supposed to be empty. This doesn’t make sense.

Nightwing practically throws his bike across the cave as he dismounts it. Then he actually does throw his mask as he tears it off, and it slaps onto the case that Tim is hiding behind, sticking to it. Tim hardly cares, because he’s too busy staring at Dick’s furious face, the absolute thunder in his eyes as he presses his phone to his ear.

“If you did this,” he hisses, his voice low and dangerous. Tim swears he can hear the Nokia brick creak under Dick’s iron grip. “If I find out you had anything to do with it, you are dead to me. Do you understand? Dead.”

A buzz at the end of the line. Like flies.

“Is this a fucking joke to you, huh? You think this is funny? I know you’re lying about something. Tell me what you know, or I swear to god I will-“

The threat is cut off as Batman stalks down the stairs. It doesn’t matter if it’s Brucie Wayne in pyjamas and a floppy nightcap, that’s Batman. Tim sinks as low as he can.

“Speaker,” Batman grunts. He stands at the computer and begins to type. The keyboard groans as he punches in codes.

Dick puts the phone on speaker, and Tim holds his breath.

“I know how this looks, but I didn’t do it, B.” Jason’s voice is careful across the line. “I swear I’m doing better, this wasn't- I wouldn’t-“

A grunt. 

“If you’re lying…”

“Spare me the fuckin’ lecture, Dickie already called dibs on my second murder. I swear on my life, I didn’t do shit.” 

Dick looks up at Bruce, biting his lip. Bruce, slowly, nods.

“Promise me you’re telling the truth?”

“Do you want me to fuckin’ pinkie swear Dickface? I ain’t behind this.”

“Then… will you come?” Dick asks, anger replaced by guilt. “Little Wing, I… Come home?”

“No.”

Dick flinches.

“We’re on a time limit here, not to mention I’m in the middle of bustin’ a trafficking ring right now. If the kid survived then we haven’t got time to waste. I’ll stay out here, keep looking.”

“Jason-“

“He’s right, Dick,” Bruce says. He leaves the computer to pull the cape and cowl from the spare uniforms. “The girls will be back soon. You go to the Drake estate in case Tim comes home. I’m going out.”

“Out?”

“I know I heard a car after the explosion, no matter what the police say, and we both know that body is too tall to belong to Jack Drake. This was no accident. Someone did this, and I will find them.” Bruce presses a comm into his ear. “Oracle, any news on the watch?” 

Barbara’s voice rings loud and clear. “Tim still hasn’t set off his emergency beacon. You’re sure it wasn’t at the house?”

“Fire damage automatically sets off the tracker. If he had it in there, I’d know.”

Tim hadn’t known that. Bruce had never told him that. He regrets tossing it in the harbour now. Would water damage do the same?

“And the body?”

“Not Tim or Jack. Adult male, confirmed. Still working on an ID.”

“Work faster.” 

“Are we sure they were after Tim Drake and not Robin?” Barbara asks instead of rising to the bait, though what she really means to ask is was Tim dumb enough to get them all compromised. “I’m struggling for motive otherwise. Burglars don’t blow up houses and terrorists don’t rig explosions in mansions which are supposed to be empty.”

“It’s unlikely that they wouldn’t broadcast Robin’s identity if they knew it, but I’m not ruling anything out,” Bruce admits. He’s right to be worried, Tim knows how useless he is most of the time. If a rogue were to guess any of their identities, it would be Tim’s. “Anything on his parents?”

“Still nothing. They definitely came back to Gotham?”

“Tim told me they were home,” Bruce repeats.

“Hang on, that’s new…”  The clack of the kegs carries down the phone, along with Barbara’s frustration. She must have found Tim’s doctored flight details. “This… wasn’t here a second ago. I might have a lead here. Let me…I’ll call you back.”
 
“Hn.”

Barbara hangs up.

Jason grunts, gun shots and screams pitching through the phone. “I’m killing whoever did this. And if he’s dead, I’m killing you. You can’t stop me.”

“Get in line,” Dick mutters, but then Jason hangs up too. Dick puts the phone down. Oh, Tim realised dully, he’s crying. “Tim’s alive, right, B? Probably went off to sulk after that thing with Two-Face, you know what he’s like. He probably doesn’t even know yet. He’s going to be fine.”

“Do you believe that?”

“Don't you?”

Bruce doesn’t answer.

“Dad?”

Bruce remains conspicuously silent.

Dick doesn’t ask again.

He turns to go, muttering something about searching the woods again. Tim thinks that might be it, when, quiet as the first fall of rain, Bruce says, “It’s my fault.” 

He is clinging to the edge of the desk like a lifeline. His gazed is fixed on the laundry basket, on the unfurled arm of Tim’s suit. The glove, fingers splayed, like a hand asking to be held.

Dick hesitates, one foot frozen on the stair.

“If he isn’t …. If he didn’t….he wouldn’t have been there.” Bruce clears his throat. “I sent him back to that house.”

And this time, it’s Dick who doesn’t answer.

Once Nightwing has left, Bruce dons the armour in morose silence. A silence palpable, that has Tim holding his breath. Carefully he stands, still hidden behind the contents of the display case. Tim keeps expecting Bruce to whip around and point at him, to shout ‘Gotcha’ and drag Tim out by the scruff of his neck, but he doesn’t. By the time he is dressed, Tim is itching to get out.

Just when Tim thinks he’s gotten away with the whole thing, Bruce stalks towards Tim’s display case, his cape but a hungry shadow. The cowl seems monstrous. Vengeance hangs from the shoulders of the Dark Knight. 

Tim’s heart skips, certain the game is up. 

But Bruce isn’t looking at him.

“No more,” Batman breathes out, like it’s a prayer, and a threat.

The case is glass. There’s no way Bruce can’t see Tim behind it. And yet, the case fogs with his breath, and it’s clear Bruce doesn’t see him. He sees the ghost that never was. The boy who never came home.

They are mere inches apart. The finger pads of Bruce’s gauntlets press against the glass. If Tim wanted to, he could reach around the side of the case and grip that hand in his own.

“Never again. No more.”

Bruce turns. The Batmobile roars into the night. Tim is left alone.

He steps out from behind the case, and stops, seeing in it what Bruce had seen.

A good soldier, the plaque reads. 

Guilt twists everything out of reach. Bruce shouldn’t have to go through this. Not again. Not for Tim. How long will he make them mourn? 

Jason isn’t a soldier. Tim isn’t a good one. 

No more, Bruce had said. But he doesn’t get to decide that. Gotham has made her choice. 

‘No more.’ 

No, more.

It hits him with the rain, as Tim makes the unseen journey back to the safe-house, that he might never see any of them again. That Bruce will never ruffle his hair again, Dick will never hug him, Steph won’t ever hold his hand, Barbara won’t ever guide his fingers around the keyboard, Cass won’t ever kiss his cheek, Alfred won’t ever straighten his tie, Jason won’t ever-

Okay, so far all Jason has done is slit his throat, but he definitely feels bad about it.

The point is, is that this is it. Faking his death means dying. Permanently. He can’t find a clever workaround. This isn’t a Robin mission. This isn't even a Tim Drake mission. Tim Drake is either burned alive in his own bed or drowned in Gotham Harbour, depending on how hard the cops look. It isn’t even a mission. This is his life now, forever. Running away and never looking back again to see the damage he’s leaving behind. 

Is this what it means, to be a Drake?

He’s leaving them behind. It’s his choice, and he’s choosing it. Tim is choosing to leave the Waynes behind, and until there’s a body, a part of them will always be waiting for him to come home.

Tim thinks of the boy he was not three nights ago, sitting on the stairwell of an empty house, waiting for parents he knew wouldn’t show.

Jack and Janet came back for him, this time. They aren’t leaving him, this time. Tim wants to go with them, he wants this, he does.

The alley he’s following splits into two at the end. Both forks lead back to the safe-house, but the one on the left has a CCTV camera hanging over the dumpster. If he turned left, Barbara would have him in seconds. If he turned left, Bruce would show up out of the shadows and force him to come home and explain. If he turned left, Tim could say he didn’t want to be found, kid himself that he got sloppy, made a mistake, it’s not like he wants his parents to be caught. If he turned left, Bruce might just believe him.

If he only turned left…

Tim looks longingly at the street camera.

He turns right.

Chapter Text

It is hardly four miles, as the crow flies, from Wayne Manor to the little apartment on the outskirts of Crime Alley. Still, it takes Tim nearly three hours to get there as the night too soon draws into dawn. The route he takes is winding and inefficient. He weaves. He doubles back. Takes every risk and then some, in order to be sure he isn’t found by the Bats prowling the skyline.

Shots ring out down the warehouse district. Hood, probably. There are people running, screams. Tim avoids it all, his head down and his own hood pulled high.

He robs a boarded-up convenience store as he passes. He told his parents he’d get supplies, after all. Instant coffee, jelly, bread, three packets of chips. Is it still robbery if he left cash on the till? Tim ponders this as he slinks back into the city, silently counting out money he stole from his dad’s wallet. The store’s alarm sounds as the door swings shut.

Silhouetted on a far rooftop in the flashing neon lights of an old casino, Tim sees Batman freeze.

 Shit. 

Batman’s head turns in the direction of the alarm, not seeing anyone as the boy shrinks into the shadows. Should he investigate? Tim knows he’s thinking about it. Then, the slightest shake of his head. Bruce has other priorities than some petty robbery. The Batman fires his grapple, and disappears into the night.

Tim lets out a breath he hadn’t meant to hold. That was too close.

The rest of his trip is uneventful. He avoids cop cars, patrol routes, puddles, cameras. It’s no bother, scaling the wall of the safe-house, clambering through the window in the early lights of dawn. 

His parents are still fast asleep on the couch, but Janet stirs as Tim pulls the window shut. Her hair is mussed, a sheen of drool sticks strands of it to her mouth. Tim doubts Janet Drake has ever slept on a couch before. She looks at him blankly, as if struggling to remember where she knows him from. Tim holds up the bag of stolen food.

“I brought supplies,” he says, as casual as he can muster.

“T-er - J-er-" she flounders.

"Tim."

"Timothy. You… left?”

“I wasn’t seen, don't worry. I didn’t go far.”

He unloads the things he had brought back in the kitchen. He sets about making three cups of coffee and some jelly sandwiches, cutting off the crusts and everything. Janet is allergic to peanuts, otherwise he would have got peanut butter too. Tim is really good at remembering everyone’s allergies because his parents always forget. After the Shrimp-cident (Shrimp incident, with a cool name to make it less traumatic) Tim doesn’t ever want to risk a reaction again.

By the time he’s prepped their breakfasts, Jack has woken up too. Both his parents are watching, speechless. Right, Tim supposes he should be acting less competent in the face of… everything, but eh. Whatever. This is the trauma response that gets him a sandwich. 

He hands the plates to them, and the three Drakes eat in silence. Jack finds the TV remote, and Tim flicks it over to the news. Bruce’s face fills the screen, the crack in the glass extending from his eye to his chin like a tear. He is a phenomenal actor. Behind him, the wreckage of Drake Manor is still smoking.

“- a very bright young lad. We’ve always been neighbours, and he interned with me for a few months. And, of course, he was a dear friend of my Jason, before he passed. When I saw the explosion last night I ran straight over, but it was already too late.”

“Thank you, Mister Wayne.” A reporter takes the microphone back, and Brucie disappears from the shot. “While none of the three members of the Drake family have been recovered, the remains of one Alvar Dimmont were pulled from the scene earlier this morning. Dimmont was a well-established career criminal known for his exceedingly violent attacks carried out as a gun-for-hire. Police now believe this was a deliberate attack on one of Gotham’s richest families. Timothy Drake, aged fifteen, has been confirmed to have been in the house when the fire broke out, whilst the whereabouts of Jack and Janet Drake remain unknown. Mister Wayne has generously offered a reward of fifteen million dollars to anyone who can provide information of the Drakes’ whereabouts. Police are also urging anyone with any information regarding this senseless attack to please come forward or call the number below to leave an anonymous tip. That’s all we have time for now, but this story will continue as new information emerges. And now the weather.”

The screen switches to a cartoon map of Gotham. As usual, every borough is coloured in flashing red and marked ‘Danger to Life’. The sea is on fire.

“We’re predicting large clouds of fear gas are gathering over the east side of the city by this evening thanks to a region of low pressure, continuing to Friday as Scarecrow has not yet been apprehended. Viewers should be warned that a new cult has been spotted in action trying to bring about an age of drought- no confirmation yet if there is any cause for concern on this front. Towards the end of the week, we warn those of you sensitive to hayfever that pollen levels will be high as Poison Ivy announces-“

Tim turns the TV off. He’s heard enough.

“I didn’t know you were friends with the Wayne kid, sport,” says Jack, almost proud. “You never mentioned it.”

Tim shrugs. Bruce is only setting up explanations as to why his civilian self can be involved in the case. It means nothing. Tim and Jason weren't friends then, and they sure as hell aren't now. “He died.”

“You didn’t have to deal with that alone,” Janet says. 

They all know he did. They all know that if Jack and Janet had been in town that week to see Tim sobbing into his pillow until his eyes swelled up so much he couldn’t see over a boy he’d met once on a rooftop and thrice at galas, they’d have done nothing to help.

Looking straight ahead, he grits his teeth. “I need you to be honest with me,” he says, not looking at either of his parents because if he looks he’ll know if they are lying to him and he absolutely can’t deal with that.

“Of course, son.”

“Cut the bullshit. Give me the whole story. The real story. What exactly are you involved in?”

Janet audibly gulps. Tim doesn’t blink. “My entire life is ruined, Mom, because of something you two did. I deserve to know what.”

Behind Tim, Jack and Janet share a glance. Jack gives the slightest of nods. Janet puffs her cheeks and says, “A few years back, Charlie approached us with a deal. He’s an old friend from school, we owed him a favour. He knows about… He knew we travel a lot, and he had some cargo to shift, incognito. So we help him cover up a few rogue shipments, he helps fund our expeditions. Classic, really."

"Oh, don’t give us that look," Jack cuts in. "DI is a medical company. Think of all the good we’ve been doing. We help people. So what if a few junkies get their fix? It isn’t our fault they can’t control themselves around drugs. You know what addicts are like-“

“So it was just drugs? Nothing else.“ 

It’s bad, but not as bad as it could be. Tim assures himself that it could be worse. It could be so much worse. Sure, his parents are inhumanly terrible and Jason will definitely murder them both if he finds out, but Jason will never find out if Tim plays his cards right, and he’s very good at cards.

“It… was. Until...”

And there goes the last of his hope. Rest in peace, youthful innocence. He almost doesn’t want to ask. “What did you do?”

“Don't talk to your mother like that-“

“Shut up. Mom, what did you do?”

Janet gawps at him, but at this point who the hell cares? Tim’s patience is worn extraordinarily thin, and he’s feeling every one of the forty-eight hours that he’s been awake. It’s Jack who answers. “After our run-in with the mob, Charlie sent someone to get us out of Cambodia, but there wasn’t time to charter us a private jet. He had us onboard a…a cargo ship. But not… They were in cages, Timothy.”

“So you got a ride off a human trafficker.”

Jack nods. “We didn’t know. I swear we didn’t know.”

It’s pathetic, but Tim half-believes him. “So then what happened?”

“Charlie met us at the port in Gotham, brought us round to one of his warehouses for a chat. Well, naturally I had quite a lot to say, and I said to him, I said, we don’t want any more to do with him, and he said we knew too much to back out just like that and we owed him for the trip anyway. He wanted fifty-million dollars, Timothy. Fifty-million, or he’d tell the police about…”

“About?” His parents look at each other again. "About?"

Jack doesn’t answer the question. “I said we couldn’t pay that much, so then he stared asking about you. Said if we gave up our own kid, he’d know we could never rat him out. Said he wanted to- to-”

“I shot him.” 

Tim gets whiplash with how fast he turns his head. Shallow, callous, petty Janet Drake shrugs. 

“The guard left his weapon exposed, and Charlie was distracted with Jack so I… he’s dead now. The guard too, probably. I never checked. Warehouse on the front. We were, erm, we were running, and we bumped into Harvey- er- do you know Harvey? I used to tutor him, and he’s done very well for himself. Lawyer. Have you ever thought about law, Timothy? It’s very lucrative.”

“No-I-you- wait. Harvey Dent?”

“That’s the fellow.” Jack rubs his hands enthusiastically. “He had this, this vat of acid that he didn’t get to use-“ Probably the one Tim had been dangling over only a few hours ago. “-and he was going to lend it to old Johnny Crane for his big thing tomorrow, but we flipped for it- I won- and he was a real sport about the whole thing, a real stand-up guy.”

“He’s Two-Face.”

“No, no, he really is a stand-up guy,” Janet assures. “Sent some henchmen round to dissolve Charlie’s body for us, gave us Dimmont’s number when your father asked, lent us a cab and a safe-house and everything. Did you know the flat upstairs used to be a meth lab? Batman busted it a while ago, and this place has been empty since. Oh, apart from next door, there’s a cannibal, but he has the sweetest little Rottweiler. Oh, Jackie, we should get a dog. I’ve always wanted a bloodhound-“

Charles Deyes is dead.

“Mom.”

“Sorry, where was I? So Harvey said he’d dissolve the body and I realised, Charlie’s people know where we live, don't they? And we couldn’t leave you by yourself, all defenceless. If anything happened to you- the house - we had no choice. We need to get away. So we called in a few favours- from a pay phone-” Janet shudders as if this is the most horrifying part of the story. “-And Dimmont said he could get rid of the evidence, so we came to get you.”

Dimmont, the arsonist hitman, hired by Jack Drake as a cover up, that Tim has now framed for his own murder.

“Dimmont was in the house. When it blew up. On the news it said he was dead.”

“Had to, sport,” Jack says, as if it’s the natural conclusion to reach. “Had to tie up loose ends, y’know? He knew Charlie too, see. Best not to take any risks. We went upstairs to get you while he set up the gas leak- he'd have charged us extra upfront if he knew you were there-  and then your mother messed with the timer on his bomb. Oh, you should have seen it, Timbo. She was brilliant, she was.”

“It was nothing,” Janet dismisses, like she’s at a gala, like she’s won an award, not like she has murdered two people.

Deep breaths, Robin. Tim only has one more question to get through.

“Why not just leave me there?” 

It’s the part that troubles Tim the most. He can handle the drugs, the murder (uh, since when is he okay with the murder?) but his parents have never had any issue leaving him before. Becoming felons isn't usually the thing that brings around a crisis of conscience in the parenting department.

Jack chortles. “You’re our son, sport. We wouldn’t leave you.” He ruffles Tim’s hair, except his watch strap gets caught and he ends up yanking Tim around by the ear until the untangle it. “What kind of parents would leave their twelve year-old boy behind?”

Tim, fifteen, gapes.

Alternate universe. Time travel. Crack cocaine.

There’s got to be a better explanation for how those words came out of his father’s mouth.

“You always leave me behind.”

Jack only chuckles again. “Don't be so dramatic. I’m not talking harmless little work trips, I mean the important ones. We can’t go about leaving you an orphan, can we? You’d be like Oliver Twist. Knowing our luck, you’d probably end up getting adopted by Wayne. Can you imagine?”

“Your worse-case scenario for what happens when you kill a guy and fake your deaths is that I get adopted by the six time winner of the Daily Planet’s Father-of-the-Year award.”

“Hey now, I like to think I’m your father of the year, son.”

Clay face. Evil twin. It was all a dream.

Tim looks at his mom to check she’s seeing it too. 

“I know this must be a bit scary for you, sweetheart, but we’ll adjust. Your father and I are handling this. We know what we’re doing. All we have to do is wait here until the fire dies down and then we’ll be off, scot-free.”

“To Belgium.”

“Belgium?” Janet frowns. She clicks her teeth. “Jack, sweetie, are we set on Belgium? I hear San Marino has the most gorgeous beaches.”

“There’s always Singapore. We never ruled out Singapore. I hear they have the best street food. It’s to die for.”

“It’s alright.”

“No- no- Jan, Jan. Listen. It’s-it’s to die for. Because we’re gonna- we’re gonna- get it?”

Clones. Fear gas. Has he mentioned cocaine.

What the fuck? 

“We’ll go to Montenegro,” The Robin part of Tim decides for them, because this is getting ridiculous. These people. These people. His parents. Shot one of the most wanted men in Gotham and then- and then- dissolved the body in acid. The same people who haven’t cooked a meal in eleven years because his mom once started a forest-fire whilst camping in the Amazon. These ridiculous people he surrounds himself with. Are all adults this stupid? Is it a pre-requisite of the Bristol-bred middle-age? The sheer incompetence. 

Bruce wouldn’t do this to him, at least. Why couldn’t Tim have been born a Wayne, instead of a stupid, lousy Drake? He could live at Wayne Manor, be brothers with Dick and Jason, get to call Bruce ‘Dad’. Stupid Tim, being born one house over. He’d been so close.

Where was he now? Montenegro.

“We’ll wait the week for your shady boat-woman to get here, then go there instead of France. Montenegro doesn’t do extradition treaties, and they’ll expect us to be heading to Europe, because that’s where all the other DI branches are. Once there, we’ll set up fake identities, kill them off too- fishing accident, probably- and make our way to Indonesia. Again, no extradition there. I can get us believable passports and birth certificates, and it shouldn’t be too hard to siphon my trust fund through some offshore accounts. That’ll be enough to get us settled in. You two will need jobs. Preferably remote, unrelated to what you used to work in. Mom, you’re good with tech, so I’m thinking software engineering startup. Dad, you can do telesales. We’ll launder the rest of your money through crypto, maybe an NFT, and by the time anyone catches on we’ll be-“

He stops, aware that he's too damn good at this. Right. Timothy-mode, not Robin-mode.

“I mean. Uh. Gee. What’s the plan?”

“That,” says Jack, not blinking. “That sounds good. Let’s do that.”

Janet looks at him for a long while, her eyebrows knit so close he’s surprised a sweater doesn’t pop out. Eventually, she ventures, “Do I want to know?” 

Tim shrugs. “Saw it on Criminal Minds.”

After a long pause, Jack puts the TV back on and they watch the news in silence.

By the time Tim wakes up, unaware that he had slept, the metaphorical clock has just gone four in the afternoon. Jack and Janet sit at the kitchen table, locked in an intense round of hangman. Two empty chip packets sit between them, and the third appears to be the prize in the game they’re playing. Tim’s own stomach growls, but he doesn’t want to interrupt. Quietly, he gathers himself and prepares to leave. He’ll have to take the stairs, since it’s still daylight. Climbing out of his bedroom window was one thing, but his parents absolutely cannot see him jumping out a sixth-floor window.

“I’ll be back soon,” he calls, hesitating by the door. Jack and Janet look up, startled.

“You’re… leaving?”

“I need to sort a couple things. Don't worry I won’t get caught. You two just stay here and don’t answer the door to anyone. If, for whatever reason, I don’t come back, go with the original plan.”

Janet opens her mouth to argue, but lets him go, all the same. Tim tries not to think about it.

What he’s about to do is risky, bordering idiotic, but Tim knows he has to do it. He also knows, by heart, Barbara Gordon’s shift patterns at Gotham public library. He knows that since last night's events will have triggered protocol chartreuse-eight-B she’ll be in the clocktower, not expecting anyone to target the library, which is the only way Tim could ever get away with making fake IDs on a public computer.

Printing fake passports in Gotham library is such a common activity that there’s a specific section for it in the basement. It costs fifty cents extra over a normal print job, but they give you special paper and everything. It may seem counterintuitive, but the scheme has shut down hundreds of forgery businesses. Normally, Barbara covertly logs every fake document relative to threat level. Some of the forgeries are by kids getting out of the system a year early, or undocumented immigrants who just want to go to college- nowhere near as shady as, say, a wanted criminal faking their death, which is a category Tim now falls into. 

Luckily Babs isn't here right now so he can get away with bypassing her safeguards pretty easily. He has a bit of fun photo-shopping some new photos for Ben, Sarah and Alvin Draper, then sets to forging some visas and birth certificates. The passport-printer takes twenty minutes a pop, so Tim spends his time wandering the dusty shelves, searching for something to read. 

He heads up to the Crime section. This is not to be confused with the Crime Fiction or True Crime sections; this is the section devoted to instructional books on committing crimes. A well-loved copy of 666 Ways to Start a Satanist Cult sits next to From Cook to Crook- Expanding Your Drug Kitchen and a pop-up book on internet scams for dummies. There’s a few pamphlets for a union for under-appreciated henchmen (Jason's doing), and another entitled: What to Expect When Your Expecting (to be Arrested). 

Tim amuses himself by reading that one, only stopping when he realises it’s (one) pretty much word for word his parents’ original Belgium plan, and (two) written by Matilda MacIlvaine. Mrs Mac? Tim files this information under things he doesn’t have the energy to deal with and moves swiftly on. That’s enough reading for today, thank you very much.

He fetches the first two passports from the printer and starts the timer for the third. It’s just as he carries his first stack of fake documents back to his corner table that the sound of hushed voices alerts him. The wall beside him connects perpendicular to a bookshelf, and on the other side of that bookshelf is a very familiar sound. 

It’s a girl.

Crying.

It's Steph. 

Crying.

Fuck.

She isn’t supposed to be back yet. Spoiler and Black Bat were supposed to be in San Francisco the last Tim knew. Why is she here? What is there to find in the dodgy basement of Gotham public library aside from the person that they are definitely looking for?

Steph sobs again. It’s muffled like she has her hand over her mouth. Tim still recognises it. Should he say something? No, obviously. But-

“We should have been there,” Steph weeps. “What if he’s- what if he’s-“

“Little brother will be okay,” says a determined voice. 

So Cass is here too. Tim is so screwed.

“I don’t get it,” Steph is saying. There is a thump on the other side of the bookshelf like she’s thrown herself to sit against it. “Why wouldn’t he call us? We know he’s got the watch, but the camera’s gone. Why would they t-take the camera? Who paid for that?”

“Little brother will be okay,” Cass says again, after a while. Cass always talks slowly, putting emphasis on every word. “He is okay. But, angry. Revenge.”

“If this was about revenge he would tell us. Not B, us. We could help. Why wouldn’t he take his phone with him? I don’t…”

A silence stretches. Tim catches the whip of fingers fast-moving. Cass has probably switched to ASL.

The smart thing to do would be to get the hell away before they find him. Tim does not do the smart thing. Instead, he crouches, approaching the shelf. Very, very carefully, he angles himself to see through the gaps between the books. The angle is poor, but he can see the back of Steph’s head, her hair frizzy and unkempt, and Cass’s fingers as she forms her argument.

“-no rescue. We can see parents are…” Cass signs, ‘Not great.’  Out loud she says, “Assholes.”

Steph snorts. “But don't you think Hood’s witness might be confused. Babs thinks the Drakes are dead.”

“Good riddance.”

“They definitely weren’t on that plane. Nothing on Tim’s phone either, but he said they were home.”

 “Always lies for them. Does not think clearly. If he is scared then will try to protect them. If they are dead, he will go for revenge. Wouldn’t tell us.”

“He would tell me.”

“Has only been little time. Maybe he will.”

“Then we should be out there looking for him, instead of reading! I can’t believe Babs is buying into all Bruce’s crap about the housekeeper- no way. What if Tim needs us now? What if I’m too busy working on a stupid report to help when one of my best friends might be dead!”

Tim sucks in a breath. He hadn’t thought Steph would take it this hard. They broke up. What does she have to miss?

Suddenly, Cass stiffens. Shit. 

He turns around, pressing as low to the ground as he can, squeezing his eyes shut as if it will help him disappear. 

“Who’s there?” 

There’s a clatter as Steph leaps up. “Someone watching us? Come out, freak!”

The books shuffle, as Cass pushes them out the way. She reaches right through the bookshelf, her fingers inches from Tim’s hair when-

BEEP BEEP BEEP

- the printer alarm rings for the end of the job. The last fake passport is complete. Cass’s hand goes slack as the noise distracts them, giving Tim enough time to weasel free and commando crawl to the printer, grab his stuff, and-

“Hey! Hey you- wait up!”

-Steph shouts after him, so Tim breaks into a sprint. A hardback book narrowly missed his head but Tim doesn’t stop running. He pulls his hood up as high as he can and legs it upstairs and out of the building, stuffing the passports up his jumper as he goes.

He can’t lead them back to the safe-house, but he can lose them in the streets if he plays this right. Years of batstalking experience come into play as he dodges and dives through the streets. By the time Tim has even registered he’s in the warehouse district, he’s been running so long that there’s almost no way Steph or Cass could have followed. 

But it’s a close thing. 

Out the corner of his eye, he sees movement on a high roof. On a roof? In civvies? They’ll be on him in seconds. With milliseconds to make his decision, Tim dives into a dumpster, burrowing down amongst bags of rotted food and failed experiments and…. severed toes?-Ew- and yanks the lid shut. Moments later there’s a heavy thump right on top of him, like Steph has jumped onto the lid of the dumpster. Tim holds his breath again, not just because of the smell.

Steph swears. “Lost him. Where’d he go?”

Another, lighter, thump. “Didn’t see anyone.”

“But that was- was it? The way he dodged…”

“Didn’t see.”

Steph makes a frustrated noise, then yells, “Hey Tim? Tim is that you? Are you out here?!”

If Tim buries himself any further, he’ll have to touch the bag of severed toes. All of them are left big toes, and three of them are glowing. Only in Gotham. Only in freaking Gotham.

“Tim!” Steph shouts again, fainter. She has moved off of the dumpster, but Tim doesn’t dare look out. “Tim, stop being an asshole, you asshole. Answer me if you can- we’re looking for you! I’m not giving up!”

“Not here,” Cass says placatingly. 

“Then where the hell is he?”

“Not dead.”

“Not dead,” Steph repeats. Something impacts the dumpster, hard, and when Steph groans Tim realises she must have kicked it. “Not.” Another kick. “Fucking.” Again. “Dead.” No impact, but hard breaths fill the silence. 

Steph is scarily quiet, and then, “I’ve just traumatised some random kid, haven’t I?”

“Probably.”

“And we still don’t have the book.“

“Little siblings are more important than report,” Cass says. “Babs will understand.”

“If he’s alive, I’m going to kill him.”

Cass’s chuckle is wet. “Me first.”

“He’s alive,” Steph sniffs, a nose blows on a sleeve. “He’s alive. He has to be. And if he isn’t…” An audible gulp. “I’m not responsible for my actions. I’ll see you in Arkham.”

“Arkham,” Cass repeats.
 
Their voices go quiet as they move away. Tim counts to thirty thousand before he dares to move. Up above, the sky is sunset red. The bat signal burns a yellow light into the clouds.

Tim needs to get out of here. 

He returns to the safe-house with the forged documents in hand. That weird, silent limbo where Jack and Janet sit, still in shock, staring at the unyielding TV. They don’t acknowledge him, even though he climbs through a window, stinking of trash, with arms full of fake passports. Tim can’t help but be glad of that.

He can’t think of anything he has left to say.

Chapter Text

In the early hours of Friday morning, Tim finally feels confident enough to break into his own house. He’d drastically underestimated how long the cops would take going through the place, but he knows the bats’ schedules, he knows they’ll have to take some break eventually, and there’s a near little overlap between six and seven o’clock where everyone should be dead to the world. 

Ash softens the crunch of the gravel path as he gets close. The house is… well. It’s been blown up. A snow of broken glass glints on a blackened lawn cordoned in by yellow tape. Once magnificent walls seem to sway in the breeze, and the majority of the East wing- where all of his parents’ artefacts lived-  has caved in on itself. The blast seems so concentrated that it flashes across Tim’s mind that this might have been deliberate. How many of those artefacts were stolen, plundered, illegal? But then, what use does it serve his parents to destroy their collection? Dead people never face consequences for anything. Especially not rich, alive ones.

Tim takes the back way into the West wing; the front is bound to be alarmed. By the time he does make it inside, the smell of smoke is almost gone. Grief hangs in the air but that tugs at his heart, not his lungs. Has it really only been day? 

There isn’t much left. Gone are his parents collection of priceless artefacts. Ruined is the paisley-pattern rug, the hardwood floor. Tim winces as his foot plunges right through the skeleton of a vase valued higher than his own existence, shards of roasted pottery crackle beneath his sneakers.

He passes the cupboard doorframe where he used to mark his own height, like in the movies, and the staircase he had sprained his wrist going down on his skateboard. There is the cupboard in which Mrs Mac used to store paper bags of what he is only just now realising likely wasn't flour. The carcass of the kitchen stirs memories of birthdays blowing out candles on cakes he made himself, nights spent patching up patrol wounds from those early days before he realised he could have come to the cave.

In the back of his mind he wonders why none of these memories are of his parents. In the back of his mind, he knows the answer.

(But they came back for him, this time.)

There’s a pit growing in his stomach as he approaches his dad’s study. It’s probably because he hasn’t eaten in… a while. It’s fine. 

He pushes on into the house. Janet didn’t have a study at home- something about only sissies not being able to come to the office- so Tim can only hope his dad’s space will have what he needs. It isn’t much hope, paper trails don’t mix well with fire, but still. He might find something. You never know. There is one thing that Tim does know, as he glanced a through the wreck of files, and it’s that nothing useful has survived. He can tell at a glance that all the business folders have either been burned up or taken as evidence by the police. That lead will get him nowhere.

There is also one other thing Tim knows. Jack kept a diary in his study. Yes, a physical, paper diary, like a teenage girl in a romcom. Tim had only sneaked a look once before, when he was eleven, had found only some very intimate details of what his parents got up to on their trips, and had vowed never to look at the book again. Now though… He can’t help but wonder if the diary might just- just- contain something useful. A guilty confession. A fake bank account in the Maldives. Jack only ever updated it when he and Janet were home, meaning the last entry should be around two months old. Recent enough that there might be something useful inside.

He hates how predictable Jack is, because despite it having been almost four years since Tim last looked, the diary is hidden in exactly the same spot. The bottom of what was once a splendid bookcase is hollow, a secret drawer, blackened and ragged. Stealing a metal ruler from the desk to use as a crowbar, Tim prizes it open. A cloud of ash erupts, as if the drawer was suffocating, gasping for air. Tim fans it away with his fingers and pulls out the metal lockbox in which the diary is contained. He inputs the password (1-2-3-4) and the padlock swings off, revealing the book inside. 

Gingerly, Tim peels it open. There are only a handful of entries from the last four years, a testament to how little time the Drakes have spent home. Tim flicks to the most recent, and begins to read.

‘Hiya chum,

Jan and I are just back from Bristol, England. Not Bristol, Gotham. They are apparently different places- who knew?

Charlie met us at the airport to talk business and boy does this look good. Enough to get Red Hood off his back and buy us a healthy retirement fund. Might even convince Charlie to let the whole Josh thing go. Also found an interesting ruin under the old town. Looks Roman- maybe older? Jan found an arrowhead stuck in one of the walls, which is crazy, and then she worked out that the archer was probably a child by doing some calculus thing. I’m more of a radiocarbon-dating guy when it comes to guessing age, but Jan has it figured out. 

Speaking of dating, last night we-‘

Oh, ick. Skip.

‘-I love my wife. Had to tell Timothy we’re jet lagged, but oh well. He looks so grown these days. When did that happen?’

When you weren’t watching.

‘Great grades, perfect attitude, his mother’s brain. The boy’s a damn prodigy. He’s doing brilliantly at this Wayne Internship. Old Brucie was singing his praises at the Summerwill Gala. That, and a few other things, the nosy cow. Why won’t he leave it alone? Any more emails and I might just have to answer. What does he know about parents- he doesn't even have any!

Not all bad news though- apparently our Timothy broke his arm playing football. Can you believe it? Football! Just when I’d given up hope. Guess he takes after me after all.‘

Tim stops reading. 

There’s nothing useful in this. Coming here was a mistake. Reading this was- was-

He’s seen enough.

He puts the diary in the box, the box back next to the drawer. What was he hoping to find? Not that, certainly. Not that.

If he left the box out, would Bruce find it? Would this be the nail in the coffin to Tim’s case? Is this, this stupid, worthless piece of paper, what Tim is dying for?

His dad wrote that. His. Dad. The man Tim has given everything up to save. It’s like Tim never knew him at all. 

‘Guess he takes after me,’ the diary mutters. Like- like it’s taunting him. Whispering in his ear. Why is that so scary? Why does that line make him want to run? Tim loves his dad. Tim loves his dad.

Tim wants to love his dad.

His next breath doesn’t bring in enough oxygen. Nor does the one after that. The smell of smoke is putrid, hanging in the air like a noose. He can’t breathe. He can’t breath. 

The walls of the room are closing in. Tim isn’t supposed to be in the study, isn't supposed to look in the diary. He’ll get in trouble.

He tears himself from the room, stomach roiling. Through the corridors, one at a time, and his useless brain does only scan the surroundings, picking up on clues to the case he doesn’t want to solve. This way tracks the worst of the fire damage by a long shot, definitely an accelerant was poured here. A handprint marks a stark white patch on the wallpaper, and further up is an area cordoned again by police tape where the ceiling has caved- the location of the bomb?-What difference does it make?

Tim is aiming for the East wing guest bathroom, but it’s been blown to smithereens, so he half-falls through a small hole in what was once a wall to throw up bile. Like panic, it burns his throat. His heart races as he slides down what’s left of the wall, the shadow merging into a monstrous abyss. 

‘Guess he takes after me.’

What if- what if Tim does? He doesn’t want to turn out like Jack, and he won’t. He won’t. Tim isn’t isn't his dad, isn't a monster but- but- neither is Jack.

Neither is Jack.

The space he has entered now sits just under the back stairs and whilst he knew theoretically it existed he's hardly ever come in here. It’s inevitable, in a house this big, some spaces do just get lost. Learning the ins and outs of his own house was never as interesting as mapping out the rest of his world. Using his foot, Tim shifts a fallen beam over to cover the puddle of his own vomit and his eye catches on a strange object. 

It is small. Rectangular. Shiny, but not gilt or bedazzled of jewel-encrusted like the rest of the shiny things in this house. It’s a photograph. A framed photograph. Not a painting, not a valuable antique. A polaroid in a cheap aluminium frame.

Tim brushes the ash off the front. 

The frame has done a decent job of preserving it from the worst of the damage. Although faded with age, it shows three people in focus. There is Janet- teenaged, pouting and unhealthily thin, dressed in the sort of fifties-style dress that she would never choose today. And behind her, two people Tim has never met. His maternal grandparents: Mary and Hugo Alcott. They look old. Stern. Even in the photo, the fake smiles don’t reach their eyes, and if Tim squints he can see Mary’s nails digging into Janet’s shoulder, and Hugo’s massive fists are clenched. The background- some garden party- looks stiff, almost staged.

Tim pops the photo out of the frame and flips it over. As he suspected, there is writing on the back of it. My 12th birthday it reads, signed in a loopy scrawl. Taken by Joshua Alcott. 

Joshua Alcott.

That name keeps cropping up. It was on Deyes’ file, in Jack’s diary- is it important? But it can’t be, can it? Tim knows all about Dead Uncle Josh and all there is to know is that he was ‘Uncle Josh’ and is now Dead. It can’t have been long after this photograph that it happened. Janet’s careless younger brother trips and falls down the stairs, breaks his neck, and is never spoken about again. Three weeks later guilt-stricken Hugo and Mary Alcott blow their own brains out and are never spoken about again. Janet Alcott marries Jack Drake at seventeen, inheriting vast riches, lives happily ever after up until now  and no Alcotts are ever mentioned and the loose ends are tied up and hey-ho thats the end of that. Still. It is a bit odd. Why keep a photo in an inaccessible space of a house you never visit of a family you never talk about, framed? Grief, or guilt?

Maybe if he was Robin right now, or if Bruce was here or he wasn’t on the come-down from a panic attack or if his house hadn’t been blown up, Tim would have a better explanation. There are clues here, in their thousands, lying all around pointing and laughing at him, clues that he has brushed aside or missed or joked about to escape the miserable terror of this experience that grows with every hour. He tries, tries to focus, tries to think. What does Tim’s current situation have to do with a boy who’s been dead nigh-on twenty years? But there’s nothing. It means Nothing, that’s what. It’s just a reminder, is all. If Tim had died at twelve, falling down the stairs, he doubts Janet would have done anything but blame him for his own stupidity. A twelve year-old should know how to walk, she’d say, What a silly thing to do. What would Bruce have said? What’s he saying now? Has Bruce given up on him yet? Tim hopes he hasn’t - has.

He meant has. Obviously. Has.

Tim hopes Bruce has given up.

Tim puts the stupid photo down, and all the ghosts in this carcass of a room with it. Before he can think anything through, Tim is taking the steps two at time until he’s back in his bedroom, where he’s alone, where he’s alive. If he shuts his eyes time rewinds four days and he’s waiting innocently for his parents to get back from Cambodia, lying to Bruce to cover off how sloppy he’s been on patrol. 

(Sometimes, he imagines being sloppy on purpose; if he makes enough mistakes Bruce will ask what’s wrong and maybe this time Tim will tell him and maybe… But Tim absolutely definitely never ever ever does that.)

(Never did that.)

He’s lying under his bed. Under his bed, which… which should be a pile of cinders? For a brief moment he imagines this has all been a dream. Then, his brain catches up. He looks around the room, cataloguing, seeing.

This isn’t his bed. It’s a bed. It’s in his room. It isn’t his bed. Tim peers at the legs, mind boggling. It’s new. Gone are the notches where he used to count the days, the spider guts squidged into the headboard. It’s not just the bed frame, it’s the duvet, missing the faint bloodstain from that time he ripped his stitches, and the pillow, lacking that familiar divot that cradles his head when he cries.

Someone has been in here. The realisation is ice down his spine. Not a Batman investigating. Not a cop tearing things to shreds. Someone has lovingly reconstructed the remains of Tim’s room with utmost caution, right down to the cactus on his window that he always forgot to water. 

He swings his legs under him and crosses the room. Suddenly, his foot impacts something, a clank of metal rings a deathly knell and warm water embraces his ankles. Tim yelps and looks down.

There’s a cloth on the floor, now soaking in the soapy suds from where Tim had kicked over the- kicked over the-

Oh god.

He kicked the bucket.

Shelving the divine sense of humour running his life, Tim tries to make sense of it. Fails. The water is warm. That means the mystery cleaner can’t have been gone long. Are they still in the house, lurking? Waiting for Tim to let his guard down so they can-

He gulps. Get it together, Tim. Some criminal mastermind has broken into a supposedly dead-boy’s room to do the unthinkable: tidy. Never mind the why, focus on the when and who. 

When: recently. The bucket isn't large, the water is cooling fast. Time frame limited to the last half-hour. 

Who: someone close to him. Someone who knew what his bedroom would look like, how he folds his socks. Even his favourite detergent, Tim notes, as the smell of vanilla wafts up from the bubbles on the ground.

They’re probably coming back, Tim realises. The job isn't as complete as it feels. There are still dark marks on the floors, crumbling paper on the walls. Plus, the perpetrator left their bucket. No sadist just leaves behind a bucket if they’ve got any class. Perhaps they had to fetch something? But from where? Somewhere close enough that the water will still be warm when they get back. That’s not a long list of places.

He’ll have to wait, Tim decides, his curiosity winning out over the smart instinct to run like hell. He needs to know who did this. It’s important enough to stake his entire fake-death on. 

Tim climbs into the wardrobe. No false-back in this one. The reconstruction isn’t perfect, even if it does have versions of his least favourite clothes. (Why hang up the important clothes? They’re only going to get taken down again.) Tim nestles in shadows and scratchy fabrics and watches through a keyhole.

Around ten minutes pass. Tim is almost ready to give up, but then-

Footsteps on the stairs. Slow. Heavy. A thin figure enters the room. In their hands is a bottle of washing-up liquid, which they place down on the floor, joints creaking. He sees them stiffen as they notice the fallen bucket. A despairing murmur of ‘You’re cracking up, old boy,’ to an apparently empty room.

Tim almost forgets to stay silent, because he knows that figure. It’s Alfred. Alfred is kneeling on the floor in Tim’s burned-out bedroom. Tidying.

The butler picks up the cloth Tim had knocked over and pours some of the washing-up liquid on it, swiping at a stain on the floor. The stain does not disappear. It’s burned-into those heartless floorboards, a permanent scar. Alfred scrubs it again, and again, and again, and-

Tim thinks of Jason’s room at the manor, before they knew about Red Hood. Always spotless, perpetually messy, but always like-new. He remembers the attic, full of Thomas and Martha’s possessions. An attic without a single cobweb, sparklingly fresh. Ghostly rooms kept as though their living occupants might pop in for tea and scones. He’d always thought- Tim had always assumed- the rooms were kept because Alfred was Alfred. Anything less than perfection would be a dereliction of duty in the butler’s eyes. But it isn’t about cleanliness, or servitude, Tim realises now, watching him run the cloth over and over again in the dirt. It is grief. Death, for Alfred Pennyworth, is written in the dust.

Alfred continues to scrub at the stain, making little progress. Tim’s heart aches. His everything aches, crouched in the wardrobe in amongst the clothes he never touched. The dress shirts. The blazers. Things that required ironing or extra care or funky little buckles that Tim never really got the hang of. Alfred had done this, all of it. Why? Tim is genuinely baffled. Just, why? 

He sits, unsure how long for, and he watches. The stain never fades, no matter how Alfred scrubs at it. Twice, he goes to refill the pail of water, taking twenty-five minutes each way. Both times Tim knows these are his opportunities to escape, but he just can’t tear himself away. 

Alfred talks as he works. To himself, or… Tim feels like a voyeur, but he is rooted to the spot. He can’t not listen. Can’t not hear.

“I’ll have it ready for you, my boy. I’ll have it ready. I’ll have it ready.”

He moves on from the stain, letting it soak. Alfred turns to the walls, reaching his feather duster high. 

“It was my wish that you should never return to this graveyard, my boy. It has been my wish from the moment you appeared on our doorstep. Oh my boy. I only meant to give you a safe home… but it matters not. I should have known better than to shake the monkey’s paw. I’ll have it ready for you, when you return. I’ll have it ready.”

The dust must be getting in Alfred’s eyes, because the stoic British butler does not cry. 

“Needs repainted,” Alfred sighs, lathering some chemical onto the wall. “Less structural damage than it could have been, but I can’t get the stains out. Perhaps, in the mean time, you will come home. Won’t you come home, my boy?”

The plea is such that Tim almost caves. His hand is half-way to the inner door handle before he catches himself and pulls away.  Alfred isn't talking to him. He’s talking to Jason. The Jason of the past, who really never would come home so long as Tim was in the picture. Alfred is rehearsing what he’ll say to Red Hood when he asks Jason to come home. 

That tracks, right?

The day trickles by, like blood from a slow-healing wound that never quite scabs over. Tim’s plans are derailed as dawn becomes midday becomes dusk. He just can’t draw himself away. This could be his last ever time here in his bedroom. What if he never hears Alfred’s voice again? It’s not like Tim is ever coming ho-

Ever coming h-

Ever coming back to the manor. 

His parents might be missing him, but not enough to leave that sagging blue sofa at the apartment, and the majority of Tim’s contingencies are set to go. It’s clear there’s nothing at Drake manor that requires his attention, save for the slow, miserable shuffle of an aging butler around a loveless room.

Eventually, Alfred goes to get water again. Tim finally sneaks out through the window and nosedives down the trellis, just as he had done the other night.

Rubbing out the impression his face had left in the muck, Tim blinks up at the clouds. He really hadn’t meant to stay at the manor so long. The sun is low to the horizon, the sky an irritated red. Tim jogs the two miles back to the warehouse district, and tries not to think about what he has seen.

It had occurred to him yesterday that he still hadn’t rescued the victims of Charles Deyes. Hood had mentioned something about a trafficking ring on comms, but he’d been distracted by Tim’s charade and now Tim isn't sure if he would have completed the job. That means that, in essence, anything that happens to those people is now Tim’s fault, and he cannot let them be subjected to the worst of the worst in Gotham. Plus, if Deyes is dead (what the hell, Mom) are the victims even still alive? Black Mask’s people might have scrubbed all the evidence the way Alfred scrubbed the-

Focus, Tim.

So this is why Tim finds himself, half an hour later, at the entrance to one of the top six shadiest warehouses in Gotham, ‘as voted by disloyal henchmen, 20XX!’ 

His best- and only- lead is that his parents dissolved the body of the shady guy they murdered in Two-Face’s vat of acid. Tim knows where this is because he himself was very nearly dissolved in it, forty-eight hours ago. Bruce should have gotten rid of it properly, but he was too busy yelling at Tim for ‘risking himself unnecessarily’ and ‘giving him a heart attack’. As soon as Bruce had gotten Tim out, they had sped back to the cave even though Tim had only been upside-down inhaling fumes for, like, twelve minutes, and after the argument and the benching Tim had been sent home to his house, where he was supposed to be safe, where he promptly faked his death, the point being that Bruce probably didn’t have time to deal with the acid. He can’t have even arrested Two-Face either, given that Jack and Janet ran right into him in their hour of need. Sloppy work, Brucifer, very sloppy indeed.

Dragging his feet a little- it’s not like he wants to go back- Tim locates the entrance and shuffles inside. The largest room is empty, save for a a couple of guns that must have been dropped last night when the forgettable henchmen evacuated. 

The room Tim is looking for is off to the side. The smallest four walls in the darkest, dustiest corner. He strolls towards it, but then his foot hesitates on the threshold and he freezes again. He can hear something.

Voices. That’s what he can hear. 

Close-by, familiar voices.

Shit.

“I know Hood says the witness saw Jack running this way but really, B? Human trafficking? The Drakes?”

Nightwing. Why the hell is Nightwing here, this isn’t his patrol! And he isn’t alone- the edge of a black cape spills out from the shadows. Can’t Tim go two minutes without meeting a bat? He presses his ear against the door, too curious to run and too sensible to get himself caught.

“Hm.”

“I’m just saying, maybe passing photos around a circle of victims wasn’t the best plan. The ID wouldn’t hold up in court, and it doesn’t fit with what we know. Do we even trust Hood on this? If Jack and Janet had that kind of money, DI wouldn’t be going under. It doesn’t make sense.”

“Hn.”

“Fine. Be like that. I just think that if I were you, and my kid had been murdered-“

“Nightwing-

“-I would be looking into the guy who blew up his house instead of some vague sighting of a person who- as usual- wasn’t in the fucking country! Especially if the source of this convenient witness is a guy who- in case you’ve forgotten- tried to murder Tim six months ago!”

“Are you done?”

“No!“

“Because if you aren’t, I suggest you leave until you’re able to look at this objectively. Emotions don’t solve cases, Nightwing. Pull yourself together.”

“Pull myself- are you really that heartless? Tim’s dead and you don’t even care. This is exactly how you let Ja-“

“Enough.”

“No it isn’t! It won’t be enough, ever! If it was enough then Tim wouldn’t be-“

“We don’t have any proof he is. I know-“ Bruce adds quickly, as Nightwing opens his mouth. “I know. The radio silence doesn’t bode well. The lack of ransom demand doesn’t bode well. But until we have a body, there’s still a chance. I refuse to waste that chance because you’ve assumed the worst. Either help me, or get out of my way.”

For a few tense moments, there is nothing but breath.

Bruce tries again, kinder. “Nightwing, it’s okay if you-“

“I’m fine. It’s… I’m fine.”

“It’s okay.”

“It’s not.”

“It’s not,” Batman agrees. "Have you slept at all?"

"Have you?"

A telling pause. Then a splash, a grunt. “I have something.”

As quickly as he dares, Tim pokes his head around the side door. Much to his horror, Batman and Nightwing stand over the vat of acid, peering down into its surface. Batman dips one armoured gauntlet down and then quickly retracts his arm. He holds his hand aloft. 

There, stark against the black gauntlet, dripping sickly green, is a smooth sliver of white. The remains of a bone, stripped clean by concentrated hydrochloric acid.

This, Tim surmises, is all that remains of Charles Deyes.

This, Nightwing surmises, is all that remains of Timothy Drake.

Result.

Tim can tell by the expression on his face. The open-mouthed, dogged denial that Dick is fighting not to shout. His fists clench and unclench. He believes it. 

Tim wants to scream. This is brilliant! Why hadn’t he thought of this sooner? There was no need to bother with the whole fake drowning when he literally had murdered-and-dissolved-in-acid right there. It’s so much better. Tim is so stupid. Janet Drake had come up with this. Janet.

Not one to look a gift horse in the mouth, Tim brainstorms some ways to make sure everyone believes this acid thingy, working it into his version of the events leading to his ‘death’.

Dimmont the hitman comes to the house, blows it up, dies in the gas explosion. Tim survives this, is kidnapped by mafia who are either behind his parents’ murder and seeking revenge on the Drake family for unpaid debts, or working for his evil-uncle-Eddie who needs Tim out of Jack’s will, or vaguely connected to the League of Assassins in a vague way Tim didn’t go into much detail on, depending on which false trail Bruce believes. The car being used to transport him winds up in the harbour. Tim survives this, leaving his watch in the back seat. Tim then goes for a walk in an abandoned warehouse, trips, and falls into a massive vat of acid? Is that plausible? If he takes this further then he’s getting turned into some kind of Joker Junior, so let’s say he drowned in the acid. Yeah. Nothing wrong with this version at all.

To really sell it, Tim takes a deep breath, bites his lip, then yanks out a fistful of his hair and traps it in the door hinge. He doesn’t know how it’s supposed to have gotten there, but it’s ample Tim-was-here evidence and you know what Bruce is the one investigating so maybe he can do the figuring out for once, okay? God.

He risks a peek at Batman around the doorframe. The man’s face is solid stone. The white lenses of the cowl narrow as he inspects the bone fragment. Tim really hopes it is from Deyes and not, like, an unfortunate squirrel or something. He can work with being dissolved, but he doesn’t have an easy cover for animal transformation, nor is he willing to figure one out.

Tim pulls away from the door. His head is spinning, and his knees keep knocking together. Probably because of how excited he is about his foolproof and completely brilliant plan (and not at all because Dick is sobbing that his brother is dead and Tim did that and Tim did this to them and they’re mourning him and he isn’t dead he isn’t he isn’t-) Definitely the first one. Without meaning to, he kicks a stone against the wall and it lands with a clatter. In the quiet warehouse, the noise is a gunshot. The hysterics cease. By the time Batman’s footsteps stalk toward the door, Tim is already running.

But if they see him, as he flees, they don’t follow. 

(Perhaps this is cheating, because Tim doesn’t know the reason for why, but for the state of record the reason for this luck is that Oracle has just informed them that Jonathon Crane has just mounted an attack on the other side of the city, and Spoiler has already been hit. Batman orders Nightwing to return to the cave. Nightwing calls him a string of words that shall not here be repeated. Both men rush to the scene of the crime, gas masks and antidotes close at a hand. They decide not to share news of what they have discovered until they have run the necessary tests to identify the bone fragment, which Tim has completely forgotten about. If knowing this is important to you, congratulations. Otherwise, you may content yourself to know that Tim Drake has, for the first time ever, gotten lucky. Please do not be alarmed. It will not last.)

Just to be sure that he’s lost them, Tim moves erratically, throwing off a non-existent tail. The streets, as if alive, create the perfect maze for him to blend into. He keeps his head low and his hood pulled up, praying he can pass unseen.

The warehouse formerly belonging to Charles Deyes, it turns out, is not very far. He guesses it’s the right one when he catches sight of something glinting on the pavement outside. He recognises it. A pearl earring. Janet Drake’s missing pearl earring. 

Why is it that, when committing a murder, rich ladies always lose an earring? It’s so cliche. Tim pockets it, and slips inside the warehouse, clinging to the shadows.

The interior of this warehouse is a mess. Shipping containers, doors lying unlatched, riddled with bullet holes, the lot. Dead bodies litter the ground, though not victims. These are armoured thugs. Black body armour has done nothing to stop the bullets to their heads. Tim’s first thought is wow, Janet really snapped, but his second assessment is better. 

He isn’t far from Crime Alley. The first night, over comms, Jason mentioned busting a trafficking ring, Tim had heard the gunshots, and just now Dick said Jason had been interrogating victims. The Red Hood’s punishment has been swift and brutal, far worse than a broken leg and a slit throat. There’s no message written in the blood, but Tim reckons the blood is its own message, à la ‘you’re fucked’.

A weight off his shoulders- he trusts that Jason will have gotten everyone out safely- Tim makes his way through the maze of metal containers, searching for any evidence of his parents’ involvement. He doesn’t see any other earrings. No cufflinks or scraps of expensive or monogrammed handkerchiefs. At the back of the floor there is a small, unassuming office, ghostly in the light of the silvery moon through the shattered window. There is a desk with one leg longer than the other three, and at that desk there is one of those fancy chairs with one wheel missing, and on that chair there is a corpse with only half a head.

It isn’t Charles Deyes. Tim recognises Afanasi Chekhov, another thug, from various mugshots. Tim guesses he must be the guard Janet overpowered whilst his Dad was being beaten up. So they kill and dissolve Deyes but leave him to rot? Sloppy. But then, that's what you get for using Two-Face's henchmen, barely a step above Scarecrow's. Everyone knows Riddler's guys are the best at crime-scene work. 

The bullet that killed Charles Deyes is nestled neatly in the two distinct smatterings of brains that coat the wall, the gun is nowhere to be seen. It’s not on the guard’s body, or anywhere Tim can see. He can only hope Janet kept Chekhov’s gun. It might just come in handy later.

Tim does notice a printed bank statement with the name Karen T. Jade- for goodness’ sake, Mom, anagrams are not good aliases!- listed on the transactions, so he shoves that in his pocket as well, but aside from that the scene is clean. (Of evidence, that is. The crime scene remains delightfully unsanitary). Nonetheless, Tim is startled to admit that his parents have done a remarkably good job, by their low standards. He’s kind of proud of them. There’s nothing to tie them to this aside from the evidence in Tim’s pockets. Once he’s destroyed that, they’re in the clear. Everything can go back to how it was.

Everything will go back to how it was.

He can’t explain the sinking feeling in his stomach. The wave of dread that nearly pulls him under. This should be good news. This should be relief and the light at the end of the tunnel. They can rework their story, and they can go home.

Where is home now?

Alfred’s efforts aside, he doubts they’ll move back into Drake Manor with all the fire damage. DI is still going under. His parents are still kingpins in some international drug trade. Even their housekeeper is a criminal. They’re still responsible for at least three deaths and it’s unlikely they’ll stay in Bristol. Will they even stay in Gotham? What does it matter- Tim can’t imagine a world where Bruce lets him come back to being Robin anyhow. Bruce will never want to see him again. So it’ll be back to the time in his life before he had Batman. Before he had anyone, really. He isn’t naive. Harmless little work trips, Jack had said. Once the threat to their lives is gone, his parents will leave again. They’ll leave. Tim’s existence will go back to watching a  family from a distance, drawing faces in the dust. He doesn’t feel fifteen, in that moment, he feels seven. Watching the car pull out of the drive, wondering if he’d ever see it again.

Tim used to- it’s stupid- he used to have these dreams, as a kid.  Tim used to dream that someone would come for him if he cried, that someone would cradle him, would hold him, would kiss the top of his head and tell him things would be alright. Tim used to dream that he was loved. And then he would wake up. That’s what it feels like, right now. Like Tim has just woken up from one of those nasty, selfish, self-indulgent little fantasies where he is coddled and babied and pampered beyond belief. Is that what he wants? Is it? 

His mother had hugged him, that night in the car. Of her own volition, Janet Drake had hugged her son. She had never done that before. She might never do it again. Not if things go back to how they were. 

But, if they get to Montenegro, if they have to reinvent themselves anyway, if there’s nowhere left to run, if they’re all stuck together and they can’t leave… 

Tim swallows, only half aware of what he is doing. With one hand, he steadies himself on the desk, ignoring the tacky blood that clings to his fingertips. With the other hand, he reached into his pocket and finds the cold circular lump of Janet’s pearl earring. He holds it in front of him, like an eyeball it stares back. The new moon of this dark space, colours dancing where it catches the last of the light.

He drops it.

On the floor. At the murder scene. Where the killer stood. It sits innocently in the pool of blood.

Tim drops his mother’s earring.

And he doesn’t pick it back up.

This time, when Tim slips back into the safe-house with the blue sofa, his parents are not where he left them. Janet is looking out the window, which means she gets quite the fright when Tim clambers through it, and Jack is nowhere to be seen. His heart sinks.

“Where’s Jack?”

“Where were you?”

Janet puts her hands on her hips. “I asked first.”

“I was on a walk. Where’s Jack?”

“He went out. Groceries.”

“He's outside?” 

Jack Drake, unsupervised, wandering the fear-gassed streets. It’s a recipe for Tim’s ruin. He starts to climb back out of the window. 

Only, he doesn’t quite make it. Janet tries to stop him. Tries, by lurching forward and grabbing a fistful of the front of his hoodie in her long fingers. The force catches Tim of guard, and he loses grip, hands sliding on the stone sill. For a moment he hangs, arms cartwheeling back, a six-storey drop below and above his mother’s face, ghostly-white, mouth still forming the perfect ‘oh’ of shock.

That moment of clarity is all he needs to catch himself on the sill, but it’s still a rough landing as his face graces the stone. The skin of his palms scrapes with an audible rippp. Janet shrieks and pulls him harder. Together they manoeuvre Tim back through the window and onto solid ground.

“You almost fell,” Janet whispers, panting for breath. “What were you thinking? You could have been hurt!”

“I was fine until you shoved me!”

“I caught you, you idiot boy! Don't you ever- ever- do something that dangerous again. Jesus Christ Timothy you almost died!”

The drop from the window is not enough to be deadly. Painful, yes, and definitely bone-breaking, but not deadly. Tim knows how to fall, and he was perfectly fine until someone tried to catch him. He also knows Janet will not appreciate being told any of this, and what’s the point of trying. 

“Do you know where Jack was headed?” he asks, crossing the apartment. He’ll take the stairs.

Janet lists the name of a store she probably found on her map of the city. It’s not the nearest grocery store, because that would be too convenient, but it’s close enough that Tim can catch up if he sprints, so he sprints, leaving  Janet with a warning that she’d better stay put.

As he nears the city centre, the epicentre of Scarecrow’s attacks, the pit of dread in his stomach only grows. Probably because of all the fear gas. And the fact he hasn’t eaten in what feels like days. Like Tim, Gotham’s streets are hungry, vicious things. The people who run past are either too far gone to know what they’re running from or too busy taking advantage of the chaos to care. There a few henchmen- always, always with the henchmen- and a surprising number of people hop  past in capes with bandages feet. Tonight the air is hazy green with diluted fear gas, shadowy hallucinations dance in the reflections of puddles. It’s a low dose and Tim has built up some natural immunity so whilst he would dearly prefer to have a rebreather right now, things aren't as bad as they could be. They still generally suck though, if the universe is listening.

(It’s not.)

The store his dad was heading to is a stupidly fancy artisanal place that is definitely a forefront for yet another local mob. Anyone who has any experience of normal life must know that there is no tomato on the planet worth seventy-three dollars. Jack is not anyone.

Tim finds the store, the windows smashed, aisles disgraced by fallen food. It’s empty, already looted. The lights flicker out as he forces his way inside, and his nightmares lurk in every shadow. Tim turns a corner, coming face to face with Bruce’s disappointed scowl and Alfred’s upset bucket, before he blinks, and the visions fade. Out the corner of his eye he keeps catching glimpses of Lazarus-green eyes, flashes of a red helmet- but it’s not real. There’s no one there.

He pushes past an upturned shopping cart, stopping short at the sight of a small black wallet lying on the ground. Already knowing what he’ll find, Tim opens it, faced with a fat wad of cash and nothing else. He’s almost relieved that there’s no bank cards inside, but his father was still stupid enough to keep his monogrammed wallet whilst on the run from the law so Tim is still questioning his parentage. What idiot drops a wallet anyway? Like, he can excuse the earring if he has to- maybe Janet didn’t notice it- but a wallet? Absolutely pathetic. Get it together, Jack.

Tim takes the cash and leaves the wallet behind. It’s not like anyone will find it. As he leaves the store- Jack must be hiding somewhere around here- he catches the distant sight of Nightwing swinging between buildings. Real, he guesses. If only he had his camera on him, it would have made the perfect photo. Now, it only serves as a warning. There are too many bats about tonight, and he's had enough close calls. Tim can only hope the green haze of fear gas is enough to obscure his face from the security cameras that Babs is definitely monitoring. All Tim has to do is find his dad, pray he isn’t gassed, get them both back to the safe-house, and maybe come up with some BS to appease his mom. Oh, and groceries. They also need food. Should be easy, right?

“Oi, you!”

Tim really ought to stop asking rhetorical questions. Screw you, internal monologue. 

“Are you lost, kid?”

Slowly, he turns around. The woman who is calling to him is tall, scarred and, most tellingly, wearing the classic Scarecrow-issued gas mask. A knife gleams in her belt. She’s definitely bad news.

“Whatcha doin’ out here?”

“None of your business,” Tim replies, speeding up to get away. 

The woman follows, her footsteps heavy. 

“Don't look like none of my business. Boss wants this entire block clear, and that includes you, squirt. Whatcha doin’ here? You rob that store?”

“No.”

“I think you did. I think you got lucky. Get anything good, kid? Cause I think, if I was you, if a big scary lady was gonna gut me for a laugh and I just happened to have some money on me, I might just pay up.”

“I didn’t find anything.”

“Liar.”

Tim starts to run, but suddenly white-hot pain lances through his right leg. His knees buckle. There’s a knife in his calf. Had she thrown it? He struggles to get back to his feet, but he can hardly put any weight on his leg, which means he can hardly run, and he won’t stand much chance in a fair fight.

He turns, just in time to see the woman run at him. There’s just enough time to come up with a plan. So there’s a knife in his leg, boohoo, now he has a knife. He grits his teeth and wrenches it out, turning the blade up in the same movement to slash at the woman. It grazes her arm, and at the same time Tim uses his good leg to knock her off her feet. Whilst she’s down, he snaps off her gas mask and pulls it on, and he’s already running- hobbling- by the time she knows what’s happened. 

He picks his route at random, hoping to throw her off. A left here. A right there. Truth be told, he doesn’t have much idea where he’s going. If he had his grapple he could navigate easily from above, but he doesn’t. All he knows is he needs to find Jack before his dad gets gassed or stabbed or caught through some equally lame means. The blood flow from the stab wound is sluggish- it can’t have hit anything important- but that’s little help when Tim is sluggish, unable to outrun the woman behind him. This is ridiculous. Earlier he was able to outrun Steph and Cass, but one stab wound and he’s losing to an unnamed flunky. It’s pathetic. If Bruce ever finds out… Tim shudders at the thought, then shudders some more when he remembers Bruce will never find out because Bruce thinks Tim is dead. Dead-ish.

Actually, as Tim runs back the confrontation he had heard at the warehouse, he isn’t sure that Bruce does believe it, which is like, so unfair. Valid, but still. Tim has to have passed at least the top twelve is-Robin-dead contingencies right now. Maybe Bruce is in denial? Although, that would require him to be grieving and he shouldn’t be grieving for Tim. Bosses don’t normally grieve their interns, right? It’s almost like… 

The end of this thought is lost as he trips over his own feet. The walls of the alley he has chosen seem to close in, a thousand guilty faces reflect on rain-slick cobbles. Tim refocuses, wrenching back to the present. He’s Robin, and he’s running for his life. The wound in his leg screams for him to slow down, but he can’t slow down, can’t stop, so he ignores the pain and continues to wind his way down every street.

Running out of breath, Tim reaches a T-fork in the road. The goon is still catching, cursing Tim to high hell for stealing her mask. He hurtles around the bend, his heart pounding, and has to catch himself on the side of a building so he doesn’t go any further. 

Jack Drake is there. 

Tim has found him at last, one of two people in the abandoned street. A bag of groceries lies scattered beside him. Tim catches sight of a broken gluten-free baguette and some painted apples turning golden as yolk drips from a crumpled carton of premium eggs. Despite this, Jack looks uninjured, although his eyes are unfocused, a sheen of sweat on his forehead. He catches sight of Tim and tries to move, only to be shushed as a stranger pushes him to sit down on the kerb.

Jack doesn’t look injured, but he is pale and weak. He keeps jerking- almost as if he’d been electrocuted- and he’s mumbling to himself under his breath. His dad has been fear-gassed, Tim realises, as if things need to get any worse. 

But he’s okay. He’s okay. It’s okay.

Except.

It.

Isn’t.

Because no, that’s not a stranger, offering Jack a comforting arm.

That’s Nightwing.