Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

Tim kneeled behind a foul smelling air vent atop a long abandoned building mere blocks away from the Iceberg Lounge with a sinking feeling in his gut. He had the same feeling when Mrs. Mac came in on a Wednesday instead of a Thursday and social services arrived to tell him he had thirty minutes to pack up his things. He felt it when he stood outside the Family Judge’s office doors with a court appointed lawyer on one side and his social worker on the other, just before the Judge informed him that there was “overwhelming evidence of criminal neglect” and that he was to attend court ordered therapy. It was there when he turned thirteen and realized he’d never get a proper bat mitzvah. The feeling was there when he checked on Mrs. Mac’s foster application in the CPS database and found it denied on the grounds of unemployment.

He had followed a group of Penguin’s men from the Iceberg’s side exit up, round the block and a few streets down on a whim. The rooftop he’d chosen was a familiar one, though in his four years of following the Waynes around Gotham, it had never smelled so terrible. Perhaps some squatters had recently taken up residence and were burning something a few floors down. The scent was similar to sulfur but tinged with sharp gasoline at the end of it. Tim tolerated it, if only because the roof itself gave him perfect vantage over a couple of Batman’s routine stops while keeping him safely hidden.

Tim flattened himself beneath the bulking protrusion of the fume vent and army crawled to the lip of the building. He focused his camera as the group of men approached Ace Chemical labs. One man, white, middle-aged with inconspicuous clothes withdrew a crowbar from his coat. Tim waited for him to twist his hips then rapidly clicked through the motion as the crowbar connected with the large glass doors. Piercing alarms erupted from the building. Another man, shorter with tanned skin and a bandana over his face stumbled back. He took off his jacket and in the motion of him brushing away the stray bits of glass from the doorframe, Tim got a good shot of a dark tattoo curling around his forearm. Just as the men were stepping into the building, the crowbar guy turned to look out and Tim swore he looked right at him. He took the shot.

Tim shuffled back a few feet away from the edge of the building, his breath heavy in his chest and the taste of sulfur on his tongue. He flicked through the images, lingered on the last one. There was no way. Tim specifically chose this building because it was too tall for the streetlights to reach the top. He was careful. He was always careful. But when he looked at his LCD, the man was looking back.

Not even ten minutes later, the men were leaving the way they came. Exactly the way they came. Tim held back a cough at the overpowering smell of sulfur emanating from the vents above him. He quickly switched out his camera lens from a 300mm lens to 16mm as the men turned into the alley beside him. Once Tim angled his camera into the alley, a blur of vibrant colors descended from a nearby firescape and landed onto the shoulders of Mr. Crowbar.

Tim held his breath, eyes scanning the nearby rooftops. Robin never patrolled alone. But Batman was nowhere in sight, and by the time Robin downed two out of five of the burly men, Tim was starting to get worried. Not just for Robin, though. He was kicking out the teeth of Mr. Crowbar behind a dumpster. But then one of the taller men hauled him back by the shoulders and pinned him against the wall. Robin kicked him in the groin and vaulted toward the barbed fence at the end of the alley.

The three remaining men cornered him. Tim waited for him to get them talking, to quip and stall, but Robin just froze. In the scuffle, one of the men’s ski masks was torn away, revealing a ring of tattoos circling his ear beneath a shaved layer of hair. He took the shot before he could blink. The man turned at the sound of the shuttering lens, but then Batman descended, and all hell broke loose.

He tried to document the fight, but while his vantage point was perfect for Ace Chemicals, he had to contort himself beneath the air unit to get a shot of the alley. The heavy feeling in his gut worsened when the last man fell. Usually Robin is bouncing from the heat of the battle and hanging from Batman’s arm at this point. But he stood still at the end of the alley, his fists balled at his sides.

Batman loomed over the unconscious, nearly toothless form of Mr. Crowbar and pointedly stepped over him in two careful strides.

“Are you hurt?”

Robin scoffed, “I had it handled, I didn’t need you to bail me out.”

“We agreed, you don’t go out on your own.”

Tim sucked in a sharp breath. There was nothing quite like an argument between father and son. He knew them intimately. Though he could admit he had let himself pass a fair share of boundaries the Wayne’s didn’t know he was crossing, this was one he’d rather leave untouched. But Tim was practically pinned beneath the ventilator and couldn’t shuffle out without them hearing. Even as the stench in the air raked against the back of his throat, Tim waited.

Robin snapped, “No! You talked and expected me to listen, there wasn’t any agreement about it B!”

Batman stepped closer, “You fell on your wrist. Can I see?”

“It’s fine!”

Any moment now, Batman would insist they return home. They would leave, and so could Tim. He pressed a gloved hand against the bandana covering his mouth.

He coughed.

One muffled hack into his hand. Tim didn’t need to look to know they’d be onto him in seconds. He threw himself away from the ledge, banged against the ventilator above him, and began to wheeze. The air tasted like stomach acid, but he shoved his camera into his bag and scanned the surrounding buildings for escape.

A shadow loomed over him. Tim turned, scurried back, dust and dried pigeon shit caked into his clothes but none of that mattered. Tim’s chest tightened so much he wondered if it would burst. The darkness stepped closer. Cold, grim vengeance here to take him away again.

“Hey, it’s okay.”

Robin stepped out from behind the darkness with his hand outstretched and that was somehow worse. He’d rather be taken to Arkham for his creepy obsession with Batman than have to meet Robin like this. He never planned for this; Wanted it, always, but never planned for it.

“I’m Robin–” The Robin, Jason Todd, knelt five feet in front of him, “can you tell me your name?”

He most certainly could not. But Robin was eyeing something behind him– or, at least Tim thought he was– and the vigilantes were poised to pounce. Tim shuffled backward and felt his hand wrap around the lip of the building.

Oh. That’s right. Six story building.

“Wait, that’s okay. You don’t have to tell me that.” He crouched low, hands raised, “Do you have a family? Somewhere safe I can take you?”

Tim considered the prospects of having a minor heart attack. Of course he had a family. They were an ocean away and wouldn’t return for five months. Why couldn’t he have just gone back to boarding school like they asked? Graduating early and attending Gotham High just because he hoped to see them more often only made it so he’d never live with them again. He’d never even see them again if they took him to Arkham. Batman’s arm disappeared into his cloak, probably for handcuffs. Tim needed to run.

“We’re not gonna hurt you–” Not until they found out the shit he kept on his camera– “why don’t you just step away from the ledge and– wait!”

Tim threw himself over the alley and onto the building beside it. It was a story shorter, and he would’ve rolled to absorb the fall if not for the wire that wrapped around his foot. His face planted into the roof but he didn’t have time to think about the pain, the wire was going taught. His foot tugged toward the shouting behind him. Tim reached for his boot and tore at the laces, wiggling his foot out and making a break for it.

The morning after his eleventh birthday, Tim’s father took him to visit Drake Industries. He sat him down in an office that received more foot traffic than anywhere in Drake Manor and told him what it meant to be a man.

Among other things, he explained that Tim would be changing boarding schools to one better fit for the Drake name. He listed the classes and extracurriculars Tim would take to set himself up for the future– all of which Tim ensured to excel at, only if so he could make the bike ride back to Gotham for a couple stolen hours of independence. One of these extracurriculars, however, was track and field.

Graciously, his dad gave him the choice between track and basketball. And although Tim preferred basketball for its strategic quality– his height being equally disadvantageous for both sports– his dad gained a glint of nostalgic pleasure toward the former. It wasn’t a hard decision to make.

In his brief two years in middle school before graduating early to attend Gotham High, Tim ran the 400m sprint for an audience of families and coaches. He got used to the offset feeling in his shoulders and craning of his neck around the bend of the track to look into the stands of cheering parents.

The turn was his favorite part of the sprint, if only for the rush of hope in his chest at the sight of the crowd. The approach to the finish came with the sinking of disappointment when the faces of the audience came into clear focus and the Drakes were distinctly absent.

Tim didn’t have the strength for the mile, if only because he’d feel the same ache in his chest at every lap.

At this moment, Tim was oddly grateful. He could hold a fair sprint.

But he wouldn’t last long. His gait was uneven and the graveled rooftops dug like needles into his shoeless foot. He thought he lost Batman two rooftops ago, so he nearly fell into the closest fire escape when he heard right behind him:

“Robin, wait.”

Tim took it as an opening and threw himself down the nearest fire escape, knees and elbows colliding with metal ladders, then into someone’s recycling bin. It hurt. His ankle hurt, the sole of his foot hurt. There were tiny rocks stuck to his sweat-soaked forehead and he was probably bruised like a week-old banana.

He felt like his heart was going to explode.

But, like a true Gothamite, Tim ignored the shouting match on the rooftop behind him, ducked his head, turned a corner, and ran.

***

The first thing he did was ditch the wig. He could never get that smell out, and now that Batman’s seen his disguise, he’ll be looking for it. The mask was next, then his jacket, which he figured took the brunt of the stench. He considered discarding the shoe, but that felt too risky. If they found the matched set somewhere near his foster home, it’d be easier to trace back to him. It felt wrong to walk around with one shoe, though, so Tim stowed it in his bag, determined to lose it somewhere right before garbage day.

By the time he made it back to his foster home the sun was cresting the horizon. He had been running, walking, and searching his belongings for tracking devices for hours. His ribs held onto his breath like a tightening cage, and his ankle throbbed from his earlier fall.

Tim gingerly let himself through his second floor window and set down his bag. He had about thirty minutes until Mrs. Murakami would be getting ready for her day shift at the hospital. If he was quiet, he could shower off the stench before she did so.

The apartment wasn’t huge, but it accommodated three comfortably. With their teenage daughter returning from college for the summer, Tim was set to leave in a week. He tried to delay his departure until he could find Mrs. Mac work and fast-track her foster application in a ‘random’ system error, but apparently his parents had been busy. All of their colleagues and fellow Gotham elites seemed to know about her “betrayal” of the Drake household. Though Tim had mixed feelings about it himself, he didn’t see why she should be brought to unemployment because of him.

He sat on the toilet lid while the water heated up and turned on his phone. The device burst to life with texts, missed calls, and voicemails. All from his social worker. It rang again, he answered.

“Sydney?”

Her voice was muffled, car horns blared in the background, “Tim? Oh thank god. I’ve been trying to get a hold of you–”

“What’s going on?”

Did the Murakamis think he ran away? Were the police looking for him when he was gone? He didn’t hear any APBs for someone of his description on his radio, but he could’ve missed it while he was following Penguin’s men.

“Pack up your things, I’m on my way.”

Tim turned off the water and rushed to the bedroom, put Sydney on speaker, and threw his phone onto the bed. She explained that Mr. Murakami was arrested for assault and DUI, and his wife called Sydney claiming Tim was missing. She’d find him an emergency placement until something permanent opened up, but Tim knew what she was thinking. This wasn’t the first time a foster parent called her claiming he disappeared during the night, and it probably wouldn’t be the last. Once they hung up, Tim’s entire life was packed into two modest trash bags and his backpack.

He found some sticks of jasmine incense in Mrs. Murakami’s nightstand and burned them with the doors and windows closed, hoping to cover any remaining stench from the rooftop. The eye makeup went easily, save for dark rings around his waterline he didn’t have time to scrub at. He donned a pair of bright red hightops and covered the rest of his nightwear with a conspicuous red hoodie. It wasn’t the most proper first impression for the next family, but he’d rather they think he was emo than a burglar.

He didn’t have time to dwell on it, no matter how loudly his parents complained in his head. Sydney was born and raised in Gotham. She knew how to speed.

Tim hauled his bags to the front stairs just as she turned into the driveway. Although she was dressed professionally and her hair was in long twists, there was nothing to cover up the dark smudges beneath her eyes. Her smile dropped and she rushed to Tim’s side.

“Shit, Tim. Are you okay?”

He nicked his face in a couple places running from Batman. Tim shrugged, it didn’t hurt much.

“I’m sorry I worried you.”

“What happened, Tim?” She crouched to his eye level.

Tim reflexively put on the Drake charm. “Hm? Oh, it’s nothing, Syd. It’s actually a little embarrassing. I tripped down the metro station stairs, you know the one on Franklin Street? I just wasn’t looking where I was going, but you know I think I heard a group of French tourists laughing at me. Did you know they laugh differently in France?"

Despite his years of practice, his artificial cheer wavered with a thick wave of dread in his chest. Every new placement was a risk in this city. He got lucky with most of his placements– with a few brief exceptions– but a change in neighborhood means a change in his nighttime operations. Hell, he could even be assigned a home outside the city if Sydney was getting really desperate. Who knows what kind of crime would go unnoticed if Tim had to tack on an extra hour to his commute at night.

Sydney eyed him with a frown, like she could tell he was plotting, “So this has nothing to do with the Murakamis?”

Tim forced his face to flush and scratched the back of his neck, making leaving the topic seem gracious, “I was just being stupid. Don’t worry about it, Sydney.”

“You know you can tell me anything, Tim.”

He couldn’t. Tim knew he couldn’t. But she spoke with such sincerity that, for a moment, Tim worried he wouldn’t be able to lie to her anymore.

He didn’t hate staying with the Murakamis. They contorted their lives into a shape that Tim’s fit into, but only until their real kid came home.

He was safe, now. Tim repeated the fact to himself like a mantra. No matter what, he was confident he could keep himself safe. But a part of him hadn’t left that rooftop. His heart hadn’t stopped racing and his face hurt and he really wanted to go to bed.

He shouldn’t have been seen by Robin. He narrowly escaped spending the rest of his childhood in Arkham because of his weird obsession with Batman. He wanted–

He wanted.

But he couldn’t tell her.

Tim nodded and he lied, “I just want to know where I’m going now.”

Sydney’s eyes dimmed, “There are a few places I can check on, but first, how about you put your stuff in the car while I make a call. Okay?”

He nodded again, grateful to have something to do. The trash bags remained in arm’s reach of the passenger seat and his backpack went between his legs. He checked over his shoulder and saw Sydney typing rapidly on her phone, her back turned to him. Carefully, he retrieved his camera from his backpack and switched his private SSD card to the civilian one he filled with unassuming cityscapes and pictures of dogs. The batwatching card slid easily into a concealed pocket in the waistband of his pants, sandwiched between his belt and body. Protected and innocuous, but also awkward for an adult to search.

When Sydney returned, the pressure in the car increased tenfold. Tim fiddled with the settings on his camera for twenty minutes. They headed north through Chinatown and Coventry. Tim had no idea where they were going. He stowed his camera and turned his attention to his fraying cuticles, which occupied him for another few minutes.

“Tim, I wanted to ask you something before we get there.”

“Yeah?” He knew what this was about. Tim picked a layer of dead skin from his left thumb, then the layer beneath that.

“What were you doing out last night? The Murakamis were worried. They were!” Sydney insisted when he huffed. “Julie called me from the police station. She thought you ran away.”

“I didn’t run away. I was just–”

“Just what? What were you doing Tim?! What were you thinking?” She gripped the steering wheel tightly. Eyes on the road.

“I just…” Tim looked out the window as they turned onto the Robert Kane Memorial Bridge. His chest tightened. “Are we going to Bristol?”

“Don’t avoid the question, Tim.”

“Sydney!” Tim raised his voice for the first time that night, his eyes wide. “Where are we going?”

Her eyes flicked to him. They said, ‘we are not done’. Her shoulders dropped with a deep breath.

“Your emergency placement, I was going to wait to tell you until we got closer, but I think some time out of the city would do you some good. You might’ve met him before. I helped him get his sons adopted over the years, he’s a good man.”

She turned off the freeway and onto a long winding road. Tim knew the road well, it led right past his house.

Tim paled, his heart dropped into his stomach. He had been so careful. One slip up on that roof was all Batman needed. He slumped back in his seat; nauseously held his arms around his stomach.

The gates to Wayne Manor opened like an unhinging jaw. Although Tim had attended several galas there before, he looked upon the house with fresh eyes. The eyes of a criminal.

The manor itself arched over the hillside like a castle. Several pointed spires and banded towers stuck out from the winged estate. They came to a stop in front of a long, grandiose staircase that took them from the ornamental driveway and garden to the front of the mansion. Tim noted the solid wall encasing the perimeter of the estate carefully hidden beneath layers of shrubbery and tastefully overgrown English ivy.

“Tim.” Sydney spoke in a careful tone, “I want you to be on your best behavior with this placement. Mr. Wayne is a good man. I’m not going to get a call from him in the middle of the night like I did from Mrs. Murakami, right?”

Tim thought about how Batman’s cloaked figure swallowed the city’s light like a black hole. How his scratched palms and bruised body ached from his dash across the rooftops. How terrifying the world would be from behind bars, all because some twisted part of him couldn’t get the idea of standing beside Batman and Robin as a family out of his head.

“Right,” was all he could say.

At the behest of his social worker, Tim ducked out of the car, squared his shoulders, and summoned every ounce of his former life to his fingertips, intent on charming his way out of prison.

***

Jason clutched a six pack of white socks to his chest like a lifeline. Alfred handed them to him after refreshing not one, but three guest bedrooms in the family wing because, “it would be nice if they had a choice.” He didn’t know which room to set them down in. So he held them.

He got three fleeting hours of sleep after patrol before he was woken by Bruce. He was asked if he’d be okay having another kid around the house for a few days. It was everything Jason could do not to sigh in outright relief. Bruce had been a constant force of worry since Ethiopia. Corralling him into therapy he didn’t want and protection he didn’t need. Dick was almost just as bad. Another charity case was just the thing he needed to divert their attention and give him some room to breathe.

His first thought when he saw the boy was ‘oh, it’s little Bruce.’

There was a hint of eyeshadow around his eyes and the beginning of a nasty bruise across his cheekbone, along with a couple small cuts to match. He was dressed just how Jason imagined his dad did in high school: dark and a little edgy. He and Sydney hauled a couple trashbags into the foyer. Jason noticed he had a subtle preference for his left side. When he introduced himself, he had an innocent knockoff of the Brucie Wayne Smile.

“Sorry we had to come so early, I’m Timothy Drake,” He shook Bruce’s hand like a businessman, he couldn’t have been older than fourteen, “I believe we’ve met once or twice before, Mr. Wayne.”

“Please, just Bruce is fine. This is my second son, Jason. My eldest, Dick, lives in Blüdhaven but he stays here on the weekends.”

Jason laughed to break the tension. He forgot how awful new foster placements were. “Maybe just to do his laundry.”

“That’s just ridiculous, Jay. He also comes for Alfred’s cooking,” Bruce grinned.

Jason was still holding the socks. He couldn’t give them to the kid, he clearly had his hands full. “You go to Gotham High, right?”

“Yeah, I’m a sophomore next year.” There was a defensive tilt to his tone. Jason didn’t blame him. Being a child prodigy sounded overrated and lonely.

“Hey, that’s great! I can drive you to school.”

“If you want.” He was still smiling, but his knuckles were turning white around the straps of his backpack. Jason didn’t need Robin training to recognize his discomfort.

“Hey B, is it okay if I show Tim around some?”

“Of course!” Bruce smiled again, and Jason still couldn’t reliably tell how much of it was real, “Sydney and I have some paperwork to do anyway, I’m sure you boys would find it boring.”

Jason caught a look between him and Sydney he probably wasn’t supposed to see, “Thanks. It’s good to see you again, Syd.” He turned to Tim, who was attempting to haul all three trashbags and his backpack at once. “C’mon, the family wing is this way. Here, I can take some of those.”

He grabbed a couple bags and led the kid through the arching gothic halls. “The manor has two wings, one’s for the public and the other is ours. I mean, they’re both ours, but we live over here.”

Jason guided him through the bulk of the family wing, pointing out rooms that they actually use and which ones just gather dust. The library got a special mention for being the best room in the house, but so did the theater and the tower he uses to read and the catch-all living room they end up in just because it’s near the kitchen. The kid was polite and kept his gaping to the minimum, but Jason wouldn’t blame him if he was surprised by the vastness of his new home. Jason very nearly lost his mind his first night here. Bruce’s wealth was so beyond the reach of his comprehension, it sometimes makes him angry. But, he supposed, Bruce must feel the same way.

“This is my room,” He opened the door and recalled the absurd amount of dirty clothes and stacked books he had strewn across the floor. He closed it. “These three are empty, you can sleep in any of them. Over there is Dick’s room. B’s is at the end of the hall.”

Tim smiled politely, “Thank you for your hospitality.”

“Uh, yeah. Of course dude,” Jason’s brain stalled. All the teenagers he knew from when he was in the system were short tempered, scared, or defensive. Jason was probably all three. This kid invented the new category: professional. He was a professional foster kid. Jason’s gut churned at the thought and he tried to move on.

“Everything you need should be in there,” He said when Tim picked a room close to the stairs, “I think that bathroom is shared with the bedroom next door, but no one uses it so you should be fine. Alfred’s making breakfast, but he shouldn’t be done for at least another thirty minutes if you want to get settled in.”

They set the trashbags by the foot of the bed. Jason noted Tim was still gripping his backpack like a lifeline. Jason winced and remembered when his shoes got stolen in a group home before he started sleeping with them on. He kept his things close back then too.

“Right. I’ll uh, leave you to it then,” he retreated into the hall, then stopped himself. “Oh, Tim!”

The boy froze, halfway turned away with one hand on the doorknob and the other around his backpack. He looked at Jason, his face completely pale, eyes wide, and Jason could kick himself. Jason extended the six pack of socks.

“These are for you. Mine always had holes in them when I was in the system.”

The kid hesitated for a long moment and Jason wondered if he’d already scared him off. Then, Tim took the socks and thanked him pleasantly.

The door closed with a heavy thud.

When Jason returned to his bed to catch up on sleep, any relief at having another problem around the house was gone and a wave of frustration and shame filled the space it left behind.

Chapter Text

Some time ago.

Georgie Croft makes a living off the hollow grief of Gotham City. Broken people come to her door so she can shoulder their burdens and teach them to piece themselves back together. She has talked through divorces, the loss of family, friends, and even pets. She understands better than most how grief can sink its teeth into you and chew your life into pieces. Georgie has accepted grief into her home, sat with it, had tea with it, and guided it out once more.

The Batman is standing in her doorway.

Before Georgie thinks to scream, or run, or talk Batman down from whatever brought him to her office, she considers the notion that a man like him must have a lot to mourn to end up that way.

“Can I help you?” She says in a practiced, professional tone.

There are very few reasons people bring themselves to her door, and even fewer if they are there for the first time. Nearly every day Georgie Croft spends in her office is the worst day of one of her patient’s lives.

A spot of blood appears on the carpet beneath him.

“Are you injured?” Georgie asks, but she knows the answer. If Batman was injured, he wouldn’t come to her. But Georgie Croft is a professional, and it is only appropriate for her to ask.

A low growl of a voice replies, “It’s not mine.”

“If you come in, may I please ask that you clean yourself up?” She holds out a box of tissues. This is not their usual intended purpose. She tries not to think about it.

He accepts them, mops up the blood on his hands and pockets the wad of tissues somewhere beneath the void of his cloak. Georgie steps around her desk, intentionally leaving her notepad behind, and takes her seat.

“Please, sit wherever is most comfortable.” That one was pushing it, but for this to work, she needs to treat him like any other patient. He hates that, she assumes by the way he goes still in the doorframe. She’ll probably never see him again. But this is her office. There are rules. She’d sit in her seat, and he’d sit in his. Anything else tips the carefully cultivated balance of the room.

Georgie waits. She has a lot of experience in waiting. It used to bother her earlier in her career. There’s an enormous pressure to keep conversation flowing within the neat and tidy confines of a session. But to get to what needs to be said– the ugly knot at the center of someone’s pain– her clients require pressure. As much as she wants to see her clients leave smiling, they’re not her friends, and she can’t let them laugh away their pain if they first need to sit with it. Sometimes they need to leave looking worse than when they came in.

The two of them waited forty five seconds before Batman strided past the couch adjacent to her to sit in the corner chair opposite the window. He wore the darkness like a shroud.

“My name is Dr. Georgie Croft. You can call me Georgie, or Croft, or Doctor Croft. I’ve been practicing talk therapy here for twelve years, and grief therapy for seven. I did an undergrad in social work here in Gotham and finished my Phd in developmental psychology at Princeton.” She let that hang in the air. I am qualified. I can help you, she said. You were right to come to me. She leans forward slightly; tries to make out his eyes in the darkness, “I was born in Gotham, and I’ve a great respect for what you’ve done for our city.”

That hit something. He shifts in the shadows, gripping his hands.

“Now, what brought you in today?”

Twenty two seconds.

Batman leans back in his seat, making physical space to compensate for a glimpse of vulnerability. He says, hoarsely, “My… partner, requested it of me.”

Georgie nods to make a show of her understanding. “Why do you think your partner wants you to seek therapy?”

This pause was longer. Just as she considers moving to another question, Batman says, “I… forced him to start seeing someone. He wasn’t happy about it.”

“Why do you think that is?”

Batman’s leather gloves creak but the pause was shorter this time, “He wants to be independent. To be seen as an adult.”

“Do you think that going to therapy yourself will help him see that he has nothing to be ashamed of?”

He goes silent. She must’ve pushed a little too far. Thirty seconds, then fifty, eighty. Georgie redirects, “May I ask what brought you to have your partner attend counseling?”

He hisses, “No.”

“Okay,” Georgie replies a little too quickly. She takes an exaggerated breath. She hit something big, and even if he can’t express that properly, she has to set an example. Her fingers ache to commit this to memory, but this client is different and she needs to respect that. In her mind, she goes to a bookshelf labeled “B,” withdraws a dark leather tome and writes this moment into its blank pages. When she’s done, Georgie flattens her hands against her lap and repeats herself, “Okay. How about we talk about something else.”

The shadow in the corner does nothing more than hum, but it’s not a rejection.

They get to work.

Chapter Text

Tim slid the six pack of crisp white socks beneath the mahogany four poster bed of the Wayne’s guest bedroom. He’d have to be careful about saying anything incriminating while in the bedroom, at least until he could comb through the seemingly harmless gift with his metal detector. If it was bugged with a microphone or something they’d use to tap into his devices, they’d have all the evidence they’d need to send Tim away.

He wanted nothing more than to fall into the Wayne’s feather-soft mattress and plump duvet, cushier than he ever imagined a bed could be, but he had work to do. The photos from the previous night needed to be scanned through and edited. He usually printed his photos at the library and found a way to get them to Gordon the next night, but that wasn’t an option while stuck in Wayne Manor.

He could resort to using a few proxy servers overseas and leave the photos on Commissioner Gordon’s desktop at the GCPD. He used something similar before whenever he hacked into CPS and Drake Industry’s databases, but they were comparatively unguarded next to the goliath of an online security system the cops had adopted in the past couple years.

Before he could get anything done, he needed to ensure his safety.

If the Waynes can’t prove he’s the kid from the roof, then they can’t stop Sydney from shipping him off somewhere else. As an emergency placement, he only had to hang tight for a day– a week at most. Even if they already have proof Tim’s been following them, they have their secret identities to worry about. If they were actually going to apprehend him, it wouldn’t be by the hands of Bruce Wayne and Jason Todd. It would be Batman and Robin’s doing.

Was this an attempt at reconnaissance? Were they merely keeping Tim off the streets so he didn’t skip town while they gathered evidence? Were they trying to figure out what Tim knows before sending him off to Arkham? Or was this some convoluted attempt of giving Tim the life he always dreamed of, so it’d hurt more when it’s taken away?

His heart hadn’t stopped throbbing since the rooftop. He was starting to wonder if there was something seriously wrong with him. It wasn’t always that loud. He swore, it wasn’t.

Tim shook his head. He needed to focus. His first priority should be ensuring he wasn’t being filmed or recorded. If he took his laptop out of its faraday bag and started working the Ace Chemicals case, he was practically asking to get caught.

He wasn’t in the practice of employing much hardware in his batwatching other than his typical camera gear and an amalgamation of second-hand tech he soldered together into the monstrosity he called a laptop. Tim never considered how he’d secretly film or record someone in their room before.

There was a long, smooth desk set into an arching bay window. A couple bookshelves made from the same wood as the desk were similarly inlaid into the adjacent wall. With a cursory investigation, none of the paneling slid or pushed away from the walls, and the windows were similarly untampered. A fine filigree moulding lined the upper walls and led through the bathroom into the adjoining room.

Just as Jason said, the bathroom was stocked with an array of toiletries and extra towels. He searched the inside of the toilet, the empty medicine cabinet and anywhere else he’d think to hide a piece of technology. Next door, there was a daybed with frilly lace sheets and, in place of a desk there was a dressing table. He shuffled through the room without finding anything of promise. Defeated, Tim returned to the bedroom.

On the bedside table was a lamp and a small antique clock. If he were hiding something, that would have the best vantage point of the room. Tim wouldn’t be able to disassemble and reassemble the clock without breaking it, but if it had a camera, all he had to do was turn it to face the wall. When he sat on the edge of the bed to check the lamp for a listening device, Tim was hit with an overwhelming wave of fatigue. He held his head in his hands as the room spun around him.

What was he thinking? Until he could get some sleep and do some research, he wouldn’t be besting Batman in his own house. Maybe, he thought as the prospect of sleep overruled his paranoid desire for privacy, if he just acted like the model son his parents trained him to be, the Wayne’s would give him enough space to make a real plan.

Tim toed off his high tops and fell back into the down pillows. Between one thundering beat of his heart and the next, Tim was asleep.

***

Tim woke up seconds later. Or— it felt like it. He couldn’t have slept for long, but someone was knocking on his door, and that only happened when he fell asleep on accident and made his mom wait on him. When Tim got up, he wasn’t in his room, he opened the door and Bruce Wayne was standing behind it.

He realized he must look really stupid. Even for a ten minute nap, his hair had a terrible habit of sticking up like a newborn bird. He was still technically wearing the same clothes he patrolled in the night before and his big toe stuck out of his sock like a snot-nosed kid stuck out of a fundraising gala. Belatedly, Tim figured his mom would be mortified if she could see him now.

“Sorry, did I wake you, chum?”

But Bruce Wayne wasn’t quite Bruce Wayne either. He wasn’t exactly Batman, but the Bruce from his memory wore ties and cufflinks and women on either side. The man in front of him was dressed in a Nirvana t-shirt and sweatpants and wet strands of hair were dripping onto his face. He took a sip from a mug with the Princeton coat of arms, waiting for Tim to say something.

“No, I was already up.” He attempted to subdue his bedhead, “Did you need something, Mr. Wayne?”

Tim forced himself to maintain eye contact despite the flush of embarrassment that climbed up the back of his neck. There was a note of something sharp in the man’s eyes. A small slant to his mouth, though his frame remained relaxed. A hint of Batman. Tim’s racing heart returned at full throttle.

“Please, just Bruce is fine. I came to see if you’d like some breakfast, but if you’d rather go back to sleep, we can keep something warm for you.”

“No! No, it’s okay. I’ll eat.” He stepped into the hallway and closed the door behind him.

Bruce smiled something small and domestic and undoubtedly forced as Tim followed him to the kitchen.

“We try to eat at least one or two meals together as a family everyday. Lunch is usually a free-for-all unless I’m working from home, but Alfred will always be around to make you something if you’re hungry. If not, you have free reign of the kitchen and pantry.”

They curved down the stairs and through a hallway with arched ceilings and stone ornaments that Tim couldn’t help but think looked like bat wings.

“We don’t have any alcohol in the family wing, but if we did it would be off limits. The same goes for smoking. You’re welcome to explore the grounds whenever you want, just tell someone first. It might sound a little silly but even I’ve gotten lost around here before,” Bruce continued with a chuckle.

Tim nodded along as his mind raced. Officially speaking, the Waynes were an emergency placement. He was only supposed to be here for a few days, a week at most, until Sydney arranged a long term home for him.

In other words, Tim was on thin ice. Even if he passed whatever tests the Waynes had for him and miraculously avoided spending the rest of his childhood in jail, he couldn’t return to his nightly escapades without some major precautions.

Batman’s response times to incidents across Gotham were famously quick. For a long time, Tim thought the man operated out of the city itself, but he’d seen the Batmobile disappear into the city’s underbelly, only to notice activity on the Wayne property the next morning too frequently for him to live anywhere but the Manor. Seeing Jason’s room was proof of that. It was lived in, cluttered in such a natural way it couldn’t be artificial.

Somewhere in Wayne manor was Batman and Robin’s hideout, and Tim, already a fly caught in a web of lies, intended to find it.

Bruce led him to a large kitchen with a cushioned nook beside a set of windows. A well dressed man was setting a vast spread of breakfast foods down on the table and beside him sat Jason Todd.

“Good morning, Master Bruce,” He said in a posh accent then turned to Tim. “Master Tim, I’m Alfred Pennyworth. If you need anything please don’t hesitate to ask.”

Tim tried to stay polite, even though he felt like a fish in a shark tank. “Thank you, sir,” was all he could manage.

“Here, come sit with me,” Jason patted the spot beside him and set down a well-worn book. Tim sat and attempted to smile an appropriate amount while being in Robin’s presence for the second time in as many days. He thought he did an okay job at it, but Jason asked a blunt “So how’d you get so banged up?”

“Master Jason!” Alfred exclaimed.

“What? It’s a valid question!”

“An impolite question,” Bruce scolded and said to Tim, “You don’t have to answer that.”

“No, it’s fine.” Tim shrugged and used his go-to answer for vigilante based injuries– not that he was a real vigilante, but a boy could dream– “I just fell skating the other night. Nothing exciting, but my board got busted.”

It wasn’t the lie he gave Sydney, but they wouldn’t corroborate his story if they already knew he’s the one who's been following them. This was all just… pretend. Play-acting being a family to protect their covers, maybe to ensure Tim’s knowledge of Batman hadn’t yet spilled over into their civilian identities.

“Oh cool. Have you ever been to the park on fifty second street? I used to hang out around there all the time.” Jason asked after a silent beat.

“Yeah, that’s the one, near that old deli on Broadrick.” Tim hid his relief.

Jason nodded, “Maybe you, me, and Dick can hang out over there sometime. It’s been a while since I saw the place.”

Tim hummed in agreement but his eggs tasted like ash on his tongue. He tried to talk through breakfast like he would at any other table. Bruce went through questions with a careful tilt to his tone, like how his mom danced around quiet scandals and unspoken business practices at galas. Tim usually struggled to speak his mind in that way, but Timothy Drake excelled.

His real trouble came with Jason’s heavy handed questions of the things Bruce avoided. “How long have you been in the system?” Only a year and a half. “And how many houses have you been in?” Eight. “Did you enjoy boarding school?” ‘It was okay, definitely not for everyone but it worked for me,’ was his practiced response. “Are you planning on going to college?” He answered yes, which sprouted a plethora of other questions. Apparently Jason was particularly excited for college, with it being only two years away. Tim attempted to hide his surprise. Why would Robin need to go to college?

He let Jason carry the rest of the conversation by asking pointed questions toward things Tim thought would get the guy talking.

Jason was, unsurprisingly, a model student and athlete. He consistently got leads in the school plays since he was one of the few qualified guys interested in theater. He applied himself in political history and literature. Tim couldn’t help but think his parents would’ve been particularly impressed if they could get past the whole adopted street-kid thing. The thought was distracting enough that he managed to nod along and pretend he was learning this all about Jason for the first time.

He didn’t ask about the way Jason’s right eyelid drooped slightly more than his left, or how little concave scars littered the back of his hand, making it tremor and clatter his fork against his plate.

When Jason was discharged from the Gotham Pediatric ICU at the beginning of summer, the Waynes publicly announced Jaosn’s involvement in a major car crash. Tim could recognize a coverup when he sees it, but he couldn’t figure out what actually happened. The only thing he knew was that Robin was different after. He was off the field for half the summer and had only recently made a sporadic comeback.

It’s not like he could ask Jason about it, even though he wanted to.

When the table was being cleared and the pressure of the Waynes’ attention began to wane, Tim addressed Bruce with a forced ease.

“Is it okay if I explore the grounds a bit? It’s been awhile since I was here last.”

Bruce nodded, “Of course you can. Jason, why don’t you go with him.”

Jason agreed and Tim kept up a polite smile while his heart sank.

They ended up walking around the outer grounds of the Manor. It wasn’t ideal, but Tim figured he could scout out the inside of the building while the bats were out patrolling. He settled on counting the mansion’s windows and eyeing the outer garden wall for secret exits he could slip through if necessary.

Jason kept up the conversation for the both of them, which Tim couldn’t help but be thankful for. He kept things light; focused on gripes he had with classmates Tim didn’t know and teachers he would’ve had if he was able to go back to Gotham High. That last one stung, but Tim tried to keep it out of his face since Jason wasn’t exactly mentioning it either.

It was so easy to zone out, counting the windows and listening, Tim felt himself relax for the first time since the rooftop. When he closed his eyes, the hilltop breeze brushed against him just like it did when he was little. He found himself drifting into the fantasy of those younger years. That he and Robin were playing like brothers do; that Batman was waiting inside for them, proud that they were getting along; that they could share the Robin mantle as easily as siblings shared toys.

But when he opened his eyes, Dick Grayson wasn’t standing next to him, Jason was, and he was looking expectantly at him.

“What?” Tim asked, cheeks flushing.

“I said do you wanna get out of here?” Jason’s eyes burned holes through his childish daydreaming. He spun a keychain of car keys around one finger.

Tim’s heart skipped a beat. There’s no way. They wouldn’t let him get away with it. Not Batman.

Not Batman.

But maybe Robin.

“Sure.”

***

Jason didn’t know where he was driving until they were three blocks away from the skatepark at the edge of Crime Alley. It was a squat concrete structure hidden beneath a highway underpass that used to be a parking lot for a local grocery mart. The store had long gone out of business and the locals were using the abandoned halls for less than savory behavior. There were a handful of teenagers by the ramps and some others sleeping in the shade, but it was only just approaching noon and the scene’s nighttime crowd had yet to make an appearance.

Jason lied earlier. He hadn’t spent too much time there growing up. His mom said it was dangerous, but it’s also where she’d end up late at night when she thought he was asleep. He didn’t think Tim frequented the park either, not really; not the kid from Bristol sitting next to him, shoulders tighter than a wound up spring.

The image of Tim, face in the cement and board soaring into the street didn’t sit right with him. Jason knew it was bullshit. Bruce and Alfred knew it was bullshit. Hell, Tim probably knew it too, but if he couldn’t be honest with the Waynes, maybe he could be with a Todd.

“Order whatever you like.” Jason gestured to the deli bar after getting his usual sub. The kid was gripping his backpack again, bouncing from foot to foot like he was about to make a break for it. “It’s on me,” Jason reassured.

Rosana, the deli lady who’d been working there since Jason could remember, smiled crookedly between him and Tim. He was almost certain she had dealings with the local mobsters, but her food was so good, he never brought it up with Bruce. It’s not like she was hurting anyone.

The kid seemed to snap out of the four dimensional chess that was probably going on in his brain and ordered a reuben.

They took a seat in a plush red leather booth settled into the back corner of the deli. Jason tried to pay attention to the kid, keep up conversation to dissolve the awkward tension that hung over them since the morning began, but the moment he unwrapped his sub, his brain short circuited. The proceeding carnage would no doubt make Bruce and Alfred shudder like a pair of Victorian gentry ladies.

He was halfway through inhaling his sandwich and nearly finished with a steaming coffee when he realized Tim had barely touched his food.

“Not hungry?”

The kid looked at him, then to the side and back at Jason again. He picked up half his sandwich with two hands and smiled something painful.

“Starving, actually,” he bit into his food like it was about to run away from him, swallowed, and said, “Thank you.”

“No problem kid,” Jason said, then continued before he could think twice, “I always wanted someone to do this for me back when I was in the system– or, I guess, when I wasn’t in the system but should’ve been. There weren’t a lot of ways I could make money, even less legal ones, and everything I had went to supporting my… my mom.”

He trailed off, a lump of lead suddenly settled in the pit of his stomach. His palms began to sweat. Jason tucked back into his sandwich, intent on not having a flashback in the middle of his favorite deli sitting across from his weird foster brother. The sub was a good distraction. The meat was sweet and tender, the cheese soothing, and the spicy pickles cut through the fat like a hot knife through butter. He washed it down with rich coffee and cleared his throat.

“Anyways, I couldn’t afford it back then. And I know it might feel a little weird, but one of the first things I learned from Bruce is that he’s a pushover who spoils his kids rotten.”

It actually drove him crazy at first; how easily Bruce threw money around at his and Dick’s every whim. He understood better when he got older and learned how hard Bruce worked to get his money into the hands of Gotham’s people. He understood probably best of all when he was sat across from a hungry teenager of his own— not hungry hungry, but a different, quiet kind— with his dad’s credit card in his back pocket.

Jason almost slapped himself.

Of his own.

He needed to get some sleep or else Dick would never let him hear the end of it.

A little red in the face, Jason scarfed down the rest of his food and balled up the parchment into a greasy lump. His hand was shaking.

Tim looked down at his sandwich with a deep frown and for the first time, Jason saw a kid who was just as hurt by circumstance as he was. He wondered if the quiet hunger that hung on Tim’s lanky frame felt anything like the gnawing emptiness of a gradual starvation, cold and alone in Gotham’s backalleys.

No longer a professional, but just a teenager, Tim said, “Jason. Why aren’t… why haven’t you–”

His phone rang. The sharp tones of Toccata and Fugue that’s typically accompanied by the arrival of Dracula. Jason made it his ringtone for Bruce years ago. Tim went silent and Jason got up quickly to answer.

“Just– hold that thought.”

If the kid got an idea of the special kind of fucked his situation was with Bruce right now, he’d never open up to him. Even if he’d be gone by the end of the week, Jason couldn’t put him in that position.

He stepped into the street and waited for the door to close solidly behind him before answering.

“Yeah?”

“Is Tim with you?”

He was mad. Very mad. Maybe even ‘Robin isn’t going out tonight’ level mad. Not that that’s ever stopped Jason. Bruce should’ve known at this point that ordering him not to do something might as well be putting him on an express train to do that exact thing.

“Of course he is, B,” Jason said, slightly sharper than he meant to.

“Why did you take him to Crime Alley?”

“God, B. We’re just getting sandwiches. Can’t you just lighten up?”

Bruce growled, “You should’ve told me you were going out.”

“What does it matter, you track all my shit anyway.”

“I’m just trying to protect you, Jason.”

“Well I didn’t ask for your protection!”

“No. You didn’t.” Bruce said, his voice cold, like he knew that tone put a stone in Jason’s gut. He didn’t ask for help. He should’ve. He cursed silently and hung up on his dad. His hands were beginning to tremble and God, maybe he shouldn’t have blown off therapy these past few weeks because he was starting to freak out and this was something he was supposed to be working on. But then Bruce would be right, and he couldn’t be.

Jason ran a hand through his hair and attempted to school his expression into something approachable. He couldn’t scare the kid off, not when he was just starting to open up.

He stepped into the deli, the bell on the door made a cheery jingle and Rosana politely pretended like she hadn’t been watching him through the window. When Jason reached the booth at the back, Tim wasn’t there. His sandwich was half-eaten and the goddamn backpack he insisted on bringing was gone.

“Rosa. Where’d the kid go?”

Jason would’ve seen him leave through the front. Distantly, he heard Rosana say he was in the bathroom, but Jason’s luck wasn’t that good. In fact, apart from one exception, his luck was famously terrible.

He knocked on the door with a clenched fist. The room was quiet.

“Hey Tim. You okay in there?”

It wasn’t quiet. It was silent.

He knocked louder.

“Tim! I’m coming inside.”

Of course the door was locked. And of course he respected this shop too much to break the door down– not unless he had to.

“Rosa!” He shouted. “I need the key!”

The woman was by his side at an instant, and the door was open before he could think twice about breaking it down. Inside, the faded tiled room was empty save for a chilled breeze drifting through the small, child sized window where the wall met the ceiling.

Jason dialed his phone before he even registered pulling it out.

The line picked up at the first ring.

“What?” Bruce snapped. Jason winced. He was so grounded.

“Dad. I think I really fucked up.”