Chapter Text
“Good morning, bao ber”
Mom’s warm voice drew Thea out of her dreams. She blinked awake, watching as her mom’s silhouette slowly slid into focus. Mom’s long dark hair fell as she leaned down to Thea. Thea smiled up at Mom through heavy lidded eyes. Everything was so warm, warm, cosy and safe and Thea should just turn back into the pillow and blankets and just…
“Come on Thea, qi lai, it’s 9:00,” The warmth from Mom suddenly shifted as she straightened up. “Kuai dianr, let’s go,” she said, walking to the other side of the room and opening the blinds. Thea sat up, rubbing her eyes before stumbling out of bed. She toddled over and took Mom’s hand as they walked out of her room and into the kitchen.
Dad was already there. He perked up at the sight of them, gesturing to the plate of pancakes and bowls of porridge on the counter.
“Hello my lovely ladies! Did you have a good sleep, Thea?” He got up and walked over to Thea, picking her up and spinning her around before propping her on his hip.
“Daaaad~” Thea giggled, “Put me down I wanna eat!”
“Did you brush your teeth yet?” Dad rumbled, bouncing her up and down.
“Um…"
“You can’t eat with stinky breath! Go brush your teeth, stinky!” He dropped Thea suddenly and lightly flicked the back of her head, sending her running off shrieking with laughter.
She rushed through her morning routine. Thea bounced back into the kitchen. Dad was eating the porridge while Mom stood in front of an open fridge, yelling something at Dad.
The yelling stopped suddenly when Thea sat down at the table. She pulled a bowl of porridge towards herself. Mom gave a considering hum before she spoke.
“Bao, you know that we are leaving today right?”
Right. Her parents were going to be leaving for the longest trip they’ve ever been on without her. How could she forget?
“Mrs. Mac is going to be checking in on you every day in the morning, picking you up from school and all your extracurriculars and giving you dinner, but she will leave you alone after that. You’ll have to be very grown-up and do your homework and go to sleep on your own, alright?” Dad cut in, holding on to her hand and looking her in the eye.
“Don’t worry Thea, you're a big girl now, you can handle yourself. But Jack, are you sure you can’t take her with us? She could be very useful in the excavations.” Mom turned to Dad. He quirked an eyebrow and sighed.
“Jan, we’ve been over this. You are not bringing our daughter to Peru and using her to explore the small high places in the ruins just because she might find something that we cannot. She is staying home where she is safe and not disturbing her school.”
Mom only huffed out a breath before turning and smiling at Thea. Thea couldn’t meet her gaze.
“Are you sure I can’t go with you? I’ll be very good, I won't get in the way or anything!” She begged. Thea didn’t want her parents to leave her for so long. Even though they’ve left her before, those were only for a few weeks at most. This was for a whole month!
“Come now, Thea, don’t beg. Drakes don’t beg,” Mom chided softly, “You’ll be okay. Why don’t we make some dumplings before we go? You know the saying, shang che jiao zhe, xia che mien. Dumplings for the road, noodles to come home. It’s good luck to eat dumplings before you go on a trip, you know?”
“A-alright, Mom.” Thea wiped her eyes. God, why was she crying? She’s supposed to be better than this, she’s a big girl now, even her parents said. She shook her head and gave Mom a smile. Mom smiled back, her eyes crinkling at the edges. They finished breakfast quickly after that. Her parents vanished upstairs to do some last minute packing and Tim went back up to her room.
She pulled out her “bat-box” from the closet. Placed neatly on the cover of her scrap book was the photo of her and Dick Grayson, Robin, at the circus. The rest of the night might have been soaked in tragedy, but she held that day in a special place in her heart because she got to meet Dick Grayson. She took out a pair of scissors and today's news. Time passed quickly as she sat there, meticulously going through every page for just a smidge of the iconic nighttime duo.
That was where her dad found her, sitting on the floor surrounded by scraps of paper carefully sticking cut-out pictures in her album.
“Thea, come downstairs, Mom is already preparing the dumpling skins. What’re you doing?”
Thea quickly closed the lid on the box. “I’m just finding more stuff about Robin! Did you know he stopped a robbery all on his own last night?”
“I did not, thank you for telling me. Are you ready to make dumplings?”
“Yeah!” Thea jumped up. “Let’s go, let’s goooo!” She dragged her dad by the hand, together they dashed down the stairs to the kitchen where Mom was kneading dough in a huge bowl. She smiled when they ran in.
“The skin is almost ready and I already made the filling.” Mom nodded her head at another large metal bowl. “Thea, I got a step-stool for you in case you need it.”
Thea quickly clambered up and peeked over the counter to see what her mom was doing. Mom got out the dough and rolled it out in a log before taking a large butcher knife and cutting the log into small sections. Thea watched as her mom rolled the sections into perfectly flat circles, dipping them into flour and pilling them up.
“Jack, get the cutting board,” Mom called, when she finished all of the dough. Dad obediently brought out the giant circular cutting board from a cupboard and carried it back. A cloud of flour billowed in the air when he set it down. Mom had picked up the bowl of filling and was roughly mixing it together. She plopped it down and picked up a skin.
“Alright Thea, do you remember how to fold a dumpling?” Mom asked, turning to grab the meat spoon.
“Uhhh…”
“That’s ok,” Mom chuckled, “Here I’ll show you. Take the skin and put a little bit of filling in the center. Dip your finger in the water and spread it along the edges of half of the skin like this, see? And then you just squeeze the top together and pinch in the sides. Then you just fold the top to make it pretty, and you’re done!” She put a perfect dumpling in the center of the cutting board. “Now you try”
Thea picked up a skin. She grabbed the spoon and placed a generous portion of filling in the middle. She wet her finger and dragged it along the edge of the dumpling skin, before folding it over and mashing the sides together. Filling spilled out of the edges, coating her fingers.
Thea scowled at the mess in her hands. Mom simply chuckled and handed her a damp towel.
"Try again but this time with less filling.”
Mom was already finishing another dumpling by the time Thea finished cleaning her hands and holding a fresh skin.
“Um… I don’t think this is right?” Thea and her mom both whipped their heads around to see Dad holding what looked like a dough ball and looking rather sheepish. He somehow managed to… mush the creases of the dumpling together into something resembling a melted human head. Thea burst out laughing.
“How… did you do that?” Mom asked, tilting her head incredulously. Thea giggled at her side. She proudly presented her dumpling to them. It wasn’t perfect, lumpy on one side and slightly too thin on the other, but it was leagues better than Dad’s when she placed them next to each other.
“Very good, Thea!” Dad chuckled, “Much better than mine.” He swiped at a smudge of flour on her cheek with his equally flour-covered thumb, only spreading it more. Thea shrieked in indignation and dragged her hands down his shirt.
“Oh no you don’t!” Dad dipped his hands into the flour and flung it at her face. Well she can’t just let that stand, now can she? Thea bombed her dad with a fistfull of flour before running to the other side of the kitchen island. Dad shook the flour off his face. Thea heard the bag of flour rustling and heard her dad stomping over. She got ready to bolt.
White clouded her vision. “Ah-hahaha! I got you!” Dad crowed above her, showering flour into her hair.
“Nooo…” Thea laughed, blindly swatting her hands, “I–”
“What is going on here?” Mom’s sharp voice cut across the kitchen. Thea and Dad froze, a few specks of flour floating down from Dad’s hands. Oh no. She shivered under the force of Mom’s glare.
“Uhhh, well, you see,” Mom’s eyebrow raised expectantly. “Dad started it!”
Both their heads turned towards Thea, one in scrutiny and the other in betrayal.
“Wha- Thea! I didn’t- you- we-” Dad sputtered. Better him than me, Thea thought ruefully. Mom studied them for half a minute more.
“Clean up the kitchen, both of you.” She ordered, before turning on her heel and whisking out of the kitchen. Thea turned to look at her dad. Dad turned to look at her.
“Oops”
They burst into giggles. Dad sighed, “I guess we better get to work then,”
- === ~*~ === -
Later that night. The family sat down with a fresh pot of dumplings.
“Since this is a special occasion,” Mom smiled, “we won’t do etiquette training. But that doesn’t mean you can just slack off while we’re gone. We live in a high class society, when you eventually have to attend an event, they will try and eat you alive. Especially because we’re Drakes. We do have a reputation to maintain.” She gave a pointed look. Thea nodded quickly and switched out her forks for a pair of chopsticks. Mom smiled softly and loaded her plate with a generous heaping of dumplings. Dad poured vinegar and soy sauce into little dishes and set them in front of each plate.
They dug in. The dumplings were amazing, fragrant sesame and green onions filled her mouth, mixing so well with the crunchy mu er and pork meat. It was delicious. Thea slurped up all her dumplings like a man starved.
Thea heard her dad calling her as she was putting her plates in the sink. “Thea, come here, I have something to show you,” He called. Thea obediently trotted over.
“Here,” He handed over a largish box wrapped neatly in star printed wrapping paper. “I know we’re gonna be gone for a while so we got you a little something.”
Thea tore through the wrapping. Shreds of paper fell to the ground and in her hands she held a pristine Nikon camera, still in the box. Thea gasped and looked up at her dad, eyes shining.
“Really? Oh, thank you, thank you, thank you!”
Mom walked over and rested her hands on Dad’s shoulders. “Take lots of pictures for us, okay? I’ll take pictures of our dig and when we come back we can trade!” She smiled.
“Yeah! I’ll take pictures of all the cool things!” Thea took the camera out of the packaging and began diligently reading the instruction manual. It was so much more high quality than her old camera, she couldn’t wait to use it.
“Alright kiddo, you can mess with that for a bit but don’t forget to head to bed soon. Your mom and I have to double check everything before we leave.” Dad said mock-sternly. Mom laughed and smacked a kiss onto her forehead. “Have fun with that xiao bao,” She whispered conspiratorily before whisking off with Dad.
- === ~*~ === -
The next day Thea woke up just fine. Today was the big day. Today was the big day. She put on her socks and crept out of bed.
“Jack! You have the passports right? And our permits?” Mom hollered from the kitchen as she frantically banged through the cabinets. “Oh, Thea! Good morning baby. Mom’s making breakfast right now, okay? Why don’t you just go and get ready,”
That morning was a whirlwind of activity and stress. Finally, at 11am, Thea stood on the front step of Drake Manor, watching the chauffeurs load the many suitcases and duffle bags into the car. Dad was directing them and Mom was checking everything one last time. She walked in front of Thea and kneeled down.
“You’ll be okay without us right? You can always call us if you need us too. It’s only for a month, we’ll be back before you know it. You’ll have fun by yourself with no one nagging you, won’t you,” Mom held out her arms and Thea crashed into her chest, hugging her tightly. “I love you xiao bao ber.” She whispered
Dad swept her up from behind into a crushing hug. “Be good while we’re gone, make reasonable choices and don’t get into the ER, alright kid? We’ll see you in a month princess,” Mom pecked her forehead one last time.
And with that, they stepped into the car. Thea waved at them from the step and they waved back. She watched as the sleek back car turned the corner and away from her view. And then she was alone.
What does she do now?