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Bruce exhales as Alfred drives up the road to Drake Manor, tamping down the irritation already rising in his gut.
“Are you looking forward to the party, sir?”
Bruce gives him a look. He thinks he sees Alfred’s lips quirk upward.
“Very funny, Alfred,” he mutters as the gate comes into view. “I’ll be glad when I don’t have to keep coming around here, if anything.”
“You’ve worked quite hard on it,” Alfred agrees. “If I didn’t know better, and it wasn’t the Drakes, I’d commend you in your efforts to make friends.”
Bruce rolls his eyes.
“I have friends, Alfred.”
“And how many of them also wear spandex on a daily basis?”
“It’s lycra, Alfred. You know that.”
Alfred hums, then rolls down the window.
“State your business,” a voice says through a crackly speaker. Bruce tries not to wince.
“Yes, I’m here to drop off Mr. Wayne for the party,” Alfred says.
Seconds later, the gate slides open, and Alfred drives up the driveway. Bruce leans back in his seat, sighing a bit. He can think of a hundred things he’d rather be doing than going to this party, most of them having to do with spending time with Clark, the boys, or even just working in the cave.
But this is important, especially since he’s found a potential connection between the Drakes and a much larger smuggling ring. And if he doesn’t go now, the Drakes will be gone for months before he can get back in.
So. Off to the party he goes.
Alfred stops in front of the house just as another car pulls away, glancing up at him through the front mirror.
“Have fun, sir.”
Bruce rolls his eyes.
“Just be ready to keep an eye out when I call,” he says as he moves to get out of the car. He opens the door and exits, shutting it himself and taking a step back.
“Oh, Bruce, you’re here!”
Bruce turns just as Alfred drives off, forcing a smile.
“Janet,” he greets cheerfully, walking up the steps to her side. “I didn’t expect to see you out here.”
“Oh, well, I was just seeing off a friend– couldn’t stay long, you know how it is. Then I saw your car pull up and decided to wait for you. You didn’t drive yourself?”
“Ah, no, not tonight. Wanted the opportunity to indulge a little, you know?”
“And you’re not worried about the car?” She asks as they walk inside. “I’ve heard that your butler has that issue with his knee.”
“No, no, Alfred’s fine. Today’s a good day.”
Janet hums as she directs her own butler to take Bruce’s coat.
“You know, he’s getting on in years,” she comments.
“Who, Alfred? He’s only sixty, he’s hardly ancient.”
“Still, he has a demanding job, doesn’t he? Have you given any thought to his successor?”
Bruce blinks, then clenches his jaw and forces down the swell of pure rage threatening to spill past his lips.
“Not seriously,” he answers smoothly. “Alfred’s still very capable. Besides, the boys are attached to him, I think if I tried to get a new butler they’d riot.”
Janet hums again.
“Well, we can’t always give our children what they want, can we?”
Bruce bites back a smart remark about that, knowing that it wouldn’t help him to point out that she probably doesn’t even know what her own son wants.
“I don’t think it’s a problem right now,” he says instead. “Maybe I’ll revisit it in a few years.”
He won’t. Not until Alfred is ready to go. And even then, he may never have another butler.
Janet buttons her lips, but before she can say anything else a member of her staff walks up to her.
“Excuse me, ma’am, but there’s a call for you.”
Janet turns to the staff member, frowning.
“Really? Now?”
“I’m afraid so, ma’am. They’re quite insistent on it.”
Janet sighs, then looks back at Bruce with a small, regretful smile.
“Well, you know where the parlor is by now, I’m sure.”
“Of course. I’ll see myself there.”
She smiles at him again, then walks off with her staff member. Bruce waits until she’s out of sight, then lets his smile drop, letting out a small sigh.
This is the last time, he reminds himself. Once he’s through with this, he’ll never have to spend time with these people again.
He takes another long breath, then turns to start walking toward the parlor. As he does, though, he just happens to glance up at the overlook from the second floor, which is when he makes a discovery.
Tim Drake is staring at him. Again.
He’s a little more hidden this time, just barely peaking out from the corner near the overlook. The head of his Batman doll is barely visible.
Bruce is used to being stared at. It comes with the territory, both as “Bruce Wayne” and as Batman. If you act the way he does, or dress the way he does, then you get stared at. That’s just the way it works.
But… for some reason, Tim’s staring is different. If it wasn’t for the fact that Tim is still months away from his third birthday, Bruce would call his gaze knowing.
As it stands, it’s just… strange.
But Bruce won’t hold that against him. He was a strange kid too, after all, and in many ways just as lonely.
Though perhaps not as strange as Tim, given that he’s done this every single time Bruce has come over in the past month. Whenever he comes over, there Tim is, watching him from behind something– a corner, a wall, one of the columns on the back patio.
He’ll admit, it has him curious. A billionaire CEO and philanthropist can’t be that interesting to a toddler, even a toddler whose main form of entertainment appears to be the local news.
He can’t exactly just ask Tim, though. For one, Tim keeps hiding from him whenever he acknowledges his presence. He’ll smile and wave, and Tim will slip further behind whatever he’s hiding behind, or run away altogether. Whatever reason he has to watch Bruce, it seems it doesn’t extend to actually wanting to interact with him.
And it’s not as though Bruce can simply walk up to him and start talking, no matter how much he may want to help him. Even the Drakes, who Bruce knows aren’t even close to attentive, would probably find that more than a little strange. And given that he’s been investigating them for six months now, he’s not willing to risk being cut off.
So, Tim’s behavior will simply have to remain a mystery for now, he thinks as he smiles and waves at the boy in question. As expected, he slips behind the corner, the Batman plush’s ears still poking out.
Bruce bites back a sigh and starts walking.
He’ll admit, his plans of helping Tim into a better living situation might be muddled by his shyness. Clark said that he was fairly talkative at the gala a few months ago, but that hasn’t been his own experience, and it may indicate that he’ll be reticent to speak with authorities.
In the end, he supposes it doesn’t matter. If Jack and Janet are convicted, he’ll be removed from their custody. Bruce can make his next move from there.
“There he is!” Bruce hears just as he walks into the parlor. He barely has time to plaster on a smile before Jack’s arm is around him; he forces himself not to throw him off or even shudder, knowing that he can’t break character now.
Even if he really, really wants to.
“You’re right on time.”
“Oh? I could have sworn the invitation said the party started an hour ago,” Bruce comments.
“Right on time for you,” Jack elaborates. “I know how committed you are to being fashionably late, Brucie.”
Bruce chuckles, then accepts a flute of champagne when it’s offered.
“So, how’s work?” He asks, eager to get Jack started on one of his long, mind-numbing stories so he can stop actively interacting. And ramble he does, which means that Bruce is safe to go over the plan in his head.
Although, considering that it’s the same as last time, he doesn’t have much to go over.
It was something of a struggle, getting back to this point. Not in getting back into the house– Jack and Janet are more than happy to have Bruce as a friend, after all. His presence, or rather, his money, validates them as members of Gotham’s high society: now they’re not just newly rich outsiders, but friends of one of the oldest and richest families in Gotham.
They’re also, to Bruce’s annoyance, smarter than he thought they were. After the last incident where the cameras went out, they switched security companies, meaning that Bruce had to spend time hacking that one and visiting often enough that his presence wouldn’t be connected to the outages.
He still did it, of course, but it took much longer to set-up the undetectable kill-switch, and he had to spend time with the Drakes. Not something he particularly enjoys.
He’ll be very happy when this is over, and he can reduce the amount of time he spends with these people.
But for now, needs must, and so he powers through inane conversations for about an hour or so. Once he feels like he’s been there long enough, he clears his throat.
“Ah, Jack? Could you remind me of what direction the restroom is again?”
Jack chuckles.
“Really, Bruce, you’re here often enough, I’d think you’d remember it by now.”
“Well, you know Bruce, dear,” Janet reminds him– she joined them about half an hour ago, having finished whatever business she needed to attend to. “Turn left and it’s just down the hall.”
Bruce laughs, thanking her before walking out of the parlor. Once he’s fair enough away, he lets his smile drop once more, then finds the corner he knows is a blindspot for the cameras. Once he’s out of sight, he pulls his phone out of his pocket, then triggers the switch to loop the cameras and turn off any extra security measures without detection.
Thirty minutes. He’d better get moving.
Drake Manor is silent save for the sounds of the party behind Bruce. It’s easy enough to navigate, and soon he’s standing in front of the door to Jack’s study.
Bruce pulls the gloves out of his jacket pocket, slipping them on before opening the door– unlocked, he probably wasn’t expecting anyone to go up here. The office, much like the rest of the manor, is full of artifacts he and Janet brought back from their adventures.
Bruce would bet they’re just as dubiously legal as the rest.
He leaves the computer alone– he’d already hacked it remotely and found nothing, so if there are records then there must be physical copies. With that in mind, he leans over the desk, sifting through some of the folders on it. He mostly finds financial reports, tax documents, a print-out of an email one of Tim’s tutors sent– nothing out of the ordinary, although he’s certain that if he compared the financial reports and the tax documents he’d find some discrepancies.
Not what he’s looking for, though. He needs to find any evidence that there was something going on with the trips, anything that could make a judge grant a warrant–
Bruce catches something moving out of the corner of his eye. He looks up, eyebrows rising when he, once again, sees Tim Drake staring at him, all but his head hidden behind the doorway.
His stomach drops.
“... hi?” He offers. “Shouldn’t you be in bed?”
Tim, to his surprise, doesn’t shy away this time. Instead, he shakes his head.
“No? It’s very late for someone your age to be awake, you know.”
“Not sleepy,” Tim replies. It’s the most Tim’s ever said to him.
“I find that hard to believe, but alright. What are you doing, then?”
“Watchin’.”
“I can see that. Why are you watching me?”
Tim doesn’t answer, furrowing his brow a little as if thinking hard.
“... cause,” he finally says.
Bruce raises an eyebrow.
“Cause?”
“Cause,” Tim repeats emphatically.
“... okay,” Bruce says. He gets the sense that he’s not going to get any further answers out of Tim anyway. “Well… I don’t suppose you won’t tell your parents about this?”
Again, to his surprise, Tim shakes his head.
“Won’t tell.”
Bruce blinks.
“You… won’t?”
“Uh-uh.”
“Why not?”
“Don’t wanna.”
Bruce frowns.
“You… don’t want to tell your parents that their friend is rifling through their things.”
“Uh-uh.”
“Well… alright. But you should go to bed now. It’s very late.”
He looks back down at the desk, sifting through the documents. There has to be something here– having no copies at all would make things too messy.
Though, it’s possible that he doesn’t have any in here. The study might be too obvious. Alternatively, he could be keeping it in Janet’s; while Bruce doesn’t have definitive proof of her involvement in this scheme, he’s certain she’s involved somehow. He’ll keep looking here, but–
“What looking for?”
Bruce startles a bit, blinking a few times before glancing up. Tim is staring at him, eyes barely above the desk.
“Pardon?” He asks.
Tim huffs a little, then points at him.
“You. What looking for?”
Bruce blinks again, then clears his throat.
“I… think that’s a little above your paygrade, Tim.”
Tim blinks, uncomprehending.
“That means you shouldn’t be involved,” Bruce clarifies.
Tim huffs again, putting a hand on the desk.
“Wanna help,” he says insistently.
“That’s… nice, but you’re two years old. There’s not a lot you can do.” Bruce looks down, his eyes scanning over the desk before he opens a drawer. He sifts around in it, eyes catching on a small brown journal. He purses his lips, then pulls it out and opens it to find it full of dates and monetary amounts, as well as shorthand notes that he can’t quite decipher.
He is, however, quite certain that if he checked the dates against the Drakes’ flight records, he’d find at least some overlap.
“There we go,” he murmurs to himself, taking a scan of the document with his contacts. He slips it back into the stack, arranging it the way it had been before.
“All done?” Tim asks.
“Yes. You should go to bed.”
Tim doesn’t move. Instead, he looks at him with big, wide eyes.
“No help?”
Bruce frowns.
“No, I still don’t need help.”
Tim’s expression crumbles, turning so forlorn for a toddler that it’s almost comical.
“Can’t help at all?”
“Not unless you know where the artifacts are.”
Tim’s head pops up, eyes wide.
“Downstairs.”
Bruce blinks, glancing up at him.
“You– there’s a shipment here? Now?”
“Uh-huh. Base-ment.”
Bruce’s lips part, then close.
“Tim,” he starts, “do you understand that your parents could get in a lot of trouble if they’ve done something wrong?”
Tim wrinkles his forehead.
“Time-out?”
“A very big, very long time-out, yes. They won’t be able to stay in this house anymore, and more than likely you won’t see them again for a long time.”
“Oh.” Tim looks down for a second, then, continuing in his apparent tradition of surprising Bruce, shrugs. “Otay.”
“Okay?”
“Yeah. Do bad. Big trouble.”
Bruce frowns.
“Wouldn’t you be sad if they were gone?”
“Always gone. Same.”
Bruce’s heart sinks a little.
“It really wouldn’t matter to you? They’re gone that often?”
He knows, of course, that that’s the case. To hear Tim speak without any attachment to his own parents, though…
“Mm. Don’t care. Wanna help.”
Bruce swallows, then, after a moment, exhales slowly.
“Okay, Tim. Can you show me the basement?”
“Mm-hm!” Tim runs around the desk, then grabs Bruce’s arm. “C’mon!”
Bruce allows himself to be pulled along, and it’s only just now that he takes stock of what Tim has on– a red pajama top with green bottoms, as well as a yellow blanket tied around his shoulders.
Robin’s colors.
Bruce frowns, furrowing his brow a bit.
A coincidence, surely. Tim is obsessed with Batman, it would make sense for that to transfer over to Robin as well. Given Tim’s age, he’s more likely to see himself in Robin than in Batman, and may even model his own behavior after Dick’s in costume.
Minus the acrobatics. From his observation, Tim is not particularly coordinated.
Still, it’s a little strange being led by a child in those colors. Usually Bruce is the one out in front, the one making sure that Dick is as safe as he possibly can be. Of course, there’s significantly less danger here, given that they’re in a manor outside of Gotham rather than skulking around the streets, but still.
“This way!” Tim says, tugging him the opposite way from which he’d came.
“Why? The stairs are the other way.”
“Back stairs! No party!”
It takes Bruce a second to get it.
“This is a different route, one that’ll keep us away from the party?”
“Yeah!”
Alright. Credit to the small child, that’s more thought than he thought he’d put into this.
They descend the stairs quickly after that. Soon enough, Tim guides him in front of a doorway.
“Here!”
Bruce nods, then tries the handle, somewhat unsurprised to find that it’s locked. He kneels down, pulling his lockpick out of the other pocket.
“What doin’?”
“I’m picking the lock so that I can get inside.”
“Oh. How?”
Bruce glances over at him, then sighs.
“I’m using these,” he says, holding up the pick and tension wrench, “to make the lock think that the key is in. Once I do that, the door will open.”
“Ohhhh.” Time shuffles a little. “... I watch?”
Bruce thinks about it, then nods.
“Alright. But I need you to be quiet, okay?”
Tim nods vigorously, clamping his mouth shut. Bruce suppresses a smile, then turns back to the lock.
It’s easy enough to pick, as he expected. It’s not really what he was concerned about anyway.
That has more to do with what’ll happen once he walks inside the basement. He’s got his contacts ready to scan the area, just in case the Drakes decided to beef up security with something unconnected to the grid. Scans of the house didn’t show anything, but one can never be too careful.
A moment later, the lock clicks. Bruce pulls his tools out, then stands up and opens the door.
“Wait here,” he tells Tim.
“Why?”
“Because it’s a dark basement and you’re very small,” Bruce answers.
Tim pouts.
“Been there before!”
“You shouldn’t. I can’t keep an eye on you and do what I have to at the same time.”
Tim keeps pouting, but sighs.
“Otaaaaay…”
Bruce turns to go in, then, for reasons he can’t quite define to himself, hesitates. After a second, he turns to Tim.
“I’ll be right back,” he promises.
Tim perks up a little, and Bruce suppresses a small smile. He then walks into the basement, scanning around for possible traps. Thankfully, if there are any they appear to have been taken offline with the rest of the security system, so he quickly crosses the room to get to the crates stored on the other side. Opening them is out of the question; it would be too risky to break the seal. Instead, he looks around the crate, taking the time to scan the labels. It might be not be the most solid of evidence, but it’s something, especially combined with other evidence.
Bruce does one more lap to check for anything else, then turns and heads back upstairs. Tim is sitting on the floor, playing with his Batman plush, and Bruce suppresses a smile before clearing his throat.
“You should really head to bed now.”
Tim jolts a bit, looking up before shaking his head.
“Not sleepy.”
“No?”
“Nah-uh.”
“Hm.” Bruce folds his arms across his chest. “Y’know, I don’t think I believe that.”
“S’true,” Tim insists as he gets to his feet. “Not sleepy.”
“Well… alright, but you should at least be in bed–”
“Someone down here?”
Bruce jolts a bit, then, thinking quickly, leans over and scoops Tim up into his arms.
“Ah, hello!” He says cheerfully as a staff member comes into view. “I’m sorry, could you help us? I’m afraid we’re a bit lost.”
The staff member blinks.
“It’s… a hallway?” He says.
“Well, there are quite a few staircases in this house. I’ve been trying to figure out how to get poor Tim here back to bed for the last twenty minutes.”
The staff member stares at him for a minute, then points toward the stairs.
“Uh… those should take you back up.”
“Ah, of course. Thank you so much,” Bruce says with a smile. “Come on, Tim, I’m sure your parents are worried.”
Bruce hears a muffled snort from the staff member; he resists the urge to glare at them over his shoulder, instead running up the stairs with Tim still in his arms.
“That was close,” he murmurs.
“Mm. Otay though?”
“Yeah.” He glances over at him, then takes a breath. “Listen, Tim–”
“Oh, Bruce, there you– Timothy?”
Tim goes rigid in his arms. Bruce resists the urge to frown, instead looking up at Janet with a smile.
“Hi, Janet. Sorry I disappeared for a while there, I’m afraid I got a bit turned around.” He jostles Tim a bit. “Tim here helped me out.”
Janet’s resulting smile is tight as she walks over to them.
“Well, I’m glad you’ve found your way, Bruce, but Timothy is supposed to be in bed.”
“Sorry,” Tim murmurs, not looking either of them in the eye as she takes him from Bruce’s arms.
“Don’t be too hard on him, Jan,” Bruce tells her. “Really, I never would have found my way without him.”
Janet hums non-commitally.
“I’d better get this one back to bed,” she says, turning away. “Why don’t you head back to the party?”
“I’ll do that,” Bruce promises. He’s actually planning on faking a call from one of the boys so he can leave, but Janet doesn’t need to know that. “Sleep well, Tim.”
Tim hums, eyes on him as Janet carries him away. Just before he’s out of sight, he mimes a zipping motion across his mouth.
Bruce frowns, a strange, niggling thought popping up in his brain. He tries to dismiss it, but…
He takes a breath, then pulls his phone out of his pocket to give Alfred the signal to call him in about five minutes.
It’s ridiculous. It can’t be.
… right?
An hour later finds Bruce in the cave, working at the computer to put together evidence. What he’s gathered thus far should be enough for a judge, but he needs to make sure that he cuts Tim out of all of the footage, and anything that could possibly identify him as–
The elevator door opens.
“Thought I’d find you here.”
Bruce glances over at Clark, clad in his pajamas as he makes his way across the floor of the cave.
“Didn’t think you were awake,” Bruce says.
“Well, y’see, I was waiting up for someone,” Clark says as he puts a hand on the back of Bruce’s chair. “And then that someone went down into his Batcave instead of coming to bed.”
Bruce rolls his eyes.
“I have work to do, Clark.”
“You also need to sleep, and to decompress,” Clark points out before glancing at the computer and blinking. “Is that Tim?”
“Mm. Followed me around again, then came in while I was in his father’s study.”
“What? I– why are you so calm about that?”
“He was very insistent that he wanted to help. And that he wouldn’t tell anyone.”
“And you trusted him?”
Bruce sighs.
“I hate to say it, Clark, but he’s two. People aren’t likely to believe him without evidence if he does say anything.”
Clark looks at him for a minute, then nods.
“Well, if you’re sure… still, I wonder why he was so insistent about it.”
Bruce hesitates, the thought from before popping up.
The idea is, frankly, utterly ludicrous. Tim Drake is two years old. An incredibly smart two year old, but still two nonetheless. There are adults that Bruce regularly interacts with as both Bruce and Batman that haven’t figured him out, not the least of which is Jim Gordon, a toddler figuring it out is absolutely insane.
And yet…
Bruce grimaces.
And yet, nothing else he can think of would make Tim’s behavior make sense.
But it’s insane. And frankly, Bruce isn’t willing to put the thought out when he’s this uncertain.
“Who knows,” he says instead. “Probably just excited about the idea of an investigation.”
“He did tell me he wanted to be a detective when he grows up,” Clark murmurs. “Just like you, I suppose.”
“... just like me,” Bruce murmurs.
“Hm?”
“Nothing,” Bruce says before turning off the computer. “I’m tired. You’re right. We should go to bed.”
Clark chuckles.
“Well, that was easy,” he says as Bruce gets up. “Usually it takes more of a fight to get you to go to bed.”
“Don’t look a gift horse in the mouth, Kent,” Bruce says as they start walking toward the elevator.
When it arrives, he glances back at his computer one more time, then gets in.