Chapter Text
It's worth saying that no one is to blame for what happened.
Janet and Jack Drake set off on one of the few completely legal excavations of an ancient architectural structure discovered in the forests of the newly discovered island through orbital images. Dozens of archaeologists from all over the world were coming there at that moment, and it was hard work to get access, which Janet, a business shark, took up with special enthusiasm.
The structure provided for research in many ways resembled the architecture of Babylon, which is why cartographic historians frothed with the desire to be the first to reveal how the ancient Babylonians found themselves in such a remote place and obtained materials for the construction of a marble temple so strong and huge that the years of desolation had almost no effect on its integrity.
After sharing the study sites with other archaeologists, Janet and Jack found themselves closest to the temple's inner gardens. Strikingly lush lilies, golden-orange, filled the entire green space, but, according to a quick check on the Internet, they did not represent great historical or botanical value. The most common lilies, not at all exclusive to this particular island, but, apparently, brought here by seeds at the time of construction.
Late in the evening, relaxing in the tents, Janet wished to have tea. Being in the candy-bouquet period, still warm from their recent honeymoon, she and Jack doted on each other, and her husband decided to make a special drink for his beloved. Going to the lilies, he found the most beautiful, the only flower that had not yet had time to close, its splendor and appearance standing out against the background of its smaller counterparts. After cutting the flower with extreme care so that a new one could bloom in its place, Jack returned to the tent, brewed tea for Janet, adding a few mint and strawberry leaves he had brought with him on the trip, and waited impatiently for her verdict.
The drink turned out to be unsaturated, but sweet, and Janet, not wanting to offend Jack's efforts, drank everything, and then praised it in a way that this tea did not deserve. From her description, one would have thought that Jack had brewed something worthy of royalty, that his tea was so delicious that you could make a fortune on it, and that Janet would never taste anything better.
There was nothing remarkable or even memorable about it, and during the next month spent on the island, Jack brewed Janet a similar tea more than once. It can only be noted that in the future the taste was strikingly different, never repeating the sweetness of the first one, but being more saturated and fragrant.
After returning home to Gotham, they found out that Janet was expecting a baby for the third month. There was no indication of this, except for a lost cycle – which was normal for her due to the strictest and not very healthy diet - and the beginning of a bulging belly. At first, she thought that the specific meals on the island were to blame, but after an additional month of practically starvation, it was decided to have an ultrasound scan, where a surprisingly unpleasant surprise was revealed.
They planned to have an heir for the growing family business in the future, but they did not think that everything would happen so soon. In any case, the term was too long for Janet's body to tolerate the abortion well, and the fetus itself developed so wonderfully and did not bring any problems that it was not even a question of leaving it.
However, as her stomach began to grow larger and larger, annoyance seeped into Janet, spreading like a weed. She was annoyed that the firstborn would be a boy, annoyed at how he spoils her figure, how he prevents her from sleeping on her side or on her stomach. It was even infuriating how the previously refined, majestic gait turned into a penguin's step.
But what angered her most was the realization that no excavation trips, no vacations in warmer climes, no long-term business trips could be organized for at least the next three years.
In general, when ninjas appeared in their apartment, who undoubtedly put real blades to her and Jack's necks, it turned out to be as easy to give up the child as it was to decide to leave him. While Jack hesitated, having heard the demands of the main attacker, Janet did not think twice, did not wonder why her child might be needed by these scum. Consent flew off her lips like a feather blown away by the wind, and from that day on, the last weeks of her pregnancy were supervised by ninja doctors.
Timothy was born with wide, frighteningly conscious eyes and bluish-black hair. Not the little fluff usually found in children, but a very thick shock of hair that clung to his skull after washing with warm water and weighing.
«Apparently, there were people with metagenesis in Jack's family» Janet thought, trying to catch her breath in the delivery chair. The baby she gave birth to was lowered onto a table with padded walls raised on all sides so that he could not fall, even if he tried very hard. An old man was bending over him, his lips moving, but Janet couldn't hear what he was saying. For a second, Timothy's hair flashed with a blue, almost neon light, the old man immediately fell silent, but nodded. «Because my blood wouldn't have produced this brat».
She was glad to be rid of the bloodsucker that had been draining her all these months. No matter how easy the pregnancy was, he had horribly ruined her figure, her plans, and her relationship with Jack. Now that the baby wasn't around, she could take the time to rebuild it all.
The old man wrapped the baby in a cloth that looked too expensive to spend on a baby, and then left the room with Timothy in his arms.
"You know what to do," he said to the two guards on the other side of the door.
These were the last words Janet and all the medical staff in the hall heard.
***
Timothy – but he prefers the name "Tim", and no one calls him by his full name anyway – lived quite happily in the next room from his Master, bored only in those months when the Master left the Cradle and went to other bases for strategic reasons.
Or, as they explained to him, he was away on business. Because at the age of three, Tim's tongue was hanging out like that of a «village gossip girl, al-Hulud, and no punishments will get it out of you». Tim could hardly have realized the problems this could lead to. But after the two nannies who were killed, who heard secret information and betrayed the trust of the Head of the Demon, Timothy stopped discussing important matters, and his classes used historical incidents rather than actual events.
To be honest, the punishments could have had the desired effect if someone had told Tim what he was being punished for. It just so happened that both times the punishment for a long tongue was combined with punishment for failure in training or science classes.
Sometimes his hair got in the way, which by that time reached his hips, but the Master taught him to value his hair as a gift available only to him, and Tim did not complain. He learned to braid them into a pigtail, though crooked, and a high ponytail, which, however, rolled off the top of his head every time and hung even more uncomfortably than loose hair.
Morning workout. Without a single cutting tool, as it turned out early that his hair loses its strength if it is cut off. Tim was currently studying nunchucks, and he liked this weapon much more than a wooden sword.
After, before breakfast, language learning. In addition to Arabic, which was spoken by everyone Tim came across (three teachers, a coach, a Mister, and silent, faceless servants), he was taught English, French, Chinese, and Spanish.
Breakfast.
After that, the humanities. He could already count up to 100 in each language, accurately named letters and put words together up to four syllables, if it wasn't Chinese or Arabic, and read aloud more than fifteen words per minute.
The Master often joined him for lunch. He talked about strategies, economics, politics, society – in general, about very boring topics. Terribly boring! But after lunch they played checkers – Tim hadn't won yet, but he thought he was close to it – and the Master read to him the works of great people.
And after that, another workout, until dinner, bathroom procedures and strict lights out.
In a couple of years, the Master says, he will be allowed to train with real weapons. When he learns to fold his precious hair so that no one, enemy or ally, can touch it.
***
In five years, the promised receipt of weapons does not occur. His hair continues to grow, now it drags almost a meter behind him, and even if the maids braid it into a rather heavy braid for training, which Tim himself will never be able to repeat, it's still too dangerous. The Master says that they must take risks into account, and Tim realizes that he will probably never get his hands on a real, non-wooden sword.
But he has something else in his hands. The most precious thing he had ever seen. The heaviest, coldest, and most non-breathing thing he was allowed to lift.
Mrs. Talia purses her lips tightly, but Tim does not understand what is wrong with her when he carefully twirls the baby into his curls. He holds it as close to his chest as possible, trying to warm the baby, and sings the way his Master taught him when strangers are nearby – in the language of the main al Ghul family. He, Tim, is not taught this language, because he is not a member of the Master's family, but the spell that makes his hair glow and heal is too important for speakers of other languages to get it.
The last notes of the song fade away, the blue glow enveloping them fades, and Tim looks expectantly at the baby. Slowly, weakly, his wonderful green eyes – wow, just like Mistress Thalia! – open, and then a sudden childish scream deafens Tim. He would have dropped the baby if it hadn't been for Mrs. Talia's quick reaction and the fact that the baby was still wrapped in his hair.
«Oh, Damian» he hears the crybaby's name, and repeats it in a whisper, watching as Mrs. Talia introduces the child to the Master. But for some reason, Master Ra's doesn't look at the baby at all. His eyes are fixed on Timothy.
«Follow me, al-Hulud. From now on, you will study medicine».
***
By the age of seven, he decides that he can no longer live like this. After waiting for the Master's men to change shifts, he rushed out of his chambers, wrapped in fabric curtains – more inconspicuous clothes than things from his wardrobe – and rushed. After a couple of corridors, he knocked out a particularly absent-minded servant, dragging him into a not entirely secret passage in the wall, changed their clothes, and ran.
For the first time, he went outside on a warm August night, knowing that the nearest village was where the brightest star in the sky was burning, and, giving himself exactly a minute to inhale the unfamiliar, freshest scent of nature, he rushed forward, using the endurance that his coach had hammered into him.
Covering the distance from the base to the village was as easy as knocking out that wayward guard. At first light, al-Hulud stepped onto the shopping street, depressed but delighted by the hubbub of the crowd, the rustle of colorful fabrics, the aromas of cheap treats, the clink of coins and, frankly, not the most pleasant smells of sweating men and women wrapped in dozens of layers of silk.
The adults were so disgusting.
Timothy wisely didn't touch anything, but kept his hands in plain sight. He knew that receiving goods involves exchanging them for money, and he had never had any money. Nevertheless, he admired, absorbing the sparkling beads, the tinkling of wind chimes, the painted patterns of carpets, and the slurping sounds of camels passing through the streets.
Everything went wonderfully, and it didn't even end in the most terrible way. He was grabbed by the arm by an angry bearded man, accusing him of theft and dragging him somewhere to a dubious shop. Convinced that he was either being abducted or was about to be sold, Tim broke the man's arm, immobilized him, ran into an alley, climbed onto the nearest roof and moved away, declaring this the end of the walk.
In the middle of the way home, under his thoughts about a delicious lunch, because he had already skipped breakfast, and had not slept at all all night, Timothy ran into the ninja who were looking for him, and obediently allowed himself to be led back, as he was already on his way home.
His walk did not make the Master very happy. Although the punishment wasn't too severe since he returned.
Since then, Tim has been running away all the time. He thought Ra's was allowing it because it turned out to be too simple, and the guards should be on their guard by now. He ran away, had a wonderful day in the city, even made a couple of friends among the street kids, and always came back. He was getting more and more severe punishments, but he sincerely believed that this was because he had done something wrong, not perfect, and the Master was unhappy with the quality of his escape.
By the age of eight, he had developed the perfect escape. The Master should be proud of him. To praise him. To see how much effort Tim put into this escape.
Because he wasn't going to come back until they found him. Now the ninja will have to really work.
Three days later, caught on the way to a plane from Singapore to Sao Tome, Tim found out that it wasn't a game. That the Master was not at all happy about his escapes, but tolerated his willfulness, since Tim always returned. Now his patience was at an end, and Tim's oxygen supply was cut off.
***
Not having shoes is actually not so scary when your life is limited to three rooms and a training room. Tim would break the silence by reading aloud to himself books on military strategy that his Master brought him, or quoting from memory the best works that he was given to study. He spent all his time studying and training, and sometimes Tim crossed paths with Damian, the most charming and brilliant toddler he had ever seen.
It doesn't matter that this is the only toddler he's ever seen. It doesn't matter.
By that time, his hair reached eight meters and by the age of nine, as the Master said, it could reach ten. They got in the way of training – Tim was currently studying a staff from a weapon and, frankly, was in love with this weapon – but Damian really liked it. It was becoming pointless to braid this mop, and Tim was becoming more and more adept at managing them. Moreover, it seemed that his hair did not know what the laws of physics were at all, and the Master looked thoughtful when Tim asked if he could learn how to use them as his weapon.
***
When they give him the technique, Tim literally lights up with delight, and plunges into hacking like a fish into water. More precisely, like a newly hatched frog child, which does not have all the limbs to jump and croak, but it is already clear that it was created for this element.
After he independently revealed the identity of Superman, having learned that superheroes exist and became very interested in them, Ra's became noticeably more supportive of his hobby. When, on his own orders, Tim unraveled the secret identities of almost all the other heroes, the Master's interest, previously based only on the strength of Tim's hair, suddenly became directed at the boy himself, and al-Hulud did not know what to do about it.
He was promised a reward if he could guess the secret of the identity of the last hero, which Tim did not reveal. Then Batman's personality, covered in fog, lit up in Tim's eyes like a shooting target.
There was no stopping him at that moment.
***
He unravels Batman's secret identity when he looks through new Twitter posts at three in the morning under the hashtag «Only_In_Gotham». The video of Robin doing a perfect somersault didn't go viral, because apparently the Gotham people were already used to their hero's gymnastic tricks, but Tim couldn't take his fascinated gaze off, rewinding the clip to the beginning and reviewing it over and over again.
On the thirteenth viewing, he notices that Robin does a full four turns in the jump, and curiously begins to look for how to pull off the same trick in order to ask him to add it to his training. Of course, it will be difficult because of the hair, but not impossible.
It turns out that the trick was the crown trick of some Flying Graysons who died six years ago. No one else in the world could repeat this gymnastic miracle, and their son, on whom all the Olympic coaches of the USA had hopes, refused professional sports, so it is unknown whether he knows how to do the same trick, or whether he died with the Graysons from now on.
Out of curiosity, Tim starts looking for information on Dick Grayson. He, by a wonderful coincidence, lives in Gotham and was adopted by billionaire Bruce Wayne about a month after the tragedy at the circus.
In fact, speaking of miraculous coincidences, he got to Bruce Wayne shortly before the first mention of Robin.
This is, of course, a very weak guess, but Tim is used to testing all hypotheses put forward. He digs into articles, publications, videos, scandals, and the history of the Wayne family like he's down a rabbit hole, and during lunch the next day, he tells Ra's that he thinks Bruce Wayne is Batman.
«I always knew that his circus partner would be the cause of his downfall, al–Hulud» Ra's comments after listening to Tim's explanation, completely unsurprised by the vigilante's personality. Tim is not surprised either. Most likely, Ra's already knew who Batman was, because Tim is 70% sure that Damian is Bruce Wayne's son.
After his phenomenal display of detective abilities (Tim disagrees, it was a very weak mystery in his opinion), the Master began to assign him more cases for the benefit of the League. He dismissed all the teachers, personally taking over the education of al-Hulud, and the language of the main al-Ghul family was officially added to the languages he studied.
Tim didn't know what they were preparing him for, if his job was just to sing from time to time, rejuvenate the Master, and investigate people the League didn't like, but he thought he was ready for anything.
***
Tim made his last escape when he was ten years old. He became bored, the lack of shoes did not seem like a big obstacle, and running away again began to be seen as a challenge to his abilities.
As it turned out, the lack of shoes was an obstacle. Since he was given sandals, boots, or other suitable shoes for training, his skin did not roughen at all, remaining quite tender, and if the first four hours of the journey were quite good, the further Tim progressed, the worse he felt.
So it wasn't a challenge. If he really wanted to leave the League, such a minor discomfort would not be a problem. He could have walked until the soles of his feet were worn to the bone, but he didn't see the point.
The fact is that he liked to sit in solitude.
He was taught to love his solitude.
So, tired and realizing that escape was still in his power, so that nothing really hindered him in the League, he sat down on the nearest mound of sand, exposed himself to the rays of the rising sun and waited for the ninja to find him and bring him home.
He wasn't punished.
***
Talia brings a boy to him.