Chapter Text
Tim Drake might have miscalculated.
He had planned the night from start to finish. Here’s how it was supposed to go:
First, he would listen to the police radio that he acquired via legally dubious means (AKA: the pawn shop at the corner of Otisburg Boulevard and Lincoln). He bought the thing last month for fifty bucks, paid in full cash. Tim managed to get a discount from its original seventy dollar price after haggling with the pawn shop owner, because the thing came covered in a thin layer of sticky residue that may or may not have been blood. Not that he couldn’t afford the original price, he just liked haggling for fun. And he didn’t mind the blood much, alcohol wipes cleaned the thing just fine.
Then, he would confirm his hypotheses: he was at least 85% sure that Batman planned to bust down a gathering of the Wound Ravens gang and beat the everliving lights out of a couple of their members, enough to squeeze whatever information they had on The Penguins latest business plans.
Third, he would do a little dance to celebrate if his hypothesis had been right.
Fourth, he would double-check his packed supplies: the Nikon camera his parents gave him for his birthday last year, film canisters, a few bandaids (just in case), a water bottle, and three granola chocolate bars, all packed up in his “incognito backpack” (a regular backpack that just so happened to be black).
Fifth, he would confirm the housekeeper was totally out for the night. Not a hard task to achieve considering the woman was nearing seventy years old, and snored loud enough that the noise could be heard anywhere in the first floor of the Drake family’s Eastlake style, three-story household.
Sixth, he would deactivate the security system, sneak out of the kitchen’s back door, ride his new bicycle all the way to the Burnley district, find Batman and the Wound Ravens, get a couple of cool pictures of the cowled vigilante wounding Ravens’ ass, go home, and then add the new pictures to his growing red string conspiracy board.
Easy, right?
Ok, so maybe he should have planned out step number six in way more detail, sue him. In his defense, he successfully took pictures of Batman mid-action on two other occasions - the first time it happened in second grade, when Mr. Freeze decided to hold his entire classroom hostage for ransom. The second time, Tim was out and about skateboarding through a less savory part of town when he stumbled upon the big bad bat imparting his brand of justice on some of Riddlers goons. Tim felt a little bad for the crooks, they didn’t even get to finish spray painting their riddle before getting their butts kicked (“When is a door-” and that was it. The incomplete riddle on the abandoned pharmacy window still stood to date, garish green paint spray and everything).
His photographs of the Dark Knight were pretty decent if he dared say so himself, much better than the blurry ones the Gotham Gazette seldom managed to get a hold of. Batman wasn’t exactly hard to come across in Gotham, but the hero was notoriously hard to photograph.
With two successful action photoshoots of Batman under his belt, Tim Drake had self appointed himself as the leading expert of the taking bat-pictures field, an impressive accolade considering he was only nine years old… okay, eight, but his birthday was in July, which was next month, which basically meant he was already nine. And if his parents had any problems with him going out into the night to take pictures of Gotham’s infamous vigilante, then maybe they shouldn’t have given their Batman-obsessed child a camera. What was Tim supposed to do with a camera? Not take pictures of Batman and Robin? As if!
That being said, it was highly unlikely that the Drakes would ever find out about their child’s wayward proclivities. Tim never really made an effort to hide his fascination for Gotham’s vigilantes, and if you were to spend more than ten minutes with the precocious child, you would definitely know this about him, but therein lay the problem. Jack Drake and Janet Drake’s parenting style could be best described as… rich parent style. Meaning they’d rather throw money at people to look after their son, rather than spend any meaningful effort doing so themselves.
The couple already had plans to enroll Tim in Brentwood Academy’s boarding school program, however, the youngest grade they would admit students to the program was fifth grade. Tim attended Brentwood’s regular day-school hours, but in two years time, he was set to live on-campus full time. From then on and until he graduated high school, he’d be lucky if he saw his parents once or twice a year.
Quite frankly, he was lucky if he saw his parents once or twice a year already. “Thats just how it is,” Mrs McIlvaine, the housekeeper of the Drake household would tell Tim. “That’s how it’s always been with rich folks, you just be grateful that your parents are nice to you.”
Nice. He guessed they were pretty “nice”; they never really gave him much trouble, whenever they returned home from their business travels. If his grades were slipping his father would frown at his report card, clap him in the shoulder and tell him to do better next time. Then he would throw money at a new fancy tutor, and slide a little more under the table to Brentwood’s headmaster. Needless to say, Tim Drake would always have straight A’s, one way or another.
Tim’s mother was more concerned with making sure his closet’s contents were up to date with the latest high society fashions, “lest other families think you were raised in a barn, goodness Timothy, what is this awful t-shirt?”
Tim learned to hide his favorite clothes whenever his parents came back to Gotham, knowing his mother despised anything he chose to buy for himself.
But other than that, Jack and Janet left their only son to his own devices. They paid no mind to the state of his bedroom, messy and plastered with superhero posters, nor did they pay mind to Mrs McIlvaine’s list of complaints - they would hmm and ahh at the old woman’s grievances, but ultimately, Jack Drake would always say the same thing: “Let the kid live a little, he’ll learn to become a man once he’s off to boarding school.” Meanwhile, Janet Drake would make sure Tim still had access to his credit card, schedule him a haircut, and then go off to whichever country was next on the list for Drake Industry’s expansion quest.
So yes, he knew that his parents were nice. That might actually be the only thing that he knew about them. They ran a multimillion tech company, they traveled the world to every recently destabilized corner of the world to impose the good ol’ American economic system (hit ‘em while they’re down, and then profit), and they gave their only son an expensive private education, a personal chauffeur, a housekeeper and an unlimited credit card. What else could an almost-nine-year-old desire in life?
Well, pictures of Batman, duh. And in giving their son a camera the Drakes had unknowingly aided him in that quest, so thank you mom and dad, the gift is freaking awesome.
What nobody told young Tim Drake is that taking two lucky photo shoots of the Dark Knight while he just so happened to be in the right place and time, was very different than actively sneaking out into the night to go looking for trouble.
Quite frankly, steps one through five of Tim Drake’s “Totally Rad Plan To Cement My Role As Gotham’s Leading Expert Of The Bat-Taking-Pictures Field,” or TRPTCMRAGLEOTBTPF (patent pending), went totally fine. On the police scanner, an officer confirmed Batman’s presence in Burnley, at the corner of 8th and Maverick Avenue. He did a little dance to celebrate he was right on his assumption (a poor rendition of the Cabbage Patch). He then threw in a fourth granola chocolate bar in his backpack, just to be safe. Downstairs, Mrs McIlvaine was doing a really good impression of a truck’s engine in her sleep (the poor woman suffered from a bad case of sleep apnea). He sneaked out of the kitchen’s back door, hardly making an effort to stay quiet. He wasn’t worried he’d wake up the old woman, considering she was at least fifty percent deaf in one ear and ninety percent in the other. He rode his bike all the way from his house in the Gotham Heights suburbs, down south through Robert Kane’s Memorial Bridge, past Lemmars Park and into Burnley proper.
Although the ride couldn’t have been more than thirty minutes long, by the time Tim arrived at Batman’s last reported location, the bat had already cleaned house and left a bunch of Wound Raven gangsters very wounded indeed. GCPD was just arriving on the scene when Tim got there (man, where are all the city’s taxes going if an almost-nine-year old riding a bike is faster than grown men in police cars? Shaking my head Gotham City PD, shaking my head…)
Lucky for him, he caught a glimpse of a dark cape jumping over a three story building going west. As the cops made their first arrests, Tim was long gone chasing after his hero.
This is where TRPTCMRAGLEOTBTPF (ok maybe he needs to workshop the name of his plan a little) - The Plan went wrong, because Tim did not plan for a second location. Or a third. Or a fourth. The Dark Knight was having a productive night beating the crap out of every goon and crook in Burnley; whatever the Penguin was up to must have been huge.
One could guess that was the reason behind Batman’s foul nightly mood, but one could also guess that the absence of his red, green and yellow companion over the past month was at play too. Tim had several thoughts on that. In fact, he had a whole section for it under the title “Robin Leaves The Nest?”.
Note to self: on June 25th, Batman beat the crap out of every thug in the Burnley District. Theoretically looking for info on the Penguin. Fight with Robin? Add that to the board.
By the time Batman departs for a fifth location, Tim is out of breath, his bike chain is broken, he is thoroughly lost, and he only has a handful of blurry shots to show for his work.
He watches the bat’s silhouette disappear in Gotham’s night sky, the city’s shadows swallowing his brooding shape. Oh well, that’s it, I guess. Maybe the road to truly become Gotham’s Bat-Taking-Picture leading expert was a lot longer than he realized.
Plus, there’s another key aspect that he missed to realize. Namely, how far he’d biked.
Oh shoot.
Now Tim might not recognize these streets, but he could recognize a rough neighborhood, and by god was it rough where he was standing. As in, so rough that never in his life had he stepped foot here, and Tim was proud of his extensive travels on this side of town.
There’s only one neighborhood in the north side of Gotham that despite Tim’s daring nature he avoided at all costs, and that was…
East End. Park Row. Crime Alley.
The neighborhood’s name changed alongside its reputation over time. Considering it was currently known as Crime Alley, well… in America’s capital of crime, a name like that was no joke.
Or maybe that’s just people being negative, Tim thought to himself. I’ll just turn back from where I came from, I’ll be out of here real soon…
Trash and broken glass littered the dilapidated alley. Every building in his immediate vicinity was covered in soot and grime, windows boarded up or just straight up gone. Further down the street to the north, a group of homeless people huddled for warmth around a trash can fire. To the south, two men loitered in a dark corner, drinking vodka and smoking cigarettes.
Tim stared down at his dented chain dangling from his very new and shiny red bicycle. The egregious shade of red shone under yellowed streetlights, almost like a beacon. “I’m here! Steal me,” it metaphorically yelled. Shut the frick up, Tim thought loudly to himself, kneeling and frantically trying to get the bike’s chain back in place. The stubborn thing refused to cooperate.
Might have been the sound of the chain rattling, or it could have been the shiny pop of the red bike standing out against the greyed out night; whatever the case was, one of the drinking men -a lanky, tall guy wearing a grimy brown jacket- took notice of the noticeably well-off, unaccompanied child. He punched his companion in the shoulder -a balding big guy wearing a shirt with the sleeves cut off-, and pointed in the kid’s direction.
“Hey kid!” The tall guy shouted as he slowly approached, in his hand a half-empty bottle of Smirnoff. “You lookin’ a little lost there, son,” he took a swig of his drink as he stopped a few steps away from Tim, his gait uneven.
Oh great, I’m gonna die here. Tim’s shaking hands made the chain rattle hard against the bike. He bent his head down, refusing to make eye contact.
“Oi kid!” The bald big guy added, only a couple of steps behind his lanky companion. His voice was raspy like a pile of rocks. “We’re talking’ to ya.”
Tim gave up altogether on the bicycle. Whatever, they can have it! He could always get a third bicycle. His parents were nice, they wouldn’t even notice the charge-
He took three hurried steps back and collided against a wall, the jagged edges of the brick building digging into his sweaty back. He let the bicycle clatter to the ground. The men who stank of vodka and cigarettes slowly closed in on him, one on the left, one on the right, bike right in front of him. They’re closing off my exits.
“Nice wheels you’ve got here, kid,” the tall guy spoke, his eyes roving from the bike, to the film camera hanging from Tim’s neck, to his Baracuta jacket all the way down to his expensive combat boots. The man whistled, “damn kid you’re a little more than lost ain’t ya! Where’s your mommy and daddy at?”
Tim threw a panicked glance at the group of homeless people down the street. They seemed more interested in staring at the scene than directly intervening. A second too late, and Tim’s flight response kicked in. With his left and right exits blocked off, he jumped over the bicycle, but he tripped over the gosh darned chain. The bald man quickly grabbed Tim’s left arm and pulled him back hard.
Okay, consider me officially scared crapless.
“Where d’you think you’re going, brat?” The bald man pushed Tim against the tall man, who then grabbed Tim’s collar and lifted him off the ground. Tim attempted to kick him in his private region, but the guy had long arms and Tim was a bit vertically challenged. “D’you know what we do to rich kids ‘round here?” The man grins with all his yellow teeth exposed.
“Let go of me you- you creep! HELP! SOMEBODY HELP ME!” Cornered and desperate, Tim decided to change tactics and gave up on kicking. Instead, he turned his head towards the hand keeping him captive, and bit down with all his might.
“FUCK-!” Tall man pushed Tim back against the brick wall, knocking all the air out of his lungs. “FUCKING RABID BRAT!”
The kid wheezed in pain. The man wouldn’t let go yet, so Tim doubled down and bit harder. The man cursed even louder than before, and hurled the kid to the ground.
Tim landed on his back and coughed hard. His lungs took the brunt of the fall.
“You motherfucking brat! We was just gonna steal all your shit but now-”
Tim heard the glass smashing next to him before he saw the glint of the jagged bottle in the man’s hand, blood dripping from the open half moon wound down the makeshift weapon, mixing with the vodka and filthy alley ground below.
“-I’m gonna fucking kill you!”
As the men closed in on him, Tim saw the witnesses down the street quickly walk away from the scene. This is it, he closed his eyes and curled in on himself, clutching his camera close to his chest. I wish I could have seen the pictures I took tonight before I...
Suddenly, a running set of steps joined the fray. Tim opened his eyes just in time to see another kid swing what appeared to be a tire iron at the tall man’s jaw.. They must have hit the man really hard because the guy immediately went down spraying blood everywhere.
“Get away from him you shitheads!” A boyish growl came from Tim’s mystery savior.
The boy swung the tire iron at the bald asshole, who had just recovered from the shock of seeing his buddy attacked by a homeless-looking child wearing a threadbare red hoodie. Before the metal tool’s hit could connect, the bald asshole stopped the tire iron with his meaty hand.
Fueled by pure adrenaline, Tim got up and kicked the bald bastard in the nuts. The man howled and joined his bleeding friend on the ground.
Tall asshole seemed to be recovering, despite the blood gushing from his mouth and hand injuries. The man spit out an honest to god tooth. “YOU’RE DEAD MEAT! I’M GONNA KILL THE BOTH OF- GHGH!” a bloody coughing fit interrupted the man’s death threats.
“Come on kid, we gotta get the fuck outta here!” The new stranger grabbed Tim’s right hand and took off running. Hand in hand, they raced out of the alley, into the main streets and back again into a series of twisting, dirty alleyways. Tim’s legs and lungs could barely keep up with the brutal pace, but all his survival instincts forced him to keep going.
He stared at his savior’s back with wide eyes. They were running together at top speed, footsteps in synch, rushing wind making Tim’s eyes sting.
After what felt like an eternity but was probably only a few minutes, they stopped behind a city trash can. The pair doubled over, wheezy labored breaths attempting to get air into their overworked lungs.
It was dark in the alley, the nearest streetlight was thirty feet away. Tim’s savior had his red hood up, and the lackluster lighting casted stark shadows on his facial features.
It was hard to tell, but from his voice and stature Tim deduced this stranger couldn’t be much older than himself.
The stranger managed to catch his breath before Tim did so himself. He stuffed the tire iron in his dark jean’s back pocket and then grabbed Tim by the shoulders. The boy shook him once, then twice.
“You-“ he sputtered “are you fuckin’ stupid or somethin’?!”
Okay, rude. Before Tim could even begin to formulate a response -his lungs were still struggling to bring back oxygen to his brain-, the older boy let go of him to run a hand through his own dark greasy hair.
“What the actual fuck is an rich infant like you doing in this shithole ass part of town, dangling an expensive ass camera n’ bike, dressed like Richie Rich McGee?! Do you have a deathwish or what?! Do you want to die?! Like seriously, what the fuck, kid!”
Tim tried to come up with a response to that, and, well, he failed. What do you say to a person when they save your life and then immediately proceed to berate you?!
Too busy making an impression of a fish out of water -mouth open, mouth closed, mouth open again, mouth closed again-, Tim failed to reply before the other kid continued his rant.
“You’re lucky all they took was that ridiculous bike, if I hadn’t been there they would have stolen your kidneys an’ thrown you off the fucking harbor!” The kid paced in front of Tim, back and forth, a deep ridge between his furrowed eyebrows. The expression in his face was way too serious for a kid his age. He stopped pacing and jabbed his index finger at Tim’s sternum twice. “S’ that what you want, kid?! You wanna be kidneyless?!”
Maybe it was the adrenaline high crashing down, maybe it was the dawning realization of how close he got to a horrific fate just a few minutes before, or maybe it was merely because Tim was not quite nine yet, and so he did what any other eight year old child would do in his situation.
He started bawling.
“Oh fuck. Fuck fuck fuck,” the stranger muttered a litany of curses, inaudible over the sound of Tim’s loud cries. “This is so not how I saw my night going.” He ran his hand once again through his hair and finally let the hoodie fall down.
He had dark, curly hair and blue eyes, not unlike Tim’s own, though Tim could hardly notice it considering he was too busy crying his heart out.
“Come on kid, stop crying.” The older boy pleaded awkwardly, a hesitant hand hovering over Tim’s shoulder.
After a beat, the fear in his eyes settled into something akin to determination. His hand came down to grasp Tim’s shoulder. “Hey,” he added, gently this time, “you still got both kidneys - you’ve got your life intact, and you still even got that goddamned camera, alright? You’re alright.”
Tim’s cries died down with each word. Finally, he looked up at the stranger.
The indignant fire in the older kid’s eyes was gone, now replaced by a quiet warmth. “Everything’s gonna be alright.”
Eyes watering now for a very different reason, Tim threw himself at the arms of this strange but kind child.
“You saved my life,” Tim whispered.
The older kid responded to the hug by awkwardly patting Tim on the head like some sort of dog. Clearly, he wasn’t one for hugs. Tim wasn’t used to hugs either, but he really needed one after nearly getting himself acquainted with the pearly gates tonight.
The boy sighed. “Anybody woulda’ done the same thing…”
His voice cracked on the last word. A lie.
Tim pulled back and looked him straight in the eye. “No, they wouldn’t.”
The stranger sighed. “No. They wouldn’t.” The kid shuffled, still trapped in Tim’s half-embrace. He lightly tapped Tim’s forehead with his fist. “You got a name, shrimp?”
Tim scrunched up his nose. The nickname offended him, but not enough to let go of his nameless savior. “Not a shrimp, and obviously I got a name, duh.”
The older boy rolled his eyes and tapped Tim again in the forehead. “You gonna share your name with the class or am I gonna have to keep calling you stupid rich infant?”
Tim scrunched up his nose harder. Hey! He might be stupid and he was definitely rich, but he was not an infant, remember? Almost nine! That’s basically almost ten, which is basically almost a teenager, right?
Ugh, whatever. He’d let the older kid make fun of him for now, only because he saved him from a grizzly death via bottle stabbing.
“Tim. My name is Tim. And I’m not an infant, I’m nine years old!”
The kid raises an eyebrow. “Nine? You look like you’re six years old. You’re certainly clingy like one”
Tim sputtered, indignant, still not letting go of the kids mid section. “Okay, I’m eight, but I’ll be nine next month!”
The stranger replies with a low whistle. “Not really winning the generic lottery there, huh? Why the hell are you so short?”
“Hey!” And with that, Tim finally pushed away from him.
The kid laughed in response, but cut himself short when he saw Tim’s pained expression. The younger kid was holding his right arm close to his body.
“Let me see your arm,” the young stranger said, all mirth gone from his words.
After a second of hesitation, Tim extended his arm. The older kid rolled up his jacket sleeve and inspected the blooming bruises with grimy but gentle hands. “They got you good, them bastards…” he mutters under his breath.
After a moment or two, he lets go of Tim’s arm.
“My name’s Jason. I, uh, I live around here… kinda.” He looks off to the side, sheepish, right hand running through his wild curls again. A nervous habit, probably. “Dunno where the hell you live, but I know it ain’t anywhere near this shithole, and it’s like three am so no way in hell you’re making it back alive home on your own.”
He blows air through his mouth and stares at Tim. Tim stares back at Jason.
“You wanna just crash at my place? Fair warning, it’s a total dump but at least it’s mine so- whoa!” Jason found himself with another armful of Tim, who was feeling generous with his hugs tonight.
“Thank you thank you thank you! Nice to meet you Jason, and yes, let’s get the frick, I mean- fuck out of the street right now, I swear I’ll be a good guest”
Jason snorted, and pulled Tim down the street, wrapping his right arm around the younger kid’s shoulder. “Didn’t know they let toddlers curse now, I guess we’ll make a proper man out of you soon enough,” he reached into his back pocket to pull out the tire iron. “Just in case we come across any fuckers again” he held the tool in his left hand, ready to swing back in action at a moment’s notice.
If they did in fact come across some fudgers- erm, fuckers, Tim was ready to hit them with the biting/nutshot combo again. After bringing down two grown men alongside Jason, he felt like the two of them could accomplish anything, as long as they were together.
“Say Tim, how good are you at climbing up fire escapes?”