Chapter Text
As Wayne Enterprises’ twenty-one-year-old Head of Accounts and former youngest CEO in American history, Tim Drake has graced the covers of financial magazines and celebrity tabloids alike, and is generally considered the face of child prodigy brilliance and corporate success. He is also, currently, profoundly bored and halfway through building an impressive house of cards.
It’s the furthest he’s gotten so far. He can get the two foundation layers pretty easily, but the third one always topples it no matter how hard he tries. He’s on the fourth this time when his phone rings. He ignores it.
Carefully, he positions two cards into a triangle, trying not to let his caffeine-induced tremor ruin the delicate balance. Then he catches a glimpse of the name flashing across the screen. He swears under his breath as the whole tower topples, then grabs his phone.
“Bruce?”
It’s been a while since they last talked outside bat-business. He sort of hoped they might see more of each other after Bruce recovered and took back his place as Director of the board of Wayne Enterprises. Surely, if they were working at the same company, they would at least catch each other in meetings. But Bruce, citing “more time with family and shifting priorities after his near-fatal accident,” does not actually come to WE Tower very often at all.
He slides his chair back from his large, mahogany desk (being Head of Accounts comes with perks, including a very nice office on the fifty-seventh floor), and tries to compose himself.
“Er– hi, how are you?”
“I’m well, thank you, Tim.”
The low brusqueness of Bruce’s voice somehow transcends the tinny tones of the telephone line, somewhere between the polished billionaire he presents at galas and Batman's gravel. Tim has never been entirely sure which one is the performance. Bruce probably isn't either.
“It’s been a while,” Tim ventures when he doesn’t continue, “I’m looking forward to seeing you at the board meeting tonight.”
“Actually, that’s why I rang you. I’ve been called to the Watchtower on emergency Justice League business. I know it’s bad timing, but can you cover for me?”
The little bubble of anticipation inside Tim quietly pops. Something indistinct is shouted in the background. It sounds like Damian.
"Right," Tim says. "Of course. Although it might be easier to reschedule."
Bruce's voice grows fainter as he turns away from the phone."
"Titus'll be around here somewhere, Damian. I'll help you look before I go."
Then he's back.
"That's fine. Let me know when you've found a new date."
"I'll add it to your calendar."
“Thank you.” A pause. “Keep up the good work.”
He hangs up.
Tim sits there and stares at the blank screen for a moment. He counts to ten, lets the emotions run rampant through his body then shuts them all down, closes the metaphorical lid, and fixes his eyes on the spreadsheet he’s supposed to be working on. Steph taught him that trick a few years ago, and with a bit of practice, he’s managed to perfect it.
“You can’t shut all your emotions out completely,” she had said, “otherwise you’d probably explode. But sometimes, especially in our line of work, you don’t have time to feel them properly. So count to ten, let them all out, then move on. That way, you can deal with them later when you have more time. Works a treat.”
And yes, most of the time, Tim doesn’t follow the last step to deal with them later, but he’s found it to be a very useful trick indeed.
Despite the slow start, work swallows him whole that morning. Someone has misplaced the receipts for an entire work event at one of Gotham’s nicer hotels, so he has to ring around several different floors of WE as well as the hotel itself to admit they’ve screwed up. Not exactly stimulating work, but laborious enough that it stops him from thinking about anything else.
By lunchtime, he’s so immersed in his computer, he doesn’t hear the door open, but when he finally looks up, he jumps so violently his custom-made mouse clatters on the desk.
“Smooth.”
Red Hood leans against the door frame, ankles crossed, a pink stressball in one hand that Tim knows for a fact belongs to Carly down the hall, and a gun in the other.
Jason doesn’t visit Tim. They don’t hang out, they don’t talk; Tim doesn’t even have his number saved in his phone. It has been a long time since the unfortunate incident when Hood tried to kill him, but frankly, it’s pretty hard to just get over something like that. They work together as Bats and they’re cordial when Alfred invites them for dinner at the manor, but that’s the extent of it.
“Long time, no see, Timmy,” Red Hood says.
“What are you doing here?” Tim hisses. “How did you even get in?”
Hood throws the stressball in the air and catches it again. “Wasn’t that hard. You should probably take a look at your security.”
“Did anyone see you?”
Hood snorts. “You underestimate my stealth skills.”
Tim groans. If Jason Todd is known for anything, it definitely isn’t stealth.
Hood says casually, “No one saw me. I’m here to offer a business proposal.” He pushes off from the doorframe and looks around the room. “Nice office. I guess nepotism really does get you far.”
“Whatever it is, Hood, I’m not interested.”
“You haven’t even heard my proposal!”
“I don’t need to.”
“Here,” Jason says, and hands him the stress ball, “you look stressed.”
He looks at the stress ball, then places it carefully on his desk. He’ll have to return it later, or Carly will start sending angry messages on Slack.
“You can’t be here,” he says. “If anyone sees you…”
“Come on, Timmy, I’ve been gone for weeks, you could at least try to look pleased to see me.”
It’s not unusual for Jason to go off-grid for weeks at a time with The Outlaws. He knows Dick has somehow managed to get Bizarro to send sporadic updates when he does, so as long as he’s able to decode his backwards voice notes, they know he’s okay.
“I am– I’m happy you’re back, it’s just, if anyone sees me talking to Red Hood, it could be really, really bad.”
“Wow, really feeling the love over here. Fine, let’s get this over with, then.”
Tim swallows another complaint. He doubts he’ll be able to get rid of him without hearing him out.
“Great,” Jason says when he receives no answer, and twirls the gun around his forefinger. Tim’s heart skips a beat. “Now that I’m back in Gotham for a while, I have a new project I’d like to get up and running.”
“Okay…”
“And I happen to know the Wayne Foundation has one of the largest charity funds of any corporation in the world. Now, I’m not dumb enough to think any project run by the Red Hood will win any grants, no matter how charitable they may be, but I am lucky enough to know the Head of Accounts personally, aka the person in charge of the money.”
Oh no.
“And how hard, really, would it be,” Jason continues casually, “to accidentally fumble the figures just a little, perhaps over-budget certain endeavours, so that the excess wouldn’t be missed?”
Tim looks at him with what he hopes is a withering stare.
“You want me to siphon WE funds to your criminal empire.”
“I think it would be categorized as Charity Embezzlement, to be specific,” Hood says lightly.
“Oh, good,” Tim deadpans, “You’ve done your research.”
“The way I see it, Timmy Boy, Bruce owes me. Considering the almighty turd that is our history, I would say he owes me big time, in fact. I’d say he owes me abouutt…” He cocks his head and taps the barrel of his gun to his chin. Tim winces. “Seventy-five-thousand dollars?”
“Seventy-five grand?”
“To start with, yeah, I think that’s fair.”
“I don’t think fairness really factors into it, considering you’re holding me at gunpoint.”
Hood looks at the gun in his hand as if just noticing it for the first time.
“Oh come on, this is mostly for show, you know I’d never actually shoot you.”
“Do I?”
“I’ve been thinking. I’ve been having a lot fewer murderous impulses recently. What d’ya say we turn over a new leaf?”
Tim felt a surprising pang of annoyance at that, perhaps stemming from an obsessive childhood dream to have a friendship with the Robin he followed across rooftops at age twelve. A dream cruelly snuffed out by a pit-mad Red Hood while he wore the costume he hoped could help him emulate just a fraction of the boy who wore it before him.
“You can’t just decide to be nice to me when you want something, Jason,” he says coldly, knowing the use of his name while he’s suited up will hit a nerve. “I have some self-respect. And Bruce trusts me with his company, I’m not going to give all of that up to fund Red Hood’s next beheading spree, let alone go to prison for it.”
Hood’s eyes narrow behind the mask. He looks around briefly, his gaze glancing over the door, then all four corners of the office. With a click, he pulls off his helmet. A sweaty strand of dark hair falls into his eyes.
He comes closer, and Tim fights against the urge to roll back his chair. To him, Hood is no less terrifying as Jason Todd, a scarred, brutally changed version of the impish boy he used to look up to. No number of family dinners and “could you pass me the sauce”’s would change that.
“Bruce hasn’t trusted you with this role; he’s dumped it on you. What, having a nineteen-year-old as CEO was a bit much for him, so he downgraded you to a job no one else wants–”
“Hey, Head of Accounts is an extremely sought-after role–”
“--the most mind-numbingly dull job he could possibly think of. Who puts their teenage son, who hasn’t even got a high school diploma, in charge of a multi-billion-dollar company's finances? He can’t even be bothered to do his own job; the last time he came into WE was two weeks ago!”
Concerning. Tim will have to figure out what surveillance Jason has managed to tap into to find that out. He knows he’s not one to ask casually after Bruce’s career when he visits the manor.
“He gave me this job because he knows I’m capable,” Tim combats. “I didn’t finish high school because I was filling in for him as CEO when he was… gone. He said I did a good job, Wayne Enterprises’ stocks didn’t even dip. He- he said…”
“I’m proud of you, Tim,” he had said, and Tim knew, with stars in his eyes, that Bruce could ask anything of him in that moment and he would do it. So yes, he had accepted the invitation to move over to Head of Accounts because even down an organ and desperately scrambling to try to salvage what was left of his team, he was capable. He could do it. And he has been, for the past year and a half.
“It’s not about being capable, it’s about Bruce not giving a shit and employing you in one of the most stressful above-board jobs in Gotham while also roping you into his nightly war against whatever murdering psychopath happens to escape Arkham that day. Seriously, when do you sleep?”
Tim glares at him through eyes weighed down with impressive dark circles and tries not to think about how he’s already on his fifth coffee of the day.
“Since when do you care?”
Jason smirks.
“Like I said, I’m turning over a new leaf. I know we’ve never exactly been BFFs or whatever–”
“You tried to kill me,” Tim says. “Twice.”
“I’m not saying we need to make each other friendship bracelets and giggle about boys, but you’re telling me you wouldn’t like to at least get a little of your own back against ol’ Brucie Wayne? I’ve seen how he treats you compared to his precious devil spawn, compared to golden child, Dickie. We’re outsiders, you and me, I didn’t see it until recently, I was too caught up in blaming you for–well–everything.”
Tim rolls his eyes.
“But, hey, I see now that it’s not all entirely your fault. We could be business partners. You do a bit of light fraud, I punch a few idiots standing in our way, and voila, we make an actual difference in Gotham instead of throwing criminals back into the leaky sewage pipe that is Arkham.”
“You really have a way with words, you know that?” Tim says sarcastically. He hates the light thrum of curiosity that’s begun to wind its way through his body. He never could resist sticking his nose into things that got him into trouble (hell, if he’d been the brown-nosing rule-follower people always assumed he was, he never would have become Robin in the first place). Besides, he can’t deny Jason knows exactly where to twist the knife.
He would say he was angry or resentful towards Bruce for everything he’s been through, but in all honesty, he’s more just… sad. As a child, he had often dreamed of being part of a family that cared for one another, that gave each other hugs and ate dinner together, that enjoyed each other’s company. He watched the Waynes both in masks and out, the way they spoke to each other, and laughed with each other. Becoming Robin was supposed to mean he had finally achieved that; it was supposed to mean he was part of something–a family.
Instead, it had simply taught him that dream was not for people like him. Bruce was never cruel to him, certainly, but he never showed him the same kind of love he did the others.
Tim had left that dream behind long ago, however the fact that Jason wanted to work with him caused that awful bubble of naive hope to rear its head again. Ten-year-old Tim would have actually, literally murdered someone to be able to work with Jason Todd.
“Are you going to tell me what, exactly, you need all that money for, or am I supposed to hand it over blindly?”
Jason grins, claps him on the shoulder (Tim’s heart definitely drops out his ass just for a moment.)
“Knew I could count on you, Timbo. Meet me at the abandoned millhouse on Harrow before patrol tonight, I’ll clue you in.”
“W-wait, Jason, I didn’t say–”
But Jason was already gone, hair squashed beneath helmet once more.
“...I never said yes.
“Shit.”
Tim manages a grand total of thirty-two minutes' sleep before jolting awake in a cold sweat.
His dream dissolves almost immediately, leaving behind only flashes of faceless men in expensive suits and the certainty that he'd just been sentenced to death for treason.
Corporate anxiety. That's a new one.
He rubs a hand over his face and squints at the clock. Two hours until patrol.
After Jason left his office, Tim had made a firm decision: he was staying as far away from whatever harebrained scheme Red Hood had cooked up this time. Nothing good had ever come from following Jason Todd into an abandoned building, metaphorically or otherwise.
Unfortunately, Jason had also succeeded in making him curious.
His plan had been to sleep straight through their meeting. Instead, he'd woken with plenty of time to make it to Harrow Road before patrol, and an increasingly difficult-to-ignore need to find out what Jason was planning.
"Damn it," he mutters, pushing himself off the couch.
He left his Red Robin suit at the Batcave last night after a particularly late night working with Oracle trying to chase down three missing teenagers, and there is no way to grab it now without raising suspicion. He’s going to have to show up at the warehouse as Tim Drake, High School Dropout, Nepo Baby Extraordinaire.
He removes his business suit, which he was too tired to peel off before crashing on the couch as soon as he got home, and pulls on a dark red hoodie.
It’s already getting dark in Gotham, and rain falls in sheets as he flags down a cab. Even trained as he is, he isn’t stupid enough to risk the walk through the Narrows after the sun’s gone down.
The driver keeps giving him weird looks in the rearview mirror, and his heart rate picks up as he tries not to think about what could go wrong meeting the brother who tried to kill him not too long ago in an abandoned house in the most dangerous part of Gotham.
This is a bad idea. This is a really bad idea.
"You're one of them Wayne kids."
The driver's gravelly Gotham accent cuts through Tim's thoughts. The way he draws out the ‘Wayne’ makes it sound less like a name and more like an accusation.
Tim fights the instinct to shrink into his hoodie.
"That's right."
The driver glances at him in the rear-view mirror, his mouth curling into something that isn't quite a smile.
"Gotham royalty in my cab." He lets out a low whistle. "What's someone like you doin' in the Narrows?"
Tim suppresses a sigh.
He knows exactly where this conversation is headed.
When they arrive, Tim gives him an extra fifty for his silence. He probably wouldn’t have risen to the bait if he didn’t have something to hide, but as a matter of fact, he does have something to hide, and if anyone can trace his whereabouts tonight to a building where Red Hood does his dealings, well. It wouldn’t exactly look good.
Red Robin had been past the old mill a number of times and had noted it only for its impressive state of disrepair. It is, presumably, one of Gotham’s oldest buildings, left over from a time before the city’s buildings properly emerged like jagged teeth from swollen gums and Gotham River, which has rotted through the wooden waterwheel completely, turned into a festering pit for sewage waste and Scarecrow toxins. It’s a glorified pile of bricks now, the roof completely caved in on one side, and any old wooden parts are unsalveagable even for timber.
Tim definitely doesn’t want to go inside–one wrong move could send the other half of the building crumbling down on his head–but he also doesn’t want to stay on the street. There are no streetlamps on this side of town, and Tim can’t see more than five feet in either direction. Who knows who, or what, is lurking out of sight.
The door hangs on its hinges and groans as he opens it, covering his hand with the sleeve of his hoodie to avoid getting flakes of the rusted doorknob embedded in his skin.
Inside is colder than out, though at least there’s relief from the rain.
“Hood?” he calls, his voice echoing off dusty brick and jagged wooden beams. The scent of mildew is overwhelming.
He only has to wait ten seconds or so before a body falls from above directly in front of him. He yells out in surprise.
“Fuck! You scared the life out of me.”
He can only imagine the amusement on Jason’s face under the mask.
“You called?”
“You called,” Tim retorts. “Come on, what am I doing here?”
“Wait, take this first.” Hood hands him an industrial respirator. “Fuck knows what’s in the air; mold’s the least of our worries.”
Tim fixes it onto his face, oddly touched that Jason would care enough about the state of his lungs to bring a mask.
Hood continues. “I didn’t realise I’d be meeting with Timothy Drake-Wayne today.”
Tim knows he’s addressing the civilian clothes; business like this is usually done in costume.
“I was under the impression you needed money from Wayne Enterprises, of which Tim Drake is the Head of Accounts.”
Hood is silent for a moment.
“I forget you’re emancipated.”
There’s something in his voice that catches Tim a little off guard.
“Yes, well… it was easier at the time.” “Easier” negates the true devastation he had felt signing the emancipation papers and the sharp tug on his heart every time he wrote his name sans-Wayne since.
He clears his throat awkwardly. “So?”
Hood seems to perk up. He throws his arms in the air, gesturing at the cobwebbed corners and faint strands of moonlight reaching through the holes in the roof.
“Welcome to The Haven, safe space for all Gotham’s unwanted children.”
Tim squints at all four corners of the old mill.
“You’re telling me children live here?”
“Obviously not, idiot, but they will once we fix this place up. Teenagers have been going missing for months now, and Gotham PD raided the last few safe spaces in the Narrows.”
Tim isn’t altogether surprised Jason would want to do something like this. He knows his history on the streets and how Bruce had well-meaningly thrown him into a children’s home after he first found him. He doesn’t know the details of that particular fuck up, but he knows it hadn’t turned out too well.
“Hood, WE funds half the children’s homes in Gotham; there’s a whole department for improving amenities for kids in the system. You know this, you helped set it up.”
Back in his Robin days, Jason had detailed just how bad the system was in Gotham, and Bruce–as pre-Jason-death Bruce was wont to do–put his heart and soul into fixing things for his son’s sake. It was a story Alfred often told with great fondness.
“It doesn’t matter how much money WE gives for new toys and plumbing repairs,” Hood says forcefully, “Gotham orphanages will always be an opportunity for bastards like Black Mask and Penguin to window shop for new drug mules. They all filter into gangs or brothels sooner or later. Even Batman knows the legal way doesn’t work in Gotham; we need a place where kids can go without having to worry about gangs, the police, or the bats.”
Tim winces.
“And your drug empire doesn’t pay enough to fix this place up?”
“Nope. I’ve stopped doing that shit; turns out cleaning up the drug trade just involves killing a bunch of dirty dealers and dumping three shipments of cocaine in the Gotham Harbour. Once the difficult bit’s out the way I just hired a few lackeys to scare the shit out of anyone who gets too close to the schools. It’s way less effort to hold the existing dealers accountable instead of cornering the industry myself.”
“Drug-related deaths have gone down by forty-six per cent in the past six months.” Tim recites.
“Yep, and it’ll keep going down if the drug lords know what’s good for them.”
“But now you don’t have any income.”
“Wrong,” Hood says, pointing at him, “I have less income, which is where you come in.”
Tim bites his lip and pushes past Jason, stepping further into the mill. His foot hits something metal, rusted well past its original form, and it clatters loudly against the concrete floor.
“Why here? There’s a perfectly good block of apartments up for sale down the street. Why the old millhouse?”
“What can I say, I care about restoring culturally significant buildings.”
Tim narrows his eyes at him, disbelieving.
Hood grins and relents almost immediately. “I lived here for a while after my Mom died, just before Bruce took me in. If I hadn’t had this place, I probably wouldn’t have made it to jack the Batmobile’s tires. Call it my way of giving back.”
Tim doesn’t say anything. He… can’t see the vision Jason clearly has, not in this dilapidated building on one of the worst streets in Gotham. But he never could see this city the way Jason could. His unexpected optimism and ability to see good where no one else could is what made him, in Tim’s opinion, the best Robin Batman ever took on. He obviously lost that when he came back as Red Hood, but if he was getting that back, even just a bit…
“The money will come slowly,” he says eventually. “It’s going to have to be a gradual process, or my team will notice. And I’m going to need regular updates, I want to treat this like any other charity funding, even if it’s not official.”
When he looks back, Jason has taken off his mask and is grinning at him with all his teeth.
“You won’t regret this, Timmy. This is gonna be fucking awesome.”
Tim really hopes he’s right.