Chapter Text
The little dark haired boy sat at the sprawling dining room table, picking at a loose thread on the runner. He didn’t dare get up from his seat despite how his feet were starting to go numb where they dangled. His father had told him to stay; so he would. He could hear the muffled sounds of his parents arguing over something assuredly petty above that chandelier and then the distinct sound of his mother’s heels clip, clip, clipping down the stairs.
“Timothy.” Her smooth voice entered the room before she did, dressed in a red gown that went all the way to skim the ground at her feet like a swishing pillar. “Look at you. That nanny is always leaving you out too long, you’re all sunburned.”
He met her schmaltzy gaze. He’d read a book that said if both his parents had blue eyes, he had no choice but to also be blue eyed. It was strange to think that of all the tiny genetic things going on inside him to make him look how he did, there was no possible way for him to have been born with brown or green eyes. His parents had known he would have blue eyes before they knew if he would be a boy or a girl.
She stroked a cool hand down his cheek. “Why don’t you run upstairs and put on some of my vitamin e cream.”
“I already did,” he said proudly. “Like you told me last–”
“Timothy,” she cut in, suddenly cocking her head like a displeased bird of prey. “You know better than to use my things without permission.”
“But you said–”
She drew away, cold, heading towards the front hall. “No buts. You know better. Go get your bowtie. Quick.”
He bounced up from his seat and ran to the stairs, turning around and returning to push in his seat before scampering off again. The halls were empty and the many rooms closed. Only three people lived in the Drake Estate and only one was there for a substantial enough portion of the year to make a dent in its sterile cleanliness. It had the look of something out of a CottageLife magazine.
He burst into his room; bed made, bookshelf full, school books stacked on his desk. One of his posters was drooping from the wall, tape failing an upper corner.
He glanced over his shoulder and down the hall, quickly closing his door.
It was an F1 poster for the RedBull team. Timothy had never really been any type of car enthusiast, but it had been the biggest wall covering for sale at the Gotham Academy’s book sale in the gymnasium. He neared it and could see the white edges of photographs peeking out from beneath. The emblem on the Wayne Manor gates. A boot print pressed into loose dirt. The shadow of a pointed head cast on a concrete wall. A news clipping about Bruce Wayne’s last minute trip to Belize.
He quickly pasted the poster back up, tucking the corner beneath an oversized periodic table.
Timothy felt a bit… fanatical. People had told him his entire life that he was smart. He personally felt quite average. He’d always been Timothy Drake and it was impossible for him to imagine being anyone else, or that anyone might not be able to do math at a high school level in the third grade. That being said, even if he were a genius, could he have truly at eight years old, figured out Batman’s identity? Even with all his spying and information gathering and late nights spent doing research?
He dug through the deepest recesses of his drawer to get his bowtie and disposable camera.
No, obviously not. He could never be the one to find out. He was just connecting dots where they didn’t belong. He couldn’t help but think though, that the proof lined up quite nicely.
“Timothy!” his father bellowed. “You are not making us late!”
“Coming!” he called, and checking the poster one last time, he tucked his camera into his jacket.
Timothy had lost his parents.
They were in the same room as him, but when that room was larger than his entire– sizable– house, that wasn’t very helpful. Luckily for him, he was better off without his parents breathing over his shoulder.
He was leaning partly against, partly behind a column, watching Bruce Wayne plant a firm hand on a young teen’s shoulder. He was maybe three or four years older than Timothy and did not look thrilled to be surrounded by hoards of tittering and simpering socialites ecstatic to be in the presence of the newest dark-haired ward of Gotham’s favorite billionaire.
Actually, neither looked thrilled to be there, though Mr. Wayne was doing a better job at hiding it. Jason Todd seemed to be trying to bully those closest to him into spontaneously combusting with the force of his will.
Richard Grayson wasn’t with them. A strange coincidence considering the original Robin had also seemingly fallen off the side of the world recently, replaced by a new, eerily similar one.
Timothy raised the bright yellow camera to his eye and snapped a quick picture. He didn’t get to see it yet but he only had four photos left available on his film before he would develop them. His parents were leaving town by the end of the week so he would have time after– without them having the cleaners snooping around every nook and cranny of the house.
He wanted to be a journalist when he grew up. He liked the feeling of sleuthing around, the thrill of finding evidence. He liked knowing things that others didn’t and all of the steps that led up to having the knowledge so firmly in his grasp.
His mother always said that the world was made up of good people and bad people, and that it balanced out. She said she had the ability to sniff out which people could make her the most money, and that she thought he might too. Timothy had grown up wealthy though, he put little value in material items or wads of cash. In his eyes, he could have that whenever. What he wanted to sniff out were secrets.
Like how Mrs. Daly had cheated on her husband with a man fifteen years younger than her. Or how Mr. Wills had once gotten a good business deal by putting heavy alcohol in his partner’s coffee. Or how Bruce Wayne was Batman.
Possibly.
“Timothy,” someone snapped, breaking him from his trance. It was his father, grabbing the shoulder of his jacket in a strong fist and dragging him away from the column to walk beside him. He peeked back over to the Waynes. “I looked everywhere for you. Benjamin is outside waiting with the Bentley. Your mother isn’t ready to leave yet so you’ll just have to put yourself to bed. I want you asleep by the time we get home.”
“Yes, sir,” he chirped.
He deposited him in the entryway. “Be quick. It was raining earlier and I don’t want your suit to get wrinkled.”
Timothy nodded and with a smile, disappeared out the golden doors.
He wasn’t yet positive who Batman was, he wasn’t sure he would ever know for certain. What he did recognize was that Gotham would always need the Batman more than Tim needed to know whose face was behind the cowl.
Did that mean he would stop searching?
Definitely not.