Chapter Text
The murmur of voices rising from the beautiful, richly clad people mingling in the dazzling ballroom is loud enough to give Tim pause for a moment as he stands poised in the entryway, holding his mom’s hand.
She glances down at him and gives his hand a squeeze, flashing a quicksilver smile that curves her rose-tinted lips at just the right angle for the watching cameras. Her dark blue eyes sparkle beneath the auburn waves of her hair, pinned in a complicated updo. “Tired already? We needn’t stay for long, darling. Your father and I just have several acquaintances we’d like to introduce you to, and—” She breaks off as an older gentleman with white hair and a ridiculously curled mustache approaches, drawing her attention.
Tim follows his parents as they expertly mingle through the crowd, greeting potential investors and showing him off as their bright, polite son and heir apparent to Drake Industries. It’s incredibly boring, or it would be if he didn’t have to focus every moment so as not to make a mistake and embarrass them.
Accidentally putting his foot in his mouth or fiddling with the collar of his expensive, tailored suit in front of someone who turns out to be important is something he’d rather avoid. His parents wouldn’t blame him, exactly, but he hates to see his father’s barely concealed wince or his mother’s tight-lipped discomfort.
They’ve put so much work into their business, and a lot of that involves schmoozing wealthy investors at events like this one. Technically, it’s meant to be a fundraiser for the Martha Wayne Foundation, which Drake Industries already donated a sizable sum to this year, but for the Drakes and others like them it’s a prime opportunity to sow the seeds for future business deals.
He sighs and resists the urge to squirm as his parents fall into a discussion about their latest archaeological project with a mixed group of bankers and their socialite spouses. It’s not that he isn’t interested, but his parents already eagerly told him these same stories the moment they got home, illustrated with actual photos and in some cases, castings of their finds. The actual artifacts are already on their way to universities and museums in the country where they were excavated, of course.
Tim gives in to the urge to glance around the room. There’s Bruce Wayne, holding court surrounded by a bevy of social-climbing beauties, male and female. His ward, Dick Grayson, is there as well, entertaining a group of bored teenagers who were obviously dragged along by their parents.
Eyeing them, Tim considers the potential benefits of slipping away and heading in that direction. Teenagers are less boring than adults and his parents are likely to approve of the influential friendships and connections he might make in that crowd.
Teenagers are also weird and kind of irritating. They waste so much time flirting with each other, it’s annoying. He has no idea how Dick stands it. He told him that once, and Dick just smiled and fluffed his hair and told him he’d understand when he’s older.
Tim scowls. Nine years old is plenty old enough to recognize when people are acting dumb.
He turns away. There’s got to be someone else here who would be more interesting to talk to. His gaze falls on a beautiful woman in a sleek black dress. She’s standing near an archway and sipping from a champagne glass, watching the room with an expression of deep amusement in her green eyes.
Brightening, he tugs his mom’s hand and waits for her to look down in inquiry before he tilts his chin.
Following his gaze, his mom smiles and waves. “Oh, Selina is here! Yes, darling, go ahead and say hello to your godmother. Come right back if she starts on a third glass of champagne or if Bruce Wayne tries to talk to her. She’s a darling, but she is not child-appropriate after her third glass or with an eligible bachelor to torment. Honestly, she’s just like a cat with a mouse when she gets a wealthy fool in her claws.”
Nodding, Tim leans up on his tiptoes and presses a kiss to his mom’s cheek. His dad absently pats him on the shoulder. “We’ll be done in just a few more minutes, sport.”
Yeah, right. They’re deep in conversation again before he’s even stepped away, the circle of archaeology enthusiasts closing up behind him the moment he steps back. They’ll be at this for hours.
At least he’ll have good company. He makes a beeline for Selina, who greets him with a smile and a warm hug. “Hello there, Timmy—I don’t understand how Janet can bring herself to keep dragging you along to these things. Some of us have to be here, but it seems so inhumane to subject a kid like you to it.” She hands him a tiny plate filled with hors d’oeuvres.
“Thanks.” Tim accepts the plate and happily picks through the offerings, selecting something small and savory to stuff into his mouth. Selina always knows the best things to eat and never includes any of the weird, yucky foods that somehow end up at these parties. The epitome of good taste is tasting bad, or something. Tim doesn’t really get it. “It’s not so bad. I’m just glad to spend time with—” He breaks off guiltily, but not fast enough.
Selina’s carefree grin fades, leaving her lovely face harsher and older-looking somehow. “They’re still traveling a lot, huh?”
He shrugs. The last thing he wants is to be the cause of another fight between his mom and her old school friend. It’s scary. They both say the meanest things to each other in the most polite, calm voices imaginable. Last time it happened was when Selina found out the Drakes left Tim home with Mrs. Mac for three whole months and ended up missing his birthday.
Tim’s dad took one look at the two ladies in the drawing room, sipping their tea and glaring daggers at each other, and backed right out of the room. He took Tim with him, rescuing him from the awful tension to go play catch in the backyard.
Tim knows they’ll still be friends, even if they fight again. He just doesn’t want it to happen. His mom doesn’t have many friends, and Selina is the only one who feels real. Maybe it’s because they knew each other when they were young, before either of them ever dreamed of going to parties like this in expensive dresses.
Maybe it’s just because they’re both kind of mean in a nice way, able to bring a roomful of stuck up idiots to their knees with a few words, and then turn around and brush Tim’s hair out of his eyes and ask about his day in the next breath.
“Some,” he says, not meeting her eyes. If he does, she’ll definitely be able to tell that he’s sad about it. His parents are going to be home for a whole month this time, and mom even made his favorite breakfast this morning. He has nothing to be upset about. “It’s fine though.” To distract Selina, who’s still eyeing him with far too sharp a gaze, he scans the crowd. “Tell me a story? Ooh, how about that guy?” He gestures with his chin toward the interesting-looking man who greeted his parents earlier, with his ornate facial hair.
Selina follows his gaze and snorts, her usual good humor apparently restored. “Oh, that’s Colonel Ansley. He’s quite a character. I’m not sure I should be telling you this one…”
He gives her a look. There’s no way she can hold back now, not after building up his curiosity like that. “Yeah?”
Chuckling, she capitulates. “Well, a few years ago…”
By the time his mom comes to collect him, at least an hour later, Tim’s stuffed full of tasty hors d’oeuvres and gossip. These galas are always so much more fun when he runs into Selina.
“Bye, thanks for the food!” Tim says, giving Selina a quick hug before stuffing his cheeks with everything left on the plate and bolting. She throws her head back and laughs, shaking her hair out of her eyes, and reaches out to ruffle his hair and tweak his nose like she always does.
As Janet rolls her eyes at his antics and gives Selina a quick hug of her own, brushing their cheeks together, he follows his dad out to wait for the valet to bring the car around. Chances are, Selina and his mom will talk for a while now, and he doesn’t want to be here if Selina decides to bring up the traveling thing again. He loves them both, but they’re scary when they have one of their polite arguments.
Sometimes he wonders why Selina doesn’t just offer to take care of him herself while the Drakes travel. Then the thought slips from his mind, chased away by her teasing laughter and blunt affection whenever he actually does see her.
Anyway, he doesn’t want to dwell on this right now. His parents are here and he plans to enjoy their time home to the full extent possible.
A few weeks later, Tim watches through his bedroom window as the taillights of Mrs. McIlvaine’s small sedan disappear into the darkness. She doesn’t stay overnight anymore, not since he turned nine and his dad proclaimed him a big boy, plenty mature enough to be responsible for himself overnight. His mom wasn’t happy about it, but gave in when his dad gently mocked her for coddling him.
He wishes she hadn’t.
Tim sighs and buries his bare toes in the thick pile of the carpet. It feels warm and comforting, and his bedroom is just as comfortable and inviting as it always is, but somehow nothing feels right. It’s always hard for the first few days after his parents leave, the silence and emptiness of the large house oppressive instead of peaceful.
Later, once he’s used to it again, he usually kind of enjoys the time to himself. He can do his online schoolwork at whatever pace he wants, binge on any shows he’s interested in, and play computer games for hours on end. It’s great. He can even eat potato chips in his room, as long as he remembers to clean up all the empty bags before Mrs. Mac in comes to do the vacuuming.
For now, though, he feels sad and lonely. He eyes the piles of books, half-completed projects, and gadgets lying around on his desk and bookshelves, and turns away in a huff. Nothing looks appealing right now, not even his laptop. He’s been idly working on trying to bypass the security of the Gotham library so he can read whatever digital books he wants and skip the stupid pointless waitlist, but that doesn’t sound very appealing right now. The security seems way more complex than it should be for a library, anyway.
His gaze catches on his new camera, a present from his parents right before they left. Maybe it would be fun to take a few pictures. Only, what is there even to take pictures of?
He looks out the window again, his gaze drawn to the bright lights of Gotham in the distance. There are so many people in the city, a constant churn of motion as they go about their daily lives. A little thrill of excitement blooms in his chest as he imagines walking out the front door and riding his bike into the city. It won’t be that dangerous, he reasons. He knows he can make it all the way because his dad once took him on a bike ride over the Robert Kane Memorial Bridge to Sheldon Park, where they had greasy hotdogs and giant soft drinks with carbonation so strong it tickled Tim’s nose.
Of course, his mom drove out to pick them up because Tim’s legs were tired and his dad was worried about him trying to bike all the way back. Still, he’s pretty sure he can manage. He’ll take his time and rest along the way if he needs it.
Decided, Tim doesn’t waste any time putting on layers of warm, dark clothes and snagging the camera before heading downstairs to grab his keys and hop on his bicycle. What he’s doing is exciting, with an illicit thrill of doing something he knows his parents wouldn’t approve of.
He feels a little guilty, but mostly free. After all, if they wanted to be able to tell him what to do all the time, they probably should’ve stuck around.
By the time he’s over the bridge and coasting down the bike lane past Sheldon Park, Tim is starting to regret his recent choices. His lungs are burning, his legs feel like leaden lumps that might just fall off with the next pump, and the park is dark, festooned with scary shadows. He keeps hearing weird noises that might just be raccoons fighting over scraps but his imagination says are definitely terrifying monsters about to lunge out and chomp him with their long, sword-like teeth.
He’s pretty sure the ride back is going to be torture. So he just keeps going. As long as he keeps heading south along the expressway, it’s still slightly downhill, which is a relief to his aching muscles.
The streets of Robbinsville are quiet, with only a few late evening joggers and people out walking their dogs. Most of the rush hour traffic is over and what’s left isn’t enough to be scary, even though the bright lights and whoosh of cars passing his bicycle makes him tense every time.
Finally, he comes to a halt in front of the big cathedral overlooking the Bob Kane Sound, just north of the Sprang Bridge. He finds a cozy nook between a couple of shrubs in the landscaped strip separating the parking lot from the side chapel and hides his bike there. Excitement and nerves send his heart racing as he looks around, wondering what he should do next. It’s beautiful here, the views out over the sound and the river lovely where the water shows through the trees and surrounding buildings.
Tim wishes he could get a better view. After a moment, he looks up. Could he…?
As it turns out, he could. It only takes a few false starts before he manages to shimmy up a downspout, the ornate, fussy architecture of the cathedral proving very helpful along the way. He finds purchase for his hands and feet on various ledges, windows, and decorative elements before making his way onto a slightly pitched rooftop about halfway up the side of the cathedral. There are large, elegant supporting columns which arch from the rooftop back into the side of the building, and a few gargoyles crouched along the eave.
It’s a pretty comfortable place, all in all. He flops down on the rooftop and lifts his camera, then stares.
All of Gotham is spread out at his feet, the black silhouettes of the city skyline glittering with lights to the south over the slow, shimmering current of the Sprang. To the east, moonlight glimmers and dances over the surface of the waves, the sound calm and quiet tonight.
It’s so beautiful. Tim raises his camera and focuses, then takes a picture. The flash goes off and half-blinds him, and the resulting picture is pretty bad, but he takes some time experimenting with settings, gradually improving the quality of his photos.
By the time he finally gets an image he likes—one that captures the moon breaking through the clouds, both the Sprang and part of the sound framing Gotham’s skyline—the night has grown sharply colder and he’s surprised to find himself shivering, his hands stiff and chilled.
It’s definitely past time to be heading back. He scoots toward the edge of the rooftop, suddenly much more aware of how high up he is than he was when he climbed up here. Anxiety twists his belly and he swallows, looking down at the distant pavement below.
A shadow falls across it. What?
Tilting his head back, Tim tries to figure out what could be casting that shadow. It looks like a bird, maybe, or a bat, flying quickly in his direction—
Oh. Oh, wow. He looks up, and there’s Batman. The vigilante is swinging across the Sprang Bridge, using two lines to swing from one pylon to the next. Behind him, a smaller, brighter figure flutters and flips in graceful arcs.
Tim watches them in wonder, barely aware when he raises the camera to his eye and begins to click. It’s so cool. They’re both incredible, powerful and graceful in a way that doesn’t seem quite human. They catch up to their prey on the final pylon, and he realizes they’ve been chasing Catwoman. She cracks her whips at them and grins in challenge, dangling something he can’t quite make out over the smooth waters of the Sprang.
He’s watching through the camera when he sees it. Not Robin, although the back of his mind makes note of the four revolutions he completes as he flips through the air to land beside his mentor. He’ll connect the dots and realize what that means later, when he has time to think about it and recall the last person he saw perform that rare move.
No, what he sees is Catwoman, throwing her head back and tossing it like she’s flipping short, straight hair out of her eyes, despite the cowl that covers whatever her hair actually looks like. She reaches out to ruffle Robin’s hair in a very familiar manner, tweaking his nose and then chuckling as he bats at her hand, looking offended.
No way.
Tim watches, using his camera to zoom in on what he can see of her features and studying them. The huge goggles and cowl cover a lot, but from what he can see, it’s possible.
Lowering the camera, he swallows. Well, this is interesting. Very interesting.
After a moment, he starts to smile. Looks like he has something new to occupy his time.