Chapter Text
It’s weird, being poor. At the moment, Tim has precisely eleven dollars to his name. Drake Industries, gone. Their assets, gone. His trust fund, being used to pay for his father’s hospital bills. The house is gone, too, which is why Tim now lives in a dingy apartment two blocks over from Crime Alley. Rent is okay, but mostly because the top floor is clearly an opium den and corpses regularly turn up in the rest of the house.
So, yeah, things have been different for the past month. Tough, sure, maybe. But mostly different.
Tim isn’t used to this, is the thing. For as long as he can remember, his family has been wealthy. He’s never had to worry about food, or clothes, or tuition.
If he’d had to, he might have tried to get better grades. With his grade average the way it is now, having fallen prey to too many late nights long before he ever became Robin, there is no way he can apply for a scholarship, and with the entire Drake fortune vanished overnight, he can’t afford tuition.
That’s fine, though. Public school in Gotham is really not as bad as everyone made it out to be. One of the school bathrooms even works, and only about half of the kids in his class are part of various gangs. The other are clearly all cops in disguise. One of them literally has a full beard. The other keeps using English Lit to file his tax return. Tim relates. He uses English Lit to play sudoku on his phone.
In a way, the timing of Drake Industries’ ruin has been really very convenient. Not only is Bruce too busy investigating the mysterious case of newly-appeared criminal Red Hood, and thus has not turned on the news or gone to Wayne Enterprises even once these past few weeks, but also, he has grounded Tim from patrol.
“This is not punishment,” he’d explained, a few days before everything went to shit. “It’s a precaution. Red Hood will be detained soon, and then this will all be over.”
But Red Hood has not been detained yet, absolutely nothing is over, Tim is still grounded and hasn’t spoken to Bruce in weeks, and, luckily, this means he now has plenty of time to work mornings at one of Gotham’s dozen bars that openly sells alcohol to minors, work evenings at Batburger, work various odd jobs on the weekends, and still visit his dad at the hospital once a week. Bruce’s timing to rip away the only thing Tim cares about could not have been better.
And the thing is, during the first couple of days, everyone kept asking him if he was okay. His dad’s attorneys, the teachers in Gotham Academy, his old housekeeper. This felt weird to Tim, who’s never been anything but okay. He has to be, and so he is, and that’s just the way life works.
But sometimes, he still lies awake at night, scrolling through his phone to look at the various Bat sightings, clicks on his message history with Bruce with the last message being from last week, telling Tim to stay put, and he can’t help but wonder.
Does Bruce know? He definitely doesn’t, obviously. But, does he? And if he does, or if he found out now, would he do anything? Not that he needs to do something. Tim is clearly nailing being poor. And he’s way better equipped for it than a lot of people, he bets. So it’s not like he needs a rescue. But Bruce rescued Jason, didn’t he?
In the end, though, there’s no point in thinking along these lines. Tim is fine, and even if he wasn’t, Bruce would have no obligation to help him out, and also, Jason was twelve and Tim is fifteen, so that’s, like, totally different.
Tim is still short, but he’s lost most of his baby fat over the past year, and looks-wise, he is definitely more on his way to young adult than cute kid. Not that Bruce likes cute kids! He’s not a paedophile. But, like, historically, being a cute kid has certainly helped earn Bruce’s favour. Adults, Bruce expects to take care of themselves. He’d expect the same from Tim.
Which is why Tim is not going to tell him. And maybe, eventually, hopefully, his dad is going to wake up and instead of seeing the mess that has become Tim’s life, he’ll see their family’s wealth restored. That’d be nice, Tim thinks.
*
In spite of all the dying, and the waking up, and the being a zombie for a while before being thrown into a murderous pit that remade his body, healed his scars and gave him an all-encompassing anger like nothing he’s ever felt before – in spite of all of that, Jason kind of likes being back in Gotham.
Dying, he has learned, means a great deal of nothingness. No heaven, no hell, just nothing.
As it turned out, Jason does not enjoy being nothing. Nothing kind of sucks. That’s part of why he likes being back:
Gotham, for all its faults or because of them, is everything. It’s a stereo turned up at full volume. It’s a dish with too much salt. It’s a garbage can that hasn’t been taken out in two weeks. In Gotham, you can’t help but feel things, even if that feeling is disgust.
It’s impossible to be nothing in Gotham.
The other reason why Jason enjoys being back is because it’s such an honest city. Sure, there’s corruption. There’s lies, and shady businesses. But in its heart, on the streets at night, it has nothing to hide. All its crimes, all its failures are open for anyone to see. Jason has always liked that about Gotham.
Also, pissing Bruce off is really fun. And Jason is going to piss him off so much. He has this whole plan, to be executed when Bruce is least expecting it. Oh, Bruce and Dick already know of Red Hood’s existence, and they know of his interest in the new Robin. But they don’t know his face, and they don’t know the nature of his interest.
Okay, that’s a little creepy. Jason is not into kids or anything. He’s into beating them up! Well, one of them. One really annoying one. And the kid in question is fifteen, anyway. That’s basically a grown-up. Red Hood is not breaking his principles if he’s beating up a grown-up, or if he’s permanently maiming a grown-up, or if he’s killing a grown-up and then leaving said grown-up on Bruce’s doorstep.
So maybe Jason has some problems. Who cares? Everyone does. Bruce certainly does. There’s no reason why having problems should stop you from doing the things you love. And the things Jason loves just so happen to involve giving his replacement a slow, agonising death. Sue him.
All in good time, though. Jason hasn’t been back all that long, and Batman and Nightwing’s investigation is clearly going nowhere. There’s no rush. He can enjoy himself a little. Expand on his crime empire, sure, possibly some time in the future.
But first things first. He’s rented a nice apartment, he’s installed these cool new knife thingies into his suit’s gloves (Wolverine-style), he’s stocked up on groceries and tomorrow he plans to finally paint the walls of his living room. Life is good. Now that Jason is back from the dead, he plans to not hold back on anything anymore.
That is also why he’s here, a quarter after midnight, standing in line at the Batburger the street down from his home.
There are any number of places in Gotham that sell fast food at this time of night, but Jason has always liked this one best, and not just because their burgers are so greasy that if you held a candle to them, they’d catch on fire.
No, he also likes it here because this is where Bruce took him, a lifetime ago, back when Jason had just tried to steal his tyres and Batman decided that instead of arresting him, he’d bring him home with him instead. He’d brought him to Batburger, first, though, and Jason had eaten so much he almost puked.
Maybe, just maybe, Jason is a little nostalgic about this place now. Even though the guy in front of him is taking for-fucking-ever to order. Christ.
When it’s finally his turn, Jason is halfway through placing his order before he is suddenly hit by a sense of wrongness. Something is off here, and he does not know what.
“Would you like fries with that?” asks the kid behind the counter when Jason falls silent. Something about his face, Jason thinks. Somewhere, sometime, he’s seen this kid before. “Sir?”
His name badge reads Tim. Jason does not know any Tims.
“Sir?” Tim repeats, a little louder, clearly growing impatient. He’s fourteen or fifteen, maybe, and Jason frowns at him. Maybe this is what’s bothering him.
“Are you old enough to work here?”
“It’s Gotham,” Tim replies, like that explains everything.
“Even Gotham has laws about child labour,” Jason points out.
Tim rolls his eyes. “Well, I’m not a child. I’m fifteen. That’s basically a grown-up.”
“That,” Jason says, “is not a grown-up. You’re supposed to be home building with blocks, not working the night shift.”
“I’m fifteen, not five,” Tim tells him. “And you’re holding up the line. Order or get out.”
“Fine,” Jason says and orders a Batburger with extra bacon, fries, and a chocolate milkshake. Then he asks, “You seem really familiar for some reason.”
Tim cocks his head as he types in the order. “Perhaps you’ve seen me on the news. That’s eleven-ninety-nine, by the way.”
Jason goes through his pockets, finds some crumpled-up notes and drops them carelessly on the counter, leaving it to Tim to sort through them.
“News?” he demands. “Why would a shrimp like you be on the news?”
“Jesus fucking Christ, stop harassing the kid and get moving, asshole,” says someone from right behind him.
Jason whirls around, outraged, and sees that a dozen or so people are standing line, all glaring at him. Because he can’t kill them all, he takes the food and stalks off towards the exit.
Someone else says, “Fucking finally.” Just before the door falls shut behind him, he thinks he hears cheering. Assholes.
He’s so annoyed that he’s forgotten all about the kid at the register by next morning. It’s not like it concerns him, anyway. He has bread to bake, sturdy winter boots to buy, and little Timothy Drake to kill.
*
Things are getting a little harder now. Tim’s wages are enough to cover rent or groceries, but not both. He makes a little extra on the side tutoring some kids from school, but he’s had to re-invest that money paying some of the other kids to act as his friends-slash-bodyguards to avoid him getting beaten up every day after class. It’s the undercover cops doing the worst of the bullying in a blatant attempt to fit in. Tim could fight them off, of course, but he simply has no time to take care of that in addition to all his other duties. Luckily, thanks to Scar und Bullet, he doesn’t have to.
He doesn’t regret paying them, but he does worry a little bit that he’s going to have to start skipping meals soon. A lot of meals. It’ll be the ultimate diet.
Tim writes DIET HARD in his notebook, the newest item on a list that already holds a dozen or so points. He stares down at it, considers it for a few seconds, then adds a slash and writes YOU MAY DIE SOME DAY. BUT NOTHING STOPS YOU FROM DIETING RIGHT NOW. TRY THE ZERO DOWN DIET next to it. Much better. Something to think about later.
He eats at Batburger sometimes, but even his employee discount doesn’t really make the meals affordable to him. He’s thought about calling Alfred, asking if he can come over for dinner, but in the end, he chose not to. He’s still grounded, after all, and Bruce hasn’t texted him in days. If his presence was wanted at the manor, surely Bruce would let him know.
Food, though becoming an increasingly large issue, is not the most pressing of his problems though. So far, Tim has been able to make do. But the heating, well. He’s not sure what to do about the heating.
Drake Industries went broke in October. It’s November now, with December steadily approaching. Soon, Tim’s jumpers won’t be enough to fend off the cold.
He’s startled out of his thoughts when his phone rings. The screen flashes with an image of Dick making a silly face at the camera.
“Tim! What’s up?” Dick asks as soon as Tim answers.
“I’m contemplating the merits of trying to install a fireplace in my bedroom,” Tim tells him. On the other end of the line, Dick laughs.
“Only you, Tim.” He sounds fond. “Don’t do anything that runs risk of catching fire, will you? There’s no point protecting you from Red Hood if you burn to death.”
“No burning to death,” Tim promises. “Speaking of Red Hood – did, um. Did you have any news on that front?”
“Some,” Dick says. His voice has taken on a tight edge for some reason. “Suspicions, mostly, at this point. We’ll let you know as soon as we have anything concrete. For now, you just hang in there, okay? I know you must be bored, and I swear I’ll make it up to you. Tell you what, why don’t we have a movie night at my place? It’s the weekend, so you can totally stay over.”
Tim glances around his mostly empty apartment. His laptop sits on the kitchen table, his newly downloaded art program still running. He supposes he can always finish this later.
“Sure,” he says.
“Awesome! Want me to give you a lift? I’m just coming from the manor, so it’s no trouble.”
“Sure,” Tim repeats. “I’ll text you the address.”
“Harsh,” Dick says, sounding wounded. “I know we haven’t hung out much this past month, but it’s not like I forgot where you live!”
Tim saves his half-finished fanart of Batman and Joker passionately kissing, shuts down the laptop and says, “I’m in downtown Gotham, actually. Near Park Row. I’ll text you.”
Dick gasps exaggeratedly. “Crime Alley! Tell me you haven’t been secretly patrolling on your own.”
“I haven’t been secretly patrolling on my own.”
Dick laughs again. “You know, I almost believed that. Well, fear not! I won’t rat you out to Bruce. I’m on my way now. Don’t move a muscle until I’m there!”
He hangs up, and Tim can’t stop himself from smiling the entire time it takes Dick to get there.
*
Things are going great. It must be because Jason is such a genius at planning. As Robin, he was known for his boldness and, depending on the situation, got either praised or criticised for it.
He rarely got praised for his brains, though, not even by Bruce or Dick, which he’s pretty sure is some sort of rich people prejudice, thinking that just because he lived on the streets, he can’t be smart. But did Dick get straight A’s all throughout high school? Jason doesn’t think so. He didn’t even get into an Ivy League. Not that Jason got into an Ivy League, but that’s mostly because he died before he got the chance to apply. It doesn’t count. It’s not the same.
His high school days are long over, though, and these days he’s able to pour all his energy and smarts mostly into questions like How to Best Take Over the Drug Trade, or How to Get Bruce to Kill the Joker, or How to Make a Killer Quiche, or How to Find Where Replacement is Hiding.
He’s succeeded in the drug trade, he’s working on the Joker issue and the Quiche thing, and as for the Replacement, well.
Luckily, despite growing up in the gutter or whatever it is Bruce probably thinks of him, he’s not a complete moron. He can go to the library and use their archive like anyone else.
That’s how, in spite of all of Bruce’s efforts to hide Timothy Drake from him, he found that the new Robin is heir to Drake Industries and currently lives in Bristol, less than two miles away from Wayne Manor.
Score.
Jason makes sure to suit up, and it’s only when he’s riding on his motorbike and already halfway there that he realises how much better it would have been if he had worn a Robin costume. That would’ve really shown the kid that Jason is not to be messed with. Too bad. He’s going to find ways to make up for it, though.
The Drake mansion is dark when he pulls up in front of their lawn. Little bird left his nest? Perhaps. Looks like Jason is just going to have to wait until he returns.
Breaking in is so easy that it feels like a trap. Reflexively, Jason looks around, but the foyer is empty, and he can’t spot anyone watching him.
Wait.
The foyer is empty. Not just devoid of people-empty, but devoid of furniture-empty, too. Weird. That’s weird, right?
He walks into the living room, and there’s no furniture here, either. No sofas or armchairs, no TV, no art on the walls. There’s no table in the dining room, no fridge in the kitchen, and when he goes upstairs, the rooms are so barren that he’s starting to get a little creeped out by it. Did the Drakes move? They must have.
Well, nothing to be done for it. Jason’s just going to have to back to the library and spend another few days researching-
His phone buzzes with a Google alert on Bruce Wayne giving a telephone interview about how his spiritual retreat is going. Oh, right. Google. Jason kind of forgot that Google is a thing. Look, death kind of messes with time, alright? He missed so many technical inventions, like Disney Plus or the new iPhone. They removed the headphone jack. Jason has not yet figured out how to connect his headphones anyway.
And, sure, maybe people were already googling things before he died, and maybe they were doing so for several years, but Jason isn’t Steve Jobs, is he? He can’t be expected to remember every little thing. What happened to good old-fashioned libraries?
Back home, he powers up his laptop, opens his browser and types in Drake Family into the search bar. Instantly, thousands of results pull up, all with very dooming headlines. DRAKE INDUSTRIES BANKRUPT, reads one. COMATOSE JACK DRAKE IN FOR RUDE AWAKENING, reads another.
Jason clicks on one and skims it. What he learns is enlightening in some aspects and confusing in others. At least one thing is now clear, though.
With his father still in the hospital and Timothy Drake being a minor whose home was recently pawned, it’s obvious that Bruce has taken him in. Jason knows how Bruce’s mind works. He wouldn’t have been able to resist.
In other words, Jason is going to search Wayne Manor next. And then he can finally make sure Bruce realises there will be no more Robins.
First, he really craves a coffee, though.
*
This whole never sleeping habit Tim has cultivated over the years is really coming in handy as of late. He’s up at five every morning in order to start his first shift bright and early half an hour later, and his evening shift at Batburger ends at half past midnight.
This leaves him with about four hours of sleep every night, which, hey, is a little longer than he got while he was still patrolling. Who knew that getting grounded and going bankrupt could improve his life like this?
He won’t deny it’s exhausting, though. Not just the work and the lack of sleep themselves, but the clients, too. Early morning and late evening hours are prime time for harassment, it turned out. Customers come in drunk or high or, one time, nursing a stab wound, and they’re impatient and rude and think that just because he’s clearly young and non-threatening looking, they’re able to do everything they want.
Case in point: the guy who just walked into Roger’s. There’s blood on his ripped jeans, his hoodie has ABAB printed on it next to a little doodle of a bat, and he’s scowling like someone just killed his entire family. Knowing Gotham, maybe someone did.
That’s not the worst of it though. Truth be told, Tim gets customers who look like this all the time. Hell, most people look worse. Most people at his school look worse. He’s never seen Scar without a set of brass knuckles.
This guy, though. Tim recognises this guy.
“You again,” the guy says, like he can’t believe this, either. “Child labour is forbidden in this country, you know. Perhaps I should have a little talk with your boss.” He says it perfectly pleasantly, except that he said talk like he really meant something else.
“If you get me fired, I won’t be able to make rent,” Tim tells him matter-of-factly, “and then I’ll have to suck off my landlord so he lets me stay anyway, and I’m pretty sure that working at a coffeeshop is a better job for kids than being a prostitute.”
The guy scratches his neck, suddenly looking awkward. “Listen, kid,” he says, leaning on the counter and knocking down a sugar dispenser by doing so, “I get that life is tough. I know that better than anyone, okay? And I know you have your pride, and you think you can do it all on your own, but, listen, here’s twenty bucks, okay? Do something with it.”
He searches in his pockets and puts down a five-dollar-note that he puts on the counter.
Tim stares down at it.
“So I only had a fiver,” the guy says, sounding defensive, “so what? Money doesn’t grow on trees. And I’ll have a large black coffee and a scone to go. Cheers.”
Trying hard not to roll his eyes, Tim prepares the coffee, puts the scone in a bag, hands both to the guy who repeats “cheers” and walks out, and realises suddenly that the guy hasn’t paid. He glances at the five-dollar-note again.
The coffee and the scone cost 5.49$.
This guy actually lost him money.
Being poor is clearly turning Tim into a cynic, because his first thought is there’s probably a lesson about society in there somewhere, if he were the type to worry about metaphors instead of putting food on the table.
“Hey,” he says to Bullet, who’s sitting in the corner of the coffeeshop with his palm flat on the table, fingers spread out. With his other hand, he is using a shiv to stab at the space between his fingers. “Hey, Bullet! Can I borrow forty-nine pence from your wages today?”
Bullet grunts, which Tim takes as affirmative. He puts the money in the register and decides that if he ever sees the asshole again, he’s going to have to take some measures to get rid of him.
*
“Jason?”
Shit. Shit, shit, shit, fucking-
Shit.
Jason very carefully turns around. There, in the door to his old bedroom in Wayne Manor, is Dick.
This is not the first time Jason has seen him since his resurrection, of course, but it is the first time he’s seeing him without a mask. This right here is not Nightwing. It’s Dick. Jason’s big brother.
Dick is wearing pyjama pants and nothing else. He’s built but, Jason notes with some satisfaction, not as ripped as Jason himself. Good.
“Jason, is that you?” Dick asks dazedly. He reaches out a hand as though he wants to touch Jason, make sure he’s real. Jason moves away instinctively, and then he gets an idea.
“Nope,” he says, “this is a dream. You’re asleep.”
He feels somewhat bad about this, especially because tears are starting to well up in Dick’s blue eyes. It’s kind of hard remembering that Dick is the third-worst human being alive who didn’t even come to his own brother’s funeral when he’s standing in front of Jason like this, vulnerable in his PJs, staring at Jason like he’s a ghost which, he supposes, he is.
“Of course it is,” Dick breathes. For a moment, he brightens. “If this is a dream, can I conjure ice cream?”
There’s a pause, wherein Dick looks constipated in an obvious effort to whip ice cream out of thin air. Nothing happens, and Dick deflates.
“Doesn’t work like that, moron.” Jason hesitates. Part of him wants to tell Dick to fuck off, but not only would that not serve his purpose, but also, telling him that feels harder right now than the thought of it did ten minutes ago.
While he’s been thinking, Dick has stepped fully into the room. He rubs his eyes blearily. Evidently, he’s just woken up. “What are you doing here? Why am I dreaming of your bedroom?”
“Why do I still have a room here?” Jason shoots back. “Actually, forget it, never mind. Where’s the new kid’s room? I, um, I want to play. Catch. With him.”
Dick brightens again. It’s obvious to Jason that the idea of his two little brothers playing catch together makes sense to Dick, that he acknowledges this as a plausible dream.
“Tim! You know, this is what I’ve told Bruce when he first said he thinks you might be Red Hood. I told him that if you really were alive, there’s no way you wouldn’t get along with your little brother.” Dim gives him a sunny smile. Then, abruptly, he looks sad again. “Tim isn’t here, though. He lives one house over. Weird that Dream-Me doesn’t know this.”
“The Replacement does not live-“ Jason stops. Dick is progressively looking more awake, and soon, he’ll realise that this is reality. “Never mind,” he says. “Hey, Dickie, why don’t you go back to bed, alright? It’s late.”
Dick shakes his head. “This is a good dream,” he protests. “I like this dream.”
Jason sighs. He puts an arm around Dick’s shoulder. Immediately, Dick tugs him in closer, until almost all his weight is resting on Jason. Jason sighs again, but he doesn’t pull away. Slowly, he walks them both to Dick’s room down the hall.
Once he’s dropped Dick into bed, Dick’s hand shoots out, gripping Jason’s wrist. “Don’t leave,” he says, but instead of a demand, it comes out like a plea. “You’re not allowed to leave again, Jay.”
His chest tight, Jason says, “I won’t. I’ll stay with you until you fall asleep.”
Dick is still smiling by the time his eyes flutter shut. Jason awkwardly pats him on the head.
This whole interaction was hard. But somehow, leaving is even harder. As is trying to summon up enough Lazarus rage again to remember what he was doing here in the first place. To care.
The thing is, Jason thinks later as he sneaks out of the Manor again to find his bike that he parked down the street, a safe distance away – the thing is, what’s he even supposed to do now?
For all intents and purposes, Timothy Drake appears to be missing. His house is empty, he’s not staying with Bruce, and he can’t be in some orphanage, either, because if he was, Dick would’ve known about it. Did he run away? But Dick would have known that, too.
He googles the kid again, this time with more purpose. He finds: nothing. Zero reports on where Timothy Drake is now. Just a few old interviews, some photographs of him exiting Gotham Academy, taken right after the Drakes lost everything, and an article that’s a few months old already, pre-bankruptcy, where the kid tells a reporter about how he’s still hoping his dad will wake up, how he visits him every week just in case his dad can feel his presence.
There. At last, a clue.
Because wherever it is Timothy Drake went into hiding, Jason feels sure he can’t have left Gotham. He’s too good a son for that. Whatever he’s doing right now, Jason would bet anything that he still visits his father in hospital every week.
Fucking finally, he’s getting somewhere.
*
In the end, it’s not the rent, or the groceries, or the wages for his bodyguards, or any of his other everyday expenses. What really dooms him is the American health care system, or the lack thereof.
His trust fund is gone, depleted, poured into his father’s hospital bills. This would be fine, if it weren’t for the phone call he just got.
He’s got one more week. After that, they’re taking his father off life support.
And Tim can’t even afford the bus ticket to the hospital right now.
“Mr Drake? Are you still there?” asks the hospital agent on the phone. She sounds kind. Tim thinks she probably means well. She probably didn’t mean to ruin his life with one phone call. He tries to remember this when he answers.
“I’m still there. Sorry. I’ll – I’ll figure something out. I swear.”
“I’m sure you will,” the hospital agent tells him and hangs up. That makes one of them, Tim thinks. Because he’s not sure. He’s not sure at all.
The phone call came when he was on his way home after school. Now that it’s over, he sits down on the sidewalk, like a puppet whose strings have been cut, like a drunk, like a teenager who’s just been told that if he can’t come up with several thousand dollars in a week, they’re going to kill his dad.
He sits there for several minutes. Cars and bicycles pass by, a stray dog gives him a curious sniff before walking on, and an old man looks at him pityingly and gives him two dollars. It takes Tim a second to realise that the man thought he’s homeless.
He stares at the money in his hand. Sighs. Forcibly pulls himself together. Gets up. Walks to the bus stop. And uses the two bucks to buy a ticket to the hospital.
If someone asked him about the bus ride later, Tim wouldn’t be able to answer. All he remembers is standing at the stop, and then suddenly, he’s walking through the sterile hallways of the hospital. The sound of his footsteps feels unnaturally loud to him, but he’s probably imagining it.
None of the nurses he walks past pay him any mind. One of them smiles at him, and Tim tries to smile back, but whatever expression shows on his face makes her turn around hastily, pretending like she hasn’t seen him.
The doors all look identical here, but he’s made this walk many times before, and he knows the way by heart. Right in front of the door to his dad’s room he stops, hand poised over the doorknob in indecision. Then he shakes his head ruefully and walks in. No point in delaying it.
His dad is lying motionless in bed, as always. He is pale and thin, his eyes shut, like he’s asleep, like he’s dying, like he’s dead. His breathing is so shallow that it’d be hard to tell, if Tim didn’t know. But he does know. That’s the problem.
Tim goes to sit down on one of the chairs by the wall, then changes his mind and kneels down next to the bed. He takes one of his dad’s unresisting hands, absently noting that this is more physical contact than he used to get from his parents in months.
“Hey, dad,” he says quietly. “It’s me, Tim. I’m back.” He squeezes his dad’s hand, tries to make it as firm and self-assured as his dad always wanted his handshakes to be. “I don’t know if you can hear me, but the doctors told me- they said something really bad might happen, if I can’t come up with a solution soon. But you don’t have to worry about that. I’ll think of something. I have, like, seven projects that I’m working on, and two of them are almost ready to launch.”
Tim takes a deep breath, lets it out slowly. His knees hurt, but that’s okay.
“The thing is, though- I’ve calculated it, and I’d say they’ll be ready in two weeks. The projects, I mean. But by then it’ll be too late, and I don’t- I can’t- I’m just not sure right now what to do. I don’t want to worry you or anything, but maybe you could be a little bit worried, because I am, too. Like, I know I’ll come up with something, but…”
The fluorescent lights above flicker once, twice, before they’re back at full strength. Maybe there’s a power outage somewhere. Tim’s pretty sure hospitals have emergency generators, but maybe they won’t kick in in time. Maybe all the machines will just stop. Maybe the machine keeping his dad alive will stop, too, and his dad will die anyway, regardless of whether Tim can come up with the money in time.
Maybe none of this matters.
“Dad?” Tim asks quietly. “I’ve never asked anything of you, and you know I’d never do this unless it was really important, but. But if you could wake up soon, that would be really, really helpful. I’ll take care of the rest, I’ll pay for the hospital bills, I’ll pay for your physiotherapy, I’ll find us an apartment or something, I don’t know how but I’ll manage it somehow, and you don’t need to do anything at all. But right now, I need you to wake up, okay?”
His dad does not reply. There’s something peaceful about his expression, like he’s happy to just lie here forever. Like he doesn’t care what happens to him. Like he doesn’t care what happens to Tim, either. And suddenly, just like that, Tim is angry.
“You can’t even do that one simple thing, can you?” he snaps as he gets up, letting go of his dad’s hand as he does. “You never could. You wanted a son, but you never wanted to be a dad. You and mom were perfectly happy going on your adventures, leaving me with the nanny, or at boarding schools, or home alone for months on end. You’ve never been to a single parent-teacher conference, you weren’t there when I got first place at the photography competition, and when I broke my arm when I was eleven, I had to call myself a cab. And now, the one time I really need you, you can’t even be bothered to wake up? Are you serious? You know what, I don’t even care if they take you off life support next week. You’ve already ruined the first fifteen years of my life. I’m not waiting until you ruin the next fifteen.”
He stops then, cheeks still flushed with anger, but mostly tired. Telling the truth, he realises, is not as satisfying as people always tell you.
“Damn, kid,” someone says from the door. “That was one hell of a speech.”
Tim whirls around. What he finds is, all things considered, not the worst part of his day. Seeing Red Hood standing at the entrance to his dad’s hospital room doesn’t really compare to the life support thing.
Some tiny voice in the back of Tim’s brain points out that objectively, it is a little strange that Red Hood would trail Tim Drake when who he’s really interested in is Batman and Robin, but then again, who cares? Maybe Red Hood knows Tim’s identity. Maybe he’s going to kill him now. Tim finds himself so oddly exhausted that he can’t muster up the energy to give a shit about that right now.
“You know,” Red Hood continues, voice tinny behind the helmet, “I thought I was pissed at my dad, but- wait.”
Tim crosses his arms and waits, but nothing more seems to be forthcoming. It’s hard to tell with the helmet, but he thinks Red Hood is staring at him. “What?” he demands eventually. “What is it?”
“You-“ Red Hood starts, stops again, and then says, “You’re Tim Drake.”
“Um,” Tim says, “yeah.” Perhaps, he thinks, Red Hood is stupid. Or perhaps he was actually looking for another patient, another room, and just stumbled onto this one on accident. That’d make more sense. After all, who would be interested in Tim? Who ever has been?
“You’re Tim Drake, and your family lost all their money, and now you work several jobs to support yourself.”
Tim frowns. Red Hood isn’t wrong, but he doesn’t like how he put it, how he phrased it in a way that makes Tim sound like some victim. “I’ve got a plan,” he says. “I’m not an idiot. I’d never place all my bets on just one thing. I just need a little time, and there was a bit of an adjustment period, but I’ve got it all worked out.”
Red Hood appears to not be listening.
“That’s why I couldn’t find you,” he says slowly. “This is why you never showed up at school, because I’d bet anything that those rich assholes at Gotham Academy wouldn’t just keep you around if you couldn’t pay the school fees. All this time, I thought Bruce was hiding you away somewhere, when really all you were doing was working hard to pay for your dad’s treatment. I should’ve realised.”
Tim has no idea what’s going on here, but he does know that he’s tired, and hungry, and the hospital is going to kill his dad next week, and he spent all his money on a bus ticket and doesn’t have enough left for the way back. He’ll have to hitchhike. “Can we speed this up a little?” he asks. “Whatever you’re doing, can you, like, hurry up a bit? Some of us have things to do.”
“Oh, right,” Red Hood says, and pulls out a gun. “I’m kidnapping you.”