Chapter Text
Tim isn't an idiot.
Tim isn’t an idiot.
Admittedly, that’s a blanket statement. If the context of that statement was in regards to his literal intelligence, then yes, the statement’s obvious. He’s seventeen and the acting CEO of a world-renowned company, one that’s settled nicely in the higher sum of billions underneath his leadership.Their stocks are thriving with his work. He has an IQ of over one-forty and there’s not a mystery he can’t solve nor a case he can’t crack.
He’s street-smart, too. This Bristol-born boy has spent a fair amount of time undercover, to the point that he knows his way around the gangs of Gotham better than the gangs themselves do. Tim’s fully aware to avoid needles when he steps through certain streets, and on top of that he knows what streets to step through, and which ones to avoid.
He’s smart in every way he sees valuable. ‘Tim isn’t an idiot’ because he’s made the FORBES business list more times than most students make honor roll in their entire K-12 career. ‘Tim isn’t an idiot’ because he can recognize a gang from the way they sit and he knows their bosses more than the underlings do. Most people wouldn’t call Tim an idiot.
Tam probably would, though.
If someone were to inquire about Tim’s health habits, and ask if he was smart when it came to his day-to-day self-care, then, yes, maybe he’s not the smartest. The last time he checked, his caffeine intake daily is double the recommended for a person’s intake across three days. The teenager barely remembers to eat, and if it were not for his assistant, Tam, he probably would go a week without eating a thing. He’s gone five consecutive days without sleep, though granted that was a one-time occurrence. However most weeks he still sleeps only at most four nights out of seven. In general water is lost to him — again, if not for his assistant.
But Tim doesn’t think this makes him an idiot. He takes his antibiotics like clockwork and he always goes through the painfully meticulous process of cleaning out every tiny to grand wound that he gets either from patrol or everyday life. Over the years, he’s come to recognize that when he’ hallucinating or when walking in a straight line is the equivalent of climbing a mountain then, yes, he’s probably sleep-deprived, and should take a nap on the couch at home or the couch in his office. Tim’s not an idiot — he can recognize when he’s slipping. He pays attention — he does.
Most of the time.
Half of the time.
Some.
Okay, he knows when he’s slipping when Tam reminds him that he is. Or, well, it’s not much of a reminder as it is that she stabs him with threats or with toothpicks until he takes the load off of his feet and lets the weight of his shoulder press and suffocate him into a restless slumber.
Trust him: Tam’s a good hire and she’s gotten plenty of raises over the years.
He can sense her presence right now, can feel it lingering as the board members clear out of the conference room. Her presence comes in omens: the sky turns dark, the dust mites scamper away in fear, the temperature drops a considerable amount. Even tired as he is, smart as he is, he can sense her.
Tim sits at the head of a lengthy table, his creased face supported in the heels of his hands as his fingers rest in his greasy, tangled hair. Dandruff falls like snow onto his fingers, drifting down his skin. It falls onto his suit. His suit, which unlike his hair and his droopy eyes, is pristine. His shoes are shined, too. His charcoal grey socks hug his bony ankles and the cufflinks of his blazer are so sharp that they could cut the tension in the air that appears whenever Tim braves the manor.
He can’t remember the last time he went, though.
Tim sighs into the blistered palms of his hands, digging them into his baggy eyes, his dull eyes, his tired — so tired — eyes. “I know, I know,” he grumbles before Tam can even part her lips, “I need to go to sleep. Just prepare the office couch and I’ll make the three o’clock meeting.”
Without even looking at her he can picture her standing there, a hand on her jutted-out hip, her heels firmly planted on the ground. Maybe now she’s raising her arms to cross them, shifting her feet closer together as she does. She definitely has a thermometer resting in her pocket and her phone screen is probably dimming on the emergency room’s number — just in case. She has a small pack of pretzels; the scent of salt lingers in the stale air. Are the pretzels chocolate? He sniffs again: they’re definitely chocolate. Dark chocolate, it smells like.
Food actually sounds good for once. Tim presses his hands further into his eyes. The spots reappear and for a moment, a brief moment, they sting. The pain is there, a small glimpse of a headache, and the pain is like a pinch, reminding him he’s awake, making him awake and as alive as he can be.
Tim’s not really living, he knows that, but at least he’s alive, though being alive is becoming more of a burden every day, a hassle he’s beginning to wonder if he could do about. But he can’t do a thing about it, not with everything he has to do, which is why he’s going to look at Tam, placate Tam, wave goodbye to Tam, and then sleep for an hour on the stockstill couch and then get right back to his routine, his to-do list that has to keep going, or he won’t have anything left to be for.
What does he have to do? Sometimes he forgets.
He knows what he does. He works, he sometimes sleeps, he avoids people constantly, he sends back the flowers from Ra’s that are more of a taunt than a show of affection. He patrols, too. That’s it: that’s all he needs to do, with a few interviews here and there to keep up an appearance that’s seasons old.
He pushes off his hands and scrubs them down his face. He straightens his back, and his chin lifts to look at Tam for the first time and — oh no. Oh no. That’s not her normal face. She’s more pitying than usual, worry stretching across the creases and pinching her expression more than they’re both used to.
She presses her lips together, another sign of impending doom, before she actually pulls up a chair, taking the moment to sit next to him.
Holy shit, he thinks, who died?
She sits at the corner, the closest another person has gotten to him physically for the past six months. And their proximity is… it’s odd. It feels wrong and suffocating and most of all, it feels so unfamiliar. He watches her wearily.
She opens her mouth, but pauses, eyes scanning his face as if the mask he wears could deflect off the right words for her to say as much as it deflects emotions. Then, she sighs, closing her eyes and sitting back in the chair. "Tim, you're not going to like this."
"I can tell."
She shakes her head. "No, no, you're really not going to like this."
"Then don't tell me."
"I'm going to anyways."
"If it stresses you out, then don't do it. I insist."
"I," she trails off, before she finally sits up straight. He sits up straighter. She uncrosses a leg. He tilts his head to the side, unable to enjoy their little game. "I think you should reach out to someone."
If Tim were drinking something, he would spit it out, all over her cream-colored blouse. He opens his mouth, closes it, then sits back in his chair, reclining for this awful conversation. "You're right, I didn't like it."
"Tim," Tam scoffs, rising to her feet. He watches as she turns away, a hand on her forehead. She leans into the hand, he wonders what that touch feels like. She turns around, and a sad smile graces her lips. "You're not okay."
"I'm in peak physical health. I am literally a master of calisthenics."
"But mentally? I, well, I'm concerned. You haven't been doing well ever since that magazine release."
Oh, yes, Tim remembers. It was all across Gotham, though Tim saw it when he was picking up more microwavable frozen-dumplings to make at home. 'Waynes Spotted at City Mall: A Peek at Gotham's Happiest Family' was its title. In those big letters with the tacky font and a hideous shade of blue, too. It was a picture of all of the Waynes. Dick was wiping the sauce from Damian's face and Stephanie and Cass were making their tiny Superman and Wonder Woman figurines fight, as the toys came with the meal. Bruce was frowning as Jason tried to down an entire hot dog in one bite, and Duke was looking flabbergasted at the way Bruce was paused from cutting his hamburger up with a knife and a fork.
Tim waves Tam off like he waves off the memory. “The article wasn’t wrong,” he says with a shrug. He glances away from Tam: his eyes are burning hot. “All of the Waynes were there.”
The family was all there. He wasn’t. But he’s just the neighbor, the kind soul who stepped in to repair the structures of a fallen home. And sure, he stayed at their home for a wile, spending a few dinners filling in spots and a few times he even slept in one of their cozy beds after a hard day’s work while the family kept to their own rooms. But that was then. Now the structures were repaired, the support beams reinstated, and the house wasn’t cracked or chipped anymore, but full and bursting with color and life. He was a Wayne in setting, but never once did he have a place.
Which was fine.
Tam’s expression sours. "Tim—"
"I'm emancipated, remember?" The smirk he sends her is leaking bitterness, and he's sure that his eyes are their usual lifeless because of the way she has to inhale deeply, barely suppressing a flinch. He loses the smile, and he crosses his arms over himself, almost hugging himself, though he's not sure if he's doing it right.
Tam nods slowly, her hair swaying almost as gently as her entire demeanor. She sits back down, and she rolls the chair forth so that the corner of the table isn't protruding between them. She closes the distance, and he knows she'd take his hands in hers if she thought he'd be okay with it. She's nice like that.
Tam nods in response, her lip curling down as if there's a problem with the statement. It's correct, though. "And I know that," she says, her voice hushed, "but they're your family."
"I dropped the 'Wayne' part, you know," says Timothy Jackson Drake.
"I know."
"Too long of a signature. And… Too cruel."
"Too cruel to what?"
Tim hesitates. His mouth snaps closed, and he feels like he’s ten years old again in the way he looks down and away, his chin digging into his chest. He knows he should be okay with everything they’re talking about but his throat is clogged and his eyes which were moments ago merely hot are now burning as if set aflame.
He shrugs again, his head ringing too loudly for another action to proceed. “It’s too cruel to Sarah,” he ends up saying. “She already has to answer to those vultures at Gotham Press when I'm not at one of the Wayne family gatherings. And whenever I'm not listed in articles as one of the legacies? Plus the debate over whether people should hyphen or not hyphen and, well, I think it's just easier for the company."
It's his name, after all. He can do whatever he wants with it. Maybe he'll change it from Tim to Edward so he never has to hear anyone call him 'Timmy' again. Or maybe he’ll keep it. He can do that. It's his name. His name that he answers to, that he's proud of, that every time he has to go into interviews or sign a paper or even register for a damned website he has to either see the burden he's become or the empty space of what he's lost next to the name 'Drake'.
It's his burden to carry. When Bruce is asked about his children, he won't have to strain himself to remember Tim. He won't have to bullshit his way through some question about what he thinks of Tim's recent performance as CEO, or what he's done with Tim recently, other than not speak to him, not visit him. It's alright, Tim doesn't mind, in fact, the lack of anything mocking a relationship makes their entire ordeal less complicated. It's easier for Tim and for Bruce if all they care about is business.
Business and pleasure are often roped together, especially at the level where business is only there to sustain pleasure. Tim gains no pleasure in being CEO though, and being CEO doesn’t sustain any outside pleasure. He hates the role and he doesn’t care for what it earns him.
It’s like his job as Red Robin. He takes no pleasure in the teamwork part of patrolling, having to upload his reports into the Batcave or meet his teammates for meetings in that cold, damn hollowed-out rock, watching as they talk over his words or watch him with careful, cautious eyes. Even if the end-result is a safer city, he takes no pleasure in neither process nor outcome.
He does like the thrill, though. He likes the thrill of a bullet whizzing past his face or the exhilarating feeling of his skin being slashed — those sensations wake him up. But other than that, he takes no pleasure in anything. He's alive, but he's not quite living, and if he has to say something, he'd say he's sort of sickeningly grateful that he knows his work will come to a close one day, hopefully one day soon.
Tam would smack him until he's black and blue and purple and red if she heard how he feels. But she seems so kind right now, though Tim's been fooled by worse. "Tim," she prods, "is it easier for you?"
Tim shakes his head. "Doesn't matter."
"It does."
"Not to me."
"It matters to me. Tim," Tam runs a hand through her hair, tugging out a few strands with her force. "Your health is important."
"Not really."
"Okay, then, fine!" she yells. "Then you know what? It's impeding your performance as CEO, and it's crucial to your duties as the frontrunner of this company that you reach out to someone and talk." The empty board room quivers at her words. The glass seems to frighten, blocking out the sun somehow because he feels cold dread.
But Tim, in the midst of it all, just sighs. "What do you want me to do?"
"Well, for starters, you're off work until you can reach someone."
"And if no one wants to talk to me?"
"You’ll get bragging rights for the rest of our lives," she laughs, and the tension drains from her shoulders. He relaxes slightly.
"And I get an extra cup of coffee a day."
"And you get an extra cup of coffee a day." She pauses, and cringes, a shudder running through her body. He snorts, closing his eyes and tilting his head back. At least he felt something today, other than mild annoyance, that is. "I don't know how your organs work."
"With one man down."
She shakes her head, hands on her hips as her shoulders bounce up and down. She looks at him, and he looks at her. He’s pinned by her gaze, and all that she scoops into it: the admiration, the care, it's so little, but it's there. A young part of him grasps to it like a lifeline. It fills him with warmth, for for him it is not a spark but a wildfire, spreading across his body with a beautiful speed, and he relishes in it, revels in it, savors in it, and then lets go.
He can't get too attached.
He nods, holding out his hand. “Deal." He doesn't know why. He doesn't have any hope that the people she’s counting on will answer the phone, doesn't have any illusions that even if he sees them in person, and his voice breaks or a stray tear falls, that they'll care. They won't, and he knows they won't, and yet his hand is open.
"Alright." She shakes his hand, and places the bag of pretzels into them, before she pulls away. "I'll see you later. And Tim?"
"Hmm?"
"If it goes wrong, my door is open."
Tim nods. It will go wrong. And he knows he'll go back to her, but instead of walking through that open door and into the trap he knows it must be, he'll say he talked with someone believable, like Leslie for a few minutes or Alfred, though he won't mention it was Alfred the cat. And he'll place a smile on his face and say he's all better, but it's another roadblock of his façade, another obstacle to come up from under his mask for air.
Tim smiles. "I know."
Time to step into Hell.
He wonders if he'll survive, for either this or the infection on his leg is sure to kill him.
He'll worry about it later.