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The first time Tim picked up his camera and snuck out of Drake Manor in the middle of the night to go stalk bats, he looked in the mirror and said, "This is a terrible idea, Timothy Jackson Drake."
For exactly two months, Tim didn’t see much evidence of this. Sure, he fell asleep in class every so often. Sure, his grades suffered a little, straight A+s dropping to As or, in the particularly embarrassing case of his English grade, an A-. And sure, when his parents got home, they berated him for the aforementioned grades and sent him to his room without dinner and then forgot he was there for a day. But Tim couldn’t even bring himself to be sad about that, because seeing Batman and Robin fly through the night was awesome. It was far more educational, he decided, to be learning about how Gotham really worked than multiplying fractions. And watching Batman pull Robin close to him on a cold, windy night made Tim feel so warm that he thought his heart might explode. He was pretty certain that he could absorb that affection through osmosis.
So, Tim had two months in which he was shielded from the consequences of his ill-advised decision.
And then, two months later, Tim found himself hanging from a roof.
In his defense, Tim didn’t normally fall off roofs. He was actually very good at not falling off of roofs. But he’d been leaning forward, lining up the perfect shot of Robin proudly gazing out at the city on his first solo patrol, when a nearby building had exploded. And the explosion had been loud.
Tim clapped his hands over his ears and stumbled and the tip of his foot caught on an electric cable, and he tipped over the edge.
For a moment, Tim was weightless, his body twisting awkwardly as he tried to steady himself on the nonexistent ground. But then his hands shot up and grasped desperately at the edge of the rooftop. Miraculously, his fingers found purchase and Tim’s body slammed into the building’s side, knocking the air out of his chest. Pure panic filled his brain, neural circuits sparking with fear and pushing all other thoughts away. And then Tim caught a glimpse of his camera tumbling to the ground and he remembered that he was hanging from a rooftop and if he fell then he was going to—
He was going to—
“Help!” Tim screamed. Fire filled his arms as his muscles strained to hold up his body weight. Stupid weak noodle-arms! Robin would be able to hang here for hours. Robin would be able to climb back up onto the roof like nobody’s business. Heck, Robin would be able to do a flip from this position and then punch the bad guy who’d pushed him, right in the face!
But Tim wasn’t Robin.
“Help! Robin!”
Tim could feel his knees turning weak and shaky. Sweat poured from his hands, making the concrete beneath his fingers slick. Tim wasn’t even going to fall from exhaustion, he’d just slip because he couldn’t keep his stupid fear under control.
Tim glanced down. Bad idea. The ground looked really, really far away. It was possible to die from a fifteen-foot fall, and this—this was a lot more than fifteen feet.
Crunch. The sound was like the crush of flesh and bone, but Tim hadn’t fallen yet, so why could he hear himself hit the ground?
Gasping a shaky breath, Tim looked over to his right. And there, in all his glory, was Robin, fighting three heavily-armed people in ski masks. “Robin!” He screamed, throwing all his air into that one name. His fingers spasmed and his heart jolted in fear as he nearly lost his grip.
“Hold on, kid!” Robin shouted, ducking just in time to avoid a bullet. The sound of the gunfire made Tim’s entire body jerk. Thankfully, the instinct to not fall off a freaking roof was stronger than his instinct to make the really loud noise go away, because if Tim’s oversensitive hearing made him fall again within the span of a minute, he was going to die utterly mortified. “Just hold on!”
Right. Of course, Robin would be more focused on fighting the bad guys. The bad guys with guns. That was more important.
(Tim felt like maybe, just maybe, the kid hanging off a roof should be the priority. Bad guys tended to run away when given the opportunity, so Robin could just leave them and catch them later. And save Tim. Because Tim really, really didn’t want to die. Living was good. Dying was very bad.)
But Tim wasn’t being fair. It was Robin’s job to stop the bad guys, not save stupid kids who were only in trouble because they thought stalking vigilantes was a good hobby. Tim got himself into this mess. He just—
(Tim whimpered as another spasm wracked his arms.)
—he just couldn’t get himself out of it.
And it wasn’t fair to everyone else. It was Tim’s job to be responsible for himself, Tim’s job to get himself out of the messes he got himself into. He shouldn’t need other people. But right now, he really, really wanted some help.
It happened so suddenly, that Tim didn’t even register it until he was already falling. His numb fingers slipped off the edge and then his stomach was in his ribcage and his heart was in his throat and he was hurtling down, down, down—
Tim fell silently. His eyes longed to shutter themselves against the wind, but Tim had to see, had to keep seeing for as long as possible, because he was going to diediediediedie—
And then Tim was on solid ground and hands were gripping his shoulders so tightly it almost burned. The touch felt real. The pressure through his sneakers felt real. The tears on his cheeks felt real.
And Robin—Robin, with his canary-yellow cape and his bright red tunic and his scaly green shorts that even Tim could tell were ridiculous—Robin was real.
“Kid, are you okay?” Robin asked.
Tim’s head spun. He almost—he suppressed a sob and ended up coughing instead, but at least that wasn’t quite as pathetic. He almost died. He almost died.
“Kid? You in there?”
It was like Tim’s entire body was frozen. He couldn’t nod, couldn’t say yes, couldn’t do anything. Everything was just walled off from him, and the only thing that could slip through the cracks was that he could taste the salty tears and he was crying in front of Robin and it was ridiculous.
“’s jus’ the wind,” Tim whispered.
“O…kay?” Robin looked confused, and Tim knew he was skipping around in the conversation. Robin hadn’t pointed out that Tim was crying yet.
“’m not crying,” Tim explained. “Just the.” He said the word a few seconds ago, but now he could only wave his hand around vaguely and wince.
“I believe you.” Robin clearly didn’t, but Tim didn’t believe himself either, and Robin was smart so obviously he wouldn’t believe Tim’s lies. Lies. Shoot, Tim was lying to Robin. “Are you hurt?”
Tim’s arms ached so bad and his fingers felt like they were going to fall off, but he didn’t exactly have any injuries other than the bruise on his cheek, and that was five days (and about seven point five hours) old. So, he shook his head. Wait, that was rude, right? He was supposed to answer. He opened his mouth to speak, but then Robin patted him on the shoulder.
“Great! So, what were you doing out here?”
Taking pictures. Taking pictures. With a camera, which—
It had fallen. Shattered somewhere on the street below, and Tim couldn’t see it from up here, but he knew it was broken.
Tim couldn’t help himself. He let out a wail, collapsing down on the roof and burying his head in his knees. His camera was gone. His camera was gone. Mom and Dad had gotten him that camera for his ninth birthday, and they had remembered, it had arrived on the exact right day. And now Tim had no camera and no present and no way to take pictures on his nighttime expeditions.
He rocked back and forth, desperately trying to calm himself. His parents were going to be so angry and he wouldn’t even be able to go out at night anymore to forget about it and, and, and—
He’d get a new camera. His parents’ passwords had to be easy to crack, he could just buy himself one and they’d never notice. But that would be stealing! He could…he could modify the grocery budget—skip breakfast most days and maybe lunch. If he saved half of the money, that was “$50 dollars” a week, and then the camera he has would cost “$1000 so 20” weeks but if he got a much cheaper one he could get that down to—“down to” $400, so eight weeks, but his parents were coming back in “five weeks,” and if they remembered about the camera and asked—
“You doing budgets or something?” Robin asked, and then Tim remembered that he was on a rooftop with Robin, having a freak out. Which mean he’d had a freak out in front of Robin. And he was pretty sure he had mumbled some of his calculations.
“Yes,” Tim said.
“Looks comfy down there,” Robin said, and sat next to Tim, criss-cross-applesauce. Tim felt patronized, but that was fair enough. Tim was acting like a baby.
“Criss-cross-applesauce,” Tim recited in rhythm. “Sounds really stupid.”
“Yeah, it does,” Robin agreed. “So, kid, what’s your name?”
Tim almost gave Robin his real name. But Robin lived right next to him, and if Robin recognized him, he might tell his parents, which would be bad. So, Tim grabbed the first name that popped into his head. “Alvin.”
“Like the chipmunk?”
“Which chipmunk?” Did Robin go around naming the chipmunks of Gotham City? Did Gotham City even have chipmunks? Were chipmunks even real creatures? Tim had never seen one. What did chipmunk even mean, anyway—a munk that chips? Was a munk an animal?
“Are munks an animal?” Tim asked because he suddenly had to know, but he didn’t have his computer. He also didn’t have his camera, but he wasn’t thinking about that.
“I dunno.”
“I think it’s probably from ‘mink,’” Tim guessed.
“Huh. You’re big on the non-sequiturs, kid.” Tim wrinkled his nose. He didn’t know what that meant, but he didn’t want to tell Robin that and seem stupid. Maybe ‘non-sequiturs’ was some super-important vigilante word. “So, what’s your real name?”
Apparently, ‘Alvin’ wasn’t working and was somehow connected to chipmunks, so Tim tried to pull another name out of his head. They all got replaced with Alvin, though, until Tim was swimming in a sea of ‘Alvin’s and couldn’t think of anything else. Eventually, he got another name, and, relieved, he said, “Jason.”
“What?” Robin asked, flinching. And then, Tim realized what he had said.
“My name’s Jason,” Tim clarified, because he had already said it, so he didn’t really have any choice.
Robin chucked nervously. “Oh, right. So, what were you doing out here, Jason?”
“Taking pictures?” Tim tried.
“In Crime Alley? At night?”
“I like…nighttime photography.”
“Do your parents know where you are?”
“…yes.” Tim had already lied so many times to Robin, so what could one more time do?
“Yeah, right.”
“They do,” Tim said, bristling defensively. “They trust me to make my own decisions.” That was…debatable. His parents didn’t really trust him to make his own decisions, but they certainly felt that he should be able to make his own decisions.
“They shouldn’t. What’re you, like, six? You shouldn’t be out wandering Gotham alone.”
“I’m nine,” Tim corrected, crossing his arms. “Nine is old. And the Robin before you started at eight, so I’m old enough to take a few pictures!”
“Um.” Robin said. He seemed frozen. “What…makes you say that?”
“I’m really mature, and I don’t normally fall off roofs!” Tim answered.
“No. I mean. The…”
Tim paused and replayed his words in his head. He was nine, and surely Robin trusted that Tim knew his own age, so Robin couldn’t be talking about that. And Robin knew that nine was bigger than eight, so…
So…
Shoot. Tim was an idiot.
“I meant about eight! Like, close to eight! Eight-ish! Younger than nine!”
“Nightwing?” Robin said, tapping his ear. “We have a possible Code Prince.”
“What’s that mean?” Tim asked.
“Who sent you here?”
“No one!” Why did Robin suddenly think someone sent him here? Did he think Tim was working for a Rogue? Was Batman going to interrogate Tim? “Please don’t torture me!” Tim squeaked. He’d watched horror movies as preparation to not get startled by Batman beating up bad guys, but if someone was getting tortured in the movie he’d had to look away and cover his ears because it made him super scared. Tim didn’t know what getting tortured was like, so he wouldn’t be able to handle it.
“I’m not going to torture you,” Robin said.
Duh. Robin was too good to torture anyone. “Please don’t let Batman torture me!”
“Uh, Batman’s not gonna torture you either. We just want to help you. You think you can let us help you?”
Tim didn’t need help. He wasn’t working for any Rogues and he wasn’t currently hanging from a roof. But then Nightwing swung onto the roof on a grappling line and Tim jerked back in surprise.
“If you want to help me,” Tim said, “then you can’t let Nightwing torture me either. Or Batgirl,” he added as an afterthought.
Robin’s face scrunched up. “No one’s torturing anyone, okay?”
“What’s going on?” Nightwing asked. “You said…”
Robin jabbed his thumb at Tim. “I think he’s been following us around. You know how I said I thought I saw someone earlier? I think he’s working for someone.”
“Oh,” Nightwing said. He walked over to Tim, crouching down. Tim scowled, because now he felt even more patronized. “Hey. That looks like it hurts.”
What looked like it hurt? Tim was fine. Sure, his chest was probably bruised from slamming into a building, but that was under his shirt. And Nightwing didn’t have x-ray vision, right? Right?
“Your face,” Robin clarified.
“I’m fine,” Tim said, because really, he barely even felt it anymore. It wasn’t a big deal. Falling off a roof had been a lot worse. In fact—“You get worse all the time.”
“Is someone hurting you?” Nightwing asked, his face lined with concern.
Anxiously, Tim took a step back. This day was getting worse and worse. He had fallen off a roof, and now two vigilantes thought he was working for a Rogue. “I’m not working for a Rogue!” He half-shouted, even though that was exactly what someone who was working for a Rogue would say.
“Okay. Why’ve you been following us, buddy?”
“Don’t call me that,” Tim scowled. “And I—” Robin already knew that he’d been following them. So, he might as well go with the truth. “I was taking pictures,” he admitted. “Because you’re cool.”
“What happened?”
Tim didn’t answer.
Robin stepped forward, putting a hand on Tim’s shoulder. Tim stiffened, muscles turning to stone and posture flipping to his gala-Timothy version, and Robin quickly removed his hand, as if burnt. Slowly, Tim relaxed.
“He fell off a roof, and I caught him. He’s nine years old and his name is Jason.”
Nightwing raised an eyebrow. “I’m pretty sure that’s Timothy Drake.”
Shoot. Double shoot. Triple shoot. Tim might even go with shit. Now they were definitely going to—“Don’t tell my parents!” Tim shouted. If they found out that Tim was doing this, they would get so angry. Or worse, they might just forget him forever.
The vigilantes looked unimpressed. “This is really dangerous,” Nightwing warned. “There are bad people out here. Nine is too young to be running around the city like this.”
“Hypocrite,” Tim muttered.
“I wasn’t running around the city at nine,” Nightwing said.
“You’re a liar.” Tim regretted the words the instant they left his mouth. He was doing that a lot today. Tonight? To-morning?
“Timothy…” Nightwing said slowly. “Do you know who we are?”
“No!” Tim scrambled backward. “No, I don’t! Definitely not! Totally not! Not a clue!”
“Right,” Nightwing said, and Tim could tell Nightwing definitely didn’t believe him. “I see what you mean.”
They were going to wipe his memories, weren’t they? Or torture him, and then wipe his memories. Or torture him, wipe his memories, and then lock him in a cell, just to be sure. Tim squeezed his eyes shut. “Don’t kidnap me!” Tim said.
“No one’s going to kidnap you. We just…have to ask you some questions.” Code for torture. Definite torture.
“If you lock me up, the school will realize I’m missing within a week,” Tim said. “And then someone will see the cameras. And then you’ll get in trouble and everyone will hate you.”
Nightwing pinched the bridge of his nose. “The school will realize you’re missing?”
“Yes! I answer questions a lot in class, my teachers will definitely notice.”
“And what about…” Nightwing paused, like his brain was rebooting. “Tim, who’s supposed to be taking care of you, right now?”
“I’m taking care of myself,” Tim said. He turned to Robin. “See, I told you I was really mature! And my parents trust me. And I don’t—I don’t normally fall off roofs.”
There was a beat of silence.
“We’re definitely kidnapping this kid,” Robin said.
And then Tim’s blood froze solid, because Nightwing nodded.