Chapter Text
There are years that ask questions, and there are years that answer.
- Zora Neale Hurston
Timothy Jackson Drake did not need an English tutor, thankyouverymuch. He had successfully skipped one grade, and was hoping to skip another, but was stalled by further progress due to his English grades, which were inferior to his math and science grades. He didn’t understand what the big deal was – he spoke English perfectly well, more than enough to get by in Gotham, he just wasn’t so good at the literary analysis. It wasn’t his fault – between school, extracurriculars and his nightly photography excursions, he didn’t have time to read, and most of the books the school assigned were kind of boring, to be honest.
But when his report card came, his parents (who weren’t even home at the time, but on some expedition in South America) were emailed a copy. They promptly proceeded to phone him, waking him up from a very well-deserved nap, and ream him out for his B- in English. They didn’t even praise him for his remaining grades, which were all As; no, all that mattered was one little English grade that was ‘far below our expectations for the boy who will be taking over our company one day, Timothy.’
His parents emailed Gotham Academy back and requested a tutor for Timothy to help him get that grade up. His English teacher was surprised, at first, seeing that a B- wasn’t amazing but far from poor, certainly far from the worst of the class, but agreed to ask one of her upper-level students who’d excelled in ninth grade English to tutor their son.
And that was how Tim wound up with Jason Todd as his English tutor. Apparently, he was an English nerd, who knew? He was also, as pretty much only Tim knew, Robin, aka one of Gotham’s greatest heroes, and the adoptive son – no scratch that, an official statement was released six months ago stating otherwise; Bruce had apparently accidentally adopted his own son by birth. Reporter Vicky Vale had unfortunately gained new credibility since the statement was released, because her story written over a year prior, claiming just this very fact, turned out to be true. Tim had to find out where she got her sources from. He couldn’t stand the woman, mostly for her purposefully inflammatory titles, but by God, when she stumbled across something, she really stumbled across something.
So, Jason was the biological son of Bruce Wayne now… Aka Batman. Bruce was also the father of Dick Grayson. Aka Nightwing. Aka former Robin. This time ‘adoptive’ was a fitting title; Bruce had been Dick’s foster parent for nearly ten years, and never adopted him in that time. Shortly after the news about Jason and Bruce’s biological ties broke, the Wayne family issued a statement affirming Bruce had filed for adult adoption for Grayson. And Tim had taken enough pictures of the trio working together on occasion that he could tell Bruce was just as overprotective with the elder as with the younger. He’d been sad originally when Dick packed up his bags and left Robin, left Gotham behind. But whatever happened between him and Batman seemed to be patched up, and meanwhile, Jason was also an awesome Robin.
And now Tim was going to be seeing Jason twice a week, every week for an hour to improve his English grade, and not let on that he knew about their nightly hobbies.
This was not going to go well for him, he could already tell.
Scratch that, this might not go well for Jason either.
“Timmers!” The raven-haired older boy wasted no time coming up with a nickname for Tim as he approached him after the last bell of the day on Tuesday. Jason was sporting a stark-white cast up his left arm. Tim had seen the news the other night; Batman and Robin had been fighting a gang outside one of the clubs, and Robin had been thrown from one of the windows. Nightwing had picked him up, thrown him over his shoulders and taken him away from the fight immediately after, but the damage had been done. Tim could tell from the footage it was a clean break at the radius, and here was the proof. The glass from the windows must have also nicked one of the few parts of his body that wasn’t covered by his suit, because there were also a few bandages running up his neck.
But fighting gangs as Robin wasn’t how Jason Todd-Wayne ‘officially’ broke his arm and cut his neck. According to the papers, Jason had taken out an old rundown car in the manor on a joyride, when pissed off at his father, and since the car hadn’t been driven in years, it had a lot of mechanical issues and Jason crashed it just outside of Gotham City. The Waynes were scary good at covering their tracks; Tim checked out the site where the crash ‘officially’ occurred, and could see bits of broken glass, and even a median with a mark of taupe paint stuck to it. Any detective would take one look at that, write up the incident and completely forget about it, chocking it up entirely to an accident made by a dumb teenager.
Tim was one of the only ones who knew the truth.
Tim stood at his locker smiling softly while Jason caught up with him. He was regretting going out last night to take pictures. He didn’t normally go out on Mondays, but he knew Batman was closing in on the leader of a trafficking gang and wanted to catch some of the action. Of course, he didn’t get home until after three in the morning, and since he had to get up at six, he’d barely gotten any sleep. His head had been killing him all day despite taking nearly five Tylenol at this point.
“Hey, Timmers.” Jason beamed. “I’m Jason. I guess I’ll be tutoring you for the rest of the year.” Tim gave a vague shrug at that. Never meet your heroes, kids. “I’ve seen you at my dad’s galas a few times, right?” Jason asked.
Tim nodded nervously and nearly winced in pain at the jolt the gesture sent through his skull. “Yes, my parents have taken me a few times.”
“Awesome.” Jason said, throwing his uninjured arm over Tim’s shoulders. “So, you want to do this at my house or yours? Or we can stay here and do it in the library if you want?”
“Um,” Tim said, considering the options. He was not going to Wayne manor if he could help it. He’d be way too tempted to look around, trying to figure out where they hid their secret room with their costumes and gadgets if they did that. And then they might catch him and tell his parents about where he went at night and it would become a whole situation. But the library always creeped him out, mostly due to the weird librarian who always gave one-word answers to any questions. There were hardly ever any other students in it after hours, and they were going to be basically alone anyways, so he’d rather not be alone and on edge, and that just left one option.
“Mine,” Tim decided. “We can take the bus.”
“Alright,” Jason replied, taking his arm off Tim’s back to pull out his phone. Tim kind of wished he hadn’t, the warmth of another person, one he looked up to so much, was comforting. He didn’t get much of that warmth from his own parents. Not that it was their fault – they were busy people, they didn’t have time to cater to Tim’s little whims and desires. “But we’re not taking the bus.” Jason declared. “Alfred can drop us off.”
Tim knew exactly who Alfred was, but figured he should play it a little dumb. “Who’s Alfred?” He asked.
“My grandfather.” Jason said, as he sent off a text message “Come on.”
Jason led Tim through the school hallways, chatting his ear off about some book he was reading for his 10th grade English class. It was, apparently, the fourth book he’d read that month already. Tim couldn’t imagine reading that much for fun, but saying so would be rude, so he clammed up, mostly nodding (ow, ow) as Jason told him anecdotes from the book, called 1984.
They stopped just outside the school doors. The screeching of tires and children’s voices, all around, made Tim feel like his ears were going to bleed. He’d have to take another Tylenol as soon as he got home, before they started studying, to get through the session.
A sleek black car was sitting at the top of the pick-up line, Tim could already tell who it belonged to, but he wasn’t sure if it was weird to know so, even if he was their neighbour.
“This is us,” Jason said, giving Tim a light poke in the ribs. He pulled the large door open with a bit of effort, given his broken arm and clearly bruised and beaten body.
“Hey Alfred!” Jason called slipping into the car, motioning for Tim to come in after him. “This is Tim, you’ve probably seen him at one of dad’s galas before. I’m going to be helping him with English. Tim, Alfred.” Jason nodded towards Tim, as if hinting to introduce himself further.
“I’m Tim. I live next door.” He hesitated. “It’s Mr. Pennyworth, right?” Tim stuck out a hand to shake. It was what his parents taught him to do. When in doubt, the more formal, the better.
Alfred shook back. “It is, but you may feel welcome to just call me Alfred.” He smiled and turned back around to start the car. Yeah, Tim wouldn’t be doing that.
It was just after three o’clock when they pulled up to Tim’s house. They both thanked Mr. Pennyworth for the ride and trudged up the stairs to the front door. Tim was resenting how many steps it took. His head was hurting worse now.
They stepped inside and Tim led Jason to the large dining room table, which could fit up to twenty guests; not that his parents ever had more than six people over at a time. The table was purely a status symbol.
“Your parents home? Or do you have someone else watching you?” Jason asked, sitting at the head chair, pulling notes out of his backpack.
“Um, no.” Tim answered. “I’m thirteen, so I don’t need a babysitter anymore.” Tim kind of resented Jason thought he might.
“Ah, when will they be home?” Jason asked, looking around suspiciously.
“Ten or eleven, I think.” Jason nodded at that, clearly thinking Tim meant ten or eleven as in ten or eleven o’clock that night, when he actually meant ten or eleven weeks from now.
“I’ll be right back,” Tim said, “I just have to grab something from my room.”
He felt dizzy as he made the trek to his bedroom. It was only one hundred and fifty meters from the dining room to his bedroom, he checked, but it might as well have been five miles for how he felt. He stepped inside the on-suite bathroom in his room, checking out his reflection in the mirror. He didn’t look too bad. There were dark circles under his eyes, and his skin was kind of pale, but he’d gone out looking a lot worse. He once wrote a math test while recovering from the flu, with gaunt cheeks and a hollow stomach – and he got an A, too.
After choking down the next Tylenol, he sighed. He was not in the mood for this today, but he just had to get through one hour. Just an hour, and the Tylenol would hit him in about a third of that time.
When Tim returned, he caught Jason having a difficult time texting with one arm.
“So, unit two English, that’s Lord of the Flies, right?” Jason asked, looking up from his phone, frustration painted on his face.
“Yes,” Tim said, taking the seat adjacent to Jason. “I’m halfway through it.” His voice got quiet. “Well, close to halfway.”
“What do you think of it so far?” Jason asked, shoving his phone back in his pocket.
Tim thought about the book’s premise, and the rowdy, sometimes violent bullies he often encountered at Gotham Academy. “It… I think it’s pretty accurate.” He answered.
“God, I know, right?” Jason laughed. “I’d already read it once before we read it in class last year, so my second go-around, I renamed all the characters from the book using the boys from my class.”
Tim couldn’t help let out a snort at that, wincing at the pain moving his head like that caused. “Let me guess, you were Ralph?”
“I wasn’t in the book.” Jason declared. “If I was on the plane, I would simply not let it crash.” Tim now wondered if part of Jason’s Robin training had included flying an aircraft headed for destruction.
“So, are you struggling with anything in the book?” Jason asked. “Your teacher told me you weren’t happy with your grade on the first short assignment for it.”
Tim bit his tongue – he was perfectly fine with it; it had been a solid B. His parents were the ones upset with the grade, but he couldn’t exactly say so. “Um, yeah. I’m not so good with the whole ‘analyzing this book and relating it to our modern day’ part.”
“That’s alright.” Jason smiled softly. “We’ll work on that.”
The Tylenol kicked in twenty minutes into studying, so before Tim even knew it, his headache was reduced to a dull thumping. Still painful, but much more manageable. He and Jason had also gone over time, working for nearly an hour and a half before either realized. Jason was really good at this literature stuff. Tim wondered if he’d become a writer himself one day, or an English teacher. He thought the older boy would excel at either.
They were packing up for the day when Jason got a phone call, struggling to answer with just one arm.
“Here, I can do it.” Tim offered. Jason didn’t stop him, so Tim swiped ‘accept’ on the call and handed it back to Jason.
“Hi dad.” Jason responded, already rolling his eyes.
Tim tried not to overhear the conversation, but it was difficult to avoid.
“We’re done, I’m coming home.” Pause. “We accidentally went over.” Pause. “It’s thirty minutes, dad, I didn’t think it was enough to worry about.” Pause. “Yes, I know.” Pause. “Ugh, I’m sorry, okay?” Pause. “Okay, I’ll ask. Bye.”
Jason looked up at Tim. “My dad wants you to come over for dinner. Well, I want you to, too, but he told me to ask.”
Oh. Tim wasn’t expecting that. Bruce Wayne asking him over for dinner? Why? That didn’t even make sense.
“I can’t… um, my… parents.” Tim started; he couldn’t come up with a lie fast enough.
“I thought you said your parents wouldn’t be home until like ten.” Jason frowned.
He did kind of strongly imply that, didn’t he?
“Err… yeah, that’s right.” Tim said slowly.
“So, you can come over for dinner?” Jason asked.
At this point, declining would just be rude.
“Okay,” Tim said, attempting to sent back a smile to Jason, who beamed at his response.
Tim had been in Wayne manor a few times before, but only in the front foyer and party room. Since becoming Batman, Tim noted, Wayne had cut back on the number of galas he hosted, and was now done to just two a year. Tim figured this was obviously because he was worried about someone wandering off and finding his secret lair with all their superhero costumes and gadgets.
As soon as they entered, Jason directed Tim to where to take his shoes off and guided him into the kitchen.
“Hey Alfred, we’re back,” Jason said, grabbing a freshly baked biscuit, still radiating heat, from the pan. Alfred gave Jason a look of admonishment, but didn’t say anything.
“I shall let your father know dinner is almost ready then.” Alfred gave a light nod to Tim. “Timothy, I’m glad to see you again so soon.”
“Err… thanks?” Tim spoke softly, already feeling awkward and out of his element and Batman himself hadn’t even shown up yet.
“I don’t think Dick’s coming tonight, but you’ll probably meet him another time.” Jason said, glancing around the kitchen, clearly trying to judge whether he’d be able to get away with taking another biscuit.
“I heard he lives in another city?” Tim half-asked to make conversation and pretend he didn’t already know everything about Dick Grayson and Nightwing there was to know.
“Yeah, Bludhaven. He’s a cop there. I still think he originally got that job just to piss dad off, but he’s so stubborn, the dick will see it through.” Jason laughed. Tim winced; he couldn’t imagine purposefully wanting to make Batman, of all people, mad.
“Language, Master Jason.” Alfred warned as he walked back in the room.
“It’s just his name,” Jason mumbled.
“Why don’t both of you go sit down in the dining room now?” Alfred suggested. “Your father will be down in a minute.”
The dining room in Wayne manor, at least the one Jason said they were to eat in, wasn’t quite as ostentatious as the ones the Drakes had, but it was clearly far too large and elaborate for dinner for three people.
Bruce showed up only moments later, complexion white as a ghost and black hair sticking up every which way. He looked like he hadn’t slept since Robin got hurt on patrol four days ago; even Jason, the one actually injured, looked more alert and healthier right now.
Despite this, Bruce gave Tim a light smile as he sat across the table from the boys. Tim had seen Batman in action tons of times, but had never been this close to Bruce Wayne before. Even at the few galas he’d attended that Bruce had been present at, he’d kept his distance – partially because that was his parents’ wish, and partially because Tim was afraid Bruce would be able to see right though Tim and extrapolate somehow that Tim knew their big secret. The suit definitely helped the man look taller and heavier, but even without the suit, Bruce was far from small in any way.
“Timothy Drake,” Bruce said. It wasn’t a question.
Tim could feel his headache coming back on. The Tylenol he’d taken later in the day weren’t lasting as long as the ones he’d taken in the morning; this one was failing him barely an hour and a half in. “That’s me,” he replied, stuffing the headache back down. “It’s nice to meet you Mr. Wayne.”
“Please,” Bruce offered, still smiling, “call me Bruce.” And for the second time that day, Tim had the thought, yeah, I won’t be doing that.
Dinner passed with less fanfare than Tim imagined, but that was very much to his preference. He wasn’t loose-lipped or anything like that; he’d kept tons of secrets over the years. Mostly stupid stuff like “don’t tell your mother I’m ordering her roses for her birthday!” and “Tim, please make sure your father doesn’t find out about the baseball tickets I got him for our anniversary” – but that had been back when Tim thought his parents still cared, when they at least liked him, and each other. Somewhere around the time he turned eight, his parents started fighting more, with him and with each other. Tim wondered to this day if it was his fault, or if not his fault, if at least he could’ve prevented it.
His headache got even worse during dinner though, and Tim didn’t understand why he just couldn’t seem to shake it. He probably wasn’t going to be able to go out tonight to take pictures with his head pounding like this, but since Jason wasn’t going out either, due to his broken arm, Tim figured it probably wasn’t a huge loss.
Once they finished eating, Jason led Tim to the library. Tim had been to the Gotham Public Library a few times, and he was pretty sure the Manor’s library rivaled it in size.
“Wow,” Tim said as he and Jason plopped down on a couch. “It’s really something.”
“I know, right? When I first came here, I couldn’t believe the size of this place. I spent nearly a full week in here before dad kicked me out to at least sleep in a bed.” Jason smiled, as if reminiscing. Tim wanted to ask if Bruce and Jason really hadn’t known they were related, like the tabloids were saying, but he wasn’t sure if that was rude.
Tim took another angle instead. “So, you really like reading then?”
“Fucking love it.” Jason swore. “Back when I was really little, there wasn’t much else to do in Crime Alley. Before my mom got sick, she would take me to the library every other day. It just… it gave me something to hope for, you know? Having characters in books to look up to made me feel a lot better when my life was going to shit, you know what I mean?”
Tim knew exactly what Jason was talking about. This was part of the reason he started following Batman and Robin nearly four years ago in the first place. He nodded accordingly, and grimaced at the pain that shot through his head. Unfortunately, this time Jason noticed.
“Shit, what’s wrong?” Jason asked.
“Nothing,” Tim laughed a little, for fear he’d cry from the pain if he didn’t. “Just a headache. On and off all day.”
“Oh man, I wished you said something. We can you get some painkillers for that. Have you taken any today?” Jason asked, already struggling with his phone to send a text message to someone.
“Um. Yeah, I took some Tylenol. Like five at this point I think.” Tim said, leaning his head against the back of the couch to rest it.
Jason paused. “You took five? Five?”
Tim frowned. “Yes, what’s wrong with that?”
Jason shook his head. “Pretty sure you’re not supposed to take that many Tylenol in a day if you’re a teenager, Timmy, or at least, that’s your limit for the day.”
Oh. Tim hadn’t thought about that. There was no reason to. He didn’t get headaches often – when he did, they were pretty bad, but he never needed to take more than four Tylenol to deal with it.
“My dad’s coming up, though. He’ll know what to do.” Jason stated.
“He doesn’t have to do that,” Tim said quickly. “It’s just a headache. My parents will… my parents will be home soon anyways.” Tim lied.
“I don’t know,” Jason said. “I’m no expert but if you’ve had five Tylenols in one day and still aren’t feeling well, it sounds like something’s wrong.”
Before Tim could defend himself, Bruce Wayne burst into the library. “What’s wrong?” He asked, looking panicked.
“Tim has a headache. He wants to go home and wait for his parents, so we decided I’m gonna walk with him.” Tim glared at Jason slightly; they hadn’t decided that at all, but it sounded like a decent plan. Honestly, whatever got him home at this point.
“Oh,” Bruce said, panic melting off his face. “I thought something was seriously wrong.” Bruce turned to face Jason, “You just texted ‘please help.’”
Jason had the decency to look a bit sheepish at that. “Yeah sorry. In my defense,” he said, raising his injured arm above his head, “it is hard to text one-handed and I was trying to keep the word count down.”
Bruce shook his head, then turned back to Tim. “Is it a migraine, or a headache?” He asked.
“He says it’s just a headache, but he’s already taken five Tylenol today and it still hurts.” Jason piped up.
“Five?” Bruce repeated. “I don’t like the sound of that.”
“It’s just a headache, really.” Tim said quietly.
“Do you normally get headaches this badly, though?” Jason asked.
“I just didn’t sleep well last night.” Tim finally admitted. “I was up late –” taking pictures of Batman and Nightwing rescuing some children from traffickers “– finishing my biology project.”
Bruce and Jason both gave him an odd look at that, but luckily, did seem to accept the excuse, and Bruce let Jason escort Tim home.
“So,” Jason said when they’d arrived in front of the Drake estate. “You okay with after school Friday being our next session?”
“Yeah, that sounds good.” Tim said, rubbing his head, as if that would make the headache go away. “Tell Alfred thanks for dinner for me? His lasagna was amazing.”
“Always is.” Jason agreed. “You’ve got my number, right?” I can text you?”
“Sure.” Tim said, wondering what Jason would even sound like over text. Probably literary reference after literary reference, if today had been any indication of his personality.
“Good,” Jason smiled. “Hey, how about we do Friday’s session at my place, though? That way you can stay for dinner and you’ll only have to walk back afterwards.”
“I’ll, uh, think about it. My parents like me to be home to do my work… they think it, uh, makes me more focused.” Tim lied.
Jason didn’t seem to accept that answer, but just said “hmm, okay. They’ll be home soon, right? You won’t be here by yourself?”
“Yeah,” Tim lied again, “don’t worry about me.”