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“Thank you all for coming today, I know this must be a difficult time for you all after the loss of Bruce, so I’ll try to keep it brief.” The Wayne family Lawyer says from behind the desk he was borrowing. After Bruce had been missing for months, they had finally had to release that he had gone to the media, and subsequently he had been declared dead. So, all of his closest people were gathered in the largest office in Wayne Manor for the reading of his will.
“As per Bruce’s wishes we will read off his will word for word as it is written. ‘If you are reading this then it has unfortunately come to pass that I have passed.’ Ah, he then writes pause for laughter.” The lawyer says glancing over his glasses to the room at large. A couple of the kids grimace at the poor joke but there is predictably no laughter. He clears his throat then starts again, “First and foremost, any and all children that were in my custody at the time of my passing should go to Alfred Pennyworth, my former ward and current family butler. Alfred, if you are still able to take the kids, there is no one I would trust more to care for them. I know they see you as their grandfather already and love you as such. I’m sorry that I went before you. I’m sorry I broke that promise.”
When the lawyer looked up again, he was taken aback to see the old butler sitting ramrod straight, and he would think the man perfectly composed if not for the silent tears streaking their way down his cheeks. The lawyer chooses not to bring any attention to the other's grieving and goes back to the lengthy document. Bruce has rather a lot of assets to go through. “If for some reason Alfred is unable to take custody of the children, then they are to be given into the care of my eldest child Richard Grayson. Dickie, I never wanted to push so much responsibility onto your shoulders. I love you my son, and even when we didn’t see eye to eye I always trusted you to look out for your siblings. You have so much love to give, and I know you will be there for the others, but please remember to reach out to your support structure. You have just as many people who love you and will help you.”
The lawyer does not look up when he hears the young man let out a strangled sob. If he looks, he knows he will not be able to continue in a professional manner. “If for some reason Dick is unable to take custody of the children then they should go to Diana Prince and/or Clark Kent. I have trusted you both to watch my back for many years, but my children are the most important thing I will ever ask you to watch and care for. I trust you to do what is best for them in whatever manner Diana thinks is best.” The large man Kent lets out a wet laugh at that. “The manor will go to whomsoever has taken custody of the children so that they may continue to grow up in their home.”
The lawyer looks up again at the room, “The rest of the assets are divvied out by monetary value. ‘Wayne Industries will go to Timothy Drake-Wayne. I leave the company to you Tim because I know you are smart and capable enough to run it better than I ever could, but I want to emphasize that this does not mean you have to run the company Tim. I respect you for your mind, yes, but I love you for who you are. My love is not quantified by how useful you are, and it never has been. Please do not feel as though you have to do this for my sake.
The contents of the Wayne Family Library including the ‘comfy armchair’ is to go to Todd Peterson.’” Here the Lawyer pauses as the young man in question has stood up rather abruptly and leaves the office, slamming the door behind him. The Grayson boy scrambles after him, nearly forgetting to release the youngest Wayne from the hold he has maintained throughout the entirety of the will reading. After more than a minute without them returning, Mr. Pennyworth urges the lawyer to continue. He hesitates for a moment before continuing to read.
“I will skip ahead a couple paragraphs as the two that just left are named as holders of some of those assets. Let’s see, ah yes. I leave the private theatre and dance studio to my daughter Cassadra Wayne. I am so proud of you my girl, for all of the beauty you have been able to find and create. You are stronger and kinder than I have ever been. I also leave my most important suit to you, as well as the car that goes with it.” At this there are several sharp intakes of breath, and when the lawyer glances up he sees shock on all of the gathered faces except for the young woman in question. “I know it does not technically fit you, but it can be altered to fit if that’s something you want to undertake. Please take care of your brothers, they will need your strength, but I hope you will lean on them as well. I love you, my daughter.”
-
The reading of the will takes a few more hours as Bruce had taken the time to address each of his children and gathered friends in his will with personal messages attached.
The lawyer is so relieved to be done with the will reading that he almost misses the last line. Instead of being after the paragraph before, it seems to have been added as a footer. “Don’t let your brother become a villain, please.” Mildly disturbed, the lawyer looks up at the room at large and sees what can only be described as the calm before a major storm. Making the decision to retreat he gathers only the most essential of his belonging before swiftly exiting the large office. He did not want to be around for whatever caused all those children to go so quiet and still. He swears that the little one stopped breathing.
-
“He’s totally talking about me! Even in death that bastard doesn’t trust me!” Jason yells to the room at large after the lawyer had left.
"Now Jay, what happened to what we talked about in the hallway?" Dick tries to placate the raging man. “He also could be referring to Damian," said boy squawks indignantly at that but Dick ignores him "you know his mother and grandfather might use this as an opportunity to regain custody of him.”
While that argument rages in the middle of the room and Steph and Duke take bets, Cass and Tim stand against the far wall watching each other. Cass stares at her little brother unblinkingly while Tim pretends to not notice the accusation in her eye and just smiles innocently back at her.
[you not become villain] Cass signs.
Tim smiles wider, “Is it really villainy if I just take over the league?” he says quietly enough to not be overheard, though it’s not difficult given the explosive nature of the argument that Duke had been pulled into somehow, something about how Jason isn’t the only gang leader in the family.
“No.” Cass says firmly.
“Ras deserves it, and you know it.”
“… tell me if you need help.” Cass returns after a few beats of her searching Tim eyes.
Tim’s smile grows softer. “I will.”
With a final nod Cass turns toward the argument in the middle of the room and strides over to break it up. If she was going to be the head bat, she probably needed to keep her family from killing each other.
-
Even though Cass had taken over as the big bat, Dick had already given Robin to the newest bat sibling. This worked out for Tim just fine though. The reduced supervision worked out perfectly for his plans to overthrow the league. Cass had been roped into taking her proper place in mentoring Damian, and it was working surprisingly well. They had been raised pretty similarly all things told, and she knew when to push him on topics and behaviors that Dick probably would have felt uncomfortable broaching.
This meant that his sister, despite her amazing abilities, was less able than she probably would have liked to keep an eye on Tim. With the lack of supervision Tim dove into his planning. If he were going to usurp the demon’s head and purge the league of the worst of their number so he could shape it and its resources to his whim he was going to need a good plan.
He begged off the Titans activities and they thought he was spending time with his family in the wake of Bruce’s loss, and his family thought he was getting support from his friends after moving out. Most of them thought he was upset over his ‘argument’ with Dick over Robin. While it had hurt when the man hadn’t believed him about Bruce being lost in the time stream, ultimately if he was going to find Bruce, he didn’t need Robin.
He needed more manpower and resources than Robin would ever have at his disposal. It didn’t hurt that he would be stealing the league in a way that meant Damian would never be Heir to the Demon again. Even while Tim couldn’t entirely blame the kid for being Robin, he could admit to a minor grudge over the brat trying to kill him.
Jason had at least apologized for trying to kill Tim.
-
“I’ll give you one opportunity to stand down before I remove you from you position and destroy any possibility of anyone respecting you ever again.” Tim says over an intercom he had placed over the entirety of the compound of Nanda Parbat. “If you take your daughter with you and never come into my line of sight again, I won’t even maim you. You have ten minutes to vacate the premises.”
Was it mean spirited to give them so little time? Maybe. But the sick bastard had taken Tim’s spleen and now instead of being amicable he was feeling a little vengeful. Tim left the room he had commandeered to do his little broadcast to make his way to Ras’ tasteless ‘throne room’. God the old man was pretentious.
-
Ras does not actually vacate the premises, and Tim stabs him, admittedly a little enthusiastically until the old man made it weird and Tim absconds without even retrieving his batarang.
‘Nope, nope, absolutely not.’ Tim thinks as he makes his way entirely out of the compound and all the way back to Gotham.
-
“I am so going to make that demented fossil regret looking at me.” Tim seethes as he paces in the Nest.
His phone chimes from the side table where its charging and he makes his way over to it. Bart had sent a Flash fail compilation to the Titans group chat, and as he watched Wally overcorrect and fall down a flight of stairs a brilliant and evil idea came to mind.
Well, he had said that no one would ever respect Ras again.
-
Tim tells his family he’s going on a long-term mission with the Titans in space and tells the Titans to enjoy their field trip without him. A day later his masterpiece is unleashed unto the world, and if Tim happens to let out a ‘villainous laugh’ as he posts it no one was around to comment.
-
Dick gets an urgent message from Babs when he’s hunched over a bowl of fruity pebbles mixed with coco pebbles.
[!!Dick oh my God you have to see what Tim did!!]
Dick smiles, Tim must have sent a goodbye video before he made his way off planet. With this happy thought Dick takes another bite and presses play. The first thing he sees is little Timmy in the tightest rendition of his new Red Robin suit with thigh high, high heeled black boots strutting into frame and Dick nearly dies as he chokes and falls over somehow managing to hit his chin on the way down.
When he finally gets his bearings and can breathe again the video has ended. Dick contemplates his phone for a long moment, he really doesn’t need to see his little brother like that and Dick really doesn’t know why Babs would send it to him.
Dick takes a deep breath, looks at his ceiling, and praying for strength, presses replay.
-
Red Robin struts into frame to the beat of Mariah Carey’s song ‘Why you so obsessed with me?’ and starts to dance sinuously. Behind him under a banner reading ‘Red Robin’s Worst Villains’ a compilation consisting of several embarrassing scenes play. Talia Al Ghul sniffing her pits becomes Red Hood falling off a roof transitions to Lex Luthor getting nailed on the top of his head with bird poop. Even Damian in his new Robin suit is featured as he crouches down to coax a kitten from behind a dumpster. Most prominently featured is Ra’s Al Ghul. Ra’s dying his roots. Ra’s tripping over the edge of his long robes. Ra’s pants falling down when he tries to move into a fighting stance. Ra’s reading a bodice ripper in pink fluffy slippers and a face mask. The whole video concludes with the words: Leave me alone <3
-
“He totally skipped town, so we’d have to deal with all his villains coming to get revenge!” Jason yells into the Cave.
“Todd, you were one of those villains in Drake’s disgusting video.” Damian replies from his perch atop the T-Rex.
“Oh please, we’re on good terms now, besides I know the little stalker has more embarrassing things he could have put in that video. Why are you way up there anyway bat brat?”
“He’s embarrassed~.” Stephanie teases.
“Why because Tim revealed the demon has a heart?”
“Dude no, because his mom and grandpa are losers that not only do all the stuff Tim posted but they let themselves get caught doing it.”
Jason grimaces in sympathy. “Ah, yeah that has to be rough.”
They hear a distant “Tt.”
“So, any word from Dickie? I bet he’s going absolutely mama bear.” Jason grins.
Matching his grin Steph says, “Oh yeah, Cass is currently trying to get some of his old team members in to run interference. She’s worried he might tear into any of Tim’s villains dumb enough to take the bait and try to get revenge on Tim and come to Gotham.”
Jason snorts. “You wanna grab some popcorn and watch Dickwing tear into some ninjas?”
“Hell yeah!”
Damian sulks harder.
-
All in all, taking over the league had gone better than Tim thought it would. Ras and Talia were both presumably in Gotham trying to find Tim after his masterpiece went viral. With only the reserve assassins left to guard the base, its child’s play to take over.
With only a few maimings and incapacitations he had managed to completely take control. The majority of the league seemed pretty willing to follow him after he had established that he was able and willing to stop any attempts on his life and he definitely offered better benefits than Ra’s did. Any not convinced by that were convinced by Tim’s video. It doesn’t hurt that Tim passes out employment contracts after the dust settles. Funny how fair labor practices could win over a group of ruthless assassins.
Tim was proud that only a few even died in his coup! He may not actually have any of the ‘morals’ that Bruce forced on him, but it was the principle of the thing. He knew that he wasn’t as beloved as Jason so if he blatantly broke Bruce’s no kill rule he definitely wouldn’t be forgiven as easily as the other man had.
Since he was actively trying to rescue the man from where he had been lost in the timestream he knew he couldn’t leave any evidence of him being involved in any deaths. It would be easier if Tim was not actually the perpetrator in any deaths because he knew Bruce would definitely dig into Tim’s activities after he got back.
He shook his head to jolt himself back into the matter at hand. With the resources of the league, he was already much closer to figuring out how to bring Bruce back.
Tim gave it three months before Bruce is home.
-
After precisely two months and seventeen days after he had taken over the league, Bruce was back in the bat cave and in the middle of a throng of his children.
Having completed his objective, Tim started making his way to his bike so he could make his way to his apartment. Before he took more than a half dozen steps Steph broke the moment from where she was perched.
“Hey Bruce, I’ve been dying to know, which of the boys where we supposed to keep from becoming a villain?”
Tim froze as he felt Cass’s eyes snap to him.
“I was clearly talking about Tim. You do know that the only reason he has morals is because I wrote out a list of things he was and was not allowed to do? Right? I had to actually spell out each tenant of the Geneva convention so that he wouldn’t commit war crimes against the rogues because, and I’m quoting him here, ‘They commit war crimes why can’t I do it back? It would be fair.”
Tim bristled, that was a gross mischaracterization of a conversation they had had when Tim was twelve, thank you very much. Before he could get too indignant though he felt the rest of the bat brood’s eyes on him. He chose to instead inspect his gloves as though he was inspecting a manicure. He was not going to acknowledge the conversation. Nope. Not going to engage.
“Hey Timmy,” Dick started, “How did you find Bruce buddy?”
Still refusing to look at the gaggle in the middle of the cave, “I outsourced.”
It was Cass reprimanding tone as she said just his name that made him look at the bat brood. He couldn’t make out what all of the faces of the closest people he had to family meant, but he thought he saw a mix of fear, respect and wariness.
Tim sighed, “I didn’t even kill anyone stop looking at me like that. You take over one international terrorist organization and suddenly people are labeling you as a villain.”
“You WHAT?!?” Dick yelped.
Tim rolled his eyes. “It wasn’t even that hard I don’t know what you’re making such a big deal about. I follow Bruce’s rules better than most of you considering I’ve never tried to kill any of you, and only stalk you as much as Bruce does.”
‘What does that mean?” Dick wheezes.
“I didn’t kill or maim Jason or Damian even though they’ve repeatedly tried to do that to me, because I know that Bruce would actually be mad at me if I did it. He may claim to not have favorites, but there is a really clear double standard when it comes to those two because ‘Jason’s death was traumatizing Tim’ or ‘Damian was raised in a cult you can’t hold it against him’” Tim uses finger quotes to emphasize where he’s repeating Bruce. “But Cass had a bad childhood, and she never tried to kill me, that’s why she’s everyone’s favorite because despite everything she’s the best adjusted.”
Tim was met with a series of blank stares from his siblings and Bruce pinching the bride of his nose like he’s staving off a headache. Cass broke away from the group to hug him and Tim went stiff when the action caused a twinge of pain where he had lost his spleen.
Cass immediately pulled away and narrowed her eyes before trying to drag him to the med bay.
“Cass no, I’m fine I already got patched up, I’m fine. It’s just a spleen.”
“WHAT?!?!?!” Dick yells even louder rushing forward. “What do you mean a spleen? What happened to your spleen??”
“I lost it like two months ago, I’m just a little tender because I ripped my stiches a few times while proving myself to the league.”
Suddenly Tim finds himself off the ground and just barely restrains himself from lashing out against what turns out to be Jason of all people. “You have a lot of explaining to do replacement, what the fuck have you been doing to yourself?”
"I don’t like the implication of that that question. I haven’t done anything to myself. If anything, I’ve done things to Ra’s and the timestream, also I’ve done positive things to the league. They have benefits now.” Before he can further defend himself, he finds himself on one of the med cots in the cave and Alfred has managed to materialize.
Tim immediately shuts up under the flinty gaze of the butler. He knows he has to present himself as fearful and respectful to the man because no one else seems to be able to sneak around or past the man, and if Tim wants to maintain his ability to do such, he needs to pretend like he can’t.
“Master Tim, I hear you are down a spleen and have ripped your stiches several times. Is there anything else you would like to share before I begin my examination?”
“I don’t have an infection and am fine. I don’t know why everyone is freaking out. My spleen in exchange for Bruce seems like a rather good payoff in my opinion. If anything, we came out on the good end of this exchange.”
“This isn’t Full Metal Alchemist, Tim.’ Steph pipes up. “We aren’t living our lives like alchemy.”
Tim rolls his eyes for what feels like the thousandth time. “Obviously, or I would have disappeared as well as like half of one of you in exchange for B. probably Dick.”
Dick squawks in protest again. “Why me?”
“Because you’re the most big brother shaped one here?” isn’t that obvious?
“I don’t know whether to be flattered or insulted.”
-
Despite the rest of the bat clan’s protests Tim manages to integrate the league into the corporate structure of Drake Industries fairly easily. They’re fairly self-sustaining, and now that they aren’t actually doing the whole global terrorism thing, they can instead use their resources and manpower for contracted bodyguarding and killing though he’s taken extra care to hide that aspect of this particular Drake subsidiary. And since Drake Industries was technically a subsidiary of Wayne industries the subsidiary of a subsidiary of a subsidiary hasn’t gotten much scrutiny. Tim just needs to keep it that way.
All things told, he wasn’t sure if he appreciated the amount of attention he was getting from the public in the wake of Bruce’s return. Many people, it seemed, expected Tim to step down now that Bruce had ‘been found’.
Tim was not going to do that.
This meant that not only was he the center of business news he was also at the top of the society charts.
It didn’t help that his family had taken a lot more interest in his day-to-day activities and wellbeing. He honestly didn’t know what to do when Jason came over to his apartment and cooked him a meal, or Damian tried to convince him to adopt an unfortunate animal he had rescued on patrol. Dick and Bruce were also checking in a lot more frequently. He saw Steph almost as much as he did when they were dating, and while he couldn’t prove it, he was sure that Cass was watching him from a distance more often.
The only ones that were acting normally were Duke and Alfred, but that may just be because they worked on even more opposite schedules than the rest of the bats. Duke and he exchanged memes and pictures of their day to day, but no more than usual. Alfred had always been concerned with his general health and well-being, so his questions about his life post spleen removal didn’t seem as glaringly different as the rest of the bats’ concern.
Tim wasn’t used to being so seen. It’s what made him such a good leader to a group of assassins. He didn’t need or want the spotlight and would thrive never receiving credit for all that he does. Now though, it’s like his family thought if they started thanking him for all of the things he had been doing and maintaining for years that they would somehow keep him from falling off the deep end. He could practically taste their concern and double motives in every interaction. It wasn’t natural and he chafed under their concern. It would be one thing if they were concerned for his wellbeing, but it was clear that post the revelation that he didn’t see morality the same as ‘most people’ that his family were worried for the rest of humanity. Not him.
No one was ever concerned about Tim.
Maybe he should go full villain. But in a smart way. All of these ‘super villains’ were stupid. Despite all of the PhDs that seemed to be among the villains of Gotham they were stupid because they were theatrical with it.
Even still. Tim had put too much effort into being a bat to suddenly change teams.
Something he could do though, was take back up his nighttime photography of Gotham’s wildlife. It was technically against the list of rules that Bruce had given him when he had imposed himself on the man and demanded to become Robin. Stalking was considered immoral, but it was arguably the least immoral thing on the list of rules that he could break. Everyone he could want to follow was actually his family, and Cass was already doing it, just without the pictures.
Maybe he could install cameras into their safehouses and the manor as well. The biggest hurdle would be somehow placing cameras in the manor without Alfred noticing.
Challenge accepted.
-
In the end, Tim’s foray into villainy could have gone much worse.
-
While Bruce tries to catch up with all of the things he had missed while lost in the time stream, he notices something odd. “Why is Red Robin trending? Did they come up with a new menu item?”