Chapter Text
There’s a huge oak tree on the Drake property, twisted and gnarled with age.
Tim, on the rare occasions that his mother and his nannies would permit him to run wild outside, liked to climb up on its branches and take photos of the skyline. He hasn’t had any nannies telling him what to do in nearly two years now though, and his mother hasn’t been home in six months, so he has been climbing that tree nearly every day.
However, there was no way to climb the tree today.
Last week, Gotham had been hit by a hurricane that had lasted several days. This morning, the storm had finally passed, leaving behind its trail of destruction, and Tim had decided to go out on the grounds to catalog the damage for his report to his parents.
Luckily, there wasn’t anything major wrong and Tim could fix up most of the mess with a week or two of hard work, except for the old tree.
Struck by lightning in the midst of the storm, the tree had two of its thick lower branches split away from the trunk. They hadn’t severed, but the burnt gash had marred the ancient oak in a way Tim knew that if his parents saw it, they would call it ugly and ask to have it torn down.
Fortunately, Tim knew that there was actually a very small chance of that scenario as it would first require his parents to be in the country and for them to take a walk around the far gardens on the edge of the property. Considering that he was pretty sure that his father didn’t even know that they even had the far east garden, Tim felt safe that his tree wouldn’t get torn down.
However, as he stared up at it, he wondered how he was going to climb up it.
His usual method of using the bottom branches to hoist himself up was now mangled, and he wasn’t sure of how stable they were either.
So, Tim buckled his backpack’s straps extra tight and started climbing the tree like a squirrel, fingers gripping tightly around the knots on the tree trunk. He wished he had the ropes he sometimes used when he went running after Batman and Robin in the city, but his climbing ropes were at the bottom of his pack and he couldn’t reach them at the moment. As he hauled himself up onto the next lowest stable branch, he froze when he looked down.
The lightning had split the tree, but what he couldn’t see from the ground was that the deep gash had actually revealed that the tree was hollow. There was no evidence of the hollow trunk from the outside, but the sun was illuminating the inside partially, showing that there was large a hidden space.
Tim smiled, excitement and curiosity curling within him. The space was big enough that he could climb in, but there was no way his parents would be able to follow.
It was a no-brainer to decide that he wanted to explore his new hidey-hole. Bracing himself against the trunk, he began digging through his backpack for his rope. If he tied it correctly, he could use it to climb in and out of the trunk without getting himself stuck.
As he tugged on the rope, checking the knot’s strength, his mind raced thinking of all the cool photos he could potentially get from inside the tree. Maybe some bugs or interesting wood patterns, and if he angles the sun’s rays just right he might…
Wait a second. Where’d the ground go?
As Tim lowered himself down, he realized that the tree wasn’t just hollow. It was also the entrance to a cave.
“Oh, this is sooo cursed,” Tim said to himself when his feet hit the ground.
Stalactites loomed down from the ceiling, looking like sharp teeth about to bite down on him. There was only a single ray of light in the cavern, illuminating right where he was standing. He was pretty sure he could hear bats screeching.
“Very cursed.” He nodded to himself, remembering the many stories about Gotham being cursed he found on internet forums and how the city was built over a massive cave system. A cave system he was currently standing in. “AWESOME!”
His excited shout echoed weirdly, but he didn’t even blink. He was already kneeling down next to his bag to grab his torch and camera. He was going to explore every inch of this place. Oooh, maybe he could start taking the caves across the city! Like some weird subway system, or a labyrinth!
“Just like Percy Jackson!” He said to himself, delighted. Muttering, he looked down the closest cave tunnel. “If I keep to the left I will never get lost, right?”
He pointed his torch with conviction at the tunnel and marched onwards.
***
…Tim was slightly lost.
He now knows why people keep getting lost and disappearing in Gotham’s sewer system. Well, the other reason that doesn’t include the evil crocodile-man.
The shadows all look the same, and keeping to the left is probably the only reason that ‘never finding his body’ is still a low probability. He was getting creeped out, and he was only 87% certain he can get back to the entrance, so he stopped and sat down, leaning on a stalagmite that didn’t appear to have any poisonous spiders or radioactive stuff on it.
Because this was Gotham and their rain ate through umbrellas. And he was just wandering around underneath it.
This may have not been his smartest idea.
Great. Guess he won’t be finding any buried treasures or curses or temples. This is probably why his parents never take him with them on trips, he’s a horrible explorer and a worse archeologist.
A lump had appeared in his throat, and he desperately closed his eyes in an attempt to stop any tears from forming.
Cave exploring wasn’t fun at all.
“...Did’yah see B? …so cool… Dickie showed me…” A voice echoed through the cavern, barely more than a whisper, but it still startled Tim.
He was on his feet quicker than a shot, trying to follow that voice.
“Two Face isn’t messing with us anytime soon!” A young voice said, and Tim nearly shouted in surprise when he realized that that voice was Robin .
Gotham was built on a cave system. Batman has referenced a Bat Cave before. Tim is currently in the cave system. He is in the cave system that he entered from Drake Manor. Drake Manor is right next door to where Batman- The Bruce Wayne- lives. Holy Cavern, Batman! Tim had just accidentally wandered into the Bat Cave’s cave system.
This was way better than him figuring out Batman, Robin, and Nightwing’s identity last month!
“Or, he’s going to retaliate because some punk thought to throw his coin off a roof.” A voice deadpanned and snapped Tim out of his dazed funk.
The voices were coming from a dead end; the tunnel stopped there. So how…?
“Yeah, an’ he went divin’ off aftah’ it like some mutt. S’was funny.” Robin said defensively.
There! Camouflaged by the shadows and wedged into a corner two feet off the ground: a crawlspace.
Tim was wriggling into it before he even registered that going through strange crawlspaces in hidden cave systems is a bad idea. It was a long tunnel, but large enough that even his dad could get through it with just a little bit of difficulty.
“Nightwing is right, it was dangerous. But it did provide the distracted needed to arrest him.”
“Ha!”
“You are to never do that again, however. Harvey is very possessive of his coin, and if he breaks out of Arkham, he’ll be targeting you.”
Tim hissed at the sudden light, feeling a little like a vampire as he pulled himself out of the crawlspace and onto a natural high rock ledge above the entire Bat Cave.
Batman stood several feet below him, typing on a giant computer as Nightwing smirked smugly at Robin from behind his back.
Tim froze. He just broke into the Bat Cave.
Maybe he did have some of that Natural Drake Explorer-Archeologist blood after all.