Chapter Text
Tim Drake was not a sentimental person. So would say many people who knew him—or of him, for there were far more of those.
But Tim Drake himself was inclined to disagree. Take for example his relationship with math. He considered it something more than just a tool—it was an ally. One far more reliable than many made of flesh and blood, and even now, it was something he leaned on and took comfort in.
Math? It was real.
It wasn't something abstract and removed, to be done at one's desk with a pen and a pencil case and stacks of paper arranged in tidy lines.
It was for moments like this, where the trash blew by on the street and slammed brakes screamed in the distance and the blood flowed from your body in rivulets mixing with rainwater to leave glossy pools on dirty pavement.
Tim knew his average heartbeats per minute at this rate of activity (his current rate had slowed a little below that, but that was just inactivity. Probably).
Tim knew the blood volume of his body.
Tim knew how long it would take to go hypovolemic and pass the hell out at the estimated beats per minute.
All of which were why Tim knew that, despite the hiss he bit back as the hemostatic granules did their work…having been shot was really a bigger problem for his opponents than for himself.
After all, he could've held back more before. Almost certainly would have held back—he had really wanted to interrogate a couple of them if possible. Maybe he even still could.
But with over three-quarters of the goons already left decorating the pavement before the gunshot wound had forced him to regroup, his options were already increasingly limited.
Sometimes a partial success brought on more problems than a complete failure.
But for now, he simply had to operate on the assumption that he would be the only one conscious sometime in the next four minutes.
Three if he wanted wiggle room. That was always good.
It was a short leap from the shadowy overhang to the shoulder of the next goon, the man's spine kindly offering shock absorption as Tim springboard-ed away from him with a spin that brought Tim's leg into a graceful arc that connected solidly with the face of the next guy. A flick of the bō staff caught Springboard as he fell, and that was one, two down.
Three came on the descent, Tim letting gravity and inertia take over and drive his full weight into the man's chest. His thick layers of jacket and coat would do little to protect the back of his skull from the pavement.
A forward roll carried Tim onward from his landing spot, his feet finally hitting the grimy Gotham pavement again for the first time.
He was back in the game.
The staff whipped out as he emerged from the roll, striking the fourth opponent in the side of the knee and using the momentary stumble to reach his jaw with the other end. Tim stayed low with a dancer's grace, ignoring the burn in his leg with the knowledge that anyone armed would be aiming higher, and the extra moments to adjust would win Tim valuable seconds.
All those dance practices with Cass had paid off.
Also contrary to what folks believed, Tim was in fact perfectly capable of following directions. He simply chose not to do so often, because he could nearly always find a better way of doing things, and the rewards for compliance rarely provided enough motivation.
…That said, he did not try to argue with ballet teachers. Ballet wasn't very logical anyways, and he trusted Cass to accurately explain what she needed from him.
And ballet may not have been logical, but it was certainly useful.
Case en pointe: The well over a dozen unfortunates currently decorating the pavement and definitely doing their civic part to enhance Gotham's reputation as a top-ten city to never, ever visit.
It never ceased to amaze Tim that his professional contacts—from both nighttime and daylight exploits—were willing to travel to the city at all for meetings. If Tim had been in their places? Skype. …Metaphorically speaking, because honestly, screw the rivals; Waynetech's platform was exponentially more feature rich and secure. And the API? A thing of beauty.
The crack of a gunshot from nearly point-blank range didn't shake him, even as he felt the nagging weakness in the leg that had taken the hit earlier. As Tim expected, the shot was off by several feet, giving him the opening he needed to push forward without adjusting his own trajectory. He darted forward with a vicious snap to the assailant's kidneys with his weapon, Tim's off hand coming up to seize the firearm as the man was staggered by the pain. Staff's end against the ground coupled with a foot on the man's opposite knee provided leverage to gain height, Tim bringing his left elbow up to slam into the man's jaw without ever letting go of the pistol.
The combination of force and the shift in weight sent the man reeling backwards and Tim finally disentangled himself with a twist to let the man fall solo—the weapon removed in that same moment as Tim's body completed its rotating arc over the man's extended arm.
Tim wasted no time adjusting his grip, bringing the firearm up to bear against the opponent now furthest away. The man had a hand on the heel of his own weapon but faltered now, as if trying to wager whether or not this Bat was one who'd pull the trigger.
"You're not—"
Light reflected off of glossy black.
"—arggh!" The man stumbled, twisting to and fro to cast a confused glance around himself as blood spurted out onto the ground from a clean slice through his forearm.
A second Batarang separated the man's cheap holster from his leg with a hairsplit margin and the man jumped as his weapon clattered to the ground.
And now Tim brandished the weapon visibly, letting the bladed instrument whirl around his finger. "Want me to make it three?" he asked calmly.
The man let go of his injured arm, raising his free hand in surrender.
"Didn't think so," Tim noted with a shrug, taking his eyes off the man so that he could unload the pistol he'd picked up from the last assailant he'd knocked to the ground.
Of course, the moment both Tim's hands were full and his eyes were lowered, the man seized his chance and darted for his own firearm now lying on the ground. In the same instant that he straightened, an explosion from the man's right threw him several feet and he hit the unforgiving concrete with the wheeze of air being slammed from his lungs.
Tim finished field stripping the weapon before looking up. "Oh. I think I counted wrong?" He walked over to the man, extracting a Batarang from his belt again as he kicked away the dropped gun. "This would've been Number Four." Number Three had hit the holster. And Number Two was the explosive one he had sent out in the same moment as Number One, taking advantage of the blood-slicked distraction of the moment. Not that he was gonna explain that to Goon 6B. Why give away his secrets? Tim instead just tilted his head to the side with a grin. "Sorry about that. I kinda suck at math, I guess."
The man's head finally fell back against the pavement as he lost—or simply gave up—the battle for consciousness, and Tim took a quick moment to assure himself of the man's pulse and breathing before turning his attention to collecting the firearm the man had made the mistake of going for.
It would've taken a certain amount of speed to complete a gambit like that. And most Gotham goons? Not up to the task.
Oddly enough, a niggling in the back of Tim's brain as he surveyed the scene warned him that he actually had managed to forget something, outside of any ploys or feints or Vegas-flavored misdirection ("Now you see me…now you see stars!").
It was almost as bad a distraction as the dull but growing ache from the wound. Experience noted that if it hurt this much now, it was gonna be a real bitch later…but that was most definitely a Future Tim problem.
Present Tim had priorities like figuring out the missing piece before he ended up the missing piece.
Vehicles from GCPD were a few blocks away, but otherwise occupied.
If the goons from this meeting had called for backup—called for backup successfully—it would already have arrived.
And Tim could spot no immediate threats to civilian safety—a methodically distributed array of broken bones and bruised skulls was currently ensuring that much.
The problem couldn't have lain with any of the most visible options.…
So then, what?
Trigger/Content Warnings:
—Violence throughout (combat, somewhat graphic)
—Mentions of injury (slightly detailed)
—Strong language. This will be present throughout the story, so I'm only warning for it once. Please assume all other chapters will also contain it.
AJ's Casual Commentary:
An important note about characterization here: As you may have guessed from the tags, the Bruce we're going to have here is one in between; he's not the batsard we see in Tale Spin, yet nor is he the solid dad featured in SAU materials like The Things Left Unsaid or Chill Pill. He's trying and really does mean well, but he also fails pretty spectacularly as well. He's a fair bit of a loving disaster, and he lets his flaws get the better of him in his personal life more than he should be willing to tolerate as someone who's such an obsessive perfectionist when it comes to work performance.
This is actually why I chose this particular project as my gift fic for lurkinglurkerwholurks & Batbirdies; works like The Return and the Emotional Motion Sickness series do an incredible job of showcasing, and also providing insight and nuance with, a version of Bruce who is not exactly a banner sort of dad yet, but is nevertheless making very real progress towards actually being a better father and finding better ways to both enact and reveal the care and concern that ultimately lie at the heart of how he behaves with and relates to his children. I also considered dedicating this to audreycritter and maychorian for similar reasons, but I have one-shots that are speaking to me for them instead. Dunno how long it'll be before those are finished and released, though.
In any case, it's important to note that this fic takes place in the aftermath of the Captain Boomerang incident from Red Robin #26. If you're unfamiliar with that, fear not—it'll come up in the story itself, plus the author notes if I feel further explanation is needed.
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Not gonna lie…Tim makes some dumb decisions in this fic, though he has his reasons. Y'all know how he is about self-care, though.
That said, I also hoped to have some good moments in this fic where we got the "BAMF Tim Drake" angle, especially since this is probably the longest Tim-centric fic I'll be doing any time soon. Gotta make it count! So hopefully this and a couple of other scenes in this fic will live up to that tag for people.
And there was another song I considered for this chapter at one point, though I don't recall what. But this one I found via a television commercial was just entirely too good to replace, and I actually like the fact that it's maybe not a soundtrack you would instinctively think of for Tim, yet it still absolutely fits him in my opinion. Tim is ferocious when he wants or needs to be. And today? He very much needs to be.
Wolves - My Time (without ads) | Quentin B
[https://youtu.be/b3JEULikW-s]