Chapter Text
Timothy Jackson Drake was a genius.
A certified one.
Albert Einstein's IQ was 165.
Marilyn vos Savant's IQ was 228.
Terrance Tao's IQ was 228.
Timothy Jackson Drake's IQ was 252.
His parents had him tested at age two so they could capitalize on the press of him being the youngest member ever.
They tested him again at age eight too get a formal score because two year old Tim just tested ‘high’.
He kept his Mensa card in his ten-dollar Velcro Robin wallet he bought from the local box store.
It was tucked next to his student ID for Brentwood Academy and fifty dollars in case of emergency that he kept in his front left pocket.
Because only idiots and fools kept their wallets in their back pocket in a city like Gotham.
He kept his actual wallet, the nearly eight-hundred-dollar green Saffiano leather bifold from Prada his parents got him for his fifth birthday, tucked into a special belted travel pouch he stole from his father two years ago.
His prada was the one that wallet that held important things like his debit card and his digital camera's SD cards, along with the superhero ID card he cut out from the back of his Batburger kids' meal last year.
Timothy Jackson Drake was a genius.
Timothy Jaskson Drake was also smart.
Which, despite popular belief, were not mutually exclusive.
Years of being left to his own devices, or in the care of well meaning but incompetent babysitters, had given him a high level of social and emotional knowledge.
Or at least a high level of experience navigating and quantifying social and emotional outcomes.
For example, when he was nine years old his parents decided to send him to boarding school.
His father went too boarding school, as did his mother. They said it would provide him stability and networking opportunities.
Which he guessed it did.
But more than that, boarding school provided Tim freedom.
One of the very first things he did upon entering boarding school was use the Drake Industries servers to make a few new addresses: [email protected] and [email protected].
Not the company's real format, but how would his teachers know?
It worked both ways, too.
If he missed a day, he could email the school "as his parents" and excuse himself. If he earned an award or good mark, he could email "as his teacher" and CC his parents' fake accounts with the praise.
He'd even drop in a few adjectives for them to reuse at galas later: "dedicated," "exceptional," "promising." No one at school ever contacted anyone directly.
No one at home ever noticed.
And the system kept everyone convinced that Timothy Jackson Drake was a model student with perfect attendance and not even the faintest whiff of the trouble he often caused.
See, Smart.
Or, Tim learned that most children, even those at boarding school, saw their parents multiple times a year.
Tim didn't, which could be a cause for concern for those who did not understand his parents' jobs.
So he fixed that, though. Now, every two months, the Drake limo came to pick him up on Wednesdays and take him to see his parents in the city.
Really, he just had Derek, the driver, drop him off at the inner-city skate park for a few hours.
And during school breaks, he got a little more creative. He told his teachers that his parents missed him terribly and wanted him to join them on their latest dig, somewhere exotic, like Egypt or Greece.
Then, he emailed his parents that he'd been invited to an exclusive academic camp and didn't want to jeopardize his education by skipping it.
Both sides believed him completely. He'd buy his own train or plane ticket, paid for with his Drake Industries expense account, coded as "supply acquisition," and spend his vacations alone.
It was easier that way.
Better for everyone, really.
He got to do what he wanted, which was not to stand in an Egyptian desert and pretend to be interested in dirt, and everyone was happy.
Sometimes in Gotham, sometimes in Metropolis, and once, in Jump City, where he trailed the Titans for four days with nothing but his camera, a backpack, and the excuse of being "with family."
No one ever noticed.
His parents were happy he was thriving academically.
His teachers were happy he got time with his parents.
Tim was happy that his ruse worked so well,
He even sent himself a few postcards, postmarked from the right locations, just in case anyone checked.
Smart.
His most ingenious idea ever, though, came to him when he was weeks shy of his tenth birthday.
You see, Tim had a passion for photography.
But not just nature photography or sports photography.
No, he had a very specific muse.
One that no one else was clever or brave enough to take pictures of. Gotham nightlife.
Specifically, the Bat.
When Tim first started photographing the Bat, he decided he would wear his best black clothing and blend into the shadows. He found out quite quickly that his best black clothing still screamed rich kid and made him the target of many desperate Gothamites.
So he decided that if he was going to run the streets of Gotham, he needed to look like he belonged. Cue a shopping spree at the local thrift store and a capsule wardrobe that made him look like he fit in.
Because, once again, he was smart.
A smart genius.
A smart genius who was maybe, slightly, obsessed with the Bat.
But could you blame him?
He lived in the same city as Batman.
It would be, like, a crime to not be obsessed. Even if he held strong to the belief Robin, or well Nightwing now was better.
Getting too jump city or Bulhaven consistently to photograph the younger hero was to difficult though.
So Batman it was.
Which is why, on Halloween night, instead of dressing up and begging for candy like a plebeian, he instead donned his thrift-store threads and hit the town. Batman's rogues always had the best Halloween plots.
It was far safer to buy Halloween candy the day after for half price anyway.
And he could make sure he only got the best kind.
No Good & Plenty or Necco Wafers for him.
Thank you very much.
Blegh.
As Tim hopped from one roof to the other, getting in position to photograph Batman and Gordon's annual Halloween briefing, he reviewed his notes.
Batman never used a normal route on holidays, too many rogue issues.
Tim wondered which rogue would be causing chaos tonight.
Ivy was out of Arkham.
As was Riddler.
He kind of hoped for Riddler.
He enjoyed the puzzles.
But if wishes were fishes and all that.
And as the sun rose on Día de los Muertos,
Tim was sadly left with not a single riddle to solve. But he did get a few great shots of Killer Croc in action near the docks. So, like, it balances out.
He ended his night of photography like he always did.
A stop at the Gotham 24/7 Mart in the Diamond District found him down five dollars in his Robin wallet and up one bag complete with a Zesti Cola, a small bag of pumpkin Reese's, and a slice of breakfast pizza.
Slipping through the access door of the Drake Industries office in the Diamond District was easy work, as was reconnecting the panel to the "Out of Order" basement storage room and typing in the access code.
All photographers need a darkroom, at least the professional ones do.
And detectives need offices.
And this small forgotten space was Tim's darkroom-slash-office.
It was the perfect size, and because it was tucked underground and void of any windows, it fit his needs nicely.
Plus, he had hacked the building's security system and built a blind spot right where the access door was located nearly sixteen months ago. So far no one has noticed.
Tim knew he had spent three weeks checking the cameras and his algorithm before he'd even attempted entry.
The old oak desk in the middle held his processing supplies: developer, stop bath, fixer, and the enlarger he'd tinkered with just enough that it broke, forcing the school to buy a new one and allowing him to slip it from the garbage pile later that week.
Thick string stretched wall to wall with clothespins for drying photographs from his Wednesday patrol. The north wall he had painted with chalkboard finish, his case board when actively solving something.
Currently, it displayed photographs and handwritten reports tracking Batman's newer trends since Jason's death: a 7% increase in force when fighting, 13% increase in long-term hospitalizations for criminals, 5% increase in choosing direct combat over more logical plans.
He'd been collecting this data for months now, cross-referencing police reports with his own observations.
Tim couldn't draw any empirical conclusions yet.
But he wasn't sure he liked the trends.
The south wall held his map of Gotham, printed eight papers wide and ten papers tall, slightly pixelated but legible. Every single one of Batman's patrol routes was color-coded with a system only Tim understood: red for routes used during major incidents, blue for standard patrol patterns, green for routes that avoided certain areas.
The corresponding notecards clipped to thumbtacks on either side contained detailed notes about timing, frequency, and environmental factors that might influence route selection.
The east wall housed his storage: twenty dated and labeled paper boxes he pulled from recycling that contained the fifteen cases he'd worked alongside the Bat and the five cases he took on himself. They were organized chronologically and cross-referenced in a notebook he kept in the desk drawer.
Two filing cabinets flanked the boxes, connected by a broken broom handle that served as a clothing rod. The top drawers held his photographs, meticulously sorted by year, rogue, and patrol route in acid-free archival sleeves.
The other drawers contained everything from camera supplies to his street-kid wardrobe to a small pantry of non-perishables and a first aid kit he'd assembled after one too many close calls on Gotham's rooftops.
The west wall held his favorite possessions: a duct-taped reclining office chair liberated from the garbage and subsequently disinfected with an alarming amount of Lysol, and next to it, a thrift-store TV tray that served as both desk and dining table.
In the corner sat his twenty-dollar fold-out cot, complete with actual sheets, the Justice League comforter his parents said he was too old for, and a pillow he'd "borrowed" from the manor's linen closet.
The fact that he got better sleep on that cot than on his Tempur-Pedic mattress at the manor said a lot. Tim curled up in his oversized office chair and began digging into his breakfast pizza and Zesti as he pulled out his film. He got twenty-seven photos tonight.
Which was more than he had originally planned for, but there were a few shots he just couldn't pass up.
His film budget be damned.
He slowly set about developing them, then once they were all hung to dry he allowed himself a single Reese's pumpkin, before brushing his teeth with a single-use brush, best invention ever, and tucking in for the night. He would check on them after he got some rest.
After all, he didn't need to be anywhere till tomorrow evening. He slowly turned on the small radio he'd found weeks ago to the local news station.
He fell back against his pillows as the host finished with the morning weather report. "...and if you're headed downtown this morning, bring a scarf. The fog's rolling in thick over the river." Tim closed his eyes.
He liked her voice.
Sometimes, when he could not remember what his mother's voice sounded like, he'd hear hers instead.
It was nice.
Soothing, even.
As he drifted off to sleep, tucked away safely in his own little corner of Gotham, he felt at peace.
He loved it when Halloween fell on a Friday.