Work Text:
1. GOTHAM. BATCAVE.
Talia Al Ghul is… alluring. Tim’s always known that about her, from the glimpses he’s gotten of her during dark nights, when the moon shines against damp rooftops, gleaming against kevlar and blades. During his early time as Robin he found himself watching the way her body contorted as she fought, as her limbs lashed out with brutal, lovely efficiency.
The one time they truly interacted, when Tim was in Paris, she looked at him with stricken eyes. He thought himself a ghost to her, some horrible reminder of someone long dead, someone not even the Pit could bring back to her. She ignored him after that, nodding to Shiva and vanishing into the shadows like a wraith.
They’d seen each other afterward. Small things, where they exchanged quick words. Nothing of substance, not like he’d craved. He chased her silently, waiting at her back in hopes she’d just look back, and he could curl up like a dog with a bone. He wanted to carve himself a place in her breastbone, resting against her flesh until they meld together, becoming oneoneoneone .
It’s irrational. Odd, too. If he told anyone they’d look at him oddly, unsure of how to take it. They’d rest hands on his shoulders with pitying eyes and ask if he’s okay, as if he’s not able to function under the most pressing circumstances.
He doesn’t need to be ‘okay’; he needs to know why Talia Al Ghul is Everything . He needs to know why the curve of her lips and the narrowing of her eyes are so familiar. It’s like a cold case, gnawing at the corners of his mind, nipping at his heels with a silent message: You Know This.
He’s always hated not knowing. It’s his greatest strength, his mind. He’s calculative, intelligent, sure of himself. He’s the smart one, it’s all he has. If he’s not smart enough to figure out why he Knows Talia, is he smart enough to be Robin.
There’s another question. Another thing he needs to be worthy of that he’s forgotten, or maybe never knew. He’s fourteen, still clinging to his last baby tooth. He still needs parental consent to do much of anything, though he always finds a way around it. Fourteen-year-olds don’t know much of anything, though Tim’s always been the exception.
He has to be. He’s smart, self-reliant, he’s Tim. Tim is Tim is different. He’s a child, but not a Child. A separate category, but not so far that he’s wrong. That he’s Other. He pauses, and sighs. It goes beyond his mind. His nose - defined as an Aquiline nose, according to google - is far from his parents buttons, or sloped noses. His skin is darker, only really noticeable when he flees Gotham for the sun. He’s just different enough that his parents leave him. He’s lonely, above all else.
He feels it in his chest, curled up and waiting. He looks up, switching tabs on the Bat-Computer. Talia’s stern face stares back at him. With a heaving sigh, he closes it, wiping all traces he was there. He won’t find out if there's anything unless Talia lets him, and he doubts that.
2. PANDA NARBAT. MEDICAL BAY.
The next time they truly interact, Tim’s spleen is in a tray besides them, and he’s incredibly out of it. She’d been in Gotham frequently, but Damian’s odd dislike (read: hatred) of him has kept the boy from Talia’s view.
He’s grown well, if you ignore the spleen sitting on a medical tray a few feet away. He has darker skin than she’d expect from the Drakes, with a strong nose and familiar blue eyes. She remembers a just as familiar smile, though he looks too busy trying not to puke to smile.
He’s a wound, to her. He’s the age her boy would have been if he lived. He has her boy's life. It tears at her chest, a wolf devouring the flesh of her heart.
Tim Drake, seventeen, has her dead baby’s entire life. Her father has taken him in as an apprentice, more aware than he’s ever been since he’d been freed from the Pit’s madness. He was Bruce’s Robin, flying alongside him.
She finds that she, somehow, cannot hate him for it. He’s noble, and that kindness, that insatiable need to help keeps her violence at bay. That’s why he’s here, now. He’s here to free her Beloved, and his presence grounds her father.
So, she offers Tim Drake his Bo. She looks at him, raising a single brow. He takes it, laying it gently across his lap. He had learned from Shiva, all those years ago. A young thing, with hungry eyes and greedy hands.
She knows what it is to fight. She had chosen a life of war when she was young, much against her father’s wishes. She took knives and swords and made herself into a weapon incomparable. She died, again and again, and broke through the vibrant water of the Pit with wild eyes and violence burning in her throat.
She understands the desperation that greatness brings. She understands what it is to expect perfection from your flesh and hate when you remember you are human. Tim Drake had seen a bruised, broken man and chosen to fight. He had chosen a fate of brutality, all for the sake of love.
He sighs, blinking forcefully. His movements are sluggish, if not purposeful.
“Drake,” She begins, “My father has an offer for you. Serve as his apprentice and student, and he will help you retrieve Bruce.”
He stares at her for a second, eyes glazed over. She begins to briefly consider that he may not of heard her, when he says, ‘Okay. I’ll do it.”
3. GOTHAM. WAYNE ENTERPRISES.
Ra’s knows that Grayson will catch Timothy.
He is no fool, especially not when it comes to the lives of young. Timothy is talented, with quick wit and a quicker mind. He moves like an assassin, a result from the summer spent under Shiva and the years under Bruce, who - before all else - trained under him .
He moves like an assassin, but without the lethality of one. Ra’s had tried to see if he could be convinced otherwise, during his time in the League. The boy, though occasionally considering it, had stuck to his morals.
A few years back, he would have yelled before he had been cleared of the madness. Struck him, when he refused to kill. Perhaps, he would have killed the boy he now called Detective. Now, as he stares at the boy from across the floor, moonlight shining through the large glass windows, he finds himself inconceivably glad he didn’t.
Bruce was too stern, to find joy in their games. He was logical, and focused on the specifics of everything he knew. Sure, Timothy was similar, but he trusted. He trusted that the assassins sent to his family were apart of the game, and that Ra’s would never hurt his grandson.
He would rarely hurt a child. Damian was trained as a demon for his own safety. Even right now, detailing how he’s trapped Timothy, is done as another form of training. He gets caught in himself, focused on a single moving component the moment it involves his family.
Much like Talia did, when she was young. Ra’s, years ago, had thought we was protecting her. A training exercise that would teach her, like it had taught him, that a weak child would be a dead child. He hadn’t realize it would come true.
Timothy smirks at him, “I’m not Batman. I have friends.”
Ra’s laughs. The boy has audacity, an attitude built on years of foolproof knowledge that he’s damn smart. Ra’s was like that, in his own youth. Before the Pits altered his mind, and before that man condemned him.
It fills him with a sort of nostalgia, seeing the glee on that boys face. Finally, a challenge he could indulge himself in. Sure, Ra’s would keep killing for his goal, but not any of Timothy’s people. They’d be safe, lest they did something unforgivable.
Many see his league, and merely see a fool of a man, blinded by wishes long dead, willing to kill for the ghost of a woman. They ignore the facts, unwilling to admit their own faults in the Earth’s decline.
Timothy recognizes it, much like Bruce. He recognizes why Ra’s does what he does, even if he doesn’t agree with it. Just as Ra’s recognizes why Timothy became Robin. A fool’s endeavor, to save a living man who wishes he were dead.
It makes sense that he would have gone this far to truly bring that man back from the dead. He gives Timothy - the Detective - one last smile, and kicks him out of the window. Tim smiles back at him, a coy thing, and Ra’s turns as Grayson catches the boy.
4. BLUDHAVEN. DICK GRAYSON’S APARTMENT.
Drake is conflicting. In the league, some of his trainers warned of him. Said he was ruthless, forcing his way into a grieving father’s life. Now, though, he struggles to see that version of him. He’s most ruthless in a game of Monopoly, which he claims he was trained for, via ‘capitalistic indoctrination’ from a young age, which Damian is led to believe is just the fact that he was raised rich.
Sure, he knows that Drake is an incredibly talented fighter. He knows that Drake is graceful, near serpentine with his whip-sharp strikes. Watching when he didn’t worry it’d be turned on him is a wonder. Sometimes, he’d find himself just watching as Drake fought, eyes wide as he shifted between stances, as smooth as water. Now, though, he’s watching Timothy lament the Gotham weather.
“When I’m not here, I tan so much! It’s only when I’m in Gotham I look like a Victorian child!”
He sighs dramatically, slumping against Grayson and practically melting against the older man’s side, who only laughs and pats him on the shoulder. They look… fitting together, like puzzle pieces.
“It’s not that bad, Tim.”
“You haven’t seen it, Dick!” He insists, closing his eyes as he leans back.
He turns to Damian, only a small slice of wariness in his movements, “Damian, you have to believe me. It’s so bad!”
Damian can only imagine it. Drake is pale, though not paler than a typical Gothamite. If his skin was darker though, perhaps as dark as he implies, he thinks he’d see quite a familiar face, in the manner of his own.
That’s perhaps why he finds himself drawing - and painting - Drake. He draws his nose, a similar shape to his own, and the unique curve of his lips. His dark hair falls neatly next to his blue eyes, which crinkle at the edges from the force of his acrylic grin.
He is a medley. A medley of faces and features that Damian knows but cannot hope to place in a thousand years. The look fits him, though, and makes his eyes more alive. More electric, as if there’s a lightning storm behind his gaze.
He stares at the painting. It’s so familiar, beyond merely being Drake. He keeps looking at it, searching for that desperate proof, the fact that clearly dissects Drake, showing Damian just who he is. He needs to know. He has to, like scratching an itch so hard you break skin.
He throws the painting in the trash. Covers the painting in the first paint he could find, a bright acidic green, for good measure.
Drake is Drake. Is a Drake. Damian’s first brother, nameless, is dead . Perhaps the last Drake. Sure, he is, by name and legalities, a Wayne, he was first a Drake.
Right?
1. GOTHAM. BATCAVE.
It was a joke, Dick says later. Started as a funny joke about who’s related to who, when another rumor about the Wayne kid's adoptive status started spreading. Dick prodded all of them into taking a test, intending to photoshop some results, just to prank Bruce.
The plan was to photoshop the results, thanks to Damian’s, and make him believe that, despite prior tests, all of his kids were his. They’d let him panic for a bit, before revealing what he’s done. Dick had even planned the actual forging process for when Bruce was speaking with Talia about a small rogue assassin group.
Tim had gone last of the participants - him, Cass, Jason, and Dick - before Damian went. Age order, Dick had claimed. They watched, bored, as the results loading, all expecting it do reveal what they already knew: his parents were the Drakes.
Sure, Tim looked different from his family, but everyone knew both of the Drakes were too spiteful to have an affair baby in their home. They chalked it up to previous affairs from grandparents that only appeared in Tim. It made enough sense.
The Batcomputer chimes and Tim’s picture reappears on the screen. In bold letters, it begins to detail the results:
TALIA AL GHUL: 99.9% MATCH.
BRUCE T. WAYNE: 99.9% MATCH.
What the fuck. Dick refreshes the page. Once, twice, thrice. Nothing changes. Tim’s blank face keeps staring at them, unaware of the shock he’s dealing to the current Tim, who’s staring at the screen with a slack jaw.
Stephanie, lying splayed across Tim and Cass’ laps, speaks first, “That can’t be real, right?”
“The Batcomputer hasn’t had any falses in years,” Dick says.
Tim nudges Steph off of him, standing up. He approaches the Batcomputer, staring up at the results. He’s unsure of if it’s a damnation or a salvation, the words burning into his eyes. Match. It’s a match, proving that… that the Drakes are liars. That Talia had a son - him - that she gave up. But, maybe she didn’t? Maybe she didn’t know. Maybe she didn’t want to? There has to be some logical answer that absolves them all of guilt-
Cass grabs his hand. Tender, kind, comforting. She leans a head on his shoulder, watching him. Damian comes to stand behind him, eyes just as wide as Tim’s. The boy - because he’s only eleven, so young and his brother, in more ways than name - begins to speak:
“We thought you long dead. Dead before mother could name you; before grandfather could hold his first grandchild.”
Tim looks at him and mutters, “What?”
“Grandfather’s mind was poisoned. He believed a life in the league would kill you. He had you taken by a man he thought he could trust. By the time we knew the truth, fourteen years had passed, and we thought you a ghost.” Damian whispers, a sacred confession filling the air, binding their souls together; restitching what was torn.
He turns to his brother, hand flying out to clutch desperately at Tim’s shirt, some obscure band he barely listens to, anymore. Tim lets him.
Jason, eyes wide, snaps his head to Dick, “Call Bruce!”
Dick licks his lips, “Right.”
Tim lets him do what he will, too focused on the computer and then Damian. He switches between staring at the two, unsure which needs his attention more: the boy or the proof.
How much will this change? Will they return to their old dynamic, shoulders laden with sharp words and quiet fights? Bo against Katana, Tim against Damian. What about the rest of their siblings? Will they look at him differently? Or even Bruce and Talia, his parents. Fuck, they’re his parents.
Damian’s head hits Tim’s chest. A gentle thump that shocks Tim from his reverie. The younger boy looks up at him, desperate eyes peering at him through thick, dark hair. Now that it’s clear, that the light from the batcomputer - from the proof - is shining on them, Tim sees their shared features in him.
He wraps his arms around his younger brother, lowering his head to rest on Damian’s, chin to crown. He stares up at the results, swallowing thickly around nothing. The results don’t shift, doesn’t magically change as Dick bursts back in the room, yelling about the epic prank they played on Tim as Damian jerks away from him.
Instead, The Zeta goes off, the robotic tone rattling off familiar numbers and letters as Bruce and Talia burst into the cave, Dick thundering down the Cave stairs nearly in unison. They all stop a distance from Damian and Tim, simply staring at them and the results behind them.
Bruce, surprisingly, speaks first, “Tim.”
Before he can respond, Talia lunges forward. She’s quick, as sudden as falling. Her arms cling to Tim’s neck as she pulls him to her chest, her hands holding his face. Her breath hitches against his ear, the sound incredibly crisp.
He hugs her - his mother - back, arm grasping blindly to pull Damian in, as Bruce approaches. Dick follows soon after, tugging Jason along. Cass joins of her own volition, slotting herself between Dick and Bruce.