Chapter Text
Tim Drake was officially done.
Not in the dramatic way people expected from a Bat. No rooftop confrontation. No shouting match in the Cave. No shattered glass or burning bridges.
Just done.
He was done pretending to be loved. Done misleading himself into believing he was wanted beyond his utility. Tim had always known, on some level, that he was a replacement. A contingency plan in human form. The kid who deduced identities and inserted himself into a legacy that hadn’t asked for him. He’d been told as much—sometimes gently, sometimes cruelly, and sometimes in ways that hurt worse because they weren’t meant to.
He had sacrificed everything; sleep, childhood, safety, friends, even his god damned spleen.
And all he had to show for it were scars mapped across his body like old case files and a list of names he didn’t let himself think about for too long. Every time he tried to measure his worth, it came back insufficient. Not smart enough. Not fast enough. Not enough like Dick. Not enough like Jason. Not enough like Bruce.
The Drakes only ever wanted him when he was impressive. When he could be paraded in tailored suits and polite smiles as their prodigy son. And the Bats—his other family—wanted him when he was useful. When there was a case no one else could crack. When a computer needed breaking into. When a plan needed saving.
He was always the solution.
Never the priority.
So, Tim left.
About a week after he’d pulled Batman back from being lost in time—no thank you, no acknowledgment beyond a clipped debrief—Tim packed up the parts of his life no one would notice missing and walked away.
He didn’t leave a note. No dramatic “Goodbye” on the Batcomputer. No calling card.
The only proof he’d left at all was a neatly typed two-week notice sitting on his desk at Wayne Enterprises.
Professional. Courteous. Responsible.
Because even now, he wouldn’t let the company suffer for his personal choices. He drafted transition documents. Compiled access codes. Scheduled automated reports. Whoever took over his responsibilities would have everything they needed.
He’d always been good at making exits clean.
Before disappearing fully, he seeded Gotham with trackers—tiny, nearly undetectable devices hidden in places only he would think to check. Old habits died hard. Then he replaced his phones, scrubbed his digital footprint, rerouted his networks.
But he kept the same number.
It was stupid. Sentimental. Selfish.
He wanted to know if anyone would call.
Even after all of that, Tim couldn’t sever himself from Gotham.
The city was stitched into him too tightly.
He bought a small one-story house near the edge of the city limits. Unremarkable. Forgettable. The kind of place no one looked at twice. It had a basement—unfinished, but spacious enough for equipment if he ever needed it.
Close enough that he could monitor patrol routes if he tapped into the right feeds.
Far enough that he stayed outside the usual surveillance grid of the Batcave.
Old instincts lingered.
Life, however, was… slow.
Without constant patrols. Without near-death experiences every other week. Without juggling school, business, and vigilantism until he collapsed into micro-sleeps at his desk.
Tim didn’t know what to do with the quiet.
He still ran Drake Industries remotely—because of course he did. He optimized workflows, reorganized departments, and implemented security upgrades from his kitchen table. It barely took effort. Efficiency was muscle memory.
But there were hours in the day now. Empty ones.
He tried photography again, digging an old camera out of storage. The weight of it in his hands felt familiar. Comforting.
Until it didn’t.
Too many memories were attached to that lens. Of stakeouts. Of evidence. Of better times he wasn’t sure had ever truly been better.
He packed it away after a week.
Crocheting came next.
It was supposed to be ironic.
It wasn’t.
The repetition soothed him. The methodical loops and counted stitches felt like writing code—simple commands that built into something intricate and structured. A system of logic and patience. He made scarves first. Then blankets. Then increasingly complicated patterns that required charts and concentration.
It kept his hands busy.
But only for so long.
Boredom crept in like a slow leak. He didn’t know how to exist without crisis breathing down his neck. Without being needed.
Eventually, the thought came uninvited:
Would they even notice?
Would they catch him if he stepped back into the field—just not as himself?
He still had backup identities from his time as Robin and later as Red Robin. Safehouses. Documentation. Alternate credentials. He could be anyone.
A wig. Contacts. A voice modulator.
He wouldn’t even need to leave his basement to make an impact.
And so, Leet was born.
Leet, the Red Hat Hacker.
The name was intentionally obnoxious.
He wore a fluffy white wig that fell into his eyes, brownish-red contacts that altered the sharp blue everyone associated with Tim Drake, and a backward red baseball cap that screamed “annoying internet troll” rather than “former Boy Wonder.”
Looking back, he didn’t actually need the costume. He’d been hacking systems long before he ever put on the Robin suit. But this wasn’t about necessity.
Leet wasn’t young, grieving Tim Drake.
He wasn’t the third Robin.
He wasn’t Red Robin trying desperately to prove he deserved his place.
Leet was aggressive. Bold. Unapologetic.
He made power plays. Hijacked corrupt corporations’ live broadcasts and replaced them with evidence of their crimes. Dropped encrypted data bombs into criminal networks. Sent messages wrapped in layers of encryption so intricate that even Oracle would have to spend days unraveling them.
He made sure she couldn’t.
Not because he doubted her.
But because he wanted to know if she’d try.
Leet didn’t wait for approval. Didn’t ask permission. Didn’t operate in the shadows of a bat-shaped silhouette.
He exposed. He disrupted. He dismantled.
And sometimes, late at night, when Gotham’s servers hummed and his old phone sat silent on the desk beside him—
Tim wondered which version of himself was more real.
The one they needed.
Or the one they never noticed was gone.