Chapter Text
“What’s a guy like you going to the East End for?” The cab driver asks.
Tim can’t answer that question entirely so he doesn’t try. The most Tim gleaned from that tiny, square paper that appeared on his bed was its neat calligraphic handwriting, its threat, and the address that put him here. In that address, the so-called owner of the property was a dud, the name of someone who didn’t exist and an alias he couldn’t trace.
“Are you sure this is the right address?” the cab driver asks.
“Would a hundred dollars shut you up?”
The drive turns silent, but not smooth. Potholes mottle the road and jostle the sedan.
Eventually, the drive ends at a thin street. The exterior of the rugged house they’ve arrived at tells Tim it was built before cars existed. Black cast-iron gates enclose the property. The entrance gate is already open, though no gateman waits and there can’t possibly be any modern sensors inlaid.
“This the one?”
Tim drops the bills into the car console without looking and pushes open his door. He carried more money on him than usual, in case the stranger wanted money. But which kind of person had the power and training to sneak into Wayne Manor, not set off a single alarm, and only ask for money?
Tim would have told Bruce about the security breach, if it didn’t mean sharing the note. Something he absolutely could not do.
“Have a good one, pal.”
The cab rolls off, tail lights dissolved by the foggy distance in seconds. If the worn two-story’s window light wasn’t aglow on the topmost floor, it would be pitch black. Whoever is in there is waiting.
He enters through the open gate and follows the pebbled, tended path to the door. Trimmed grass doesn’t dare push over it. Looks nothing like the cracked, worn path outside the gates. The owner probably keeps the outside unkempt to dissuade burglars. Tim climbs up the three porch steps.
He can’t discern the door’s true colour in the dark, but knocks, and the door falls right open without a creak. He turns on the light, a switch by the door he searches blindly for, illuminating a rustic mudroom with dark, wooden hangers and a low shoe shelf. A sign fit to read Live, Laugh, Love, instead reads: Take your shoes off and disarm yourself before coming upstairs. My office is open.
Tim doubts they could credibly come out against him. Tim has a slew of medical records claiming he’s an alpha and fakes his gland check-ins every year. No one living in this world knows that layer of Tim.
He kicks off his shoes, but doesn’t remove the contractible bo staff from his pocket. Sock-footed, he finds the dim stairs, past dark rooms he keeps within his peripheral vision in case. Solid, glossy wood doesn’t whine underfoot as he climbs up the stairs.
On the second floor, a thick red carpet gushes where the stair ends. Gold light from an out-of-view hall ghosts over the grand, wall-covering painting of a man garbed in East Asian armour. In his fist, a curved sword.
“No.”
Gotham Museum boasted a Chinese section curated back when Tim was younger. He’d seen armour like that behind a display case with a plaque detailing its history. Ming dynasty, if he had to guess.
On light feet, he travels to the glow in the hall. At its end, a door is wide open and inside, a long shadow splashes across a pale wall. Tim can recognize that silhouette from anywhere, and the person casting that shadow knows that. He probably set the light, sat himself there, and prepared the theatrical mindfuck with help from his minions.
If only it didn’t work. He steels himself and enters the room, anyway.
Propped on a plush, high-backed chair, not smiling exactly, Ra’s al Ghul waits. He flicks a hand. Tim, like a puppet, drops into the chair across from him by the door. A low, dark table, with a tea set Tim can only assume is also inspired by the Ming dynasty, divides them. Tim’s hope fizzles out. The weapon sitting in his pocket is pointless. As soon as Ra’s wanted him here, Tim had already been disarmed.
The sign downstairs must have been a courtesy. A notice for Tim to give up, anyway.
“Welcome, Detective. I appreciate your punctuality.”
“What do you want?”
Ra’s reaches across and sweeps a handleless teacup up from the coffee table. A second, steaming cup waits for Tim. “The leaves are from Tiger Hill in Suzhou. It is said that they improve focus.”
“Why am I here?”
“Drink, Detective.”
If Ra’s wanted him dead, Tim wouldn’t be sitting across from him like an old pal over a cup of tea. Which means he came here with worse goals. Tim still waits for Ra’s to sip his then only tries enough to warm the tip of his tongue. He’ll take any opportunity to have some sort of hand against Ra’s.
“Is the tea not to your liking?”
Tim stays quiet.
“I suppose you have connected two and two.”
“When I was stabbed—I know.” And for five years, Ra’s said nothing. Never mentioned seeing a womb as he was cut open. The so-called surgeons stitching it must have reported it to Ra’s. A year after that splenectomy, Tim believed Ra’s hadn’t noticed at all. Of course Ra’s noticed. Was Tim insane? The man noticed everything relating to Bruce, but Tim wasn’t infallible in wanting reality to bend his way. If not for that trait in others, his own lie wouldn’t have carried this long. “Why now?”
“Why not now? What makes now a bad time?”
“The fact it’s happening.”
“I remember you being much more agreeable back then.”
“Your memory’s rotting after all these years.”
Ra’s drops the teacup onto the table with a clack. Since their last time in close quarters, the grey hair at Ra’s temples has not spread further. His wrinkles, smooth and few, haven’t multiplied. But maybe Tim didn’t change either. Five years later, it only took a note before Tim ran from any thoughts of change and sealed himself with Ra’s. Again.
“What did I do today to invite such hostility from you, Detective?”
“Before or after blackmailing me?”
“I haven’t blackmailed you, yet.” Ra’s scans Tim’s face. A chill climbs Tim’s spine and straightens him out in the seat. “What a secret, too. Imagine it came out now, a week after listing in America’s most eligible alphas for your fourth year in a row.”
“Right. Who would believe you?”
“Who would believe me… Does Bruce know what happened before you returned him? Or were some parts conveniently left out? He must be beside himself with curiosity.”
“He wouldn’t trust your retelling even if you came with videos.”
“You’ll look him in the eyes and lie to your beloved father, Tim?”
“Yes.” Tim stands, ready to leave.
“Sit.”
The scent of hot, fruity cider and dried herbs, which Tim nearly forgot, crushes him back into his seat. Tim grips the arms of the upholstery and digs his nails into the high-quality textile. The scent recedes back, so excruciatingly managed by Ra’s, and leaves nothing but the grassy aroma of the Tiger Hill tea leaves.
The last time an alpha commanded him like that had been Bruce, but always respectfully, because Bruce thinks Tim is an alpha. He’d even apologized after. Another time from Jason, but it was never that heavy, that oppressive, always with the lightness of bickering so Tim could ignore it.
But Ra’s told him to sit like he was an omega. Told him to sit the same way he heard Barbara command Helena and even back then, Tim had to suppress his own shiver. Before now, none of his disadvantages with Ra’s were inherently biological. None was an instinct moulding itself to fit Ra’s will.
A warm finger shocks over the back of Tim’s tight hand, prompting Tim to lift his head and face Ra’s dark, smiling eyes. “Unpleasant, wasn’t it?”
Tim doesn’t satisfy him with an answer.
“You have not weathered a single day living as an omega. Imagine what the command of an alpha in your pack could wreak on you. If Bruce demanded you to tell the truth, are you certain you would even possess the mental wherewithal to lie?”
Ra’s had five years to plan. Tim barely had a night. The outcome was natural. It was obvious he’d been fucked.
“For now, I only require up-to-date intel on Gotham’s current underground routes. I want a briefing on any new suppliers and what is being peddled.” It is nothing Ra’s can’t figure out himself, but the request’s detail appalls Tim.
“You want me to help you.”
“It won’t be the first time.” Nor would Ra’s make it the last, Tim’s brain adds grudgingly. Ra’s glances towards a Grandfather clock against the wall, face cooling. “You have three days to cooperate, Detective. I will contact you first. You can leave. There’s already a paid cab outside for you.”
Ra’s timed this down to the last minute.
Tim was well and truly fucked.