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The first breach of security happened in the upper northwest ventilation shaft of the Drake Manor library.
Damian was tracking a signal when he unscrewed a grate and found himself staring into a perfectly circular, insulated micro-bunker. It had a miniature, glowing supercomputer screen, a tiny pile of shredded encrypted documents serving as bedding, and a small bowl of high-grade, organic peas.
Tim had dropped from the ceiling, wild-eyed and vibrating.
"Do not touch that," Tim whispered, his voice dangerously low. "They’ll know."
Damian blinked. "Drake. Why is there a miniature tactical operations center in the drywall?"
"Intelligent mice," Tim said flatly. "A highly organized, localized collective of hyper-encephalized rodents. They stole my spare tech. I’m monitoring them. Do not interfere, Damian. It’s a delicate geopolitical ecosystem."
Damian stared at him for a full ten seconds, weighed the effort of arguing against Tim’s psychosis, and slowly screwed the grate back on. "Get help, Drake."
Tim breathed a sigh of relief. Foolproof.
—---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
By late October, the atmospheric pressure changed, and the internal, ancestral compass in Tim’s brain began to scream.
GO SOUTH, the bloodline demanded. FLY TO THE GULF.
Tim was trapped in a agonizing existential crisis. He couldn't just fly south—he didn't even know the flight patterns! Do you take I-95? Do you fly in a V-formation alone?
At 3:42 AM, Bruce entered the Batcave to find Tim staring blankly at three different monitors playing The National Geographic Guide to Avian Migration Patterns on a loop, alongside a radar weather map of Mexico. Tim was aggressively chewing on an unlit cigar, his eyes completely bloodshot.
Bruce stood in the shadows, his cape swirling. He had been reviewing the data. Tim’s refusal to touch pure water. His sudden, erratic focus on global positioning. The way his body temperature spiked every autumn.
Bruce realized the truth. Tim was a metahuman.
But the boy was suppressing it. The sheer mental fortitude required to lock down an active meta-gene without a dampener—to choose the agonizing, exhausting human existence over whatever raw, cataclysmic power brewed inside him—was staggering. Tim was sacrificing his own comfort to remain a normal protector of Gotham.
"Tim," Bruce said, his voice dripping with rare, heavy emotion.
Tim jumped, nearly dropping his mug of espresso. "Bruce! I was just... checking the wind resistance variables for... Crime Alley."
Bruce placed a heavy, gauntleted hand on Tim’s shoulder. "You don't have to carry this burden alone. I see what you're doing. The restraint it takes... to deny that part of yourself every single day. It is a noble sacrifice, Tim. You are a true hero."
Tim stared at him, completely paralyzed. He knows, Tim thought in absolute horror. He knows I'm a duck and he thinks it's a noble sacrifice because ducks are a vital part of the ecosystem.
"Uh," Tim squeaked, his voice cracking. "Yeah. Thanks, Bruce. It’s... a heavy cross to bear."
—---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Three days later, Tim vanished.
He didn't leave a note. His tracker went dead somewhere over Georgia. In reality, the instinct had gotten too strong; Tim had shifted into a very sleek, very stressed mallard and simply started flying south, fueled by sheer panic and a lingering caffeine buzz.
The Batcave went into red alert.
"He's gone," Bruce said, his voice hollow as he stared at the global tracking monitor. "The power must have overwhelmed him. He’s fled to isolation to protect us."
"We will find him, Bruce," Dick said, determinedly putting a hand on Bruce's shoulder.
Meanwhile, Steph walked into the cave, grabbed a soda from the mini-fridge, and sat down to scroll through TikTok.
The Bats watched her in horrified fascination.
"Stephanie," Dick said softly, treating her like a startled animal. "It’s okay to cry. We know how close you and Tim were. We will bring him back."
"He's fine," Steph said, not looking up from her phone. "He probably just reached the Carolinas. He'll be back in the spring when the weather warms up."
In the corner of the cave, Damian cornered Duke Thomas.
"Look at her, Thomas," Damian hissed, pointing a gauntleted finger at Steph. "She has finally snapped. The loss of Drake has shattered her fragile mind. She is rationalizing his disappearance with seasonal avian patterns."
Duke blinked. "I mean... maybe she just knows something we don't?"
"No! We must preserve Brown’s sanity at all costs. She is a vital, albeit irritating, asset to the team. If she remains here, the grief will consume her. We must extract her to a safe location until Drake is recovered."
Before Duke could object, Damian pulled out a modified smoke pellet. "We kidnap her for her own good."
"Wait, Damian, no—"
—---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
It is mid-April when Tim finally returns to Gotham.
He didn't fly back—flying against the wind gradient as a mallard is an aerodynamic nightmare, so he took a Greyhound bus from Savannah, Georgia, while aggressively wearing a trench coat and sunglasses to avoid suspicion.
He walks into the Batcave at 2:00 AM, smelling faintly of swamp water, exhaust fumes, and cheap gas-station coffee.
Bruce, Dick, and Jason are at the main console, still staring at a global map covered in complex algorithmic projections of where Tim's "shackled godhood" might have taken him.
The moment the pneumatic doors slide open, Tim freezes. Every single Bat turns to look at him, jaws dropping. The silence is deafening.
Tim, operating on zero sleep and three months of pure, unadulterated survival instinct, realizes he needs to control the narrative immediately. Before anyone can ask where he’s been, he throws his hands in the air and yells at the top of his lungs:
"I AM NOT A DUCK! I AM A NORMAL HUMAN MALE! MY BONES ARE ONLY A LITTLE HOLLOW!"
The Batcave is dead silent for three full seconds.
Jason slowly lowers his turkey sandwich. Dick glances at Bruce. Bruce just stares at Tim with a look of profound, agonizing heartbreak, convinced that the cosmic entity possessing his son has finally broken Tim's psyche.
"Drake," Jason says slowly, setting his sandwich down. "Literally nobody said you were a duck."
"Good!" Tim barks, his chest heaving as he steps down the metal stairs. "Because I’m not! I have a normal, non-fused thoracic vertebrae! My respiratory system does not utilize a complex network of nine posterior and anterior air sacs! I sweat like a normal mammal! I don't preen!"
"Tim," Dick says, taking a slow, placating step forward, hands held out openly. "Buddy. It's okay. We’re just glad you're home. Wherever you went... whatever entity you were fighting..."
"I wasn't fighting an entity, Dick, I was fighting a severe headwind over the Appalachians—I mean, I was taking a normal human vacation!" Tim fiercely corrects himself, sweating profusely. He grabs a stray mug of stale coffee off a console and chugs it to prove his humanity. "See? Coffee! Not pond water! A duck would die of cardiac arrest from this much caffeine! I am thriving!"
Bruce steps forward, his cape cast wide, his voice dropping into his deep, 'grieving father' register. "Tim. You don't have to put up this front. You don't have to pretend to be... hollow. We know you are carrying a power greater than any of us can comprehend."
Tim stares at Bruce, utterly bewildered. He still thinks it's a superpower. He thinks being a mallard is a cosmic burden.
"Right," Tim says slowly, playing along to save face. "Yes. The... the power inside me. It demands... a lot of cracked corn. And breadcrumbs, though they're bad for my digestion. Truly, a cursed existence."
"So noble," Bruce murmurs, a single tear almost forming in his eye.
—---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Jason Todd prides himself on a lot of things, but above all, he prides himself on knowing a good grift when he sees one.
To Jason, the entire "Tim’s cosmic godhood" crisis is the funniest thing to happen to the Wayne family since Dick Grayson fell off a trapeze into a pile of manure at age twelve. He doesn’t buy Bruce’s brooding monologues about Tim’s "shackled divinity" for a single second. No, Jason knows exactly what is happening: Tim and Steph are pulling off the longest, most deeply committed gaslight in Gotham history.
Jason has never respected them more.
Every single evening before patrol, the Batcave becomes a theater of the absurd.
Tim will stumble out of the locker room, looking absolutely exhausted. He’ll look Bruce straight in the eye and aggressively shout, "I HAVE NO DESIRE TO GATHER TWIGS FOR A NEST, BRUCE! MY PELVIS IS DESIGNED FOR BIPEDAL, MAMMALIAN LOCOMOTION!"
All the while, Tim’s hair is literally a bird's nest. He’s got three iridescent green mallard feathers sticking straight out of his cowlick, and a stray piece of lake-weed is draped over his left ear.
Right on cue, Steph will look up from her phone and sigh dramatically. "It’s a symptom of his hidden power, Bruce. The hollow bones are aching again. The sky-demon wants him to fly."
Bruce will just bow his head, closing his eyes in deep, solemn empathy. "I understand, Tim. The burden of your true form must be agonizing. Rest if you must."
And Tim, sweating through his tactical turtleneck, will just intensely nod. "Thank you, Bruce. Your understanding of my... cosmic curse... is deeply appreciated."
Jason usually watches this entire exchange from the hood of the Batmobile, eating a bag of Doritos, completely mesmerized.
"Damn," Jason mutters to himself, shaking his head in pure admiration. "Those two are comedy geniuses. The dedication. The prop work. I would never manage to prank Bruce like that."
Later that night, Jason corners Steph by the weapon racks.
"Alright, Blondie, spill," Jason says, leaning against a crate of batarangs with a smirk. "How long have you guys been planning this? Where did he even get the feathers? Did he raid a Michaels craft store, or did he actually go to the park and fight a goose for them?"
Steph blinks, holding a container of half-eaten fries. "Jason, I am begging you to understand. He didn't fight a goose. He is the goose. Well, a duck. He grew those feathers. He molted in the Bat-computer chair this morning, I had to vacuum it before Alfred saw."
Jason lets out a loud, bark of laughter, slapping his knee. "Oh my god, you’re staying in character! Even with me! That is beautiful. 'He grew them.' Man, the psychological warfare you guys are pulling on the old man is next-level. He’s literally up upstairs right now researching ancient Mesopotamian deities to see if Tim is the reincarnation of a sky god."
"Jason, his bones are literally mostly air," Steph says, deadpan.
"Stop, stop, my lungs hurt," Jason chuckles, wiping a tear from his eye. "Look, tell Replacement that if he needs a wingman—pun intended, you guys are corrupting me—for the next phase of the bit, I’m in. I can start leaving bags of duck feed in the Batmobile. We can really escalate this."
The next day, Tim walks into the kitchen to grab his fifth espresso. Jason is at the counter, reads the newspaper, and casually slides a loaf of Wonder Bread across the marble island.
Jason gives him a slow, knowing nod and a sharp wink. "For the... cosmic hunger, kid. Keep up the good work. You’ve got the old man losing his mind."
Tim stares at the white bread in absolute, bone-chilling terror. The processed carbs, Tim thinks, his duck instincts warring violently with his human knowledge. The enzymes will bloat my digestive tract. He’s trying to poison me. The Red Hood knows.
"I don't want your poison bread, Todd!" Tim shrieks, knocking the loaf off the counter before sprinting out of the room. "My digestive system is perfectly human! I eat steak! Raw steak! Like a wolf! A normal mammalian predator!"
Jason just watches him sprint away, entirely delighted. "Man," he murmurs, taking a sip of his own coffee. "He is so committed. What an artist."