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Tim stopped in his tracks when he realized where Peter was taking him. The small coffee shop had quickly become Tim’s favorite since moving to New York to fulfill his undercover role in the FBI. It was just down the street from the Wayne Enterprises New York office, and Tim had taken many late-night coffee runs to the shop when it was necessary for him to go into the office. Maintaining a full-time cover as a CI at the FBI and investigating for potential moles and weak points in addition to his responsibilities as the CEO of Wayne Enterprises required lots of coffee. Add that to his continued vigilante responsibilities, and it was safe to say that Tim saw more coffee than sleep.
“You know?” Tim suggested, trying to redirect Peter away from the coffee shop. “I think there’s a really great café a couple blocks from here. Why don’t we try it out?”
“We don’t have time for that, Neal. We’ve got to get back to the case. You’re lucky I even agreed to a coffee stop.”
Okay, so maybe this was a little bit Tim’s fault, but how could he have known that Peter would choose this coffee shop when Tim insisted that he needed more coffee if Peter was going to drag him all around the city chasing leads that Tim knew would lead them nowhere. There were hundreds of coffee shops in New York! The chances that Peter would pick this one were so slim that Tim hadn’t even counted it as a possibility.
“But the café-” Tim tried again, but Peter cut him off.
“No. We are going to grab something quickly and then be on our way, we don’t have time for any more lollygagging.” With that, Peter pulled open the door and walked inside, leaving Tim with no choice but to slink in behind him. Maybe Tim was overreacting. With any luck, maybe he wouldn’t be recognized.
Of course, Tim could never count on luck. He tried to hide behind Peter as he approached the counter, but the barista laid eyes on him immediately, completely glossing over Peter.
The barista’s face lit up in delight and recognition. “Tim! You’re in early today. What’s got you coming in here at nine in the morning like a normal human being?” She half-turned to her coworkers in the back and called. “Yo, Tim’s here. Liz, can you get started on his caffeine monstrosity he calls coffee?”
The other barista-Liz- voiced an affirmative and got started on his usual late-night drink- a black eye with three extra shots of espresso.
Tim cringed, knowing that there was no easy way to explain this to Peter, who was looking at him incredulously with one eyebrow raised. “Hey, Maria,” he sighed, accepting his fate and letting the mask of ‘Tim Drake-Wayne, CEO of WE’ wash over him. “I was in the area and was in desperate need of a pick me up, and you know there’s no better coffee in New York than right here.”
Maria just raised an eyebrow. “More like no other coffee shop in New York wants to have your death on their hands when your heart stops from a caffeine overdose.”
Tim laughed, throwing his head back in the overdramatic, rich CEO way that Tim Drake-Wayne acted.
"I have been drinking this much coffee since I was fourteen, I’ll be fine,” Tim assured. “And actually, Liz,” he addressed the barista making his drink. “Could you do only two extra shots? I am not quite so desperate yet.” Though he most certainly would be when he came in tonight. He was already exhausted from the conversation that was sure to come, and he still had to get some paperwork in order before his meeting with the Beijing office tonight.
“Anything for your friend?” Maria asked, glancing at Peter.
Tim gave her Peter’s regular coffee order and moved to pay.
“You don’t have to buy my coffee-” Peter started, finally being able to understand something enough to speak up.
Maria laughed, “Don’t bother. Tim never lets anyone pay for their coffee.”
“Listen to her, Peter. I’ve got this.” Tim paid, leaving his customary hundred-dollar tip while trying to hide the amount from Peter. He wasn’t successful if Peter’s breath of disbelief and alarm were anything to go by. “Thanks, Maria. I’ll see you next time.”
Tim grabbed their drinks and tried to rush out the door before Peter, but Peter kept pace with him. “Do you want to tell me what the hell that was?” Peter demanded.
“Is it a crime to get coffee?” Tim deflected, trying to downplay the situation.
“It is when the coffee shop is outside of your radius. Why did they know you?”
Tim winced. This was not good. “I used to go there pretty regularly before I was caught,” he lied.
Peter raised an eyebrow. “That was a long time ago. I didn’t get the impression that they hadn’t seen you for a while.”
“Well, they hadn’t. You can check my tracking data, Peter. I haven’t left my radius.”
Peter didn’t look convinced, but he couldn’t argue with the data. He didn’t have to know that Tim had hacked his anklet monitor to relay falsified information almost the second they had put it on.
“Who is Tim?” Peter switched tactics. “Is this another alias? Were you conning those poor women? I saw the tip you left. Do I have to add credit card fraud to your growing list of crimes?”
“Alleged crimes,” Tim added out of habit. “And no, I can assure you that it was all my own, legitimate, money I used.”
“There’s no way you have enough money to tip that kind of money. The FBI certainly doesn’t pay you enough for that.”
“I like tipping a lot,” Tim defends, angling the conversation away from direct accusations he didn’t have an acceptable answer for. “Servers rely on those tips for their livelihood. And besides, they’re sweet girls. Liz is working three jobs to pay for her mother’s medical bills, and Maria is working her way through law school. They deserve a little extra. It’s not like I need the money.”
“Neal, I’ve been to your apartment. You’ve got expensive taste. There is no way you can afford that on an FBI salary, and afford to tip ridiculous amounts to random baristas. Where is this money coming from?”
“Look Peter,” Tim started. He had stopped walking and stood on the sidewalk facing Peter. He could just see the coffee shop down the street over Peter’s shoulder, and Wayne Enterprises was a few doors down behind Tim. “I don’t-”
He was interrupted by someone slamming into him as they rushed by, spilling his and Peter’s coffee all down Tim’s front, and knocking the person to the ground.
“Oh my gosh, I’m so sorry! I wasn’t looking where I was going! Oh no, I’m already so late. I’m so sorry.” The boy said, rushing to stand up.
“It’s alright, accidents happen,” Tim assured, holding out a hand to help the boy up. As much as it sucked to have hot coffee spilled all over yourself (and to not be able to drink the coffee), Tim was grateful for the distraction. Or, at least, he was grateful until he saw who it was who had knocked into him.
Dread pooled in his gut when he recognized the boy, a new intern working in the R&D department of WE, and when the boy finally looked up at him, Tim knew that he recognized him too.
“Mr. Drake!” Mark squeaked. “I am so, so sorry! I swear I didn’t see you- I didn’t mean- please don’t fire me.”
Tim glanced quickly at Peter, calculating the risks and benefits of pretending not to know Mark, but even before he really thought about it he knew he couldn’t do it. Tim had had a long conversation with Mark when he had run into him still working in the lab after a late night of international board meetings and paperwork. Mark had been absolutely terrified to be spoken to by someone as high up in the company as Tim, despite the fact that Mark was only a few years younger than him. But he had come out of his shell the longer Tim talked to him and conveyed a genuine interest in his projects. Tim knew that it would completely crush Mark if he pretended not to know him.
“I don’t fire people over a bit of spilled coffee, Mark,” Tim assured him with a small smile. “Don’t worry about it. I won’t keep you any longer, I’m sure Mrs. Braunsworth is missing your input in the labs right now. Are you still working on the hydroelectric converter? I was hoping to see a report on your progress. I think if you can get it to work it will be a major step in reducing our carbon footprint.”
“Oh yes! We’ve made a lot of progress! There are still a few kinks we have to work out, but I think we almost have a functioning prototype.”
“That’s amazing! I look forward to seeing it.”
“Thank you, Mr. Drake!” Mark looked down at his watch and seemed to remember that he was late. “Oh no, Mrs. Braunsworth is going to kill me.”
“I’ll let her know that I held you up,” Tim said and sent Mark on his way with a pat on the shoulder.
“What the hell was that?” Peter demanded, and Tim winced, opting to watch Mark disappear into the WE building instead of turning around to face Peter.
“Would you believe me if I told you it was nothing?” Tim asked, not having any hope that it would actually work.
Peter simply raised an incredulous eyebrow in response.
Tim muttered darkly, “I thought so.” Tim turned and sighed, finally facing Peter. “I kind of used to work at Wayne Enterprises?” It came out as more of a question than Tim had intended, but in his defense, he was still cobbling together his excuse in his head as he was talking. “Yeah, I had a gig at WE awhile ago, I keep in touch with some people there.”
“That’s not possible. That doesn’t show up anywhere in your file.”
Tim scoffed. There were a lot of things about him that didn’t show up in his carefully crafted file on Neal Caffery. “And your file is the end-all, be-all?”
Peter ignored his jab, choosing instead to push with further questions. “How long ago was this? That kid barely looked like he was out of college. You can’t have worked with him years ago. I don’t know what kind of con you’re trying to pull- or did pull- but you’re not getting out of this that easily.”
Tim shrugged. “He was just starting when I left.”
“Neal,”
“Look, Peter. I don’t know what to tell you. There isn’t anything sketchy going on; I’m not plotting some devious scheme. We’ve just run into some people I used to know. I am allowed to have a life outside of the FBI and art thievery.”
Peter didn’t look convinced, but maybe he sensed that he wouldn’t get anything more out of Tim. Or maybe Peter knew that digging into his CI’s past wasn’t a good enough excuse to be late for their next meeting. Peter still hadn’t told Tim much about the case, only that a Monet that had been bought at a charity auction had been stolen. They were supposed to meet with the security of the building, as well as interview those who had been working that night.
“Fine,” Peter acquiesced. “But this discussion is far from over.” He pushed past Tim and continued on their way toward their destination, and then promptly turned and walked straight into the WE building. Tim was well and truly screwed.
__________
“Hello, I’m Peter Burke,” Peter greeted the receptionist and flashed his badge. “This is my CI, Neal Caffery. We’re with the FBI. I was contacted last night about a missing painting?”
Tim was doing his absolute best to hide from everyone. He stood almost directly behind Peter and pulled his fedora low over his face. He adjusted his posture to be unassuming and unmemorable. He knew better than to hope that he would get out of this with his identity intact, but he’d be damned if he wasn’t going to give it his best shot.
The receptionist didn’t spare a single glance at Tim, simply waved them through, giving them directions to the office of Paul Brownley, the head of security and apparently the man they were supposed to be meeting. That didn’t bode well for Tim. He knew that Brownley would recognize him instantly. He and Tim had had plenty of meetings about improving the security systems at the New York branch since Tim had made it his base of operations.
He braced himself as he walked into Brownley’s office. Brownley barely glanced up when Peter and he walked in. He simply said, “You must be here because of the thefts, right?”
“Yes,” Peter responded. “I’m Agent Peter Burke, this is my CI, Neal Caffery. I was hoping you could tell us more about the night the painting was stolen. You were working, correct?”
“Nah,” Brownley said, still not looking up from his computer. “I took the night off. It was my anniversary, ya’know? I wanted to take my husband out to dinner. Treat him to a nice night, ya’know? I left Jeffery in charge. You have to understand, this never would have happened on my watch. I take my job very seriously.”
“But you’re the head of security. It’s your job to ensure that things like this don’t happen. In a way, this did happen on your watch,” Peter argued.
Brownley paled. “It was my day off. You can’t blame me for taking some time to focus on my husband. Please, sir. Don’t tell Mr. Drake. This job is the best thing that’s ever happened to me. Wayne Enterprises gave me a chance to turn my life around. I can’t go back to the drug trade. Please, I’ve got my daughter to think about. I can’t lose this job.”
Tim listened to Brownley’s panicked rambling and tried not to let it affect him too much. But it got to the point where he had to step in. Tim knew that Brownley had a colorful past. He had sent Brownley in the direction of Wayne Enterprise as Red Robin. He couldn’t let this man worry that he wouldn’t be able to provide for his daughter and husband.
“Don’t worry, Mr. Brownley. You haven’t done anything wrong,” Tim reassured, stepping out from behind Peter.
“Mr. Drake!” Brownley exclaimed. “I didn’t know you were coming in today.”
Tim grimaced. Goodbye secret identity. “I wasn’t planning on it. But I heard about the thefts and felt that it would be best if I made an appearance.”
Peter was staring at him like he had grown a second head, but either he trusted Tim enough to let him continue, or he was simply too stunned to speak.
“You have to understand, Mr. Drake. I would never- If I had any idea- I never should have taken the night off.”
Tim cut him off. “You deserve to have a life outside of work. No one could have predicted that someone would steal the painting. We’ll track them down eventually. It’ll be alright.”
Brownley still didn’t look convinced, and he opened his mouth to apologize again, but Tim cut him off.
“It’s just a painting, Brownley. Even if we don’t get it back, I can just buy a new one.”
“The painting that was stolen was an original Monet.” Peter interrupted. “It was one of a kind, and worth millions of dollars. That’s not exactly easily replaceable.” He raised his eyebrow in Neal’s direction, not yet ready to call Tim out on the con Peter clearly thought he was pulling, but not willing to let Tim make outrageous promises.
Tim waved him off. “Well, obviously we can’t get the same painting. But I could get another Monet. Or maybe I’d switch it up and go modern. Maybe one of Gerhard Richter's pieces.”
Peter stared at him in disbelief, which Tim figured was fair when he was talking about million-dollar paintings as casually as someone would talk about replacing their curtains. Brownley still didn’t look convinced, but it calmed him down enough to answer the necessary questions. Peter attempted to stay professional and focused on the task at hand, but Tim could still feel Peter giving him odd glances when he thought Tim wasn’t looking. But Peter was professional enough to not confront him in front of Brownley. Tim was not looking forward to the interrogation in his future but there was no way to avoid it. One instance Tim might have been able to pass off as a coincidence, but three separate incidents in one day were way more than even Tim could play off.
__________
“So,” Peter asked him as soon as they were finished with their interviews and exited Wayne Tower. “You are going to explain to me what the hell just went down in there.”
It wasn’t a question. Peter’s leniency had been pushed too far today, and he wasn’t going to take another flimsy excuse or deflection as an answer.
“Peter,” Tim started, but Peter interrupted him, too impatient to wait for whatever excuse Tim was about to give.
“How on Earth did you manage to convince those people that you were Timothy Drake-Wayne? Please don’t tell me you’ve been masquerading as a billionaire CEO as some kind of long-con.”
Tim stared at Peter, taken aback. That was not where Tim had thought this conversation was going. He wasn’t sure whether to be offended that even with all the facts laid out in front of him, it was still too big of a leap for Peter to see the truth- that Tim was a billionaire CEO- or if he should be flattered that Peter thought his conning skills were good enough to pull off impersonating a very public figure without anyone catching on. Tim was so thrown off by Peter’s accusations, that he couldn’t stop his next words from coming out of his mouth until it was too late.
“I am Timothy Drake-Wayne.”
Peter stared at him. Tim stared back, horrified at what he had just said. He could have salvaged this. He could have gone along with Peter’s conceptions and made up some lie as to how and why he was conning Wayne Enterprises. Peter would not have been happy with him, and the fallout would not have been pretty, but he could have kept his cover intact. He couldn’t take it back now. It was too late to play it off as a joke. Tim could already see the gears turning in Peter’s mind, processing the information. Peter was not a dumb man, and Tim had given him enough breadcrumbs to follow right back to the obvious conclusion.
“You’re Timothy Drake-Wayne,” Peter repeated blankly. Then again, as the new information finally sunk in. “You’re Timothy Drake-Wayne.”
Tim winced, but there was nothing he could do now but accept the grave he had dug himself. “Yeah, I am.”
“But- You- How-” Peter stammered, mind running through questions so quickly he wasn’t able to finish a sentence. He finally settled on, “Why did you become an art thief? You’re a billionaire. You could buy any piece that you wanted. Why resort to stealing them?”
Tim sighed. Peter was smart, but apparently not smart enough to see the whole picture. There was no point in hiding it now; he might as well come clean. “I was never an art thief, Peter. I was undercover.”
Peter just stared at him, not comprehending what Tim was saying.
Tim was going to be in trouble with Bruce either way, but that didn’t mean he was going to blow the lid on all their secrets. He needed to find a way to explain things without giving away everything.
“A couple years back we caught wind of a scheme to sell fake Van Gogh paintings,” Tim explained, stealing the details of a smuggling ring he and Dick had discovered and taken down three years ago.
“As someone who has a rather large collection of Van Gogh paintings, Bruce started to get concerned. If the market was flooded with a bunch of forgeries, the value of our collection would drop significantly. He wanted to hire someone to look into it, so I offered to do some digging. I’m sure Bruce thought I was going to take over the paperwork of hiring a P.I. or something, but-” Tim shrugged, drawing on some of his ‘worry-free and naive billionaire’ persona to add credence to his story. “I was bored that weekend. So I created Neal Caffery. Did some snooping around, talked to the right people, handed over the right information anonymously to the authorities, and fixed the problem.”
Peter stared at him open-mouthed. “What the fuck, Neal?”
Tim had never heard Peter swear like that before, but he supposed that there really was no other appropriate reaction to hearing a story like that.
“You’re telling me that you became a master in forgery and art theft, let me chase you around the country for years, went to prison, and became a CI for the FBI all because you were bored?”
“In my defense, I didn’t think it would blow up the way it did.”
“Neal!”
Peter’s face was as red as a beet, but Tim was in too deep now to try to diffuse the situation. The only thing he could do now was to pull out his trump card, the one that could get him out of almost any situation with his secrets, if not his dignity, intact. It was time to play the ditsy-and-disconnected-with-reality-rich-kid.
Tim shrugged again, keeping his posture loose and his tone unaffected. With his next words, he pitched his voice a little higher than usual- not enough for Peter to notice, but enough so that his subconscious will play on the common stereotypes. “I sounded like fun. First, it was the mystery of going undercover, then when I found out that the FBI was looking into Neal Caffery, it was the thrill of the chase.” Tim could see Peter getting more and more worked up, and Tim truly did feel bad. He had grown close to Peter during his time as Caffery. Peter was a good man with a good heart, but Tim couldn’t afford to let Peter find out the truth of it all. So Tim threw on an extra heap of ignorance and said, “But, like, how was I supposed to know that the FBI would get involved. I mean, it was just some stupid art. There are thousands of paintings out there. If one gets destroyed or stolen or whatever, just buy a new one. It’s not that big of a deal.”
Peter gawked at him, not sure how to respond to what Tim had just told him. Eventually, he seemed to latch onto the only part of the story that he could form a response to. “These paintings are worth millions. It’s a huge deal.”
And there was the nail in the coffin, the final piece to solidify the ridiculous story that Tim had managed to spin and complete Tim’s ‘ignorant billionaire’ persona. “What’s a couple million anyway?” he scoffed, waving it away as if it was pocket change.
The look Peter gave him stung, but it was exactly the outcome Tim had been angling for. Peter looked at him with a mixture of anger and disbelief, and a hurt that he could not hide. Tim didn’t blame him. He had betrayed Peter’s trust and lied to him the whole time they’d worked together. And Tim couldn’t even take solace in the truth because that was the truth. No matter what tales he spun to explain away the situation, the only grain of truth is the lies. Tim lied, and he would continue to lie until the very end.
“Neal -Tim- You know what I have to do, right?” Peter’s voice was deadly calm, but also sad. “What you’ve done wildly violates the terms of your work-release program, not to mention all the new cases of fraud and perjury you’ve just admitted to. I’m going to have to bring you in.”
Tim was prepared for this. He knew that it would come down to this if the truth (or at least some version of it) ever came out. But he wasn’t prepared for it to hurt this much. It hurt to see the man he had come to view as his friend stand against him, but Tim knew that Peter was too dedicated to his job and doing what he believed was right for it to ever come down to anything else. Peter would spend the rest of his life believing that Tim was a criminal, and Tim could never tell him the truth.
“I’m sorry, Peter, but you can’t do that.”
“I don’t have a choice, Neal. You broke the terms of our agreement- an agreement that shouldn’t have even existed in the first place. You lied to everyone about all of it. You lied to me.” Peter shook his head. “Was any of it even real? Or was it all just a game to you?”
Tim stayed silent. How could he explain to Peter that it was all lies, but it also wasn’t? How could he explain that Neal Caffery didn’t exist, but he was still real? How could Tim tell him that all the quiet evenings spent over dinner with El, all the inside jokes thrown around in the office, and all those times when Peter set aside the badge and they talked about something real weren’t lies? How could he tell Peter that Tim thought of him as a friend when he still couldn’t even tell him the truth?
Peter scoffed and reached for his handcuffs, “Timothy Drake-Wayne, you’re under arrest-”
“You can’t do that Peter,” Tim repeated.
Peter scoffed. “I told you, I have to. I can’t just let all this slide, Neal.”
“No,” Tim interrupted him. “I mean you won’t be able to. When you get back to the office you’re going to find no record of Neal Caffery. You’ll find that he never existed. And you have no proof of any wrongdoings by Timothy Drake-Wayne. Legally, you can’t bring me in.”
“Don’t be ridiculous, Neal. I have three years worth of evidence on you. There are the jail records and the paperwork from the work release. You worked in the FBI office for over a year. There’s no way you can disappear after this.”
“I’m sorry, Peter.” Tim pulled his emergency comm out of his pocket and held it to his ear, turning away. “Oracle? It’s time- burn it.”
“On, it,” Barbara’s voice confirmed immediately. Tim heard a few quick keystrokes and then, “it’s done. There’s no longer any official record of Neal Caffery. Are you okay, Red? What happened?”
“I’ll explain later,” Tim assured. He pocketed the comm and turned to look at Peter one last time. He smiled sadly. “Goodbye, Peter. You’re a good man. And you were a good friend.” It was all Tim could give him. The smallest confirmation that their friendship, at least, hadn’t been a lie.
“Neal!” Peter rushed to grab him, but he was too late. Tim slipped out of sight and was up on the rooftops before Peter could turn the corner. He watched as Peter frantically tried to figure out where he went, before cursing and pulling out his phone, no doubt calling Hughes to inform him about what had happened. Tim almost felt bad about the chaos that was about to unfold when the white collar office discovered that all of their records of Neal Caffery had been wiped.
Tim sighed and pulled the comm back up to his ear, making his way to the nearest Zeta.
“There better be a good reason for burning the alias we put so much work into,” Oracle’s voice immediately greeted him.
“I told you, I’ll explain later.”
“You can explain it when you get back. You are coming home, right?”
Tim smiled. As much as it hurt to leave on such bad terms, Tim couldn’t help but be excited. He’d been away from his family for too long. He missed them. “Yeah, I’m coming home.”