Archive of Our Own

‘You have the keys in your hand,’ Tim thinks. ‘You can just leave.’

His gear, after all, is already stashed in the car, along with his weight in energy drinks, more than that in snacks, and a massive box of disposable masks he’d shoved under the passenger seat about half an hour ago. It’s still dark outside, and Tim wants to get on the road already.

He sighs, and knocks on the door anyways.

San Francisco’s Titans Tower has been a fight and a half to get into, even if only to look around and figure out what they’re taking with them back to the East Coast. Dick had taken the whole Batman thing in stride early on, but he’d refused to budge on that front. Jason, too, had been relentless in keeping him from the place, but the full weight of Tim’s new Teen Titans had been at least enough to get them to back off for five minutes.

Not by much, of course.

In a different world, perhaps Tim would be just a little bit older. Maybe he would be allowed to take full responsibility for the Tower. But in this world, his father is missing, his sister has gone searching for him, and Tim sits here, nearly entirely useless, because both of his older brothers are incessant worriers. In this world, Timothy Drake is fifteen.

Jason slumbers heavily down the hall. Tim had checked, earlier, stashing one half of a baby monitor in his room. The other one is strapped to his utility belt.

His younger brother opens the door with a slow creak.

“What?” Damian barks in a tone Tim is certain is meant to be harsh, which is undercut by the way he rubs at his eyes and yawns widely. “What do you want?”

“You like birds, right?” Tim asks.

“I do,” Damian replies, suspicious.

“I’m going on a road trip right now to go find a very special bird,” Tim tells him. “I wanted to know if you want me to send you photos on the way.”

Damian’s scowl deepens.

“You are not old enough to drive,” he says.

“I’m not,” Tim agrees, “I’m going anyways.”

Damian rolls his eyes, and pushes past him.

“Wait,” Tim asks. “Where are you going?”

“To wake Brown, obviously,” Damian says. “Unlike yourself, she has an actual license. At the very least, if the police pull us over, she could be sitting in the driver’s seat.”

Tim lets this logic settle in his brain. At first, it seems acceptable.

And then, his brain alights on the word us, and he squawks frantically, scrambling after his little brother.

Tim has been relegated to the passenger seat, but no matter how hard she tries, Steph will not be able to make him go to the back.

This is due to two factors. For the first: he’s no longer quite so short that Steph can use the justification of the law to bar him from the front seat. He hasn’t been anywhere near that small in ages, but apparently, it’s still a popular enough joke among the family for Steph to pull out a yardstick to check. For the second: out of the three of them, Tim is the most experienced with birds from this part of the world, and therefore gets the most variety in terms of windows he’s actually able to see through.

His camera bag is heavy, not surprising, given photography is one of the few things Tim has splurged on since childhood, and he certainly plans to continue. He eagerly awaits next year’s release of the Sony A1- Tim’s been shooting with mirrorless cameras for years, and the autofocus with that one looks fantastic. Given it’s scheduled to drop in only a few months, he’s sure he could throw around the Wayne family name and get himself one early, but that’s not the point of it. He’s on a waitlist. He will wait.

His current camera, another Sony (an A7ii, with a Sigma lens he loves nearly as much), has been through thick and thin with him. He’s not sure how it’s managed to survive all these years, given he used to bring it with him in the dead of night to photograph the Bats, but it still functions perfectly, and takes pride of place alongside a set of beloved binoculars in what Tim affectionately refers to as his go bag. This heavy bag knocks against his legs as Steph rockets down 580. Tim scoots it further below the glove box to steady it.

“So,” Steph chirps, switching lanes to avoid the bulk of an eighteen-wheeler creeping down the interstate, “Damian says we’re going to see a bird?”

Tim nods.

“And this bird is in Arizona?”

Tim nods again.

“So… why aren’t we flying?” Steph asks, entirely bypassing the question of you really care that much about some bird? “Not that there’s anything wrong with driving- hey, pass me the Ruffles?”

“I’ve never gone birding in the Southwest before,” Tim admits, handing Steph an open bag of chips, “My parents never really took me on any digs, though they’ve had some in the Southwest and in northern Mexico. I figured… why not use it as an excuse?”

Steph nods at this, appeased. They’ve hung out a lot since the pandemic started- Steph’s mom is a frontline nurse, which means it had taken all of about two weeks of awkward sleeping arrangements before she’d temporarily moved into the Manor. That ‘temporarily’ has stretched significantly. Steph, Tim knows, wants to go home very badly, but Crystal Brown, still picking up shift after shift, refuses to allow it.

To bring his thoughts back on track, though, a lack of experience in the Southwest is not the only reason Tim had wanted to make this trip. So much of himself is tied up in his tenure as Robin- his photography and his birdwatching, both of which have made him one of the more knowledgeable birders in his age group back in New Jersey, are not. A lack of free time and a car have both definitely eaten into the size of his year list, but it remains something that Tim does for himself, the tiniest bit of enjoyment that he stubbornly clings to.

“Well,” Steph says, “More than fifteen hours if we’re going directly there, so that’s definitely not what we’re doing. I give it a handful of hours before Jason wakes up, less than that if Barbara decides to rat us out, so we should figure out an excuse to not be looking at our phones. Any idea as to where we should go first? Anywhere closer?”

Tim actually had given it thought, before he’d packed up the car. He drums his fingers on the dashboard, a small smile crossing his face.

“Start heading towards Monterey,” he suggests. “I’ve heard that just south of there, there’s a really good chance to spot a California Condor.”

As soon as they leave San Francisco, the trees close in. The forests around Gotham aren’t anything to sneeze at- Tim’s gotten warbler and vireo neck looking at a bird hopping around in the canopy and hissing to himself what are you enough times to know- but this is something else. The trees aren’t just tall, they’re bulky, in a way that raises the hairs on the back of Tim’s neck. The trunks close around the road as if someone has cracked the ribs of a snake open, and the three of them are driving along its spine.

After a while, Tim opens the window. A gust of pine-scented air washes in. The sky is clear, and filled with stars, but Tim is looking at none of them- instead, he’s carefully scanning every treetop, every streetlamp, every road sign.

“What are you looking for?” is whispered in his ear. Tim doesn’t shriek, but he does jolt in his seat, whipping his head around.

It’s just Damian, staring at him with such wide eyes that Tim can’t help but giggle.

“I’m looking for owls,” he tells his little brother, who’s still working on his best impression of one. “There’s some really interesting ones native to this area.”

“Which ones?” Damian asks. Tim taps his foot against the floor of the car, and then digs into his go bag.

He’s got a smaller bag, one that only ever contains gear he takes with him on a hike- gear which includes his well-loved Sibley- but this is his go bag, his full set, which means he’s got a Nat Geo and a Peterson West to spare.

After a moment of consideration between the two, weighing the benefits of what’s generally considered to be the superior field guide against a guide that’ll be useful to Damian once they’re back in Gotham, he hands his brother the Nat Geo, and a small flashlight that Tim had also tucked into the bag. It’ll be dim enough that it won’t bother Steph, but bright enough that Damian can still read the guide.

“We’re looking at North-Central California,” he tells his brother, “So we’re a little south to see Spotted Owls, and a bit too far West for the Sierra Nevada Great Greys, but Barred and Great Horned are always possible. Northern Saw-Whet and Long-Eared aren’t recorded a ton here, but they’re not recorded much anywhere, so. If we’re very lucky, there’s a few owls native to Arizona that we might just be able to see, but finding any owls is kind of entirely luck-based, and I don’t usually have it.”

Damian nods, flicking through the guide at speed. He reaches for one of the oranges Tim had added to his snack stash out of some misguided optimism.

Tim returns to looking out the window.

Tim doesn’t know why he has spare binoculars. He thinks one of them might have originally been part of his Robin gear- and, of course, there’s always his birding binoculars- but there’s another set that Steph gladly takes as they roll to their first real stop of the morning (no, the quick trip to the gas station did not count).

He’s just his final checks on his camera, making sure his backup batteries are stashed in his pocket, when the shadow descends from overhead.

Tim’s first thought is oh, that’s a big Turkey Vulture.

Tim’s second, more rational thought, is a very long string of ???!!!????!!!

You see, the thing is- when it comes to many things in life, birding being one of them, Tim generally does not get lucky.

He’s not the person with a hundred self-found vagrants in a year, spotting a whistling duck in Pennsylvania or a Roseate Spoonbill in Connecticut. He’s not the person that finds a Great Gray Owl in the middle of a hike, staring wide-eyed at a bird that could probably take those eyes right out if it wanted to.

He’s not California Condor at sunrise kind of lucky.

The bird, however, is unmistakable. There simply isn’t anything else that big- and certainly nothing that large with such an obvious purple 46 tag clasped to the wing.

Tim has long been grateful for the times his hands can move faster than his mind, and this is certainly one of those occasions. His camera is in his hands, focused and clicking away, faster than he can blink. The condor settles itself down on a rock, and Tim balances himself on the hood of the car, keeping his setup as still as physically possible.

It’s a little cold and wet out. Not a surprise, of course, given it’s coastal California in an early morning in October (and yes, they’re all probably skipping school for this, but to Tim, it’s already worth it- besides, they’re all still on Zoom anyways). This part of the state actually sees some of its warmest weather this month- something that had initially shocked Tim, until he remembered that the temperature is the same nearly the entire year round.

Tim’s used to the cold and the damp- he’s from Gotham, after all. He doesn’t mind the chill as it sinks a little deeper into his bones.

46 readjusts itself on the rock. Tim’s eyes, for a moment, slip down to the seashore below.

A plume of spray down in the surprisingly clear bay brings a smile to his face. He kicks Damian lightly in the shin from where he’s dedicatedly sketching 46, and indicates the whales below.

“Any ideas on the species?” he whispers, “Mammals aren’t really my thing.”

Damian’s eyes widen behind the binoculars, and he leans further onto the hood of the car. 46 continues to hop around, thoroughly entertained by something Tim is entirely unfamiliar with. Further up the road, a series of scolding calls catches his attention- a wrentit, maybe?

46 flies over them again. Steph holds up her phone, gleefully recording a video. The condor is so close that Tim doesn’t doubt the video will still show the tag in perfect clarity.

For a little while, he simply stands there, hands on his camera, taking in the salt air.

Damian returns to sketching the condor with renewed vigor. Despite its initial dramatic appearance and lingering habits, 46 flies off not long afterwards.

“Okay,” Steph says, clapping her hands, “I’m not going to lie, I was mostly here for the teenage rebellion, but that was freaking cool.”

They end up doubling back north to Andrew Molera State Park for a few hours, which nets Tim some crisp, clear shots of California Quail, one good look at a White-Tailed Kite that thoroughly impresses all three Bats, and a beautifully backlit shot of a Nuttall’s Woodpecker. With any luck, he’ll get both this one and its Ladder-Backed counterpart on this trip.

He doesn’t manage to spot any of the Golden Eagles reported in the area, but given the photos of 46 that sit in his memory card- and the Acorn Woodpecker that sits in front of Damian long enough that his brother is able to render a strikingly accurate copy- he can’t bring himself to complain. The Hermit Warbler is charming, too.

Tim is sat in the driver’s seat for the next leg of the journey, Steph asleep in the passenger seat, prepared to swap if they’re about to be pulled over. Tim goes the speed limit. The four-and-change hour drive to Malibu is peppered through with phone calls that Tim does not answer, not even when he’d have the service to do so.

They spend the night in a hotel, careful to take every precaution to not expose the staff. It’s nice. Tim tips heavily when Dick isn’t there in the morning.

In the early light of dawn, Tim ticks off more shorebirds on his list- Heerman’s Gull, Elegant Tern, and his first Long-Billed Curlew in what must be at least three years.

Surf Scoter and Black Oystercatcher are both bigger surprises, each bringing a delighted grin to his face. A flash of blue from a California Scrub Jay catches his attention on the way down from the car, while the bright pink of the gorget of a male Anna’s Hummingbird leaves Damian thoroughly enraptured.

Steph has found herself enthralled by the other wildlife of this particular beach- in particular, by the sheer number of hermit crabs that she finds along the shoreline. A few others on the beach direct her to a few sites she could get an ID on, and soon enough, Tim’s not the only one scouting the beach for something new. In less than an hour, Steph is poking around rocks for sea stars and gooseneck barnacles, sifting through shells in search of cone snails, and points out about half a dozen butterflies before Tim even has a chance to snap a photo.

An older woman, face covered in a heavily patterned mask, waves at the both of them, pointing out a handful of Snowy Plovers further down the beach. Damian, sitting legs crossed in the sand, alternates between his sketchbook and peering through his binoculars at the Sanderlings racing through the surf.

Tim plops down next to him, though his focus is a little further out, on a diving bird much lower in the water, with a short neck and a long, dagger-like bill.

“Loon,” he tells his brother. “Might be Pacific, but it’s really backlit.”

Damian reaches into the pocket of the jacket he’s brought out here with him, flipping through the pages.

“We’re in non-breeding plumage right now,” Tim explains. Damian cocks his head to the side, realizing their dilemma.

“All of these appear identical,” Damian tells him.

“Not quite,” Tim says, “Do you see the difference in the bill shape, there? And how one has a ‘jagged’ collar while the other doesn’t?”

“Not artistic license, I take it?” Damian asks.

“No,” Tim agrees. “It’s actually visible in the field- if the bird is closer, that is.”

Damian peers through his binoculars with a curious expression.

“Pacific,” he decides. “The bill is correct.”

“I think you’re right,” Tim says. “Steph! Do you have any thoughts on-”

He stops, because Steph is currently holding about twelve different hermit crabs, and asking her to pick up her binoculars for a third opinion would be downright cruel. Tim and Damian share a look- they’ll record the bird as a Pacific Loon, and Damian will get to sketching the sheer number of hermit crabs Steph’s picked up.

“I think we should go herping,” she says, eyes bright. “You guys have any opinions on Joshua Tree?”

Joshua Tree National Park is roughly a three hour drive.

Joshua Tree National Park is a three hour drive through an area where all three of them have cell service.

For the first five calls, all three of them ignore it. Once it gets to the tenth, they start to clap their hands over their ears- well, Tim and Damian do. Stephanie simply rolls down the window and lets the rushing air drown out the sound.

By the time it hits the twentieth, Jason’s number has started popping up between Dick’s frantic calls, and Steph, clearly exhausted, hits the green answer button from the driver’s seat.

“Holy shit, thank fuck,” Jason says from the other end of the line, “I- where the hell- why the fuck-”

“Take your time,” all three of them respond in unison, matching shit-eating grins on their faces.

“You’re okay,” Tim’s middle brother says, “That’s good. Because you need to be alive for me to kill you.”

“No killing!” Dick shouts from somewhere in the distance. “Not while you’re wearing the Batsuit!”

Right- because this is Jason’s week as Batman.

Tim’s older brothers have been sharing the mantle ever since Dick’s breakdown right before the pandemic began. Normally, the weight of the cowl falls more heavily on Dick’s shoulders, but this past week, it’s been Jason’s job. Jason was Batman. That’s why the four of them were at the San Francisco tower in the first place.

“I’m fine,” Tim grits out, “Damian is fine. We’re eating properly. We’re sleeping properly. We’re exercising. We haven’t done any crime-fighting.”

“You,” Jason starts, voice dangerously low, “Kidnapped your nine-year-old brother to go running off to who knows where-”

“Actually,” Tim interrupts, “We know exactly where we’re going.”

“And where is that?”

“Why would I tell you?” Tim hisses.

“You don’t even have a learner’s permit!” Jason snaps.

“So? It’s not like I haven’t driven the Batmobile dozens of times-”

“He’s not driving!” Steph points out, “I am!”

“What, so you dragged Steph into this, too? You hearing this shit, Babs?”

Tim grips the edge of his seat tightly.

“Jason, you don’t-”

“What, so you’re just going to swoop in and play good cop?” Jason snaps at Dick, “I don’t fucking think so-”

Steph hangs up with enough force that Tim ordinarily might have been worried she’d break his phone.

In Joshua Tree, the arrangement is much the same as it had been in Malibu. Damian and Tim share a room this night as well- this time, Damian is awake enough to peer over Tim’s shoulders as he goes through and edits the day’s photos.

His little brother, predictably, is fascinated with the artistic aspects of Lightroom, settling in at Tim’s side as he goes about the process of editing his Raw files into something he can actually post.

They’re disturbed from this by an excited series of texts from Steph, who barges into their room with a black-and-white striped snake coiled around her shoulders and all the way down one of her arms.

This snake, Tim can actually recognize.

“Thought we missed our chance earlier,” she giggles, stroking the surprisingly non-aggressive California Kingsnake, “Lady in the room next to me freaked out.”

“Should we just drop it outside?” Tim asks, picking up his camera and swapping lenses to photograph the snake.

They do indeed end up dropping it outside- however, by outside, Tim should specify that he means several miles away, as what was originally a well-intentioned effort to bring a harmless snake somewhere it wouldn’t be hurt turns into an active night of road cruising.

Steph’s snake list grows by the hour, adding Southwestern Speckled Rattlesnake and a lovely Gopher Snake by the time they return. Tim gets well over half a dozen keeper photos of the former, and spends much of the rest of the night editing. Damian, finally fed up with his insomnia, throws a pillow at him to get him to go to sleep.

Before he hits the hay, he sends a photo of the rattler to his older brothers. With a smiley face. Just to keep them on their toes.

The northern part of the park gets the majority of their attention that day. Tim is on guard- it’s rare that he gets the opportunity to bird in a desert.

A series of jay calls alerts them to another frantically buzzing Southwestern Speckled- this one, in the light of day, is perfectly suited to be photographed from a distance. This one is perhaps even more beautiful than the last- its blotches remind him of granite, or maybe a nice marble.

Rock crevices, as it turns out, are an excellent way to find both Common Chuckwalla and more rattlesnakes. Tim is going to have taken almost entirely photos of rattlesnakes today at this rate.

A Phainopepla- instantly recognizable from the silky black feathers and shining crest- alights nearby, alleviating a great deal of those worries.

At first, this bird is tricky to photograph. It's dark, which means his autofocus hates it more than Gotham hates being normal, and it likes to move around, darting from place to place, which is typical behavior for a bird of its size. It eventually settles in one of the eponymous Joshua Trees (a tall, heavily-built yucca, from what Steph tells him).

As he’s finally winding his rapid-fire photography down, he’s startled by a rapid-fire series of bright, clear tones.

Tim may not be the best at audio identification, but he’s from the Northeast- he knows a wren when he hears one. A quick scan with his binoculars reveals a heart-wrenchingly tiny tan bird. To anyone else, it might be drab and gray- in fact, Tim actively has to point it out to Damian, who normally finds these as rapidly as he does- but to Tim, it’s a lifer, and a charming one at that.

The Rock Wren, unfortunately, doesn’t settle enough for some brilliant show of Tim’s photographic prowess, but that’s alright- he’ll take a barely-identifiable photo over never seeing it in the first place any day. For his gallery, he has the Phainopepla, and-

Another sound is identifiable from the very start. It’s as if in the distance, a car is adamantly refusing to start. Tim stiffens.

Not far away, another person waves them over. Tim jogs slowly, maintaining hold of his camera and keeping an eye out for snakes… or suspicious-looking cacti.

‘Two wrens in a row!’ he crows to himself- and this Cactus Wren is being far more polite, sitting high up as it is. He’s able to take as many photos as he likes, and beside him, Damian gets to work.

They manage to get well into Arizona that night. The afternoon is spent both driving and swinging by Desert Center, where Tim picks up another kind of thrasher- California Thrasher, this time, a silly-looking bird with a drooping bill.

Overnight, there are no more snakes. However, there is a strongly-worded email from his older brothers (and with Alfred’s hand clearly guiding the both of them). He tosses them a photo of the Phainopepla and the Joshua Tree it’s in as a response. If they want to know where he is, he’ll make them work for it.

“Why do you not just tell them?” Damian asks. He’d borrowed Tim’s tablet and the attached pencil to make sketches from his own bed, but now, he’s crawled over to where Tim sits on the couch to watch the panicked where are you s roll in.

Tim shrugs.

When he thinks about it, honestly, it’s pretty childish. Steph is seventeen, he’s fifteen, and Damian is nine- can they really do this? Should they really do this, all on their own?

He drowns the self-doubt in his online homework. As anticipated, they haven’t even noticed he’s missing.

Of course he needs to do this on his own. Dick and Jason, they wouldn’t get it- they’d come with him, and they’d insist on making it easy. But for as much as it would be simpler, Tim doesn’t want it to be easy. The thought of such a thing rankles. He doesn’t need for it to be easy. He can do this.

They may have systematically dismantled everything else that could let him run a risk every once in a while, but they can’t take this. Not if he doesn’t let them.

… And besides, he doesn’t really get much time in the way of hanging out with Steph and Damian like this. It’s been fun.

Arizona at sunrise is, in a word, breathtaking.

It’s a little less breathtaking when the desert gives way to the bulk of Phoenix, which may not be anywhere near as large as Gotham, but is a decent-sized city in its own right. The rise of the Phoenix skyscrapers serves as a reminder that their drive is nearing its end. Tim pulls over to swap Steph into the driver’s seat as they near the city.

They stop at one of the bigger spots in the Phoenix area for the morning. A set of friendly hands wave them over, and Tim gladly follows.

“Gila Woodpecker,” says another birder, keeping a respectful distance, “About halfway up- yes, the one in the middle. You see it?”

Tim does indeed, raising his camera to snap a photo.

It’s still uncomfortably warm here- while the high temperatures in Phoenix may finally drop below a hundred starting in October, he’s far more accustomed to the cold. Damian is, too.

Of course, things seem a lot much colder when he suddenly can’t find Damian.

For a long, horrifying moment, Tim thinks he’s lost track of his younger brother. He does his best to slow his breathing, which comes in rapid pants, and his hands squeeze at his legs so hard it physically begins to hurt. He resists the urge to start shouting his head off.

“You alright, honey?” an older woman asks, tucking her own camera away.

“Can’t find my little brother.”

She gives him a considering look.

“About yea high?” she asks, indicating somewhere around her chest. “Dark hair? Sketchbook?”

“Perpetually pinched expression?” he replies, and she nods. “Where?”

“Oh, he spotted a group of Gambel’s,” she tells him. “Sweet kid. Told me all about the differences between them and Californias- not that I didn’t already know that, but that little one soaks up information like a sponge, let me tell you. You should show him the Curve-Billed Thrasher down the trail, that’s a nice bird for you East Coast kids.”

Tim darts back towards the entrance, skidding to a stop when he finally sees his brother. Damian waves at him before eagerly returning to his sketchbook.

Tim thuds to the ground beside him. A lizard darts across their path.

“Are you having fun?” he finds himself asking. Damian looks up from his sketchbook, curious.

“Of course I am,” his brother tells him.

Tim manages a shaky smile, tucking Damian under his chin.

That’s good.

As they settle in for the night, Tim knows this is going to be the last leg.

His trip report is already bulging. Even if this last run is a disappointment, he knows well that this trip hasn’t been, not for any of them.

They’re far from the only birders that make the trip the next morning. It’s a long drive and a hike to boot, but the trail is filled with an air Tim can only describe as reverent anticipation.

The group of them move as a unit, keeping at as safe a distance as they can all manage without raising their voices above a whisper. Tim snags Yellow-Eyed Juncos and Bridled Titmice and Arizona Woodpeckers for his list by the time it starts to get well and truly warm- not that it’s very warm here, really.

A flash of green and red, of black and white, and every whisper ceases.

Tim knows this bird. He’d memorized it thoroughly before he’d ever made the decision to come here, had made notes of the shape of the tail, of the shade of the wings, of the slope of its neck.

Damian settles himself in by the bridge. His sketchbook hangs loosely in his hands. Gently, Tim passes him the camera, shows him how to tune the autofocus and how to keep it steady.

“What is that?” Steph hisses, her own tiny legal pad filled to the brim with notes on species and locations and vague descriptions so she can match her photos off of her phone with at least the genera later.

“Eared Quetzal,” Tim replies, not bothering to hide his grin.

This is the bird they’ve driven days for. This is the bird they’ve driven across two entire states for. This is a bird so rarely seen in the United States- or even, in all honesty, the entirety of Mexico- that it’s dragged birders from across the country and even further afield.

Another birder giggles.

“Tim?” a voice whispers, joined by “Timmy Drake, is that you?”

“Drake-Wayne,” him and Damian correct in unison, and Tim flushes with embarrassment when he realizes that’s Maria Russo and her husband David.

Maria Russo and her husband David, the both of whom Tim has known for years.

Maria is a woman in her early sixties with an approachable air about her. David, a former Falcone (because nobody in Gotham is more than a hop and a skip from some mobster or another), is more reserved, but he always has a smile for Tim.

“Finally driving?” Maria teases. “I remember when you’d get a taxi to drop you off at one of the parks, my goodness-”

“Your photography’s certainly shaped up,” David grunts. He doesn’t talk much. Tim had found out about the Falcone thing entirely on accident, as someone had tried to kill the man (after mistaking him for his better-known brother) in the middle of a national wildlife refuge.

… Well, it hadn’t been entirely on accident. David had steadfastly refused to talk, so Tim had dug up his arrest record. David hasn’t brought it up since, and as a result, neither has Tim.

“No, that’d be Steph,” Tim admits reluctantly. “Still not quite old enough for a learner’s permit.”

“Awww, you’ll get there,” Maria says, clearly resisting the urge to reach out and fluff his hair. “You know, we haven’t seen you in a while.”

“Family stuff,” Tim explains. Maria nods.

“You heard about the Northern Jacana over in Tucson?” she whispers conspiratorially. Tim bobs his head in a nod, eyes wide.

They don’t quite make it to Tucson as they planned.

It’s not the car breaking down (it hasn’t so much as sputtered), or some horrific end-of-the-world kind of event that would make them need to suit up- or, in fact, anything that requires use of the uniforms they have stashed in the back.

No, what brings them to a temporary screeching halt the morning after their first main objective has been achieved is Tim’s middle brother pulling up on a motorcycle and launching himself onto the roof.

“You,” Jason snarls, peering through the driver’s side window, “Are in so much trouble.”

Tim swallows, and wisely decides to pull over to the side of the road- where Dick is tapping his foot against the ground, helmet tucked under one arm.

Ah. That would explain where the motorcycle went.

“What,” Dick snaps, “Were you thinking?”

The sentence ends in something less like a growl and more like a shriek. It spooks a little Cactus Wren right out of a Chain-Fruit Cholla- the call spooks Dick enough to somehow get him to settle.

Damian tugs at his sleeve.

“What?” Tim’s oldest brother (His temporary dad? Technically speaking, Dick is his legal guardian right now, what with everything going on with Bruce’s disappearance) asks.

“You’re going to spook the owl,” Damian says slowly, quietly, deliberately. Tim darts back to the car- Damian wouldn’t joke about something like that.

“Oh, no you don’t,” Jason hisses, digging a hand into the back of Tim’s collar.

“Camera,” Tim explains. Reluctantly, Jason releases him.

Damian, entirely unsurprisingly, is right about the owl. By all accounts, it appears to be a Ferruginous Pygmy Owl, sticking its tiny head out of a hole in a saguaro. Enthralled, Tim, Damian, and Steph all take their usual places in observing this threatened cactus-loving subspecies, who serves as a charming subject for the camera.

Behind them, Jason snorts.

“Birds watching birds,” he tells Dick, who wheezes.

The owl spends a few minutes peering out of the hole in the saguaro before ducking back inside, either spooked or satisfied with what it’s seen.

Tim giggles quietly.

He most certainly had not expected to see any kind of owl on this trip- save maybe Burrowing, who can be found with some regularity in certain locations- and seeing an owl so elusive and threatened that nobody would be able to find his exact location from the sightings map sends a thrill up his spine.

“So,” says Jason, once they arrive in Tucson and the motorcycle has been shipped off, “You all drove nearly a thousand miles… for birds.”

“Over a thousand miles,” Steph corrects, filing at her fingernails.

“Why,” asks Dick, extending both hands rapidly in a gesture that’s a little closer to what the fuck.

“I dunno,” she says, “It was fun. You guys freaked out. That was fun. I saw a shit-ton of snakes. That was even more fun. Plus, Tim got a stupid huge amount of photos and Damian has an art Instagram now.”

“Damian has a what?” Dick asks. Steph snort.

“Don’t worry, man, it’s private, and doesn’t use his real name to boot. It’s basically just a way for him to look at his sketches when he doesn’t have his book with him.”

All three of Damian’s brothers soothe at this.

“And it wasn’t just for birds,” Steph continues. “I mean, have you seen the herps we’ve gotten? I’m just kind of sad we never saw a Mojave Desert Tortoise. But it was definitely motivated by one very specific bird.”

“Eared Quetzal,” Tim agrees, “And Northern Jacana now, if you’ll let us.”

“Eared… Quetzal?” Dick asks. Tim pulls out his laptop and opens his DropBox, where the best of his photos live.

“... Huh,” Jason says, leaning over his shoulder, “I expected the tail to be longer.”

“You’re thinking of a Resplendent Quetzal,” Tim replies, “Eareds have short tails, like most trogons. Here in the US, they’re most likely to be confused with Elegant Trogon- those are here too, and they’re more common.”

Dick frowns.

“So why did you guys drive so far, then?” he asks.

Tim stares up at him blankly.

“There’s usually only a handful of Eared Quetzals spotted across their entire range in a year, and that’s almost always in Northern Mexico,” he says, “This year, they’ve been consistently spotted in several places in Arizona. It wasn’t an opportunity I was willing to pass up.”

“There were so many people there,” Steph agrees, “An old couple from Gotham even recognized Tim.”

“... Huh,” Jason says, expression dubious, “So this was a pretty special bird?”

“Yeah.”

Tim’s trying to stay neutral, but he can’t help his smile.

He got it. Timothy Drake, fifteen-year-old amateur photographer from New Jersey, twitched an Eared Quetzal.

“Oh, hey, Tim, can I have some of those photos for my iNat report?” Steph asks. “I managed to take some on my phone through my binoculars, but it’s not the same.”

Tim nods. Steph grins, heading back to the couch and throwing her feet up.

From his place on the edge of the bed, Dick makes a considering noise.

“Just before I say anything else, I want to preface that I’m still unhappy with how you went about this,” his oldest brother tells him. “You three went haring off without an adult in the middle of a desert-”

“It was two deserts,” Steph, Tim, and Damian correct in unison.

“Mojave and Sonoran,” Steph explains with a shrug when Dick looks to her for clarification, “And I still wish we’d gotten Mojave Desert Tortoise.”

“Well…” Dick starts. From the other end of the room, Jason sputters.

“You can’t be serious.”

“We have to get back to the Tower somehow,” Dick says.

It takes a second for the realization to click.

“Wait-” Tim hisses.

“You’re seriously-” Steph gasps.

“Will we look for the jacana?” Damian asks, skipping right past we’re getting to bird-slash-herp the entire way back to San Francisco, too and all the way to priorities.

“I mean,” Dick says, stretching out the mean as much as possible, “I don’t see why not?”

Jason pushes away from the doorframe. Tim’s older brothers have it out in the corner for a few minutes. He catches things like undermining and could you have at least told me first and look, I’m just trying to make sure this doesn’t end up blown out of proportion and-

“Jay, all three of them are used to a much longer leash than we’ve been able to give,” Dick whispers, a little louder than he'd probably intended it. “I’m surprised this wasn’t worse, actually. They didn’t try to dig into any cases, any moderately large gatherings were outside, and they stayed in the country. At leas they all went together.”

“Timothy desired to go by himself,” Damian says- to this, Tim hisses out a quick traitor- “I insisted that Brown accompany us, as she is in possession of a driver’s license.”

“Good thinking, Damian,” says Dick. “In the future, though, I’m going to need you guys to bring an adult if you’re going to go off on an adventure.”

Damian makes a considering noise.

“Will Brown count next year?” he asks.

Dick’s expression is pained.

“Myself, Jason, or Alfred,” he insists. “Cass when she gets back, or Kate, maybe.”

Damian nods, seemingly finding this result acceptable.

“Will we begin our search for the jacana, now?” he asks.

Awkwardly, Tim’s older brothers concede.

“That,” Jason says, “Is one fucked-up looking little bird.”

He’s not lying, Tim thinks. The toes of the Northern Jacana are strikingly, unsettlingly long, reminding him of a skeletal hand.

“You should see photos of them where they’ve got their babies tucked under their wings,” he whispers to his brother. “It looks like they’ve got spider-feet.”

Jason shudders in revulsion.

“They’re polyandrous,” Tim continues, deciding to switch the topic away from the spindly feet. “Males are the ones that take care of the chicks. They tuck them up under their wings and carry them around.”

“Huh. Neat.”

A quick series of scolds catches his attention, and once again, Tim brings up his binoculars. Black-Tailed Gnatcatcher, he thinks, taking into account the diminutive size, the black cap, and- yep, there’s the eponymous black tail.

Cool.

“You look like you’re about to fall over,” Jason says with a snort. Tim shrugs.

“Being excited this long tires you out,” he replies, letting out a wide yawn.

Another birder along the trail laughs softly.

Steph is giggling as they pull in to the parking lot. She’s giggling even more as they get out of the car. She’s practically cackling by the time they’re down the trail.

It’s not that far from sunset. According to Steph, she’s not expecting much, but she is hopeful. For what, she won’t say- but as Tim catches a glimpse of beaded orange and black, and Steph lets out a gasp he can only describe as reverent, he’s pretty sure he’s got an idea.

“Photos?” he asks, directing his camera at the Gila Monster. Steph nods sharply.

“I wasn’t expecting much,” she tells him. “It’s really late in the year. Apparently, they start hibernating soon.”

“Is that a fucking-” Jason starts. Without even blinking, Steph claps a hand over his mouth.

“They’re not dangerous if you don’t pick them up,” she tells him, frowning.

“You really like venomous stuff, huh?” Tim prods. Steph rolls her eyes, then nods.

“Duh,” she says, “It’s cool.”

The Gila Monster has not reacted to their presence much to speak of, but once they’ve gotten photos Steph deems acceptable, they decide to not bother it any further.

On the way back to the car, just off the side of the road, Steph cheerily points out a very large Western Diamondback Rattlesnake.

All told, the drive back to San Francisco takes less time than Tim had expected. The three children have been unceremoniously shoved into the backseat, with few choices in direction to speak of (though they do, at least, get to stop in Joshua Tree again. Unfortunately, Steph still has no luck on the tortoises). Jason and Dick trade off driving at least six hours a day, every day, which gets them back to San Francisco only a few days after they’d left Tucson.

“You know,” Dick says, keeping his voice low, “I wouldn’t mind driving you kids. If you wanted to go someplace back in New Jersey.”

“Salamanders,” Steph insists, poking her head between them, “I demand salamanders.”

Dick shrugs.

“Sure,” he says, “We’ll get you salamanders.”

His face turns serious again.

“I just…” he starts, “Do you know how scared I was, when Jason told me the three of you were gone?”

Tim winces.

“I was terrified,” Dick continues. “And I know you’re all chafing at my overprotectiveness, but I- please. Take an adult? For me?”

Hesitantly, Tim steps forwards, and is immediately pulled into a back-breaking hug.

“Don’t vanish like that on me again,” his brother whispers.

“I won’t.”

“Good. And Tim?”

“Yeah?” he asks. Dick pulls away for a moment, eyes gone sharp.

“If you do decide to cross state lines with your little brother, who is still in single digits, please do try to remember to answer your fucking phone.”

He’s never going to have enough time to post all these keeper photos on Instagram, is he.

It’s definitely a wonderful problem to have, Tim thinks as he steps away from his computer. Checking in on (and editing) his photos has been the only thing keeping him stable during his online coursework this past month- the lack of stimulation otherwise is driving him insane.

Tim collapses onto his bed with a sigh. On the pillow sits Luna, grooming herself with grace.

Behind him, his window slides open.

Tim’s up before he can think, staff in hand. This intruder, however, is no assassin. No, the intruder is a nine-year-old boy in a very soft-looking sweater that still manages to come across as inescapably formal.

“Timothy,” his younger brother says, “How far is Rhode Island?”

“No can do, buddy,” Tim says, “I have SAT prep this morning, and we were already risking COVID exposure enough as it was-”

“A Common Cuckoo was sighted in Providence,” Damian continues.

Tim takes a moment to glance at his camera bag.

“Alright,” he sighs. “Steph’s up?”

“Brown is already in the car,” Damian confirms.

“Okay,” Tim says, scrubbing a hand across his face. “I’ll make sure she doesn’t leave without us. You go wake up Dick.”

Normally, he’d never bother with the stairs, but he’d rather not risk all his camera gear by jumping out the window.

His phone dings once, then twice, then a third time as it fills with the texts of other Gotham birders.

“Yeah, yeah,” he whispers to nobody in particular, “I’m on my way.”