Chapter Text
This is impossible. It’s impossible.
It’s impossible that Timmy Drake, a random nine-year-old watching a local news retrospective on Batman and Robin, has cracked a case that (as far as anyone knows) even the U.S. government is still struggling with. That’s so absurd it’s barely worth considering.
And yet…
And yet he’s positive he’s right. He’s staring at all the proof he needs. There's very little proof, but what’s there is irrefutable. It all boils down to this: Tim has seen one particular acrobatic trick on three separate occasions, and while it was performed twice by Dick Grayson, the third time it was by the original Robin—who did it just like Dick.
The first time was about six years ago when Tim’s au pair Elena got appendicitis and Dick volunteered to babysit. Tim (age three) tripped and cried like a giant dumb baby instead of a big kid who was almost four years old, and Dick (age fourteen) did a standing quadruple backflip to cheer him up. It worked, and also it was the most awesome thing to happen not only to Tim but literally ever in the universe.
The second time was a little over a year ago, when Tim (age eight) was about to finish his spring break and hadn’t gotten to see Dick (age nineteen, barely) while he was home. In fact, Tim had not seen Dick since the previous May when he moved out to Blüdhaven and stopped coming to events in Gotham and Bristol. Bravo was airing a documentary about the Wayne family, and in it there was footage of Dick doing a standing quadruple backflip as part of his act with the Flying Graysons. Tim watched the documentary twenty-six times before he had to go back to school because (1) the flip was super awesome and (2) it was almost like he actually had seen his favorite babysitter (and human) for the first time in almost a year.
The third time is right now, June 2, 2016. Batman and Robin (the new one) are fighting the Joker in Middle Gotham, and the local news station can’t get close enough to see anything because of the Joker Gas, so instead they’re re-airing clips of previous fights. One is from about ten years ago. In it, Robin (the original one) does a standing quadruple backflip to avoid a trap… and it looks identical to when Tim has seen Dick do it. Not just similar: identical. Seriously and truly identical, right down to the way Robin/Dick smiles when he sticks the landing.
It’s the smile Dick always does when he pulls off a difficult move. Tim’s seen it a million times at galas when Dick rolls out his best party tricks to impress cute girls. More recently (he’s coming to stuff again!) Tim’s seen him try to impress a couple of cute guys that way, too. Tim thinks maybe Dick figured some stuff out when he was in school near San Francisco, but his parents specifically told him not to ask about it. Dad also said to never call the boys Dick flirts with cute again, because that makes it sound like Tim is gay, too. Although Tim’s pretty sure Dick isn’t gay, because he has a girlfriend; Tim saw them kiss for a long time at the New Year’s Eve party at Wayne Manor, which is a little gross but proves they weren’t pretending to be together. On the other hand, she didn’t seem to care that he was sort of flirting with guys and girls with his tricks... So who knows. He definitely turned that “nailed it” smile on her more than pretty much anyone else, though.
Even discounting the smile, it’s vanishingly unlikely for Robin to be anyone other than Dick. Tim did extensive research on this a couple years ago, back when he’d had to prove to his classmates that Dick Grayson was, in fact, the coolest person on Earth (should’ve been self-evident, but whatever, some people are morons). Turns out that a quadruple backflip is so hard that most professional or even Olympian gymnasts can only do it with forward momentum in a controlled environment, e.g. a foam pit or a trampoline. Dick, on the other hand, can do it from a standing position in the middle of Drake Hall’s upper patio. He can even repeat it a second time when his dorky three-year-old charge says, “again, do it again!” like an idiot and then spends the rest of his life regretting it. Thus Dick Grayson is not only the coolest person ever, but also the original Robin, who is now protecting Blüdhaven as Nightwing. (The press doesn't seem to know that, but Robin I's and Nightwing's move sets are the same and so are the quips, and that means they must be the same person.)
Here’s the wild part, though: if Dick Grayson is Nightwing, then the rational conclusion would be that Jason Todd is the second Robin and Bruce Wayne is Batman. (Batgirl is still a mystery, but Tim can come back to that later.)
That has to be true. It’s the only logical extrapolation because how else would Dick possibly have gotten away with it? For one thing, Tim doubts even Robin could get past Mr. Pennyworth. That man always seems to know when anyone is about to break any rule. Now, Tim is never doing that on purpose, so Mr. Pennyworth is always nice enough not to tell his parents. But Dick and Jason decide to break rules on purpose all the time (totally badass; Tim could never be that brave) and Mr. Pennyworth somehow gets there just before they do it and gives them this look that makes them stop and apologize.
Also, okay, maybe Mr. Wayne isn’t the brightest guy, but he’s a good dad. He’s home every weekend, and he says nice stuff about Dick and Jason to them, not just other adults, and he thinks it’s funny when they tease him even in front of other people. He wouldn’t miss his kid sneaking out every night to do dangerous vigilante stuff with a strange man as his partner. Plus, the first Robin was a little kid when he started. He couldn’t have, like, driven from the Manor and across the bridge from the mainland into “real” Gotham (Jason’s wording). He probably couldn’t have biked or skated or anything either, since Wayne Manor is right at the top of a big hill with a windy road.
No, the only way Dick being the first Robin (which he is) makes sense is if Mr. Wayne is Batman.
Only…
Only Tim knows the Waynes. He doesn’t live super near them, because Drake Hall is in the Bristol Hills area (Bristol) while Wayne Manor is in Mountain View (Gotham). But it’s not like there are many billionaire families in the world, and Bristol County, New Jersey has exactly two of them: the Drakes and the Waynes. It's inevitable that Tim Drake and the Wayne boys have hung out together.
Well, “hung out” is a strong term. Tim is a lot younger than both of them (four years for Jason, ten for Dick) so it’s not like they’ve had playdates with him. But he does know them! Dick especially, because Dick has been around Tim’s whole life. For one thing, Dick’s always (until recently) at the endless string of events that are part and parcel with being in established families. For another, he’s been Tim’s babysitter a few times, the first being the day of the fateful backyard backflip. What’s really cool was that Dick himself was the one who volunteered to babysit. At least, it was really cool. Last year, Tim found out from Jason, who doesn’t seem to get that you can’t talk about family problems, that Dick’s offer was partly because he and Mr. Wayne were in a fight about something. But! Since then Dick has volunteered to babysit several times without any family drama at all. Plus right before he moved away to Blüdhaven, Dick introduced Tim to his super awesome girlfriend Kory by saying, “and this is Timmy Drake, who I told you about. He’s a great kid!” So Dick likes him after all, even if Tim has no idea why.
Tim obviously doesn’t know Jason as well, because it’s only been like 18 months since Jason came to live with Mr. Wayne. But the two of them talk a fair amount at events and stuff. Also one time last year Jason was on a field trip to the Natural History Museum of Gotham while Tim was visiting Mom at work, and Jason had waved and said hi and actually left a group of his classmates (seventh graders! basically teens!) to come chat with Tim, a dweeby little kid who was playing Magic: The Gathering against himself while his mom finished a phone call. That means Jason Todd, who’s so badass he doesn’t care whether adults like him, considers Tim Drake more interesting than his peers. It’s probably one of the top ten experiences of Tim’s life. He so wishes his Social Skills teacher, Ms. Pieta, had seen it. She would’ve given him an automatic A+ for the Making Friends unit and then he wouldn’t have had to take it twice.
So, yeah, Tim knows Dick and Jason. It’s just that he didn’t discover until right now watching the news that knowing Dick and Jason means he also knows Nightwing and Robin. Not to mention that knowing Mr. Wayne means he knows Batman! Freakin’ Batman!
And if Dick is the first Robin… holy cow, his girlfriend Kory is Starfire, isn’t she? She’s Starfire. Robin told Starfire about Tim! There are two Teen Titans who know him! Dick secretly being Nightwing is the best thing that has ever, ever happened to Tim. Like, indisputably so.
Actually… Tim can think of one dispute.
The thing is, as amazing as it is to personally know the world’s best detective and both of his sidekicks (and an alien princess who can shoot friggin’ lasers from her eyes), it does mean every plan Tim has ever made for how to make a good impression on his biggest heroes is useless. He’s already made first impressions. And none of them were good!
Nightwing and Batman both met him when he was three months old and his parents took him to the Wayne Family Halloween Carnival. There's a picture in Mom’s home office of baby Timmy in Mr. Wayne’s arms by the corn maze. He’s in a bumblebee “costume” that’s just a onesie with his stupid huge cheeks and drool running down his chin, and it’s the worst possible picture to have of his first time meeting Batman. At least there’s no photographic proof that Tim was drooling when he met the original Robin, too. Small mercies.
Tim’s first meeting with the current Robin is less mortifying, but still not great. There was a big garden party a few months after Jason came to Wayne Manor, and by coincidence they both chose to hide from the crowd in the same pleasance (the precise term, per Jason, for a little secluded chunk of a garden). Tim had no clue who his fellow introvert was. He’d just come back from a term at school, and Swiss tabloids care a lot less about the Waynes than American ones do. But after thirty minutes of ignoring each other (Jason was reading and Tim was re-playing Ace Attorney), Bruce Wayne appeared with his usual dazzling smile and introduced Tim to his younger son. (Son, by the way, not ward, which is weird. Dick doesn’t call Mr. Wayne his dad, and sometimes he even gets weird if people call him Mr. Wayne’s son, but Jason seems like he’s been cool with it from day one. Tim doesn’t really get why.)
So, sure, his first time meeting Jason was nowhere near as bad as the whole baby bumblebee thing… but Tim still wishes he hadn't spent half an hour pointedly not interacting with the second Robin. He wouldn't have, if he knew. That's the crux of the problem, really. He didn’t know then, but now he does, and he can’t take the past back and get a do-over.
Tomorrow night, he has to go to a charity dinner at Wayne Manor. He has to go to Batman’s house and act normal! How can he do that? How is Tim supposed to face his hosts knowing they’re Gotham’s heroes? He’s not going to be able to socialize while he’s obsessing over the fact that Nightwing has babysat him multiple times. Or that Robin has seen him building a ziggurat out of cheese cubes at a way-too-long charity auction, and that Tim had automatically corrected him when he said “nice pyramid.”
At least the Robins probably don’t hold that stuff against him. Dick has said multiple times that taking care of Tim is “a blast,” and Tim knows he’s not lying because he’s Dick Grayson, and Dick always means it when he says something nice. Jason, too, seemed genuinely excited to learn about ziggurats, and he’s so honest that Mr. Wayne has to intervene sometimes to stop him getting himself into trouble at galas and stuff. Tim seriously doubts Jason Todd would bother to fake an interest in Mesopotamian architecture just to spare a random kid’s feelings, and if he’d been offended by the correction he definitely would have let Tim know.
No, the big thing Tim’s worried about is what happened at this year’s Wayne Family Egg Hunt, i.e. the public Easter egg hunt at the Manor.
Normally, Tim loves the Egg Hunt, even though the name makes him feel awkward. When he was six, Tim asked his parents why it isn’t called an Easter egg hunt, since it always happens around Easter and, anyway, that’s the holiday where you hunt for eggs. In response, Mom talked for about thirty minutes about the “complex pre-Abrahamic tradition” of a holiday that was then “co-opted by the Church in the course of establishing socio-religious hegemony,” and finished by saying, “Do you understand now?” He didn’t, but he said yes, because it’s the answer that would make his mom happy.
Then Dad had said, “Look, don’t worry about it, Timmy. It is an Easter egg hunt, but Mr. Wayne’s a Jew so the name has to be PC.” And Mom had sighed before saying, “That’s accurate, too, but you can’t repeat it outside the house.” The subject was then dropped.
Anyway, this year Tim was having a good time as usual, until Mr. Wayne walked in while he was rifling through the safe in his host’s home office to look for eggs. Which means that the Dark Knight caught Tim rifling through his safe.
And breaking into a safe is a bad thing to do, like, unequivocally, even if Mr. Wayne had been kind about it. Super kind, like not getting mad at all. He actually patted Tim on the back and called him “a seriously smart cookie” before even asking for an explanation.
(Tim thinks about that moment pretty frequently. It kind of reminds him of when he visits Yaya Cármen in Toledo because when he does something smart she always hugs him and says he’s más listo que el hambre. It would be kind of nice to have that without flying to Spain. Sometimes he wonders what it would be like to be Jason or Dick and not even have to leave the house for it. He usually stops thinking about that really quick, though. It feels mean to Mom and Dad.)
Turns out, Mr. Wayne had been so kind about the safe thing that Tim didn’t realize how bad his actions were until he mentioned it in Social Skills class as an example of a positive interaction with an adult. His teacher’s reaction, followed by his parents’ reaction when she had to tell them, made it clear Mr. Wayne had been too lenient. So no matter how nice he was about catching Tim, Mr. Wayne can’t have liked having his safe broken into. It’s an invasion of privacy. An invasion of Batman’s privacy, to boot!
Oh no.
A new and horrible thought occurs to him: if Mr. Wayne is Batman, then Tim cracked the code on Batman’s safe for a reason so stupid (in retrospect) it could easily be a poorly thought out cover story. It wasn't, though. It was just the kind of dumb, embarrassing thing Tim always does when left to his own devices. No one had explicitly said that eggs wouldn’t be in locked containers, and if you’re trying to hide something, a safe is a really good place to put it! So Tim just looked in there to see if there were any eggs.
But how would Batman know that? He might think Tim was committing a deliberate crime. He might even think Tim is an accomplice of one of his rogues. What if he thinks it’s one of the really bad ones? Uh-oh, what if Batman thinks Tim was lying about the safe because he was undercover as an Easter egg hunter to help the Joker?
Oh no! Batman probably thinks Tim works for the Joker!
Tim stops himself right there. He does not want to have a panic attack, not while the only person at home is Mom—that’s not fair on her. Instead, he tells himself, Stop. Calm down. Batman is the world’s greatest detective and also he’s Mr. Wayne. He knows me, and he knows that I’m a real person, not a plant by any of his enemies. He knows I was telling the truth.
He should probably feel a lot more relieved by that than he is. But he genuinely doesn't know what’s worse: Batman suspecting Tim’s a criminal… or Batman having certain knowledge that Tim’s so bad at how to act around other human beings that he’s been going to Social Skills class three times a week for two years and still manages to put his foot in it on the regular. Tim’s kind of a disaster of a human being.
Which begs the question: how likely is it that a disaster is right about something as big as Batman’s identity?
His theory is a pretty far-fetched one, too. How likely is it, really, that the Waynes are Batman and the Robins? Dick is the first Robin/Nightwing, for sure—the flip proves it. And Tim can sort of see Jason as the new(ish) Robin, too. But…
But is it even possible, let alone true, that Bruce Wayne is Batman? That Bruce Wayne is the protector of Gotham? That he’s a founding member of the Justice League?
It’s hard to believe.
It’s especially hard for Tim to believe it, because Tim has known Bruce Wayne since before he can remember (vid. the bumblebee picture). And that whole time, as long as Tim’s been alive, the man has consistently displayed two traits: the first is kindness, and the second is an utter lack of functional brain cells.
Bruce Wayne is the guy who needs Tim’s dad to help track his score every time they play golf. He’s the guy who asks Tim’s mom to explain forensic archaeology to him all over again each and every time he donates to her expeditions, then listens dutifully and cheerfully without retaining a word. He’s the guy who had Tim explain how someone could break into a safe secured with only a three-digit dial combination lock. Actually, Bruce Wayne is the guy who had Tim give that explanation three times: twice to only him, and when he still didn’t get it, he called Mr. Pennyworth and Jason in the room to help him understand. Even with the extra help, Tim’s still not sure he got there.
Moreover, “Brucie” Wayne is way too klutzy to be running around all night fighting bad guys and swinging across Gotham City with a grappling gun. This is the guy who crashed three jet skis in a single vacation (and whose sons both posted incredibly successful vines of two of those crashes). He’s the guy who broke his own ribs slipping on the waxed ballroom floor of his own home. He’s the guy who tripped over a tree root last summer in front of Tim’s whole cabin at the Wilderness Survival Summer Camp he was attending for “personal enrichment” and definitely not as punishment for getting kicked out of Space Camp when he was stupid and told the aeronautics expert when his math was wrong.
Incidentally, that last thing leads to another piece of evidence for Bruce’s stupidity. The Space Camp debacle had come up during some function while various adults were chatting about their kids, and Mr. Wayne said he felt Tim’s actions were warranted, even if he’d corrected a grown-up in front of everyone. He said, “If an eight-year-old is fixing his math, he can’t really be an expert.”
He even said it would have made sense for Tim’s parents to fight against the expulsion, although his exact words had been, “Space Camp shouldn’t be sending kids away for being too smart! You should have sued them for stopping a really bright boy from becoming an astronaut. I mean, what if a space shuttle blows up someday because Timmy isn’t there to put out a fire?”
A flattering statement, yes, but also a moronic take on the situation.
Even stupider than that, though, Mr. Wayne had been openly disagreeing with Tim’s dad about the consequences he’d imposed on his own son. He had told Jack Drake, to his face and in public in front of their peers (!), that he made an error in judgment. If he’d been anyone other than the Prince of Gotham, Tim knows that conversation would have gotten very ugly, very quickly. As it was, though, Dad just smiled and said, “you might be right.” Then he screamed at Mom and Tim the entire way home for respectively talking about and causing the situation.
All the same, the idea of someone as suicidally stupid as Mr. Wayne was that night being Batman boggles the mind. Even now, with the proof in front of him, Tim can hardly believe it.
Although, technically, he doesn’t have proof of Batman’s identity, just of the first Robin’s. Mr. Wayne being Batman is a conclusion reached only through a logical extrapolation based on Dick Grayson being his adoptive son. Take away that extrapolation, however logical it is, and you’re left with nothing that shows “Brucie” is Batman. And after everything Tim’s remembered in the last five minutes alone, it feels like less than nothing.
Like, come on. This is a man who can't do basic arithmetic or avoid tree roots. And Tim is suggesting he’s the world’s greatest detective?! That's ridiculous. It’s so ridiculous he's tempted to dismiss it out of hand. Anyone would.
…Oh.
Oh.
That's the point! That's the whole point, isn't it? The “Brucie” personality—his stupidity, his clumsiness, all of it—that’s just a smoke screen. A really convincing smoke screen, and one Tim nearly fell for, too. And he’s not even embarrassed about that, because who would possibly think a person’s whole life is a cover-up for a superhero’s identity? Who even thinks of doing that?
Well, apparently Batman does.
Face flushing with excitement, Tim turns off the TV. This is no longer something he can think out without getting up and moving around. Ideally he would be able to use the stairs for this much thinking, but his mom is at home (for three more days!) and resting in her room, so the antique staircase might disturb her. She’s the only adult here, though. It’s their maid Mrs. Mac’s afternoon off, he’s too big for a nanny now, and Dad isn’t home yet from whatever he called about going to that made Mom so upset. If he’s only sneaking past Mom, then…
Then this might be Tim’s chance to finally get to skate in the courtyard again.
He’s not supposed to, of course. Drake Hall’s courtyard dates from 1853, making it far too historically significant to risk spoiling the stonework with a skateboard. That’s Jack Drake’s opinion and he sticks to it. Tim Drake, on the other hand, is of the opinion that if the stonework has withstood over a hundred and fifty years of ironwork chairs and tables and umbrella stands being scooted all over the place to set up for parties, then the chances it’ll get messed up by one measly skateboard are pretty slim. However, once Dad really forms an opinion, he doesn’t change it no matter how illogical it is.
Mom also doesn’t want Tim skating in the courtyard, but she has a different angle on the situation. Dr. Janet Drake, PhD., M.D., maintains that in both her maternal and professional opinion, it’s nothing short of a miracle that Tim didn’t die the time he wiped out on the courtyard and hit his head on one of the artistically arranged boulders by the outdoor fireplace. Tim’s willing to admit that, at least, is a valid reason.
But he really needs to move, a lot, if he’s going to figure out whether Bruce Wayne’s whole personality is really just an elaborate cover for his being Batman. Maybe if Tim just sticks to the basics, it’ll be okay. Besides, he’s got a couple hours of daylight left, and the wipeout happened when he stayed out after sundown. Not to mention it was a year ago; he’s gotten way better at skating.
So he pulls on his sneakers, gets his board, helmet, and joint pads from the hall closet, puts all the protective gear on, and slips out through the side door whose hinges he’s been keeping well-oiled ever since he was first banned from using the courtyard. Before going further, though, he double-checks that his mom is still in her bedroom. Sure enough, the soft glow of her reading lamp is the only light coming from a window on that floor. Tim sighs in relief and starts shredding down the modern cement path that winds through the western half of the grounds all the way to the courtyard.
Many laps around the courtyard and one cautious 50-50 later, Tim is convinced of his theory. It’s not only possible the Waynes are Batman, Nightwing, and Robin, it’s the only solution that makes sense. Once you accept that Bruce’s whole deal is a façade, then all arguments against his being Batman instead become evidence for it.
Of course the world’s greatest detective acts stupid. Of course Mr. Wayne asks Tim’s dad for help adding up his score in front of all their golf buddies; every single person Bruce Wayne and Jack Drake golf with is well-respected and influential. Their testimony of his subpar (ha! Dick would like that joke) math skills would be taken as gospel. Of course he has Dr. Drake explain her work to him over and over; experts naturally throw in different bits of knowledge every time they cover a subject, so it’s a brilliant way to learn more about forensics from someone who’s at the top of the tree. Plus, Tim’s almost sure that Mr. Wayne’s in-person donations to both the museum and Janet’s research have coincided several times with big murder cases in the news. He’ll have to double-check the dates, but if true, it’s excellent support for his theory.
And of course, of course Batman would ask a nine-year-old to explain exactly how he broke into a safe, no matter how simple its lock; he just wanted to know if Tim had done it on his own, or if he was working with some nefarious adult. After all, even knowing Tim was a real person didn’t mean he knew Tim was trustworthy. Then, still pretending it was because of his own stupidity, he’d called in Robin and Mr. Pennyworth (who Tim assumes must help in some way with all the vigilante stuff, or at least know because you cannot keep things from him) to get their reads on the situation, too.
Tim is now sure that Bruce’s klutzy moments are likewise calculated. They’re all perfect (and silly) explanations for the kind of bodily damage that being Batman must cause. Crashing the jet ski, with widely-circulated video evidence courtesy of Nightwing and Robin in their civilian guises, could cover up even serious rogue-related injuries. The same is true of the story that he had slipped on the ballroom floor; again, Tim has to check the dates, but he’s almost sure the “slip” happened the day after someone on Periscope streamed Batman getting whacked in the ribs by the Penguin’s umbrella. So of course Mr. Wayne’s ribs broke when he “slipped.”
Occasionally, though, Tim thinks the klutzy action furthers more goals than just covering up injuries. Tripping over that root at Tim’s camp, for instance, appears to have had multiple overlapping motivations behind it. First, the Wilderness Survival Society charges a lot for admission to their summer camp, and that means the “trip” happened in front of a group composed mainly of the children of Mr. Wayne’s wealthy peers, Tim included. That provides the same kind of casual but convincing testimony to the “Brucie” persona as struggling with math directly in front of his peers. In fact, it coming from his peers’ kids might carry even more conviction, because Tim’s noticed that most people his age are really bad at lying. (Man, they must get in so much trouble with their parents.)
Apart from further establishing his clumsiness, though, visiting the camp may have been a way to conduct Batman business using the privileges that come with being Bruce Wayne. His story was that he “just happened” to be taking Jason on a camping trip nearby and knew the camp’s director.
To Tim’s mind, there are two salient points about that story. The first is that Jason does not seem like someone who enjoys camping. At the time, Tim had just assumed the older boy was being punished, too, but that was before Mr. Wayne challenged Dad on the whole Space Camp thing. The second is that the camp’s director was arrested about a month later. Turns out he’d been embezzling funds from the WSS and its associated charity, Tents for Tots, for nearly three years. Authorities still don’t know how Batman managed to get his hands on the actual cooked books to aid the GCPD in their investigation. It was airtight evidence, too, because only the crooked director’s fingerprints were on the books.
Well, as it happens, Tim remembers asking Mr. Wayne that day why he had latex gloves in the back pocket of the jeans. The answer came with no apparent hesitation: “Oh, these? Well, I hope you won’t laugh like Jay did when you hear the answer. The truth is I love s’mores, but I hate getting all that goop on my hands. This is the trick my butler came up with back when I was about your age.”
Then he’d winked at Tim and said, “Try it sometime. It’ll change your life.” Which is the nicest way possible of letting someone know you’ve noticed that they always stare longingly at chocolate fountains while passing up the chance to use them. Incidentally, the bit about Jason laughing should have tipped Tim off. Jason was never mean about Tim not being able to touch stuff, so he would never have laughed at Mr. Wayne for it. If anything, he would have told other people off for laughing, the way he did when the way the tag of Tim’s suit rubbed on his neck all night made him cry.
But at the time, everyone had accepted the s’mores story, either because it made them feel a little less like an alien around chocolate fountains, or else because it fits in perfectly as just another little detail in the tapestry of “Brucie” Wayne’s eccentricity.
Brilliant. Batman-level brilliant.
It’s official: Mr. Wayne is Batman, Dick is Nightwing, and Jason is Robin. Specifically Jason’s the second Robin. The one who news crews and people filming on their phones occasionally catch cussing at criminals, then bites his lip and glances at Batman afterwards. Jason does the exact same thing when he cusses at galas and fundraisers and stuff.
That’s also the only time Tim has seen Batman react to something just like Bruce Wayne does. When Jason swears, Bruce just inclines his head a little to the left with his lips in a thin line. A while ago, one edition of Tim’s favorite weekly superhero clip YouTube compilation had featured Robin. In the video, he taunts a defeated Scarecrow by saying, “Scarecrow, huh? Well, you sure don’t have much in the way of brains! Maybe you should ask the wizard to give you a heart and some fu—some freaking courage, too.” Then he bites his lip and glances over at Batman, and sure enough: there in the far right of frame is Batman, tilting his head with thin lips.
Huh. Now that Tim thinks about it, Dick mentioned a few months back that Jason was late to a charity dinner because his rehearsal for the school play ran late. He played the Tinman in The Wizard of Oz.
Tim speeds up for an ollie as he marvels over yet another detail falling into place. He nails the trick, checks his watch, and channels his inner second Robin by saying, “crap!” It’s only ten minutes til dinner. Ten minutes to skate back to the house, either get his gear off before Mom comes downstairs or else have to lie to her (not hard, but he hates doing it) about where he’d been skating, put everything away, and wash up before he goes to the table. That’s cutting it pretty close.
He flies up the path, and thankfully manages option one regarding his mom. By the time she gets down to the first floor, he’s in the bathroom washing his hands and his flushed face. After a minute trying and failing to fix his sweaty hair, Tim decides it’s not really lying to say he was messing around outside. He gets to the table a couple minutes late, but when he tells Mom his basically-the-truth story, every sign of concern vanishes from his mother’s bearing.
“You were? That’s great!” she says, beaming. “Tomorrow after my meetings, I should have time to take you to the park before getting ready for the dinner. That way you can skate somewhere more exciting than the garden path.”
He smiles back just as hard. “Yeah, I’d love that!”
“I wish we could have the whole day, but…” Mom trails off, sighing.
“I know,” Tim replies quickly. “Grant applications. It’s okay.”
Mom reaches over to squeeze his hand gently before she starts loading his plate up with the roast chicken that Mrs. Mac prepared before she left for the afternoon. Tim squints carefully at the food on his plate, and then suppresses a sigh of relief. The skin of the chicken isn’t too crispy, so having the texture in his mouth won’t make him cry or gag or yank on his hair. That’s good, since Mom would have to deal with him alone. Although, since it is just the two of them and since he’s so happy over the whole “knowing who Batman is” thing, Tim might have been able to make himself eat it without too much fuss.
It’s still nice he doesn’t have to.
As the two of them eat the not-alien-feeling chicken and the green beans (and also Tim pretends to eat some of the too-peppery mashed potatoes, because it’ll make his mom happy if he at least tries some of everything), they talk more about tomorrow. They’re definitely going to the park, Mom promises, even if her big meeting runs long. Since it’s a Saturday, Dad’ll be golfing with a few friends (including Batman, not that the golf group knows it) at noon, but it’s only a nine-hole course so then maybe he’ll come to the park, too.
“That would be nice, wouldn’t it?” Mom asks. “All three of us together, just spending some time.”
“Yeah, that sounds good,” Tim agrees, because it’s what he’s supposed to say. But his mom’s nose is twitching a little bit as she talks, and that means she’s lying. More specifically, it means she’s lying so that Tim will believe the world is better than it is. That his dad is better.
It’s sort of silly of her to try. Still, Tim thinks it’s sweet that, for his sake, his parents both pretend not to hate each other when the other one isn’t there. His mom pretends especially hard, because it’s important for a boy and his father to bond. That’s one of the few things she and Nana Drake agree on, which might mean it’s a universal law being described by two separate observers rather than an opinion they share.
Suddenly, Mom says, “You could bring your skateboard with us, too. I bet your father would be impressed by that flip I’ve seen you do.”
“Which flip?” Tim asks, his breath coming a little shorter because this actually sounds possible. Dad wants him to do sports, and skateboarding is a sport, right? So Dad should be impressed by Tim doing a sport well.
“I don’t know the name, but it’s the one where you kind of hop and the board goes sideways for a second.”
“You mean an ollie?” Tim tries not to sound disappointed. Evidently he fails.
“It was just a thought,” Mom says. “You don’t have to do it for him.”
“No, I can! It’s just that an ollie is a really basic trick,” Tim explains. “I know way better ones.”
Mom’s brow furrows. “Are they ones you can do without hurting yourself?”
Ugh. He’s never living down the courtyard thing.
“Yes. I promise I’ll be okay. I’m getting really good at some of them, too! I’ve been practicing my 360 kickflip all summer. It looks totally sweet—way better than an ollie.”
“Hmm,” says Mom, which isn’t a flat no, but isn’t promising either. “Show me a video of someone doing it and we’ll talk.”
Tim asks, as if casually, “What about a video of me doing it successfully?”
“And where would you find a video like that?”
“I have one already,” Tim tells her, grinning. “I took it on the camera Grandpa and Nana got me for Christmas, the one with the delayed video feature.”
With a sigh that’s actually a laugh, his mom reaches over and presses her fingertips to his cheek in their special way. “Alright, alright. You can do the three hundred… no, sorry, what is it?”
“A 360 kickflip.”
“Thank you, chickpea. I am trying to learn all the lingo, I swear.”
“I know,” says Tim. He does, and he hopes she knows much he appreciates it. But if not, this seems like an okay time to say it aloud. He draws a breath and adds, “It’s a lot of words and it’s not your hobby, so you don’t have to know any of it. If you do learn any, it’s, um… Well, I like it when you do. But you don’t have to.”
Mom smiles and presses his cheek again. Tim leans into her fingers, thankful he’s made himself clear enough. Now he can stop trying to make emotions fit into words.
She says, “Well, you know all the words for what Dad and I do at work. It’s only fair that we try to learn about your things, too. And I bet your father will love seeing your totally sweet 360 flipkick.”
A hand flies up to Tim’s mouth but he’s not quite fast enough to catch the giggle.
“Uh oh,” Mom says, still smiling, “How far off was I?”
“Not too bad! It’s a kickflip, not a flipkick. But you got the number right.”
“At least I got that much.” She leans over and kisses his forehead. “Are you done with your plate?”
Tim nods. “I can clear it myself.”
“What a gentleman you are, Timmy,” says Mom, “Volunteering to do the one thing we ask of you when Mrs. McIlvaine is out.”
He gets up with his plate in hand and takes hers, too. “I’ll be a true gentleman and do both.”
“My hero!” Mom cries, and both of them laugh as they head into the kitchen.