Chapter Text
Janet Drake’s return to Gotham is not without some fanfare. From the mundane reporters who meet her at the airport to Vicki Vale, who shows up outside of her house, she’s quite peeved by the time she makes it inside.
Drake Manor looks exactly the same as it did when she and Jack left four years ago. Except…
Timothy’s shoes are gone. His jackets have disappeared from the coat closet. No food in the kitchen or pantry. Fully cleaned out. Slowly, she toes off her heels. Climbing the stairs to the family wing, she notes the lack of photos. Not of her, nor of Jack, but of their son. Of her son, she has to remind herself. Because Jack is off down in the Caribbean getting drunk because he finally accepted that Timothy wasn’t his.
He’d…loved Tim regardless of that fact. But right now? After all this publicity over the custody case? He just couldn’t come back and face the gossipy socialites who adored Bruce Wayne and his menagerie of children, which did include her own child.
Her supposed elite friends had turned on her, publicly hating on the cheating whore neighbor who kept the Prince of Gotham’s first biological son from him.
It was both inaccurate and true at the same time. Because she had kept Tim away from Bruce. Until the man somehow figured out he was related to her son and snatched him right out from under her. It was unconscionable how betrayed she’d felt when she’d learned that Bruce Wayne had filed for full custody of her son and a foolish judge had granted “emergency custody” because of “negligence,” and “a lack of parental supervision,” and “abysmal housing conditions.”
That last one wasn’t fair, in her opinion. Their house was a literal Manor. Yes, did they sometimes forget to keep the heat and electricity on? Sure. The water? Yes. But Timothy was self-sufficient. And he had never really asked for any of it. If he had, she would’ve done something.
Right? But the thought didn’t even ring true in her own ears.
She toes off her own heels at the front door, leaving the lights off as she wanders.
Her house is colder than she remembers. And not just the lack of sunlight streaming in with the heat of midsummer on her heels. The marble is cool to the touch, but the walls are white. Bare. She’s been in a lot of museums over the years. One of her favorites has always been the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum in Boston. It used to be Gardner’s old home, which has been repurposed to display artwork she collected over the years. The building is beautiful, intricately decorated, and purposefully decadent.
Her own home is nothing like that. The collection of art and artifacts she and Jack had been dedicated to over the decades is prominently displayed in glass cases, on stone pillars, and spaced out on bare white walls.
The house feels less like a home when she realizes how little of Tim is there. A collection of Jack’s family photos lines the wall, generations of Drake men and women judging her with their mercurial gaze. Janet’s own family is scattered about. There are plenty of her and Jack from years of adventuring. But the more she walks through the darkened hallways, the more she realizes how absent Tim is.
If she didn’t know any better, she would’ve never known a child had once called this house a home.
By the time she arrives at her son’s old room…she has to hold onto the wall before she can open the door. She knows she’s a coward. She knows she’s been a less-than-stellar mother. But this is her son. Her only child. One that she spent a lot of time and money to acquire. One she loves. In her own way.
Turning the handle, she opens the door, and it truly hits her.
The walls where her son used to plaster posters of Batman and Robin, of his very loud rock bands, and skateboarders she had never heard of, are barren. The bookshelf that once held his science fiction novels, including a very expensive and very rare copy of Frankenstein she had acquired for him back when he was nine, is empty. There are no clothes in the closet, barring his old uniforms for schools he hasn’t attended in years. His bed is still covered in his old comforter, but it’s clear from the dust along every surface that no one has lived in this room in some time.
As she sinks down onto the bed, the fact that her son isn’t just here, isn’t just in her house–safe and protected–slams into her throat like a brick.
She doesn’t cry often–if ever–but this? Knowing that everything is falling apart around her?
Gutting.
And it’s not like she can be mad at her son. Because it’s true, she lied. She was going to lie to him until the day she died. She would have never told him the truth.
She has her reasons. She has a past she never shared with him, one she’s never sure she will get the chance to share if the courts decide that she’s an unfit parent. She wants to rage, wants to yell and throw things, and crash out the way she used to in her youth, but she can’t. She can’t muster the energy when she knows this is all her own undoing. Everything she’s done has been of her own volition. She is the maker of her own turmoil. Of her own destruction.
She hopes, if anything, Timothy didn’t inherit that trait.
But as she clutches a pillow close and realizes that it no longer smells like anyone she’s ever loved, a tear slides down her cheek, and she considers how the hell she’s going to get out of this one.
Tim retreats to his room, Dex-Starr on his heels. He couldn’t bear to look at his siblings, eyes filled with the kind of silent rage he knows is justified. He couldn’t remain to talk to his dad, who looked like he was swallowing glass. Even Alfred looked seconds away from going to get his shotgun from under the staircase and cocking it at the front door like his mother would actually have the audacity to show up to Bruce Wayne’s house.
And you know she would, the voice in his head snarks, she doesn’t care for anyone’s feelings except her own. Showing up to spite the man she was lying to in order to throw her own son off guard is in her character.
He knows he’s being harsh, but he has had no answers, no honesty, and no way to know why she’s made any of the decisions she’s made in regards to him.
Slipping in through his bedroom door, he lets Dex hop onto his bed to stare him down as the latch clicks behind him. His heart is pounding in his chest. He knows he has things to do. He needs to go back downstairs and talk to his dad and their very expensive lawyer about the case. He needs to call his mom and let her know his mother is back. He needs–
He tosses himself on the bean bag chair that his friends usually monopolize when they come over. It’s massive and plush, and it’s soft enough that the bruises from patrol don’t ache when he slams into it.
This will lowkey be sending him into a fucking spiral.
The part of Tim that grew up an only child, that chased Batman and Robin across rooftops, and left for Paris to train with a Tibetan monk and then got his life fucking flipped around, wants to climb out the window and sprint across the lawn and jump into the ocean like one of those Victorian women in Jason’s novels.
Or a Disney princess.
Which, he might as well be at this point. But that’s besides this schtick. Tim needs to figure out what he wants, what to do, and fast.
If he doesn’t go throw himself into the ocean, maybe he just needs to talk to someone. Yeah, just someone to help sort through the tempest of emotions that are gnawing at him from the inside out. He considers his siblings, but they’re out for blood. Dick and Cass would be his first choice, both because Cass gets his specific brand of parental love crisis and Dick, well, because that’s his big brother who he glomped onto over a decade ago, and who he does trust with all of the things he keeps from their dad.
He loves them all, but even Duke won’t be thinking clearly about his mother. Even though he’s the most recent addition to the family, Tim has been reminded numerous times that Duke is just as vindictive as Jason or Damian are. That he will leverage Steph and Babs and the rest of the Titans to do his bidding if it means protecting their family. By god, they’re all so devious, and Tim usually loves them for it.
But right now? He needs someone to be objective.
If he’s right, Ives won’t be. Ives doesn’t know everything, but he’s been on Tim’s side for too long to even consider giving any grace to Janet Drake. Kevin, Bernard, Darla, and co are all probably in the same boat. He considers the Titans, his Young Justice crew specifically, but again, they’re all biased. Kon and Cassie rib him all the time. Anita pushes him around, and Cissie pulls his hair like they’re five. Bart and Greta joke around. But they love him too much. They’ve followed him into literal disco hell and have executed a wide variety of improbable to impossible plans that he’s cooked up for them. They can’t be critical when they’ve seen his deepest fears and nightmares.
He could go to his mom–
Stupid idea, he shakes his head and turns to the side to catch Dex’s eyes, watching as his tail whips angrily as he takes in Tim’s mental anguish. If anyone’s truly liable to take off Janet’s head, it’s one Sandra Wu-San and one Alfred Pennyworth. They both have repressed emotional volatility and have recently expressed their absolute discontent and dislike of Janet. And unlike dad and Dick, they’re willing to pull out a gun or take a blade to her neck if they see her.
Striking out in this game might have the same consequences it did when YJ played baseball to save that planet that one time.
With the throbbing in his head getting worse, Tim elects to nap instead. He pulls himself off of the beanbag and curls right up onto his bed, letting Dex press his face into his own, worming his way into his arms so they can be as close as physically possible.
Tim can hardly remember falling asleep, but his dreams are concerning.
It might be a combination of the stress and the anger boiling under his skin, but it’s just a greatest hits of his worst moments.
Flash.
Tim’s first time on fear toxin. He was ten, alone, and curling into a darkened alley so he could scuttle up a fire escape and hide behind an AC unit on someone’s roof. His hands were sliced open from the rusty metal, and every inch of him shook.
Flash.
The time the Joker kidnapped him, intending to turn him into some kind of mini Joker to fuck with Bruce and screw with Jason’s mental health. The first few shocks. His screams until he blacked out. Coming to with Jason in front of him, cradling his face and pulling him right into his arms. Dick beating the ever living hell out of the Joker in the background.
Flash.
Bane almost breaking his dad’s back. The visceral fear running through his spine as he screamed. Cass’ fury and the way his hands hesitated to move his dad.
Flash.
The Clench. The pain of it spreading across his body. The blood spilling from his eyes and the burning of his nerves. Breathing shallowly over and over again because his lungs couldn’t take one second away from the oxygen machine.
Flash.
When Tim wakes up, he’s even more unnerved than before. The nightmares certainly didn’t do any good to balance his emotional seesaw.
Dex-Starr is still curled up against his stomach, purring like a little motor. It’s no longer daytime, and from the clock blinking back at him from the side of his bed, it’s exactly 3:26 in the morning. Hopefully, no one in his family decided to go off on his mother before he could ask her questions, but he’s got no fucking clue.
Dragging himself out of bed, he stumbles through his room, dragging his feet along the carpet and over the hardwood as he heads to his en suite. He resists the urge to turn on the light, but even in the dim light of the glow-in-the-dark stars Duke pressed onto his ceiling one night when they were hanging out, he sees the deep bags under his eyes. He’s dead sure that if the lights were on, he’d look paler than he’d ever been. More Bruce-white than his normal shade.
Splashing water on his face does nothing.
Looking down at the porcelain sink, Tim swallows shallowly. As his brain continues to move at the speed of sound, his body struggles to catch up.
Still a bit sleep-drunk and more than a little strung out, Tim moves with clumsy purpose to his closet. He yanks off the shirt he’d slept in, tossing on one of his Batgirl-themed T-shirts and a pair of what honestly might be Anita’s gym shorts. He shoves his feet into a pair of sneakers, snatching his phone off his night table, realizing it’s dead because he forgot to charge it.
Whatever, he grumbles in his head as he slaps a portable charger on it. Just something else to deal with later.
Later being after he’s broken into the clocktower to bother Babs. And if she’s not there, or she’s busy, then he’s going to Helena. He’s not sure why he hadn’t considered them at first, but after sleeping on it, he remembers that the two of them can be more objective than anyone else on his lists. They’re his family and his friends, but they’re also two of the most badass, level-headed crashouts he’s ever met. They’re insane and intense, and they both give better advice than anyone else.
Which is why he needs to speak with them stat. Dex-Starr clearly doesn’t like that he’s leaving, so as he cracks open his window, he finds the magical cat is right behind him.
As soon as his feet hit the grass, Dex pounces into his arms. Tim feels the tension in his shoulders fade, if just for a moment. “Okay, okay. You can come and keep me out of trouble. But you have to be nice to the girls. They’re the only ones I can get…vaguely objective advice from.”
Dex simply purrs in agreement as Tim creeps along the side of the Manor, getting the side door to the garage open so he can sneak out with one of the Ducatis. He yanks on a helmet, a jacket (in spite of the heat, he doesn’t want road rash or anything), and tucks Dex into the front of it, so his angry little fluffy face is sticking out.
Realistically, he knows he could just call Babs. Or Helena. Or tell his family he’s leaving. But the rational part of him died the second he learned his mother was back. So, off he goes.
“They’re going to hunt you down,” is the first thing out of Helena’s mouth when she spots him at the elevator of the clocktower. Her eyes trace Dex’s face where he’s twirling around Tim’s leg like a moving ankle monitor. “And kill me.”
“I needed advice.”
“Doesn’t big brother have a monopoly on that?”
“I wanted you and Babs.”
Her lips quirk, and she crosses the room swiftly, dragging him into a hug. He returns it with the same intensity. They may not be “legally” siblings in the way that neither she nor Babs have ever been adopted by Bruce, but Helena has seen him through some crazy shit. She has seen him, has heard him, and loved him in spite of whatever fuck ups he’s done.
“Okay, twin wonder. You’ll get your advice. But come in so we can inform Babs not to issue a red alert when someone inevitably realizes you’ve escaped the coop.”
Tim nods silently into her hair before allowing himself to be herded towards Babs. He might be grounded for the next ten years after this, but between his mother returning on his birthday and the psychic damage he’s going to be taking from the inevitable press shitstorm, he thinks he can find a way out of it. Maybe. Probably.
Just have to wait and see.