Chapter Text
Nine years ago
The Drakes are a childless couple. Of course they are, why wouldn’t they be?
The Drakes are archeologists, they run around the world exploring. Digging up artefacts and lounging in desert sun. A pregnancy would be a hindrance, a child even more so, so why would they ever indulge in such things?
Or at least, that is the story they spin.
Because, unfortunately for the Drakes, accidents happen. Condoms are ripped, medications are ineffective, and the foetus’ are caught too late to abort. There is a reason that birth control is only effective 99.99% of the time, because there will always be that 0.01%. And that is otherwise known as Timothy Jackson Drake.
Timothy is an unwanted child, a burdensome child. Constantly hindering his parents’ work. He never meant to. Infants don’t ever truly mean anything, but that hardly matters if the result is the same either way.
That isn’t to say his parents didn’t try, because they did. No matter the circumstances of his birth, Timothy was a Drake, their son, their heir. Jack let small timothy crawl about his feet as he typed at his desk, Janet would rock the child with one arm as she handled business calls with shareholders.
But the Drakes are busy people and they could hardly sacrifice their important and busy lives for a child who could barely talk. So the Drakes hired nannies and housemaids and staff, people who would be around for young Timothy while they were away, because even though the child was unwanted he was not uncared for.
Unfortunately for young Timothy Drake, that care was conditional.
Eight years ago
Jack and Janet are about to leave on their first long-haul expedition since the birth of their son. They can’t wait. It’s been far too long to be working from home and going abroad purely for meetings and pleasure. They are both unused to staying in Gotham for more than a month at a time, and due to the effect of the birth on Janet’s body (and the fact that they wish for the existence of their child to stay a secret), on top of the admittedly dry social scene as of late, they’ve been residing in Gotham for over five. They have long since grown restless.
But they are also, begrudgingly, aware that they are parents to an almost-two-year-old who loves his parents and doesn’t want them to leave. So, to placate the boy, they decide to take him to the circus, hoping that the excitement will thoroughly wear him out so that by the time he wakes in the morning they’ll already be halfway to Malaysia and won’t have to deal with a clingy baby slowing them down.
Some would call it callous, the Drakes call it practical. If their boy grows up correctly then he’ll agree with them some day.
Now, however, he is eagerly pulling Janet along by her hand and into the big top. Timothy barely gets out of the manor, his parents can’t afford to be seen with him in public and the nannies are unable to take him into Gotham proper due to the difficulty of transporting a toddler. Janet doesn’t think that her son has ever seen as many people in one place as he is currently, and as such allows him to clutch her hand in his.
They meet a young boy by the name of Richard in a terribly gaudy leotard, Janet wrinkles her nose in distaste. Whoever allowed a child to be raised in such a cesspool ought to be hanged, carnival people have no place around her and her husband, much less her son. Timothy, of course, insists on taking a picture with him. Janet wishes she were on her private jet.
After that detour the show begins and passes at a snail’s pace. Her boy sits between her and her husband and watches it all with wide eyes and rapt attention, Jack keeps hissing at her over his head about why they couldn’t have gotten a nanny to take him, Janet holds herself back from snapping at him that it’s clearly too late for that now.
But even if she’d wanted to respond to him she’d have been cut off by the chorus of gasps and screams erupting from the audience around her.
She snaps her head to the centre of the ring only to gasp herself. Two mangled bodies lay there, covered in blood and chunks of flesh and-- oh god, she thinks she might vomit.
She scoops up her son who feels as heavy and stiff as concrete and turns him away from the horrific scene.
“We’re going home.” she states, leaving no room for debate from Jack.
She hopes Timothy won’t be too clingy once they return to the manor, she thinks as she hurries back to their car, she and Jack must still leave, after all.
Six years ago
Today is the day and Tim is practically vibrating out of his skin!
Mother and father were coming home from the dig!!!
It had been three long months since he had seen his parents and his skin prickles in excitement at the thought of seeing them again. The four year old grabs onto the window-sill overlooking the driveway up to their estate and bounces up and down to try and peer over the ledge, there is no way that he is allowing his parent’s to return home without greeting them, his nanny said that they would love to see his drawings and that they would be missing him, he shouldn't be rude and keep them waiting, so he watches impatiently for their return.
Before long he hears the telltale sound of tires crunching over gravel and bounds down the stairs, a whole stair at a time, gripping tightly to the bannister’s evenly placed poles to stop his small body from tumbling to the floor.
He skids to a stop in front of the main door just as it opens and barrels straight into his mother’s legs.
“Mama, you’re back!!” he yells, voice muffled by her clothing and wavering with unshed tears. He would never stain her dress.
“Indeed, Timothy.” she responds with a forced smile, pulling his fat toddler hands off of her dress with her sharp, manicured nails. “But I am your Mother, not mama or mom or mommy, understand?”
The small boy nods his head so eagerly that he almost loses his balance, but that is not enough for Janet Drake. “Timothy,” she warns, crouching to his level and tilting his head up to face her with a single red claw, “I need you to say it.”
“Mother.”
Her eyes soften and she lets his head drop to a more comfortable angle. “Good boy. Now go help your Father unload the car.” She pats his head and rises, letting the child run past her to assist his Father outside.
“Father!!”
“Hiya, son. Wow you’re big now.”
“Yeah!! Ma-Mother said that I can help you with getting the stuff out of the car!”
“Sure thing, sport.”
His father deposits a small piece of hand-luggage into the open arms of the toddler and watches as the boy falters and almost falls backwards under the weight. He chuckles. “Wow, big and strong. You’re going to make a great Drake one day.”
Tim beams.
He trails after his father back into the manor, unable to see past the large back-pack in his arms or the happiness in his heart. His daddy called him strong!!
He doesn’t notice the small wrinkle in the rug until he’s flying forward.
His small body lands with a thud and a crack as his outstretched elbow smacks into a stone pedestal. Tears spring to his eyes and a whine escapes his lips, but before he can scream the ancient vase that rests atop the plinth crashes to the floor and explodes in a mess of pottery shards.
“JACK?! WHAT WAS THAT??”
His father ignores his mother’s shout and rushes toward where his son is splayed on the floor. Tim is glad somewhere in the haze of pain that surrounds him, his daddy will save him.
His daddy does not. Instead he raises a hand and slaps the small boy across the face.
Tim freezes, screams and sobs momentarily cut off and eyes wide in shock.
“YOU STUPID, INSOLENT CHILD!” he roars, “THAT WAS A PRICELESS ARTEFACT THAT YOU DESTROYED! ”
Jack brings his hand down yet again, this time onto young Timothy’s back, squarely between his shoulder blades. But when the hand makes contact, it isn’t skin it meets but stone.
--
Tim doesn’t know what happened. One second he’s on the floor at home and the next he’s on a thin mattress in a hospital and there’s a lot of people surrounding him and shining lights in his eyes and talking loudly and it’s all too much.
--
And then he’s suddenly alone in the hospital room, like the doctors all blinked out of existence. Where did they go? Tim wanted to be left alone before but he was wrong. He wants to know why his arm’s in a cast and where everyone went. He wants a hug!
Where did everyone go?
He searches the room from top to bottom (as much as a four year old is capable) and finds a yellow sticky note on the end of his bed.
Hello, Timothy
You seemed to have spontaneously developed Metahuman powers from a previously dormant meta-gene. I know that those are some big words but it basically means that when you get really scared you turn into a statue. We don’t know if you’re awake while in this state because when your brain is stone it doesn’t make any noise that we can pick up on our machines.
When you are able to, press the button. A doctor will come and explain more to you.
Five years ago
Tim is alone in Drake manor. He always is these days.
Mrs Mac checks in once a month, restocks the groceries, tidies the impeccable home of dust and leaves.
Tim is always alone.
His parents let the house staff go after they learned about his… condition. He can’t blame them, Tim’s an embarrassment. He’s five now, a big boy, and yet he still gets scared all the time. He finds that the more time he spends alone, the more he wishes to be surrounded, and the more he is utterly terrified of being around anyone.
It’s not all bad though, Tim is very smart and can do lots of things by himself. Like school and puzzles and watching TV.
If he keeps himself busy and working he can almost forget how frozen he feels at the thought of seeing another person, he can almost forget that he’s stranded in the middle of Bristol, and he is very, very lonely.
Almost.
Three years ago
Tim has long since discovered the internet, he loves it. He can watch people and talk to them and he doesn’t even freeze. He has lots of friends now, well, three. Poison_Ives (not Poison Ivy, Tim checked), Bernie-the-din0 and the-prophet-C4SSIE are all internet-friends with inTIMidation_tactics a.k.a Timothy Drake.
Tim doesn’t really know how to talk to them properly. He knows it and he knows that they know it too, that he doesn’t understand social cues or tone. He did try to learn, but copying movie dialogue doesn’t work in every situation and more often than not Tim has to improvise. They don’t seem to mind too much, sometimes they’ll recognise the line and then they can talk about the movie it came from for a while.
Talking with his friends isn’t… it isn’t easy. There are long stretches of time where his hands will turn to stone and he can’t type out a response because he doesn’t know what to say but he can’t leave them on read. And there are moments when there are awkward pauses before Tim pretends that his mom just called him for dinner and he has to go because he’s too stupid to be able to lead a conversation like a normal person.
But it’s not hard either. Not like real people are hard, not how Tim loses hours of his life every time Mrs Mac comes over or how he turns not-quite-stone whenever he hears Mr Wayne’s very loud car drive past.
Because Ives is part of a really cool online D&D campaign and has invited Tim to join in on the next one, Tim already has a character sheet ready to go, he’s going to be a tiefling rogue called birdling (no it’s not based off of Robin… shut up). Bernie-the-Din0 and Tim share recipes back and forth, and then bake them and send photos. Tim’s are always … semi-edible looking, Bernie’s always look like they belong on pinterest or The Great British Bake Off. But then again Bernie has an unfair advantage because he was taught in person and Tim is following off of online recipes and WikiHow. Tim and Cassie like to talk about the JLA, she’s obsessed with Wonder Woman, Tim can respect that even though he’s honour-bound to represent Gothamites and support his home-town-hero. They like sending green arrow memes back and forth with no context and have a plethora of inside jokes about his goatee.
He isn’t as lonely as he used to be, but it’s a close thing.
Tim kind of wishes he could have a hug.