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“What the fuck do you mean Alvin’s dead?” Stephanie screeched, standing on the couch and pointing at Tim. “Murderer! Tim’s a fucking murderer!” Heads swiveled towards them and Tim had to bite back a sigh.
“Alvin was compromised, Steph. He had to go.”
“Tim… what? What is she talking about?” Dick had a look of concern splashed across his face. Tim groaned and covered his face with his hands.
“This is so not how sibling game night was supposed to go.”
“He’s a murderer! Were you ever planning on telling me?”
“It doesn’t matter, Steph. I was just going to brush it off like the others.” Steph looked like he had spit on her.
“Tim, I swear to god if you killed Caroline too-”
“Caroline is still alive! Jeez, Steph. It was just Alvin.”
“I’ve known Alvin longer than you! What did your team say? They knew Alvin longer than you, too!”
“...They don’t know yet.” Steph stared at him in disbelief before whipping her phone out. “Wait, Steph-”
“What the fuck is happening? Who’s Alvin?” Jason tried to interject, but he was ignored by the two teenagers that were now fighting over Steph’s phone. The rest of the batkids watched as Steph shoved Tim off the couch and dialed a number.
“Kon-El, you’ll never guess what Tim just told me.”
“Kon! Hang up! Don’t listen to her!” He furiously swiped at Steph’s legs, knocking a cup over as she danced over his arms. “She’s crazy!”
“Alvin Draper is dead.” She said frantically, climbing onto the back of the couch to get out of the way of Tim’s moving arms. “Tim killed Alvin.” Silence. Kon hung up the phone.
“Jesus Steph, now you’ve done it!”
Duke shuffled further down the couch after getting whacked by one of Tim’s still flailing arms, watching like it was the most entertaining thing he had witnessed all day. Which it probably was, Jason picked the game for game night. Tim was fucking sick of scrabble, but he’d rather be playing than dealing with whatever clusterfuck the night was slowly morphing into.
There was frantic knocking on the door to his apartment, and he moved from trying to grab at Steph to frantically sliding his hand across his throat. Duke, being the fucking instigator he is, stood up and opened the door.
“Tim!” Bart wailed, grabbing Tim on the shoulders and shaking him back and forth. “How could you kill Alvin!”
“Tell me you’re joking.” Kon looked at him with wide eyes. “Tell me he’s not dead.” Cassie snorted and sat on a chair.
“I’m just here for the fallout.”
“Drake, I demand to know who this “Alvin” is-” Damian was cut off by Steph who had joined the shaking of Tim.
“How dare you kill Alvin! How dare you not tell me! How dare you not tell us !”
“He had to go! It was his time!”
“EVERYONE STOP TALKING!” Heads turned to see Dick standing on a chair, hands cupped around his mouth. Once he saw he had everyone’s attention, he hopped back down and spun towards Tim. “What is going on? What are they talking about? You killed someone?”
“Obviously Drake has a few screws loose. Are we really surprised?” Damian muttered, arms crossed. Tim threw his hands up.
“Fine! Christ, if it really means that much to you I’ll tell you why I did it!”
“It’s the least we deserve after you murdered him!”
“It had to happen!”
“Timmers,” Started Jason, interrupting the argument from breaking out again between Tim and Steph, “I know I’m the last one that should be judging you for offing someone, but the last time I checked you had morals stronger than Bruce. What the fuck did this guy do ?”
Tim looked at him like he was stupid.
“Alvin isn’t a real person.” Jason blinked. Dick collapsed back into his seat and sighed heavily.
“Oh thank god.”
“Let me get this straight, you’re currently arguing over a fake murder. Of someone who isn’t real.”
“He was real to us.” Steph sniffed.
“He was one of my aliases. Shit happened and I had to kill him off and move on. They’re overreacting.”
“Tim’s understating it.” Steph cut in. “Alvin wasn’t just an alias, he was the alias. The original alias. The alias that he used to introduce himself to me and his team before he gave us his real name. Tim killed his oldest and most well documented alias. I’m in mourning.”
“Like I said, I had to kill him! Shit happened and I couldn’t use him anymore!”
“What could possibly be big enough that you had to kill off Alvin ?”
Tim mumbled something, too quiet to hear. Steph took a step towards him.
“Okay! Okay!” He held his hands up. “I had to kill him because he was an international art thief with more than one government after him.”
Silence. Then, a whistle and a slow clap.
“See, that’s something that makes more sense for you Timbo.” Jason was grinning. “What the fuck did you steal to make it that big?”
“Ancient artifacts and renaissance paintings.” Tim groaned into his hands. “In my defence, it was when I was looking for Bruce in the timestream and I wasn’t exactly thinking straight at the time. They had information I needed.”
“You mean to tell me,” Said Steph, voice low, “That you burned Alvin on fucking theft ? I’ve seen you create entire aliases to go to the mall . You just had to use Alvin instead of making a new one?”
“Again, not thinking straight because of the whole Bruce-being-dead-but-not -really thing.”
“ Theft. ”
“Tim, are you… currently running from multiple different governments?” Dick’s hands had found their way into gripping his hair. “Are you a fugitive?” Tim scoffed.
“Alvin’s dead now. Keep up, Dick.”
“Please tell me his death was at least cool.” Begged Kon. “You can’t kill Alvin without one last huzzah.”
Tim looked at Kon with pity.
“Drug overdose. Made it look like a suicide.”
“ Alvin Draper killed himself? ” Steph’s arms were back to shaking him. “Out of all the stupid things you could have done-”
“It was efficient!”
“After everything we’ve been through-”
“No suspects are able to be looked into because he did it himself!”
“He just kills himself? Never talk to me again, Timothy Jackson Drake.” She crossed the room and threw herself down beside Cass, who was observing the absolute dumpster fire of a conversation.
“Okay, hold on.” Dick looked stressed. “While Bruce was gone, you stole art and artifacts, got caught , except it was Alvin that got caught, and killed the alias off so they stopped looking for you?”
“Technically I almost got caught as Tim, not Alvin. They couldn’t find Alvin.”
“What? ”
“Grabbed me at the airport. Couldn’t convince them I was Tim Drake until one of the assassins I was with helped convince them.”
“ WHAT ?”
“Ended up with Ra’s al Ghul for a while, lost my spleen, blew up some of his bases, found Bruce, yada yada yada. Anyways, point is, I couldn’t exactly let Alvin live when he has the same description as me, they’d end up looking into him and connecting too many dots. Ergo, I killed him. Or rather, he killed himself.”
“What the fuck.” Dick looked like he was going to faint. Or puke. Or yell. Tim wasn’t sure what he’d rather. “You don’t have a spleen ?” Tim waved him off.
“Doesn’t even matter anymore. I have antibiotics.”
“You’re wanted by the government. You don’t have a spleen. You were with Ra’s al Ghul .” Dick closed his eyes and rolled himself on a blanket he grabbed off of the back of the loveseat. “Nope. No more. This is tomorrow 's problem. Goodnight.”
Damian was staring at him like he didn’t know who he was anymore.
Jason was cackling.
“Holy shit, babybird. You might be more of a wanted person than me .” He leaned forward, eyes gleaming. “What did Bruce think when he found out?”
Tim’s face turned bright red.
“He doesn’t know. I buried the mission reports under old files he doesn’t look at anymore.”
“Tim, I think you’re fucked when he finds out.” Said Duke with awe. “I can’t believe you hid it from him.” Bart frowned.
“I mean, it can’t be that hard to hide things from him. Tim stole a Batmobile when he was like thirteen without him finding out.” Dick shot back up from his position on the loveseat.
“ What? ”
Tim sighed. This was going to be a long night.