Chapter Three: Ten (I)

Tim crossed off another tally on the wall. "500," he announced to the empty room. The boy settled back on his heels, discarding the knife to his side with a frustrated snort. "I can't believe this."

The fluttering of wings in the rafters told him he'd disturbed the birds who had made their home up above, but Tim didn't care.

"500 days!" he repeated a little louder, covering the spot on the wall where he'd kept count. He spared a glance up as if one of the barn owls, round, obsidian eyes gleaming from over a beam, was hanging on every word. "And nothing! No one!"

He stood up, tugging at his shaggy, black hair.

It hadn't bothered Tim that much in months; he'd gotten over the idea that no one was looking for him over a year ago.

But then a police car just had to park directly below the window of the loft, blue and red lights whirring. It had caught his attention in a vice grip, stirring some kind of homesickness in him he hadn't even realized he'd had.

He had watched conflictedly from the windowsill, the lights flashing across the pane, as he'd waited for something to happen. There'd been a delay, and then—as if on cue—an officer had stepped out of the car, slipping down the street with a hand on her radio before vanishing around a corner. She'd reappeared fifteen minutes later with what must have been her partner, pointing at something she'd written on a notepad while her teammate nodded his head.

Then, they'd driven away.

Fifteen minutes. That was it. Fifteen minutes.

And it was driving Tim insane.

He hadn't really wanted to be found that day, having grown oddly content with Talon and their guests in the rafters, but Tim had hoped that the police would have at least been looking—that his parents would have been looking.

His dad knew some pretty big people. People who could easily find a kid hidden away right under their noses, right in Gotham—just a hop, skip, and a jump away.

One of Tim's fists collided with a post stretching up to the ceiling. The smarter part of him said that now he'd have splinters in his knuckles, that it'd sting all night. The angry part of him hoped it did.

By the time his forehead had fallen against the cool wood, it seemed he'd gained the full attention of his nocturnal audience, the biggest bird emitting an eerie cry before descending to the ground.

After a beat, it screeched again.

Tim's eyes slid over to it, which seemed to be what the bird had wanted, heart-shaped face tilted to the side as if to tell him to stop making such a racket.

"I know, I know." Tim sighed defeatedly, letting his eyes fall closed. "The missus doesn't like it." He turned to press his back against the post. "But at least you'd look for your kid if you lost one, right? You wouldn't just forget about them." He cracked his eyes open a sliver to watch the white-feathered creature. "You're more human than they are…"

The bird didn't reply, preening the plumage on its shoulder without paying him any mind.

"This kind of owl isn't loyal to humans, young one," Talon had said when they'd first uncovered them making a home in the rafters. It'd been a funny thing for him to say since the birds seemed to like him best. "Be careful not to get too close."

But a week later, it'd looked like one of the owls was offering a token of friendship when it had landed next to Tim, sweet-faced and unassuming. He had slowly put down his book and, in a moment of childlike innocence, stretched out a hand. Tim didn't know what he'd been expecting, but the long-nosed beak digging into his finger wasn't the experience he'd had in mind.

Talon had eyed the self-applied bandage for days as if to say, "You're an idiot," and Tim couldn't really argue.

Harsh feelings aside, the bird had stayed, and Tim had gained a scar.

He splayed his hand in the air in front of him, admiring the white streak along his forefinger. It had only just recently scarred over, and Tim knew that meant it'd be a life-long addition—that it'd always be a reminder not to get too close.

…Talon has lots of scars, too…

"This is stupid," Tim erupted, letting his hand fall in a fist against the post behind him. "I don't think it's selfish to ask that my parents care. That's what they're supposed to do! It's not my job to hold up the whole relationship—to be the one person who thinks it matters if it all goes down the tubes!" The more he talked, the more his anger was gaining traction and running away with him. "I mean, come on! I was eight! The least they could do is show a little concern that I've fallen straight off the face of the earth! And for 500 days!

"But no noise! No nothing!" He bit his lip as if trying to keep any more from tumbling out. "Whatever," he finally muttered when he'd calmed a bit, situating himself on the floor. "It's not like I care."

His listener clicked its beak amid the silence.

"Who am I kidding?" Tim jumped back to his feet and made his way over to the window. "I care! I care about them and about them not caring about me!" He stared down the window for a few breaths before cracking it open, looking to make sure the fire escape was below him. "I'm getting to the bottom of this—right now!"

The family of owls shrieked in unison when Tim swung a leg over the sill and then another.

"I'll be back before Talon comes home."

And with that, he slammed the window closed.


It wasn't until that moment that it hit him like a brick wall: It was the first time he'd stepped foot outside in over a year. One Thanksgiving. One Christmas. Two birthdays. The thought had crossed his mind, sure, to just hop through the window like Talon did every night. He never believed he'd actually do it, though.

But there he was, and as much as his stomach had decided it was a good time to play cat's cradle, to scream at him the gravity of what he was doing, he was determined to finish what he'd started.

He maneuvered down to street-level and reminded himself that he had to be fast to get back before sunrise, setting off in the direction he knew would take him to his childhood home.

Gotham was overwhelmingly different to say the least, like Tim had been lying whenever he'd said this foreign city was home. But he weaved through the streets well enough and after two hours had ended up in front of the family estate. Like the rest of Gotham, it looked drastically unlike the way he remembered it, a happy garden nested on the other side of the gated entrance—nothing like the stoic one he'd seen in the rear-view mirror on his way to boarding school every fall. The fountain in the middle of the courted drive-way was new too, and the house face was now painted a mockingly cheery red.

The irony of it all gave Tim the wherewithal to launch himself over the gate and sneak up the lawn. He remembered the gaps in his family's security system enough to avoid the spots he knew would hold sensors and condemning camera angles, winding through the yard until he was crouched beside one of the lightless windows. The moon was making it just bright enough outside to reflect the glass, keeping him from seeing inside.

It didn't matter. Tim already could tell no one was home, was counting on it.

He strained to pop the window up (He'd learned the hard way when he was younger that that one was the easiest to jimmy open.) and clambered in.

It took a moment of blind fumbling to find the switch. But once Tim did, it was obvious that the outside of the mansion wasn't the only thing that'd underwent a shocking transformation in his absence.

Family photos and awards decorated almost every inch of the living room—walls, dressers, coffee tables. There were graduation pictures, postcards, wedding invitations, elementary school artwork… The prolificity of them would have come off as narcissistic if there wasn't an undeniable love pouring out of every frame.

Tim stared at the image for a long time.

It was all wrong.

The mood of the house was wrong, yes, but there was something even more pressing, more wrong, shouting out to him in each mounted photo...

He didn't recognize any of them.

A family of strangers had moved in to fill the void that the Drake's had used to cherish.

The soccer trophies must've belonged to the oldest daughter, the forensics awards to the youngest. A twentieth anniversary card sat proudly on a desk. The lengthy note on the inside hinted that the parents' marriage was a happy one.

It all hit Tim with such an intensity that he felt he shouldn't stay there, scrambling back through the window and snapping it shut.

It took him a while longer to move again, partially because of the nausea that struck him at the thought of another, happy family living in the old Drake Estate—and partially because of the unavoidable question that followed: If his parents weren't there, then where were they?


Tim did his best to blink the stars from his eyes. He was barely aware that he'd been flipped on his back, his training staff clattering somewhere on the other side of the loft.

Talon loomed over him with his usual disinterest. "You're distracted."

Tim knew the difference between an observation and an invitation. "Yeah," he replied bluntly and went to retrieve his weapon.

"No more." Talon leaned his own staff against the wall, indicating that Tim do the same. "That's enough for today."

Tim was secretly grateful for the break, his entire body aching deep into his bones. He was regretting every last splinter that had speared his knuckles the night before, and the pain stubbornly dragged his mind back to what he'd discovered at his old home.

Talon had caught on to Tim's mood almost instantly. From the moment he'd returned, he'd been doing nothing but sending him raised eyebrows in addition to his typical, deadpan expression.

He did so again before turning to his armored mannequin. He slipped his feet into his boots and readjusted the knee guards. "I have an assignment tonight," he commented simply.

It caused Tim to perk up from where he'd been placing his staff.

Talon had an assignment every night. It was nothing unusual. But the man never said anything without a purpose, leading Tim to think that maybe he'd somehow learned about his galivanting the previous night. Or, at the very least, suspected it.

It was a suspicion Tim realized he'd have to smooth out.

"I'll be here when you get back."

Talon looked at him hard for a minute before making his way to the open window. "…Alright," he muttered, back toward him, before dissolving into the night.

Tim watched the spot where the man had stood a moment earlier. It reminded him how fragile their relationship was, built entirely around the premise that Tim remained and Talon returned alive.

Tim didn't want to risk jeopardizing that.

But he also had to know what'd happened to his parents, and it gave him the nerve to sneak out once again.


The library seemed a good a place as any to find some answers.

Tim hadn't expected to uncover anything conclusive, but his family was not an uncommon presence in archaeological magazines, and the library's collection was pretty comprehensive—assuming the building hadn't changed like everything else in Gotham.

Luckily, it was still operational and, better yet, still open until 10.

Having survived a close encounter with a librarian who could've recognized him, Tim had a good two hours to spend downstairs with the archives. The basement was comfortably vacant, the musty smell of aged paper a welcome and familiar scent.

His parents used to spend all day researching on the second floor before heading to dig sites, occasionally allowing him to come too. The bitter-sweet nostalgia convinced him that the place would hold some clue as to where they'd gone.

Tim yanked the pull-chain switch to the old ceiling light and turned his attention to scouring the metal filing cabinets.

He'd gone through almost two years' worth of archaeology magazines before realizing it wasn't getting him anywhere. Noticing that he'd already squandered half his time, he hurriedly dug up some newspapers and dumped them on the table. Things went downhill from there, a free-for-all of paper-cuts and ripped pages breaking out as Tim skimmed through them at break-neck speeds.

He almost feared that he'd have to come back the next night when he pulled out a binder of Gotham Gazette reports around June 18th, the day he'd disappeared. It was too close to the incident to explain much about why his parents had sold their old home or where they'd gone.

Essentially, it held no promise.

But he'd been wrong.

He'd finally found his answer, a news report from two years ago, June 17th, that explained it all.

They'd never moved, never been featured in another magazine article.

No.

Instead, there'd been a car crash.