mother make me a bird of prey

Summary: Dana doesn't know how to feel about her stepson, Tim. There's just something...off about him.

Notes: please read the first in this series! while i think you should be able to read this without that, reading the first in the series gives more context to the verse i think also this was inspired by the gotham curse by letpeterparksayfck! if you like neal caffrey is [a bat] please check out their series! (it's a neal caffrey is jason and it's amazing! please go and read it!) sentient gotham and gotham in the shadows is from that verse (so big brain!), and i've put my own spin on it title is from mother by florence + the machine

Dana's POV!

Tim

Dana doesn't know how to feel about her stepson, Tim. At first she thinks it's all her - Dana has never had a child before and while Tim isn't really a child anymore, he is still under her care as her stepson. Tim isn't even difficult like some children might be. He's a wonderful boy: he has majorly good grades, is kind to her and any company that's over, even has polite friends! She knows she's lucky she's been accepted into his family so quickly and seamlessly.

There's just something...off about Tim.

Just little things she notices. She notices that Tim's voice is a little more on the quiet side when he talks but no one ever has to ask to repeat himself. That he's so light footed that his steps barely even make a sound as he walks around the house. It's common for her to drop whatever is in her hands or bump into something because Tim has accidentally snuck up on her. Sometimes she thinks that Tim's eyes glint unnaturally in the dark, icy blue iris peeking out from the shadows in the library, in his room, all knowing and owl-like. But she dismisses all of these things, it's just her mind and her imagination going wild from all of Jack's excavation crypt stories.

But still, Dana can't quite figure out why she feels a little off about Tim - he's done nothing to deserve it! The closest she's gotten is when she tried to bring it up to Jack.

Don't worry about Tim, he said. Janet was like that too.

Like what? Dana had thought.

Dana can't help her curiosity and research Janet Drake, wanting to know what she was like. Janet was Jack's wife and she was Tim's mother. She wants to believe it's not just Janet that makes Tim so different.

Dana clicks through wikipedia and the business sections of major newspapers, Janet is so vastly different from her from what Dana finds, more than she thought. Janet looks so effortlessly put together in all of her photos, nary a wrinkle in her tailored clothes or a hair out of place. She looks like the type of woman dust and lipstick smudges would be scared of.

Dana wonders what Jack had seen in herself, what he had seen in Janet, before she's shaking her head to get rid of those thoughts. The man Jack had been then was different from who he is now and so what he would want in life and in a partner would be different too.

She clicks on an interview Janet took part in, one of the last ones before her death and wants to click back out immediately. There's just something about Janet's stare that feels...malevolent, malicious even. Dana is outside on the balcony in the middle of summer but Janet's glass sharp gaze, even through a screen, even though she's passed, chills the atmosphere around her. Dana views through the screen Janet observing her interviewer, just a quick clinical scan from head to toe. Dana can see Janet's immediate dismissal of the interviewer by the set of her shoulders, the straightness of her spine, the general un-impressedness permeating the space around her.

Dana never wants to be on the end of that heavy, owl-eyed gaze and she's not even the one that was being judged. Dana exits out of the browser and shakes herself again. She's just imagining things probably. Janet had amazing eyebrows - they were just making her more expressive to Dana.

It's probably good Janet died when she did and they never got to meet, Dana thinks, spine shaking out the last of her shivers. Dana feels bad about thinking about it, but still feels relieved all the same.

Dana meets Janet during a soft exhibition opening in one of Gotham's downtown galleries.

The gallery owners were some of Jack's friends from his time in university. They had studied aligning subjects and he had even donated a few of the pieces he found on his archeological digs to their gallery. She's standing a little ways to the side, staying close to walls with numerous displays, trying to look like she understands the deeper message of the contemporary art pieces, trying to look like she fits in, like she belongs here. She tries not to fidget so obviously in her gown.

Dana distantly knew that the Drakes had money but it never felt so real to her than it does right now. She's wearing a gown that was specifically made to fit, her hair and make up professionally done, glammed up and glitzy. She knows that Jack's current net worth is nothing compared to what it was three years ago. She thinks he's still the same man he's always been though - laughing it up with his boys and tossing a grin her way when he catches her looking. That actually works in almost calming her down. Almost.

Dana knew she would never be comfortable with the upper class, a working girl from a working family. She's sure the flute of alcohol in her hand now is probably half her salary. It's Jack that makes everything worth it. She can take a few snide comments and ignore any looks; she's made of tougher stuff than those of the powdered and puffed to be truly bothered.

No, what really unsettles her is the change in Tim.

Tim, who Dana would have never known had grown up with money had she just met him on the street. Tim, who she's seen with dark mussed hair and even darker eyebags, who parades around the house in ratty sweats and a different superhero shirt a day. Tim, who curses at the TV when he's playing video games, whose wrists click when he stretches them. Tim, who watches the news to keep track of his favorite heroes, who can barely toast bread but can brew perfect espresso, whose smile is soft and warm.

This, this young man isn't warm. He's all fine lines and icy cold angles, whose suit is perfectly tailored and hair artfully swept, whose smile is unnaturally sharp and whose laugh echoes in a minor key. He speaks to the upper crust sharks that pass by like it's nothing, like it's easy, like they're not purposefully prowling the water for blood.

This isn't Tim. This is Timothy.

Dana didn't think there was actually a difference, before.

"That's Janet's boy," Dana hears, whispered over and over again even though she can never identify the speakers, the voices always a few inches from her ear. Never Jack's, always Janet's.

"He has her smile."

"By the looks of it, her brains too. It's such a shame it's wasted on his father."

"Oh, but haven't you heard? Timothy is currently interning at WE - rumor is directly under Brucie himself."

"Thank goodness. I would have hated to have potential wasted like that - Janet's boy especially."

Dana can't help but watch Tim, he's one thousand times more interesting than anything in the exhibit. It's like watching a suspenseful thriller - she doesn't know what she will see next.

The more that Tim flashes his teeth, the more she swears that his canines elongate. His fingers poised around his glass stem become long and pointed, claws sharpened and on display. Dana instinctively knows who Tim dislikes as when they walk closer to him the air chills, Tim's pupils shrinking to slits. Dana swears she sees Tim's shadow tapping her foot, calm and controlled.

Dana never thought twice about it, always thought she was delusional or delirious in the Gotham summer heat, but now she's sure: Tim's shadow is a woman.

Tim's shadow is a lean woman with a spine that stands straighter than the stilettos she wears. The stilettos make the shadow a little taller than Tim, hovering just over his shoulder, watching, waiting.

With every smile and laugh Tim pulls from the crowd of business associates he's managed to gather around him, Dana doesn't know how she can tell, but she thinks the shadow radiates Proud Approving Regard. When the shoulders of the adults around Tim slowly relax, his shadow puts a hand on his shoulder, affectionate. Dana thinks that Tim can feel it, standing up straighter, shoulders pushed back prouder at the touch, mouth softly curling at the sides, satisfied.

Dana has seen Tim smirk in satisfaction before - when he beats Jack in chess, when he gets a whole category in Jeopardy correct, when he can solve the movie's mystery before it ends. It's a small, satisfied thing. This smirk, while small, while satisfied, isn't characterized by teenage hubris. This is the kind of smirk a wolf would make if a sheep walked into its den.

Dana can't stop her involuntary shiver, freezing in place as she feels heavy owl eyes land on her.

Tim's shadow tilts her head towards Dana, chin bobbing in a way Dana knows she's being observed from head to toe. She tries not to shift even as she breaks out in goosebumps, hair standing on end, her hands turning clammy around the stem of her champagne flute. After one, two, three seconds that Dana swears feels like a minute, Tim's shadow turns her nose up at Dana and turns her gaze somewhere else, dismissing Dana like she's a spot to scrape off the bottom of a leather patented shoe, not impressed.

Dana releases the breath she didn't even know she was holding as her shoulders slump in relief, adrenaline softening her figure not unlike when the rabbit relaxes after it thinks the wolf has passed by.

She peeks at Tim one last time before her legs are stable enough to move, notes his shadow's hand on his shoulder again, a declaration, a claim.

Janet's son, indeed.

End Notes: thanks for reading!

hcs: Jack and Dana don't really have "Gotham shadows" since they don't really think of themselves as Gothamites. it's kind of like a two way street - Gotham claims but you also have to claim Gotham back so Janet had the Gotham Shadow even though she wasn't born a Gothamite because she accepted Her claim and claimed Gotham right back