Belonged Here All Along, a Batman fanfic by Raberba girl
Chapter 4 (rough draft)
Batman and Robin were ten minutes into their resumption of patrol when Robin suddenly burst out, "Wait, the kid!"
Alarm shot through Batman, even as he struggled to figure out which child Robin was referring to.
"Did we- Crap, did we just leave him on the roof?!"
Then Batman remembered the kid in question and nearly swore aloud. He halted on the next rooftop and immediately commed, "Shadow?"
No answer.
"Flaming crap- Nightwing?" Robin called. "You have any idea where Shadow is?"
"I thought he was with you."
Batman felt a deep stab of guilt. He couldn't believe he had forgotten a child, just swung away and left him behind without a second thought.
He pulled up the mini computer in his gauntlet and started tapping. For about one second, he was relieved to locate Shadow's tracker. The next second, he felt alarmed when he realized that the tracker was moving at a vehicular pace. Whose car had Shadow gotten into?! He was so, so young, but surely old enough to know better than to get into a kidnapper's van, right? Had he been taken by force?
"Coming up Santiago Street," Robin said. "Are we intercepting?"
Batman grappled off without remembering to answer. A moment later, he heard the swish of his partner following after him.
They found the car and kept pace with it. Batman hadn't finished deciding how to handle the situation when the car slowed down and pulled over. The vigilantes halted on the next rooftop. After a moment, Shadow got out of the car, then trotted briskly into the nearest alley. Batman felt a flash of alarm about the boy's terrible self-preservation skills (who in their right mind would willingly enter a Gotham City alley alone at night?!).
Then Shadow shot his grapple line to the edge of the roof, ascended, scrambled to his feet, and smiled - apparently he'd known all along that Batman and Robin were waiting for him.
"How did you know we were here?" Batman demanded, then suppressed a wince. He always did have a tendency to blurt out trivial things when he was too disoriented to address the important issues.
Shadow tilted his head. "I was watching your trackers?" He showed them the Bat phone he'd been lent before patrol, where, sure enough, all three of their trackers were clustered together. Bruce felt dumber than ever. The whole point of carrying trackers in the first place was so that they could find each other in an emergency, but Batman usually thought about it in terms of him tracking down his young partners rather than them chasing after him.
"Sorry I didn't answer over the comm, I didn't want the driver to hear me talking to you guys," Shadow said. After a moment, he added, now sounding nervous, "I made sure she couldn't see what I was doing on the phone. It was, um, just a normal rideshare, I hope that's okay. You guys have used public transportation before, so I thought-"
"It's fine," Batman snapped before Shadow could continue any further in his misconception about what the man was actually bothered by.
"Hey," Robin said uncomfortably, "we're really sorry we left you on the roof."
And this was why Batman had a Robin: to say the right things when Batman couldn't bring himself to express emotion. He hadn't even articulated to himself that an apology was needed before his partner had taken care of it.
Robin continued, "We were in a hurry and..."
"Forgot about me?" Shadow concluded with a grin, as if the situation was amusing.
"We're not used to having a third wheel on patrol," Robin said, now a little sullen.
Shadow acted like he hadn't even noticed the insult. "It's fine, it happens all the time. If people need help or bad guys need to be caught, I don't want to hold you back."
Both Batman and Robin stared at him. "What do you mean, 'it happens all the time'?" Batman demanded. He already kind of knew he was a terrible father, but the idea that he just forgot about and left behind his youngest child so routinely that the boy didn't think it was a big deal might be a new low even for him. ...Assuming Tim really was his youngest child instead of a precocious con artist.
Shadow stared back at them, looking disconcerted to realize that the vigilantes apparently felt that forgetting was, in fact, a bigger deal than he'd assumed. "Uh. I mean, I always just follow the protocol, you know."
"What protocol?" The Bats had various protocols that could potentially apply, but none that were specifically intended to cover 'more experienced vigilantes forget their half-trained child companion and accidentally leave him behind all by himself in the middle of Gotham City.'
"Evaluate the destination, return to base if dangerous, rendezvous using the tracker program if not," Shadow rattled off, sounding like he was genuinely reciting.
"And you figured Scarecrow counted as 'not dangerous,' " Robin said skeptically.
"He's not like Joker or Bane, and I have a gas mask," Shadow pointed out. "Scarecrow isn't really a fighter. Once you've accounted for his fear toxin, he's not much of a problem, and it's easy to evade rent-a-goons." Batman, watching closely, thought that the boy seemed to be trying to sound more casual and confident than he felt, but couldn't be sure.
"We'll talk about this more back home," Batman said. "For now, Shadow, stick close, and comm us if we get separated again."
"Yes, sir," Shadow said earnestly.
Batman's nerves were still rattled and he ended up calling off patrol earlier than usual. Tim fell asleep again on the car ride home, and this time, Bruce didn't wake him. He left the boy sleeping while he and Jason went through their post-patrol routine, then he carried the child up to bed. Tim stirred a bit in his arms but didn't wake.
Jason, trailing after them, started examining the room as Bruce laid Tim on the bed and removed his shoes. Jason waited impatiently until the younger boy was tucked in and the door closed. He followed Bruce into the master suite, shut the door firmly, and announced, "There's no way that kid's been living here longer than a day."
"That's what the state of his room indicates," Bruce agreed, "but then how did he know about our night life?"
"Supervillain with illusion powers to make him look like a kid or something, I don't know. But, Bruce, something stinks here!"
"I agree that this is still an active investigation. I've programmed the security system to alert me if Tim's door or windows open, or if there's any unusual movement in the house or on the grounds. We'll get to the bottom of this, Jason."
The boy fidgeted. "I don't wanna, like, sleep in your bed or anything, but...can I stay in here with you?"
"Of course." Bruce felt better himself at the idea of being able to keep one of his sons close during an uncertain time. He helped Jason arrange some blankets on the divan, made sure the boy was settled, then went to bed himself. The nagging mystery of Timothy's presence in the manor made sleep difficult, but he eventually managed it.
o.o.o
The next morning, Bruce dragged himself out of bed because he had to go to work and the boys had to go to school. When he and Jason trudged into the hallway, a door opened and Tim shuffled out. Bruce fetched Dick, and the four of them made their shambling way to the kitchen, where Alfred already had toast and bacon ready and was just finishing up a batch of eggs.
Bruce turned toward the coffee machine and was surprised to find Tim ahead of him, lurching toward the enticing smell. Bruce blinked stupidly, not putting pieces together until Tim had filled a mug and started lifting it toward his face. "You're little," was the best Bruce could manage at this hour of the morning, reaching to work the cup out of Tim's hands.
Tim made a small whine, then dragged another mug out of the cabinet and grasped the coffee pot.
"No, Tim." Bruce turned to his butler, trying to figure out how to articulate that someone needed to stop the boy. It wasn't good for someone so young to drink coffee. "Alfred, no, please."
Alfred looked up from where he was filling plates. "Put the coffee down, Master Tim."
By this time, there was a groggy wrestling match underway. "I need it," Tim mumbled. He couldn't get the coffee pot out of Bruce's hands, so he lowered his face instead as if to try to drink straight out of it.
"You ought to know by now, Master Tim," Alfred said meaningfully, "that sixteen or older is the rule in this house."
Tim slowly came to a halt. After a long moment, he lifted his face and gave Bruce and Alfred one of the most pitiful, beseeching expressions they had ever seen.
"Surely you didn't forget?" Alfred said sweetly. "Every member of the household knows the rule."
"...Shoulda known I couldn' sneak past you," Tim finally mumbled, signaling defeat by, not only letting go of the coffee pot, but also sliding all the way down until he was sprawled on the floor. Bruce squinted at him for a long moment, then set the coffee pot down, picked up the boy, and carried him over to the breakfast nook. As soon as Tim was set in a chair, he flopped over and buried his face in his arms on the table. Dick was in a similar pose except that he was hugging a box of cereal. Jason was robotically inserting food into his mouth and chewing.
A little later, after Bruce had eaten enough to feel more awake, he looked over the boys and considered. Tim fit right in with Dick and Jason, all three of them hunched in their sleepwear with mussed hair, bleary-eyed as they worked their way through breakfast. With their black hair and blue eyes, they all looked like brothers at a casual glance.
Unfortunately, no matter how much Tim seemed to belong, he didn't really, or at least not yet. Bruce couldn't leave such a suspicious person home alone with Alfred all day. But Tim apparently didn't attend school in person, so there was only one thing left to do with him. "You're coming to work with me today, Tim."
Tim went still, then peered at him. "I am?"
"Then we can go shopping afterward, without me having to go all the way to the manor and then back into town and then back to the manor before patrol even starts."
"Oh. Um, should I bring my schoolwork?"
"You have anything else to do?" Bruce said, trying to sound teasing even as he idly considered the very remote possibility that Tim might be a corporate spy.
"Uh, no, I guess not."
By the time Bruce was ready for work, Tim was, too, to a further extent than Bruce had expected. "Where did you get that suit?" Bruce wondered, surveying the tiny little businessman before him. Tim looked more natural in the formal outfit than Bruce would have thought possible.
"Alfred fixed one of Jason's for me," Tim said warily.
Bruce decided to press a little. "What happened to the one you wore at the last gala?" he invented.
"Darlene Winston spilled some wine on me after you left for patrol," Tim said without missing a beat. Bruce was impressed. Darlene Winston was exactly the type of person who'd get tipsy enough to spill alcohol on a twelve-year-old.
"Surely Alfred's already taken care of that by now."
Tim fidgeted, the very picture of restrained sheepishness. "I kind of...never told Alfred?"
Bruce raised an eyebrow. "It'll be worse now than if you'd told him at the beginning."
"I just- I was already on thin ice because of talking Jeremiah Simmons's ear off and laughing at Jane Callaghan - laughing out loud, I mean - so I...I didn't want to disappoint him anymore than I already had, you know? And then I forgot, and now, like you said, he'll be even more angry, so..."
Bruce frowned. Alfred would be annoyed at the failure to inform him of a stain on a formal garment in a timely manner, but he didn't care any more than Bruce did about a child chattering to an adult or laughing at someone who had very likely done something legitimately foolish. Also, it was a bit unnerving how much he and Tim had to say about an imaginary gala. "The suit's fine," he said. "You look very nice, Tim."
"Oh. Um, thank you, sir- Dad. Thanks, Dad." Tim grinned nervously, his cheeks a little pink.
Bruce took pity on him and moved toward the garage, clapping the boy on the shoulder as he passed. "Come on, let's get to the car."
TBC