Tim Drake Steals Himself A Family, a Batman fanfic by Raberba girl

Part 3 (rough draft)

Tim waited, trying unsuccessfully to pick words out of the murmuring in the hall. Eventually, Batman himself entered the room. Tim was kind of terrified, but also really excited at finally getting to see his hero up close, at least when Mr. Wayne wasn't surrounded by socialites and pretending to be Brucie. He was barely dressed, and wow, he had so many scars. That made sense, considering all the fights he got into, but poor Mr. Wayne. Some of those scars looked like the injuries that caused them had really hurt.

He wasn't Batman right now, though; he was just Mr. Wayne, and even if he was here to throw Tim out of the house, he hadn't actually done so yet, and Tim had to keep trying. "Morning, Dad!" Oh, that felt really, really good to say. Tim was glad he'd had a chance to say that at least once in his life.

Instead of kicking him out, Mr. Wayne just said warily, "Morning." He sat down on an empty stool. "Um...how did you sleep?"

Hmm. Maybe Batman was being cautious, assessing a potential threat before deciding how best to handle it. That could only work to Tim's advantage; it gave him a few more minutes to continue his plan. Next was to explain how he'd gotten into the house in a way that would make sense for someone who was supposed to be there. "Fine, I guess," Tim said, trying to imitate the way Jason would say it. "I can't believe you just left me in the Batmobile like that."

Mr. Wayne blinked. "I'm sorry, what?"

Channel Jason, channel Jason. "Daaad, you did forget about me, didn't you! I fell asleep in the car waiting for you, then I woke up in the cave and you just left me in the Batmobile and I woulda kept sleeping there all night if I hadn't woken up!" There. That was good, right? Maybe push the idea that Batman had been too tired to notice the intruder. "You were really tired, huh. I bet you're not going to work today."

Mr. Wayne looked stunned. Tim felt...weird. It was so weird to feel pleased, even maybe kind of elated, that he had somehow managed to shock Batman. It would be sort of worth getting kicked out now, knowing that he'd at least managed to do something as impossible as that. It was overkill to say "What?" as if Mr. Wayne was the one being weird, but Tim did it, anyway, and it was kind of funny.

"...I have to...check something," Mr. Wayne said, and then he just...left. Without kicking Tim out. That would probably come later, once Mr. Wayne had looked at the camera footage or whatever it was he'd gone to check.

Then Mr. Pennyworth started cooking breakfast - not just for the family, Tim soon discovered, but for Tim, too. Mr. Pennyworth was making breakfast for the upstart intruder. And he started talking to him, just normal, casual conversation, asking Tim about how his week had gone and continuing as if he was actually listening to and considering Tim's responses. Acting like Tim was interesting, even though there was absolutely no reason for the butler to pretend like some random kid had anything of value to say. Tim hadn't expected Mr. Pennyworth to be so incredibly nice. Tim would treasure this memory once he was back home.

Mr. Wayne eventually came back with his sons in tow. Tim's heart fluttered with excitement at getting to meet more of his heroes at somewhere other than a social event, and also anxiety at the addition of more people who were totally going to call him out on his intrusion any moment now.

"Good morning," he said, trying to smile. No one immediately started yelling at him, so he tried to think of something to say and remembered that Mr. Pennyworth had offered to go to the trouble of cooking something extra, just because Tim had made an offhand comment about pancakes. It wouldn't be right for the man to go to all that trouble just for Tim. "Alfred said he'd make pancakes, but I told him I don't need any unless you guys want some."

"Who the heck are you?" Jason demanded, which was tamer than Tim had expected. More of a question than an accusation.

Tim went to the next item on his script, which was to respond to doubts with something to make it seem like he really did belong here, such as implying that Jason was simply teasing a younger sibling. "I told you that isn't funny, Jason," Tim said, doing his best to look like his feelings were hurt. It wasn't difficult - seeing the anger on Jason's face and the suspicion on everyone's else's was painful when it was all directed at him, no matter how deserved it was.

"I'm not making a joke," Jason snapped. "Bruce, who is he?"

He was assuming Bruce had given Tim permission to be here, rather than attacking Tim outright. It was crazy how cautious they were being about resisting the obvious intruder in their midst.

Bruce's only response was a mumble, and Dick was simply squinting at Tim as if trying to fit together puzzle pieces that didn't match.

It was unbelievable how far they were letting him get away with this. "Dad! Come on, I'm Tim! Your son!" Tim continued on, slipping in his name so they'd know what to call him. "You grounded Jason for picking on me but now you're doing it, too!"

To his shock, Mr. Wayne, actually apologized to him, as if Tim's lies were actually true. "I'm just...in a strange mood today, patrol was tough. I think I will take the day off."

What? Why was Mr. Wayne...playing along like this...?

Then the Waynes all left. Without kicking Tim out.

Tim was starting to wonder if he was still asleep, if he'd been obsessing over his plans so much that he'd started to dream them out. That made more sense than his plan actually being this successful. He didn't feel like he was dreaming, but he never did until he woke up. If he was really asleep, though, would it ever occur to him that he might be dreaming?

'I'm so confused.'

There was nothing for it but to just keep going for as long as they let them, so as soon as Mr. Wayne, Dick, and Jason returned, Tim tried to shoo them away to school, hoping to get some of them out of a house so he'd have more of a chance to hide and talk himself out of his anxiety.

Unfortunately, the older boys were apparently not going to school after all, which meant Tim had to stay on his toes against four people instead of two.

"So, Timmy," Dick said, as if they really were brothers, "B took you out on patrol last night, huh?"

Was he just fishing for an inconsistency, something concrete to call Tim out on? But what could be more concrete than him being a stranger in their home?

"Yup," Tim was already saying. Think, think...he didn't have enough training to pretend to be a full-fledged vigilante, but he needed a reason to go out into the field with the Bats, anyway. Could he slip in a bit of truth? Revealing that he took pictures of the Bats couldn't be any worse than waltzing uninvited into their lair, right? "I didn't really get any good pictures this time, but that's okay. The one from last week of Batman and Robin swinging past the moon was good enough to make up for a few dud nights."

"Can I see it again?" Dick asked. Urk. Good thing Tim hadn't lied about that particular photograph existing.

"Yeah, after breakfast," Tim said, trying to stay nonchalant.

"Got any plans after that?" Jason asked.

That was an easy one. "Uh, school, duh." Tim had plenty of work for the online school he'd enrolled in to use as a smokescreen.

"So I have to drive one of you into town after all?" Mr. Wayne asked.

Tim was confused for a moment, then realized that it had probably been assumed that he went to regular school. Tim had to set him straight without making it seem like Mr. Wayne didn't know something that he absolutely should if Tim had really been his son. "Dad, come on. Your jokes today suck more than usual. But speaking of school, you checked my math book yesterday, right, Dad?" Tim had done enough of the schoolwork beforehand to make it look like it was something he routinely worked on rather than starting it all from the beginning today.

"Er, no, sorry, Tim," Mr. Wayne said. "I'll do that while you're working on a different subject."

" 'Kay," Tim said automatically, but he was starting to get really creeped out. The longer this went on, the more everyone, especially Mr. Wayne, was acting like Tim's stupid plan was actually reality. That was impossible, right? So why in the world was Batman playing along?

After breakfast, everyone reminded Tim that he'd promised to show them his photos, so he reluctantly went upstairs to fetch his laptop. He didn't dare protest being accompanied by Jason, and nervously peered out of the corner of his eye when they entered the bedroom, wondering if the older boy was going to poke around. But Jason didn't seem interested in investigating the bedroom, he simply waited with his hands in his pockets while Tim picked up the laptop.

Then Tim had to actually show the Bats some of the pictures he'd taken of them, and it took a great effort to stop himself from fidgeting or flinching. He felt a little sick. It was bad enough seeing his work get ignored by his parents or made fun of by classmates; he didn't think he could handle his heroes looking at his photography and being disgusted or even just unimpressed.

But he had to show them, there was no way to back out... It was okay if they didn't like the pictures, as long as they didn't get outright angry. He just had to suck it up and show them and then just be grateful that he was near them, that he'd been able to see their secret hideout. Just get it over with, it will be fine, just get through the next few minutes and it'll be-

"Whooaa," Dick breathed at the image of Batman helping a rescued victim to her feet, cape curling around her in one of the convenient breezes that always seemed to fill Gotham. Tim ground his teeth together, trying not to flinch. Then the next thing Dick said was, "That's amazing!" and it took Tim a second to realize that it wasn't anything disparaging. Then he had to figure out if Dick was being sarcastic or not, but he couldn't quite bring himself to look at the other boy to make sure.

Then Mr. Wayne said, "It is very nice," and Tim had to avoid choking on his own spit. There was no way Mr. Wayne would stoop to being sarcastic about something like this, right? He was more the wordlessly unimpressed type.

"Oh, that one's cool," Jason said about the next photo, which was just a simple cityscape. Tim took a lot of those when he was bored on stakeouts, since there wasn't much else to photograph. It could be kind of pretty to see all the city's lights arrayed under the cloudy night sky, and sometimes he used the opportunity to practice with exposure times to figure out the best effects for traffic light trails. But really, if you saw one or two Gotham cityscapes, you'd seen them all.

Tim wasn't sure the Waynes were serious until they were twenty pictures in and all four of them had expressed genuine admiration of every single one of them. There was no way Tim was that good a photographer. Maybe they just didn't have a discerning eye for that sort of thing? Maybe they were just lying through their teeth as part of their 'play along with the interloper for now' game? Whatever the reason, it felt...kind of good, to hear people saying nice things about his work.

...It felt really good. Even if they were lying, they were really good at faking sincerity, and it was just...pleasant to hear.

"Ooohh, that is a nice one," Dick said when Tim eventually found the photo he'd mentioned in the first place.

Tim felt himself blushing with pleasure. It was a good picture, one of his favorites, but the Waynes were giving him more credit than he deserved. When photographing subjects in motion, he usually just combined burst mode with a fast shutter speed, so all he had to do was hold down the shutter button at the right times and it would automatically take a whole batch of shots. Then later, when he was at home, he could sort through all the results, discard the bad shots, and pick which ones were the keepers. It kind of felt like cheating, but it was the only way he could reliably capture good moments of the Bats' battles and such. Cheating hadn't mattered when Tim was only taking pictures for his own pleasure, but it felt wrong when other people were complimenting what he'd done.

Even Jason said, "It's really good. Good job, Tim, I guess."

Tim started to thank him automatically, having trouble getting words out of his tight throat, then realized he had to act like all this was normal instead of almost too wonderful to handle. He quickly cleared his throat and tried to sound confident while saying, "Thanks, Jason."

"Well," Mr. Wayne said when they finally finished looking at everything in the folder, "you'd better get to work, Tim. Bring your things here to the kitchen so Alfred can help you if you have any questions."

It was too bad Tim wouldn't have a chance to hide and pull his thoughts together, but at least it was only schoolwork. He could deal with that.

TBC

A/N: Ftr, burst mode isn't cheating; I'm under the impression that it's common practice for sports/nature/etc. photographers.