Diabolical | T. Drake ✔

[03] Adopted By The Bat

"So Mister Wayne, where exactly are you taking me?"

The Batmobile skidded but did not come to a halt as Batman took a sharp turn to avoid the traffic. He knew he hadn't heard Timothy wrong yet the boy had clearly addressed him as Mister Wayne although there was no way he could have figured it out.

"You have a very cool car though," he remarked, unfazed by what had just happened, "but mechanics have never really interested me or I would have asked you everything about the suspension and the brakes you have used. Don't seem like standard ones to me."

"Put on your seatbelt," Bruce said, but he was a bit shaken himself.

"Okay," Tim refastened the seat belt and turned to look out the window, "though I will have you know that it wasn't your hearing deceiving you. I did call you Mister Wayne."

"And why did you say that?"

"Because that's who you are. I kept quiet in front of Doctor Crane but there's no one else listening to us right now so..." He explained, a smug little smirk playing upon his lips.

"Timothy, you need to be silent until we reach the cave. Can you do that?"

"Sure," he made a gesture of zipping his lips shut then slumped back in his seat.

He straightened when they reached the Batcave and a portal opened up for the Batmobile to drive through. He was looking around in amazement as he hadn't really expected Batman's hideout to be an actual cave, although he could see it was engineered to look that way.

"Do not touch anything," Bruce warned as the boy jumped off the Batmobile in excitement, his thin frame doing 360 degrees as he tried to take in his surroundings completely.

"Can I speak now?"

"Yes."

"Holy fuck," he swore under his breath, eyes widening to the utmost extent, "this is so fucking cool."

"Okay, enough swear words in a single sentence."

"What are you, my Dad?" He mocked, surprisingly not touching anything as he looked at the giant stalactites hanging from the ceiling.

A swarm of bats descended and left the cave through the closing portal but that did not faze him either as he looked around in fascination.

"Sit down," he told him and Tim obediently took the offered chair although his eyes were longingly flickering to the Batcomputer. "Why do you think I am Bruce Wayne?"

He had come straight to the point so a knowing smirk played upon Tim's lips as he shrugged, "lucky guess?"

"You're telling me the truth, no stupid excuses."

"God, you're so infuriating. I kinda like Doctor Crane more in this respect, even he didn't order me about that much," the boy mumbled but then seeing the classic Bat glare focused on him, he gave up. "Okay, fine, it's pretty obvious. Have you seen the stuff you use? No one other than Bruce Wayne can afford it. I mean maybe Lex Luthor could but he wouldn't come to Gotham each night just to kick criminal asses, would he?"

Bruce felt called out. Now that the boy had pointed out such a simple fact that could easily give away the Dark Knight's civilian identity, he found it quite alarming that he hadn't thought about it at first.

"You are Bruce Wayne, aren't you? Because if you're going to make an excuse again, I can refresh your memory with a chronology of how your Robins fit the description of the Wayne wards and how the last Robin disappeared right after Jason Todd's death."

That sentence seemed to have struck a nerve as Bruce's jaw twitched and he turned away, taking off the cowl. Perhaps Jonathan Crane had been right, that little boy was diabolical and he really shouldn't have brought him along with him.

"Hey, are you just going to leave me here? I don't see how this is any more conducive than my basement but I'm not complaining," the boy spoke up and Bruce sighed wearily.

"No, you're coming up with me. Don't touch anything while I come back."

"Right..."

Bruce had gone to change out of the Batsuit while Tim kept seated on his chair, spinning it around like a child. His fingers twitched to reach out and examine everything there was but before he could do so, a voice took him by alarm.

"And who might you be, young Master?"

He spun the chair around to see an old man step out from nowhere, wise old eyes examining him thoroughly. He did look slightly concerned, seeing the state the boy was in.

"Timothy Drake, sir," he replied with a slight smile.

"Master Timothy, when was the last time you ate anything?"

"Frankly, I do not remember."

Alfred nodded, knowing that it would take Bruce some time in the shower so he offered, "why don't you come up to the kitchen then? Help yourself to anything you wish to eat."

"You're far nicer than the old Bat," he eagerly hopped off the stool, "and I don't care much about food but if I could get some coffee, that would be great."

By the time Bruce came upstairs to Wayne Manor, Tim was in the kitchen, chatting up with Alfred while chugging down cups over cups of coffee. He had barely eaten the bowl of pasta that Alfred had given him first but judging by the almost empty thermos beside him, it was clear he had consumed a lot of coffee.

"And I kid you not, the thing works," Tim was gleefully explaining the antidote to fear gas that he had discovered himself, "I tried it on Doctor Crane."

"You did what?"

He turned to see Bruce standing by the door of the kitchen.

"I gassed him, as he told you, and cured him too with the antidote," he remarked as if it was a pretty normal thing to do, "last I checked, it isn't illegal as long as the experimentation is being done with consent. I didn't force him, promise."

Bruce felt that Tim had a lot more surprises up his sleeve and if he stuck to his decision of taking him in then he best be ready to be shocked on a daily basis.

Alfred could see that the young frail boy Bruce had brought home was a lot different from both Richard and Jason. For starters, he looked as if he was a second away from turning into a skeleton and he talked like he had crammed a lot of information inside his small head.

"Okay all things aside, when am I going home?" Tim asked, shaking Bruce out of the confused and shocked daze he had gone into briefly.

"You call that home?"

"It's all I have had so yeah," he shrugged.

Bruce thought it over and then shook his head, "you will be staying here from now on. This is your new home."

"Wait, what...?" For the first time, the boy actually seemed shocked. He had definitely not been expecting that a chance meeting with Batman would end up in him being adopted by Bruce Wayne as well.

"Master Bruce, you never fail to astound me," Alfred remarked as he was about to leave the kitchen to show Tim a room that would from then onwards be his to live in.

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