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Swapping weight from one foot to the other, hesitation bit into Tim’s every movement as he lingered in the hall just outside Wayne Manor’s master bedroom.
The small, ovular black box secure between his hands was made impossibly heavier with the leaden worry that had conjointly settled in his stomach. Without its lid, the contents of the container caught the dying rays of the afternoon sun. Safely nestled within, two cherished cufflinks featuring a gold crest in the shape of a ‘W’ sat elegantly displayed, encased by a silver silk lining.
Absently, Tim thumbed the side of the box, worrying his lower lip between his teeth.
The cufflinks had been a gift, given to him by Bruce on the day of his adoption, but they had once belonged to Bruce’s father, Thomas Wayne. It was with visible pride and a sturdy hand on his shoulder that Bruce had passed the box on, sharing with a reverent and wide-eyed Tim the story of their sentimental value.
And it no longer felt right to wear or keep them.
Mistakes happened, Tim knew this. He had made a few himself over the years—an understatement, to be sure, but he understood that even with precision planning, sometimes things just didn’t go the way one hoped.
Opening the letter from Gotham’s Department for Childrens’ Services had certainly been a mistake. Only belatedly, he’d realized the letter hadn’t actually been addressed to him at all. In fact, it had been addressed to Bruce Wayne.
Ultimately, while Tim didn’t understand how their addresses had even become mixed up, he supposed it didn’t matter.
With a lazy weekend lethargy, he’d pried open the envelope without thought, but by the time he reached the bottom of the letter it was like someone had taken his life, popped it inside a glass jar, and shaken as hard as they could.
Fumbling for his phone, he had punched in the 1-800 number, pressing the screen flush against his ear and deliberately doing his best to ignore the slight tremor to his hand.
“Gotham City Department for Childrens’ Services, my name is Shannelle, how can I help you today?”
“Um, hello,” he began, voice shaking slightly as he swallowed around the anxious lump in his throat. “I recently received a letter from your department—? It reads that there may have been an issue with my adoption process.”
Listening over the receiver, Tim could hear the unmistakable sound of chewing gum, followed by a sympathetic hum.
“Oh, I see,” she replied in understanding. “Would you mind reading me the case number located at the top of your letter, please?”
Clearing his throat, Tim had recited the number, voice in sync with the keyboard clicks on the other end of the line. Feeling too tense to sit still, he’d paced around his apartment, tidying one-handed.
Shannelle let out a deep sigh before speaking again. “I see,” she said finally, recapturing his full attention as he hovered behind the couch, gripping the channel-back with force. “It appears that the problem, Mr. Wayne, stems from an issue that arose with our system when you adopted Timothy Jackson Drake. It seems that the adoption was not fully formalized as required.”
Under him, suddenly Tim’s knees felt weak and unsteady.
Unseeingly, Tim stared at the floor. White-knuckled fingers protested the intensity of his grip, but he hardly noticed the slight discomfort. “How could that possibly be?” he wondered in a tight-throated whisper, words spoken through unmoving lips. “What… what causes something like this to happen?”
Sensing his obvious distress, Shannelle was quick to reassure him that both Dick and Jason’s adoption applications had gone through in a correct and timely manner. “—in Timothy’s case, it may very well been a glitch in the system, a box wasn’t ticked along the line, or perhaps the application form was missing a signature somewhere—”
His brain latched onto the last item on her list, like a grappling hook to a rusty fire escape.
“Please rest assured Mr. Wayne,” she continued on, utterly oblivious to his sudden inability to breathe. “We can get this sorted out and fixed up. If you simply head over to the department’s website, you can download the form there. You just fill that out, add your signature, and email it back to us. I will expedite the application and sort this whole mess out for you, alright?”
Even the idea that perhaps Bruce had missed a box when filling out the paperwork sounded ludicrous. Bruce was by far the most meticulous man Tim had ever met. There was no way he would have overlooked a check or forgot to add a signature.
Not unless, Tim reasoned with renewed dread, Bruce had done so on purpose.
The more he thought about it, the more it dawned on him how perfect of a plan it was. Gotham’s public service systems took forever to process anything and even longer to fix those corrections. If Bruce had lodged the form three years ago then it would stand to reason that the error would only be getting picked up now. Maybe, when Bruce had lodged the form, he figured he would be rid of Tim by now. This way, there would be nothing tying Tim to Bruce, or any of the Wayne’s for that matter.
Perhaps the whole song and dance around his adoption had been for show, to make Tim believe he was a wanted Robin while Batman searched for someone better to fill Jason’s too-big boots—like Stephanie, or like… Damian.
So, bringing up the adoption error with Bruce was absolutely a no-go. If by chance Bruce was still playing along, allowing Tim into his home like he belonged there and hadn’t wandered in like a stray cat, then he didn’t want to do anything to threaten that. This was the last semblance of family he had. Even if they didn’t want or need him, the reverse could not be said the same.
Taking a deep breath, Tim shook his head and forced himself to focus, expelling his thoughts from the slip into his unwelcome reverie. He turned his attention back to the cufflinks in hand and the door before him.
If the truth was that Bruce had really hoped to be rid of him by now, then Tim reasoned the polite and correct course of action would be to return the heirloom cufflinks so that Bruce could pass them on to his youngest son. Damian would undoubtedly cherish them as much as Tim had. The visible show of lineage would certainly go a long way in helping Damian feel secure in his place as a Wayne.
With a bracing breath, Tim drank his last fill of the cufflinks before returning the box lid to its proper place. Comparatively, he had spent more time with Batman than the man under the mask. Of them all, he knew Bruce Wayne the least.
Tim slipped inside the master bedroom unseen.
The room was pristine, without clutter and tidily dressed. A guilty sensation crawled up his spine as he crept across the room, reminding him how extraordinarily out of place he was here. Interloper, his brain unhelpfully supplied.
At the old oak vanity, Tim paused, searching for a spot between the mirror and rows of cologne that would be suitable enough to leave the cufflinks. It couldn’t be too obvious, he didn’t want Bruce thinking they’d been deliberately placed. Rather, he hoped the man would find them and simply forget he had given them to Tim several years ago.
Lost in his hunt for the perfect place to hide the box, Tim neglected to hear the door open, the creak of hinges going unnoticed until it was woefully late.
It was only the mystified murmur of his name that finally alerted him to another presence. His heart skipped a beat.
Clumsily fumbling to conceal the box behind his back, Tim spun to face the man, a breathless exclamation of his name on Tim’s tongue.
“Bruce!”
Where Tim had anticipated alarm at his presence in Bruce’s bedroom, he was surprised to find the man oddly unfazed. Bruce, still wearing his overcoat, began to unwind the scarf from around his neck, his brow beginning to furrow as he studied Tim’s awkwardly rigid form.
“Tim, hello?”
Throwing the scarf on his bed, Bruce stuffed his hands inside his pockets to retrieve keys, phone and the other miscellaneous items that had accumulated, casting them across the bed in a similarly haphazard fashion.
“Can’t say I was expecting to find you here,” he said, confusion and concern rising, his words slowly gathering a dawning urgency as he spoke. “What’s wrong? Has something happened?”
Internally, Tim winced. Right. Crap. This looked really bad.
The slight edge of suspicion in Bruce’s voice sliced right through the air between them. Whatever excuse Tim came up with wouldn’t be good enough, the man would know straight away.
The truth would out, maybe it was just… best to get it over with.
With a defeated sigh, Tim revealed the box from behind his back.
“I… actually came to return these to you,” he admitted, dropping his gaze to the floor. It was cowardly, but he didn’t want to see what kind of face Bruce would make.
Crossing the distance between them, Bruce raised a hand and it hovered over the box between Tim’s two palms.
“Hn.” Interest and surprise found its way into his voice. “What is this?”
Without putting too much thought into it, Tim shoved the cufflinks into Bruce’s hands before his own dropped into balled fists by his sides. If he held the box any longer, he feared he would struggle in giving it up.
“I figured you might want them back,” he acknowledged, keeping his gaze fixed firmly on the carpet. “For Damian.”
As he spoke, Bruce lifted the box lid.
For half a second, Tim wondered if the hurt in the man’s voice was genuine, but Matches Malone was evidence enough that Bruce knew how to put on an act. It wasn’t real, Tim told himself as he briefly squeezed shut his eyes. None of it really ever was. He didn’t want to be here any longer.
“I gave these to you, Tim,” he said, confusion mixed in alongside the false upset. “Are they… not to your liking?”
“No!” he balked, eyes widening as his head jerked up, pushing back the bangs that flopped over his vision. “No, Bruce, it isn’t like that—I just thought you would want to pass them on properly. You should give them to Damian, I’m sure he would love that. I’m sorry, I should go.”
Though he tried his best, Tim wasn’t given the opportunity to make a clean escape. Instead, Bruce’s hand closed around his wrist, holding him firmly in place.
“Stop, Tim, where are you going?” Bruce asked with escalating panic. “What do you mean by ‘pass them on properly?’ I already gave them to you, kiddo. ”
“Yeah,” Tim agreed sadly. “I know you did, but you didn’t know about Damian when you adopted me and he’s a real Wayn— he’s your real son.”
Bruce’s face worked its way through several expressions, eventually settling for a frown as concern worked its way into his brow like an etch-a-sketch.
“What are you saying, Tim?” he asked, sounding somewhere between lost and winded. “You’re not making any sense.”
The room lapsed into an uncomfortable silence as Tim searched for the right words, the best words to let Bruce know that he didn’t have to pretend just to spare Tim’s feelings. It wasn’t as though he was thirteen anymore, and what use did some adoption papers even serve at this point? The crown molding around the ceiling was suddenly incredibly interesting.
He opened his mouth several times, only to snap it closed again. “Listen, Bruce, I appreciate the position you were in when I took up the Robin mantle,” he finally settled on, hoping to get through this conversation without making an utter fool of himself by crying or some such. “I didn’t exactly make it easy for you. So I know the adoption was… out of convenience, shall we say.”
Plastering on a smile that he hoped wasn’t too watery, Tim forced himself to meet Bruce’s startled expression.
“But let’s be honest just this once, alright? I know you didn’t really adopt me. I got a letter from the D.F.C.S. last week. I’m guessing you just thought I would be—” Tim waved his free hand about loftily, “—elsewhere by now.”
Bruce’s surprise rose as he evidently struggled to comprehend. Around Tim’s wrist, his grip tightened almost painfully.
“I wasn’t planning on telling anyone or making a big deal of it,” Tim continued, wondering if his mother might feel proud of his too-wide smile and carefully hollow words. “But with Damian living here now… well, I mean, the time is right, isn’t it? I’m emancipated now anyway, so the adoption doesn’t really mean anything anymore—”
“Tim,” Bruce interjected bluntly. “Stop, stop, stop. You’re not making any sense.”
Wringing the back of his neck, Tim sighed, feeling oddly beaten down by Bruce’s act.
“The department for children’s services sent a letter meant for you to my address and I opened it without checking,” he explained slowly. “So I know that my forms were lodged incorrectly. According to the law, you never actually adopted me.”
When the first tear fell, skipping over his cheek, he forced his smile wider.
“I think we both know each other well enough to know that this wasn’t a check-box error,” Tim continued, sucking in a shuddered inhalation as Bruce flinched and released his arm, allowing it to swing limply back to Tim’s side. “You’re too diligent for that. So, I’m taking the hint, Mr. Wayne. I’m… trying to do the right thing.”
Silence fell across them both like a blanket. They stood, frozen, for at least a minute. Perhaps, self-deprecatingly, Tim wondered if Bruce would have anything to say at the last, but the man just blinked back at him without a word spoken.
Eventually, Tim started to turn, ready to make his way out of the room and maybe out of the Waynes’ lives forever. This was the way he’d always intended it to be, right?
Nothing was telegraphed and no warning came as Tim was virtually tackled, prevented from turning away as Bruce’s arm circled his shoulders and held on tight.
A tear lopped off his eyelash as he blinked, perplexed.
“Tim, listen to me,” Bruce demanded, peeling back ever-so-slightly. To Tim’s surprise, the man scoured his face, like he wasn’t quite sure if Tim would fade like an end credits scene if he looked away. “There’s been a mistake.”
The cufflinks box cradled in one hand, the other went about brushing the few tears from his cheeks.
“My father gave these to me the week before he died,” he started anew, pushing the cufflinks back into Tim’s empty hand. “For years they meant everything to me. They reminded me that, even though he was gone, there would always be a part of him with me wherever I went.”
Careful fingers swept Tim’s locks back behind his ear then slipped under his chin.
“I swear to you, Tim, that when I gave you these cufflinks I had hoped they would represent something similar for you,” he murmured. “That you would know I would always be with you, no matter what.”
With a sniff, Tim glanced down at the box and wiggled off the lid.
“You’re a Wayne too, Tim,” Bruce continued, his voice dropping into hardly more than a whisper as he plucked one of the cufflinks from its place and smiled. “And I’ll set that in stone.”
With the edge of his sleeve, Tim swiped at his eyes. “Are… you sure, B? Are you sure this is what you really want?”
Bruce pulled him in. “Timothy Jackson Drake-Wayne, I’ve never been more sure of anything in my entire life,” he huffed lightly. “Papers or no, you’re a Wayne in every way that matters, and you always will be.”
Tim’s stomach roiled with a multitude of emotions, relief standing out among them. Bonelessly, he sagged into Bruce’s touch, fingers finding his sweater and fisting the fabric between them.
“Did you really mean to adopt me?” he asked in a small voice.
He wondered if he imagined the low whine, but he doesn’t think he did.
“Kiddo, yes,” Bruce replied seriously, encircled arms feeling like a promise. “You were a son to me long before I put my name to that piece of paper, but yes, I fully intended to adopt you that day. And if the law says otherwise, then we will march back down to city hall together and go through the process again.”
Tim hummed by way of reply and nodded, hiding his face in Bruce’s shirt as the man pressed a kiss to his crown.
“Second time’s the charm.”
“Yeah,” Tim mumbled, a smile ghosting his lips. “Second time’s the charm.”