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Chapter Six

Masterlist

Tim stared down at his computer screen, not typing anything, just staring. It had been months, months, since his parents had talked to him on the all important 18th birthday. The talk had been enlightening and infuriating, but he was so happy that they’d finally seen fit to tell him that he never had an imaginary friend for the first few years of his life, instead he had a twin. That was information that totally should have been left unsaid for 14, fourteen!, years.

Tim sighed, again, knowing his thoughts usually weren’t this sarcastically spiteful. He had been searching every way he could think of to find his missing twin, but nothing had worked. His parents hadn’t even left a birth certificate behind when they abandoned their child. There was no record of a Nathaniel Drake anywhere he looked, which made sense because Tim didn’t remember Neil speaking very much. He’d come back from one of the hangouts with Jason’s new roommate, Danny, to find that one of the automatic searches had turned up nothing.

This didn’t help with his already low mood, but Tim supposed he shouldn’t have gotten his hopes up on a day like today. It had started with Alfred cutting him off again, which was normally fine because Tim didn’t even like coffee but today was different. He’d been up the entire night diving into yet more searching for his twin, but he’d found nothing. The only good thing about the day was being able to cancel a stupid meeting for shareholders at Wayne Enterprises for “outside commitments” that he didn’t tell them was just a hangout.

Speaking of hangouts, he should probably see if Kon could come to one soon, if only because he wanted some comfort from his best friend. He’d been searching for so long, and he hadn’t found a single clue. Tim had a good brain for facts and memorizing, but he had a tendency to throw out anything he didn’t view as important anymore. An imaginary friend was certainly not as important as stalking Batman and Robin, but a twin should have been. Tim just wanted someone to give him comfort and say all the right things to make this situation go away. The former was possible, but Tim didn’t think the latter was realistic.

Tim sighed again, rubbing his face with his hands to try and get his thoughts to quiet down. After all, he didn’t have time for a breakdown with how little he’d found out about his missing twin. He had to set up an automatic search again, expand the search parameters again, maybe get some coffee by bribing someone, and, judging by his clock which was five minutes fast, he needed to get at least one of those things done before he had to get ready for patrol. Great.

He only managed to get the parameters expanded and ready to be sent off to the program that was running automatic searches before he had to head down to the Cave to get ready. It was with a heavy heart that he left his computer to head to the study and the elevator hidden there. There was so much more he should be finding, but it was like someone had gone to the trouble of hiding his twin from him. Even if there was no record of an orphanage in one of the cities his parents had visited when they were four receiving someone named Nathaniel Drake, there should at least be a record of a four year old boy with black hair and blue eyes that had issues talking sometimes.

Arriving in the Cave, Tim shook his head free of the thoughts clogging it, he didn’t have room to think about all that while on patrol, that wouldn’t end well. It took Tim five minutes to finish suiting up, as opposed to the usual two and a half, but he couldn’t bring himself to care until Dick sent him a concerned look over it. He knew better than to let his inner turmoil show so easily, but this was unlike any inner turmoil he’d ever had before. Determinedly, Tim sent what he hoped was a reassuring smile back, as he firmly compartmentalized his thoughts in order to focus on patrol and the here and now.

Bruce, suited up and ready, stepped into position in front of the Batcomputer, ready to give the troops their orders. Tim didn’t trust himself not to give anything away, so he kept his eyes on the dark figure backlit by the screens. He felt several sets of eyes on him, but he didn’t dare turn his head. This was his own issue, it wasn’t something he should have to go to the other Bats and Birds with for help. Bruce waited until all of their eyes were on him, but he sent Tim a concerned look of his own that told Tim this night was about to turn into a long one.

“Since it is getting close to Halloween, we’re going to start patrolling in pairs.” Bruce was one sentence in, and Tim already had a bad feeling he knew where this was going. “Robin is with me, Spoiler and Orphan are paired up, Red Hood has declined help with Crime Alley, and Nightwing and Red Robin will be patrolling together. There is no trading of partners.” Bruce said more, but Tim was only barely listening.

It made sense, it really did, but that didn’t mean that Tim didn’t hate it. They’d sent the person who deals best with emotions out on patrol with him because the family was starting to get concerned about him. The only person he wasn’t a hundred percent sure about being in on the plan was Jason, but there was still a decent chance that Jason wanted him to talk about what was bothering him too. There wasn’t even any way to get out of it without sounding like he really did need help either because he was starting to go a little crazy over the lack of leads. Still, why couldn’t they just do the normal thing and stay out of his business until he was ready to do a big reveal, maybe with a Powerpoint and-

“Tim!” Dick shouted from a few feet away, anticipating Tim’s instinct to try and sweep the leg of whoever startled him. “I’ve been calling your name for like five minutes. We need to head out for patrol, remember.”

Damn it, he’d just affirmed their feelings that something was wrong. “Yeah, sure.” Tim tried to sound clear and enthused, but he failed, voice coming out mumbly and almost pouty.

Dick sent him a look filled with concern, so much so that Tim didn’t really want to meet his eyes. “You doing okay? If you need to stay in tonight, I’m sure I can handle it. We are patrolling together all week after all.”

Tim just sighed as he headed to his bike, letting his silence speak for itself. This wasn’t going to be very fun, but Tim had dealt with worse, he’d get through this. There was no way that Dick would be able to get any information out of him because this was far too personal of an issue to even think about sharing with any of the others. He’d even made it look like he was looking into just a regular missing person so the others would assume he was avoiding the issue- Oh. Now he saw his mistake, but it was too late to change any of that. How hard could it be to avoid Dick’s attempts to talk about it anyway?

~`~`~

The answer is very hard.

Tim had only endured three days of questions during patrol and subtler questions during the day if regular civilians were around, but he was already nearly at his wit’s end. There’d been no time for doing any searching while Dick and occasionally one or two of the others were needling him to try and find out what he’s hiding from them, and the lack of progress was already bad enough when he was doing something to try and change that. Now, with no progress and no way to attempt to make progress, he was getting increasingly irritable at an exponential rate, and there was no way that he could make their questions stop.

In a desperate attempt at doing something to throw them off the scent and get his itching to research to go away, he’d started looking into Danny again, even though he’d promised himself that he would leave them alone. Drastic times called for drastic measures, and the drastic measures had yielded results. He’d learned a lot about Danny’s backstory, but he refused to share any of it with anyone but Jason, the only one who hadn’t needled him about the search into his twin or let him be needled over it. Danny had been adopted at a young age into a family that seemed like it was at the very least neglective.

The recent name change from Daniel Fenton to Danny Nightingale had come when their adoptive father, who researched ghosts from a scientific standpoint with their adoptive mother, had declared that they were possessed and needed to be hunted down in order to be freed from “the ghastly ghost, er-, ecto entity possessing my baby boy,” which just sounded like it would lead to the vivisection of someone that Tim was becoming close with. Tim had started helping the people leading the man, named Jack Fenton, on a wild goose chase in between bouts of trying and failing to find enough private time to search for Neil.

Jason had told Danny that he and Tim had been alerted by an anonymous hacker as to their backstory, and Tim had even offered to see if the hacker would help send all the evidence to the Justice League to get help. Danny had declined their offers, simply stating that there were already plans in motion to fix the situation. Tim had continued helping with whatever he caught the mysterious helpers doing, not looking into it anymore at Danny’s request. Normally, a request for privacy wouldn’t totally stop him from trying to help, but Tim was currently on the receiving end of a massive invasion of privacy.

For once, as Tim headed out for the fourth day of patrol with Dick, he wished that it wouldn’t be a quiet night in Gotham. He didn’t go far enough to wish for an Arkham breakout because Danny was on shift, but if the interrogation tactics continued tonight, he didn’t know how long he could stay away from that topic. There was only so long he could avoid answering the questions without tipping them all off that it was something worth looking into, so the only way out of this situation was for higher priority tasks to swamp them until they didn’t remember what they wanted to look into in the first place.

Tim’s wishes were answered for the first half of the night, the patrol route he and Dick were on was too busy for any idle conversation, and Tim felt himself start to relax for the first time in days. It was nice to just focus on the flow of the fight, what the bad guy’s goal might be, and the quickest way to stop whatever that goal was. He was finally having a good time on patrol like he usually did.

Sadly, as they always say, all good things must come to an end. The second half of the night was oddly quiet, suspiciously quiet. Tim suspected that the others might be making sure he and Dick had enough of a quiet night for the interrogation to continue. He could only block out Dick’s questions for so long before his own worry about missing something relevant to any sort of case would make him tune back in, but he’d take his chances that he could hold out for the rest of the night.

Over and over he told himself the plan: Make it to the end of patrol and then retreat to the separate apartment he’d gotten just for this purpose, tricked out with so many traps and defenses that only those expressly trained in breaking in should be able to get in uninvited. It had been tested by everyone at one point or another, and only Cass or Damian had managed to sneak in without alerting Tim. Tim had so many escape plans for that place just because he knew that everyone would know that’s where he goes for privacy.

Tim tuned back into what Dick was saying, not wanting to get so lost in his head that he missed something. “Come on, you can tell me anything. I won’t get mad or call you stupid or anything like that.” Dick’s tone was imploring, but Tim just rolled his eyes in response, too used to this form of questioning to crack now. There was only a couple of minutes left and then he could escape this stupid conversation. “Tim,” Dick whined, elongating his name to comical proportions, “we’re family.”

That sentence turned Tim’s blood to ice. It was the phrase his parents always used when they wanted something out of him. “Do it for the family.” They’d say. “We’re family, Tim.” They’d use it like a reprimand or a prayer. Family was supposed to be something sacred, yet they’d thrown a member of their family away just because they thought they’d have enough with just Tim. They’d thrown him away too, even though they put a roof over his head and occasionally stocked food at the manor. “Tim, we’re family, how could you do this to us?” “Tim, we’re family, just do this one thing for us.” “Tim, you’re a member of this family, these grades aren’t good enough.” “Tim, what use is your memory if you don’t use it to honor your family.” He thought he’d moved past that, the unease he felt with someone claiming him as family, but hearing someone he cared about use it in much the same context as those people, the ones who’d willingly thrown away a son, he couldn’t deal with it.

Someone was saying something, but Tim couldn’t hear them over the thudding of his pulse and the screaming of his lungs. Family, family, family! His mind kept turning over and over all the times the word family was thrown in his face. Tim knew he had to snap out of this spiral or it would just get worse, but he couldn’t. All those times had suddenly taken on new meaning, a meaning he hated. Family had been so important to them, but it hadn’t, the idea of it had. They’d married for profit, and they’d had kids for profit. They’d thrown Neil away just because they didn’t see an early enough return on their investment, would-

A sudden burst of pain rocked Tim’s head back, bringing him back to the present. “Look at me.” A voice said, and he looked up to meet icy blue eyes that were seeming to stare into his soul. “Nod if you can see me.” There was a pause, but Tim was still reeling too much to do even that simple of a movement. Another burst of pain rocked his world, this time he saw a hand retreating, telling him that he’d been slapped. “Look. At. Me.” The tone of the voice told him that there would be no arguing, it urged him to obey. His eyes focused on the blue eyes again, this time registering the rest of the face, the black hair and slight scar at the chin and close to one of the ears telling him this was a friend. Danny. That thought alarmed Tim, but he couldn’t think of why. “Nod if you can see me.” Danny’s voice was much gentler this time, and Tim was grateful for that as he nodded.

“Did you have to slap him?” Dick’s voice made Tim want to retreat, but the glare Danny leveled at Dick made him curious enough to continue trying to force his brain to work.

“Considering none of your methods were working, you’re lucky that I had already figured out the whole secret identity thing, or Tim could very well still be out of it.” Danny’s tone was icier than Tim had ever heard it.

Wait. Danny already knew their identities? Tim’s brain finally recalled that he was currently wearing his Red Robin outfit, minus his domino. That meant that Danny would know his identity regardless of if they already knew or not. Then again, the texting records Tim had been shown after the whole “we know your backstory” reveal had included references to figuring out some big secret with vows to keep it a secret from everyone. That meant Danny likely knew he was the “anonymous” hacker.

“Focus.” Danny’s voice brought him back to the present even though he hadn’t been slapped again, and it was far warmer than it had been when directed at Dick. “Dick is going to apologize to you for invading your privacy so thoroughly that you had a panic attack, or he’s going to apologize for whatever sparked the panic attack. If it has to do with a case you aren’t making headway with, at least consider letting them in on the secret because they’ll see the issue from a different angle than you will. That being said, I’m only asking you to consider it because no one should be able to demand private information from you. If you would like to stay at my apartment for privacy, go ahead, no one will break in during that time without at least minor injuries, and I’ll just dump them on the fire escape after they go unconscious. Now, do you want to hear the apology or get some rest?”

“Can’t rest.” Tim slurred out, tongue feeling sticky and stale at the same time, and his throat was dry enough that just two words made him start coughing. Blessedly cold water flowed down his throat, soothing it and stopping the coughs.

“I’m sorry Tim, I didn’t mean to push that far, but the reality is that I did end up pushing that far. I’ll get everyone to back off, so you just worry about whatever you want to worry about.” Dick looked as apologetic as he sounded, which was very.

Tim took a deep, calming breath. “I understand why you felt the need to push, but I was clearly not ready to talk about it. Thank you for apologizing.” This time, his words were far clearer although they also sounded extremely tired.

“Wonderful. Now, get out of my apartment, Dick, and tell your whole group that I don’t want any visits through the window or any sneaky means. If they want to visit Tim while he’s here, the only way through is to be invited through the front door. Go.” Danny’s voice was back to being colder than ice with the return of them addressing Dick. Surprisingly, Dick simply nodded and left. “As for you,” Danny’s voice was back to being warmer, although it wasn’t quite normal levels of warmth, “get some sleep, and we’ll talk in the morning.” Tim didn’t even have time to protest before falling asleep.

~`~`~

When Tim opened his eyes, he saw a ceiling he was sure he’d never seen before. Looking around, his eyes caught on the sight of Danny sitting in a chair and writing in a book he’d never seen before. It was a grey book with black etchings on it in intricate details. A copper double border decorated the front cover, and the pages were a pale purple shade. Two ribbons dangled from opposite edges of the book, one gold and one silver. The gold one was sitting on a page at the very beginning of the book, but the silver one was dangling outside of the book, waiting to be slotted into place once Danny was done. The pen they were using was blood red and looked surprisingly plain considering all the detail in the book. There was an expression on Danny’s face that Tim had never seen before, longing mixed with deep sorrow and bitter hope.

Tim didn’t know how long he watched Danny write, entranced by movements he couldn’t fully see because the book was tilted up, showing him the cover instead of what Danny was writing. Danny eventually stopped writing, carefully putting the ribbon in place on the page they’d just finished working on and putting the book and pen in a bag that looked like it could and had withstood a lot. Danny looked up to see Tim awake, and the previous heart wrenching expression vanished to be replaced by a caring expression and a gentle smile.

“Hey sleepyhead. You slept for a little longer than I thought you would.” Danny’s voice was gentle and quiet, but, now that Tim thought about it, their voice was always quiet, it just sometimes carried farther.

“What were you writing?” Tim asked, unable to stop the question.

“Letters.” Danny’s face and voice were sad, their eyes dropping to the floor. “I was writing letters for someone who might never read them.”

“That’s sad.” Tim commented, deciding to not just suddenly clam up, he trusted Danny, as impossible as that’d once seemed.

Danny laughed gently yet sadly. “I won’t disagree with you there, but I will note that it is also a hopeful action. Writing the letters gives me hope that they may someday be able to read them, although that might be all for the wrong reasons.”

“Can I read them?” Tim asked, wanting to keep the easy conversation flowing even if he knew that it would end and what the answer would be.

“No. It’s written in a code I developed with that person, so I don’t think you can read it. Also, it’s a little too personal for that Little Bird.” Danny shook his head softly, and his tone remained gentle. “Would you like some breakfast?”

Tim blinked in surprise at the sudden question. “Yes… You aren’t going to ask about what I’m hiding?”

Danny lifted his shoulders and then lifted Tim with deceptive ease. “Nah. It’s not my place to ask that, you’ll talk when you’re ready. Worry about talking after breakfast because I’m sure we only have so much more time before I get a visit from the Batfam.” Danny continued to ramble on about numerous topics, none of which were important, allowing Tim to just relax without giving his brain enough downtime to start overthinking things again.

Danny was right, Tim decided, he needed to talk to his family about searching for his twin. Not because they were his family, or because they could help him out with it, or anything like that, but because it was the right thing to do. He wanted to tell them, and that was reason enough. Months in the making, he was finally ready to tell them about his twin. And, okay, it was partly because they were his family and they could help, they were willing to help. In fact, all the trouble he’d gone through with them recently was them trying to help.

~`~`~

It took a surprising two hours for Tim’s family to come try and visit him. Although he understood a little more about why when he saw that it was the entire Wayne family, including Alfred and Jason. Still, Tim had apparently been sleeping for a long time, so he thought that they’d had time to get ready to ask Danny if they could visit.

When everyone was settled down with various drinks of choice in hand, although the space was a little too small for so many of them to gather if only because there weren’t enough regular seats causing Danny to drag bean bags from a random closet, Tim couldn’t hold back that question. “What took so long? Breakfast got done two hours ago?”

Jason snorted in amusement. “It turns out that Danny can be fairly scary. I don’t know how much you remember from the whole mess, but Danny managed to do his own version of an Alfred Stare with really good results. They tried to visit earlier, but Danny chewed them out for it. Cass said she thought she’d be caught if she tried to sneak in, and Damian said that all of us together couldn’t beat Danny in a fight if they were incompetent enough to not heed our warnings that what they were doing was the wrong way to go about things. After that, they just decided to invade my apartment until Danny texted me that it was okay to come over.”

Tim considered this for a few moments. “Makes sense.” He turned to Danny. “Speaking of the panic attack, why did you slap me?” Bruce made a noise of concern that didn’t go anywhere with Alfred and Danny immediately glaring at him.

“Dick was nearly in a frenzy because he’d already tried all the normal tactics, so I knew nothing typical would really work. At first, he didn’t want me to help out or really tell me anything because you two were in costume, but then I told him I already knew who you guys were and to bring you inside while I got Jason for any ideas he could give. Jason brought up how we could get a square of a certain color and that should snap you out of it, but he did admit it could send you into an entirely different panic attack, thus that idea got tossed out but it reminded me of something else. You can probably guess the situation, but I’d once met someone who was used to fighting to the extent that it was almost an instinct. When they had a panic attack bad enough that they weren’t processing anything they were seeing or hearing, I’d have to slap them or sometimes spar with them to get them to come down from that. Something about your brain autofocusing on the present to do threat assessment and stuff like that, I don’t really know all the science behind why it works. It doesn’t work for everyone, but I took a gamble that ended up working by slapping you.”

“Oh. Okay. That makes sense.” Tim blinked, thinking through everything Danny had said. He figured that the situation they were talking about had something to do with ghosts.

“Now, I’m sure they all have something they want to say or express, but that’s something to be done between family members. This is a meeting for Tim, so I’ll keep this short. I will not tell anyone about your identities. In fact, if that situation never happened, nor anything like it, you all would have no idea that I know who you are. I don’t need a lecture or a threat about keeping it a secret because I was already doing so. I won’t use it as leverage or anything like that either. To be clear, your secret is safe with me, no matter who or what is after it.” Danny fixed Bruce with an intense stare the entire time he was talking, even though the words were directed at all of them, making it very clear that Bruce was the main person the message was intended for.

“Well,” Dick drew it out comically, clearly trying to break the tension in the room, “I, for one, am happy that you know about our identities because you were able to help Tim when I wasn’t. Thanks for that.” There was a lot of sincerity in Dick’s voice despite how the inflection made it sound teasing.

Danny laughed gently, and the tension broke. “I would’ve tried to help the idiot vigilante on my fire escape because he got the wrong window in his panic whether or not I knew the identity of him. However, as I said earlier, this conversation is for Tim. What he uses this conversation for is up to him. He could explain what he’s hiding, tell all of us to buzz off, tell those of you who invaded his privacy or stood aside as his privacy was invaded what for, or whatever else he wants, within reason, and he’d have my complete support for it.” Danny’s voice was not quite as warm as it usually was, letting everyone who already knew him know that he was serious about this.

“Fair enough.” Jason grinned, twisting to look at Tim with a wolfish grin that somehow made Tim feel comforted. “The floor is yours Timmy, what would you like to say?” The way Jason was leaning towards Tim probably looked aggressive to others, but Tim saw it as Jason nonverbally telling him that he had someone in his corner, aside from Danny. It was comforting.

“The case I’ve not been telling you guys about is a personal one. I’d like no interruptions while I talk, or I might not be able to get it all out.” Tim spoke clearly and as calmly as possible despite the panic starting to creep in slightly. He didn’t really want to have to share what his parents had told him, but it was clear he wasn’t getting anywhere on his own.

“Go ahead Baby Bird.” Dick said, everything about him screaming gentle encouragement. Huh, Tim didn’t know anyone outside of Alfred who could get the people of his family to wisen up about their stupidity this quickly. Well, he didn’t know anyone else before now.

“On my eighteenth birthday, I visited Janet and Jack, like I always do for important family events.” Tim paused to take a deep breath, looking up to see understanding dawn on Dick’s face. Sometimes being part of a detective family meant things got picked up even if you weren’t sure you wanted them to be. This was sometimes. “They said that they had something important to tell me now that they were no longer responsible for me.” Another pause, another deep breath. “They told me that they’d lied to me and convinced me when I was around four or five that I’d simply had an imaginary friend named Nathaniel. Turns out, I’d had a twin that they’d taken along on a work trip and abandoned at a random orphanage because I was doing slightly better in school, and they weren’t seeing enough of a return on their investment.” Tim spit the last word, talking about the situation, even the bare bones of it, was making him just as disgusted with the people who’d brought him into this world as he’d felt that day. “I’ve been looking for Neil since then, but I haven’t been able to find anything. I didn’t want to bring it up to anyone because it felt too personal, but I just. Can’t. Find. Anything.” Tim couldn’t bring himself to look up and find out what anyone’s face looked like, it would just make everything far too real… again.

The silence stretched on for a long time. “Did Janet and Jack say they left your twin at an orphanage, or did they just say they left him in the care of the town they were at?” Danny’s thoughtful voice prompted Tim to look up and see his face looking just as thoughtful, head tilted slightly and one hand on the chin.

“I think it was, care of the town, why?” Tim asked hesitantly, wondering where Danny’s thoughts were.

“I thought as much.” Danny sighed. “Janet and Jack sound like the kind of jerks who make themselves sound better no matter who they’re talking to. It’s much more likely that they simply abandoned Nathaniel somewhere close to the orphanage, maybe even with no warning or explanation to the child. I have someone I could talk to about this while I’m out of town soon, but it’ll likely take him a while to get any results about this.”

The family looked like Tim felt, horrified. He hadn’t even considered that the two would even do something like that to their own flesh and blood. Then again, look at all they’d done to him. They hadn’t even noticed when he started running away from the house to go be Robin, they hadn’t known anything about him except for the things the public could know, and they only told him about his sibling when he was no longer legally their problem. It was exactly the kind of thing they’d do. Tim knew his expression was probably sinking even more with his thoughts, but he couldn’t bring himself to care about that with the new, awful revelation about two people he was increasingly disgusted to be related to.

“They-” Jason cut himself off, sounding absolutely furious. “You know someone who could find information better than the Bats?” It was clear to Tim what Jason was doing. He was focusing on the safer topic to avoid triggering one of his Green Fits, as the family sometimes called them.

Danny shocked everyone by laughing. “Sorry, sorry, I shouldn’t laugh when you don’t know. I know a person who knows quite a bit more than all of you combined, but he doesn’t always like to tell me things because I accidentally lost one of his books once. We’re on much better terms now that I’ve somehow added to his collection, but he might delay my information request just because of that. Also,” Danny eyed Bruce, amusement still clear on their face despite the fact that Bruce was starting to glare at them, clearly annoyed at how well Danny seemed to know what he was thinking, “I don’t question his methods because I don’t want to get on his bad side again, once was bad enough.”

“What happened when you got on his bad side?” Dick questioned, clearly, to Tim at least, cutting off Bruce before he could ask any insensitive questions.

“Hmm?” Danny seemed slightly thrown by the question, which didn’t happen very often. Now that Tim thought of it, that might be a sign that Danny had something going on with his emotional state, possibly even due to the whole situation with Jack Fenton. He’d have to ask Jason about that later. “Oh, he used my trauma around Christmas to basically torture me by mind controlling the town into acting out one of the Christmas classics.” Everyone who’d already met Danny was already used to Danny dropping absolutely insane facts about life before Gotham because he didn’t seem to know what normal was. Bruce and Alfred looked pretty shocked and at least mildly horrified.

“He did what?” Jason sounded like he was holding back laughter, and Bruce and Alfred turned horrified looks onto him, which he obviously noticed and just as obviously ignored.

Danny laughed out loud, a big, full laugh that a person usually does when they’re really happy or going insane. It wasn’t a sound often heard in Gotham because of the Joker, but this laugh sounded so distant from the Joker that Tim barely even thought of the comparison. This time Babs and Duke, those of them who hadn’t hung around Danny as much, joined Alfred and Bruce, those who’d never met Danny before this, in turning shocked and stunned looks at Danny.

“He somehow mind controlled the entire town to act out a Christmas Classic, rhyming and all, just because I lost one of his books. Turns out that he isn’t such a bad guy when his library isn’t messed with, but I’d rather not get into all the mess that went into our meeting and stuff like that.” Danny wiped at their eyes because the laughter had actually made Danny start crying. Tim hadn’t seen that happen before, at least, not with Danny.

“How do you know so much about us when it’s only been a few months since you arrived?” Bruce asked the question quickly, like he’d lost control of his mouth. The Bats, and likely Danny too, knew that he’d asked the question purposefully. Tim reasoned that Bruce probably waited for so long to get a read on Danny’s character, and, by doing it the way he did, Bruce had made it appear like he’d lost patience instead of the truth which was that he’d waited for Danny to feel comfortable enough that it was less likely for him to lie.

Instead of looking shocked or losing the amusement that had been dancing in Danny’s eyes since the mysterious informant had been brought up Danny simply smiled wider and said, “My sister is in training to become either a therapist or a psychiatrist, and she used to spend time with me by having me learn psychology along with her. I did the same for my hobby as a way to show that we care for each other. This means that I’m very good at reading people. On top of that, I’d figured out your identities before ever reaching Gotham, but I didn’t do very much digging until it might have been vital to my survival here. On top of that, my sister would constantly ask for my help proofreading papers she’d written about vigilantes and how their work impacted their lives, often using the Bats as people she’d study to fuel said papers. She hasn’t published them, but I still read them. I’ve always been good at reading people, this is just a step up from that.”

“So you’re saying you don’t exactly know a lot about us, you just know what we’re most likely to do based on what our behavior has been.” Bruce said it in a calm voice, but Tim could see the shock that he was hiding behind the calm facade. He understood it, no one had ever done anything like that before, never figured them out to that level.

“Yes and no. I know a decent amount about those of you who have hung out with me a lot because we’ve been talking about ourselves and all that jazz, but I don’t know too much about those of you who haven’t hung out with me as much, met me at all, or told me about themselves. I may be observant, but I try to stay away from assumptions as much as possible.” Danny seemed to be relaxed now, not as stiff or harsh.

Damian shifted slightly, drawing Tim’s attention. There was an odd look on Damian’s face that vanished too quickly for Tim to get a good look at. When Damian noticed Tim staring at him, Damian sent him an aggressive “What?” type of look. Tim just shrugged his shoulders while rolling his eyes before refocusing on the main conversation.

Bruce nodded in understanding. “I see. Why did you decide to work at Arkham Asylum?” Tim rolled his eyes again at the interrogation tone all the Bats and Birds knew so well.

“I didn’t.” Tim blinked in shock at the simple answer said in one of Danny’s most neutral voices. “When I decided to move here I was handed an application and told to fill it out so that I could get a job lined up for me because I don’t do well with being idle, never have. It was only as I was filling it out that I learned it was for Arkham, and when I brought up concerns about working there the response I received was filled with reasons to work there, the least of which being I might be able to beat up a clown with no real repercussions.”

“Why do you hate clowns so much?” Tim found himself asking. Oops, he’d meant to keep that thought to himself to look over later. That always seemed to happen around Danny though, Tim speaking his thoughts before he’d fully processed that he was going to.

“Let’s just say an event in my childhood that nearly resulted in the deaths of myself, my best friends, and several of the other people in my hometown was orchestrated by a clown looking ringmaster who only further leaned into the clown vibes as time went on. Moving on from that though, this is your conversation Tim, so do you want help with the search for Nathaniel? What do you want out of this conversation?” Danny seemed very uncomfortable with the topic of conversation before he switched it, so Tim wasn’t too frustrated at the abrupt topic shift.

“I would like some help with the search. Any information is a good thing, and I hope to one day reunite with Nathaniel. That being said, I don’t know how much you guys can help because I’ve already covered a lot of ground in this investigation.” Tim kept his voice neutral, not wanting to show how badly the lack of progress was damaging his hope, any more than he already had.

Jason hummed thoughtfully. “Which town did they desert your twin in?”

“I don’t know, they never told me. The majority of their work trips the year they left Neil were in the state of Illinois, so that’s where I’ve been focusing most of my efforts.” Tim settled in for a long conversation about the ground he’d already covered, but it would all be worth it in the end if only he got to see Neil again. He only hoped he hadn’t made the wrong decision by including more people in the search, too many cooks in the kitchen and all that. Maybe, just maybe, he shouldn’t have tried to keep all of this to himself. His was a family of detectives after all. Now wasn’t the time to wallow in the mistakes of the past, at least, not his past mistakes. Now was time to tear apart the mistakes of Janet and Jack’s pasts, and he couldn’t wait for their reactions to him disowning and disavowing them. Or wait, maybe he could, they were less important than Neil any day.

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