#honestly i think you could do a real fun cold businesswoman janet one with 9 to 5

[scintillyyy]

it's time for another round of making fanon concepts funny to me, personally.

this time we'll tackle tim drake, home alone at age 8.

so we set the stage: tim drake is at home, and his parents are nowhere to be found. he's just a poor 8 year old little boy, eating nothing but cereal and microwaved hot dogs and granola bars because he does know better than to use the stove without adult supervision.

nobody would notice poor tim's plight, except one night he orders pizza and dick-as-robin just happens to be undercover as a pizza delivery boy because mad hatter's been targeting pizza delivery boys for something or other and he gets to be the one to deliver this really weirdass pizza (who orders canadian bacon and artichoke hearts? that's weird enough that dick is already like. heightened awareness)

so undercover and disguised dick delivers this weird pizza and an 8 year old comes to the door with money in his hand to pay. which. is a little strange. actually, now that dick is paying attention, he's not hearing any other signs of life in the house. and like, he's robin. this kid's parents could be passed out drunk upstairs leaving him to fend for himself (not good) or they left an 8 year old home alone for dinner (which. isn't great either.) or maybe they did a quick run to the store for soda or something (best case scenario). now dick is smooth, and doesn't want to spook the kid by prying too much because he's disguised as a pizza delivery boy and he doesn't want to come across weird so all he says is "sorry, we need an adult to pay, is mom or dad home?"

and the kid turns white and his eyes dark right and left and he's says "um, sorry nevermind. we don't need pizza anymore" and slams the door in dick's face. and doesn't answer when dick rings the doorbell again. which, points for tim for stranger danger but now dick is Suspicious.

but there's nothing he can do now, cause henhas to go finish his shift. and he eats the dumb gross pizza because he's hungry and his boss will be taking the cost of it out of his wages anyways so he may as well (which, dick is so going to report him once he's solved this mad hattet case) and he can't stop thinking about weird kid.

is it an attempt at trying to signal to someone he's being abused? are his parents junkies and he's trying to hide it? whatever it is, dick can't stop thinking of it. so he brings it home to bruce, who agrees they should look into it. a search of the address shoss it's a townhouse belonging to one jack and janet drake, parents one one son, timothy (weird kid). clean records, frequent donaters to charity, no obvious red flags of any kind. tim attends boarding school during the school year, his grades are good and no teachers have ever noticed anything out of sorts--by all accounts, tim is an extroverted, friendly, upbeat kid.

the case is getting curiouser. then again, sometimes it's never what you expect and dark things can be hidden under the surface. a quick glance at drake industries' itinerary show that jack and janet are supposed to be in beijing right now. the horror sets in....was tim left home alone? batman and robin are on the case.

they go to the townhouse and find tim, alone. tim is naturally terrified, because they came to interrogate him and making implications about his parents. who aren't bad people like batman and robin are implying. he's on the verge of tears. he loves batman and robin and why is this happening to him. he's fine. fine. this is not fine. "no" tim insists. "it's not like that"

"son," batman says kindly. robin is nodding along. tim is mortified. he will never live this down, batman and robin coming to save him. "it's okay to love your parents, but sometimes parents don't do the right thing."

tim starts crying now. "no," he says. "you don't understand. they didn't leave me alone, they wouldn't. they're home, i promise. don't put them in jail they're not criminals"

"tim'" batman says. "we just want to help-"

at that moment a large banging is heard on a door. batman and robin look over--they see a door that's got a chair in front of it jamming it. a home invader? unlucky. robin is at the ready.

"is someone there? tim, are you okay? whoever you are--if you hurt my boy, i'm going to get you--tim, for the last time, open this door and let your mother and i out!"

nobody says anything for a bit. tim's just sniffling. batman goes and removes the chair blocking the door and opens it. jack and janet drake are standing there. batman blinks. jack blinks.

the whole story comes out. jack and janet had come home from beijing because tim had a medical emergency at his summer camp and had to come home. it was a ruse by tim though--you see, he had seen a movie recently where this kid's parents had been fighting and planning on getting a divorce and he and some other neighborhood kids decided to lock their parents up in the basement until they learned to love each other again. so tim, in all his 8 year old wisdom feigned a medical thing at camp and got his parents to come home so he could try in on them because their fights had been getting worse lately. and after he locked them in there, he got a little nervous about it but then his dad was really mad so maybe they just needed a little more time....and also once they got out he was so grounded.

so there's no bad guy, no abuse. just a kid and his parents who were glaring daggers at each other. dick thinks that the whole locking them together might've had the opposite effect that intended. poor kid. batman and robin leave, and batman gives tim a stern talking to (mortifying. absolutely mortifying). and jack and janet thank them for being worried and checking in on tim. as they leave they hear the start of another argument--"tim, you're grounded for the next three years." jack says. "jack," janet admonishes. "this is a cry for help, clearly." "janet," jack says through gritted teeth, "the boy locked us in the basement for a day." "well, yes. but."

jack and janet end up getting divorced way sooner than before. dick puts the kid out of his mind until years later, when a 12--no, 13--year old boy finds him at the circus, saying batman needs help.

"and what, pray tell, do you think i should do about it, exactly," dick says. "lock him in the basement until he behaves or something?"