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antebunny · 23 days ago

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a cuckoo in the nest

(part three. for @authenticaussie whose comments on parts 1 & 2 inspired me to write this. i might actually finish writing the whole thing now hehe).

Premise: fae!Tim AU where Tim's parents gave him to the fae when he was nine. Now he's twelve, part fae, and trying to escape the Unseelie Queen. He strikes a bargain: if he can make every member of the Wayne family love him by the end of summer, he can leave. If not, he must stay with the Unseelie Queen forever.

Meanwhile, Bruce strikes his own bargain with her: he gets Jason back, safe and sound. In return he takes in this creature of her choosing, which resembles a human boy. Of course he won't let it hurt his family, but he'll play along for Jason's sake.

[part one] [part two]

“What the fuck, Bruce?”

When Bruce’s eldest bursts into his study he knows it’s going to be a long afternoon. Dick has spent much more time around Wayne Manor since he brought Jason back, but he and Bruce haven’t spoken much one-on-one. So Dick approaching him now means he’s ready to fight.

Dick waits for the doors to slam closed behind him before he demands: “Why didn’t you tell us that Tim’s our neighbor?”

Bruce sighs and gestures for Dick to take a seat in the green velvet lacquer chair across from his desk. “What are you talking about.”

“Don’t play dumb,” Dick rages, “I know you knew that Tim used to be our neighbor before his shit parents gave him away. You didn’t think this was relevant information for the rest of us?”

Usually Bruce is pretty good at figuring out what line of thought Dick is racing after like the world’s largest bunny rabbit. He’s not subtle and in fact is usually openly cheerful about it. In this case, however, Bruce struggles to connect the fae in his house with anyone living in Bristol. He mentally sifts through all the information stored in his brain about the current and past Bristol residents (very paltry, compared to his database on the most effective acids and poisons) and finally comes up with Jack and Janet Drake, of Drake Industries. They’d had a son of approximately the right age of the fae–or what the fae appears to be.

Bruce reminds himself that just because the fae looks and acts like a human child doesn’t mean it is anything even remotely human. Like the Unseelie Queen it will exploit every weakness and loophole it can find in the bargain if Bruce lets it. That said, he is reluctantly impressed by the fae’s acting. Of course, the fae says and does things that are transparently unusual for a human child, but given that the fae is not a human at all, it’s doing a rather convincing job of pretending to be one. More than pretending, it attempts to stir sympathy and protective feelings from the other members of Bruce’s family through its lost little boy act. Worst of all, it’s working on them.

“Tim…Drake,” Bruce ventures.

Dick rolls his eyes explosively (quite the feat for anyone but Dick, for whom it is a natural talent). “Yes,” he huffs. “At least with Jason you told us you fished him out of a dumpster. Tim you just dropped him here without a word. I mean I’m trying to include him and stuff but…you aren’t exactly making it easy, B.”

Even though Dick is mad at him, Bruce can’t help the creeping feeling of fondness. It’s been a while since Dick sat in that chair, and Bruce had nearly forgotten how he sprawls, half-noodle, half-boy, into any container he’s put into. Dick has a way of being laidback and looking comfortable everywhere, even at galas where he is distinctly uncomfortable. In Bruce’s office, he looks right at home. When Dick was younger, he used to insist on sitting in the chair even though his feet dangled half a foot off the ground, determined to be grown-up and taken seriously. Now he overflows, draping himself over and around an old wooden chair that no longer fits him.

The memories remind Bruce exactly of what exactly is at stake here. It’s no longer just Jason. Dick, Alfred, even Barbara who is spiritually his, and the mantle of Batman depend upon Bruce winning this battle with the fae.

Unfortunately, the Unseelie Queen’s bargain with Bruce has trapped him in an awful cycle. In order to protect Jason, he must act as if this fae is a regular human boy. But in order to protect his whole family, he must not only keep an eye on the fae but also convince them to be on their guard around it.

“It is not easy,” Bruce enunciates carefully.

Dick rolls his eyes again. “Boys, you have a new little brother, his name is Tim Drake, I acquired him through dubious and doubtless wacky magical means. Boom. How hard was that?”

It is deeply distressing to Bruce that the fae has convinced Dick that it is Tim Drake. A lucky coincidence, perhaps, that the real Drake boy is approximately the right age? But why him, out of all the boys in Gotham? Bruce doesn’t believe in coincidences. He’ll have to look into that.

But first, he must rid Dick of his delusion. He has refrained from interfering with any of the fae’s interactions with his children of Alfred so far, terrified that he might jeopardize Jason’s life. Now the fae goes too far. Nevertheless, Bruce has faith in his children, in his brilliant, clever, caring boys. They’ll figure the fae out.

“It is not easy,” Bruce repeats. “It is…impossible.”

“Impossible to say what? His name? Where you got him?” Dick’s eyebrows knit together when Bruce stays silent. “B. What type of magical means?”

Bruce sits ramrod straight. He places both palms flat on the desk, brushing aside some old papers on WE finance reports. Stares right into Dick’s eyes. And says nothing.

“Ohhhhhhhh.” Dick leans back in his chair, fingers laced behind his head. “I see what you’re saying. Or what you’re not saying. I’m picking up what you’re putting down.” He waggles a finger at Bruce, frown replaced with his typical cheeky smile. “Don’t worry B, me and Babs are on the case. We’ll figure this out for you no prob.”

“Hnnnnn,” Bruce says neutrally.

“Hehe, I knew you couldn’t suck that much at communicating.” Dick springs up and leaves the office whistling what seems to be birdsong, in a much better mood than when he entered.

As soon as the doors close again, Bruce sinks into his chair with a deep sigh. Dick knows something is awry. He’ll get Barbara, perhaps his friends on the Titans, and definitely Jason whenever he finds out, to solve the mystery for Bruce. He has faith in them. He taught Dick everything that he knows, and Dick is plenty innovative on his own. If nothing else, his establishment as Nightwing has proven that he can roll with the best of the best. Bruce is unbearably proud of his kid. Now he just hopes it is enough.

Bruce is nearly certain he did nothing to imply that the fae is not human. Perhaps he implied that the fae was “acquired,” as Dick put it, through magical means, but that by no means implies that the fae itself is not human. It isn’t, of course, but that is for Dick to find out through no suggestion or help on Bruce’s part.

He knows that Dick will agree with his decision to bargain their safety for Jason’s safe return. The only person he suspects might disagree is Jason himself. Already he can picture Jason lecturing him if and when he finds out: accusing Bruce of doing it for himself, of being unbearably selfish, of forcing Jason to bear a responsibility he never asked for. And Bruce will bear it all because it’s all true. He saw a way to have his son back without having to break his moral code and he seized it. Jason can call it self-serving and hate Bruce all he wants, because Bruce would do it again in a heartbeat.

“So, Timmy,” Dick says casually, “are you a metahuman or what?”

Barbara, Dick and Tim are in the middle of a near-empty Staples when Dick pops out with his invasive question. They’re shopping for school supplies, since come fall Tim will need to go to school. Bruce has registered him, through a combination of fake and real forms, for Gotham Academy. Tim’s memories of school were his first to go from Before, when he was purely human. Needless to say he’s not looking forward to school again. But he’ll be going with Jason, and maybe they can talk about it even though they’ll be three grades apart. He’ll get to know kids his age who will learn his name and never think twice about using it. Anything that makes Tim more human is a good thing, in his book.

“Dick, for the love of God,” Barbara groans. She casts a quick look around the Staples. Luckily, no one is around to hear.

Sometimes she wonders how she got caught up in not one but two school shopping trips for Dick’s little brothers. No less than eight employees and customers at the various stores they’ve stopped at have given them strange looks, no doubt thinking that Dick and Barbara are a tragically young couple to have a kid Tim’s age. She isn’t sure who would be most embarrassed if she corrected them, so she said nothing.

The truth, that Barbara is a freshman in college taking her high school boyfriend’s new kid brother shopping, potentially sounds stranger. Add in the part where they’re trying to acclimate the kid to human society, and Barbara’s certain she’d be kicked out of the store.

“What?” Dick protests. “I have a deal with B. C’mon Timmy, you don’t want your favorite big brother to lose to the big bad B, do you?”

“A deal?” Tim warbles.

“Yeah,” Dick persists doggedly. He still hasn’t figured out what triggers Tim, so for now he continues until Tim comes to some internal resolution. “He doesn’t think I can figure it out. C’mon Tim, my ego’s on the line here.”

Tim stares at the blue spiral notebook in his hands. Both Dick and Barbara lean in, anticipatory, as he turns it over and over. Despite Barbara’s reservations about Dick’s timing and bluntness, she’s also desperately curious about where the new kid comes from. All he has been able to tell her so far is that Bruce seems to have sworn some kind of oath not to talk about the details.

“You don’t have to tell us,” Barbara adds, only a little reluctantly. “But you know, no matter if you’re an alien or a cyborg or a sentient piece of mud, you’re a part of the family, right?” She gestures in a wide circle, to encapsulate the absurdity of their situation.

Two first-year college students, arms full of Ticonderoga pencils, notebooks, binders, rulers, calculators and the like, all for a not-quite-human twelve-year-old boy. Jason insisted on getting his own trip, which really made Barbara feel like she and Dick really were parents with two kids competing to be the favorite. Jason also strong-armed Barbara into agreeing to a Dragon Ball Z marathon next weekend. She really doesn’t know how she’ll explain that one to her new college friends. They already think she’s a bit strange for still dating her high school boyfriend.

“I’m not…I made a bargain,” Tim whispers. He trusts them, even though he grips that notebook so tightly it folds over. Weeks ago he gave Dick and Jason his true name and they have never used it to make him do something he doesn’t want to do. Surely, if he can trust them not to use his name against him, he can trust them with this.

“With who?” Barbara asks immediately.

“About…?” Dick prompts at the same time.

Tim ponders over the phrasing until words lose their meaning. There really is no safe way to explain that he made a deal with the Unseelie Queen to secure their undying affection in exchange for his freedom, is there? No matter how he says it, he’ll be outed as the emotionally manipulative little infiltrator that he is. In the end, all Tim can do is shake his head. “If I win my bargain I’ll be fully human,” he evades.

“Oookay.” Dick attempts to fit this piece of information into his catalogue of Timmy facts. So far it includes “used to be Timothy Drake, age nine” and “my parents handed me over as part of a mysterious deal” and “I’m not fully human (anymore???)” and “Bruce can’t talk about where he found me” and now “I made a bargain with my own humanity.” It’s not making any goddamn sense. Dick has some amount of pride in his skills as a detective, and Tim’s situation is pretty thoroughly destroying it. The only through-line he’s found is an awful lot of bargains and deals. Which perhaps explains Tim’s overreaction to Dick saying he made a deal. Whoops.

“But you know,” Barbara jumps in again, “you don’t have to be fully hu–”

“I want to be,” Tim cries. “I want it back. I will be–”

Someone clears their throat. At the end of the notebooks aisle, a Staples employee points at the analog clock on the western wall. It’s rather unhelpful as a visual signal, since only Barbara can read it.

“It’s almost closing time,” the employee explains delicately. They look anywhere but Tim’s teary face or Barbara and Dick holding hands.

“Mr. Wayne,” Tim says bravely, “can we talk, sir?”

School starts in a couple of weeks. Tim is running out of summer, but he has Alfred, Dick, Jason and Barbara firmly on his side. Last week Jason taught him how to make frijoles and tried to get him to read Jane Austen. Neither attempt succeeded, but the intent was there. Dick tried to teach him parkour, which went much better. His one remaining problem is that Batman still does not want him at all.

So he corners Batman when the man’s alone with one solid plan of action, a heart full of hope, and two shaking knees.

Batman stares down at him suspiciously. “Yes.”

He turns away abruptly and Tim hurries to keep up with his long strides. After so long in the human realm, he no longer have the floatiness they once did. By the time Batman makes it to his office, Tim is panting. His feet hurt. He worries and waits in the corner as Batman shuts the doors, shutters the windows, and manually activates enough security measures to shock Harry Houdini. Is he in trouble? He hasn’t even done anything yet.

Wordlessly, Batman gestures for him to take a seat. “What is it.”

Tim collapses into the chair. His feet dangle half a foot in the air. “I would like to make a deal.”

“No.”

“Please, Mr. Wayne.” Tim can’t cry yet, he hasn’t made his proposal. “I–I think–”

“I said no–”

“I’m offering information!” Tim says quickly. His hands, driven to distraction by all his stress, twist into pattern after pattern in his lap. “I can tell you what I can do and how the fae work.”

Batman is a regular human who operates in a world of gods and monsters. He works with the most powerful superheroes. He leads the best of the best. In order to do that he plans. He needs information, and there’s only one area where Tim knows more than him.

Batman’s eyes narrow. “And what do you want in return?”

The same love and affection he gives so freely to Dick and Jason. But Tim knows better than to ask for that. That’s why he’s proposing this deal in the first place. He can’t trick Batman into loving him the same way he tricked the others, but maybe he can offer his services. Maybe if Tim is useful enough, good enough, that will be enough for Tim to get to stay. So instead:

“A Nikon D850,” Tim answers. “It’s a camera, sir. For nighttime photography.”

For a tortuously long moment, Batman just stares at him with that dark, unreadable expression. There isn’t a hint of emotion, much less affection, in his eyes. Tim’s hands flap around loudly. He jams them under his thighs to quiet them.

“Done,” Batman says tonelessly. “Now tell me everything you know. And,” he adds, voice dropping to a growl, “I will know if you’re lying.”

Despite his promises to himself, something hot stings Tim’s eyes and tickles the back of his throat. He’s not sure if Batman has magic powers, but he doesn’t doubt the threat for a second.

“Right,” Tim acknowledges, only a half-step from crying. “Well. I was born Tim Drake. When–”

“I know you purport to be Timothy Drake.”

Tim’s shoulders hitch. Batman’s interruption cuts, paper-cut-like, into his thin skin. One wrong word from flinching, one quarter step from crying.

Batman pins him to the chair with cold eyes. “I already said I will know if you’re lying. Try again.”

It’s so unfair that Tim almost bursts into tears just from frustration. Just because his parents sold away his right to be Timothy Drake doesn’t mean that he wasn’t born human. But he knows better than to argue with Batman, so he takes his second chance and changes the subject.

“Yessir. Sorry, sir. I can teach you how to find fairy circles,” Tim offers. “The trick is not to look for something out of place. ‘One may enter the realm of the fae wherever the–”

“–Wherever the wild and mundane meet,” Batman interrupts, voice so flat he sounds bored. Unspoken is the order: tell me something I don’t already know.

Tim had forgotten that Batman journeyed to the fae realm by himself. It isn’t as though he stumbled upon a fairy circle by accident and decided to strike up a deal with the Unseelie Queen. He must have researched how to locate fairy circles by himself. He’s Batman. What in the world can Tim possibly tell him that he doesn’t already know?

“I can tell you about the abilities of the fae in the human realm,” Tim suggests, nearly despairing. “We can commune with plants. We are more in tune with the weather. We can, um, float a little. Sometimes. I think I can also make people not notice me. It’s like a veil on people’s senses. Like I’m always in their per-fory–per-fi-fory–periphery vision–”

“You can also make plants grow a little fast,” Batman interrupts for the third time. “You sometimes cause video footage of you to corrupt. You attract the loyalty of animals, both wild and domesticated.” His lip curls. “You are a superb actor.”

Somehow Tim doesn’t feel complimented. The underlying dark tone to Batman’s observations is I told you I was watching you. But it is the lip curl, a small, nearly intangible action, that finally breaks Tim, not a word or even anything serious. Just the slight hint of a sneer on Batman’s face even though the Unseelie Queen has accustomed Tim to far worse condescension and Batman isn’t even wrong to judge him. Hasn’t he tricked the rest of Batman’s family into loving him with his acting?

Tim squeezes his eyes shut. A tear escapes and leaves a cold trail on his cheek as it snakes its way to his chin. He fights the urge to vomit. “I can teach you how to use a fae’s true name against them,” he whispers.

When he opens his eyes, Batman is watching him cry with a blank, apathetic face.

“To test that,” Mr. Wayne says slowly, “I’ll need to use yours.”

All at once Tim is struck by the childish desire to close his eyes and wish himself into a world where Batman never looks at him like a dangerous, evil, life-sucking parasite. Wants so dearly to deny the existence of this world where he must replace the Unseelie Queen with his hero. But Batman demands it must be so. Declares that Tim has no other use. So Tim trembles and shakes and falls apart in that oversized lacquer chair until he’s cried his little heart out, but in the end he gives Batman what he wants.

“I understand, sir,” Tim says miserably.

It won’t be forever, Tim vows to himself. If Mr. Wayne accepts him, if Tim is allowed to stay, then one day he will be fully human again. One day his name will hold no power over him than it would over any human. Mr. Wayne doesn’t want to use it like the Unseelie Queen does anyways, he just wants to verify Tim’s honesty, which is fair because Tim has done nothing but lie since arriving to Wayne Manor.

Even though it feels awfully cruel.

Tim scrambles through his memories to recall how it was explained to him. “A fae is under the thrall of whomsoever can speak their true name.” Then he struggles to verbalize what it actually feels like to have your name used against you. “But the effects–they’re temporary. It’s like…a rubber band. You can pull it into a shape but the moment you stop it instantly snaps back. And if you use it again and again and again then it works less and less and less.”

“Fae names suffer from diminishing returns.” Mr. Wayne looks just the tiniest bit amused. At least he’s not interrupting Tim this time.

Tim has no idea what that means, but he nods anyways. “And it is easier to command that which is easily given. The…effect is…quicker.”

When the Unseelie Queen says dance then Tim is swaying before his body can communicate with his head, but when she says won’t you stay with me forever, Timothy Jackson Drake? then Tim digs his heels in and refuses. You can be the prince of my Unseelie Court, little one. Drink the blood of stars, dance with the mad and the lost, and serve at my feet forevermore. Tim shudders and shoves the memory away firmly. It won’t ever come true. Tim won’t let it.

Tim straightens to the fullest height offered by the giant chair, acting for all the world as if he is making a business deal with an equal. “You may use Timothy Drake,” he offers primly. “Though it doesn’t work very well on me.”

“But of course.” Bruce assumes that this is because Timothy Drake is the assumed name of a fae who refuses to give Bruce its true name. He cannot say he blames it. “Stand up, Timothy Drake.”

Tim pushes the chair back and stands. He blinks. Feeling return to his legs as pinpricks of sensations. He sits back down.

For the first time, Mr. Wayne’s gaze breaks away from Tim. He casts about his office in search of a command which Tim would be reluctant to do yet doesn’t break Batman’s moral code. Tim, who had begun to recover his nerve, starts to tremble again. Mr. Wayne received the information of fae’s true names positively, so Tim became more confident. Now he worries that Mr. Wayne received it too positively. Where is his line? What wouldn’t he order Tim to do, if he could?

“Come here, Timothy Drake,” Mr. Wayne commands finally.

Tim’s legs move of their own accord again. They carry him around Mr. Wayne desk until he stands before the man. He may be a liar but he is not so good that naked terror isn’t written plainly on his face. He keeps his hands behind his back and lets them twist around and around out of sight.

“Now,” Mr. Wayne says. “Timothy Drake. Take a step to the left. Right. Spin. Sit. Up. Right. Left. Left. Jump. Down.”

The rapid volley of commands ends with Tim flat on his stomach, chin stinging fiercely from its introduction to the floor. His body interpreted down as fall on your face for him. He gets back to his feet unsteadily and waits for more.

“Take this batarang.” Mr. Wayne pulls it out of one of the desk’s many secret compartments. “Timothy Drake. Cut my hand.”

Tim lurches, batarang between his fingers, for one heart-stopping moment, towards Mr. Wayne’s outstretched hand before he gets himself back under control. Batman watches just as unemotionally as before as the batarang nears his unprotected palm, as Tim wars with himself.

“I don’t want to,” Tim pleads. “Please, Mr. Wayne.” His hand shakes violently. “Please don’t make me.”

“Stop.”

The batarang clatters to the floor. Mr. Wayne leans back in his chair, unaffected. Tim staggers back to his own chair, cheeks stained anew with hot tears.

“It feels like someone altering who you are.” Tim offers this truth in a last, desperate appeal to make Mr. Wayne understand. “It’s like someone possessing you. I know it’s not very powerful, Mr. Wayne, but–it hurts. It–”

Mr. Wayne raises a hand. “Enough.” His voice is just as gravely as before, but it feels a little more gentle. “I believe you.”

The next morning, a Nikon D850 appears in Tim’s bedroom. He leaves it on his nightstand. In a week he’ll pick it up and head to the streets where he first found Batman and Robin. But for now, the sight fills him with dread.