Chapter Text
[Intro]
When Tim was little, maybe 5 or 6, he got a report card. It said ‘ Timothy is a wonderful student to have ’ at the bottom, underneath a row of straight A’s. ‘ he is kind, smart, and he often keeps to himself.’
His 1st grade teacher had written it herself, in a nearly unreadable cursive, the blue pen ink feintly glittery. Tim had brought it home between two books, to make sure it didn’t get damaged in his backpack.
‘ Timothy is a wonderful student to have, he is kind, smart, and he often keeps to himself.’
He read through the report card sometimes, letting his finger glide over the smooth paper, the little indents that the pen made on the paper.
‘ he often keeps to himself.’
The way it was phrased, it just made it seem like it was his choice that he was alone. His choice that the house was empty more times than not.
Tim felt the urge to rip it up once in a while, but he stopped himself, because maybe, he believed it was his choice.
…
There are certain things that just come with the territory of being a 7 year old kid. Dodgeball is one of those things, revenge is another.
Kids are just way too good at holding grudges and way too bad at planning ahead.
On the day of Christmas Eve, Tim Drake, still in his pyjama pants and a warm sweater, decided to run away. It took him 10 minutes to leave the house, most of them spent trying to put on his shoes over his fuzzy socks, the rest of them spent shoving assorted granola bars into his Batman backpack.
He took another pair of fuzzy socks with him, just in case, and shoved his house key in his pocket. The door of the mansion he lived in shut with a satisfactory click and he began running away, charging into the city of Gotham.
Gotham was technically where Tim lived, but that was only the technicality, he lived on a safe dry plot of land in the suburbs, far away from the island with the highest crime rate in the country.
His parents despised Gotham, they hated the people, the skyline, the permanently grey skies, the polluted air, Tim himself had never really been there on his own. He had a driver that took him to his gymnastics practice, and only a year earlier he still had a nanny to take care of him.
But he was big now, and he wasn’t anything like his parents, who decided to
leave
on Christmas- the day before Christmas- whatever.
Tim knew, since he was little that his parents’ jobs were important, they worked all day and if they weren’t working all day, they were working all night and they had big trips all the time . But not on the day before Christmas, they never left just before Christmas.
Well- the joke’s on them, because Tim was also leaving the day before Christmas and nobody was gonna stop him. Not Mrs. Mac, or the gardener, or the pool cleaner man, or anybody.
He walked along the side of the road for what felt like hours. He passed a big forest, crossed the Gotham river, yelled at imaginary parents for a second and walked. But by the time he was standing on City lines, lowrise apartment buildings in front of him, it felt like he’d only just left the house.
Gotham wasn’t anything like he’d imagined, first of all, there weren’t copies of Swiper from Dora all around the street, trying to steal his backpack full of granola bars, second of all, there was a line of tall oak trees lining the street, a few feet apart every time. It looked nice , not criminal or dirty or anything he’d seen on the television.
His stomach gave a loud rumble and he stopped, right on the pavement, and reached behind him for his backpack. He pulled out a handful of granola bars and zipped the backpack up. With a good shove, he could put four granola bars into his jacket pocket. He held the fifth one in his hand, unwrapping it and biting down on it.
It almost felt like his teeth were falling off, his chocolate honey granola bar was almost
frozen
.
Sure the walk had been long, but it really hadn’t been cold, at least, Tim hadn’t felt very cold. As he continued to walk, he shoved the granola bar back into its wrapper and rolled it around in his hands, trying to warm it up. If you did that with two sticks, you got a fire, so who says it won’t work on Tim’s organic, ultra healthy, 100% kid friendly, 5 dollar a piece granola bars.
When he finally stopped on a different part of the street, where the line of old tall oak trees had been broken by a newly planted tree, a small layer of melted chocolate had formed just at the tip of his fingers.
The granola bar was cold, but it wouldn’t break off the only front tooth he currently had, at the very least. He threw the wrapper out with a little run and kept walking. He only noticed after that, that his hands were freezing, he tried to rub them together to warm them up, but it was no use, he could barely move his fingers.
He shoved his hands into his jacket pocket and Tim cursed the granola bars he’d put there earlier. As a last resort, Tim pushed his hands into his jacket and rested them under his armpits.
After that, he was absolutely, undoubtedly, positively freezing .
His saviour was the automatic revolving door of the public library that blew a warm breeze into his face as he walked by. He stopped dead in his tracks and turned around, walking quickly and scared out of his mind for that matter, through the revolving door.
He’d never once been in an automatic revolving door in his life and it scared him to death.
Heart still beating fast in his throat he followed a bright yellow sign to the kids section of the seemingly ancient library. He let his hand stray past the columns of books, feeling every ridge in the tall hardwood book cases.
The difference between the old, large library, and its ridiculous kids section was enormous. He stepped onto the linoleum floors, looked at the metal racks that barely reached past Tim’s head, filled with cartoonish books, the fluorescent light columns above him, the neon green faux leather couches and thought it was really an eyesore.
He headed for the couches in the back of the library and sat down, resting his legs on the radiator. He took his backpack off and laid down properly on the couch, letting his head rest onto his backpack.
It was arguably a nice spot to lie down and have a nap, even if Tim wanted to do anything but to have a nap, he wasn’t a baby and he wasn’t tired- okay maybe he was a little tired.
He tried to stare at the lights above him, but they hurt his eyes, leaving big blue stripes on his eyelids every time he closed his eyes. He blinked a few times, and noticed that, when he opened his eyes, he could still faintly see the blue stripes, but they disappeared very quickly.
Because looking at the lights wasn’t a very good idea, so he looked down. He didn’t mean to, but his eyelids fluttered shut and he turned around on the couch to get into a better position, only to open his eyes and see a head floating right in front of him.
"Can you read?" The head said, their voice was high pitched and strongly accented, his parents would probably have a fit if he spoke like that. Tim jumped up and noticed with a change of perspective that the floating head was in fact attached to a body.
"Yes." Tim grumbled.
"Read this." The not-floating head shoved a book at him
"Can you not read it yourself?" Tim asked, sitting up straight. His hair was defying gravity in more ways than possible
The not-floating head was a girl, about his age, she had long curly blonde hair, and a purple sweater over a pink sparkly T-Shirt, that read ‘ princess ’.
Tim looked down at the book. It was a hardcover picture book, with swirly letters on the cover. "This is in French." He said simply.
" You're in French." The not-floating head told him very confidently.
"I mean it's not in English, it's in French, that's a different language."
"So you can't read, you're just messing with me." The girl's accent was so thick that Tim had to repeat the words in his head for them to make sense. He'd never heard somebody speak in that way, ever.
"I can, it says," Tim looked at the swirly letters. "The story of the cat called Stephanie."
The girl frowned. "I hate cats,”
Tim shook off his jacket. “Do you prefer dogs, then?”
She shook her head. “I hate animals, my dad says they’re loud and they stink and you have to clean up their poops,”
"Then why do you want me to read about the cat called Stephanie?" Tim asked
"Because I thought it was a hidden message for me, because my name is Stephanie," The girl explained like it was the most basic thing in the world. "Duh."
"Maybe there's a hidden message in the book- that would make sense, right? Because maybe they know that you don't like cats and that's why they made it about cats."
"That's smart," The girl said. "I'm Stephanie, like the book."
"I'm Tim, like- uhh- like Tom, but with an 'i' ."
The girl stuck out her hand, Tim shook it slowly.
"I've an uncle named Tom, he has 8 fingers," Stephanie sat down next to Tim on the couch. "My daddy says it's 'cause he used to flip his parents the bird, so they cut them off."
Tim did not know what flipping the bird was, but once he knew, he wouldn't do it ever . Especially not to his parents.
"Come on, read the rest of it, I want to know the hidden message." Stephanie opened the book.
The cat called Stephanie didn’t do very much in the book, she just went to tea parties with her friends and Stephanie (the human, not the cat) pulled the book from Tim’s lap after only three pages saying. “This is boring, I wanna do somethin’ else,”
“We could see if there are other books with hidden messages,” He suggested.
“That’s stupid, I’m not a baby, I wanna do somethin’ cool,”
Tim frowned. “How old are you then?”
Stephanie looked at him sideways, like she was trying to decode what he was saying, and then answered, in her thick Gotham accent. “I’m seven,”
“Oh,” Tim lit up. “I’m seven too,”
The girl gave him a look. “You can’t be seven two, you’re my age,” she said.
“Yes, that’s what I meant,”
Still, Stephanie shook her head. “No, my granny’s ma woulda been seven two, you’re like six- ”
“Your great grandmother can’t be seven, that’s impossible,”
“No- I said she’s seven two, you’re not listening to me,”
“But- but she can’t be our age”
Stephanie shook her head. “I didn’t say that, I said my granny’s ma woulda been seven’y-two ,” she tried to sound out every syllable in the word. “And you’re not seven’y-two, ”
Tim laughed, but cut himself off when Stephanie glared at him. “It’s just a mix up, I’d been meaning to say that I’m seven just like you, I’m seven too- as well,”
“Oh,” The girl said plainly. “it’s because you speak weird,”
He bit down on his inner cheek. “I don’t speak weirdly,” He said, his voice high pitched and awkward. “You’re the one who ‘speaks weird’,” he added air quotes.
“I’ve never met anybody who sounds like you- except for the bank lady- and everybody hates the bank lady,” Stephanie told him like it was an insult. “You sound like you know what taxes are,”
Tim crossed his arms. “I know what taxes are,” he looked at her for a second. “You don’t?”
“No, but at least I ain’t- I ain’t sound like you,”
“You know, you are very rude, and your school should really start giving grammar lessons, I just wanted to sit here on my own and you’re bothering me,”
Stephanie rolled her eyes. “I bet you’re not even from here, and I am, so I get to be here more than you,”
“I am from here,” He said matter of factly. “I live just down the street,”
Just 4 miles down the street, but Tim wasn’t going to tell her that.
“Oh, sorry,” she paused. “are you like from England or somethin’?”
“No?”
“But you sound so-” she waved her hand in the air. “I’m sorry- if you’re from Gotham, I don’t mean to be- well mean or anything, but you- I don’t know a lot of people who sound like that- all heur-deur and stuff,” she did her best impression of his accent.
Tim looked at her, the girl’s messy blonde hair, her mismatched bright clothes, the ratty scarf, he didn’t know a lot of people who looked or sounded like her, in fact, he didn’t know anybody like that at all and he told her so.
“It’s-” Stephanie said. “I guess we got off on the wrong foot, jus’ now, let’s call it a language wall-”
“Language barrier,” Tim corrected.
“Wanna be friends anyways?” Stephanie offered, sticking out her hand.
“I’d like that,” And Tim shook her hand.
…
For the few hours he spent with Stephanie, he didn’t think about his parents, at least, he didn’t think about them leaving. He thought about what word Stephanie could possibly mean sometimes, when she made out something that sounded like pure gibberish, and he thought about how fun Stephanie was.
They invented a game together called ‘ the floor, but also anything that is green is lava, and we have three lives and the pink chairs you can only stand on for 5 seconds and then it sinks ’.
Tim was standing on top of a tall metal bookcase, making careful, calculated steps over to other bookcases, while Stephanie had figured out that the bookcarts had wheels and she drove herself through the children’s section of the library like a blind man on a race track.
That was, until she slid down the wheelchair ramp and right past the help desk. Around that moment was when the fun ended.
Stephanie had warned Tim with assorted bird noises and he did a swan dive back onto the couch before the (very angry) librarian could catch him too.
And then they were both sitting on the pavement munching on Tim’s organic, ultra healthy, 100% kid friendly, 5 dollar a piece granola bars. “I gotta go home soon,” Stephanie said sadly.
Tim stared ahead of him, suddenly reminded of why he’d left home in the first place. “I ran away today,” he told her. “This morning. I’m still in my pyjamas underneath this,”
“Really? Aren’t your parents worried?” Stephanie wondered. “My daddy says rich people never let their kids do anything without adults and I should be glad he even lets me go to the library by myself,”
Tim shrugged. “I think they don’t even know I ran away,”
A beat of silence fell between them. “Did you leave a note?” Steph asked.
“No?”
Steph punched him playfully in the arm. “That’s the first thing you gotta do- say you’re leaving- it’s like in every movie,”
“I didn’t think that far ahead,”
“Yeah I can see that, pyjama boy,”
“You’re really mean, you do realise that?” Tim pointed out.
Stephanie stood up and messed up his hair. “You should come out here more often, since you’re my friend now an’ all that,”
Tim looked up at her. “I don’t know,” he said honestly. “Maybe I’ll run away and join the circus,”
“Sure you will,” Steph said and turned around to leave.
He watched her go, so short compared to the swarm of adults on the street, disappearing almost completely in the masses. Tim picked up his bag and walked back home, drafting his goodbye note.
…
Tim left better prepared that next morning of Christmas day. He put on a pair of jeans and three sweaters, and he brought his electric toothbrush with him in his bag with some of his birthday money in a Superman wallet and two pairs of fuzzy socks.
He left a short note to really drive the point home that he was running away, and this time, his parents would come after him.
The walk to the library seemed shorter somehow. There was a long line of cars on the road when he walked, people were honking and yelling at each other, but they didn’t seem to notice the little seven year old boy walking by.
Tim wondered if the police were going to talk to them, when his parents started looking for him, if his face would be on the news. He felt bad just thinking about it.
The library was open, but just for the afternoon and only on the ground floor, where the cafe was. A librarian, not the one that had chased Tim and Stephanie out just the day before, handed him a cup of cocoa and pointed him at a little play area for kids.
He reluctantly let go of last week’s newspaper that was on the white table in front of him and sat down in front of a colouring book behind a plastic neon green Ikea table. He didn’t know what he’d been expecting to happen, waiting there in that library.
He coloured within the lines, like he always did, and he drank his cocoa and he waited. The librarian, again, not the one who had chased him and Steph out the day before, but the one who had given him the cocoa, checked up on him every few minutes and complimented him on colouring within the lines and refilled his cocoa twice, until she started offering him lemonade.
Maybe he was waiting for his parents to burst in through the library doors with a squad of superheroes yelling “oh how we missed you Timothy!” or he was waiting for Stephanie to punch him in the arm and talk in her thick Gotham accent until he had no idea what she was saying anymore.
By the time the afternoon came knocking around, the librarian sent him home with a sad smile, and Tim heard her whisper to her coworker “ The homeless ones are always toughest to send home, ” and Tim whipped around as fast as he could, but didn’t say anything, because if he was running away and his parents hadn’t started looking for him yet, he didn’t have a home.
He planted himself on the sidewalk in front of the library, where he’d sat the day before with Steph, and for a second he wondered if he’d dreamt her up, when she kicked him in his side and sat down next to him.
“What’re you doin’ here?”
Tim shrugged and shoved his hands deeper into his pockets.
“Are you still running away?”
Stephanie didn’t look very good, there was a big scratch on her chin and she looked dirty in a way that would make Tim’s parents turn away in disgust. “You shouldn’t be,” she said. “Running away, I mean,”
“Why not?” Tim asked. “I did what you said- I left a note and everything,”
She looked down. “Don’t run away- okay, you’re- you prob’b’ly have some big house and a keephouser and you can’t run away- it’s not safe and-” she took a deep breath, which to Tim, sounded more like a wheeze and hid her face in her arms. “Just don’t, alright?”
“I want to run away,” Tim insisted. “I- my parents will come after me,”
Stephanie shook her head. “My daddy did this,” she pointed to her chin and then she pulled up her pant leg and showed a big bruise growing on her calf. “your parents don’t do that, right?”
Tim shook his head.
“Don’t run away,”
He frowned. “But you- you said-”
“Don’t- I- My daddy’s a bad guy,” She said. “Batman bad- I mean, and if your daddy isn’t a bad guy, you don’t have to run away- and I can have you as my friend,”
There was a beat of silence between them, as a line of cars drove past, in a hurry to get to Christmas dinner.
“My parents left me,” Tim told her. “That’s why I’m running away- so they’ll see how it feels,”
“Is it working?” Stephanie asked.
And for the first time that Christmas, Tim had to admit to himself that it wasn’t. He shook his head. “I don’t think they know,”
Steph linked their arms, taking his arm in her tight grip. “So you’ll stay- you’re not running away?”
He shook his head again. “I’m sorry your dad’s a bad guy,”
“I’m sorry your parents are bad guys,” Stephanie echoed back to him and rested her head on his shoulder.
They watched the cars pass in silence, Christmas songs in the distance.
“We could run away together,” Tim offered.
Stephanie shook her head sadly. “We’re not big enough,”
“Then, when we’re grown, when we’re 12, that’s like ancient,”
The little girl on his shoulder didn’t answer him.
They just sat there on Christmas day, on the freezing cold pavement in front of some library, as two seven year old kids who barely knew each other.