Chapter Text
The last time Tim saw his parents, it was a sunny day in Gotham. That should’ve been a clue. Nothing good ever happens on a sunny day in Gotham.
“We have everything, don’t we?” Jack Drake calls to his wife, who is dragging the last suitcase down the stairs, Tim trailing behind her with her purse.
“We’re probably leaving something important behind, but when don’t we?” Janet huffs.
Tim pipes up behind her, amusement clear in his voice. “You’re leaving me. ”
Janet makes a “ see?” gesture with her free hand.
Jack scoffs and opens his arms towards his son. Tim, leaving the purse on the bottom of the stairs, runs and leaps into his father’s arms. Jack pulls him clean off the floor with a grunt, only managing a couple of inches before he has to set him down. Tim is pretty sure he exaggerates, but it always makes him laugh.
“Now, you know the drill, kiddo,” His father says once he lets go.
“No getting taller until you’re back,” Tim recites, rolling his eyes in the way only a thirteen-soon-to-be-fourteen year old can manage.
It’s a well versed game they play before every trip. It started when Tim was little. His dad would pick him up and throw him upwards, then catch him. He insisted this was the best way to measure Tim, and Tim wasn’t allowed to get any taller (and therefore, heavier) until they got back from whatever trip had pulled them to the other side of the world.
“You know, I’m getting too old for that,” Tim tells him. Jack clutches at his chest as if mortally wounded, a grimace of pain etched on his expression.
“Janet, did you hear that?”
Tim’s mom, who until now has been watching fondly from the sidelines, like she does every time, approaches them and leans against her husband. His arms sneaks around her waist.
“I told you, he’s getting older. Just a few more months, he’ll be officially a teenager, and he’ll never want to speak to us again.”
“ Moooooom, ” Tim groans, “don’t say that. You know it’s not true.”
His mom hums in disbelief. Tim groans but hugs her around the middle, burying his nose in her neck. He's now almost as tall as she is. She smells like she always has, like expensive perfume and her european body lotion and something that is completely and utterly mom.
His dad’s arm wraps around the both of them, enveloping Tim completely in their embrace. Jack's is almost two heads taller than Janet, and Tim just hopes he inherited his height instead of hers.
“I’ll miss you guys,” he says quietly into his mother’s neck, slightly embarrassed by his admission. His mom’s lips press against his hair.
“We’ll take you with us on the next one,” Jack promises.
By the way Janet stiffens, Tim knows it’s not true. It’s not the first time Jack has made this particular promise. He’s broken it every time.
Sometimes, it pisses Tim off just how much his parents leave, how he has been sent away to boarding schools most of his life so that they can have more freedom without having to worry about him, how even then they leave him alone at minimum a couple of weeks every summer, like they don’t have enough time the rest of the year.
This is the first year Tim had finally convinced them that he was old enough to go to a normal school, only needing supervision when they left on a trip longer than a week. His mom hadn’t been happy about it, but his dad had argued in his favor, citing that thirteen was old enough to be responsible for one’s self for less than a week. If they were gone for longer, they would hire a nanny. That was fine with Tim. He just wished they hadn’t screamed at each other for almost a fortnight about it until they reached an agreement.
But those thoughts are for later. Farewells by the door are strictly happy moments. The bad stuff and the fights can come before and after, but never at farewells by the door.
“You’ll be good for us?” Janet asks when he pulls away.
“When aren’t I?” Tim asks with a lopsided grin. His chest aches. He ignores it.
“Almost always.” She looks at him with an exasperated fondness, which is just the usual.
The cab honks its horn, Jack drops his arm from Janet’s waist. They grab their bags, Janet grabs her purse, and they walk to the door.
In just 18 days, Tim will wish he had said something more. He will wish he had hugged them tighter, he will wish he had taken a deeper breath, just to smell that scent one last time, he will wish he had begged them not to leave him, not to go. But right now, he stands by the stairs and waves at them. They throw a last, “love you, Tim!” And just like that. They’re gone.
He hadn’t said it back. He had said it before, a hundred times, but not that last time. In 18 days, he will be willing to trade anything just to get to say it back.
Four days before his parents are scheduled to come home, Tim gets a phone call from his dad. He picks up, already suspicious by the lateness of the hour in Vietnam, where his parents are currently.
“Dad?”
“ Don’t bring him into this, I swear to God, Jack,” he hears his mothers voice, weak from her distance to the phone’s speaker. His stomach does a little churn. They’re fighting again, and they’re bringing him into it.
They do this, once in a while. They fight a lot, and when Tim was nine he was sure they were getting a divorce, but they pushed through. They almost never fight when he’s around though, but sometimes Tim hacks into their account and checks their hotel reservations. More often than not, they pay for separate rooms. He thinks he’s never around for their fights because his mom plans for it, because Jack has a tendency to drag him into them. This time, not even distance could keep him out of it, so it must be a bad one.
“Hey kid, you’re on speaker. Timmy, tell me this, have you enjoyed your life?” His dad sounds a little tipsy, which, honestly, is surprising. Jack doesn't drink much.
“I- yes? What’s this about?”
“ Jack, please, we can talk about this when we get back to Gotham—.”
“He has a right to know,” Jack snaps, “just like I did.” He turns his attention back to Tim. “Am I a good father to you, Tim?”
“A very good one,” Tim whispers into the phone. His heart is pounding, and not really sure why. This feels like a big moment, one of those moments where the world tilts on his axis.
“Well, if you’re a fucking liar, like your mother, no worries—.”
“ Jack, please.” His mom sounds like she’s crying.
“ Because you have another one! Just in case you wanted to switch one day.”
The world does not tilt on its axis. It fucking bucks like it’s a bull and it’s trying to shake Tim off. He’s sitting on his bed, otherwise he would’ve fallen over.
“ What? ” He calls hoarsely. His hands are shaking. He holds the phone with both of them, pressing it feverishly against his ear. “Dad, what’s going on?”
“I had a paternity test done, it came back negative,” there’s venom dripping from his dad’s (?) voice, he thinks he can hear his mom crying in the background. “Forget that I fed and housed you every day of your life, I’m not—.”
“Dad, dad, listen to me, okay?” Tim hisses into the phone, his shock forgotten, now replaced by a hot ball of anger and indignation. Towards whom, though? Mom, for lying about this for so long? Dad, for springing this on him? Both of them, for dragging him into another one of their stupid fights?
“ You are my dad, fuck any test that says otherwise. It doesn’t change the fact that you raised me, okay? ” There’s silence on the line.
“ Dad ?” He calls out a little desperately. Tell me I'm right, he begs in his mind, tell me this doesn't change anything for you. Be my dad.
“I—.” There’s a shaky breath. “We’ll talk about this when we get home, alright?”
He sounds defeated in a way Tim has never heard before, his voice is tight like he’s fighting back tears.
“Mom?” There’s silence on the line for a few seconds.
“I’m sorry, Timothy. We’ll talk about all of this once we get back, alright? I promise, I’ll tell you everything.”
It takes Tim a moment to realize that what he’s feeling is disappointment towards his parents, for not handling this better, for putting him on the sidelines until they can figure this out themselves, for not prioritizing him.
Well, nothing’s new, really, he thinks bitterly. (That’s a little unfair, Tim knows, but he thinks he has a right to be unfair right now).
“You’re not being fair .” And now he’s the one crying, his voice cracks at the last word, and he feels so little right now, he wants some reassurance that everything is going to be fine, that his world is not crumbling right now. “You can’t just spring this on me and—.”
“We’ll be home in four days,” Janet interrupts a little helplessly. “We love you, baby. We’ll be home soon, I promise.”
And with that, the call ends, and Tim spends the rest of the day staring at the wall.
When, four days later, a pair of policemen show up at his doorstep to finish wrecking his entire world via a plane crash, Tim can’t say he’s entirely surprised.
The only thing he’s capable of thinking is that his mom broke her promise, and his dad broke his.
He doesn’t really remember the trip to the station. There are hands on his shoulders, someone asking him if he stays alone when his parents leave the country, and another one telling off the voice for “inappropriate timing”. He’s sitting down in a little room, blandly decorated and with windows in every wall. There was a nice police-woman at some point, who spoke to him softly and wrapped him up in a shock blanket. That was nice. He’s shaking, he thinks.
“Timothy?”
He finally snaps out of his own head to see a middle-age woman enter the room. She has blond hair peppered with streaks of gray and a smile that doesn't really reach her eyes.
“I’m Emily Byers, your social worker, I’m here to talk about the next steps.”
Tim stares at her. He doesn’t get up to greet her, he doesn’t introduce himself. His mom would be horrified at his lack of manners, but who the fuck cares? His mom is dead.
She takes his muteness in stride, sitting down next to him and finally dropping the fake smile.
“I’m so sorry for your loss, Timothy.” She whispers, as if saying it gently won’t break him. Jokes on her, can’t she see the pieces of him already scattered on the floor?
“Thank you,” he manages, “what’s going to happen to me now?”
“Well,” she starts, obviously relieved about not having to deal with an emotional breakdown, which is probably what she expected, “your parent’s lawyer has already checked your parents’ will, your uncle is your assigned legal guardian per their request.”
Tim’s brain, which until now had been working on minimal systems, kicks into second gear.
“My uncle?”
“Edward Drake, your dad’s younger brother?” She looks a little confused at the file in her lap. He knows what she’s thinking, he doesn’t have any other aunts or uncles to be confused with.
“There has to be a mistake.” She looks at him a little strangely, but adults are always telling him he’s a little weird, so that's par for the course, so he ignores it.
“Why do you think there’s a mistake?” She asks.
“Because my parents told me never to be alone with uncle Eddie.”
She stares at him, blinking slowly, and he suspects he’s just made her job a little harder.
“Why?” He shrugs.
“My dad and him don’t- didn’t get along.” There’s a feeling pressing against his breastbone, a wave of something he doesn’t want to inspect too closely yet, so he shoves it to the back of his mind. He once researched this ability of his, to shove stuff away to a corner of his mind to be dealt with later, or never. The Internet said it was called compartmentalizing. He’s wicked good at it.
“My mom didn’t like him either. The Drakes didn’t really talk to each other except on special occasions, like funerals and stuff.”
Mrs. Byers relaxes. She gives him a weak smile.
“Well, Tim, sometimes siblings have complicated relationships, but I imagine they still loved each other, enough to trust him with your well being in case anything happened.”
He’s not convinced. Not even in the slightest. It must show on his face, because she pats his hand and says,
“You can talk to him when he gets here, we called him an hour ago. I’m sure you misunderstood your parents, Tim. It’s alright though, not your fault, it’s normal to be a little confused right now.”
The Internet had a word for this too. It was Gaslighting. He thinks that’s what it means, at least. He doesn’t think she’s doing it on purpose.
Tim has only met his uncle Eddie a couple of times. He’s Jack’s younger brother, and he works as a consultant in a branch of Drake Industries in L.A.
Tim remembers being five and on the way to his grandparent’s house. His grandma was dead. He had never met her, so when he’d gotten the news and one of his schoolmates had asked him if he was sad, he’d shrugged and said no. The kid had looked at him weirdly and called him a freak. Tim had said he preferred to be a freak than to still wet his pants, because he’d noticed that little incident in class the previous day and Mom always said to keep blackmail for when it was useful. This had seemed like a pretty good moment to use it. The kid had left and never spoken to him again, which had been fine with Tim.
Anyways.
On the way to his grandparents’ house, Dad had told him that Grandpa Jack wasn’t like Grandpa Sam, Mom’s father. He’d said that he was grumpy and mean sometimes, and he was probably very upset at his wife’s death, so Tim was better off being silent, only speak when spoken to. This had been fine with Tim, and Jack had smiled at him fondly when he’d agreed, which made it all worth it.
“Do I get to meet uncle Eddie?” He had asked. Until then, uncle Eddie had been a character in dad’s stories. His parents had looked at each other for a moment.
“Yes, Tim. But you should know, your uncle Eddie is… special.”
“Like me?” They were always telling him he was special. They’d seen a doctor about it, who had told his parents that Tim was incredibly smart. Tim had already known this, but it was good to have confirmation.
“Not really. I meant that he’s… a bit of a trouble maker, if you will.”
“You’re not to be alone with him, ever . If he tells you to do or say something, Tim, you come to see us and ask us if you’re allowed, okay?” His father had interrupted. He hadn’t recognized at the time the strain in his dad’s eyes.
“Okay, daddy.”
“Good boy.”
He had met his uncle and grandpa that day, although he barely remembers anything from that day. Mostly that his grandfather and his dad had fought, a loud screaming match that ended by Jack and Janet leaving with Tim.
Uncle Eddie had been a fun guy to be around, always quick with a joke, playful and unserious. Tim hadn’t really understood the big deal about him.
It was years later, when Tim was ten or eleven, after his grandfather had also passed, when Jack explained to him the reason for his estrangement with his family, the reason why he almost never drank, why Tim hadn’t gotten to have a relationship with his paternal grandparents properly. It was a story of bruises and fights that ended with tears and broken bones. Of brothers being pitted against each other for their father's approval. Tim decided it wasn't a good story.
“I left after high school and basically never went back.” Jack had finished with a dry smile.
“What about uncle Eddie?” Tim had asked. Jack had frowned in confusion.
“What about him?”
“You left him there, alone with your father? And what about grandma?”
His father had stared at him, his eyes darkening.
“When you’re older, you’ll understand, and your uncle Eddie… he’s more like his father than he likes to admit, trust me on that. I just couldn’t stay, Tim.”
“Well, neither could they, probably,” Tim had insisted. Jack’s face had twisted, something dangerous in the set of his mouth.
“ Enough, Timothy. ” He had snapped. “I’m not talking about this anymore, not with you.” He had stood up and left the kitchen, but paused by the door. “And your grandmother always let him do as he pleased with us, so she was more than fine with the situation.”
Tim had sat there until the nanny had come to fetch him, feeling sick to his stomach.
Now, Tim sits on the leather couch, clutching the jacket he had been given, waiting for an uncle who he’d only seen a couple of times and had been warned not to be alone with.
The man arrives a couple of hours later, after Tim has denied various food offerings from nice policemen, and the social worker has gone off somewhere, probably unwilling to stick around a sad kid who had nothing to say.
Edward Drake is a tall man, a little thin but packing muscle in that wiry frame. His hair is mussed from his flight, dark just as Jack’s was. That’s not where the similarities end. They have the same square jaw, the same bushy eyebrows and hazel eyes. His nose is smaller, a little longer, he’s sporting a scruffy beard where Jack always insisted a clean look was the most appropriate for a business man.
He looks… like a grieving brother, honestly. His eyes are a little puffy, he looks pale, his mouth is pressed into a thin line. He still manages to offer Tim a smile.
“Hey, kiddo.” Tim stands up, his knees creak in protest from staying in the same position for so long.
“Hey, uncle Eddie.”
And then Eddie opens his arms, and Tim’s eyes fill with tears for the first time. He leaves the shock blanket behind and runs into his uncle’s arms, which wrap around him securely. It’s not that the police hadn’t been kind, they had, but none of them had known what to say to the grieving twelve year old, which is fair, because is there anything to say?
Eddie doesn’t say anything, he just holds Tim as he shakes, as he cries into his suit jacket.
After a few minutes, he pulls Tim away, holding him by the shoulders to give him a once over.
“You’ve grown since the last time I saw you,” he marvels. Tim smiles a little.
“I was ten the last time you saw me.”
“That must be it, then.” Tim giggles wetly, sniffing a little. Uncle Eddie ruffles his hair.
“Let’s find your social worker and get you out of here, huh?”
Tim nods, finding himself a little desperate to get out of here, to go back home.
Eddie wraps an arm around his shoulders and pulls him close to his side.
“It’s just you and me, kiddo.” He mutters, squeezing his shoulders.
Tim leans into his uncle’s side and lets himself be guided out of the police station.
A week passes, and they have a funeral. It’s a sunny day and the caskets are empty, because Tim’s parents are somewhere in the middle of the ocean, probably having their rotting corpses slowly being eaten by small crustaceans and fishes. He’s been dreaming about it every night.
He barely remembers the funeral, to be honest. There’s a shining moment, when the sea of both strange and familiar faces part and Bruce Wayne approaches him, alone. His kid, Jason, the second Robin, is still at the hospital under a medically induced coma, according to the tabloids.
“I’m so sorry about your parents, Tim.”
And the thing is, he looks it. He has the look of a man who has lost a noticeable amount of weight in very little time. His usually tan skin is pale, there are circles under his eyes, and his hair is now streaked with gray. Now, Tim is not stupid enough to consider himself the reason for Bruce’s ghoulish look, but the sorrow in his expression is for him. A lot of people have been sorry for his parents today, few have actually meant it, at least in a way that’s real , and not just in a tragedy happening far away from you, like a car crash viewed on the tv from the comfort of your sofa.
“Thank you, mr. Wayne.” He says, just like the last fifty times.
“If you ever need anything, we’re a house away.” This is less frequent than the apology, but still more authentic than most. “I mean it, never hesitate to call, alright?”
The man looks like he’s about to cry. His kid is fifteen and in the ICU. He shouldn’t even be here, but he took the time to come, and that means something to Tim.
“I’m sorry about Jason, mr. Wayne. I don’t really know him, but he seems like a great guy, and I hope you get to bring him home soon.”
Wayne smiles at him, the grin slightly lopsided in its geniality.
“Thank you, Tim.”
Bruce looks like he’s about to say something else, probably about to repeat his offer for help, but he’s interrupted when Eddie’s hand lands on Tim’s shoulder and his attention gets turned to the couple of D.I investors that Eddie wants to introduce him to. By the time he turns around, Wayne is gone. Appropriate for Batman, really.
It all starts a week after the funeral. Tim calls that day in his own head The Unmasking . He counts the days starting with that one. The first day of his own personal hell. The day Eddie showed his true colors.
It starts like this: Tim enters the kitchen one morning, gritty eyed and tired from lack of sleep. He’s been waking up screaming or crying every night for the last two weeks. It’s gotten old by now.
“Good morning,” he calls at his uncle, who is clutching a cup of coffee in one hand and staring at his phone.
“It would be ,” he grumbles, “if you didn’t keep waking me up.”
Tim winces, guilt churning in his gut.
“I’m sorry.”
“It’s been two weeks, kid.”
“I’ve gotten night terrors since I was little. It’s just one of those things. They’ll go away eventually.”
In reality, he’d gotten them ever since the night of the Graysons’ death, when he was three. They came and went, usually triggered by an emotional response. Like perhaps his parents suffering a violent death.
“Well, I don’t want ‘eventually’, I need them gone now. So stop it.” Eddie looks annoyed now, even if he isn’t even looking at Tim, still staring down at his phone.
“I can’t control it, uncle Eddie.” Tim scoffs. “They’re not exactly fun for me either.”
His throat hurts from screaming, his eyes feel swollen and puffy and dry.
Eddie finally looks up, and Tim’s immediately reminded of his father. There’s something dangerous lurking behind those eyes, and Tim doesn’t want to find out what it is.
“I’m saying this once, Tim. Find a way to stop your hysterics.”
Or I’ll do it for you is how Tim figures the rest of the phrase goes. Eddie stares at him for another second, and then the look is gone, and he goes back to his phone, as if nothing has been said.
It’s fine, he thinks. They’re both sleep deprived, he didn’t mean it like that. Tim is just being paranoid.
It’ll be fine.
He wakes up that night gasping for air. His cheek is stinging, his eyes are blurry from tears, and he can’t see anything from the blinding light. He opens his mouth, and another slap on the other cheek knocks him down onto the bed. There’s a moment of silence, where his face burns with pain and his eyes adjust. His uncle is standing over him.
“Are you done?” He asks, unimpressed.
“I- what?” He splutters, still reeling.
“I asked you nicely once. Don’t expect me to ask again. Get yourself under control.”
Tim stares at his uncle. The usual spark of good humor is gone from his eyes, the slight grin always teasing at the corners of his mouth has been wiped away, leaving a hard line.
“I- I’m sorry,” he blurts out. There’s cold sweat soaking his PJs, making him shiver. Eddie nods, apparently satisfied.
He leaves without another word.
Tim stays awake long after his cheeks stop stinging, long enough to watch the sun rise.
When he goes down for breakfast, Eddie acts like nothing had happened, and so does Tim.
Mrs. Byers visits them on week three. She looks around the home, asks questions to uncle Eddie about Tim’s well-being, about his ‘adjustment’ to his ‘new reality’.
Eddie, who has refused to make dinner or breakfast for Tim since that second week, talks about his nutrition plan and about Tim refusing to eat some days, which is not entirely true. Sure, Tim isn’t really hungry these days, but according to Google, that’s normal. He still eats, just not as much, and that whole nutrition plan is bullshit . Tim had to go into Gotham the other day because the fridge had been empty, and Eddie had just ordered takeout for himself.
He also talks about how he's worried about Tim’s lack of sleep , as if he hasn’t pounded on Tim’s door the moment Tim had made the smallest of sounds almost every night since that first one. As if his cheeks hadn’t burned the rest of that first night, and he hadn’t spent the next two nights fighting to stay awake to avoid something similar. The social worker, thoroughly charmed by the worried uncle act, assures him that all of that is normal, that Tim is just in his ‘adjustment period’ and that they both need to find their footing in their new roles in their family. Eddie nods along to all of this, his expression relieved, his shoulders slumped in faux tiredness.
He looks at Tim from the corner of his eye, stares at Mrs. Byers for a second, and says,
“Tim, kiddo, would you mind stepping out for a second?” He sends him a tight smile, eyes crinkling with affection. This is when Tim learns something else about his uncle. He is one good damn liar.
“Sure,” he says, standing up and leaving for the living room. His stomach is in a knot.
They talk for about fifteen minutes, during which Tim considers sneaking to the door and trying to listen in, but by the time he’s gathered his courage and makes to stand up, Eddie is calling him back to the dining room.
“I want to talk to you now, Tim,” Mrs. Byers says with a gentle smile, “if that’s okay with you.”
Tim nods and sits besides his uncle again. Mrs. Byers looks at Eddie.
“Alone, if you don’t mind, mr. Drake.”
“Oh. Sure.” Eddie stands up, grips Tim’s shoulder so tight Tim has to hide a wince, and says, still grinning, “if my ears burn, I’ll know you’ve been talking about me.”
Mrs. Byers laughs at his corny ass joke, but Tim catches the real meaning. He doesn’t care. His heart is racing. Did mrs. Byers see through the act? Is she getting him out of here?
Once Eddie leaves the room, she turns to look at him, expression serious.
“And how are you , Tim?”
Tim swallows. His palms are damp. He thinks carefully about his words.
“I’m… not fine, I guess, it’s been a lot, you know?” Mrs. Byers nods sympathetically, and it eggs him on. “It hasn’t sunken in yet, I think. I keep waiting for them to come through the door at any time.”
“And how are you sleeping?” She asks him. He’s a little confused by the random question, but he answers truthfully nonetheless.
“Not very well. I have had night terrors, ever since I was little. They went away, but this has brought them back.” He’s about to add more, but mrs. Byers continues asking.
“And do you think that has affected your mood?”
He frowns.
“Not really? I mean, I-I’m a little more tired, maybe a little snappish? But—.”
“Have you always been moody, or is this a new development?”
“I’m not moody—.” He starts to respond, a little annoyed, but she cuts him off with an air of indifference.
“Snappish, then. Your parents left you alone a lot, didn’t they?”
That makes him do a double take, but he’s quick to answer too.
“Not a lot. If they left, I usually had nannies with me, or I was off in boarding school.”
“Do you feel the need to draw attention to yourself because of that?”
Okay, now she’s pissing him off.
“I don’t draw attention to myself, ” he hisses between clenched teeth.
“Calm down, Tim. Your uncle was just telling me he’s a little concerned about you. He told me he’s having difficulties managing your temper.”
He looks at her incredulously. “ My temper?”
“It’s alright to have big feelings you don’t know how to deal with, Tim,” she says, her gaze softening a little, but the patronizing tone does nothing to soothe him. “But you have to remember, this is a learning experience for you both, and you have to be patient—.”
“He slapped me the other night for screaming in my sleep. How’s that for a fucking temper?” He cuts her off, incredibly satisfied when she reels back a little. There’s silence for a moment, as she digests this. Then her face darkens, studying him a little more seriously.
“And when was this?”
“Last week.”
“Can you tell me exactly what happened?”
And so he does, incredibly relieved and full of hope. She’s going to do something about it. When he’s done, he expects apologies for doubting his word, back in the police station. He expects her to tell him to pack a bag, to call the police. She does none of that. She looks at him, very seriously, and tells him,
“Tim, you’re a smart kid, right? I’ve read your file. I know you’re considered a bit of a genius.”
He nods. Where is she going with this?
“Well then, I need you to understand something. I have a lot of cases, a lot of kids in need of homes, of someone to take care of them.”
He nods again, this time a little haltingly.
“You have no idea how lucky you are, kid. To have this huge house, an uncle willing to take you in, a trust fund . I have kids who I know for a fact, will end up on the streets by the end of this year, and you’re complaining that your sleep-deprived uncle has a temper ?”
Tim looks at her, at her judgement and exasperation, and shrinks into his chair.
“ He hurt me,” he mumbles, his voice cracking a little. His fingers are numb, there’s a coldness spreading to the rest of his body slowly, when he realizes what she’s saying.
“Tim, you have two choices. I can call this in, I can find you an overcrowded group home for you to stay in, where you’ll have to sleep with five other teenagers, and you’ll have to stay there for the next five years or until some other underfunded and overworked foster family decides to take you in –.” She speaks slowly, calmly, her hard eyes never leaving his, and he can see there the tiredness she must feel. “ –or you and I can agree to keep this little incident quiet, you can stay in your very nice home, and you and your uncle can tolerate each other until you are of age. Those are your two choices, Tim. Choose wisely.”
His eyes sting. This isn’t how it’s supposed to work. He’s supposed to have someone to talk to, someone that’ll protect him. He misses his mom and dad so much his chest aches. Tears start streaming down. Mrs. Byers shakes her head and sighs, as if he’s in the wrong here.
“Life isn’t always fair, Tim. This are the cards you’ve been dealt with. Are you going to cry about it, or are you going to face it?”
They stare at each other. This is important, Tim reckons. This is going to decide his future. He almost tells her to make the call, almost takes her up on her threat (because that’s what that little speech was, he’s sure of it). But there’s a part of him that asks himself, is she right? Is he being ungrateful and needy?
Maybe uncle Eddie does have a temper, maybe he let it get the best of him, but is he willing to take a spot in a foster home from a kid who really needs it? Is he that selfish?
He breaks away from the staring contest. He sighs and looks down, defeated, and then brings his eyes up to look at mrs. Byers again.
She’s supposed to help him, he thinks dispassionately. But she does have other cases, kids far worse off than him.
He’ll be fine. He always is.
He tells her as much, and she smiles at him, pleasant and kind-looking once more.
She leaves, shortly after. They walk her to the door and wave at her car as it leaves the driveway. His uncle grips his shoulder and steers him inside.
He’s on the floor, clutching his stomach as he tries to catch his breath before the door fully closes. It takes a moment to comprehend that his uncle has punched the wind out of him.
“What the fuck did you tell her?” He growls, livid in his anger.
“N-nothing,” Tim gasps, still clutching his stomach. Fuck, that hurts.
The second hit comes as a kick to his head. His ears are ringing, his body curls around on himself, his knees coming up to protect his belly while his arms cover his head.
“God, you’re pathetic,” Eddie spits, “ get. Up. ”
It takes Tim a few seconds, because the room spins when he tries, but when Eddie lifts a hand, he scrambles to his feet, ignoring the black spots covering his vision.
“Now, I’m going to ask you again. What the fuck did you tell her?”
“I—.”
“It’ll be worse if you lie to me, Timothy. I promise you that. ”
He's rambling before he can stop himself. This has gone south fast, way too fast .
“I told her the truth, but she told me that I was better off here. She’s not going to tell anyone—.”
The punch comes before he can finish his rambling explanation. It’s not like anything he’s ever experienced before. He’s never been hit before, not even when his dad had been livid about something, not by teachers or nannies. His head rings, his cheekbone aches, it hurts so much he wonders if Eddie had managed to break it. A metallic taste floods his mouth. His eyes water, his face burns in humiliation and embarrassment.
“Don’t fucking cry, goddamnit, take it like a man.” Eddie snaps, and Tim straightens his posture, afraid of angering him more, even if he can barely think straight.
Everyone has a plan until they get punched in the face, he remembers a little hysterically.
“Jesus Christ, did your father not teach you anything?”
Tim doesn’t respond, concentrates on breathing through the pain and holding his tears at bay. At his silence, Eddie approaches him. Tim can’t help but tremble, to drop his gaze to the floor, shoulders hunched, as if making himself a smaller target will protect him. He’ll learn soon enough that nothing can protect him.
Eddie grabs him by the hair and makes him look up into his eyes. There’s nothing there, no warmth, no affection. Just pure anger and disgust for what he sees.
“I’ve tried to be nice, Tim. I’ve tried to be patient.” He says, with a calmness that makes Tim’s already racing heart go into overdrive. “But you’ve shown me you’re just a spoiled brat who nobody has ever cared enough about to put into his place.”
And Tim, for the life of him, will never know where he found the courage (or sheer stupidity) to spit out, anger coming from God knows where,
“You sound like a fucking Bond villain, you know that?”
The grip on his hair slackens for a moment, and if Tim were older, a little wiser, more experienced, he’d know to use that momentary weakness to fight back, to escape and hide. But it’s his first time, so he holds still. That’s alright, he’ll have plenty of opportunities to learn.
“Well, at least you’re not as much of a pussy as I thought,” his uncle says, shrugging a little. “Still, you’re going to learn not to talk to me like that. On your knees.”
The casualness of the order makes Tim break out in goosebumps. He hesitates for a moment, and the grip on his hair tightens.
“We can do this the easy way or the hard way, and trust me, you don’t want the hard way, kid,” he says, oh so pleasantly. He grins at him. Jesus, he could give the Joker a run for his money with that smile. “How’s that for a Bond villain?”
Tim gets on his knees.
“Take off your shirt.”
And if he thought he’d been scared before, that makes him start shaking so much his teeth clack against each other uncontrollably. There’s a weight sitting on his chest, making it hard to breathe; he can barely hear anything through the sound of blood rushing through his ears.
“ TIM.” He flinches. “Don’t make me ask again.”
The next moments, where Tim shakily starts struggling out of his shirt, pass in slow motion. There’s an air of surreality to the situation, where he keeps thinking, this isn’t happening to me.
Eddie isn’t looking at him, he’s unbuckling his belt.
This can’t be happening to me.
He expects to wake up any moment, to find himself sweating and crying, twisted in his bed covers. Any moment now.
The illusion lasts until the belt lands on his back for the first time. Reality comes crashing onto him the moment raging fire slams into a line on his back. It hurts , in a different way than the punch to the face did. It burns, it knocks the breath out of him. He realizes he’s crying, but he really can’t pay attention to anything except the burning on his back, and the thoughts storming his mind, incredulity and horror mixing in his brain.
I’m being beaten with a belt, he thinks, not quite believing it.
The next slash comes and he bites his check. There's so much blood in his mouth he has to swallow it.
My parents are dead. And they left me with my uncle, who is now beating me with a belt.
It doesn't sound real, or believable. It sounds like a bad copy of a Grimm brothers tale.
Cinderella didn’t have to fucking go through this. The thought almost rips a hysterical laugh out of him, but the belt comes down again and he finds himself screaming and falling to the floor completely.
How long has it been? The belt has come down three times down, with only a couple of seconds between them, so no more than a minute. Mrs. Byers left less than three minutes ago.
By the time Eddie is done with him, he’s lost all sense of time. With a few words along the lines of “don’t ever disrespect me like that again,” which he doesn't really hear over the pounding in his ears, Eddie leaves him there, laying on the floor, his back covered in welts.
Moving hurts. Hell, breathing hurts. He ends up crawling to his room, after trying to stand on shaky legs and almost vomiting from the pain. He crawls up his bed and lays there, panting and covered in sweat and tears.
Now what?
He's spends the next three years trying to answer that question.