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queen-of-hobgobblers · 11 months

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Case Study: Tim Drake

Chapter Two (Previous chapter) (Next Chapter)

tw violence, gun violence, blood, implied death, nonfatal injuries, swearing, reference to murder

[2 years ago, Gotham City]

Snap- snap- snap!

Ear-splitting screams, colours blending together, red, pink, yellow, red, red, red-

Bernard wants to scream. He wants to say something, anything but the glint of silver in his peripheral vision tears the voice from his lungs, his effort to breath shredding them apart from the inside out. It’s not that this sort of thing is unusual in Gotham. Quite the opposite, he’s been preparing for this type of situation since the first grade. But to actually be in a shooting is a whole other thing entirely. He runs and he runs and he runs, past overturned tables and loud crashes, past blood-stained concrete and a pale hand reaching out in his peripheral view-

The hand grabs his arm and pulls him to the side, behind a wall.

He throws a punch out with his free hand on instinct and is met by a steady palm. “Bernard.”

The blond blinks to see Tim Drake staring back at him, gaze detached and even in a way that takes years of practice. There’s glimmers of concern in his eyes, though. Little sparks of relief giving him away.

“Tim?”

“Yeah. You good?”

“I… yeah,” Bernard swallows thickly, and the words aren’t even completely a lie. Fear still fills him to the brim but he feels a little steadier now. A little more secure.

Tim gives Bernard a quick once-over to make sure he’s alright- and he’s fine for the most part, there’s little cuts to his hands, against his jaw, but other than that he’s okay- before he lets out a miniscule breath. “Good.” The brunette pushes him further into the nook. “Stay here.”

The blond falls back with several people huddled against between the narrow walls, waiting this out together. Under their tough exteriors, they all look just as scared as he is- men, women, everyone in between, all silently praying for their lives.

No matter how long you’ve been in Gotham, no matter the shit you’ve seen, you never quite lose that primal fear of death. Not really.

Bernard turns back to see Tim peering past the edges of the wall, watching for danger, reaching out and grabbing anyone who runs past, ducking them to safety. The other detective quickly makes himself useful calming people down and boosting morale. He puts to use all the first aid knowledge he knows, staunching a man’s bleeding with his blazer, washing his hands with a water bottle a woman happened to have on hand every time he treats someone else.

Out of the corner of his eye, he sees Tim, eyes hardening in anger, jaw slanting further in distaste with each passing minute. Before he can ask what’s wrong, the brunette yells out, “Bernard!”

“Yeah?” the man answers, not looking away from where he’s bandaging up a boy’s shoulder.

“Look after them!”

“Wait, why, what are you- Tim!!” Bernard jerks up and reaches out to grab his rival’s hand, attempting to pull him back into the hollow, but Tim’s fast, grabbing some sort of a metal pole and rushing out towards the direction of an active shooter.

“Cad é an fuck, Tim?!” Bernard screams as he runs out after him, his words bleeding out into Irish the way they did whenever he was upset. He wants to follow, he has to, but he’s being pulled back by a mass of hands.

“Tim! Tim! Stad, stad, le bhur thoil! Chathaigh mé-”

A hand places firm on his shoulders, and a heavy gaze meets his own. One of the people helping him clean up wounds. “You need to help take care of the others. Tim will be fine on his own. He always is.”

Bernard wants to protest but he bites his tongue. The man’s right. About the first bit, at least. So Bernard goes back to patching up people in need and keeping everyone’s spirits up, and the next few hours especially are a blur.

He remembers the feel of wet fabric neath his fingers and red stained against his palms. Remembers whispering comfort to a girl looking no older than her teens. Loud shouting and hurried feet kicking up dust. Waiting in silence in the cold hours of the night. Remembers the bright flash of sirens, and remembers the sound of them even clearer. Someone prying cold, blood-hardened fingers from his grasp. Darcy’s voice drifting through the air, waking up next to her the following morning in his bed. Remembers her strong hold around him and the tears stained wet against his shirt, the sobs floating around the boat for days.

He doesn’t really remember why he was there in the first place. Doesn’t remember arguing with Tim over some trivial case neither of them managed to solve.

He vaguely remembers the police report that came out a few days later: the cops apprehending the shooter onsite, Tim managing to help hold him back, getting away with nonfatal wounds to the arm and chest.

He remembers wondering deliriously just what events could have fallen into place to turn Tim Drake into the person he was today.

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[Present day, Gotham City]

(Days since Tim went missing: 1)

Of all the mysteries Bernard had tried to crack over the years, Tim Drake was the toughest. The man was a puzzle locked inside an enigma, wrapped in some truly horrendous style choices. Every discovery he made about him just led to more questions. Tim was Gotham’s cryptid, everyone knew or has at least heard of him, but no one really knew him. His past, his hobbies, wants, interests. Everyone’s only witnessed a small piece in the tangled web that is Tim Drake.

And every piece was contradictory too. He seemed aloof, reserved, but he was still friends with just about everyone. He was often remarked polite and law-abiding, but Bernard’s looked through the list of his various violations and it might as well have been the longest list of infractions in Gotham. He preferred using his wits to solve a case but was still ripped enough to stand his own in a fight. Bernard’s spent so much of his life fitting people into little boxes and Tim’s traversed in and out of each one with ease.

He’s tried asking Tim but it always led to more questions. He tried asking other people but there’s not much difference. They knew as much as he did. He even tried stalking him online, but it just led to a bunch of dead ends and social media profiles set to private (“Darcy, I swear, this is all purely to get a leg up on the competition, quit looking at me like that!”). In other words: no dice.

The man’s like water with how quick he adapts and changes. That’s the only way Bernard can describe it, water. He’s ever-changing, constantly adapting, and can fit into any shape or disguise required of him. Tim was a different person from second to second and Bernard was never quite sure which version he was going to bump into that day. He could see all the hanging bits and pieces, but never the person at the center of the net. There are a few things he’s managed to figure out however.

His address for example.

“You think he’s going under deep cover or something?” Darcy asked from the passenger seat.

“What?” Bernard asks, fingers tapping against the wheel. Ten minutes to the apartment, ten minutes longer…

“Maybe he’s gone deep undercover Mission-Impossible-style to take this murderer out on his own,” she mused, adjusting her glasses with interest. “I wouldn’t put it past him.”

“He’s literally never done that.”

“First time for everything.”

“Any other bright ideas?”

Darcy thought for a moment. “Tim’s the murderer?”

“Darcy.”

“Sorry, sorry, but. You’re right. He’s never done this before. I’m not sure what to expect.”

Bernard let out a breath. “Me neither.”

Eight minutes, eight minutes…

“Can you read that aloud?” Bernard asks, when he spots Darcy going back over the article for clues out of the corner of her eye. He needs something to keep his mind occupied while he waits.

“27 year old Local Detective for Hire Tim Drake was reported missing by a friend of his on Thursday morning,” Darcy obliged, “days after the twin murders of Eddie Reese and Dana Winters. Police have released sparse details at this time, but have stated that it’s too early to comment on whether or not these events are connected.”

“Social media has been rife with speculation, theories ranging from him going rogue yet again to even having been hit by the serial killer themself.”

“‘Frankly, this is one of the less shocking stunts he’s pulled,’ Police Commissioner Montoya stated when prompted upon by reporters. ‘There are no plans for a serious look into his disappearance at this time. Especially with this murderer on the loose-’”

“Stad,” Bernard gritted out before he even realized what he was doing. He doesn’t realize his hands clenched firmly to the wheel till he spots white knuckles gripping against metal for dear life. He loosens his hold and checks the rearview mirrors again. Places his eyes back towards the road. They just passed Gino’s Pizzeria… off-brand Starbucks… nearly there, nearly there…

Darcy notices his anxiety and wordlessly goes back to her research, leaving them to spend the next five minutes in silence.

They finally pull up to the parking lot and make their way to the lobby.

“412,” Darcy types in confidently, and the speaker connects.

Bernard quietly hopes that this has all been one big misunderstanding, and he’ll hear Tim’s quiet voice come out of the speaker, annoyed that Bernard had come all the way to his address to bug him. His heart drops into his ass when he’s instead met by a far older one instead, too familiar to misplace.

“Detective Williams GCPD, how may I help you?”

“Private Investigators Darcy Thomas and Bernard Dowd here. May we come up?” the woman answers back.

There’s a long pause on the other end and Bernard swears he hears the officer mentally ask God what he did to deserve ever crossing paths with them and their bullshit. “I can’t let you in, you two know this.”

“And you must know by now that there’s no stopping us.”

“Darcy,” the two men say at the same time, but for Det. Williams it’s more of an annoyed reprove while for Bernard its a groan of we-need-him-to-help-us.

“Sorry, sorry, force of habit. We’re your best bet right now- I’m being serious,” Darcy barrels on as Det. Williams let out a pained groan on the other end. “Commissioner Montoya won’t let you send out a proper unit to solve Tim Drake’s disappearance, so your best option if you want to find him- and I’d suspect you especially would want to find him,” she adds, referring to the pseudo-mentor-mentee-like relationship between the officer and the missing detective, “is to refer this to the two people you know would do anything to solve this particular case, and have the time and resources to do so. Neither of us are Sherlock Holmes, I’ll admit, but a broken clock is right twice a day, and both Bernard and I have absolutely been right more than twice in our entire careers. Surely, we wouldn’t fumble this.”

There’s an even longer pause on the other end.

“Did it work?” Bernard asks.

“Let’s hope,” Darcy whispers.

Finally, door clicks open. “Come up.”

The two detectives let out twin breaths and start towards the elevator.

“You okay?” Darcy tilts her head at him as they make their way up. “We’ll find him. I promise.”

“Yeah,” Bernard swallows and remembers bright blue eyes and dark locks and an infuriatingly smug smile. He stands straighter, eyes narrowed in focus. “Yeah, we will.”

The elevator doors open up and they slip out, walking through the hallway till they make it to door 412.

Bernard knocks.

The door swings open with a creak.

“If you ever tell anyone I did this, I will deny it vehemently,” Det. Williams grumbles when he lets them in.

#this chapter is brought to you by the time tim took on the mob with a baseball bat #bernard dropped everything to go check up on his homoerotic rival/definitely not crush #darcy had to shove the omelet down his throat to get him to eat something and then jump into the passenger seat to avoid being left behind #the things she has to put up with smh #i might have been doing too much telling and not enough showing #i’ll have to work on that #my writing #batfam #tim drake #bernard dowd #darcy thomas #detective williams #timber #rival detectives au #dc

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