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nicksomeday24 · 2 years ago

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Postcards and Polaroids

Bruce Wayne sighed as he walked through the streets of San Francisco, his shoulders hunched in on himself. He had been dreading this business trip for days now, and had been doing everything he could to get out of it but Lucius had put his foot down and all but demanded that he go.

Yes, Bruce’s friend knew what going to San Francisco meant to Bruce, knew how hard being in this damned city was but he didn’t particularly care. Not when he still blamed Bruce for what had happened in the first place. The Fox family in general had treated the Waynes differently ever since the event had happened.

Ever since Tim Drake had taken his own life.

Nearly two years later, Bruce still didn’t know how he didn’t notice the signs. Now looking back on it, it was so ridiculously obvious just how badly his middle son had been hurting and Bruce had done nothing for him, had not been there for support, and hadn’t given Tim the love he so desperately needed.

Instead, he had put the Mission first. He had been so consumed in catching up on what he had issued during his time last in the time steam that he had started to treat Tim more like a soldier than a son. Looking back now he knew what he should have done differently.

It was so glaringly obvious to him now how he should have handled things, how he should have handled Tim.

Tim had managed to pull him out of the timestream and Bruce had not thought too much on the lengths that Tim had gone to do it. If he was being honest, he still was not sure how Tim had done it. All Bruce remembered was there was a bright green portal that had opened up before him, Tim had walked out in a suit that was definitely not the Robin suit that Bruce remembered and had taken Bruce’s hand.

He remembered he didn’t even hug Tim as he stepped out to the other side. He just remembered being led to the med bay for Alfred to check him over, remembered that Tim had quietly left the Batcave without a word to a single person in the family and Bruce hadn’t seen him again. At least, not his Tim, he should say.

He had seen Tim’s new vigilante persona Red Robin at least once every two weeks when Red Robin would check in with Batman on how his patrols were going. He would see Tim Drake-Wayne when Bruce was forced by Alfred and Lucius to check in on the going ons of Wayne Enterprises. But he had never tried to take the CEO role back from Tim. In his mind at the time, the seventeen-year-old had been doing so well, he had taken to the job like Bruce had never been able to do and he was thriving.

Or at least, that’s how Bruce had seen it at the time.

He hadn’t noticed the bags that covered the skin under Tim’s eyes, and hadn’t heard the sheer exhaustion that was in his voice. He hadn’t noticed that Tim was slowly killing himself under the pressure of trying to do everything.

He never questioned why Tim stopped coming to family meals. He never questioned why Dick and Damian both refused to talk about him. He never asked why Jason had pulled away from the family again when he had just gotten Jason back before the entire time situation had started.

He had never questioned how Damian had become Robin.

There were a lot of things that Bruce had simply allowed to continue on without investigation and looking back on it now, he didn’t understand why he did. It was never in Bruce’s nature to not question things. He had always been a curious person, even as a child before the deaths of his parents. He had always wanted to know why, when, and how on every single thing.

But for some reason when it came to Tim, it had never even occurred to him to ask.

Jason had been the one to explain why.

Tim had proven himself to be so unbelievably independent, so similar to Bruce in a way that none of Bruce’s other children seemed to be able to do. Bruce saw so much of himself in Tim that he had never thought to ask Tim how he was doing, he had automatically assumed that Tim would say something if there was a problem and that had been where Bruce had screwed up. Considering even now as an adult Bruce struggled with sharing his feelings or letting others know when the world was starting to get too heavy on his shoulders, he should have known that Tim would be the same way.

He had just never expected that Tim would crack under the pressure.

Strong, capable, intelligent Tim who had singlehandedly brought Bruce back when no one else knew how.

Independent, determined, amazing Tim who at just seventeen years old was smarter than Lex Luthor, Bruce Wayne, and Ra’s Al Ghul combined.

Tim Jackson Drake-Wayne who had been Bruce’s pride and joy, his son had been crumbling under the weight of the world and no one had noticed.

It was Tam who had found the body.

None of the bats thought twice about the fact that they hadn’t seen or heard from Tim in days. It was usual for him to go days without checking in. Even as Red Robin he only checked in every two weeks and it hadn’t been that long yet.

Tam had noticed the day it had happened but she had investigated with Bruce and his family first to find out what was going on. When they didn’t have answers she went to find Tim.

She had gone into Tim’s house, a house that none of the bats even knew about, and found Tim sprawled on the floor of his living room, a single gunshot wound to the head.

There was something symbolic about Tim using a gun to kill himself. Bruce wasn’t sure what the symbolism was, had never really let himself look into it more but he knew it had to do with him and he couldn’t bear to try to understand why Tim thought it the best way to take his own life. Why Tim had thought it necessary for him to take his own life in the first place?

They had done all the tests they could, Bruce had turned down an autopsy on the very slim chance of Tim coming back to life but they had proven it was Tim and not a body double or a clone of some sort.

It was upon the family learning about Tim’s death that each member of Bruce’s family had broken down, and had started to blame themselves for Tim’s suicide.

It had started with Alfred the night they had taken Tim’s body to the mortician’s office. In a moment of what Alfred would consider weakness, he had broken down to Bruce. Had admitted how he had not done enough, how he had not tried hard enough to keep Tim in the family. He had quietly admitted to Bruce that he had talked to Dick about admitting Tim to Arkham Asylum while they had been under the belief that Bruce was dead.

He had quietly admitted to not believing Tim, to even going so far as to raise his voice at the teenager and told him to cease with his crusade. Bruce had listened in horror as Alfred explained his role in taking Robin from Tim and supporting Dick into giving the role to Damian. He had accused himself of driving Tim away from the family.

The next had been Dick.

He had been inconsolable from the moment he had learned of Tim’s death. Had been unable to keep himself together long enough to form coherent words much less sentences. It wasn’t until a week after Tim’s funeral that he had finally come to Bruce about it and he had just sobbed. He had explained through broken words and a quivering voice how he had treated Tim worse than any of his brothers. How he had failed the promise that he had made after Jason’s death to be a better big brother.

Dick had been the one to say what Bruce had been numbly thinking himself.

Tim was just so utterly reliable and independent that he had forgotten at times that Tim was still just a seventeen-year-old kid. Not only was he just a kid, he was a kid with trauma, with secrets that none of them had ever known about.

At that point, Bruce had already been slowly unraveling the secrets that Tim had kept close to his chest or only allowed certain people in his life to know about. He had learned about the loss of Tim’s spleen, the strange relationship he had with Ra’s al Ghul and so much more. It was horrifying to know just how much Tim had been carrying on his own but it was all there in Tim’s files, the meticulous reports he kept for himself painted a picture that Bruce had no idea about.

There were just so many different sides of Tim and for being his father, Bruce felt like a lousy human being.

After Dick had finally calmed down to explain how he failed Tim, failed him in so many ways, in the same ways that Bruce had. Bruce had no words for him. How could he tell him that it was okay when they were all still in the aftershocks of Tim’s death, of his suicide?

He had taken his own life and hadn’t even bothered to leave a letter explaining why he had done it. All they had been able to find was a post-it note with the scribbled words “I’m sorry” written upon it so hard that each letter was indented into the pages of the post-it pad.

Instead, he had told Dick that they would both work to be better for the future, for the rest of their family so that no one else in their family would ever experience the kind of pain that Tim had gone through.

The next had surprised Bruce the most.

He hadn’t expected for the silent tears that had streamed from Damian’s face as he crawled into Bruce’s bed one night. He never said a word, never breathed out a single utterance of how he had wronged Tim. They all knew. They had all known the harmful words that Damian had thrown Tim’s way, and knew of each attempt to kill the older boy. Bruce had never said a word about them further than scolding Damian when it had happened in front of him.

He should have done more. He should have punished Damian for his treatment of Tim, and should have done what he could to make sure that Tim knew just how loved and treasured he was. How important he was to Bruce and their family and instead he had allowed the abuse from his youngest son to continue and called it brotherly bonding, assuming that it was just how siblings treated one another.

But he knew that night that he would never allow for another child of his to treat another one the way Damian had treated Tim. He also knew that Damian would never continue to treat others the way he had treated Tim. Knew that the pre-teen saw the way he had assisted in pushing Tim over the age and knew he would never do it again.

Jason had been the quietest in his grief.

He had cut himself from the family once again upon Tim’s death as if the only reason he had rejoined in the first place was because of Tim. It had been a quiet resignation with Jason, no more taunting, no arguments. If a member of the bats did contact the crime lord the conversations were short and sweet with none of the barbs that the family had come to expect from Jason.

It wasn’t until he had found some discarded polaroids in one of Tim’s safe houses that he realized that the two were mending the bond between them. The resigned smirk on Jason’s face besides a beaming Tim spoke volumes to Bruce as he looked at the picture of the two.

The others had all grieved quietly as well, none of them ready or able to talk about Tim, about why he would have taken his own life when he had so much to live for. The Titans had been inconsolable upon learning of Tim’s death, Bart and Conner going as far as to blame Bruce and the others for Tim’s death, accusing them of driving Tim to suicide of all things.

Reflecting now, they were right.

The Wayne family had caused the death of one of their own.

It made times like now even more difficult.

He was in San Francisco for a business meeting, yet he couldn’t help but look out to Titan’s Tower and even two years later briefly wonder if Tim was there. He knew, at his deepest core he knew that Tim wasn’t there yet his heart always hoped.

It had been two years, Bruce had seen Tim’s body with his own eyes and he knew, he knew beyond a shadow of a doubt that Tim was dead. Yet there was a small, hopeful part of him that wanted it to all be an intense mission that required Tim to erase himself from the world. That Tim was just in an intense undercover ops mission.

Being in San Francisco always made him think about Tim, though. Of his adventures with the Teen Titans, of the way he would gush about how the best pizza was found here. How he would always look to the West as though that was where his heart truly was.

Losing a son caused Bruce to be more introspective, to look more back on things and analyze them in ways he didn’t used to.

With Tim he would look back and realize that Tim was never actually happy in Gotham. That the only reason he was even still living in Gotham was for the Mission. He had felt an obligation to stay. Jason had been the one to finally explain to the rest of the family that Tim never saw himself as a member of the family.

That he only saw himself as a necessary cog in the machine. That he was simply there to make sure that the rest of the team was a functioning machine, that he was only there to assist them and nothing more. He had never really seen himself as a part of the family, never imagined himself as Bruce’s son. Hell, he had even gotten himself emancipated when Bruce had gone missing. Bruce could see it now, could see how Tim carefully cut each of his bonds to the family one by one without any of them ever noticing he had done so.

The vigilante shook his head, trying to forcefully clear his mind of the thoughts that were currently plaguing his mind. He couldn’t think about Tim right now. He had things to do, he needed to get lunch, needed to prepare for this damned meeting and then fly back to Gotham as soon as he could so that he would no longer be haunted by the ghost of his son.

He tiredly looked at the others passing by him on the street, the bright and happy faces of people who would never understand what it was like to know that they had driven their son to suicide. Bright happy couples who looked like they knew what it was like to cherish their loved ones.

Bruce did a double take, though, at one man who walked alone on the sidewalk. His dark black hair was covered in a beanie and he wore sunglasses reminiscent of the ones that Tim used to wear religiously. That wasn’t what stopped Bruce in his tracks, though. It was the jacket that adorned the young man’s shoulders. It was a jacket that Bruce had seen Tim wear like a second skin when he wasn’t wearing any of his suits. A gray denim jacket with a few worn patches upon it. One of the Flash logo and one of the Superman logo. But they were never for either of those heroes, they had always been for Impulse and Superboy. He knew that if he looked at the back of the jacket there was a black patch sewn in from where Damian had ripped the jacket after one of his murder attempts.

His legs took control of his body and made their way towards the young man who had stopped to type on his phone.

“Tim,” Bruce breathed out and the man looked up and frowned and Bruce knew he had made a mistake. It wasn’t Tim. He had likely bought the jacket from a thrift store. Bruce knew that they had donated nearly all of Tim’s things after they were certain that he wouldn’t come back from the dead.

The young man looked Bruce up and down for a moment before he gave him a small smile. “No Sir, I’m sorry. I’m Danny,” he said, giving Bruce a crooked smile.

“My apologies,” Bruce nearly stammered out, still unable to tear his eyes from the jacket that adorned his arms. “You uh, you look like my son. He passed away two years ago and sometimes I see him in others.”

“I’m sorry for your loss,” the young man said and gave him a sad look. “I hope that wherever he is now he’s a lot happier.”

Bruce just gave him a small, sad smile of his own. “It’s quite alright, it’s been two years. Everyone says that grief will fade with time but I don’t think that’s true,” he said before he shook his head. “I apologize, it seems that this old man is a little more emotional than usual today.”

“It’s quite alright,” Danny said with a laugh, repeating the same phrase Bruce had just given him. “Someone very close told me that grief is love everlasting, it means that even though the person you love is gone, you still love them. You still hold their memory tight to your chest and you treasure them.” Danny furrowed his eyebrows and tilted his head to the side. “I think that grief gives us a reason to keep moving forward in life. Because we are no longer living our lives for ourselves, we’re also living life for the ones that we lost in the hopes that they’re proud of us.”

Bruce paused and looked at the man in front of him searching for something, he didn’t know what. “Have you already eaten?”

Danny shook his head. “No sir, I was just headed to a little shop for lunch. Would you like to join me?”

“If it isn’t an inconvenience,” Bruce said hesitantly and Danny just beamed.

“Not at all! My husband just canceled our lunch plans on me so I’d be more than happy to have you join me,” he said. “There’s this pizza shop down the street that has some of the best pizza I’ve ever had in my life.”

“That’s where I was headed, actually,” Bruce said and followed the younger man down the sidewalk, opening the door for his new young friend before the two were seated.

“What was your son like?” Danny asked as they waited for their orders to arrive to the table.

Bruce gave him a brilliant smile, he had never felt so thankful to be asked to talk about his son. “He was amazing,” he said breathlessly. “One of the most brilliant minds I had ever encountered. I remember when he was just a tiny thing and he would come with his parents to galas that I was at and I just remember being so amazed at this little boy and his bright mind. And then I adopted him years later and he just never ceased to amaze me. He was so strong and determined. And he cared so much about the people around him. I failed to realize until after he passed on that the same love for others he did not have for himself.” Bruce was quiet for a moment as he stirred his straw around in his cup for a moment. “He killed himself.”

Danny let out a breath. “I’m sure he sees now, knows just how much you love him,” he said, still giving Bruce that sorrowful look.

“It should have never gotten to that point. I should have made sure he knew when he was alive just how much I love him. But Tim, Tim was always my strong kid. He was the one I never thought I had to worry about because he was just so capable. He was so sure in himself, I mean the things he did, they were amazing. I would have never felt so confident in myself at just seventeen years old, not the way he was,” Bruce snorted. “I’m well into my fifties now and I still struggle with self doubt and I never took a minute to realize that Tim did. I never felt like I had to worry about him and that was my mistake. Because no matter how sure I was in my love for him, no matter how I felt about Tim, that’s not how he felt. And he deserved to get the love and support from his family and not just know that we loved him, you understand?”

The young man nodded his head sagely. “I understand. My parents were similar, they had just assumed that I knew that they loved me, assumed that I knew their jokes were lighthearted and in jest but for me they never were. They were harmful and mean and my parents were neglectful and never cared about my feelings. I don’t talk to them anymore,” he said with a sad twist of his lips. “They don’t reach out either. I-I would have loved for a dad like you, Bruce. But I don’t think my parents will ever realize that it was their fault I left or that I never felt welcome. Wherever Tim is, he’s very lucky to have you as a father. Because even if you realized too late, you still realized it. I doubt mine ever will.”

Bruce gave him a soft smile and leaned across the table to grab Danny’s forearm in a comforting grip. “Your parents are missing out,” he said with a kind smile. “If you ever need anything, call me,” he said quietly before he slipped Danny his card with his personal number on it.

Danny took it and gave him a small smile. “Thank you.”

The waitress soon brought their pizza by and the two fell into a comfortable silence.

“What do you do for work?” Bruce asked and Danny chuckled.

“I’m a mechanic,” he said simply. “I own a shop here in town with my husband. He actually ditched our lunch plans because our supplies truck came in and he wanted to get it done.”

“Oh? Well, if you ever find yourself in Gotham, we would love a mechanic like you at Wayne Enterprises,” he said with a small smile. Danny let out a soft chuckle.

“I appreciate it, Mr. Wayne,” he said and Bruce raised an eyebrow, remembering that he had never introduced himself to the boy. Danny flipped the card to show Bruce’s full name on the card and laughed. “I recognized you the moment I saw you,” he admitted and Bruce chuckled.

“I’m not surprised,” he admitted. “I’m unfortunately a recognizable face.”

“I can imagine,” he said before he stood. “I had a lovely time, Mr. Wayne but I have to get back to the shop before my husband goes insane. I can’t trust him alone in the shop for too long before he gets another hair-brained idea,” he said, chuckling at what was likely an inside joke between him and his husband.

“Of course. It was nice to meet you, Danny, you were a wonderful lunch companion, and thank you for listening,” he said with a kind smile.

Danny smiled and nodded before he made his way out of the pizza shop.

Bruce smiled and sat back in his seat, shoving his hands in his suit pocket as he stared at the spot where Danny had previously been sitting when he felt the sharp edges of something in his pocket. He furrowed his brow and pulled out two pieces of stiff paper. One looked to be a Polaroid picture, the other a postcard.

The postcard read Greetings from San Francisco. It also had a folded-up piece of paper taped to the back that Bruce carefully unfolded.

Hi Bruce,

I’ve written and rewritten this a thousand times. I never knew how to write it. I guess I should say surprise! I’m not dead! I’m sorry for making you and the others think I am. But it was for the best, it was for the sake of my mental health and it was the only way I could get away from Ra’s al Ghul and live my life. Someone I love once asked me if I could do anything in the world without the Mission hanging over my head what would it be? And I realized that I didn’t have an answer. I didn’t know who I was outside of being Tim Drake Wayne, CEO and Vigilante and I realized I wasn’t happy. Maybe one day I’ll somehow reappear in your lives, maybe I’ll be able to share my joy with you and the others, maybe you’ll get to actually get to know my husband. I’m not sure when that will be, but maybe one day I’ll come back. I’ve obviously contemplated it enough considering I even made a point to reach out to you at all rather than let you continue to think I was dead. Which, I’m sorry about. It was the only thing I could think of to get out and I was drowning. If I hadn’t faked it, I would have actually gone through with it, I would have killed myself and been done with it. Danny saved my life when he helped me fake my death. I know you’re angry, I know you’re hurt. But I need you to understand just how badly I was hurting for years. This is not meant to make you feel guilty, I honestly never wanted any of you to blame yourselves for my death. But it’s simply for you to understand that I had my reasons and I don’t regret them. The last two years with Danny have been some of the best times of my life and I’m immeasurably happy.

Please don’t look for me. Don’t look for Danny either no matter how much you want to. I’m happy. I’ll reach out when I’m ready.

Tim.

Bruce wiped the back of his hand against the tears that threatened to spill over as he read over the note once, twice, three times before he finally managed to look at the polaroid picture. On the film showed two men, one holding the other in a bridal position, the two of them wearing wedding bands that they happily showed off to the camera. Tim looked beyond happy cradled in Danny’s arms as they smiled at the camera and Bruce felt some of the heaviness lift.

He wiped at the tear that managed to escape his eyes and looked around, carefully to see if anyone noticed him when he saw two figures standing outside on the sidewalk across the street.

Danny just gave him an awkward smile as the man next to him threw his arm around Danny’s shoulders and from beneath his black sunglasses and ball cap gave Bruce a tiny smile and a peace sign before the two started walking down the sidewalk together.

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