Chapter Text
“I’m aware of your proposal Mr. Wilkins, however, in complete honesty, I do not see how solar energy would provide a better result than hydropower.” It was a testament to how this day had gone that Tim had to dip into his vigilante training to stop his eye from twitching.
“The only water source available to Wayne Enterprises is connected to the harbor and the amount of money-” Howard Wilkins began to repeat his argument for approximately the twentieth time over the past week—it was only Wednesday—and Tim finally lost it.
“I am aware,” Tim interrupted, managing to maintain a straight face even as a wave of irritation stemming from Mr. Wilkins slammed against his mental shields, “of the pollution concerns we would have to deal with before it is appropriate to send workers into the water to begin building a hydropower turbine. I am also aware of Wayne Enterprises’ budget in regards to environmental betterment projects and can assure you it is more than able to cover the costs, especially since the end goal will help us lower electricity bills in the future. Solar power, on the other hand, you’ll find to be relatively useless in general.”
Tim took incredible joy from seeing a vein pulse in Howard’s face and less joy in the nails his negative emotions were hammering into his brain. Oh well, he had always been a spiteful motherfucker willing to sacrifice his own wellbeing in order to make a point. It’s why he was such a good Guide and vigilante.
“I had R&D make a simulation on how much energy we could gain from solar panels and, to be frank, Gotham does not provide enough sun to make the endeavor worth it. If you doubt my decision, feel free to continue your argument at the board meeting and I’ll make sure I’ve gathered the simulation data and present it as well,” Tim stood up from his desk and looked Howard dead in the eye, “Or you can take me at my word and conclude this disagreement here and now. Personally, I would go with the second option as I’m sure we both have better things to occupy our time with, but I am more than happy to do either. Which one sounds best to you, Mr Wilkins?”
“I-” Tim took great pleasure in Howard breaking eye contact first, “the second option sounds acceptable to me.”
“Perfect!” Tim coated his voice with overly passive-aggressive enthusiasm and sat back down. “Now, I am late to a call with the head of PR so if you could please close the door on your way out it would be greatly appreciated.”
“Of course.” Howard was absolutely radiating anger but surprisingly managed to keep a vast majority out of his voice. “Thank you for setting time aside to talk to me.”
“You’re very welcome.” Tim smiled up at the man. He then turned his whole body to face his computer and began to sift through his spreadsheet in order to find the phone number for Personal Relations. It was as obvious of a dismissal as Tim could do without blatantly telling Howard to hurry up and get the fuck out. Thankfully, you can’t get to a position as high as Mr. Wilkins’ was without some social awareness–or extreme nepotism–so as annoying as he was, the man left without another word.
Tim allowed himself exactly one second to repair the cracks in his internally-dubbed Timothy-Drake-the-CEO persona before he dialed the number his spreadsheet displayed for Personal Relations. At the very least, his headache would have time to go away since Diya Arya—the head of PR—was far enough away in the building that unless he focused he wouldn’t be bombarded with whatever she was feeling during the call. It did make it harder to decipher the subtext of the conversation, but the small degree of rest was worth it.
“Hello Ms. Arya, this is Tim Drake. I apologize for being late, a situation came up that I had to deal with.” Tim began. “Due to my late arrival I hope you don’t mind if we skip the pleasantries and go straight into business.”
“I completely understand and that is perfectly fine by me.” She answered. “I have two situations I would like to run by you. The first one is your lack of media presence. I’m aware,” Ms. Arya continued before Tim could defend himself, “of your attendance at the common galas being hosted throughout Gotham, but while that is good for your image, it isn’t sufficient for Wayne Enterprises’ image. There is evidence to suspect that continuing on this path will lead people to believe that WE is no longer a powerful and innovative company in its own right despite our increase in outputs.”
“So you would recommend me hosting a press conference.” Tim assumed. He knew this was coming, press conferences are kind of an eventuality when you run a multi-billion dollar company, but that didn’t make it any more fun to hear.
“Precisely. Do you have a topic in mind that would be appropriate?” The head of PR asked. Immediately, Tim’s previous conversation flashed through his mind and he couldn’t fully prevent a smirk from forming.
“I do.”
“I’m glad to hear it. If you don’t have any objections I will contact the press as soon as we are done here and begin organizing that.”
“No complaints from me.” Tim switched his browser to show his calendar and swiped through it. “My calendar is fully updated for the next three months so if there is a time within it that looks free for all parties feel free to book it for then. Thank you for being so efficient with this.” Tim silently mourned the extra loss of free time, but knew better than to bring that up. She was just doing his job and he would rather quit being CEO than make it harder for her. To be fair, that wasn’t a hard bargain since he has wanted to quit being CEO from the very second he became the CEO.
“You’re welcome.” Ms. Arya took a breath before continuing. “Now, onto the next order of business. As I’m sure you’re aware, Mr. Wayne’s image, and thus Wayne Enterprises’, has never been the greatest and your appointment as CEO has certainly not helped anything. I was hoping you would be able to inform me of his potential plans concerning the company in the future so that I might be better prepared to assist.” A tinge of desperation entered her otherwise professional tone and Tim couldn’t help but feel a little bit bad for her.
“I would be happy to, if I knew anything about his plans.” Tim sighed, pushing his chair away from his desk. He paused for a moment, trying to figure out the best way to phrase it. “What I can tell you is that he has no intention of returning to the company in an official leadership position. As you said, I am perfectly aware of the hit Wayne Enterprises’ image took after I was given this role, which is why I have attempted to convince Bruce to return to his original position but I have been unsuccessful.”
Those few sentences could in no way fully capture the depth of the situation. It wasn’t like Tim could say ‘well I had to become CEO to stop an Assassin Cult Leader from taking everything I love, then Bruce couldn’t immediately take it back because he was recovering from being thrown through time, and when he was finally settled back in he realized how much easier his life was without Lucius and the board breathing down his neck and refused to take the position back under the guise of ‘Tim, you’re doing so much better than I ever did you deserve the position’ like I wanted it in the first place’.
“To be completely blunt, I’m not asking this because I think that company will do better with Mr. Wayne taking back a leadership position. Even if the public opinion of Wayne Enterprises has lowered since your appointment, the work this company has been doing and the working conditions inside have only improved. I was only asking because Mr. Wayne,” she paused for a second, “has never been the most professional outside of the office, or even in it, and I would like to have prior warning before I need to perform damage control.”
“I will let you know the instant I learn anything.” Tim replied, a smile on his face.
“That’s all I ask.” Ms. Arya responded. “Now, that is all I have to address today so I am good to end the call here unless you have something you would like to mention.”
“Not at all. I appreciate your hard work.” The teen moved to hang up the phone. “Have a great day.”
“You too.” Ms. Arya replied and Tim hung up the phone without hesitation.
This is why Diya is my favorite, Tim thought to himself. With anyone else, that would have been an hour long conversation with so many hidden statements I would have another headache on top of my already existing headache. But she is straight to the point and takes no prisoners. It is such a nice change from my previous conversation.
Sadly, the nice feeling wasn’t allowed to last as Tim’s phone immediately rang seconds after he had put it down. The display showed that his secretary was calling him which meant that either someone had shown up to talk to him, something had gone horribly wrong within the building/labs, or Tim had more paperwork he needed to grab from him and sign. Either way, not something that Tim wanted to deal with today or ever.
“Matt, what can I do for you?” Tim answered the phone despite everything in his body telling him not to, even if Matt’s emotions themselves were slightly positive. Matt was the best hire that Tim had ever made. He was a young adult majoring in Astrophysics via virtual classes who needed a job that would help pay for his tuition that also didn’t make him want to kill himself any more than Quantum did. That meant he took absolutely no shit and did not care that his boss was younger than him. In fact, that just made him more comfortable joking with Tim and less likely to hide when he was working on his homework during work hours. Plus, Tim could usually figure out how his day was going to go based on the emotions radiating off of Matt; he was not an optimist so they were usually pretty accurate to what Tim himself would be feeling shortly.
“Lucius Fox is here to see you,” Matt responded, “want me to send him in?”
“Yes please, thank you.” Tim sighed. Although he very much did not want any visitors at this point, Lucius was always a welcome relief. Seconds later, the door to his office opened and the only person keeping Wayne Enterprises together walked through.
“Lucius, what can I do for you?” Tim questioned. The vigilante was trying to figure out whether Mr. Fox wanted to talk about work or ‘extracurriculars’, but Lucius’s poker face and control over his emotions had only improved after years working with the Bats.
“I just wanted to let you know that I have something in the lab for you. Felt it was prudent to talk to you in person so I could make sure you don’t forget to show up sooner rather than later.” Lucius said.
So a new Bat gadget. Exciting, I wasn’t aware that one was in the works. Tim mused.
“I’ll mark it into my calendar.” Tim assured Fox.
“Good.” Lucius moved to leave, but turned around before he opened the door. “By the way, I just had a most enlightening talk with Mr. Wilkins on the way to your office. Do let me know how I can help with your hydropower project when you finally get that underway.”
“Oh I would absolutely love to. Thank you for your support.” Tim locked eyes with Lucius and could almost physically feel Lucius’s desire to absolutely destroy Howard Wilkins.
“Any time.” With that, Lucius left Drake’s office and he was finally left alone.
___
“I do not want to be the subject of a police investigation if the entire Wayne Enterprises board goes missing, I do not want to be the subject of a police investigation if the entire Wayne Enterprises board goes missing,” Tim muttered under his breath from his spot face-down on his couch. Similarly to the first part of his day, Tim’s whole afternoon was just switching off between paperwork and meeting with people who did absolutely nothing to hide that they despised him. But now, the teenager had finally managed to allocate approximately an hour into his schedule to do absolutely nothing and he was taking full advantage of that.
His entire penthouse apartment had been fitted with the Wayne Enterprises anti-sensing prototype and the lack of stimulation was a soothing balm against his fracturing shields. He may have acquired it in a way unbefitting the CEO of his company—over the course of a month he slipped the parts to make it from the labs and into his pocket while he was walking through—but he did not regret it. It was the only reason that he was able to lower his shields fully in his apartment.
Guides usually didn’t need to keep shields up twenty-four seven because, although they were empaths, the emotions of the people surrounding them were just vague whispers unless there was a Sentinel nearby or the Guide was actively trying to Sense. Tim, of course, was an outlier in that regard. Due to ill-advised decisions of both his parents and his younger self, the vigilante had spent hours of his childhood training and stretching his abilities. Now, Tim’s range never lessened even when he wasn’t concentrating and he was constantly subjected to the intricate feelings of everyone within about a hundred feet. And to make matters worse, the only solution to his predicament would be to bond with a Sentinel, an almost impossible feat given that the only Sentinel that was in his age group in the superhero crowd was already bonded.
Tim was ripped from his peaceful almost-nap to the sound of his phone ringing. As always, the thought of ignoring it flickered through the teen’s mind, but the risk was greater than the reward. If it turned out to be important and Tim didn’t answer, he would never forgive himself.
“An hour, I just wanted a fucking hour.” The vigilante groaned into the cushion his face was pushed into.
Taking one more deep breath and shoving his emotions down in the same manner one packs a sleeping bag back into the bag it came from—AKA not very successfully—Tim pulled his phone out of his pocket. He spared one glance to see how was calling before accepting the call.
“Hey Babs, what’s up?” Tim was honestly quite proud of how steady and non-murderous his voice came out.
“Tim, I have a favor to ask, you free?” Oracle asked.
Not calling for a friendly chat then, not that I really expected anyone to. Welp, it is what it is. Tim thought to himself as he accepted the loss of his free time and sat up fully on the couch.
“I always am for my favorite unofficial member of the family.” Tim replied. “What can I do for you?”
“Jason was supposed to return from his crime-lord conference,” Tim could hear the air-quotes around ‘crime-lord conference’ and laughed silently to himself, “around three hours ago but he hasn’t checked in yet and hasn’t entered any of his normal safe houses. Think you can find him for me really fast?”
“Only if you tell me the real reason you want me to do this.” Tim smirked.
“What makes you think I have ulterior reasons for requesting this?” She countered and Tim let out a quiet, disbelieving laugh.
“Please, it’s obvious. One, the great Oracle is asking for help finding someone within Gotham. There is absolutely no way you couldn’t do it yourself in approximately five seconds if you really needed to. Two, it has only been three hours since Jason, Mr You-Don’t-Need-To-Know-Any-Details-About-My-Life, said he might check back. He’s gone days without letting any of us know he’s alive and you didn’t ask me to check then. So, what’s the real reason?”
“Fine. Dick has been bugging me for updates for the past hour and I do not have the time to search all of Gotham real estate for Jason’s new safe house right now. There is this whole emergency with the Birds of Prey and I am the only person that has a lead.” Even with Barbara out of his range, Tim can sense the stress radiating off of her.
“I accept. Gimme five seconds.” Tim rolled off of the couch and made his way to his balcony; the only place in his apartment the anti-sensing device didn’t cover.
Once outside, Tim set his phone on the railing, closed his eyes, and stretched out his senses. Thankfully, Jason was a Sentinel which meant he was a lot easier to detect out of the cloud of souls occupying Gotham. In less than the five seconds Tim gave himself, the Guide was locked onto Jason’s signature. Instantly, a rush of annoyance, exhaustion, and safety rushed through Tim. Tim quickly categorized the feeling of safety away as it wasn’t one of Jason’s emotions but rather from Tim himself (an effect of Jason being a Sentinel and Tim’s small crush on the man).
Opening his eyes, Tim relayed his findings to Babs. “Jason’s fine; exhausted but unhurt. I found him approximately one eighth of a mile northwest from my location.”
“Perfect, I’ll relay that to Dick so that he can finally stop bothering me. Thank you Tim.”
Tim was going to respond, but the dial tone sounded before he could. Instead, he subtly winced from the resurgence of his headache from earlier and went back to faceplant on his couch.
“One day, one day I will get through the full hour without any interruptions.” Tim whispered to himself. “One day.” The vigilante glanced at his phone and let out a whine at the sight that it was almost 7pm. Bruce usually expected everyone to be at the Batcave around 8 at the latest so that they could be briefed before patrol began. In years past, when Tim was still living at the manor, that wasn’t a problem, but now that he had a thirty minute drive to the manor he could kiss a well prepared dinner goodbye. Not that he could really prepare dinner well, but that wasn’t the point.
With another long-suffering sigh Tim rolled himself off of the couch and thunked onto the floor. He was slightly hoping that the impact would make him more awake, but nope! His pain tolerance was too high for silly tricks like that!
The black haired teenager pushed himself up in a move that was more likely to be seen from an elderly man than a vigilante and walked to the kitchen. Tim opened up his freezer and pulled out one of the multitude of frozen meals piled up in there. The vigilante didn’t even need to read the instructions before he was chucking it into the microwave and setting the timer for three minutes. At this point, he had the instructions for every frozen dinner available in the local grocery store—the one that wasn’t a cover from a gang—memorized.
While he waited, Tim quickly ran through all of the unsolved cases he had to deal with tonight. Thankfully, there weren't many. He had put away the most recent serial murder cult on Monday and none had popped up in the two days since then. Anyone who wasn’t pleasantly surprised by that fact wasn’t from Gotham.
Ivy had started being vocal about lowering Gotham pollution and since she hadn’t received a response from the government she was undoubtedly gearing up for a fight. Hopefully she would wait until Tim’s press conference so that the news of Wayne Enterprises’ new project to combat the river pollution would calm her down temporarily. However, the chances of that were slim. As much as Tim agreed with Ivy’s environmental stance, he really wished she would be less fucking annoying about it.
There had also been a break in at the Gotham Museum last night which would probably be addressed tonight. Most likely one of the birds would grab it for an easy brain-teaser, but if Batman takes it himself then Catwoman was definitely responsible and Tim should avoid his patrol route like the plague (he has seen far too many things).
The microwave beeped and Tim pulled out his now unfrozen cheesy, broccoli pasta. Did he think he would enjoy it, no, but Tim couldn’t remember the last time he ate something just because he thought he would like it.
Holy shit that’s dark. Tim startled at the last thought. Man, maybe Kon is onto something when he says I need to treat myself better. Fuck it, if nothing incredibly important occurs tonight I’m going to call it in early and grab myself a Bat Burger and a strawberry milkshake on the way back. Then I’m going to watch Criminal Minds and laugh at their detective skills.
Nodding to himself, Tim grabbed a fork from his kitchen drawer and devoured his microwave meal. As predicted, it tasted absolutely horrible, but that just made Tim eat it faster. Once finished, he threw the remains in the trash and his fork into the sink where five other forks and three glasses sat. Tim wasn’t home enough to be messy, but that also meant that he wasn’t home enough to clean up whenever he did create a mess. It was a constant cycle that the teen wasn’t going to break out of tonight. Or tomorrow if he was being honest. However, Tim Drake, Mr. I-Can-Lie-To-Batman, wasn’t known for being honest so he didn’t hesitate before lying to himself and saying he would clean everything tomorrow.
With that, he grabbed his coat and his keys and was out the door.