Chapter Text
For weeks, children had been disappearing across Gotham. At first it was easy to ignore, street kids, runaways, the usual tragedies the city swallowed without comment. Then it started happening to wealthier families, and suddenly people began to notice.
Tim had known long before the news ever caught up. It was hard not to, when you spent your nights trailing Batman and Robin across Gotham’s rooftops, listening in on the city’s worst secrets before they ever reached a newsroom.Ever since the kidnappings gained attention, the school had taken extra precautions, carefully watching students as they left for their cars and buses. Which would’ve been fine if Tim didn’t rely on public transport.
It wasn’t something he was ashamed of, not really, but Tim still kept it to himself whenever possible. At a school filled with kids who had chauffeurs, private drivers, or nannies waiting outside the gates, admitting he took public transport felt like willingly painting a target on his back.
And he honestly didn’t need that in his life right now.
As he made his way to the bus stop, hushed conversations followed him down the sidewalk. Arkham had apparently lost another inmate, though the asylum was already scrambling to deny the rumours before the news could properly spread.
Which was pretty shitty, honestly.
If some insane lunatic was roaming Gotham looking to hurt people, the public had a right to know about it. Didn’t they?
He sulked about it until his bus finally pulled up, surprisingly on time. Gotham’s public transport didn’t always stick to the schedule on the app. Sometimes they didn’t show up at all, which sucked! And that usually meant an hour of waiting for the next one.
As he stepped onto the bus, he paid for his ticket and scanned the bus for an empty seat. It didn't take long, there were a few empty ones scattered around but somewhere along the way, he’d become friends with an elderly woman named Margaret, who always seemed to have candies tucked away in her purse for him.
“Timothy,” she greeted as he dropped into the seat beside her. She always carried a kind of natural warmth with her, and he found himself instinctively leaning closer to it. She never seemed to mind—at least, she never said anything.
“You’re freezing,” she scolded, frowning as she took one of his hands between hers. “You should be bundled up in a proper scarf and gloves.”
He hummed softly, staring down at their hands as she gave his a light squeeze. He didn’t have grandparents— well he did, but he never met them, but if he tried to picture them, they’d probably feel a lot like Margaret.
“How was school today dear?” She asked, just like every other day.
“It was fun,” he said with a grin. “We played dodgeball in PE, and even the older kids started cheering for me when no one could get me out.” He snorted at how frustrated the other team had been. They’d even nicknamed him the slimy eel.
He was a strange case socially, not exactly popular, but respected. At first, he’d stood out for skipping ahead a few grades. At first, moving up a few grades had marked him as the “weird one". Now, though, people in both years tended to accept him, even if he still didn’t quite fit neatly into either.
Margaret laughed softly beside him, her face warming into that familiar fond expression, the one she always got when Tim told her stories, or when she talked about her daughter, Beth-Ann.
“You’ll miss your stop, dear,” she said, giving his hand a gentle pat before letting go. Tim blinked. Oh. Right.
“This is me,” he said, shifting up from his seat as the bus started to slow.
As the bus doors hissed closed behind him, his phone buzzed with a notification. Odd, but not unusual. He didn’t exactly get many, mostly the news app and his parents’ contacts. He used to have Discord too, but he’d gotten too caught up arguing with people on it, and it had started messing with his schoolwork. So it had to go.
A news article had just dropped, another statement from Arkham. He saved the link, then tucked his phone away and shoved his hands deep into his pockets. Margaret hadn’t been exaggerating about the cold, it felt like Mr. Freeze himself had escaped.
Mr. Freeze wasn’t one of the rogues Tim could bring himself to hate. Not really. Everything about him started with what happened to his wife.And if Tim was being honest, Gotham had a habit of shaping most of its rogues the same way.
Take Two Face, Poison Ivy or Catwoman for example, all of their villiany arcs started because of someone being cruel to them!
Even with the bus running on time, he got home later than planned. It had started snowing lightly on the way back, and he’d pulled out his phone to take pictures, losing track of time as he walked.
Gotham was always beautiful when it snowed. There was something about it he couldn’t quite put into words.
The fact that it was snowing should have been enough to put the idea of following Batman and Robin out of the question. But if he didn’t go, he’d miss the chance to get any good shots of them in the snow. It was a tough decision, really…
It was a real dilemma…
A brief one.
He was still going out. He’d just wrap up properly, like Margaret would insist.
_________________________________________________________________________
Dressing warm without looking like he had money was a skill Tim was still trying to master. But he thought he’d managed it this time. A jumper, a body warmer, and his usual flimsy coat layered on top. If anyone asked, he'd just pretend he was chubby. He really didn't want to get robbed.
As he pulled up the patrol map on his phone, the article suddenly came back to him. He’d been so caught up in homework and making himself dinner that it had slipped his mind entirely.
Once he found a good rooftop to sit on, he’d read through it. It would give him something to do while he waited.
Tonight, if he was right, the patrol would take them into Crime Alley. Not a place he usually ventured into. Still, every other night he pushed a little further, dipping his toes into what he privately considered the darker parts of Gotham.
He knew he was getting close when the “Have you seen me?” posters of the more well-known kids began to fade from view. It was sad to see, Crime Alley had its own share of missing children, and yet nobody really batted an eye about them.
Ha, batted.
Not the time nor place Tim, he scolded himself.
He kept searching for a good rooftop vantage point, which took longer than he’d like to admit. He had his usual favourite spots, but since he didn’t often come into Crime Alley, he wasn’t familiar with which rooftops worked best for photography.
Once he found a rooftop he judged stable enough, and with a good view for bat-watching, he began the climb up.
He tucked himself beside an HVAC unit and pulled out his phone, scrolling through the lengthy apology Arkham had released about the escaped inmate. By the end of the first paragraph, Tim was already scowling, they still hadn’t actually said who escaped!
A familiar thwip of a grappling hook cut through the cold air, and Tim quickly shut off his phone and tightened his grip on his camera, scanning the rooftops for the first glimpse of Batman or Robin.
Tim beamed the moment both of his heroes swung into view, capes snapping behind them as they crossed the rooftops. Still, his smile faltered a little when he noticed how grim they both looked, especially Robin, who was supposed to be the cheerful one out of the pair.
Which was another point in Dick’s favour, honestly. Tim had met him a handful of times before, and even back when he’d been Robin, there had always been laughter somewhere in the middle of the chaos. Jason, meanwhile, always seemed so… blegh.
Then again, Tim supposed he couldn’t blame him. Jason lived in Crime Alley. The recent disappearances were probably enough to sour anyone’s mood.
With his mood dulled, Tim figured there wasn’t much point in staying. Normally, he liked getting the more serious shots of Batman and Robin, the dramatic ones, all sharp shadows and stormy expressions, but tonight he just wasn’t feeling it. It was like his heart wasn’t really in it anymore.
Letting out a quiet sigh, he packed away his camera and gathered his things before heading for the fire escape.
Tim hugged his stomach tightly as he moved through the alleyways, shoulders hunched against the cold. Even with all the layers he’d put on, the night air still cut straight through him.
Gunshots rang out in the distance, followed by shouting and a dozen other strange noises Tim couldn’t quite place. Nor did he want to. Gotham was far easier to handle when he didn’t stop to think too hard about what some of those sounds meant.
Those sounds drowned out the footsteps trailing behind him. Tim only realized he was still being followed when he caught their reflections in a dark shop window as he passed.He refused to acknowledge them, keeping his gaze forward and his pace steady, afraid that if he looked back or reacted, they’d break into a run and he already knew he wouldn’t win that race.
A few older kids lingering nearby noticed too, calling out and trying to pull the men’s attention toward themselves instead. But the men barely spared them a glance. Their focus stayed fixed on Tim, and the realization made his stomach twist in disgust.
He tried heading toward the next point on Batman’s patrol route, forcing himself to keep moving even as panic curled tighter in his chest. Batman would help him. Batman would save him, ask if he was okay, and make sure he got somewhere safe afterward.
Batman was good like that. Reliable. Safe.
And right now, Tim needed him more than ever.
But he was too slow, travelling on foot was a lot slower than swinging across rooftops, but maybe they were still around Crime Alley. They just had to be.
But he was too slow. Moving on foot was nothing compared to swinging across rooftops, and Batman and Robin could’ve already moved halfway across the district by now.
Still… maybe they were nearby. Maybe they were still somewhere around Crime Alley.
They had to be.
Tim spun at the sound of movement overhead, his heart lurching painfully into his throat.
Nothing.
Just rusted fire escapes creaking softly as they swayed in the wind.
Then a hand clamped over his mouth, cutting the sound off before it could even form. Tim’s breath caught as panic spiked through him.
He twisted immediately, trying to wrench free, elbowing backward on instinct. He tried to scream, but it died against the hand. He tried to bite down on it, to force a reaction, to do something, anything that would loosen the grip.
Nothing worked, the hand didn’t budge.
His eyes stung as he squeezed them shut, jaw tightening like he could force the feeling back down if he just held on hard enough. He couldn’t cry, not now. But his body betrayed him anyway, tears slipping out in quiet, unstoppable streams down his face.
Their grip shifted as he got dragged into the darker shadows of Crime Alley.
_________________________________________________________________________
Tim woke up on a cold, hard concrete floor. Which was strange, he didn’t remember falling asleep. His head pounded dully, and his face was still warm and damp, the lingering proof that he’d been crying.
As he pushed himself upright, Tim took in his surroundings and realized he was in some kind of warehouse. That alone told him he was in deep trouble.
He’d been warned about kidnappers, told where they usually took people, what to do, what not to do, but no one had ever mentioned a warehouse. Still, it didn’t take much to put it together. He was ten, not stupid. Most warehouses in Gotham were tied to rogues in one way or another. Which meant he was, very likely, done for.
He choked down a sob, one hand clamped over his mouth while the other curled tightly around his stomach as nausea rolled through him. It was irrational to cry, he didn’t even know which rogue it was, the article hadn’t even said, but none of that mattered. Whoever it was, he was still in serious trouble.
He didn’t want to die.
The next time he woke up, fingers were gently combing through the knots in his hair, and he was no longer on the cold floor but curled up against something warm. Tim let out a soft, content hum at the contact.
“Well, you’re finally awake then,” a high-pitched, sing-song voice chimed, almost playful.
Tim lurched out of his grip and stumbled back, turning sharply only to find the Joker watching him.
His heart dropped into his stomach. Out of every rogue in Gotham, all the criminals he could have been taken by, it had to be the Joker. One of the worst people on the planet.
Tim’s shoulders crept up toward his ears as his breathing turned shallow and uneven.
Everything felt wrong at once.
The silence. The room. The Joker watching him.
Tim’s thoughts kept slipping apart before he could properly hold onto them. Every breath felt too small somehow, sharp in his throat.
His stomach twisted hard.
He was going to throw up.
The Joker sighed faintly, still watching him.
“Oh, don’t do that, Sonny boy” he said lightly, like Tim was being mildly inconvenient. “You’ll spoil the moment.”
The Joker tipped back into manic laughter, loud and uncontrolled.
Tim tried, really tried to hold himself together. But it wasn’t working. Not with him right there. Not with that laugh filling every corner of the room.
A sob slipped out anyway. He covered his mouth fast, like that could undo it, but it only made everything worse, his breath catching, his chest tightening, panic folding in on itself until he couldn’t tell where one breath ended and the next began.
The Joker’s laughter stopped all at once. His face shifted into a sneer as he looked down at Tim.
“Good boys listen to their Papa, Junior!”
Tim flinched before he could stop himself. The words didn’t fit together, it didn't make sense. That doesn’t make sense. It wasn’t—
He didn’t understand what the Joker meant by it.
He sucked in a shaky breath, forcing himself to focus on anything else. The floor. The air. His hands. But the Joker was still looking at him like it meant something. Like Tim was supposed to understand.
“Now,” the Joker began brightly, like he was announcing a fun surprise, “since your mommy’s off with that green wench, that just leaves us boys at home!”
He tilted his head, grin twitching wider and wider.
“Ooh, I know—how about we play catch? Or better yet…” His voice dipped into something conspiratorial, excited. “A game made specially for us, huh?”
The cackle that followed bounced harshly around the warehouse walls as he stepped closer. Tim recoiled instinctively, but the Joker caught him with ease, pulling him upright and setting him onto his feet with a disturbingly casual sort of care.
"Come along Junior" He called as he walked off, not even looking behind to see if he was following.
They entered a strange-looking room. Three of the walls were plain grey concrete, cold and lifeless, but the back wall was covered in bright Robin wallpaper that clashed horribly against the rest of the room.
A metal bed sat in the middle of the room, bolted down and thin enough to look uncomfy. The kind of bed you only ever saw in horror movies or the darker scenes in Arkham documentaries.
Tim’s stomach dropped.
He was going to become one of those documentaries, wasn’t he?
People would sit around years from now talking about the poor Drake boy who got abducted by the Joker, with ominous music and grainy photos.
“Hop up on the bed, Junior!” the Joker cackled, before smacking the metal bedframe with an almost childlike enthusiasm.
The loud metallic clang rang through the room, harsh and hollow, and Tim felt his stomach knot tighter.
The metal beneath him was freezing.
Tim stayed perfectly still while the Joker strapped his wrists and ankles down one by one, humming softly to himself like this was some ordinary little activity. The restraints were pulled painfully tight, enough to dig into his skin.
Tim hissed quietly and turned his head away, staring hard at the wall instead of risking eye contact.
“This,” the Joker muttered, almost irritably, “is for that blasted Boy Blunder.”
Then the irritation vanished beneath a grin.
“Still, your papa has standards, Junior! Preparation is important.” He tapped the side of his head knowingly. “A joke’s no good if the punchline doesn’t land!”
He burst into cackling laughter like he’d said something genuinely hilarious.
He could hear the Joker moving around the room. Metal clanked in his hands. More metal. And then more. Tim didn’t understand. He couldn’t process what the man was doing. The objects multiplied, connected, clicked into place.
Then the lever.
The moment the lever moved, searing pain tore through him. His body convulsed, fingers clawing uselessly at the straps, wrists scraped raw. Muscles burned like fire. His chest heaved, lungs fighting for air, and tears streaked down his face in rivers that seemed endless.
It only lasted a few seconds, but that was enough.
The Joker flicked the lever back down and leaned in slightly, watching as the effect wore off and Tim came crashing back down, his breathing stuttering, his body going heavy and unsteady on the metal bed.
The world didn’t come back to him cleanly.
Tim sucked in a breath that felt too big for his lungs, then too small to be useful at all. His thoughts didn’t line up properly, like they were arriving half a second too late and tripping over each other on the way in. The warehouse lights felt too bright, then too dull, then wrong in a way he couldn’t pin down.
His stomach lurched hard.
He swallowed, but it didn’t help. Everything inside him felt off-balance, delayed, like his reactions were happening after the fact instead of during it.
Time wasn’t behaving right either.
Seconds stretched, then snapped. The Joker’s presence felt both right there and impossibly far away, like Tim’s brain couldn’t decide how close he actually was. Even the sound of breathing, his own breathing felt detached, like it didn't belong to him.
Then it all repeated again.
The pain hit all at once, sharp and overwhelming, stealing the air from his lungs. For a split second, Tim was certain this was it, that he was going to die.
And then, just as quickly as it had come, it was switched off again, leaving him shaking in the sudden absence.
Just like any other day, Tim was strapped to the cold, metallic table. He kept his eyes glued to the floor. Looking at the Joker would make him cry and crying never seemed to get him anywhere. He tried to take a deep breath, but it came broken, jagged, uneven. Nothing about this felt right.
He stared at the grimy floor, waiting. Waiting for the shock, the burn, the pain he had learned to expect. But nothing came. Tim felt Joker toying with him, watching, measuring how long it would take for him to lose it completely. To scream until his voice was gone.
Then he saw it. A syringe, glinting under the dim light, filled with some unknown liquid. His stomach flipped. He wanted his real parents. He wanted Batman to swoop in. Nightwing, anyone—anyone who wasn’t this man with the crooked grin and those terrible, sharp eyes.
Joker began to walk toward him, slow and deliberate. Panic ripped through Tim. He twisted and flailed against the straps.
Joker’s hands were on him before he could react. Cold, unyielding, holding his face still. Panic climbed like a live thing inside his chest. Before he could cry out again, the syringe pierced his neck.
Cold. Then burning.
A giggle escaped him before he could stop it.
Tim flinched violently at the sound, horror twisting through him, but another laugh followed immediately after, bubbling out against his will. Then another.
It wasn’t funny, nothing here was funny.
Yet laughter kept forcing its way out of him, shaking through his body uncontrollably until tears blurred his vision again. The harder he tried to stop, the worse it became.
Make it stop.
Please, make it stop.
He couldn’t tell whose laugh was whose.. The sounds tangled together into something warped and horrible, echoing around the room until it felt like they were coming from inside his own head and it terrified him.
He sounded like a monster.
Tim tried to suck in a proper breath, but every inhale broke apart beneath another burst of laughter. The second air reached his lungs, it was shoved right back out again in sharp, uncontrollable cackles that made his chest burn and his ribs ache.
It was agony.
Tears blurred his vision as panic clawed through him harder and harder. He couldn’t stop laughing. Couldn’t breathe. Couldn’t think past the noise pouring out of him.
He wanted it to end.
He wanted all of this to end.
It had only been four days. Four days, yet he couldn't take it anymore. He was losing his mind.
When the Joker entered his the room this time, he didn’t immediately lunge for the lever or reach for another syringe.
Instead, he crouched beside the bed and began undoing the restraints around Tim’s wrists and ankles one by one. The leather straps peeled away from his skin slowly, leaving behind angry red marks that throbbed painfully.
“Hahaha..”
Tim had started laughing more and more even without the Joker toxin being pumped into his system. Small bursts at first, quiet giggles that slipped out before he could stop them, but now the sound came easier, spilling from him in awful little fits he couldn’t control.
And every single time it happened, the Joker’s face twisted with visible delight. His grin would stretch wider, eyes bright with something almost proud, like he was watching a performance finally come together the way he’d imagined it.
It was sickening.
Tim hated it. Hated the look on his face. Hated the way the laughter kept clawing its way out of him anyway.
But the more disgust curdled in his stomach, the harder he laughed.
“Oh, my sweet JJ… that’s music to my ears,” the Joker cooed.
The praise made Tim’s stomach twist violently.
Of all people, the Joker sounded pleased with him. Proud, even. And Tim.. God, he reacted to it.
After ten days of pain, fear, and isolation, some awful part of Tim responded to it automatically. He leaned in before he even realized he was doing it, chasing the smallest scrap of approval like he was starving for it.
“Oh! I almost forgot your present!” the Joker gasped theatrically before immediately breaking into delighted laughter. “Silly me!”
With a flourish, he unveiled a small uniform.
It looked far too much like the Joker’s own outfit. Same colours, same dramatic cuts, same awful sense of showmanship. Just smaller. Sized for him.
“Now, I asked myself…” the Joker mused, pacing slowly. “What would Junior really want?”
He crouched slightly to Tim’s level, grin stretching wider and wider.
“To look just like his pops, that’s what!”
The Joker—no, his papa tapped beneath Tim’s eye with unsettling gentleness. “You’ve already got your ma’s eyes,” he crooned. “Why not show off a little, hm?”
A sharp little laugh escaped him, followed quickly by another that shook unevenly through his chest.
It was horrifying. Insane. Completely, utterly wrong. And somehow… it was affectionate too.
A uniform made just for him. Tailored to his size..
His eyes stung sharply. He sniffled and ducked his head, trying desperately to keep the tears from spilling over. Crying would ruin this version of his papa. Ruin the pleased look on his face.
It wouldn’t be funny anymore.
Tim froze at his own thought. Horror curled slowly through him. When did he start thinking like that?
The answer never came, they never did these days.
Another laugh slipped out instead.
“Ah, ah, ah,” the Joker corrected him, voice sing-song. “What do we say? Your papa worked very hard for this.”
“Thank you,” Tim whispered.
The Joker’s smile didn’t move, but something in his gaze sharpened. “Mm. Thank you what?”
He paced slowly as he spoke, almost musing aloud. “It was meant for the Boy Blunder originally, you know. But Batsy is always so protective… it tugs at my heart.”
He sighed theatrically, hand over his heart. “A bird should be able to sing with his daddy."
Tim swallowed hard. His voice came out smaller than he intended. “Thank you… Papa.”
After that, Tim Drake was dead. You could look for him all you wanted, but he wasn't coming back.
For now, he was Junior. Joker Junior.
Maybe if he’d known people were searching for him day and night, he would have tried harder to fight the monster who held him prisoner for over a week.