Chapter One – Special Access

A trip to Gotham's History of Science and Technology Museum would've been exciting for even your average twelve year old – it was a day of school that didn't feel like school, and it meant a chance to hang out, relatively unsupervised, with your friends all day instead of just the one or two classes you managed to luck into having together.

Timothy Jackson Drake was not your average twelve year old, and a trip to the SciTech Muse was the kind of thing that made his enrollment in middle school entirely worth it. For starters, it was an entire day spent in the heart of the city surrounded by some of the coolest artefacts of science humans could craft.

And to make things even better, the trip was an all-day, delayed opening affair, starting at 10am and ending at 6pm – which meant he'd actually been able to get enough sleep last night to be well-rested, a rarity in its own right with his particular extra curriculars. Better yet, he'd been able to tell the Drake housekeeper / nanny that he'd be having dinner with his class so she could go home right at 6 without having to wait for him to get back so she could cook for him.

That part wasn't true, of course, but he had concrete evidence that had been legitimately published by the school to help back up his story. Mrs. Simz had her own kid, and was therefore harder to convince than some of the others Tim's parents had hired, but that also meant she had more reason to hurry home when presented with a believable reason excusing it.

Being a sixth-grader meant Tim couldn't just stay in the heart of the city when the field trip was over, he was on a rollcall and the bus back to Gotham Academy wouldn't leave without his name getting checked off. The high schoolers were allowed to take public transit home if they had a signed permission slip from their parents, but Tim had to wait a few more years before he could con his way into having such freedoms.

Still, getting over to the West Side from where his school was in Coventry would be far easier than getting there from the Drake Estate way out in Bristol. The extra hour and a half he'd save himself in commuting time mean he would be able to grab some coffee and something to eat without having to rush to get in place for the nighttime adventure he'd planned.

Beyond all that, the fact that the field trip was this week, meant there was a special exhibition from the cutting-edge tech division of Wayne Enterprises in the midst of being set up. All the main components were being staged in the museum's basement and the ones too big to steal were as close to unprotected as they would ever be – and Tim intended to take full advantage of that.

He'd been summarily denied acceptance to the WayeTech summer camps as his parents owned one of the company's main competitors: Drake Industries. Apparently corporate espionage was a big enough problem that even ten year olds were suspect. Tim found it ridiculous that the one time he would've been entirely okay with having his abilities underestimated was the one time he wasn't assumed to be just another dumb kid. Honestly, Tim was pretty sure that no one had actually read his application – the computer had probably scanned his ID and kicked his profile out of the running before it had even made it to a human that might care about his actual qualifications.

Tim hadn't figured out how to make a bulletproof fake identity profile – not yet, at least – And he certainly wasn't going to get caught trying to gain illegal access to WE on a sub-par fake ID. Because there were all kinds of ways that would go poorly for him – between his parents possibly being disappointed in him enough to hire a live-in Nanny to the legal ramifications he'd face, even as a minor, it just wasn't worth it.

But the thought of getting an up-close look at the new tech WE was rolling out still made Tim's heart pound like he'd just downed a full pot of coffee. WE took a very different approach to developing their tech than DI – more of a 'you know what would be cool? can we make that reasonable?' philosophy than a 'how do we solve this problem?' sort of thing. Tim found the both the WE approach and their results utterly fascinating.

Not that Tim had been allowed to play with much of DI's tech, being that his parents would hear about him attempting to gain unsupervised lab access, and promptly ground him, and anyone who might supervise treated him like a kid far too young to understand or unobtrusively observe the work going on inside the places he wanted to see.

So, the fact that a spectacular spread of WE tech was set up in the basement of a rather glaringly unsecured staff only area in the very building Tim's class was touring stood as an open invitation for Tim to investigate.

An invitation that Tim took very seriously. He'd spent at least 18 hours over the past week examining the museum's blueprints – courtesy of the Gotham City Hall Public Archives – And the rundown of the security, both in terms of the human guards and staff on-hand and the electronic countermeasures – via close examination of the extensive repertoire of 'insider access' videos on the museum's own webpage. Tim would probably end up sending the museum an anonymous suggestion about adjusting that at some point, but he'd worry about that later.

After he used it to his tech fantasy fulfillment advantage.

For now, he simply slipped away from the unwatchful eyes of his teachers, stuck headphones in his ears, and carefully made his way – casually, calmly, and like he had no destination in mind – over to the hallway by the cafeteria neat the east wing gift shop. The hallway that had restrooms and a staff-only door halfway down it, a door secured with a heavy-duty machine-lock, with a ten-digit keypad, but was not alarmed.

The human guards were always more focused on preventing shoplifters from stealing over-priced – for a good cause, but still over-priced – museum memorabilia than on the high-traffic restroom hall by the cafeteria. Using his headphones as an excuse to tap his fingers to keep count – while his eyes and most of his brainpower focused on evaluating targets – Tim tracked the museum employees on their lunch breaks and calculated the best option to use as his ticket backstage. He had some in mind, but he had contingencies for last-minute adjustment.

Tim settled on a big guy whose name he'd read on staff profiles but had forgotten with the other useless information provided about his role in the marketing department. What Tim hadn't forgotten about him was that his department's office was right by the staff door he was eyeing – 4.5 meters down and to the left, to be exact – which meant that, even with his slow stride, he would be behind another door in the hallway approximately 17 seconds after the door Tim needed closed behind him.

When Mr. Marketing got up and lumbered over to the trash, Tim sidled over towards an informational sign with a museum map. As Mr. Marketing passed him, Tim counted off 4 seconds before he turned around to follow. He slid his hand into his pocket and wrapped his fingers around the u-shaped metallic magnet he'd had to smuggle in by jamming it into in might and using sleight of hand to pretend it was his retainer – Less than sanitary, but effective, and he'd taken an extra vitamin this morning as a precaution.

Mr. Marketing punched in his code and pulled the door open to well over 90° before he lumbered through the gap. Tim kept his pace consistent; patient, he could be patient – even though it made his heart rate kick up uncomfortably as he put his faith in his calculations instead of in his feet. He reached the door with almost 6 inches of clearance left for him to slide his hand in and clip his magnet into place over the latch.

The door closed as he withdrew his hand and kept walking, but it did not click.

The machine lock whirred with an attempt to close, but its components struck the flat surface of his magnet and failed to properly secure the door. Had the door been alarmed, that would have drawn a lot of unwanted attention, but as it was Tim made it to the restroom with almost nothing noticeably amiss.

The restroom was crowded enough that his entrance didn't draw attention and he shut himself in one of the stalls to count off exactly 10 seconds. Then he washed his hands, acquired a paper towel that he did not immediately dispose of, and went to retrieve his magnet. The paper towel allowed him to grasp the handle without leaving fingerprints and he retrieved his magnet without incident – opening the door onto an empty hallway and promptly swerving right to access the unsecured stairwell he knew would be there.

Tim had no way to hide himself from the singular security camera watching the hallway, but the area was so highly trafficked that he doubted any security guard had been monitoring closely enough to spot his detour. He would get in a ton of trouble if he was caught here – phone calls to his parents would be unavoidable and they'd likely be so angry at him they'd fly back from Spain a week early. But he'd almost certainly avoid any kind of legal consequences.

Besides, he wasn't going to get caught. He'd planned this too well for that.

Tim made his way through the less convenient passageways in the museum's basement until he reached the corner of the sub-basement where the WayneTech exhibit was being staged. It was, as he'd known it would be, isolated and completely vacant of staff.

A smile split his face as the relief he felt in making it there successfully was quickly replaced by the buzz of unadulterated excitement. He set his backpack down carefully – mindful, as always, of his precious camera. Then he rolled up his sleeves as he stepped closer to the first machine he saw with the WE logo stamped proudly on its side.

According to the signage prepped in the binder sitting next to the behemoth, it was a component of the quantum computer WayneTech was developing to facilitate physically interactive virtual realities. Tim bounced on his toes as he warred with himself – half wanting to read more about the technical specs and half wanting to dive right in and see it for himself.

Tim made it through another two pages of engineering details before he gave up and literally tackled the machine to hoist himself up high enough to look inside via the glass panel built in for that specific purpose. There were at least a dozen windows in the casing and Tim wondered – for a brief moment of distraction from the tech itself as he clambered higher up its exterior – how the museum was going to work in ramps and such for visitors to get the best views. If he didn't get arrested tonight or banned from the museum forever, he might have to come back to see it in its full glory.

He'd finagled his way to the last protrusion from top and was marveling at the neat rows of complicated wiring laid out below him when something crucial changed: he discovered that he was not, in fact, alone.

"Ya know, I don't think you're supposed to be down here."

Tim really wanted to pretend he didn't yelp like a kicked puppy when the sudden voice scared him half out of his skin, but the basement echoed enough for to know it would be ridiculous to think the newcomer hadn't heard him. Tim ducked his head in shame as his ears burned red and he turned to face whoever had caught him with hunched shoulders and guilty hands raised in surrender.

And then he spotted his accuser on the floor and froze.

It was Jason Peter Todd.

Jason Peter Todd – Bruce Wayne's new ward and the new Robin. And also kinda Tim's neighbor. Well, as far as the word 'neighbor' applied when your respective estates were so big it took an hour to hike door to door. Tim's brain got caught in a loop of wondering what the frack Jason Peter Todd, of all people, was doing at the museum on a Thursday afternoon. Was doing down here, in this particular sub-basement, on a Thursday afternoon.

Tim had fully been expecting to see the new Robin today, but that was when he was in full costume and wasn't supposed to be for at least ten more hours. And Tim had not – in any of his contingencies – planned for Robin to see him.

"Uh, hi," Tim floundered.

"Hi," returned the crime fighting teenager Tim idolized and had been planning to stalk through Coventry later today. There was a glint in his eyes as he stared up at Tim with a smirk.

They stared at each other in silence for way longer than could possibly be considered reasonable and Tim's ears resumed to burn at that, and at the distinct realization he had no idea what to say next.

Because what exactly are you supposed to say when Jason Peter Todd catches you red handed in an off-limits part of a museum? Sitting on top of a piece of cutting edge computer engineering that you had absolutely no right to touch?

"You're Tim Drake, aren't you," Jason asked – in a way that was definitely not really a question and also made it clear that Jason was laughing at him. "We met last month at the charity gala. I'm Jason."

"I remember, Mr. Todd," Tim spouted, falling back on the robotic safety net of manners his mother had drilled into him. "Um, what brings you here?"

"It's just 'Jason', kid." He jerked his chin at the machine Tim clung to, continuing, "That shit's WayneTech. B sent me over to make sure it's got all the right bits with it."

Tim nodded like a puppet, trying not to drown in his horror as he realized what it meant that Jason had caught him. He was messing with tech that Batman owned. There were probably a hundred undetectable BatSecurity features on this thing. Robin had probably been sent to see if someone was trying to steal it when one of Batman's invisible alarms had gone off.

"How about you, kid," Jason asked, his hands shoved deep into the pockets of his cargo pants. He regarded Tim with openly amused parody as he asked, "What brings you here?"

"Field trip," Tim responded automatically.

"Field trip?" Jason echoed with an incredulous chuckle.

He stared at Tim for another long moment and Tim stared back, terrified and unblinking and too tongue tied to substantiate his claim.

"Alright then," Jason said eventually, with a one shoulder shrug inside his leather jacket. "So, you got yourself stuck up there or are you gonna come have lunch with me?"

"Lunch?"

"Yeah, ya know, food. You eat it," Jason explained. "I know I could use some pizza."

Tim frowned – at the confirmation of the non-sequitur of lunch plans, not the various insults attached to it.

Jason seemed to falter briefly. "You actually stuck up there, Tim?"

"No," Tim huffed, willing to admit he sounded slightly petulant about it.

"Well then get your skinny ass down here," Jason prompted – a beat too late in a way Tim didn't quite understand. He blinked, trying to puzzle out what didn't sit right, but Jason arched an eyebrow – in the way Tim had seen him do as Robin, magically managing the expression despite the mask – and Tim realized he was supposed to be doing something.

He was already in enough trouble as it was, so Tim scrambled down the computer and found himself face to face with the second Robin. Or face to chest, as it were.

Tim hadn't hit his growth spurt yet, so he knew he was a scrawny twelve, but he hadn't thought Jason would be that much taller. Jason was only two years older and he was stocky to start with. It was different when he'd been in the suit he'd worn for the charity gala. In civvies he looked broad and strong, and he stood up straighter.

Jason pulled one hand from his pocket and threw his arm around Tim's shoulders – began dragging him towards the exit. Tim lunged for his backpack as they passed it and clutched it close to his chest as Jason continued to drag him back upstairs.

They ended up in the west cafeteria, in a corner that Jason had clearly selected for it's state of semi-privacy. It was crowded and public enough to make raised voices problematic, but private enough to discuss sensitive details without much worry of being over heard. And it was neutral ground, like Jason was trying to make Tim comfortable before hashing out exactly how much trouble he was in for touching Batman's stuff without express permission.

Jason had acquired a large pizza, dripping with extra cheese and a blanket of peperoni, and two double-thick paper plates – one of which he piled high with three slices and placed in front of Tim. He gave himself five slices and settled down to chat having somehow already inhaled half of a sixth.

"So," Jason started around a mouthful of food as Tim poked tentatively as his own serving, "Some people are saying you've got some sort of connection to the Batman."

Tim frowned, his gaze snapping up to evaluate Jason.

He'd spoken quietly, conspiratorially – like he wanted in on a secret Tim had. Like he wasn't about to threaten to hang Tim by his thumbs in the depths of Batman's secret lair for the rest of the foreseeable future.

Awareness that Jason didn't know that Tim knew his vigilante identity sparked inside Tim's brain. He might be able to get out of this. If Robin didn't know then Tim was only in trouble for touching the quantum computer because Batman didn't want anyone touching it, and Jason was limited in how he could exact vengeance because the wrong move would reveal his role as Robin. All Tim had to do was talk his way out of this.

Tim could do that. Right?

All he had to do was figure out how.

"I'm sorry I touched the quantum computer," he blurted.

Probably not like that.

Tim hunched down into his shoulders and poked again at his pizza to avoid eye contact with Jason. His ears began to burn again as he felt Jason staring at him.

"Shit, kid," Jason said, after swallowing his bite this time, "You're not in trouble."

Tim's finger paused mid-poke. "I'm not?"

"Nah," Jason promised. "Fuck the Man."

Tim blinked. "Then why are you talking to me?"

Jason blinked. A sort of confused expression that was vaguely pitying flickered across his face. Then he reiterated, "'Cause I hear you know who the Batman is, ya know, under the cowl."

Okay. So, Jason didn't know he knew, but he suspected.

Tim could work with that. Probably.

He took a bite of pizza purely to keep himself from blurting anymore unhelpful apologies and attempted to calculate the best response.

"Nobody knows who Batman is," Tim said eventually.

"But you're a fan, right?" Jason nodded at Tim sweater – at the big black and yellow R embroidered on the left-hand side of the red-wool knitwork. Mrs. Davis had made this sweater for him, before her kids had insisted that she retire from babysitting rich Gotham kids and go be a grandmother in the safety and comfort of their town in Florida. Mrs. Davis had been one of the very few people who had supported Tim's moderately obsessive interest in Batman and Robin.

She hadn't really understood, but Tim missed her – missed being able to talk about it.

"You've gotta have some theories," Jason was saying, his voice persistent enough to pull Tim back out from inside his own head.

"I don't have any theories," Tim said. And it was true enough. He'd had theories. But that was before. Now, he had evidence. Another bite of pizza kept him from saying that out loud.

"Seriously? None?"

Tim shrugged and counted the circles of peperoni left on his first slice. 9 more circles, fifteen more bites. His stomach was already wary of the food he was putting in it. If this interrogation lasted more than ten bites, Tim's stomach would probably begin to protest.

Adamantly.

He peeked up at Jason. Who was somehow already finishing slice number three.

"Then why's the word on the street that you've got insider know-how on ole Batsy?"

"I dunno," Tim said with another shrug. Truthfully, the question was bothering him too.

Tim had never been seen when he'd staked out a spot to catch the dynamic duo on patrol or in the midst of a big bust. Never. They would've confronted him then and there if they'd ever found him with a camera full of very clear photos of them in action.

So, how did Robin know enough to suspect him?

"Who'd you hear it from?"

This time, Jason shrugged. "I dunno. People. But like seriously, you don't have any fucking idea why someone would think you know Batman's real name?"

Tim shook his head silently. He wanted to save his pizza for the questions that really needed him to have something to do with his mouth other than blabbing out his secrets.

"Huh."

Jason's eyes were narrowed, not quite threateningly, but pressingly – like he wasn't quite sure a threat would be appropriate, but he was certain that Tim wasn't telling the truth. It was another look Tim had captured him using as Robin. A kind of gentled-down BatglareTM for Robin to use on uncooperative victims instead of how Batman used his on uncooperative criminals – because victims could be uncooperative for all kinds of non-criminal reasons.

Tim suddenly understood why it was so effective.

He squirmed in his seat and caved to the need to take another bite of pizza.

But he wasn't a victim. Was he?

Suddenly, Robin's presence at the museum seemed a lot more suspect. It made sense for Robin to be there because Tim had triggered some sort of invisible Batalarm on the quantum computer, but he'd gotten there way too quickly for that to have been what brought him to the museum initially. He'd've had to have already been inside the building.

But why?

Tim's class had been scheduled for this museum trip over a month ago. He'd even talked about it briefly with Bruce Wayne himself at the charity gala he'd attended with his parents – that's how he'd known about the WayneTech exhibition far enough in advance to plan effectively to sneak down to the basements.

"When'd you start hearing that rumor?"

Tim's question was so sudden and loud in his own ears that he startled himself.

He seemed to have startled Jason too – who was starting on pizza slice number five and appeared to have been in the middle of a sentence when Tim had jolted into questioning him.

"Uh, about a week ago, I guess," Jason explained. "Your name had come up a few times before that in regards to you being a fan, but it wasn't too long ago that it changed to you having special access or some shit."

Tim nodded absently.

Two weeks ago, there'd been a major drug bust in a neighborhood just over half a mile away from his school. Batman had been tipped off about the drug ring in the same way Tim had: kids who came to school high rode the bus home and the chalk marks on the benches at the stops used by the kids who were using weren't terribly sophisticated code.

Tim had snagged some really spectacular shots the night that bust went down.

Several of Tim's classmates had exhibited symptoms of withdrawal shortly after that. A few of those students – namely some who'd never seemed to be able to have a civil conversation or simply let Tim pass in silence – had stopped exhibiting those symptoms a few days later. Tim had assumed they'd found a new dealer.

Maybe they'd needed to find something more valuable to trade too, to make up for getting their old dealer busted.

Info on the Bat who'd busted them would be pretty valuable.

Even just a lead on info would've been valuable. Tim had been outright stalking Batman and Robin for over a third of his entire lifespan, at this point, and only just recently figured out who Batman really was. And he was a verified genius who'd happenstantially acquired the right life experiences to recognize things like quadruple somersaults. Who'd circumstantially idolized and stalked two different costumed acrobats for several years before he realized they were actually the same person and begun to extrapolate from there.

Nobody knew anything about Batman.

A tip on someone who might, would be very valuable indeed.

Tim was being interrogated by Robin because he was a victim. He just hadn't been victimized quite yet.

Tim dropped his pizza like it'd burned him and began to rifle through his backpack for the new cellphone his mother had bought him when school started. It was 'so he could fit in with his peers'. It was too big to fit in his pocket and he'd never liked wearing a watch, so he'd had to dig to find it and figure out the time.

It was 4:32pm.

Shift change for the guards was in less than an hour and they were already definitely antsy for it. Most of the science staff were already heading home to beat the traffic, and most of the new guards wouldn't be coming in for at least another twenty minutes.

If Tim were going to lead a team to invade this place a capture an unwilling potential asset, he would do it in the next ten to fifteen minutes.

"We have to get out of here."

Jason frowned, his confusion pronounced with wary unease. But he demonstrated a willingness to trust Tim at his word for no other reason than Tim wanted him to and clambered to his feet. He took his last slice of pizza with him though – and nabbed the two untouched pieces from Tim's plate as he followed.

"What's wrong, Tim," Jason asked, carefully nonchalant. His hands were full of pizza in the way Tim's mouth had been to stop him from doing what he wanted to do when asked a stupid question he should've known better than to answer – Tim suspected that if Jason wasn't holding onto the pizza he'd've grabbed Tim's shoulder at this point.

Tim didn't know how to answer at all, let alone efficiently communicate what he'd deduced about their current situation. Especially not without revealing that he knew Jason was Robin and could guess why Robin was here talking to him to begin with.

Jason was rapidly eating though the pizza that was keeping him from grabbing onto Tim's arm to stop their not-so-subtle scramble towards the museum's main exit. They made it to within sight of the doors before Jason had inhaled the last piece of crust, and Tim had probably ignored several unheard comments and questions about their rapid egress, when Jason finally lost the battle to avoid physical contact and wrapped his hand around Tim's elbow.

Tim swung around to face him as his inertia asserted dominance.

"Timmy, what's got you so spooked?" Jason asked. "C'mon. You can tell me. Anything. I won't rat on you, even if it's something bad. Lemme help."

"I can't – it's not – You don't," Tim could practically feel the whine building in his voice at all the false starts that his brain attempted to send through his mouth to make the act of communication happen. His brain apparently thought it worked something like magic.

Tim was frustrated and embarrassed and still very acutely aware of the fact that they needed to get out of the building. Right now.

And Jason was doing the Robin look, the other one – the one for the scared little bunnies of the victims they came across that needed to be soothed and calmed and promised that they had a friend somewhere in the cold cruel world. Tim knew why it worked – felt it working on him – and yet he was mortified that Robin thought it necessary.

He wasn't a bunny. He was an asset. Currently being targeted.

Recentered, he focused and forced words to come out of his mouth intelligibly.

"We have to get out of the building."

Jason had moved to holding onto both of Tim's shoulders at some point – holding him steady, holding him still. He looked Tim right in the eye and asked gently, "Why?"

The words got jammed up in Tim's throat again and he squeaked.

And then the museum's windows exploded inward with a dramatic shower of glass and gunfire as more goons than Tim could count began to repel their way inside.

Tim closed his eyes and winced at the bite of regret on how fracking close they'd been to getting out of this without any major complications.

"That's why," he groaned.