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Unintentional Stalker Tim Drake AU
I love the interactions where Tim is his canonical weirdo fanboy self, but consider the idea that he never meant to stalk the bats.
Tim’s parents are gone, away on another dig, and Tim decides that instead of sitting in the quiet manor again, alone with only his TV to keep him company, he would grab his camera and take aesthetic photos of nighttime Gotham.
He’s quiet as he looks for a good spot to take his first photos, and when he finds a cool angle of a building against the setting sun he takes a photo.
He did not expect to see Batman and Robin mid jump between rooftops.
He quickly looked up from the photo, but any sign of the bats having been there are gone. Tim’s slightly disappointed, but decides to head home early, not wanting to risk being caught out alone.
The next night, he returns to the streets, camera slung around his neck and heading in the opposite direction of where he last saw the vigilantes. He sees a cool reflection of the moon being framed by a street lamp, and with the click of a button he takes the photo.
He again captured Batman and Robin, this time grappling in the distance, their silhouettes obvious against the light of the moon. When Tim looked up from the picture, they were gone.
Awe aside, he’s getting annoyed that the two masked crusaders keep photobombing his pictures. He walks down a few streets, climbs a tree, and takes a landscape photograph. Almost hesitant, Tim looks at the result.
Robin is chasing a low level gang member across the street.
This keeps happening: Tim goes out into Gotham’s night in an attempt to take photos of the city, and every time time Batman and Robin- sometimes just one of them sometimes both- unintentionally fall into the camera’s path as Tim snaps a photo.
In the background of his photos he’s captured Batman scolding Robin, the duo eating ice cream, Robin trying to walk on a power line, and even a couple of their fights with some of the rogues, along with many more photos.
On one particular night, as Tim gets his camera to focus against a satellite dish against the sky, he sees Robin do a quadruple somersault.
Tim is quickly able to figure out their identities like in canon, and when Jason comes in to take over the Robin mantle, Tim discovers his identity too with little to no problem.
Tim keeps up with his photo shoots, not nearly as annoyed of the photobombs as he used to be but refusing to give up until he has one clean shot of just the city and nothing else.
When Jason dies, and Tim sees Bruce dishing out broken bones and ICU visits to everyday thugs, he knows he’s got to do something. After all, they’ve been entwined longer than the bats know.
He comes to in a strange room, completely alone and absolutely covered in blood and guts from an unknown donor that's lying on a stone slab positioned at the center of the room.
A mirror nearby tells him he’s a kid.
All of this and the nothing that comes from his head (no explanations, no memories, nothing that could help him explain what’s happened to him and who he is) would have made him panic… if he could feel panic, he thinks? But he feels weirdly disconnected from all these revelations. The only thing that makes him move is this tiny blob that gets on his face and begins to ask HIM questions.
He does not have answers, much to the blob’s disappointment. After that, he discovers that he’s good at following instructions. Tim turns out to be really good at commanding him what to do when all the anxiety and fear goes away.
Then, introductions and explanations. The blob says its name: Tim Drake. Apparently, he’s now inside his body after Tim was abducted by a group of terrorists from his home. When he asks what happened and why some terrorists are capable of placing him inside his body, Tim the Blob wavers for a moment and sheepishly admits that the group is not so much terrorists but a bunch of cultists. After all, they claimed they were summoning something tonight.
By deductive reasoning, they realize that he is that something. That's not as reassuring as they want that to be.
The real whiplash, however, comes to them when a couple comes into the room and introduces themselves by kneeling on the floor and declaring themselves his servants.
As they begin to give their version of the story, Tim whimpers and begins to cry. They don't seem to notice that. In fact, they ignore Tim's existance.
Perhaps they can't perceive him.
It soon becomes apparent that the couple are Tim’s parents and they are extremely pleased to have sacrificed their son.