Chapter Text
The Drakes work a lot with prosthetics. Ok yeah sure, their main hobby, if you can call it that, is archeology.
They enjoy traveling around the world, to all different corners, looking for and digging up ancient and priceless artifacts and bringing them home with them.
Their home- no, their house, mansion if you will, looks more like a museum than someplace anyone lives, let alone a family with a child.
Though, Tim only really knows this, not only peacuse of the scattered objects around his living space, but because they keep telling him how he ruined it.
How, if they had it their way, theyd still be doing it much more regularly.
But alas, to their apparent suprise, a human child requires care, and feeding, and emotionally available parents.
Though Tim could probably argue strongly that despite their vocal lack of travel, he has yet to recieve the latter.
He wont complain though, despite not being suited for parenting, they do love Tim, in their own way, and he understands that they just have a hard time showing it appropriately.
This is all to say, with Tim around, the Drakes have had to pick up more… hobbies suited for home, persay. Or at the very least that dont require regularly flying miles and miles away from their child.
Not that this is much of an issue for them despite all their complaining.
They do run a medical company after all.
For some reason its prosthetics that intrigue them the most, and despite being in gotham for Tims sake, they barely spend any time at home.
Theyre far more fascinated by their own research and medical advancements and inventions and so on.
And its on his 6th birthday that Tim is introduced to… Tim?
Its complicated — and a lot more creepy and upsetting that his parents realise — to gift him a carbon copy of himself as a present.
Theyre exstatic though so Tim doesnt comment, and instead listens to his mother rant to him about how advanced the technology is, how its basically a human body recreated artificially- sans the mind.
Technically speaking, its simply an amalgamation of pretty much every single one of their high tech expensive prostetics and fake organs, stitched together into a functioning body, mostly.
Theyd chosen to make this particular test based on Tim in his honour, because they love him. And Tim cant help but genuinely feel that honour.
Despite the… Weirdness, of staring at your own likeness, theres a morbid sort of intrigue that sparks in Tim. It is very impressive technology.
His mother is talking about how, all they need is a mind to controll it, a functioning brain, or some sort of ai or controll center-
That in the future, people with bodies which do not work, will be able to pilot these instead, to live normal lives.
Its genuinely impressive work, and Tim learns alot the next few days as both his parents religiously info dump on him about it.
They want to try creating an artificial human too, an ai to pilot it rather than a real person, but as it is now the project is already too costly, and theyve been unable to justofy that particular passion project to the rest of ther company and researchers.
Tim understands the opposition the the idea, atleast partly, but he also cant help but feel a little bad. His parents got this far didnt they?
What if…
Tims been learning coding, in his spare time.
And thats when the idea strikes him. How hard could it really be to make an ai? Besides, he has the perfect model doesnt he, already with a body to match and everything…
Thats aboit how it started. Of course its not that simple though, it never is.
Tims been leaening coding, and hes smart for a 6 year old, hes always been smart for his age.
But even for a genius it will take time and experience to acomplish what he wants to do.
Once he realises hes out of his depth, about a month after his birthday, he starts signing up for classes on the subject in every slot of free time he has.
Besides, with his parents increase in travel theyre planning, itll be easy to keep it secret- a suprise.
Of course, by the time he hits 8 and hes made significant progress on the model hes starting to realise that maybe, just maybe, his parents dont actually deserve the effort hes putting into this.
Theyd always been absent, sure, but its only gotten worse, and hes pretty sure they dont even care all that mich about this specific idea theyd had anymore.
The fake Tim lays still in a closet somewhere, Jack and Janet having moved on to other projects, especially once their interest shifted back to archeology and Tim is left with a nanny more often than with them.
Which is saying something considering Mrs. Mac only comes twice a week to refill groceries and meals, and ocasionally talk his ear off over dinner.
He doesnt let this stop him.
If not for his parents, then maybe for himself, his own little passion project. The body is technically his after all, both literally and figuratively, in every sense.
So he keeps going, only taking breaks when he decides to buy himself a camera for his forgotten birthday to start taking photos of batman and robin.
And when hes 9 he figures out their identities. The sommersault, the flying graysons, Bruce Wayne whod recently taken in an orphaned Dick Grayson.
It all clicks into place, though he doesnt use the information for anything particular. He feeds it into his ai though.
He feeds everything into it, tried to fill in the key moments from hsi childhood and then from 6 and onwards had been religiously documentinf his life and memories.
His parents barely notice him spending a heap of money on upgrades for the system, for the memory-
At some point he even starts making plans to upgrade the body, and actually does manage to make the voice sound much more realistic, and much more like him.
Though any other upgrades are more difficult to acomplish, so theyll have to wait.
By now the ai is pretty realistic, its… Odd, talking to someone, something, who is basically you.
Though he wont deny that he sometimes sits and chats with it for fun, telling himself its to train it and not because he simply has no one else to do so with.
Its honestly a bit refreshing talking to someone his age who can keep up with him, not to mention having all the same memories and opinions.
Eventually he switches entirely from logging all his experiences into its memories by hand, to simply recounting his day to it. Only whenever no one is home obviously.
Though he never does try putting it in the body.
Its just procrastinating at this point, hes told the ai about it obviously, it knows, but still.
Despite it already feeling about as sentient as he himself does at any given moment, something about giving him a body scares Tim deeply.
Sometimes he think that maybe this is why his parents never did manage to get aproval to do this.
Not that they even remember anymore, hes not even sure they remember they have an entire fake Tim laying around anymore.
Sometimes hes not sure they remember that he exists, if theyd even noticed if he dies.
Tim never does find out the answer to these questions, not Tim anyways.
Tim certainly does.
Though hes not sure exactly what happened, with what he knows, and what he has access to, it wont be hard to figure out.
When he is 11 years old, Timothy Jackson Drake dies.
It is not pretty, probably.
Tim never actually sees the body himself, only through photos from the gcpd when he hacks into it, worried what happened after thr silence.
Tim is dead. Is what he gathers.
Hes not supposed to actually feel anything, he doesnt actually feel anything, hes an ai, but-
But a part of dies that day.
Both figuratively and literally he suposes.
Hes not thinking (is that how its supposed to work for ais?) when he swiftly goes through pretty much every known dna database and wipes Tim wherever he finds him.
Hes not sure why, but they cant find out Tim Drake died, he-
He connects himself to the body.
Its stupid, it really is, hes breaking Tims trust. The boy had been procrastinating for a reason, he shouldnt-
But some part of him also thinks that this is what Tim wouldve wanted, for his efforts to not go to waste, for someone to care enough to not let them.
-It feels weird (what is he talking about… he doesnt feel- it, doesnt feel) having a physical form.
It feels weird seeing, god, he knew Tim had been working on the vision stuff. The body was made for a human to wear, it didnt come with the ability for an ai to process what the camera lenses in the eyes actually capture.
But Tim had worked his magic and he actually knows what hes looking at! Well- some of it. Its not perfect, most definetly needs work. But it doesnt have to be perfect right now.
He has about 3 weeks before Tims parents get back home, theyre only staying 2 days, and dont have any galas planned (thank god) but he still needs to seem real-
He needs to seem like Tim. Like nothing is wrong, like-
Fuck, Mrs. Mac.
Never mind, he has untill tuesday, 3 days from now, to learn how to use a body. Great.
It cant be that hard right?
Or atleast, thats the thought he has before promptly falling flat on his face trying to stand up in the closet the body had been stuffed in.
Instead he shifts it a little and the doors fall open leaving it- leaving him tumbling out of it face first.
Thank god this thing is made to be relatively sturdy.
As it is, Tim never gets an answer to that question, if anyone would notice if he died.
The answer is, evidently, no.
Tim, the ai that is, feels a little bad about it, taking a dead boys place like this and pretending nothing ever happened.
Hed made sure that the real Tim got buried, by pulling some strings, and hes visited a few times in the almost year hes been dead.
Grief isnt something ai is supposed to be capable of but well- here we are. Maybe its just guilt, but ais arent supposed to feel that either.
They arent supposed to feel at all. But at some point Tim just has to accept that, even if whatever hes "feeling" isnt actually feeling, it feels real enough to him.
So he doesnt question it further.
He made sure the real Tim was burried with his camera, the one hed gone to find after realising it was missing from the gcpd reports, thankful he didnt just chalk it up to the lackluster state of the documents.
Hed taken the memory card out first though, transfering all its data to himself the way Tim always used to.
Hes glad he found it before anyone else, despite getting there nearly a week after the incident.
Honestly its a miracle the memory card was intact, the body destroyed beyond repair.
He doesnt replace it though, he thinks Tim would want to be burried with the original, despite its state.
He does however get a new one to keep, telling himself its so Tims parents dont get suspicious.
But at that point he already knows they wouldnt notice either way.
He doesnt even technically need it, the lenses in his eyes functioning fine, and still relatively high quality, but theres something about actually holding the physical object, being able to adjust settings and snap photos.
Hes not as good as Tim was though, despite all the information he has about it, both through Tims rambling and his access to the internet, theres something about the skill of actually doing it he doesnt have yet.
Hes not sure if he ever will, considering hes an ai piloting a robot body and hes pretty sure muscle memory isnt even a thing for him.
But who knows, he feels something akin to emotion anyways? Even if hed never call it that out loud.
It feels too wrong, too human, which he is decidedly not.
He takes photos anyways, once he gets used to the body enough to be confident he wouldnt fuck it up, and tripple checking that he could make a replacement if he did.
He figures it might be easier to make a new body while ha actually has one though.
And Tim did have all those plans for upgrades… And he himself has noticed a lot of issues hes having with the body…
It wouldnt be a bad idea, and they might be easier to implement in a new model rather than trying to change the original while still in it.
If the heat and pressure sensing skin is a bit overkill he doesnt think about it.
Robin is dead. Robin died.
It wouldve crushed Tim, it does crush Tim. Hes still modelled after the original after all, of course he loves robin!
Loved?
Holy shit robin is dead.
And batman is not taking it well.
Hes beaten petty thieves almost to death more times than he can count, Tim would know because he has acess to the gcpd databases, and hospitals.
Theyre not hard to hack into.
Batman is destroying himself without Robin, and Dick refuses to help when Tim begs him.
Its-
Its a horible idea is what it is. But he can probably get the upgraded body finished within the month…
Batman will probably be fine for another 30 days atleast- or well as fine as he is now. Which is to say not fine at all but still alive.
He just has to be careful. Make sure Bruce never suspects what he really is.
It wouldnt be an issue if Tim just listened when Batman said no, repetedly.
But he doesnt.
He keeps coming back, begging, asking to be trained, over and over. His new body is his masterpiece, he made some last minute adjustments to make it more suitable for Robin, made it even more realistic so Bruce wouldnt emedietly catch on-
Hes been saving footage and guides and tips on fighting and practicing things at home and increasing his reaction time and-
And he cant just watch batman slowly kill himself.
So when the moment arises he manages to convince Alfred, and he goes out in the suit and saves Batman and Nightwing.
They stare at him bewildered- Dick looks reluctantly impressed, which Tim can tell with his vastly improved vision, though he still cant read batman, his image comprehension still needs work it seems.
It doesnt change all that much, even when he starts seriously training with batman, hes still not wanted, still replacing a dead boy-
Nevermind, 2 dead boys, now.
It doesnt matter, this is what needs to be done, even if hes just temporary, even if he could never fill Jasons shoes.
Could never express the same innocent and pure excitement that Tim had talking about the second robin.
Could never be human.
Its fine, hes here to do a job, not find meaning in life, afterall.
So he does his job.
Tim is, quite honestly, an excellent robin. Objectively.
Hes a quick learner, hes sturdier than most, hes smart and has acess to the entire internet and sevral other databases he shouldnt right in his mind.
Though hes realised hes going to have to start replacing his body much more often if he wants to fool batman.
It doesnt change the fact that hes great at his job, and batman has been doing better, so much better.
Its still weird having to conjure up an older version of Tim, even if its only slightly older every time.
Weird having to add your own scars to your body to not be asked how it healed over so perfectly.
Its weird getting a better and better body every time, growing like a real person.
His vision is better now, even his voice sounds more realistic, and his entire body has realistic skin now, rather than just the parts that would be visible under clothes.
He has barely any visible seams anymore, and sometimes when he looks in the mirror he has to pause.
Is this what Tim wouldve looked like if he didnt die so young?
He usually has to shut those thoughts down because it leads to him thinking about Tim too much, getting him as close to discomfort as an ai can.
Hes been working on the eyes.
He doesnt think theyre Tims- not exactly, not enough detailed images of the kids irises for that.
But theyre more realistic now, get more realistic every time.
They say the eyes are the window to the soul or whatever. He thought theyd be the giveaway, what made the bats realise-
So hed put the most effort into them, aswell as the small human manorisms.
And they had yet to catch on, so it mustve worked pretty well.
Though he cant help but feel like its wrong, wrong for something like him to have such human eyes.
Hes not human after all.
Theres suprisingly few issues with fighting.
Sure he realised fast that he needed fake blood, or something to make his injuries feel more real.
Its not much, as minimal as possible, not real obviously, only there to make any scratches and bruises look less like theyre on plastic.
Sometimes he has to pretend to be hurt, pretend to feel pain, which he doesnt. Not really anyways.
He can sort of feel touch, but pain is difficult to replicate, too human.
Thankfully hes a good actor, clearly.
So his body is never an issue, if he treats it with as much care as he would a human one, even if its not, hes not.
He never slips up. He plans ahead for everything that could be a problem, makes contingencies.
Then one night, hes (thank god) on comms, benched for a supposed injury, covering for batman and helping oracle and-
Batmans comms goes out.
Its not an issue, he gets out of the situation fine without them, but Barbara explains to him after that someone jammed the signal.
Made it so nothing could get through digitally.
Not even Tim, the ai, the big boxes sitting at Drake manor, more of a system, a network connecting through the body from a distance.
He cant put into word how grateful he is that he caught this before anythinf actually bad happened.
He experiments one day, figures out how to jam a signal and goes into the forest behind his house and-
And the body is gone.
Its only for the 5 minutes the jammer was supposed to work, but when he gets the body back and realises it had simply colapsed, unconsious, he realises how much of a problem that would be.
So he has to fix that, for sure.
Its certainly difficult, but now every single one of his bodies moving forwards has a small amount of its own memory and as much of his ai he could manage.
He tests it so many times and its, uncomfortable to say the least.
Of course he himself can only really view the memories after the fact, but its still almost like living it.
And let him tell you- being cut off from a majority of yourself, even for just a few minutes, is very not fun.
The memory card is small, only captures the past half an hour before it starts getting replaced with the new stuff, bar any stuff he specially picks out that he needs to know at all times during any given moment.
It lets him function without a connection to his main network for about 15 minutes before it starts going to shit.
Hes constantly working to increase it, but with limited space and storage in his own body, it either doesnt fit or needs to much power for one of his bodies to sustain for long enough.
It might be unecesary to go so far, he has yet to have to use it, but even on vacation at titans tower because of some new rogue Tim is like 73% sure is Jason Todd, he cant help but think about it.
About how it feels every time hes cut off. How bad it could be despite having spare bodies to use.
And its about then the towers light flicker out and he gets a familiar sensation.