Chapter Text
Tim has never liked nightclubs but the Iceberg Lounge had a special place of hate in his heart. He can point out five places where he got brutally hit by Penguin’s thugs from his vantage point in the booth and can clearly see two windows that he had been sent crashing out of while fighting off goons and henchmen. There was really no point for Tim to be in Penguin’s territory in his civilian identity and he has very stubbornly refused to come here despite the endless invitations from his business partners and fellow high society members and trust fund babies that tended to flock to Tim simply due to his status as the current CEO of Wayne Enterprises. Yet here he was, sitting in a booth nursing a club soda as Tam sat across from him, attempting to calm down their mutual friend, Ella.
Back when Tim was going hardcore as CEO (he would like to think that he’s relaxed a bit in the three or four years since though Lucius always begs to differ), a better part of Tim’s days were spent buttering up the WE Board to get them on his side along with a few of the board members' kids that he knew would go places in the future or who had significant sway over their parents.
Ella Kimberly had been alright. With a good head on her shoulders and an acceptance letter from UC Berkeley (which her parents did not bribe the school to get her in, Tim checked), Ella had proved to be a good friend to have and had excellent taste in movies that only barely balanced out her horrible taste in sexist cheating men that she was always convinced she could fix. In the few years that he’s known her, Ella had dated a grand total of six men with Boyfriend #6 being the primary reason why Ella had dragged Tim and Tam to Iceberg Lounge , absolutely seething with anger over the impending confrontation that she planned to have with Dominic Auteberry about his very blatant cheating that he wasn’t even trying to hide anymore after their six month anniversary passed.
“I don’t think he’s going to show up, El!” Tam tries to scream over the music or at least Tim thinks that’s what she said. A few too many close calls with bombs and exploding warehouses combined with the pounding music of the nightclub that was so loud that Tim could swear he could feel the bass running through his chest left his hearing less than stellar.
“No he will! I tracked his credit card statements and stalked him on Find My Friends- he always spends his Saturday nights here!” Ella screamed back, hands clenched around her Bottega Venetta shoulder bag like she was getting ready to swing it like a bat at the closest unfortunate soul that got within two feet of her.
“He let you track his location?” Tim asks incredulously. Dominic Auteberry must be dumber than he thought if he thought he could cheat on the daughter of a WE board member who spent more money on the gratuity fee than Dominic probably spent in a whole week.
Ella looked like she was about to retort with a scathing statement about the vast canyon between the front and back of Dominic very empty skull (a common phrase after she learned that he had invited a girl to Ella’s apartment where they then proceeded to do the deed on her bed ) but instead stops herself to instead point a perfectly manicured finger at the doorway where Dominic Auteberry just walked through, his arms pulled around two girls as he calls for an open tab from the bartender.
“Oh boy,” Tam mutters underneath her breath as she rushes to leave the booth, chasing after Ella who had leapt from her seat in order to grab the neck of her most likely now ex-boyfriend, wringing it like a toddler waving a pool noodle through the air. The next few hours go by in a blur. Ella kicks Dominic between the legs, Tam calmly tells Dominic that he could either repay Ella all of the money that she spent on him during their relationship or risk WE exposing all of the money his father’s been laundering out, and Tim fulfills his role by looking very disappointed at Dominic and even throws in a few “wait till I tell Bruce your family’s been stealing from him” snide comments for good measure. They celebrate with a round of shots, spend the night comforting Ella after she bursts into tears over another failed relationship, and then proceed to go bar hopping in an effort to get Ella so drunk that she won’t even remember that Dominic Auteberry existed.
Tim somehow gets from the fourth bar to his apartment, passes out on his kitchen floor, and wakes up to twenty or so phone calls and a news report claiming that he was the primary suspect in Dominic Auteberry’s disappearance. Huh. That was new.
A week later, the police find Auteberry's body and Tim is marched to the police station for questioning. Ok, new plan.
The only thing thriving in Conner’s cramped one bed one bath Crime Alley apartment is the giant splotch of black mold growing on the right corner ceiling of his kitchen area. Having been affectionately named Hank by the neighbor’s kid that he occasionally babysits, Hank has grown to be around five inches in diameter and would probably become sentient one day and eat Conner’s body once he inevitable died from starvation and malnutrition while trying to feed himself solely off of Red Bull and the free bagels given by the Park Row Community Center on the mornings he managed to get there early enough. For someone who shares actual DNA with a billionaire megalomaniac and a news reporter who married a Pulitzer Prize winner, Conner is starting to wonder where it all went wrong.
Perhaps it was Conner’s pride or deep internal need to prove that he’s different from Luthor or Clark but at the horrible age of twenty three, Conner decided to strike out on his own. Despite the hundred or so attempts of both Lois and Ma who tried to convince him to stay in Metropolis or Smallville, Conner finally moved into the cheapest apartment that he could find in Gotham, a city with a strict no-meta fly zone (which meant it was also a no-Clark zone) and rent prices that were dirt cheap if you ignored the very high possibility of getting murdered because this was Gotham , no further explanation needed.
Apparently, working as a freelance investigative reporter in a city notorious for its corrupt law enforcement was not a good move. Information was hard to get and newspaper companies were always bringing up excuses as to why they can’t publish an expose on corporate corruption or government greed because everybody important had already bought off everybody that wasn’t important.
Conner likes to think that he has morals. His reputation as a reporter with some crowning pieces in the Daily Planet has caused some companies or higher ups to attempt to get him to write slanderous specials against enemy organizations or political candidates running against so or so and despite the growl of Conner’s stomach and the number of zeroes on the contracts offered to him, he refused them every time.
And yet one check resting on Conner’s kitchen table just under Hank the Probably Sentient Mold Creature has yet to be tossed in the trash.
He remembers the woman who gave it to him very vividly. Tamara Fox had cut an imposing figure at his doorway, all floral perfume and designer clothing despite the long trench coat she wore to cover up her necklace and watch from Crime Alley’s thieving eyes. Her discussion had been brief and yet the blank check she left on his rickety kitchen table was still resting there as the most expensive thing in Conner’s apartment if you calculated the cost of the gold print around the edges and the silver pen engraved with T. Fox used on it. That and the printed signature that rested at the bottom right corner, proudly proclaiming it as a piece of paper connected to one of the richest men in Gotham- Timothy Jackson Drake-Wayne.
As someone in the know when it comes to billionaire supervillains with too much time on their hands, Conner would like to think that he knew a bit about the connotations that came with being a Drake and a Wayne. Clark had once spent days obsessing over a rumored transaction between Lex Luthor and the Drakes, a transaction that consisted of several stores of kryptonite that the couple had discovered during some of their archaeological digs and had the news channel on when it was revealed that Luthor had taken over Drake Industries after the unfortunate death of Janet Drake and Jack Drake’s subsequent loss of control over his own company. Conner would have kept a closer eye on it if not for the later news of several unfortunate fires and explosions happening in the storage houses that Clark knew held the argued over kryptonite and although there were rumors of a very vindictive ex-Drake heir destroying the only thing that Luthor had his eye on, Conner was a bit too busy trying to piece together his life after his one year death to be bothered with keeping an eye on Luthor and Timothy Drake’s sudden pissing war over company stocks that had Wall Street cowering in terror as the two made stock prices jump up and down in their attempt to get the other to back down. With Timothy Drake’s later adoption by Bruce Wayne who was another billionaire, it only got worse but Conner wasn’t an economic journalist for a reason and he left Luthor’s business to Clark.
So from what Conner knew about Wayne Enterprises’ CEO Timothy Drake-Wayne, he wasn’t surprised at the check on the table and the implications of Tamara Fox’s words. The job seemed simple- the infamous adoptive son of Brucie Wayne himself had recently landed himself in hot water or something and they needed coverage and proof to clear his good name. Conner had some suspicions that Tamara Fox chose some random reporter fresh from Metropolis with just enough major articles underneath his belt to sound legitimate because they needed someone that nobody would miss because he wouldn’t put it past billionaire CEOs to get rid of a reporter or two for failing the job that they were hired for. Probably. Or maybe Conner had a longstanding stereotype against billionaire CEOs after meeting a grand total of one and deciding that they were all shit and could kiss his ass.
Conner thinks about when rent is due and glances at the check and Tamara Fox’s contract that promised weekly pay until he managed to clear Timothy Drake-Wayne’s name. Against all better judgment, he dials her number into his phone, feeling as if he had just signed his name over to the devil.
Conner is starting to think that he’s a little over his head during his thirty minute walk from his apartment to the designated meeting point that Tamara Fox pointed him towards after he accepted the deal. Something about meeting a contact who could help Conner get information in Gotham since he was new to the city or something though Conner was less concerned about meeting a stranger and more concerned about the six gunshots he heard on the way over.
Looking up from the paper that Conner had hastily scrawled the meeting address onto, Conner double checks the apartment number before ringing himself in over the intercom. A scratchy voice, male by the sound of it, replies a few seconds after and directs him to an elevator down the hall before buzzing him in.
The apartment is a bit nicer than Conner’s but it’s still in Crime Alley so it’s clearly seen better days. Conner makes his way past a teen sitting on the staircase smoking a cigarette and winces as he picks up a loud argument between a couple that he could hear clearly even without his super-hearing. The wallpaper of the apartment floor is peeled back like onion layers and Conner finally arrives in front of Unit 410 which has a whole metal gate in front of the actual door. The door opens without Conner having to even knock and the figure in front of him looks barely twenty-one, maybe twenty-two at best. Despite wearing a Gotham University hoodie pulled over a long sleeved button-up and sweatpants that have a stain near his left sock, Conner’s mystery contact somehow manages to make his gut instinct to warn Conner about danger. Something about the man in front of Conner was off-putting.
Mystery stranger holds out his hand, calloused and rough along the palm. “You must be Conner Kent. Tam told me about you.”
Conner shook it firmly, first impression training kicking in due to the hours Lois spent grilling him through interview questions back when he was trying to get a job at the Daily Planet without using the nepotism card. “Yeah, Ms. Fox told me to come here. She said you could help me with my articles. Pleasure meeting you, Mr…” he trails off.
“Alvin Draper,” mystery stranger answers back easily. “Tam told you about what the problem is right?”
Conner nodded and wished that he didn’t have to be subjected to the 24/7 news reels of exactly what kind of illegal mess that Timothy Drake-Wayne had gotten himself into.
Alvin smiles, as if he found the entire situation amusing. “We just gotta clear Tim Drake’s name of murder.”