Title: Where is Home?
Author: Yami no Kaiba
Rating: PG
Characters: Tim Drake, Bart Allen, Kon-El

Summary: Tim thinks over how he got to the Academy.
Note: For Justice League Academy’s Round Robin AU.
Disclaimer: All characters are owned by DC comics. Also, the quote was available here:

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He’s not really supposed to be here. His mother thinks he’s currently enrolled at Brentwood, and his father couldn’t really care where he is. Since Tim can remember, he’s been shunted from boarding school to boarding school, and normally he didn’t care.

But last year he’d been shunted here. At first it had been like all the other schools, with his peers staring and whispering behind his back, calling him a weirdo and tech nerd when he preferred working on his lab top instead of talking and socializing.

He’d made sure to make enough mistakes on his tests so that he wouldn’t be the top of the class, fast losing his peers interest when they thought he wasn’t competition.

Only one person had suspected his deceit, the then science teacher Mr. Wayne. A month into the semester and the man had made Tim stay after and given him a point blank statement that he’d appreciate seeing “your full aptitude utilized in my class.” That coupled with a knowing, disappointed stare and grim look had made Tim feel like a misbehaving five year old. Needless to say his grades afterward showed mark improvement.

Most of his free time however was spent hacking into the school’s mainframe. The teacher’s section had been interesting as along with grades and future lesson plans (which Tim prudently ignored) there was a message board ranging from opinions on the newest finds in the academic fields to gossip on the students. But the best find of Tim’s by far had been the encrypted journals of the staff members.

Except for Mr. Wayne’s journal, which had more then a dozen layers of different protections changing every week that Tim was still trying to bypass, this had been a treasure. If Tim loved anything more then hacking a challenge like Mr. Wayne’s journal, it was observing people, usually the adults around him, and predicting their next move.

He’d have to be more careful this year though. The academy had hired a new network operator, a Miss. Barbara Gordon, to replace Mr. West. Wally, as the red headed staff member liked the students to call him (“Mr. West makes me sound *old*”) was taking over as Track and Field Coach, seeing as Mr. Allen had retired at the end of last year.

As interesting as all the personal information had been though, it wasn’t the reason why he’d intercepted his mother’s mail, burned the Brentwood paperwork, and forged the Academy paperwork in his mother’s hand. Along with hacking into Gotham’s First National Bank records to make the money transaction to a new checking account in Tim’s name, with his parents as the supposed cosigners, while voiding the original check. The checks had come in the mail early enough for Tim to write the tuition amount and send it with the Academy paperwork.

No, it had been the brown and black haired boys he’d met one day in late October in the cafeteria. Bart Allen, the grandson of the school’s Track and Field Coach, had been running through the cafeteria, blowing raspberries over his shoulder at a milk soaked Conner Kent, who everyone called Kon so as not to confuse him with Conner Hawke, who was a graduating student. Tim had been walking into the cafeteria, reading a book by Hawkings when the floppy haired boy had barreled into him, causing the two to fall in a tangle of limbs into the hallway outside. Kon, who’d stopped in time not to trip over the two, started laughing and pointing as he leaned against the doorframe.

On his back with Bart still on him, Tim had glared at the laughing boy and kicked out, hooking his leg behind Kon’s ankles and sweeping the legs out from under the blue eyed boy. Bart had glanced at Kon, starting to snicker even as he stood up. Kon had been on his ass, still soaked with milk and laughing. Tim, caught in the moment as Bart offered him a hand up had been unable to resist giving his own little shy smile.

Afterwards they’d become fast friends, Kon coaxing Tim out of his internal shell, Bart getting the three into trouble with his impulsive nature, Kon egging Bart on and coming up with the more planned devious acts, and Tim having to come up with a way to get them out of it with minimum punishment.

When summer came around, and the students had to go home, Tim had missed Bart and Kon sharply for the first month of vacation. He became aware he’d grown accustomed to Bart’s nonsensical, fast paced chatter and Kon’s mischievous, conspiratorial air. And when his parents had finally come home from their latest trip in mid July so that his mother could make arrangements for his transfer to Brentwood and his father could relax and socialize with Gotham’s privileged children, Tim had finally had enough.

As Pliny said, “Home is where the heart is.” Tim’s home wasn’t here in the mansion where his father and mother convalesced at certain times of the year, and certainly not at Brentwood, where Tim had never been. It was at the Academy, with Bart and Kon.

Even if he broke a thousand laws, Tim would make sure he could go home. Even if the Academy was not where Tim was supposed to be.

--To be Continued.