Timmortal 2

The book comes out with a splash of publicity. For months, it's all anybody can talk about: Bruce Wayne, billionaire playboy, had been the quasi-legendary Batman and had put all three of the children in his care in harm's way, which had eventually led to the deaths of two of them. The book, acting upon very few pieces of evidence, calls into question everything from his sexual tastes to his lifestyle.

Quietly, Tim Drake, under his current alias of Joseph Tucker, takes a leave of absence. Nobody sees him for four months. His phone goes unanswered, as does his email, not that he gets many of either; he's always been remarkably good at blending in to the point of not getting noticed when he wants to. These days, he wants to most of the time.

The publisher has read the book, of course; everybody has, because it's rare for a superhero to be unmasked, and rarer still for any shred of evidence that the Batman really had existed to be presented. So he knows what a goldmine the memoir presented to him by the estate of Tim Drake can be, if managed properly: an alternate, directly opposing view of Bruce Wayne/Batman, from somebody who was there and knew all the details, and what's more, who had been a superhero. It would be better if he was still alive, or if the estate had been a little less cutthroat in their negotiations, but you can't have everything, right? The memoir is rushed into print.

The memoir has a somewhat strange writing style- mostly emotionless and logical, coupled with details casual in their intimacy. And though the memoir has an overall positive tone towards Wayne, it doesn't flinch from describing painful events. I never wanted to be Batman, but he decided to make me his successor in the worst possible way, says one chapter. I only wish I'd been allowed to say goodbye to Steph, says another. I'm almost glad they died at the same time, because neither of them had to see what their deaths did to me. The memoir ends on those words. Aside from his date of death, there is no information available on Tim Drake after Bruce Wayne and Dick Grayson died.