Tim isn't fond of the cruise. He hasn't been on many, usually electing to stay home while his parents absquatulate to travel and expand Drake Industries. Had he known they'd linger in Great Britain for so long, he might've begged his parents to let him stay at boarding school as usual.

It's been more than a year since he last saw Gotham City, and he's longing for the familiar faces of Ariana and, well, perhaps less so for Bernard. Not like there are many others his age back home who mingle in the same social circles as the Drakes. In their rare correspondence, Ariana mentioned Mr. Dzerchenko's passing, and Tim felt ashamed that his first thought went to how much he'd missed by being away.

Britain proved stifling compared to Gotham's gloom, despite their frequent travels, courtesy of his father's restless curiosity about anything mentioning archaeology. Half the time, Tim stayed at their residences while Janet and Jack attended this academy or that conference, with Jack lured into any antique shop along the way. Tim has it on a less-than-good conscience that his father got roped into a few frauds. He could have acted like a wisenheimer and told him so, but Tim's just a 'foolish teenager'. He loves his parents, but they aren't great listeners.

By God, Gotham is a depressing place, but Tim prefers it to any of the spots they visited during their stay. Home is home.

"Good lord," Tim burbles, clutching the railing. He rarely suffers seasickness, but he faults the Pâté de Foie Gras from earlier.

Tim white-knuckles the steel, the chill of the metal seeping into his bones. He stumbles against a fellow passenger as the vessel lurches beneath. His parents are in bed, and there aren't many on deck close to midnight.

"What the—" Tim murmurs. If he weren't in a state of slight vertigo from a mix of seasickness, homesickness, and food poisoning, he might have been more suspicious of the cracking sounds of... ice?