Timothy Jackson Drake couldn't give two shits about his education.

That was made clear when he almost dropped out of highschool. His reasoning was... funny. He'd claimed to Bruce that he was going to fail AP Chem and Calculus and AP Lit. — hell, the only thing he had going for him at the time was probably CompSci.

And it might as well have been true — he could figure out the chemical composition of and name various sedatives and NMBAs, classify them into their drug types, and tell you the reversal agent in twenty minutes, usually less. But ask him to perform a basic lab experiment?

... Well, he nearly got expelled for that once.

But, of course, Bruce couldn't let that happen. Couldn't let the matter die peacefully, because, and Tim quotes, 'You're a smart kid, Tim. You can do it.'

It didn't sound nearly as reassuring as it should've when it was Bruce Wayne, Batman, 'I am vengeance, I am the night,' saying it, but it was all he needed to know it was a lost cause. If anything, the conversation might've devolved into something like 'what if your college education saves someone?'

The thought of that made TIm shudder.

But if there was one good thing coming out of majoring in forensic science and criminology, it was rooming with you.

You were cute. He didn't really care about that either. You were a nice person, though. Couldn't hold down a partner, 'cause all of them were assholes, but you invited him to every student party you went to.

Which was what you were dressing up for at the moment. He sat at his laptop, curled up in his spinny chair like a gremlin and staring at images of blood spatters and fingerprints on his screen — which he would never use again.

And then you came out, mumbling about how you couldn't top your last outfit — you looked good in that one, but you couldn't find anything nice to wear.

He glanced over at you — eyes up, eyes down, eyes on his screen. "You always look good, what're you talking about," he scoffed candidly. You were talking bullshit — he was just saying the truth.