WARNINGS !

mentions of abuse, slight actions
indicating abuse, slight mentions of
bad mental health,

WORD COUNT !    

word count : 1537 words
unedited

Monday morning, William Donovan, woke up around 7am to his parents yelling and a glass breaking. He quickly got up and ran downstairs, concerned for his parents well being after hearing glass shattering.

"Mom? Dad? What's going on?" Will asked as he walked into the kitchen only to see his mother looking at his father like he was a psychopath and his father looking slightly apologetic towards his mother. Will then realized there was a broken glass to the left of his mother and his father's fists balled up.

"Will, honey, go get ready for school." His mother quickly said looking at her teenage son with pleading eyes, hoping he doesn't disobey or question her. William hesitantly walked out of the kitchen and as soon as he did the arguing started again. He walked back up the stairs and into his bedroom to get ready for school.

Will got dressed in his Gotham Academy uniform before rushing back downstairs to grab his backpack. He yelled goodbye to his parents before slamming the front door behind him. William walked to and from school as he lived close to Gotham Academy. When Will arrived at school he was instantly greeted by Valerie.

"Hey! Will wait up!" Valerie shouted across from the main hall. "How were your parents this morning?" Parker questioned as they walked to Will's locker.

"Take a guess." William replied as he opened his locker storing his bag then grabbed his math and english textbooks as those are his first two periods.

"That bad?" Val said with a frown on her face.

"My dad threw a glass at my mother's head, it doesn't get any worse than that." William replied as he slammed his locker door shut. The sound emitting from the locker door echoed in the halls, causing many people to look their way. One person being Tim Drake.

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"What do you think they're talking about?" Stephanie Brown questioned Tim as they both glanced at the duo from across the hallway.

"Something personal that we shouldn't get into." Tim said, trying to stay out of William's and Valerie's conversation.

"Are you serious? The great detective, Tim Drake, who wants to know all of the answers for everything but that one conversation."

"It's none of our business Steph besides I never once said I was the greatest detective." Tim retorted as he walked to his English class with Steph trailing behind him.

"Wow you got it that bad, huh? Maybe you should-" Steph replied with a look of amusement and shock on her face.

"No. Don't even start." Tim instantly cut Steph off as he knew where the conversation was about to go. He quickly walked into his class and sat at his assigned seat. Tim sat in the second row middle left seat in the classroom with Steph sitting on his right.

All throughout class Steph tried to talk in morse code with Tim but he ignored her. When the bell rang signifying class ended and the second period would begin shortly, Tim rushed out of the class leaving Steph behind. He went to his Business class. During Business all Tim could think about was that Steph would eventually corner him or that Dick would immediately want to talk to him after school about his behaviour at breakfast.

Tim didn't want any of that, he wanted to figure everything out by himself even though he should go ask for advice from one of his brothers. He knew he wouldn't ask for any advice, they would have to come to him and force him to listen. Tim could be stubborn, he wasn't a huge fan of asking for help or advice. If he needed it he would wait until someone came to him.

But then again Tim doesn't want anyone to do that. This whole thing is new to Tim. He wants to sort out all of his thoughts first before he comes to a solution and having someone come tell him stuff would either make him more confused or help him understand. With Tim's currently shitty mental health it would probably make it take a turn for the worst.

Which is why he's avoiding Stephanie, the only person who knows what's going on. As Tim was sorting through his thoughts the bell rang, the bell signified that it was now lunch. Tim spent his whole lunch avoiding Steph, he walked the halls trying to spot her so he could avoid her. He was thankful that his third period class was phys-ed, which he had with William.

When he arrived at the main gym where his male phys-ed class was held, Tim walked into the gym and then the change room. The change rooms were filled with boys from both junior and senior grades, one of the seniors being William Donovan. Tim walked to his usual spot in the change room. He gently set his bag down on the bench and grabbed his gym uniform out of his bag. He glanced up only to see William shirtless, with whom Tim assumes to be his friends, Tim quickly adverts his eyes blushing slightly at the sight of Will and other male classmates shirtless. Drake quickly changed before rushing out of the change rooms hoping no one saw him blushing.

During phys-ed all Tim could think about was him seeing Will shirtless. It didn't help that Tim had Chemistry net with both Will and Stephanie.

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As William walked out of the main gym, he was met with the sight of Valerie Parker. Her art classroom was close to the main gym, they usually always met each other outside of one of the two rooms.

"Hey! How was phys-ed? Check out any hot guys?" Valerie lowered her voice as she asked the second question.

"Same as always, and you know I try not to." Will rolled his eyes at the question she asked almost everyday.

"Well how am I supposed to know if you changed your mind or not." Val defended herself, "Anyways, I sat besides this cute girl in my class! She was really nice, didn't catch her name though But she had longer blonde hair-" Valerie continued to describe the girl in her art class until they reached their Chemistry classrooms.

When they walked into their classroom Valerie went to sit beside Mykiah Peterson, her new assigned partner, and William went to sit beside Tim Drake. When he sat down Tim gave him a small wave as a greeting since Mrs. Tate bagan to talk about their in-class experiment.

"Welcome back everyone, hope you all had a good weekend. We won't be starting the in-class experiment until next week as the materials we need won't be delivered until Monday morning. Instead of that you guys will start your essay's. For the essay's you both will decide on a certain unit that we have covered in this class. Once you guys have decided on the unit, you will both write separate essays on the unit you both chose. Both essays shouldn't be the same, you can help your partner but they should be different. You may now begin, if you have any questions feel free to ask." Mrs. Tate thoroughly explained how everyone should write their essays.

"Hi, is there any unit you would prefer to write about?" Tim immediately questioned when Mrs. Tate stopped talking.

"We could do energy changes and rates of reactions, if that's fine with you."

"That's fine!" Tim said before quickly adding, "We should review that unit and all of the subunits during our class times and we can write the essay after school at either my place or yours."

"We can do that, I wouldn't be able to come over tonight but I could tomorrow."

"Okay so to begin, do you remember what enthalpy is?" Tim questioned

"I don't remember, sorry." William quickly apologized.

"Don't apologize, it's okay. Enthalpy is basically thermodynamic. It's equivalent to the total heat content of a system-" Tim started to explain.

For the rest of the class William listened and watched Tim explain Enthalpy. Will noticed how Tim's tired eyes brightened whenever he asked a question or when Tim had to thoroughly explain something to him. He watched as Tim acted like a total nerd but he loved every second of it. William loved how passionate and intelligent Tim was. It was refreshing as the only two people who would thoroughly explain something or simplified something to William were Valerie and Mrs. Tate.

A few times during Chemistry, Steph would look over at Tim to see how he was doing. Whenever she looked over all she could see was his radiating smile and noticeably brighter eyes whenever he seemed to be talking to Will. Or when William smiled brightly at Tim whenever he spoke or wasn't looking. That very sight made her heart swell with joy, the thought of Tim possibly finding someone to love and that may very well eventually love him back made her extremely happy.

The rest of the class continued like that and before they knew it Chemistry was over for the day. Along with Tim's happiness.

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Thank you all for reading this chapter along with every other chapter I've posted, I appreciate it a lot! I will say chapter 4 is currently being written, so there may be another update. Hope you all have a great day/night! :)