It has been eight years since they last saw each other.
It all started a long time ago. She was three and he was six. Her family didn't live in Gotham, but every vacation, without fail, they went to visit her maternal grandparents, who happened to live near Wayne Manor and were friends with Alfred Pennyworth.
One day, when she accompanied her grandmother to bring flowers to her friend, everything began. She was happy to go out for a walk, but tired from the gravel path and the large trees leading to a "huge house." That day, she discovered what a mansion was.
While the adults talked, they asked Tim to play with their guest's granddaughter. The boy wasn't very enthusiastic about babysitting a toddler, but he thought that as long as he gave her something to draw with, she would leave him alone; and it worked... at first.
It wasn't until the girl found the illustrations on the cover of the dinosaur book he was reading more interesting than her flowers that she started drawing them, and she began to show them to him with adorable enthusiasm. Tim didn't want to see incomprehensible toddler scribbles until he took a peek and... wow, they were actually very good, perfectly understandable, nothing like what a normal child her age would do.
From that day on, every time her grandparents visited the butler, she accompanied them and Tim was sent to play with her. Tim tried, he really tried to get rid of her. Okay, drawing didn't work; he got bored quickly. One day he was building a puzzle and she wanted to help, so he let her, thinking it would keep her busy while he did something else. Mistake. Soon, she was showing him the completed puzzle with excitement. Impossible. A three-year-old shouldn't be able to solve a grade-school puzzle, let alone that fast. The worst part? She was asking for more.
She was just like that; since she was little, she had an insatiable curiosity and a voracious hunger to learn about... well, everything. Absolutely everything.
She was the first child, the first grandchild, the first niece. She was surrounded by adults and, of course, had a brother a year younger, but she couldn't play with him since he was a baby. She learned to walk and talk much faster than any other child; her nature was to discover knowledge.
She followed him everywhere. She liked spending time with Tim because, with him, she did what she liked most: learn. He always taught her something new.
Tim, a certified genius, felt lonely. He had many friends, but no one on his intellectual level, and for someone so smart, it was lonely not having anyone to share his interests with. Adults say children are like sponges, and Tim had proven it. She was a sponge, a sponge that absorbed very, very quickly.
From dinosaurs to science, astronomy, and math, little by little, Tim started accepting her and even appreciating her presence. She chose him; she wanted to be with him, she picked him—and for Tim... that was invaluable. Having someone who chose him in his life, where he felt lonely or just a replacement for his brothers, was the most human thing he had.
The surprising part was the girl's capacity for learning, seriously. Tim was thrilled when he discovered it; this girl could have an intellect as high as his. Someone like him. He was a natural genius. She was one with potential, a genius created... by him.
And somehow, they became inseparable, almost like siblings. Tim adored her. Every vacation, she had to come see him and spend the afternoons together, reading, doing puzzles, or watching documentaries. Of course, they played too, watching movies and normal kid stuff, but they definitely liked those "nerd" things.
Good god, she had learned to solve first-degree equations in the fourth grade, all thanks to him. Tim sometimes had homework for his vacations, and when she saw him, he would teach her everything new he was learning, even though he was three years older. She liked to be ahead, and he simply liked to teach her. Oh, and of course, she was too curious; she asked many questions, and when Tim had no idea, he was forced to research even more on his own to give her an answer. In the end, that helped him in his classes, so of course he was delighted to do it.
But that eventually ended. He remembers it well; he was thirteen and she was only ten. That summer vacation was, without knowing it, their last moments together. Her grandparents moved to the other side of the city, and after that, they lost touch completely.
Five years later, she returns to Gotham for high school, where she meets and becomes friends with none other than Damian Wayne. None of the three know anything about the connection. What will happen now? Will they meet again? What will change after eight years of knowing nothing about each other?
