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Tim would first like to let it be known that he isn’t a complete moron, okay? He’s aware that this is dangerous, and it could genuinely result in his death—which, now that he thinks about it, would be extremely counterproductive, so that definitely can’t happen—but that doesn’t change the fact that it’s a good idea and it’s going to work.
He hadn’t had the same ‘ Batman and Robin ’ experience that those before him had. His was a special case, he’d known that going in. He wasn’t here to become someone that Bruce Wayne cared about, he was here to keep Bruce Wayne from killing himself or somebody else. So Tim trained, he went on patrol, and he went home. Alfred occasionally convinced him to stay for a meal, but Tim was usually pretty good at making up excuses. He knew Alfred didn’t believe them for a second, but the butler was too polite to call him out for lying. At least, he was too polite to call Tim out for lying every time he did it.
But somehow—somewhere along the way—some small, hidden part of Bruce, one that he kept hidden deep below the gruff exterior that Tim always saw, had begun to care. Again, Tim isn’t stupid, he knows that it’s probably just Batman’s natural protective response to seeing a child in danger, but that changes everything.
He’d first gotten a glimpse of it one night while being held hostage by Two-Face. It had been your average, everyday hostage situation involving the man. Tim was tied up and dangling above a pot of whatever concoction of molten liquids Two-Face had deemed worthy of this particular situation. Batman had arrived, and Two-Face had started his monologue, idly flipping his coin as he spoke. Finally, he reached the crux of his speech, brandishing the coin dramatically.
“Heads and your little birdie takes a dip, tails and he flies free.” He flips the coin as he speaks, and by the time he’s finished explaining it’s landed in his palm. He glances down and smiles wickedly, reaching towards the lever that must connect to whatever Tim is being suspended by. “Say bye-bye.”
Tim—who had finished picking the lock to his restraints before Bruce had even arrived, but liked knowing how close to death he had potentially come—was shocked at the guttural shout that left Batman’s mouth as he lunged towards the lever. He was too slow, Two-Face wasn’t dumb enough to leave him enough time to actually stop him from pulling the lever, but it didn’t matter, because Tim was already leaping forward to tackle the man. The chains that had been surrounding him caused the mystery liquid to hiss and bubble even more than it already had been as they’re submerged, so Tim isn’t too upset that he’s missing out on anything important.
After that, it’s routinely easy to tie up Two-Face and make sure he’s secured for the GCPD. When Tim lands on the roof that Batman waited on, he’s expecting a lecture on carelessness and promises of a stricter training regimen being implemented. And in all fairness, he does get both of those things. He hadn’t been expecting the hands that accompany the stern words, gripping his chin and tilting his face every which way, prodding at his abdomen, and patting down his arms and legs. Tim doesn’t speak, too baffled by Bruce’s actions, but that’s probably for the best. The man doesn’t exactly look like he’s in the mood for talking, judging by the undiluted fury emanating from him.
When they’d gotten back to the Cave, Tim had been benched for three weeks, which he’d been expecting, and Bruce had squeezed his shoulder before sending him to shower, which he had not been expecting.
The warmth of the touch lingered on his skin all the way to the shower, and hope bloomed in his chest. This was a step. This was an improvement . Why hadn’t he thought of this sooner? Batman is a protector. Tim had seen him interact with kids on countless occasions. The best way to get him back to old form is to trigger that protective instinct. If he’s busy worrying about Tim, then he can’t focus on brooding and getting himself killed.
All Tim needs to do is get himself into situations that look more dangerous than they are.
Piece of cake.
There’s one minor flaw in Tim’s plan. He’d done the calculations, okay? He wasn’t just throwing himself into danger at every opportunity. If Bruce were constantly worrying about keeping him safe, not only would Tim probably get benched, but it would severely limit Batman’s effectiveness, which is not what Tim set out to do.
But danger was unpredictable, and that made it hard to calculate. Tim knew that some of the Rogues were less likely to go straight to murder than others. For instance, Ivy on a good day would never jump straight to murdering Robin as a way to get him out of the way. The Joker though, or Two-Face if the coin said so? They would. So Tim had to figure out which Rogues would put him in situations that would potentially kill him while also being situations that wouldn’t actually kill him.
If Tim wanted people who were dumb enough to try and kill Robin, he needed a crime lord. They couldn’t be any good at what they did, or else they might succeed, but they couldn’t be so incompetent that Bruce wouldn’t think he was in danger.
Unfortunately, those requirements left a very short list of eligible crime lords. Tim knew better than to take on most of the names on his list. After all, the very first crime lord on his list was Roman Sionis, and provoking Black Mask was never a good idea. Of course, the last name on his list was a guy who was brand new to the Gotham crime scene, and Tim doubted he’d last very long. Mostly because he insisted on everyone calling him ‘The King’. That was the kind of title you earned, and there were already rumors that Black Mask was planning to see if the man was worthy of it.
Spoiler alert from someone who’d already had to deal with the guy: he wasn’t.
Despite the stunningly low availability of eligible candidates, Tim managed to find three that would fit the criteria. The first was one he was most hopeful about. Frank Nolan was an old hand at Gotham crime, but he’d never seemed to take pleasure from hurting Tim like some of the other ones. Whenever Tim had been threatened by Nolan, the threats had been brutally efficient. He was never excessive with his violence, which Tim appreciated. He liked to try and return the favor whenever Batman arrived to save him. Nolan’s murder attempts always hinted at quick, painless deaths, which Tim preferred in case his plan failed. If Nolan didn’t seem to be enough, then Tim would move on to Alison Escobar. She was ruthless—one had to be to have power in the Gotham underworld—but she was new to the game. She’d killed her older brother to take over their family’s territory only a few months ago, and she was still getting used to the whole ‘crime-lording’ business. Bruce would probably take her seriously, if only because she had something to prove.
The last name on his list—Plan C—was one that Tim really didn’t want to go to. Red Hood was a new player, ruthless, and had Batman on edge. Initially, Tim thought it was the duffle bag of heads that unnerved Bruce, but as time went on he realized it was more than that. There was something personal about whatever was going on. Tim had been told on no uncertain terms that he was supposed to stay as far away from the Red Hood as possible, which meant seeing Tim in his possession would definitely set off Batman’s protective instincts.
Now that he really considers it, Plan C was looking more effective by the minute.
Plan A seemed promising.
At first.
Frank Nolan has Tim tied to a chair in an abandoned office building. His goons are stationed at every entrance, and the man himself is sitting in a chair across from Tim’s. The moment Tim wakes up, he presses the button to release the blade in his glove and begins sawing at the ropes holding his wrists together. Tim slowly raises his head, ignoring the throbbing emanating from the spot on the back of his head where one of those goons had knocked him out.
“Robin.” Nolan greets, face impassive but voice betraying a hint of amusement. When the criminals weren’t totally evil people, Tim could get along with them. He would have liked not being knocked out, but Nolan was typically willing to indulge Tim with a conversation before he got around to the less fun parts of being held hostage.
“Frankie.” Nolan didn’t like being called Frankie, not by anyone but his mother and younger brother, apparently. So that meant it was basically Tim’s duty as Robin to only call him that. “Whatever happened to blindfolds? Did you have to have your man knock me out?”
Nolan had the decency to shrug, nodding like he almost agreed with Tim. He gestured to one of the goons by the window, indicating that he was the one who’d hit Tim. If Tim didn’t know any better, he’d think Nolan had put him there on purpose, because they both knew that Batman was going to enter the building through the giant wall of glass the man stood in front of.
“He’s new, kid, what do you expect?” Nolan leaned back and stretched as he spoke, indicating that their conversation was nearing its end. Tim began sawing faster at the ropes. The one he’d been working on finally snaps completely, and Tim carefully loosens them as Nolan draws his gun and stands.
He levels it at Tim, and the look on his face reminds Tim that, as friendly as he may be, Frank Nolan is a Gotham crime lord, and Tim is a Gotham vigilante. Nolan may be slightly fond of Tim, but he’s more fond of the money he gets from his crimes, so any threat to that has to go.
And Tim’s a threat.
Luck is on Tim’s side that night, however. The sound of the ropes hitting the ground is overshadowed by the cacophony of shattering glass. Tim doesn’t even have to turn around to know that Batman has arrived, he can picture the way the cape flares as he swings through the window.
Tim ducks forward and rolls out of the chair. When he pops back up, a quick glance over his shoulder reveals a bullet hole where his head would have been. Nolan curses and sends Tim another shrug, a ‘what can you do?’ sort of expression on his face. His escape is covered by two large goons sliding in front of him, and Tim has to crane his neck to look them in the eyes.
“Excuse me, gentlemen, I just need to slide right past you.” Tim tries, gesturing like he’s going to try to squeeze in between them. The goons don’t seem amused, and Tim rolls his eyes. “That was a joke, guys. Lighten up.”
The goons don’t realize what Tim has realized—that the room around them is silent—until it’s too late for them. Batman looms behind them, shadows seemingly clinging to his cape. The men whirl around, but they hit the floor simultaneously before they can make a complete rotation.
Tim takes the opportunity to glance around, finding the rest of the goons to be in similar shape. Some of them are groaning on the floor, writhing in pain—and Tim grimaces as he notices the way some of their arms and legs are visibly, and nauseatingly, broken—but most are unconscious, which is an improvement.
Bruce steps over the men he just knocked out, not even sparing a glance downward, and grasps Tim’s chin. He carefully tilts Tim’s face in all directions, face impassive. His movements stop when Tim’s face is tilted downward, his grip on his chin tightening until it verges on uncomfortable.
“Batman?” The grip on his chin vanishes as he speaks, and Tim tilts his head back up. “Is everything alright?” As he speaks, he brings a hand up to feel along the top of his head, searching for whatever it was that Bruce had noticed.
He finds a subtle groove in his hair.
He glances back at the bullet hole embedded in the wall where his head had been and gulps. Plan A had been a little too close for comfort, and his backups were only more dangerous.
This is why Alison Escobar had been Plan B. Tim can barely think over the sound of blood rushing to his head as he swings gently over a hole in the floor of the warehouse. The scent of the water beneath him is enough to confirm it as the harbor, even if he hadn’t already recognized the warehouse around him.
“Imagine my surprise when my boys tell me they found a little bird wandering my territory.” He can’t see Escobar, but he can hear the heels of her boots click against the ground as she walks. “Who knew it was this easy to clip Robin’s wings?”
“Look, I know you’re new to the job and all, but if you want to be a criminal in Gotham, you have to be more original. Do you know how many bird-related puns I hear on a daily basis?” He gets a baseball bat to the ribs for his words, but he can’t find it in himself to regret them.
Escobar finally makes her way into his line of sight, holding the bat towards him so he has to cross his eyes to look at it. Though he has the lenses of his domino down, so it’s not like she can tell.
“I’m just saying,” Tim’s voice is a slight wheeze. “Your brother liked to make those kinds of jokes, and we all know how that worked out for him.” Escobar gears up for another swing, and Tim can’t resist making things worse. “Don’t you have a younger sister too?”
He registers the pain of cracked ribs before he realizes she’s swung the bat, and he has half a mind to be impressed at the speed she moved. However, he’s a little too distracted by the fire in his abdomen to feel anything other than pain.
“My brother was weak. How many times did he have the opportunity to take out Robin? But you slipped through his fingers every time. I’ve learned from my brother’s mistakes, I don’t intend to let you go free.” She pats his cheek with the end of the bat, and Tim rolls his eyes. “Drop him.”
He barely has time to register that her words aren’t directed at him before he’s falling. The dirty water of Gotham harbor rushes up to meet him, and Tim sucks in a breath a split second before he hits the chilly water.
He’s submerged to his knees when he feels something wrap around his ankles and jerk him to a stop. He decides to focus on whatever it is around his ankles later, and instead worries about the original ropes. He manages to slip one arm free and uses it to free the rest of his body. With his newfound freedom he grabs a rebreather to ease the ache in his lungs.
As his vision clears thanks to the oxygen now going to his brain, the thing wrapped around his ankles jerks roughly. Air rushes against his face, and Tim shivers even as his mouth opens and he gasps an inhale without the rebreather. He’s vaguely aware of somebody grabbing him and laying him down, and it’s not until he’s completely untied that he registers Bruce as the person manhandling him.
Normally, Bruce’s face had been impassive beneath the cowl, the only sign of his worry was the way his hands fluttered across Tim’s body, searching for injuries. Tonight, however, there’s a muscle in his jaw that’s clenching and unclenching, which means Bruce is really worried.
He’s not sure what to say in this situation, so he opts instead to say nothing. Bruce’s worry isn’t coming from a place of concern for him , just a place of concern in general . Tim wouldn’t want to overstep the boundaries of their working relationship by trying to reassure Bruce that he doesn’t have to worry about him .
As Bruce’s hands make their way to his ribs, Tim chooses to look at his surroundings. His surroundings don’t inspire much hope that his plan is working. If anything, Batman was even more violent with these goons than he had been with Frank Nolan’s. He’d even managed to keep Alison Escobar from escaping, and she had a bloody cut across her temple where she lay unconscious a few feet away. In fact, as he looked around, Tim realized that none of the other people in the room were conscious.
He’s brought out of his thoughts when Bruce’s hands reach his ribs. A sharp hiss of pain escapes his lips despite his best efforts, and the instinctual flinch does nothing to ease his pain. Bruce’s hands still, before they retreat completely.
“Oracle, I need the Batmobile and GCPD at my location. Update the police when they arrive, Robin has injuries that need to be tended by Agent A.” They must be on a private channel, because Tim doesn’t hear Barbara’s response, but Bruce nods like she’s given one. Then he does something that makes Tim wonder if he’d hit his head while taking down everyone else in the warehouse.
He picks Tim up.
Tim’s had broken ribs before. Bruce has helped him to the car and to the cave, but he’s never carried him to either of those places before. He can walk with broken ribs, so why has Bruce scooped him up like he can’t?
“Don’t think your injuries are going to get you out of our talk on recklessness. Alison Escobar is not seasoned enough for her to have been able to capture you.” Beneath the chastising tone of Bruce’s voice, something like relief can be found.
Tim is feeling the opposite of relief. Batman is the world’s greatest detective, if he starts getting suspicious, it won’t be long until he realizes that Tim is getting captured on purpose.
Plan C has to work, because Tim’s not sure he’ll be able to go any farther.
Ok, Plan C is definitely going to work. Tim doesn’t know much about Red Hood—which is why the man had been Plan C in the first place—but he definitely feels like his life is in danger right now. Maybe it’s a little too much danger, but he could definitely die today if he’s not careful.
Of course, he hadn’t realized how good Red Hood was. Tim’s training was thorough, he can slip just about any bonds someone can put him in. But right now, the ropes around his arms have so many knots and are pulled so tight that he can’t so much as wiggle a pinky, which is less than optimal. That means he has to rely one hundred percent on Bruce, because there’s absolutely no way he can see himself escaping on his own. Of course, even if he weren’t so thoroughly restrained, the gun pressed against his forehead would be able to dissuade him on its own.
“I heard you were supposed to be the smart Robin.” The mechanized growl of the helmet somehow holds so much hostility in it that Tim feels the back of his neck prickle.
“Is that what they’re calling me? I think we’re all smart in our own ways, but far be it from me to argue with the people of Gotham.” Tim does his best to project that signature Robin nonchalance, but if Red Hood is as good as he thinks, he’s not fooling the man.
The muzzle of the gun gets shoved further into his forehead, and Tim clenches his teeth together. All he has to do is keep the man distracted long enough for Bruce to arrive. Of course, that might be easier said than done considering Tim had watched the Bat Signal flicker to life right before he’d been knocked out earlier. If Batman was busy on a case, there’s no telling when he’d notice Robin’s absence. Especially since tonight’s patrol routes were solo routes. In all likelihood, Bruce would realize Tim’s absence when he didn’t show up at the rendezvous point at the end of the night. Tim wasn’t sure how long he’d been out, but since the final comms check-in had occurred minutes before he’d been taken, that would be in two hours, max. Unless the case Gordon had him on ran long, in which case Bruce wouldn’t notice until he realized he was past check in and called in over comms to send Tim home for the night.
There were too many scenarios to really give Tim an accurate timetable for Bruce’s arrival, so his only option was to delay for as long as possible.
“Smart Robin should know better than to be caught in my territory, don’t you think?” Hood tilts his head, but the movement feels less like a curious gesture than it does a predatory one.
“You know what, you’re right! Here, you untie me and we’ll try again. This time, I’ll stay on my side of Gotham and you stay on yours.” Tim is met with a gun to the cheek as soon as the words are out of his mouth. Then the gun is leaving his personal space and accompanying Hood as he strides to the table across from Tim.
“Explain something to me,” Despite the relaxed pose he’s taken, leaning up against the edge of the table, every muscle in Hood’s body is lined with tension. “I had eyes on you long before you crossed over into Crime Alley. I watched you stop on the roof of that old laundromat, where you stood and stared into space for five minutes.”
Tim clenches his jaw as he holds back a wince. So he’d been under surveillance for a significant amount of time without noticing. That’s great, Bruce isn’t gonna lecture him about that at all .
You know, assuming Bruce gets here in time to save him from certain death.
“So what was going through that tiny little brain of yours that told you it was a good idea to keep going?” Hood crosses his arms, but the lack of a gun pointing directly at him does nothing to ease Tim’s nerves right now.
“I didn’t realize how much smarter you are than you look.” Tim sends the man a grin, and is rewarded with the gun pointed in his direction again. He hears the safety click off—he hadn’t even realized it was on, damn it—and the smile slides off his face. “Wait–”
“Wait?” Hood’s tone is definitely mocking. “Wait to kill you? What do you want, an audience?”
Time tries not to react, he really does, but something about the Red Hood has him on edge. He flinches, and of course Hood notices it. Seriously, who trained this guy?
The gun lowers, and Tim can feel Hood’s attention narrow on him, even if he can’t see it through the glowing white lenses of the helmet. If Hood’s gaze was stifling before, it’s nothing compared to the way it feels to be examined by him.
“You want an audience.” Tim hates that stupid helmet. Without it, he might be able to read Hood’s facial expressions, his vocal inflections. With it, he knows nothing. “What the fuck is wrong with you?”
Tim gets the impression that Hood’s not really looking for a response, so he stays quiet. Sure enough, the man stands up and begins to pace back and forth, muttering to himself. Tim can’t understand anything he’s saying—he’s not even sure it’s English, honestly—but the man is getting more and more agitated, and the safety on the gun is still off. Finally, Hood stops pacing and faces Tim again.
“I thought Escobar was full of shit when I heard she was claiming to have almost killed Robin.” Tim doesn’t miss the way the hand holding the gun tightens then. “But when Frankie Nolan’s men are telling mine that they had a little bird in their grasp a few weeks before she did, I just assumed you were careless. Then I watched you decide to come into my territory and provoke me. You wanted me to see you. What are you, trying to martyr yourself?” He pauses, then somehow gets angrier . “This is fucking Bruce’s fault, isn’t it?”
He’s sure Hood’s waiting on a response—he’d asked a question after all—but Tim is too busy trying to keep his panic off his face to give him one. He’d said Bruce, right? Tim hadn’t just misheard him? That was Bruce, as in Bruce Wayne , Batman’s secret identity? Because if Hood knew who Batman was–
“Then I probably know who Robin is too. Is that what you were gonna say, Timothy Drake? Hey, here’s a pro tip, next time you think somebody figured out your identity, don’t fucking confirm it. ‘Smart Robin’ my ass.”
If Hood says something after that, it’s completely lost on Tim. There’s a roaring in his ears that drowns out any sound. All he can focus on right now is his failure. Two Robins before him and neither of them told a criminal that Batman was Bruce Wayne. Hood should just kill him now, because there’s no way Bruce is going to be feeling particularly charitable towards him after this. Even if he gets here in time to save Tim’s life, he’s definitely getting fired as Robin, and Batman will go right back to the rage-filled vigilante he was before Tim stepped in.
Tim doesn’t realize how much time he’s lost worrying until shouting breaks him out of his internal monologue.
“No, fuck you, Bruce. I swear to God if you show up here I will shoot you.” There’s a pause as Tim tries to focus his eyes on the man before him. “Fine, then I’ll shoot him.”
Hood holds up the gun to the phone at his ear and there’s a click, but then he shoves it back in its holster. Tim’s not exactly firing on all cylinders right now, but he’s pretty sure that guns are more effective when pointed at their target.
“Do I sound like I’m joking? I catch so much as a glimpse of those pointy ears of yours and Robin is–” Hood breaks off as the air in the room shifts. Tim relaxes, though the ropes that are still wrapped around him make that difficult. Hood, on the other hand, tenses even more, which Tim hadn’t thought would be possible.
He feels the presence of Batman looming behind him before the man even touches the ropes binding him. As Bruce carefully unties him, Tim takes the opportunity to examine the Red Hood.
The man is impossibly still, one hand resting on his holster and the other clenching the table behind him. The index finger on his right hand begins to tap restlessly against the holster and Tim’s eyes are drawn immediately to it.
Tim is the one who breaks the silence with a poorly concealed groan at the feeling of the circulation returning to his arm. He slowly brings them around to the front of his body, flexing his fingers and rolling his shoulders, doing whatever he can to get normal feeling back. If Hood gets violent, Tim’s not much help without his arms.
“Thank you.” Bruce’s voice is gruff, but it’s not quite the raspy gravel that normally comes when he wears the cowl.
A thanks was apparently not what the Red Hood was looking for, because the gun is out of the holster and pointed at Bruce before Tim can blink. In the tense silence that follows, a swift click can be heard as the safety is turned back off.
“Tell me, Bruce, are you trying to kill another Robin?” Nobody moves, but Tim is positive the temperature in the room just dropped ten degrees. “That wasn’t a fucking hypothetical question.”
“No.” Bruce sounds just as excited to answer that question as Tim had expected. Frankly, Tim’s surprised that Bruce didn’t immediately fly off the rails at the mention of Jason. Maybe his plan really has been working, because the Batman that he had first accompanied on patrol would have beaten Red Hood half to death for daring to bring him up.
“Well then you sure do have a natural talent for it. The first one escapes unscathed, by some miracle , the second one runs off to Ethiopia and gets himself killed,” Bruce’s hands clench the chair so tightly that Tim can hear the wood creak. “And the third one is throwing himself at crime lords as some sort of cry for attention.” One of Bruce’s hands moves to Tim’s shoulder, and Tim isn’t sure if it’s meant to be a reassuring gesture or a restraining one.
“Jason–”
“Don’t fucking Jason me.” A gunshot echoes through the room, and Tim knows without looking that there’s a hole in the wall beside Bruce’s head. “Fix this. Unless you want him to end up like me.” Hood turns and stalks out of the room, and Tim’s only mildly surprised that Bruce doesn’t follow. His mind is still reeling, but if what he thinks just happened did happen, he feels like he’s entitled to a few seconds of reflection.
Bruce doesn’t pressure him to speak, but he rounds the chair to kneel in front of Tim. He begins his usual check for injuries, this time starting with Tim’s fingers and working up to his shoulders. Tim’s voice returns to him when Bruce is checking his ribs.
“Jason?” Bruce almost doesn’t react, but Tim feels the slight stutter in his movements against his ribs. He sighs, quickly finishing his check and standing. Tim joins him and automatically follows as he heads for the window. For all of the threats he’d gotten today, the worst injury Hood had given him was a slight soreness in his arms.
The Batmobile idles beneath the window Bruce must have entered through, and they grapple down to it one after the other. It’s not until the car is making its way back to the Cave that Bruce finally responds.
“I told Nightwing yesterday.” Any hint of Batman has left his voice, and all that remains is weariness. Tim understands why, because Bruce and Dick had spent the better part of an hour screaming at each other in the Cave the previous day. Alfred had intercepted him before he’d gone down, or else Tim probably would have listened in.
“How long have you known?” Tim can’t keep the accusation out of his voice, and Bruce’s shoulders sag slightly.
“Two months.”
Tim doesn’t react, but it’s a close thing. Bruce had kept this information from them for two months . He’d kept the fact that his little brother was alive from Dick for two months. No wonder yesterday’s fight was so lively. Tim hadn’t seen Dick that angry since he asked him to be Robin again.
“And when were you planning on telling me ?” And damn it, Bruce is observant enough to pick up the waver in his voice. He shouldn’t be offended. If Bruce only told Dick yesterday, in what world would he tell Tim any time soon? But Tim’s supposed to be his partner, supposed to be the person he trusts completely .
“Tim,” Bruce turns to look at him, and Tim glances automatically at the wheel, confirming that autopilot is on. He still isn’t quite used to the idea of a robot driver. “This was not an issue of trust. This was an issue of your safety. We had reason to believe that Jason had a personal vendetta against you. Can you look me in the eyes and tell me that you wouldn’t have purposefully put yourself in danger in an effort to mend my relationship with Jason?”
Tim averts his gaze to his lap, hoping that Bruce doesn’t make the connection between his question and what Tim has been doing for the past few weeks.
“What were you thinking, Tim? Any one of them could have killed you.” Of course, Tim hadn’t factored in the fact that he was talking to the world’s greatest detective, and he’d probably intentionally led the conversation to that exact point.
Tim doesn’t respond, but Bruce is an expert at awkward silences, so he seems content to wait.
“I became Robin to help you heal, okay? I just noticed that you seemed more like your old self after I was in life or death situations.” Tim’s voice peters out on the last word, as he realizes how foolish his plan sounds when he says it out loud.
The car slows to a stop inside the Cave, and Bruce is opening his door and getting out before it’s in park. Tim moves to follow, only to find his door flinging itself open. Bruce is kneeling, cowl pulled down, and he reaches around Tim to unbuckle him. Bruce’s hands grip his knees and swing him around so that they’re facing each other, and then they migrate to his shoulders.
“Tim, I need you to listen to me when I say this. It is not your job to help me heal. You do that just by being Robin, I don’t want you putting your well-being on the line for the sake of mine. If you died–” He cuts himself off, and Tim watches with morbid fascination as his careful facade crumbles. His eyes water, and his mouth opens and closes rapidly, lips turning down at the corners. “I couldn’t handle it, Tim. I can’t lose you, I can’t lose another son .”
Tim’s own mouth parts, and he feels tears pooling against the adhesive of the mask. He reaches up to work it off his face, salty tears easily wearing down the adhesive. The air hits his face, cool against the damp spots, and Bruce sends him a small smile.
“You are my son, Tim. Just like Dick, and just like Jason,” his voice breaks on Jason’s name, but they both ignore it. “I worry enough for the both of us, you just focus on keeping yourself safe.”
Tim nods, then—in a moment of emotional weakness—tips himself forward until he lands against the chest plate of Bruce’s suit. Somehow, despite the hard edges of the armor and the rough texture of the kevlar, Tim’s never had a better hug.