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Tim drives up to Wayne Manor through the civilian driveway. His personal code for the gate is somehow still muscle memory, despite not using it in months. He’s not here as family, but then again he hasn’t really been family to most of the Waynes since Bruce ‘died.’
Any hope of that changing after Tim discovered Bruce was alive and helped bring him back with the Justice League is gone. Damian still hates him for existing and daring to be Bruce’s son (as if Bruce hadn't been the one to insist on adopting him while Tim invented a fake uncle - not that he didn't want to be Bruce's son. It's one of the best things to happen to him, right up there with being Robin).
Dick ditched the Batman suit, his guardianship of Damian and Bruce after one meeting with him and left for Buldhaven without so much as a word to Tim.
Alfred… Tim doesn’t really know. He hasn’t been able to talk to the man, far less look at him since he forged a letter from Bruce claiming that he intended for Robin to be Damian’s, not Tim’s.
The only Waynes that haven’t completely rejected him are Cassandra Wayne and Bruce himself.
His sister clearly has more survival skills than Tim because she saw something change in Dick and Alfred’s behaviour when they met Damian and got out before they could push her out like they did with Tim. Before leaving, she told Tim that there was space for him in Hong Kong with her. Sometimes he wishes he had taken her offer - but then who would’ve realized that Bruce was still alive, trapped in the time-stream? Damian? Dick? Alfred? Steph, once she stopped faking her death? The idea was laughable. They hadn’t even believed Tim, not until Tim had gotten overwhelming evidence and convinced the Justice League.
As for Bruce… that’s why Tim’s here. Before Bruce disappeared, things between them were good. The best they’d ever been. Bruce had been eager to adopt him. He had been on the same page as Tim - both of them wanted Tim to be Robin for the long run, not just a kid role for Bruce’s children to grow out of and ditch before turning eighteen. Then again - Tim had thought that Dick and Alfred were on the same page as Tim and looked at what happened. Not only had they stolen Robin from him for an ill-prepared missile of a demon brat, Tim was demoted to being a ‘second class’ son of Bruce because he didn’t share any blood with his father. Nothing that Bruce gave him was his - not if Damian so much as looked at it with envy.
A year ago, Tim would have laughed if anyone had insisted that Bruce held blood superiority ideals. Now, he’s not laughing. Two of the three people (Lucius Fox included) that have known Bruce the longest as Batman, Brucie Wayne and Bruce the father hold blood superiority ideals. What does that say about Bruce?
He doesn’t know. He’s scared to find out, but sitting around the Nest or his penthouse near WE and wondering is worse. Better rip of the bandaid sooner and start recovering than let the wound fester.
Tim doesn’t bother parking his car in the garage, instead leaving it near the front door. His key to the front door still works, and Tim realizes that surprises him. The way Dick and Alfred were catering to Damian’s every request, Tim wondered if they would listen to his orders to change the locks after Tim moved out.
Another surprise is that the inside of Wayne Manor doesn’t look too different. Sure, the odd piece of furniture still has a white sheet over it and every room has at least one wall with evidence of Damian-fist size holes or slits from one of Damian’s katanas from his temper tantrums or attempts to murder Tim but most are repaired.
Tim takes the scenic route. He passes by the kitchen and genuinely smiles when he sees the burn mark on the countertop from the first time when he and Bruce tried to cook together on Alfred’s vacation day. He’d been thirteen years old then, and Bruce had been drowning in grief, alcohol and anger. Tim had been insistent on cooking soup, and Bruce had worried that Tim would send the manor up in flames. Somehow they had made it work; the soup had been decent and Bruce had managed his first smile in months.
The game room has no dust but still somehow looks like no-one’s been in there since Bruce died. The armchair is still crooked, facing the table and sofa where Tim and Bruce had their last chess game. The actual chess set is in Tim’s penthouse - he had been sure that the moment Damian’s eyes landed on it the entire thing would’ve gotten thrown into the nearest fireplace. Now looking around the room… he’s not so sure. All of the video games and boardgames Tim hadn’t taken with him are still here, looking as if they hadn’t been used in a year. Dick had been Damian’s guardian - his father for all intents and purposes, and Alfred his grandparent. Hadn’t they played with him?
Tim tries to picture Damian laughing and gracefully losing chess or mario cart to Dick like Tim did years ago and fails. Around him, Damian had been nothing but aggressive and antagonising. Surely the brat had a softer side around his loved ones?
Tim moves on. His old room is completely void of possessions. The only thing remaining are all the holes and slits where Damian went to war. Unlike the rest of the house, Alfred hadn’t even tried to repair it, and Tim can see why. It would’ve been easier to replace the walls. The sight cuts into him deeply. Alfred had made the effort for the rest of the Wayne Manor, but no effort for Tim's space.
This was the place where Bruce turned from a symbol that Tim believed in, from a partner in Gotham’s streets to a confidante and father. Here, Bruce had helped him with his chronic insomnia; testing everything from weighted blankets to white noise to back massages. Here, Bruce had helped him through the nightmares from the trauma of being a vigilante to the nightmares that followed his first parents passing. Here… Tim feels like this was the first place that he was loved, not because of his blood obligation or his potential, but because of who he was then and there. Because he was Tim. Just Tim.
Tim moves on after the first tear falls. He takes a moment to compose himself, and then enters Bruce’s study. Through the far window, Tim can see the Wayne gardens that Bruce hired gardeners to meticulously maintain just the way his mother or ‘Tim’s grandmother’ as Bruce used to refer to her, had it. In the center is a gazebo where he and Bruce had picnics and watched actual Robin birds and their babies every once in a while during the spring and summers. Tim has about a thousand photos from that gazebo saved on his phone - about five percent are photos of Bruce he managed to sneak in.
Beyond that is a flat patch of concrete and a trap door. It’s been painted over to look more aesthetically pleasing. Neither Bruce, Tim or Cass had an inch of artistic talent, but somehow that made it all the more fun - there was no pressure for their painting to look perfect. By the end, the three of them had been covered in more paint than the trap door. Alfred had been furious but Tim and Cass hadn’t been able to stop giggling until they reached their showers. Bruce had smiled the entire time, not a trace of grief or Gotham’s burdens underneath the hand - shaped paint stains that covered most of his body.
The last time he checked, Tim’s name had been painted on that trapdoor beside his sister’s and dad’s. He idly wonders if it’s still there, or if Damian or Alfred erased it, and then realizes that he doesn’t want to know. He wants to leave that memory of him, Cass and Bruce untainted.
The rest of Bruce’s study is devoid of all signs of Tim. Gone is their adoption photo that was resting on Bruce’s desk. Gone are the family pictures with Barbara, Cass and Dick on the wall. Gone is the little pottery piece of Batman Tim had been forced to make as part of his high school art class that Bruce had treasured and kept on his shelf in plain view. Gone, gone, gone.
Tim doesn’t linger. It barely takes a moment to open the grandfather clock and slip through. Tim’s moving down the massive staircase before his eyes acclimate to the darkness. Despite not jogging down these stairs in months, the spiraling path is muscle memory; Tim could jog down blindfolded without stubbing a toe.
At the bottom, Bruce is sitting in front of the batcomputer. Tim exhales in relief when he doesn’t see Damian hovering around. He’s here to get closure and maybe probably say goodbye - he doesn’t want to deal with Damian’s constant insults and attacks, not in the last few moments he’ll have with Batman.
To Tim’s surprise, the man noticed him before Tim spoke up. It’s odd - more often than not when he’s in the middle of a particularly intriguing or complex case, he stopped noticing everything around him; Alfred cleaning and leaving food, Tim ‘borrowing’ his cape, Cass reading over his shoulder and in a few rare cases with Cass - painting his batarangs with a neon pink glitter paint.
“Tim.” Bruce greeted him with a smile. “Hello. What brings you here?”
Straight to the point, then. Tim exhaled slowly. He has already made up his mind, but handing over the letter felt like moving through thick molasses.
Wordlessly, Bruce’s smile fell as he ripped the envelope open and skims through the letter. The corners of his mouth sharpened, falling downwards the way they always do when something personally offended him. His fingernails turned white from how hard he held onto it.
“What is this.”
“My resignation letter. I’m done being Red Robin. I’m done being a vigilante.”
Surprisingly, saying it out loud was a relief, a weight off his shoulders. It was not a decision Tim made idly, but it’s something that has been floating around the back of Tim’s mind since Dick, Alfred and Damian stole Robin from him.
Tim didn’t become Robin because vigilantism seemed cool, or because he wanted to join Bruce during his nightly adventures or because it was a thrill - like the previous Robins had. Tim believed in Batman and Robin’s partnership. It was almost a philosophy to him. Batman couldn’t be effective without Robin, and Robin couldn’t be effective without Batman, and Gotham needed both of them. They were doing good work; under Bruce’s Batman and Tim’s Robin, crime rates had almost returned to what they were when Thomas and Martha Wayne were Gotham’s darling philanthropists - the best in the past century.
Robin was meant to be a light and hope to both Batman and to Gotham. It was only because Dick refused to retake that role, Jason had died and later returned a villain - the opposite of Robin stood for - that Tim had taken the role. Robin had never been a kid role he intended to eventually grow out of. Tim had poured everything he had into being the best Robin he could’ve been to save the city he loved; the people he loved.
Seeing Damian assault innocent civilian Gothamites out of insecurity and non-existent emotional regulation, escalate gang wars and be a downright darkness terrorizing Gotham was unbearable to watch. It was not something that Tim would ever want to be part of. But Damian had Dick and Alfred’s protection, and there was nothing Tim could do about Damian without violating his own values or their identities.
Tim hadn’t wanted to be Red Robin. He had temporarily borne the role to bring Bruce back from the time stream, but he didn’t like it; Red Robin was a creature of pain, rejection and loneliness. Nothing like the shining beacon of hope and light that Robin was.
It was a painful decision, but if Tim couldn’t be Robin, then he wouldn’t be any vigilante. He wouldn’t give up on saving Gotham, but there were plenty other avenues - most of them legal - to help the city. Becoming a private detective, and getting involved as an executive in one of the Martha Wayne Foundation many charities topped the list - and he had the skills, connections and money to do both, easily.
A loud tearing noise drags Tim out of his thoughts. Bruce has stood and ripped the letter in half, in quarters. The pieces slowly drift to the cave floor.
“You can’t quit.” Bruce, no Batman growls out, defiant.
“The hell I can’t!” Tim snaps, then half pivots so he isn’t staring at Bruce.
He pinches the bridge of his nose and tries not to let his feelings overwhelm him. Naming them helps - fear that he’s trapped with Damian trying to kill him and invalidate everything he considers precious. Anger, that Batman is dismissing him. Furious, because no one is letting him make his own damn choices - it’s Tim’s life. Who the hell is Batman, Nightwing, Agent A and Talia's brat to choose for him?
It's not like Tim hadn't considered this reaction - Bruce jumping straight to denial. He hasn't accepted Tim's compromise to stop being Robin to keep their identities secret when Jack found the batcave. No, he had made Stephany - Tim's ex-girlfriend Robin. Until Tim had met Damian, he'd been sure that she was the worst Robin, after starting a multi-gang war across Gotham when she didn't get her way.
Tim tries to remember what his plan was, in the event that Bruce rejected his resignation.
Right. Reason with him. That had seemed somewhat plausible yesterday, when Bruce hadn't been three feet from looming over him, visibly upset.
It's ironic that Tim is forced to rely on his Robin training and procedure to get out of vigilantism. He drags a chair to the batcomputer and sits across the empty bat-chair, staring pointedly.
Bruce refused to sit, his jaw clenched the way does when he's really upset.
Great.
“Why can't I quit?” Tim asked, doing his best to keep his tone calm.
Yelling is unproductive - that's what Dick always did when he fought with Bruce and it always ended with both of them upset, not talking for months to years and nothing resolved.
“Gotham needs you.” Bruce said, tense. “Now more than ever.”
Tim wondered if that was a reference to Damian.
“I can help Gotham in other ways.” Tim replied, honestly. “I continued funding the Martha Wayne Foundation charities while you were gone and developed connections to at least a few executives in each. I'm fairly confident they'd let me have a more hands on approach, even if most of the managerial and higher level positions might be out of my reach without a high school diploma and some more… legal experience, besides a month of being CEO of Wayne Enterprises.”
“Volunteering with charities isn't the same as being a vigilante.” Bruce said, and Tim can see that his approach is starting to work on Bruce. The most stubborn man Tim knew was listening and debating. “I tried the charity approach, before I left Gotham. It's not enough, not immediate enough. There will always be a limiting factor that prevents you from helping everyone who needs it, be it space, funding, safety, social reach-”
“I know, I know. It's not a plan that fixes all of Gotham. Just a piece. And it's not like Gotham will be without vigilantes. There's you, and I think Cass is coming back and…” Steph and Damian, but Tim didn't want to name his shitty replacements.
“It's not the same.”
“I was also thinking of becoming a detective.”
“You're already a detective, Tim. The-”
“No, I mean like a private detective. Separate from vigilantism. I know what you're thinking - there's a risk to our identities because all of Gotham's vigilantes are supposed to be detectives, but think I can pull off if I can capitalize the starting point on your publicity return story - how I found you stranded on that island and my passion for mysteries, you know. If Brucie Wayne can get away with funding the Justice League without a significant chunk of the public immediately leaping to ‘he's batman,’ I think I can manage becoming a private detective without them thinking ‘he was an old Robin several months or years ago.’”
Bruce didn't respond, instead practically collapsed into the bat chair, elbows propped up on the desk and eyes covered with his hands.
“You've thought about this.”
“Yeah. Just because I won't be a vigilante anymore doesn't mean that I’ve stopped caring about Gotham, or stopped wanting to save it, Bruce.”
“I can't convince you to stay, can I.” Bruce leans back to look up at the stalactites at the top of the cave.
Tim bitterly thinks that no, there's actually a few things. Before Bruce got trapped in the timestream he had done them all: assured Tim that he was Robin and that Bruce had no intention of giving it away, and sent Damian back to Talia after he tried to kill Tim.
But there's something utterly defeated in his body language. As much as there's a large cavern between them, carved by Bruce's forced absence, Dick, Damian and Alfred, some part of Tim will always love Batman, love Bruce. Tim got up and stood next to Bruce, cautiously placing his hand on Bruce’s.
“B?”
“We made a good team.” Bruce says, and despite the context, it's all Bruce speaking, no Batman. There’s a softness that Bruce reserves for his children and an inherent harshness to Batman and this is all the former, none of the latter. “You were a good partner. The best.”
Bruce's hand flipped over, and they're not quite holding hands but it's affectionate and comforting.
A lump rises in Tim’s throat. “The - the best?”
“It's unfair of me to ask you to keep being my Robin, but you're the only one who approached it selflessly, as an ideal of how to serve Gotham, instead of a thrill, a game or revenge. Who thinks before acting, who has the range to help everyone; not just the people you identify with. I don't think I can find another Robin like that. You said you were in this for the long run, but I'll respect your choice and figure something out if you're determined.”
Tim stared. Somehow, in all the theorizing he'd done, Bruce asking him to be Robin didn't come up. He could defend his decision to stop being Red Robin all day but Robin - it's (almost) everything Tim has wanted.
“But.” Tim heard the tremble in his voice, and it made part of him cringe. “What about Damian? You know. Your current Robin? Your sole blood son?”
Bruce scowls. “Damian is not my Robin. If he wants to stay at the Manor and become a vigilante instead of staying with Talia or the League, then he has a lot of work to do. I don't know why you gave up Robin or how it got to Damian, but I’m reviewing all the reports from when I was gone and it's clear he’s not even remotely close to ready for it.”
Oh.
Oh.
It hit Tim like a eureka moment. This is the same Bruce from before the time-stream, the same Bruce that had carried Tim to the medbay, stayed with him and later assured him that Tim was his Robin. This is the same Batman that had chased down Damian who led him to Talia, given them an undeserved second chance to get out of Gotham and called Damian a ‘little guided missile’ - not that Tim was supposed to know that, but the Batsuit automatically saves video and audio logs and after four years Tim knows all of Bruce's passwords.
“I didn’t.”
“You didn't..?”
“I didn't give up Robin. Alfred forged a letter from you to prove to Damian you wanted him. Dick took it and told me to grow up because Damian needed it. They both thought he deserved it more because he's your ‘real blood son.’” Tim leans over the batcomputer, closes Bruce’s current windows and pulls up the electronic copy of Alfred’s letter.
“I… would have never said this.” Bruce said. “I don't - you're all my kids. I don't value Damian more or you less because he's blood, or you're adopted. Dick really replaced you with Damian? After all that resentment when he thought I did the same with Jason?”
Tim threw his hands up. “That's what I told him!”
Bruce looked like he was a hair strand away from swearing at his eldest child. He rubbed his forehead, and then placed both hands on Tim's shoulders.
“Tim, sweetheart, I'm sorry he - they mistreated you. You're my son, and Damian's existence doesn't change that. Robin is yours for however long you want it, and if you chose to move on I would appreciate your help to choose and train the next one.”
“I meant what I said. I'm in this for the long run, Bruce. I'm Robin.”
Bruce pulled him in for a hug. The tears came without Tim's permission - all of the stress, fear, sadness and anger festering since Bruce disappeared. Bruce rested his chin on top of Tim's head and rubbed his back.
“Sorry.” Tim mumbled.
“Don't be. I should've known something was seriously wrong after seeing Damian in your costume, or your room empty and riddled with holes.”
“What did you think?”
“Ra’s ninjas attacked and the four of you retreated to a more defensible location than the Manor.”
Tim hummed, a non-answer. Ra’s had been involved - had stolen his spleen - but he felt drained. That would be a story to tell Bruce another day.
“Where is Damian, anyway?”
“He's spending the night with Alfred in the penthouse. Alfred didn't want us coming back to the Manor before he dusted the place.”
“Dusted or hidden evidence.” Tim mumbled, thinking about his room full of holes.
“Tim, I know your room is… unusable and you have your own place now but I want the Manor to be a home for you. We could fix it up together and put a few of your old posters back up.”
Tim laughed, wetly. “That sounds good. Doesn't make any sense if Damian’s just going to come back and destroy it though.”
“I'm looking into getting a live-in therapist for Damian, and a spell that would prevent them from revealing our secrets.” Bruce said. “I know he tried to kill you before, and I'm guessing he didn't stop and Dick and Alfred didn't take it seriously.”
Tim shaked his head, no.
“I didn't take that lightly before, Tim and I'm not taking it lightly now. I wouldn't invite you back into danger.”
“I know.” Tim said, choked up. He had almost forgotten what it was like to be able to trust a parent to protect him. It was nice.
“Good.” Bruce checked the time. “It's still pretty early. We can go up and play a game of chess or we could go for a short patrol. You can show me what parts of the city changed while I was gone?”
For the first time in a long time, Tim grinned, and left to get ready. His old Robin costume was a bit dusty, but it still fit and it felt right, in a way that the other one never did.
“Ready to go, Robin?” Tim’s Batman was dressed in the batsuit and standing next to the batmobile. Barbara was setting up to be Batman's Oracle for the first time in months. Cass was on her way back. The team, their family was coming back together.
Tim beamed. “Ready.”