Archive of Our Own

When Bruce enters the Batcave on the late Sunday afternoon, he’s relieved to find several of his children are already inside. Tim is on the computer, Steph at his side, likely finishing up the evidence write up of the case the two of them had cracked last night, and Dick and Jason are both sparring on the mats. Judging from the shine on Dick’s forehead, they’ve been going long enough to be looking for an excuse to break. All four of them look up when he clears his throat.

“Good, you’re all here. I need some input.”

He holds up a folder of loose papers – he’s learned the hard way that this kind of thing is best kept off any bat-related system if he wants to keep it a surprise. “I have a puzzle that could use some extra eyes.”

“Seriously?” Jason asks, though he’s already off the mats and stretching his arms to cool down. “Case you want us looking at?”

Tim’s also frowning, but steps away from the computer as Bruce reaches the bottom of the stairs and heads for the table they use for briefings, Steph at his side. “I haven’t seen you get focused on any cases. Is it new?”

Dick’s already sitting down when Bruce takes his own seat, and he waits for Tim, Steph and Jason to join before he opens the file. “Actually, I was hoping that you might want to help me brainstorm for Duke’s sixteenth birthday gift,” Bruce explains.

“Ohhhh, right. That’s coming up,” Dick says. “Are you planning a surprise party? Cause gotta say, you’re good , but I don’t know if you can hide that from Duke.”

“Yeah, don’t his powers kind of make that difficult?” Steph asks.

“I mean, it wouldn’t be impossible,” Tim offers. “But we’d probably need a Martian's brain altering skills to pull it off.”

“No, nothing that extreme,” Bruce says, before Tim can think of calling Miss Martian. “I was looking for help developing the case part. Alfred’s getting tired of being the only one I workshop with.”

As if summoned by his very name, Alfred appears from seemingly nowhere with a tray of hot drinks. “While I do enjoy the brainteasers, I do feel extra eyes would make it more authentic.”

Dick’s face lights up in comprehension. “You’re giving Duke a fake case for his sixteenth? That’s nostalgic.”

Tim’s face pales at the words, while Steph tenses, but Bruce doesn’t notice, nodding in Dick’s direction. “He might not be adopted, but he’s still part of the family,” Bruce tells him. “He deserves to be part of the tradition.”

“Wow, I forgot all about that…” Jason says, eyes going glossy for a second before he shakes it off. “Sure old man, if it’s for Duke, I’ll help. Even got some ideas.”

“Fake case?” Steph repeats. “Tradition? What are you talking about?”

Before Bruce can explain, Tim also speaks up, and Bruce frowns when he realises his son’s voice is a little shaky.

“Dick...Jason…” he starts. “You got fake cases on your sixteenth birthday too…?”

Dick laughs. “Yeah. He’s got a thing for those stupid cases. I remember B asked me to check out a possible terrorist attack, and after I had a freak out, realised he’d put a code inside the box it came in. All those red flags for targets turned out to be a trip to Six Flags. Great day.”

“Show off,” Jason snorts, kicking his heels up onto the table and leaning back in the chair. “I got a murder that turned out to be a night off with a movie marathon.”

“...I didn’t get one,” Steph says, though her face is torn – like she’s trying to remember something and failing.

“You were still quite new and not really part of the family when you turned sixteen,” Bruce says, though he sounds apologetic. “I tried to put something together for your last birthday, but I admit it wasn’t my best work.”

Steph nods, nodding with a soft smile as she remembers. “Right...that puzzle box thing. You took me shopping once I solved it…”

Bruce smiles and nods. “I did try to put one together for Cassandra too, but she realised what we were doing before we even gave it to her. Ignored the box entirely, walked up to me and asked where her ‘real’ gift was. And of course, Tim got one for his birthday.”

“Yes, with tickets to a new Escape Room for him and the Young Justice trio I believe,” Alfred offers. “Though we never did hear how well that went from-”

He’s cut off when someone slams their hands into the table, and every head jerks in Tim’s direction. The second Alfred lays eyes on Tim, his tone goes from jovial to hesitant almost instantly.

“Master Tim?”

The teen has stood from his chair, hands clenched in fists on the table, and is breathing heavily. His eyes look unfocused, and by his side, Dick reaches out automatically.

“Hey, Timmy, whats-”

His hand barely brushes Tim’s shoulder before Tim gives a full body flinch and jerks away from the table. Before anyone can react, he’s turned away, heading for the stairs like they’ve personally wronged him. He ignores any calls and flees with impressive speed to the manor, leaving everyone watching in confusion as he storms away – though Dick clearly notices Bruce looks a little guilty as he watches Tim leave.

“Damn, what’s eating him?” Jason scoffs. “Thought this kind of thing would be right up his alley.”

Bruce gives a small, guilty chuckle. “Yes, well, I imagine he’s probably still a little bit embarrassed about how his sixteenth went down. He didn’t realise it was a false case for quite some time.”

“No way,” Jason says, kicking down his heels and leaning over the table with a shit eating grin. “Mr. ‘Best Detective’ couldn’t smell a fake?”

Dick finds himself grinning. Oh yeah, Tim would be embarrassed about that. It is kind of hilarious though. “How long did he-?”

Bruce scratches the back of his head, looking uncomfortable. “Three days.”

Both Dick and Jason burst into laughter. Jason’s wildly cackling, though Dick tries to reign it in.

Neither notice that Stephanie is staying quiet, staring at Bruce with a blank expression.

“Oh...poor Timmy,” Dick snickers as they calm down. “Damian can never learn that. Tim might actually murder him to cover it up.”

“Agreed,” Jason says. “Plus, this is beautiful blackmail. I’m not sharing this with anyone. You didn’t think to come clean after the first few hours, Old Man?”

Bruce winces. “I thought about it, but given how quickly the two of you figured it out, I thought if I revealed the truth before he worked it out, he’d feel even worse having missed it.”

“We probably did let it go on longer than we should have,” Alfred admits. “Once we realised the scenario was causing him genuine distress, I put my foot down and we confessed the ruse.”

“How’d he take it?” Dick asks, and Bruce shakes his head.

“He threw his cape at me and quit Robin,” he says, watching as both of his son’s jaws drop. “To be fair, at the time he thought I’d chosen to intentionally traumatise him for his birthday.”

“Come on, you’re bad but you’re not that bad,” Dick jokes.

“Really want to make that argument?” Jason asks, though he’s still grinning. “How bad could the set up have been to get Little-Mr-Loyal to rage quit though?”

“It didn’t help that you tried to compliment his detective skills and then start listing everything he failed to take into account,” Alfred offers with some bite, and Bruce bows his head.

“I was trying to make him feel better,” he offers. “I admit I didn’t go about it the right way. But it was the right call. Two days later, Tim found the code and came back.”

“Wow. It took him another two days ?” Jason says, still sniggering. “I cracked mine in like, 40 minutes.”

Dick shakes his head. “You know Tim, he does have a tendency to hyper focus when he gets an idea in his head. We should probably keep the ribbing down till after Duke’s had his fun.”

“Yup. And there’s no way he’s taking five days, so he’ll get to join in,” Jason says. He’s probably right too, and Dick glances back at the stairs, wondering if he should go after Tim. On the one hand, Jason’s not going to let up on this and it’s never fun to have mistakes rubbed in your face, but on the other, Tim would probably really enjoy putting together Duke’s case, so maybe Dick should coax him back down. It’s hardly the stupidest thing anyone in the Bat’s has done.

“Um...B…?”

He’s pulled out of his musings by the tentative voice, and looks to Stephanie, who’s gone extremely pale.

And in that moment, Dick realises that despite Stephanie loving being able to get one over on Tim as much as Jason does, she hasn’t said a word throughout this whole explanation.

Judging from the frown growing on Bruce’s face, he’s realising it too. “Yes, Stephanie?”

“How do you know he found the code on day five?”

Bruce blinks. “...Because he came back as Robin on day five. I guess he could have found it on day four and just taken some time but-”

“But...he never actually said he figured it out, right?”

The glee has gone, and a dark, ominous feeling is starting to curl up in Dick’s stomach. Opposite him, Jason’s grin starts to fade away.

Bruce leans back, eyebrows furrowed as he thinks back to the night.

“He told me that he wasn’t going to ask me to apologise for what I did…” Bruce says. “I took that to mean he’d found it and was embarrassed that he hadn’t realised sooner. And I certainly wasn’t going to apologise for giving him a traditional gift – he was still family even if he wasn’t mine then. I...thought he’d spoken to Dick to vent and found out about the tradition...why else would he…”

He trails off, eyes flitting to Dick, who slowly shakes his head.

“No…I never talked to him.”

Stephanie swallows, leaning on the table like she’s about to reveal a terrible secret. Dick very much suspects she is.

“That night, after you revealed the whole future-enemy-case-is-fake, Tim came to me,” she explains, keeping her head down to stare at her hands. “He told me everything that happened – he was really angry at you. He thought you were training him to be more like you. I remember how you trained me and – well, I told him that it was kind of a compliment? When you were training me, you were mostly trying to get me to quit, but for Tim you were willing to put him through something pretty intense because you could see how much better he could get. He said he had to think about it, but the next day he put the Robin suit back on and...nobody ever brought it up again. And he definitely never went to any Escape Rooms. I was pretty possessive of his schedule back then, I would have known.”

Bruce’s face has gone chalk white. Next to him, Alfred is completely still, skin just as pale. Neither seem capable of talking. To be honest, Dick doesn’t want to be the one asking the question, but there’s an odd type of horror blooming in Jason’s eyes that makes him think it’s best he goes first.

“Stephanie, are you telling me Tim never actually found his real gift?”

The girl takes a deep breath, and looks up at the table with a sad smile.

“Yes Dick. That’s exactly what I’m saying. Until this conversation, Tim had no idea about this tradition. As far as Tim and I knew, all Bruce gave him for his sixteenth birthday was three days of emotional trauma in order to make him a better Robin.”

Dick jumps to his feet. Judging from his face, he’s screaming something at the girl in horror. Jason’s hands are slamming into the table, yelling just as loudly. Behind him, he thinks Alfred might be choking back a sob.

But Bruce isn’t listening to any of it. He’s already on his feet and running after his missing son.

As quick as it started, Dick and Jason’s screaming cuts off as Bruce flees the Batcave. It’s a testament to how shaken Alfred is that he doesn’t even reprimand him for wearing the suit upstairs. The cave feels abnormally quiet once the footsteps fade, and Dick sinks back into his seat, watching Jason do the same – though he looks ready to go at any moment.

No matter how hard he tries, Dick can’t make sense of this. Tim’s a great detective – on a good day he runs rings around even Bruce – there’s no way he’d mistake a fake case like the one Dick had gotten for something real. And even if he had – it wouldn’t cause this much trauma, unless Bruce had gone too far.

Something, Dick thinks with a sinking feeling, that Bruce has a habit of doing these days.

“What...what exactly was the case you set up for him?” Dick asks, almost not sure if he wants the answer. Alfred sags, and to their surprise, actually drops into the seat Bruce had vacated.

“Master Bruce wished to give Tim something a little more creative than he did with the two of you,” he explains. “So he concocted a transmission from the future, starring an older version of myself, telling Master Tim that there was a traitor among the Gotham vigilantes.”

Future...oh crap…Bruce you didn’t...

Dick winces. “I’m guessing Bruce wasn’t up to date on the Titan’s mission logs.”

Alfred frowns. “Would that have mattered?”

“Given that Tim and the other Titans recently had to foil evil versions of themselves from the future earlier only a few months earlier, yeah, I think that would have affected him. It really messed him and the others up for a bit.”

Alfred cover’s his mouth with his hand, shaking where he sits. “Oh...oh dear. Yes...In which case his reaction was rather...oh no…”

“Are you telling me Bruce literally handed the kid a tailor made personal fear box?” Jason snaps. “For fucks sake, all he did for me was fake a murder mystery. What the hell was he thinking?”

“Language…” Alfred says, though it's barely more than a whisper.

“Why are you so mad?” Steph snaps, her shock finally giving way to anger. “You were quite happy to laugh about it a few minutes ago.”

“Because a joke’s only funny when it has a punchline!” Jason snaps, glaring at the girl. “It’s funny if Tim spends a few days freaking out over nothing so long as realises he freaking out over nothing immediately after. Hell, I’ve seen him do that when his favourite brand of kale chips is out of stock! He’s spent years believing B did that to him as some kind of fucked up training, and nobody noticed.”

Dick wants to argue, but he can’t. For one good reason.

Tim has clearly spent years thinking Bruce wanted to train him to become less trusting. To be suspicious and paranoid so he could never be taken off guard. He quit in anger at the thought, but then accepted that when he came back as Robin. And adopted it as his new creed.

15 year old Tim was horrified at Bruce for having contingency lists. 17 year old Tim has his own set of lists. Dick’s always wondered what caused such a shift in his sweet-but-slightly-crazy little sibling. He’d assumed it was a survival mechanism to cope with everything that happened that year in between.

Looks like he was right, he just hadn’t realised the full context. Perhaps that short term retirement after Jack Drake learned the truth had been less about protecting their identities, and more Tim trying to escape what he thought was Bruce’s plans for him.

“I should have asked about it,” Dick finally says. “I wasn’t great with Bruce at the time, and I had a lot of things going on, but-”

“This is not your burden to bear, Master Dick,” Alfred insists. “You had no way of knowing Master Bruce would have done anything out of the ordinary if Master Tim didn’t speak about it. I remember how busy you were – you didn’t even make it back into Gotham until some time after Master Tim’s birthday. I was complicit. I should have ensured that Tim had realised the truth.”

“And if you take blame, I do too,” Stephanie says. “I’m probably the one that convinced Tim that Bruce did it to train him.”

“That’s the weakest bull I’ve ever heard,” Jason growls. “You are the only innocent one who was even a little bit in the know. Don’t even think about it.”

“He’s right, sounds like you were the only one who was actually there for him,” Dick says. “You had no way of knowing the full story. But god…”

He turns and looks up the stairs. “I’m just praying Bruce doesn’t screw this up even more.”

Dick genuinely doesn’t think Tim will be able to take it.

Tim has a habit of never throwing anything away. Even things that cause him deep visceral pain to look at. They’re a valuable reminder of what mistakes not to make.

Which is why, not five minutes after leaving the Batcave, he’s deep in the wardrobe of his old room, pulling out a box that has become a symbol of the start of the worst year of his life. Everything went downhill after his sixteenth birthday – when Batman decided Tim needed to be paranoid and suspicious in order to succeed as a vigilante.

Except apparently, he hadn’t.

He paces the room as he studies the box, checking every edge and the box lining. A minute later, his fingers brush against an odd material – the kind of coating they put on scratch cards. It’s scratched off with almost a manic fevor, and Tim’s left blinking at the set of numbers staring back at him.

He remembers every detail of this case perfectly. It damn near haunts him. And those numbers match words for the filing system used for the evidence trail.

It’s an address. For an Escape Room he knows opened not eight weeks before he turned 16, with a note stating he, Conner, Bart and Cassie all have open tickets to try out their newest room.

Almost instinctively, Tim dips his hand into his pocket, and pulls out his phone. He almost doesn’t care which of the three he calls, but it’s Bart that answers.

“Hey Rob! What’s up?”

Tim tries to answer, but finds his throat is dry.

“Rob…?”

“B-Bart…” he chokes out. “For my sixteenth birthday, did you and the others get tickets to-”

“Oh, the Escape Room tickets?” Bart finishes for him. “Sure! We finally going to reschedule that? Not sure they’re still good, but we can get new ones right?”

Tim kind of wants to throw up. “You never told me you had them.”

“Well, no, cause it was meant to be a surprise ?” Bart answers, sound confused. “We did try to hint on your birthday, but you said your Dad and Stepmom were doing a surprise party so we figured we’d have to reschedule, and then you went radio silent for a few days, and when you came back you weren’t in a great mood so we figured we’d wait for you to bring it up. And then...well, that wasn’t a good year for anyone.”

Yeah, Tim’s definitely going to throw up. “No...guess it wasn’t.”

“So, do you still want to-”

“I’ll call you later Bart,” Tim interrupts. “I just needed to check that. Thanks.”

“Oh...okay. You okay man? You kind of sound-”

“I’m fine,” Tim says. “I’ll see you soon.”

He hangs up before Bart can reply, then drops the box to lunge for his trash can, lunch quickly leaving his stomach as he retches from the revelation that’s just hit him.

He’s a moron. He’s a stupid, ignorant, moron. The code was right fucking there, and he’d barely looked at the box while he focused on the message it held. And when Bruce had told him the truth, the box got thrown to the back of his wardrobe, where it has moved from room to room as he moved. He’s never once taken it out to look at it.

Bruce had just been trying to give him the same gift he gave Dick and Jason. Make him feel like he belonged, and Tim had gone and ruined it with his obsessive panic.

God...how many other moments has he ruined with his need to overthink? How many traumatic memories of his are only traumatic to him because he’s too dumb and blind to see what’s actually happening? How pathetic can he be, to act like the people in his life are working against him when they’re just trying to reach out.

A good Robin would have figured it out. Two great Robins did figure it out. He bets Duke and Damian will figure it out in seconds. Tim’s the only one who missed the obvious.

Somehow, he finds himself crawling over to the wall underneath the window, pushing the bin away with his foot and leaning against the wall. His knees come up as he wraps his arms around them, breathing deeply as he tries to fight off the panic attack he feels looming.

He needs to get over this. Someone’s going to follow him, and he cannot let them see him overreacting like a stupid baby over a simple misunderstanding.

Just...he just needs a few more minutes, then he can put together enough of a face to make it back down. Go sit at the table and smile and help put together a challenge for Duke that he’ll no doubt solve before breakfast and laugh with the others about how good a Detective he’s beco-

The knock at his door brings him out of his spiral, but he tenses up again when he hears Bruce’s panicked voice through the wood.

“Tim? Tim, are you in there?”

He doesn’t answer, dropping his head into his arms and curling up. Just two more minutes. One even. Just enough time to-

The door opens with force, and Bruce pushes his way in, looking about as well as Tim feels. He stills at the door, taking in Tim’s curled up form, and his face just shatters.

“Tim...Oh god, Tim....”

A Flash couldn’t have crossed the room quicker – before Tim can even attempt to compose himself, Bruce is in front of him, kneeling with his hands on Tim’s shoulders.

“I swear, I thought you knew. When you came back after quitting that night, I thought you’d figured it out, that you found the tickets , ” he says. “I should have pressed, checked in about you going out. I-”

He looks utterly distraught, and Tim feels awful. Bruce is taking blame for Tim’s own stupidity.

He doesn’t let him finish, lifting his head up and trying to put a calm expression on his face. Judging from the look on Bruce’s, he fails.

“Bruce, I’m sorry…”

The hands on his shoulders tighten, and Bruce looks a little horrified. “What? Tim, you...why-”

He can’t help it, Tim feels the tears beginning to form, and he tries to hide his head, but Bruce won’t let him, one of his hands moving to cup Tim’s cheek, letting the tears hit his fingers.

“I’m sorry. I didn’t see it,” Tim sobs. “You went to all that trouble and – and I just messed it all up. I thought you’d do something like that to me, and-”

He’s caught off as Bruce shifts his hold, pulling Tim so that he’s practically in his lap, Tim’s head nestled in the crook of Bruce’s neck. “Son, you are the last person who should be apologising right now.”

Tim tries to pull himself away. “But-”

Bruce doesn’t let him loose “Tim, I realised you hadn’t spotted the ruse hours after you’d gotten that box. I watched you flail and panic for days and I did nothing. I was so scared to tell you, afraid you’d feel humiliated that you hadn’t seen it, that I just let you get worse and worse. I should have told you when you didn’t realise by the time your birthday was over – or at least called Dick and asked him to drop a hint. But I didn’t do anything.”

Tim shudders. “Why would you have thought you needed to,” he whispers. “Dick and Jason figured it out.”

“Not at first,” Bruce insists. “But Alfred was the one who conveyed their cases to them. And both of them told me that’s how they realised. Because Alfred would never agree to give them something that distressed them as much as it was.”

“...I thought someone was faking Alfred at first…” Tim whispers. “But when I realised it really was a recording of Alfred, that meant it had to be real, because-”

“Because he wouldn’t do something like that,” Bruce finishes for him, mentally cursing himself. “I shouldn’t have used a future setting. Dick and Jason had cases to do with terrorists and murder victims, easy enough to see through with Alfred at the helm. I thought you’d enjoy something a little more complex, but I went overboard. I miscalculated – I thought it being a future scenario would be fantastical enough that you’d have doubts.”

This time, Tim does manage to pull away, nearly collapsing to the floor as he falls from Bruce’s lap. He stared at his father in disbelief.

“Fantastical?” he repeats, his tears finally halting as he takes in Bruce’s words. “You said something like that at the end of it all. But Bruce, it’s easier to list the names of heroes who haven’t time travelled. Bart’s from the 31st century for god's sake!”

Bruce winces. “It was not my best choice of words.”

Tim’s scowls. “...You might have thought it fantastical, but you know? Not that long before my birthday, me and the Titans met future evil versions of ourselves?” Tim reminds him, and Bruce’s heart nearly stops. “So a communication from the future warning of an imminent threat-”

“-Was actually a perfectly legitimate fear for you to have,” Bruce says in dark realisation. He’d never actively kept up with reading Teen Titan reports, and while he remembers the basics, he also knows that he probably hadn’t read it when he was putting together Tim’s mystery.

He shakes his head. “Tim, son...I know this is worth absolutely nothing now but, I am so sorry. For letting you think this, for doing it in the first place, for not explaining anything...I will never stop being sorry for it. How you were even willing to-”

He stops, and blinks a few times. It’s the same expression Tim has seen him make in the cave, when crumbs of evidence finally piece together in the Batman’s head to see the whole cake. “Tim, back then…you said you weren’t going to ask for an apology?”

Slowly, Tim nods.

“And...because I thought you’d realised the truth, I said-”

“I hope not,” Tim quotes, thinking back, and gasps as Bruce lunges forward, grabbing his hands and pulling him back into his arms once more. This time, the hug is almost painfully tight, and Bruce’s hands are trembling on Tim’s back.

“You thought I’d do something like that to you. For your birthday . As a gift .”

“I’m sorry…” Tim starts again and Bruce nearly sobs.

“Tim, no, it’s... Tim . You went through something awful, never got an apology, and still came back to work with me. You let someone you thought was willing to hurt you like that adopt you. How could you even look at me after-”

He stops, as if unable to get the air into his lungs, and just holds Tim tighter, flinching when the boy makes a sound of discomfort from just how tight Bruce is holding on. “You should despise me. And I’m a little terrified that you don’t.”

“B...it’s okay…” Tim offers, starting platitudes almost instinctively. “I learned a lot from it, even if you didn’t mean me to. I’m the one who overreacted, you didn’t mean any harm-”

“But you didn’t know that!” Bruce half yells. “If you’re willing to forgive this, what else would you be willing to let me do to you? What lengths could I hurt you and still have you come back? What would you be willing to let someone else do to you if-”

He stops again. Just the idea is horrifying. Tim has many friends, but the people he cares about deeply are loved furiously and with vicious loyalty. If he gave that trust to someone with less than noble intentions…

Ra’s, and a scar on his son’s stomach quickly cross his mind, and he shudders at the new revelation of just how much worse that could have been when Bruce was lost in time.

Deep down, Bruce knows he’s not always a good man. He’s betrayed all of his Robin’s trust more than once for his own convenience before, and his mind has gone to dark places for the mission and never fully come back. While there are lines he won’t cross, he’s come very close. If he ever actually did go too far, he always believed his Robins and the Batgirls would stand in his way. Or at the very least walk away for good.

But he’s suddenly not so sure Tim would. The boy who came to Bruce that day to keep Batman from falling into the dark, seems to be perfectly willing to let that darkness fall on him if it keeps Batman sane. Willing to take cruel and harsh experiences on the chin so long as they’re framed as ‘training.’ And not once reach out and ask for help from anyone that could stop him.

Reluctantly, he pulls away from Tim and looks him straight in the eye.

“We’re not giving Duke or Damian fake cases,” he says, and Tim’s face falls.

“Bruce, it’s your tradition ,” he argues. “Dick and Jason, they clearly loved it-”

“Don’t get me wrong, we’ll still compose a fake case,” Bruce says. “But Duke will know right from the start that it’s a challenge. Something like what I gave Stephanie. There’s no reason to traumatise them for the sake of a surprise. They’ll still enjoy the puzzle.”

“But-”

“It’s not just for you,” Bruce offers. “Cass flat out refused to participate too. It’s clear it’s not serving the purpose it once was. So we’ll change it.”

He offers up a weak smile. “In fact, if we don’t have to make it realistic, we can get inventive with the case file. Really see what our minds can come up with. Make it more an escape rather than something he’d deal with every day.”

Tim shakes his head. “It’s stupid to change it just because I-”

“I won’t risk hurting any of my kids again,” Bruce tells him. “So you can stop protesting it. Dick and Jason would probably kill me if I tried anyway. They’re probably waiting to tear me limb from limb downstairs.”

That gets a frown. “They’re upset?”

“Extremely,” Bruce admits. “They were horrified when Steph explained what really happened. Dick’s probably not going to let you go the next time you see him. If I can bring you down with me, I might get out with all my limbs still attached.”

“I...I think I need a bit more time,” Tim says, though it sounds more like a question than a reply. Bruce nods.

“I understand. Want me to stay?”

It takes a few moments, and the nod is slow and hesitant, but Bruce feels his shoulders relax, and he shuffles around to sit against the wall at Tim’s side, wrapping one arm around the teen’s shoulders.

“I will make this right, Tim,” Bruce says, though it’s more to himself than the boy at his side. “No matter how long it takes.”

“Honestly, this right now makes up for more than you’d think,” Tim answers. Bruce ignores it – if this whole incident has proven anything, Tim won’t ever push Bruce even he should. Of all the traits Tim didn’t emulate Dick for, it had to be the one that keeps Dick emotionally stable when Bruce is being an idiot to his eldest.

“Tim...I know I am not the most...communicative of people,” Bruce starts. “And I rely on other people to do most of the emotional heavy lifting. But you can’t hold things in like this again. If I do something that hurts you, no matter how small it is, I need you to promise me that you’ll tell someone. Dick, or Jason or Alfred or the Teen Titans – whoever you’re comfortable with. I don’t want you suffering just because I can’t communicate what I’m doing. I understand why you didn’t back then, why you came to that conclusion, but please, promise me you’ll use that brilliant brain of yours and reach out.”

He squeezes Tim’s shoulder as his son leans into him. “I’m not much better than you at doing that these days,” he says.

“No Tim, you’ve always been better than me,” Bruce finishes. “You just need to remember that.”

Tim sighs, sinking into Bruce’s side. “No promises, but...I’ll try.”

Bruce sags in relief. That’s more than he normally gets from his kids.

“Also, if you want it?” he offers. “On your 21st, I’ll give you the best mystery I can concoct. Something you can enjoy. You will get to enjoy this tradition, if you’ll let me make it up to you?”

“...Honestly, I’d just be happy with another set of Escape Room tickets,” Tim mumbles into Bruce’s side, and Bruce just pulls him closer, smiling at the groan that act causes.

“I’ll get you tickets to every Escape Room on the East Code,” he vows. “And then I’ll build you one.”

“Please don’t” Tim whines. “You know Nygma will take that personally.”

“So? I’ll hire him. Problem solved,” Bruce replies, and smiles as that gets a small, quiet, but utterly genuine laugh from his son.

A few moments later, there’s another knock on the door, and Steph walks in. Her eyebrows raise at the two huddled under the window, but she doesn’t mention it, and instead walks over to sit at Tim’s other side.

“So, there are two incredibly ticked off older brothers outside this room desperate to make sure Tim is A) not having a mental breakdown or B) needing help hiding a body after he killed Bruce,” she says, nudging Tim as she speaks. “You okay with them crashing this party Boy Wonder?”

There’s a shuffle, and Tim looks her way to nod. “Yeah,” he replies. “I freaked out, but I’m better now.”

Steph chuckles. “Something tells me they’re not going to buy that. Hell, I’m not buying that.”

She leans over and prods Bruce’s chest with a finger and a scowl. “And you . Get ready for some long discussions about acceptable actions. Dick’s already preparing the speech. And I’ll be there standing at his side with my arms crossed and nodding at acceptable points when he finishes it.”

“Understood,” Bruce sighs, already mentally preparing himself.

“Good,” Steph says, and then calls towards the door. “All clear, come on in!”

Dick and Jason both rush in – Dick immediately grabbing Tim in a tight but short hug, while Jason scowls in Bruce’s direction. But within a minute, both of them are both on the floor, huddled together under the window.

Dick is asking questions, while Tim tries to brush him off without giving details. Steph is trying adding her own commentary, while Jason offers sniped barbs Bruce’s way for his choice of actions, but Bruce lets all of it wash off him. He’ll accept the blame and regret and no doubt Alfred’s retaliation later. For now, he only has eyes for Tim. His son who’s too damn good at keeping what hurts close to his chest.

They’re not better yet. This is a new, raw wound that nobody had even realised was bleeding. This will take time and action to fix.

But they will be.