Archive of Our Own

Chapter Text

On Monday morning, Tim’s door is closed and the room beyond it is quiet.

For the second time in only a handful of hours Bruce finds himself standing in the same spot, not quite able to raise his hand and knock.

The first time had been right after patrol. It was something he used to do when Tim still lived in the manor. Most nights, Batman and Robin hit the streets together. But if Tim turned in early or stayed home to study—something that happened less and less the longer he remained Robin—Bruce always checked in on him at the end of the night. Sometimes Tim was awake and still working in bed, ignoring the concept of sleep hygiene with the cheerful abandon of the young. Other times he was nothing more than a softly snoring lump hidden beneath the blankets.

Bruce had hoped that Tim might still be awake enough to talk, even if it was only briefly. But when he stopped by the first time, he heard multiple voices speaking over each other on the other side of the closed door.

Technically the weekend was over—Sunday night having long since dissolved into the early hours of Monday morning—and Tim’s friends should have been gone by now. But from the sounds of it, Conner and Bart still hadn’t left.

It was probably for the best. Trying to talk to Tim then was an impulse born out of nostalgia, not sense. Bruce was tired from patrol. Tim, after another full day spent with his friends, was likely tired too. It wasn’t the right time for a real conversation. And trying to recreate the ritual of checking in felt like a potential misstep, something that would draw more attention to the fact that they hadn’t lived under the same roof in nearly two years now. Their lives no longer overlapped on a daily basis the way they once did.

Instead, he went to bed without interrupting them and set his alarm early so that he could catch Tim before he left for his morning meetings at WE.

But now Bruce is in the same spot, still hesitating. And the room beyond Tim’s door is silent.

They’re either asleep or gone. Alfred was supposed to inform Bruce if they left, but Tim’s more than capable of sneaking out, even without the aid of two friends with superspeed at their disposal. And it seems late for them to still be asleep.

Opening the door without knocking feels wrong. Tim’s become fiercely protective of his privacy in the past few years. And if he and his friends are still inside, fast asleep—Bruce hopes they’re asleep—he doesn’t want to wake them.

It shouldn’t matter. If Tim’s already gone, that just means Bruce will have to track him down at the office or at his apartment. Hardly a difficult task.

But it feels like a bad sign. He already knows that Tim’s not keen to talk to him, but if Tim's slipping away in the middle of the night just to avoid him, then things between them are worse than Bruce realized.

With a slowly growing sense of dread, he forces himself away from the door and makes his way downstairs. He can smell Alfred’s cooking as he nears the kitchen, but he doesn’t hear any voices. Another bad sign. Tim’s friends are incapable of staying quiet for long.

When he finally reaches the room, he finds two people there: Alfred, standing at the stovetop, already in the midst of his breakfast preparations, and Conner Kent, seated at the kitchen table surrounded by a sprawling mess of notebooks, textbooks and a battered backpack covered in patches.

Relief hits him immediately. If Conner’s still here, then so is Tim.

Alfred greets him with a crisp, “Good morning, sir.” Conner, mouth full of toast, offers him an awkward wave and a mumbled greeting. Bruce scans the room just to make sure that he hasn’t missed anyone, but based on the amount of food Alfred’s preparing, he’s fairly certain that Bart Allen’s already vacated the premises.

“Sorry for the mess,” Conner says as soon as he’s finished chewing. He places one hand on the tabletop, and all of his things begin sliding toward him, neatly stacking themselves next to his open bookbag. “Last minute cram session. One month in space was just long enough for me to forget...pretty much everything.”

“Mister Kent is determined to be the first of his cohort to graduate,” Alfred says in an approving tone.

“First of the guys, anyway,” Conner says. He looks at his books again and sighs. “Learning stuff was a lot easier when they just dumped it into my head.”

When Bruce sits down on the far side of the table from Conner, Alfred immediately brings him a cup of coffee and the morning paper. The latter is reassuring. He knows it’s Alfred’s gentle way of telling him that he doesn’t need to make polite conversation.

As soon as Bruce picks up the paper, Conner relaxes a little and turns his attention back to the textbook in front of him. He’s wearing what looks like yet another band shirt, although the design is partially obscured by two multicolor ties hanging loosely around his neck. Probably some new fashion trend that Bruce hasn’t noticed yet. The patches on his backpack look like they’re also mostly the logos of bands or possibly television shows. The only obvious exception is a familiar yellow lightning bolt on a red background.

He wonders, idly, if Impulse is the one who put it there. That would explain the anomaly. But it’s just as possible that Conner chose it himself. Superman has made appearances in nearly every part of the country, including Kansas, but he’s still thought of primarily as an East Coast hero due to his close ties to Metropolis. The Flash, on the other hand, is the Midwest’s darling through and through. His emblem would be a more fitting choice for the normal Kansas student that Conner pretends to be.

Bruce considers the question for another moment. It’s an old habit of his: evaluating other heroes’ secret identities and trying to determine which details are deliberate attempts to shield themselves from suspicion and which ones are simply a genuine expression of who they actually are. Very few people maintain a civilian identity that’s as thoroughly compartmentalized and falsified as Bruce’s, but everyone makes some small adjustments to how they present themselves when they’re off duty. Dick is fundamentally the same person with or without the mask, but even he curtails a few of his more noticeable habits. Dick Grayson never makes puns in public, because quips were such a well-known part of Robin’s shtick.

During the early days of the Justice League, Bruce convinced himself that this was a useful mental exercise. A way to assess his colleagues’ diligence and identify potential problems. But he’s long since realized that his speculations were, at their heart, largely self-indulgent. Most of his theories about the minutiae of his teammates’ lives couldn’t be substantiated by observation or investigation. The only way for him to confirm or correct them was through conversation.

Clark was the person he found hardest to pin down. After their first few encounters out of uniform, Bruce begrudgingly admitted, if only to himself, that Clark Kent was the perfect disguise for Superman. Working as an investigative journalist gave him a great deal of plausible deniability when he showed up in unexpected places or knew things that he shouldn’t have. And it was difficult—almost impossible—to imagine that one of the most powerful beings on the planet spent most of his time as a self-effacing, overly conscientious reporter.

Early on, Bruce came to the conclusion that it was all deliberate. Clark Kent was a persona carefully crafted in response to the needs of Superman.

He’d thought it was something they had in common. That they were both more genuinely themselves in a cape and a symbol, not a suit and tie.

The truth is more complicated. Clark is deliberate about how he presents himself when he’s playing at being a normal civilian, but many of his choices have less to do with hiding his alter ego than Bruce expected. Clark Kent’s ‘aw shucks’ farm boy routine is more genuine than the reassuring news anchor speech patterns he adopts as Superman, but Bruce knows for a fact that some of the hokey country aphorisms Clark casually drops into conversations are entirely made up.

Clark also leans on his Midwestern accent when he wants to lull other people into a false sense of security. He’s managed to make a whole career out of being underestimated. Everyone expects Lois Lane to go straight for the jugular, but the ever-congenial Mr. Kent somehow manages to convince all of his interviewees that they’re in for a few softball questions and a nice puff piece. Right up until he asks them—gently, politely, with an air of befuddlement—to explain an apparent contradiction in their earlier statements.

Bruce knows now, from years’ worth of conversations and throwaway comments, that the writing came first. Before caped crusades and journalism, there were journals. He knows that Clark spent his early years filling in notebooks, wrestling with the question of what it meant to be human when he wasn’t, actually, a human being in the normal sense of the word.

Superman—the Superman that Bruce first met all those years ago—is largely a work of fiction. A fantasy figure dreamed up by a teenage boy imagining his older idealized self. A hero whose life is entirely dedicated to others, someone who shows up when you’re in need, asks for nothing in return, and then disappears back to his Fortress of Solitude.

This image of Superman as an island unto himself, with no real ties beyond his fondness for Metropolis and his participation in the Justice League—that’s the real deception. It hides the fact that Clark Kent is the kind of person who calls his parents twice a week, loves gossip, misses his wife when they’re apart for more than a day, and sometimes joins people when they have a solo shift on the Watchtower because he worries that they’ll get lonely.

Bruce may have to return the favor the next time Clark’s on monitor duty. He knows he was difficult to deal with during the search for Tim, and Clark purposefully stuck close to him anyway, transparently attempting to take the brunt of Bruce’s ill temper.

He’s trying to decide whether he should mention Conner’s apparent misconceptions about his status in the Kent household—it’s something Clark would probably want to know, but Bruce isn’t necessarily the best choice of messenger—when he hears the sound of someone clattering down the stairs. It’s too fast and too regular to be Tim, who’s still dragging around his medical brace, and too heavy to be Damian or Cassandra.

Dick appears in the doorway a moment later, looking rushed—he clearly forgot to brush his hair—and more than a little anxious. He’s obviously relieved at the sight of Conner, though his expression quickly morphs into a look of sympathy when he notices the stack of books on the table. “Back to studying?”

Conner gives him a bleak look and nods. “If I don’t pass all my classes, I won’t have enough credits to graduate at the end of next semester. Which means I’ll be stuck in high school for...basically forever?”

“I’m sure you’ll do fine,” Dick says, flashing him an encouraging smile and grabbing a seat beside him. “Where are the others?”

“Tim’s still asleep and Bart left a while ago. He sleeps less than the rest of us and usually takes off in the middle of the night when he gets bored waiting for everyone else to wake up. Says there’s always daylight somewhere.”

Dick looks concerned. “He’s really been getting around a lot this year, hasn’t he?” Something about his tone is off, although Bruce isn’t sure why.

Conner frowns, glances at Bruce for a moment, and then looks back at Dick and shrugs. “Eh, you know what speedsters are like. Restless types.”

“Well, let him know he can always drop by here if he needs somewhere to stay,” Dick says, looking surprisingly serious.

Conner raises both of his eyebrows. “Yeah, I wouldn’t tell him that if I were you. He will absolutely take you up on the offer. Feed him even once when Tim’s not around and you’ll never get rid of him.”

Dick doesn’t argue, although it looks like he wants to. Instead he just accepts a bowl of cereal from Alfred and then asks, “So if Tim’s sleeping in, does that mean he’s skipping the office today?”

Alfred sighs, which is answer enough.

“Sorry, dude,” Conner says. “Alfred already tried to convince him to stay last night, but he really can’t cancel. Tam would kill him.” He pauses and then adds, “Figuratively, I mean. Obviously.”

“Would another day really matter?” Dick asks.

“Tam’s been covering for him all week,” Conner says, “and she still has no idea what’s going on. Like, she knows Tim was gone and now he’s back, but—” He shrugs. “Tim says it’ll go over better if he explains the whole thing in person and not over the phone. But making her wait even longer was...maybe not the best idea he’s ever had.” He glances at the clock on the microwave and then adds, “I’m supposed to get him to the office by ten or else Tam’s going to subject him to some sort of terrible bureaucratic torture. I think it involves memos.”

“You’re flying him into the city?” Dick asks.

“Driving. He says if I get him to the office, Tam will get him home after.”

“You don’t have to do that,” Dick says. “One of us can take him instead.”

Conner waves away the offer. “It’s no problem. I already volunteered, and at this point I’m the person who’s most inured to cranky early-morning Tim.” He gives Dick a serious look and adds, “Trust me, you do not want to deal with him. I’m sure he’s always been a misanthropic nightmare person when he first wakes up, but the pocket dimension made him so much worse.”

When Conner takes a moment to dig back into his food, Dick glances at Bruce, raising his eyebrows briefly. Bruce just shakes his head. He has no intention of letting Conner drive Tim to work, but there’s no point in bringing that up now. Tim’s the one Bruce needs to talk to.

The two of them planned out their strategy after Saturday night’s patrol. Dick had been waiting in the cave when Bruce and the others returned from Gotham.

He’d been cheerful when he greeted them, patient while helping Duke correct some minor errors in form, and he’d traded banter with Stephanie as effortlessly as ever. But something about his demeanor seemed off. He kept glancing over to the other side of the cave where Damian was painstakingly giving Bruce a comically long-winded report about his uneventful patrol.

When the others finally turned in for the night, Bruce braced himself for more bad news: some devastating new fact about Tim’s time abroad or, perhaps, confirmation that Jason hadn’t simply left, as Alfred seemed to suggest over the comms, but had stormed off instead. That whatever fragile peace they’d managed to maintain for the past week had fallen apart in the few short hours that Bruce was away.

Instead, when they both sat down at the central conference table, Dick immediately asked him about Damian. “How’d he do tonight? And did he seem…” Dick hesitated over the wording for a moment and then just asked, “How was he?”

Bruce hadn’t been prepared for that. “Is something wrong?”

“No,” Dick said immediately. “I mean, probably not? He’s just seemed a little off ever since we faced the Tetrahedra. I thought he’d get better once we found Tim, but he’s still been...really broody? It’s probably nothing, but—” He broke off and was quiet for a moment. “With the Tetrahedra, I didn’t realize what Tim was doing until it was too late, because I was focused on Damian. And now—”

He was worried about the same thing happening. About Damian being lost in the shuffle while they tried to figure out what to do about Tim.

“It’s probably nothing,” Dick repeated. “I just wanted to make sure he was okay tonight. He didn’t seem weird to you at all?”

He hadn’t. It was easy for Bruce to imagine that he might have missed his youngest son’s unease or distress, but the more he thought about it, the more certain he was about his initial instinct.

“He and Cassandra had a good night,” Bruce said finally. “They didn’t talk much on the open line but they enjoyed working together.”

When everyone met up at the end of patrol, Cass glowed with the pleasure of a job well done. Unlike the others, she didn’t measure success or productivity solely by the number of active crimes she stopped. After her time spent protecting Hong Kong, she seemed to understand, better than her siblings, that even just the glimpse of a shadow on a rooftop was enough to make some criminals think twice about trying their luck against the city’s self-appointed defenders.

Damian, on the other hand, had been worn out by the end of patrol and clearly disappointed by the lack of action. But he’d also radiated his own quiet satisfaction. Proud, Bruce suspected, either of the amount of territory they’d covered or of his ability to keep up with Cassandra’s demanding pace. And he’d clearly been pleased when Cass blatantly refused to give a proper report so that he could have Bruce’s undivided attention instead.

“They had a good night,” Bruce repeated. “Damian was disappointed that I was working with Duke, but other than that, he seemed fine.”

Dick looked thoughtful. “Maybe tomorrow you can—”

“I’ve already told him we’ll be patrolling together,” Bruce said, glad to know that this, at least, was something he’d done right.

Dick ducked his head for a moment, grinning and looking just a little bit apologetic. As if Bruce had any right to be annoyed by his gentle suggestions. He’d long since come to terms with the fact that his relationship with Damian was now built almost entirely on the foundation that Dick laid out for him.

“I wouldn’t have thought to put him with Cass,” Dick said after a moment. Not quite a question, but close enough.

Bruce shook his head. “I didn’t. It was their decision.”

He’d noticed that something was different about the two of them even before they surprised him by volunteering to patrol together. He’d caught them interacting with each other frequently throughout the day. Just small exchanges: a shared glance, a questioning look from Cassandra and a dismissive hand gesture from Damian. It wouldn’t have struck him as strange if it had involved any of his other children, but he’d never seen the two of them seek each other out before.

He’d assumed that something must have changed while he was coordinating with the Justice League and searching for Tim. But when he mentioned as much, Dick was obviously surprised.

“This is new,” Bruce said.

“I think so,” Dick answered. “I did see them talking a few times earlier today, but I just thought…” He trailed off. “Huh. They were checking in on each other, weren’t they?” He rubbed at his face, looking tired now but more relaxed as well. “You know, I’ve been so worried about not noticing something going wrong that it never occurred to me that I might miss something going right?”

Bruce felt a pang of guilt then. He hadn’t noticed anything wrong with Damian in the past week because he hadn’t been paying attention. He’d focused entirely on finding Tim. And he’d assumed that if anything went wrong at home, Dick would tell him.

But Dick had been involved in the search for Tim too. He’d split his time between checking on Bruce in the Watchtower and taking care of Gotham. It was no wonder he hadn’t been able to keep tabs on Damian as well.

Bruce was trying to figure out how to put this into words when Dick shifted in his seat and added, “Speaking of things going surprisingly well: Jason stuck around a lot longer than I expected. I was kind of hoping he’d stay the whole weekend but it still—it all went a lot better than I thought it would?”

Bruce should have been glad to hear that. He was well aware that things had been steadily improving between Dick and Jason in the past week. But he still found himself dwelling on his own failure. He couldn’t replicate Dick’s success. His only conversation with Jason ended in abject failure and even now he didn’t know why.

But none of that was Dick’s fault. So he tried to focus on the positive. To reflect back some of the light Dick seemed to give off so naturally.

“It was good,” Bruce acknowledged. “Having him here. Upstairs.”

Dick grinned. “Yeah, I really didn’t see that coming. Especially after how stubborn he was about it last week.”

“It was because of Tim.” Bruce couldn’t come up with any other explanation. Tim had managed, somehow, to persuade Jason to enter the manor after everyone else failed.

“Maybe,” Dick said. “But I don’t know if it was just Tim. Having all the others around seemed to help. I think it kind of took the pressure off him?”

Bruce frowned. “What pressure?”

Dick shrugged. “Pressure from us? You know how Jason gets sometimes when we try to talk to him about how he’s doing or—honestly, I don’t even know what I’m doing to set him off half the time. But whenever I say the wrong thing or cross some invisible line that only he can see, he always launches straight into a big speech about how he’s not the person he used to be and how things are different now. And I get that. I know things have changed. I’m not trying to pretend that they haven’t. But he’s still—I still see him as my little brother. And he doesn’t like that.”

“He thinks we want him to go back to the way he was. Before.” That did seem to be the one through line in most of his arguments with Jason.

“Something like that,” Dick said. “We never really manage to dig into it because whenever I try to talk to him about it—well, you know how that goes. He reacts and then I react and then—” Dick lifted one hand and mimed an explosion. “I think that would have happened last week. If he’d let us drag him upstairs, we would have—I would have thought that it meant something. That he was admitting that he still—” He gestured vaguely.

"He would have seen it as a concession," Bruce said.

Dick nodded. “But with Tim’s friends all here—today wasn’t about him. So he was able to slip in with the rest of the outsiders. He got to be here without having to make a big production about how this doesn’t mean that he’s coming back to the family or that things aren’t going back to the way they were or—he just got to sidestep the issue.”

Bruce could only just barely follow the logic there. The idea that Jason might want to be with them and at the same time violently resist joining them except under certain extenuating circumstances—that kind of ambivalence just wasn’t something he could understand.

He could feel a familiar sensation of heaviness settling over him. It was the same feeling that always plagued him when he contemplated the intractable problem of his second son and the sheer impossibility of navigating their thorny relationship.

But Dick sounded upbeat when he said, “I think it’s good for him to spend time out from under the hood. To do normal stuff with other people sometimes. And I think that the best thing we can do for him now is encourage him to get better. Even if better, for him, doesn’t always involve us.” He paused and then added, “I know you’ve been worried about him spending time with the others. And I have to agree that he is a pretty bad influence. But I think the team can handle him. All of them—Cass, Stephanie, Duke, Damian—they’re all trustworthy. They know who they are. I can’t see any of them getting dragged down by him.”

It took Bruce a moment to recognize this speech for what it was: Dick trying to formalize something that had already taken place. Jason had been working with the team extensively this past week and he obviously intended to continue, at least until he recovered from his injuries.

But there was still something fragile about the arrangement. It was an alliance born of necessity and there was no guarantee that it would last.

Dick was clearly worried that it wouldn’t. More specifically, he was clearly worried that Bruce might do something to end it. After all, this new camaraderie began to form while his attention was elsewhere. He’d been too distracted by Tim’s absence to interfere with the changing team dynamics.

Putting a stop to it was exactly what he would have done in the past. What a part of him still wanted to do. But he agreed with Dick. Jason was obviously making progress, even if it wasn’t going the way Bruce had hoped.

“If you trust him—” Bruce started to say.

“I do,” Dick answered immediately. “I don’t think he’ll always do things the way we want him to, but—he still cares about the people he works with. He can’t help it. Last year he left Tim for dead. Now—” His expression shifted from tired and serious to faintly amused. “Apparently they got into an argument before Jason left. Tim didn’t say exactly what it was about, but it sounds like Jason tore into him for going renegade last week. Tim was pretty annoyed by that, but they seem alright now. They’re still being assholes to each other in the chat, at least, which I think means they’re okay.”

“That’s a good sign,” Bruce acknowledged. That much hadn’t changed in the years since Jason was Robin. Back then, when Jason was truly furious about something, he’d lose his temper—sometimes dramatically—and then either disappear for hours or lapse into seething silence. When a conflict was less serious, he’d often hang around, picking small fights and engaging in petty arguments, purposefully trying to wind up anyone who came near him. Bruce had found it baffling until Alfred ventured to suggest that Jason’s boundary pushing could be his way of seeking reassurance. That it might be comforting to confirm that he was still welcome at home no matter how belligerent and rebellious he could sometimes be.

“Yeah. I think it’s progress,” Dick said. After a moment, the amusement on his face dimmed. “I wish I could get away with that. I think if Tim and I got into an argument right now, we wouldn’t recover so quickly. Honestly, though, I’d rather have him lose his temper with me than just—” He waved a hand in front of his face, schooling his expression to neutrality. It looked strange and unnatural on him, but Bruce was painfully aware that he’d gotten used to seeing that same detachment from Tim.

“He’s been pulling away from us this whole time,” Bruce said. “Ever since I got back.”

Dick frowned. “I don’t know if that’s actually it. We’ve seen less of him lately, but he’s in the city more than ever. I think he’s just—he’s trying to balance too many different things. All the stuff in his protocol but also—” Dick stopped, clearly struggling for words. “I think he started being more guarded with us because he had to. He and Jason have been working together for a while and they do get along now, but those early days—things were still pretty dicey back then. Jason almost killed him when they fought for the cowl. So Tim had to be careful around him for a long time before they could really start to trust each other.”

Dick paused and then gave Bruce an apologetic look. “Tim never really told you about how rough those first few weeks were, did he?”

Bruce could already see where this was going. “He never told me about any difficulties with Jason. He always emphasized how well things were going.”

“And downplayed the bad parts. Yeah, I figured.” Dick shook his head. “He knew from the beginning that you’d be worried about them working together, especially since he couldn’t share information with you the way he normally would. So it might have made sense to him to...maintain some distance. At least for a while.”

That was an extremely gentle version of the truth.

Bruce had tried his best not to interfere with the new team dynamics that were established during his absence. This had been the one exception. He’d questioned Tim often about his dealings with Jason, and he’d been increasingly frustrated by Tim’s unwillingness to share information.

It was difficult not to feel resentful as things between the two of them steadily improved while Bruce’s own progress with Jason was almost nonexistent. But Tim had been adamant that Bruce’s best course of action was to give Jason space.

In retrospect, he should have listened. Tim’s strategy of pulling Jason back onto the team by degrees, slowly but surely, was clearly more effective than anything Bruce and Dick had tried. But he hadn’t understood that back then. He’d kept pushing Tim for more information, and Tim kept refusing.

That was when the stoicism began. When Tim’s silences started lasting longer and longer, and his expression slowly fixed itself into stone-faced stubbornness.

“It’s my fault,” Bruce said. “When we argued, I—”

Dick was already shaking his head. “No,” he said, “this started before you got back. I screwed up too. With Tim and Damian. It’s kind of the same story. Things are better now, but those first few months? Damian was still in League mode a lot of the time. They got into a few fights. Nothing as bad as that first one, but it was still—I’m just saying that I understand why Tim kept avoiding him for so long. And avoiding Damian meant he had to avoid me too.” Dick closed his eyes for a moment and rubbed his face. “I should have made time for him. For just the two of us. Instead, I kept pushing them to get along. I wanted them both to see each other the way that I saw them. I wanted Tim to understand that—” Dick broke off, his expression growing more grim. “I pushed him away as much as you did. I didn’t realize I was doing it, but I did.”

When Bruce first returned to Gotham, he had only a dim idea of what actually happened between Dick and Tim. He knew that they’d disagreed on how to move forward after the battle for the cowl. Dick believed that Bruce was dead and that they needed to focus on preventing Gotham from descending into chaos and uncertainty. Tim, meanwhile, had been determined to find evidence to back up his seemingly desperate theory that Bruce was still alive. And somewhere in the midst of this, Dick gave Damian the mantle of Robin, hoping it would help anchor him to Gotham and give him a stronger sense of connection to the team now that Bruce was gone.

Neither of them ever really spoke to Bruce about this time period, but the others had dropped enough hints in the intervening months that he had a general idea of how off-kilter they both were in the weeks after his apparent death.

He knew that Dick took up the mantle of Batman reluctantly. Partially as a result of the battle for the cowl and Jason’s rampage through the city, but also because Tim pushed him to do so. And when he made the decision to give Robin to Damian, he’d been surprised and hurt by Tim’s reaction. Dick stepped up into the role of Batman because necessity demanded it. He’d thought that Tim would be willing to do the same. To give up his old identity and find a new role. Something analogous to Dick’s time as Nightwing. A partner who could operate with more independence than Robin and who would support Gotham’s new Batman during those first few tumultuous months. Dick chose to make Damian his Robin knowing that it would be a difficult partnership—that Damian would require a lot of time, energy, and guidance before he could properly inhabit that role—but he’d felt confident that he could manage it because he’d known that Tim would still be there, taking care of the things that Dick couldn’t do, helping him protect the city.

Instead, Tim left. He went on a quest to save Bruce on his own, with no support from home, and he cut contact with everyone in Gotham while he did it.

And their relationship never fully recovered. Neither of them ever voiced any recriminations about the other—at least, not to Bruce—but it was clear that they’d both been hurt by what happened. And although they seemed to reconcile once Tim returned to Gotham, the distance between them remained.

Admittedly, Dick’s misguided attempts to get Tim and Damian to bond with each other probably did more harm than good. But Bruce could understand why he kept pushing the two of them together.

Dick already admitted that Tim was right to leave Gotham and go search for Bruce. He understood that Tim had been trying to save their family, not abandon it. But some small part of him clearly still wanted Tim to reciprocate. To acknowledge that Dick had been wrong about Bruce but right about Damian.

Because if Tim admitted that Damian was worth saving, he’d have to concede that Dick hadn’t meant to betray him when he took away the mantle. He’d been trying his best to take care of everyone.

It was a strategy that might have worked if Tim’s time abroad had been the simple, uncomplicated success they’d all assumed it to be. In that narrative, his radio silence while he was away could be attributed to his singular focus on the mission, and his continued distance since his return was just evidence that his antipathy toward Damian was stronger than they’d realized.

The truth was apparently murkier and more complicated. In retrospect, the fact that Tim struggled during his time away from Gotham should have been obvious, but Bruce missed every clue that pointed in that direction.

He’d even misunderstood Tim’s new name. He’d thought that choosing Red Robin was a deliberate act of defiance. A declaration that Dick couldn’t take the name away, even if he’d given the mantle to someone else.

But Tim spoke of the identity dismissively. As if it was simply a matter of convenience. A temporary placeholder that could be discarded at will. And that was miles away from the reverent way he used to say Robin.

The way Tim talked about Dick was different now too. The soft gloss of hero worship was mostly gone. But Bruce still couldn’t believe that the situation was as dire as Dick seemed to think it was. In the months since he returned, Tim always spoke positively about Dick’s tenure as Batman and his progress with Damian. There was still admiration and respect there, although it was tempered by this new distance between them.

“Tim knows that you meant well,” Bruce said. “In all the time that I’ve been back, he’s never said a word against you. And he thinks you’ve done well with Damian.”

Dick shook his head. “But he didn’t call me when he needed help.”

“He didn’t call any of us,” Bruce pointed out.

“I know. And I get why he thought his friends would be a better fit for that kind of mission. I still hate that he called them instead of us, but—it was good to have them here. To see him with them. Tim always acts so grown up that I sometimes forget he’s still a kid.” He slumped in his chair a little and sighed. “It makes sense that he talks to them more than us. They’re all at that same weird stage where you don’t quite know what to do with yourself. You’re technically an adult, or about to be, but you still get treated like a kid a lot of the time. You can still get in trouble with your parents or your mentor, and you’re old enough to feel like you shouldn’t care about that anymore. But you still do.” He gave Bruce a small, rueful smile and added, “I was an absolute nightmare at that age.”

“You were not,” Bruce said automatically.

“I was. Remember the fights we used to have?”

He did. He remembered Dick’s temper, his mood swings, the ever-present tension during his last few months as Robin. The long, drawn-out arguments about Dick’s need for independence and Bruce’s insistence that he wasn’t ready.

He’d been an adult when he left Gotham, but Bruce had still considered him a child. His child. But Dick hadn’t failed or floundered the way Bruce feared he would. Working on his own and leading the Titans brought out a steadiness in him that might not have formed if he’d remained in Gotham as Bruce’s sidekick forever.

Dick’s thoughts were apparently following the same tracks. “I thought about that time a lot after Tim went looking for you. I had no idea how much it must have hurt you when I left. I don’t regret it, exactly, but I wish we’d done things differently.”

“It was good for you,” Bruce said. “I was the one who didn’t handle it well.” It had been hard to let him go. He’d held on too tight and exerted more control every time Dick asked for more freedom. He’d made Dick leaving inevitable. “I didn’t want to make the same mistake with Tim. I didn’t want to hold him back. But he’s different. The things he needs are different.”

“Yeah,” Dick said. “I just don’t know what those things are anymore. He hasn’t really been forthcoming lately.” He sighed, looking tired again. “I don’t think he’s shutting us out deliberately. Me, maybe. I can see him not wanting to be around me anymore. But not you. Not after everything he went through to get you back. He just—he’s been prioritizing the team.”

“He was being what the team needed,” Bruce said. “What he thought we needed.”

Dick nodded. “Yeah. That would explain where he’s been spending his time. Not with you or me or Damian. He doesn’t think we need him. But Jason pretty obviously needed someone to help him find some kind of stability. And Tim spent a lot of time with Cass when she was still overseas.”

It was a pattern. One that should have been glaringly obvious. In the past year, Tim not only helped find Bruce and bring him home, but also dragged Jason back onto the team. And he’d maintained his ties to Cassandra while she was in Hong Kong, encouraged her to take up a new mantle, and helped make arrangements when she was finally ready to return home.

And it went farther back than that. When he first entered their lives, Tim didn’t come straight to Bruce and volunteer to be Robin. Instead, he’d tracked down Dick and tried to convince him to come back to Gotham. To be Bruce’s partner again.

He was always trying to keep everyone together. Slowly but insistently drawing them all back into the fold.

“You know what’s the worst part of this?” Dick said. “We can’t even complain that what he’s been doing isn’t working. It is. The team’s been doing better than ever.”

That was only half true. The team was doing better, but there were dozens of reasons why things had begun to improve. The cooling of hostilities between Tim and Damian helped, but so did Damian’s growing rapport with Stephanie. And the easy way Cassandra inserted herself into Tim and Jason’s more dangerous joint missions helped push Jason into working with the rest of them on a more regular basis. Even Duke’s presence had changed things for the better. Damian had come to them fully trained by the League of Assassins. For the most part, he could take care of himself. But Duke had been untrained, untested, untainted. He was someone they all wanted to protect for as long as that was possible.

Their team was fractious and full of strained relationships, and it seemed unlikely that they would ever find an easy harmony entirely free of conflict. But during times of crisis, they could still be counted on to shore each other up rather than tearing each other down. This strange new solidarity between Damian and Cass was only the most recent example of the team taking care of its own.

“We’ve been doing well,” Bruce acknowledged. “But Tim didn’t make that happen on his own. And the team won’t fall apart if he stops trying to hold it together. He can ask us for help when he needs it. That’s how the team is supposed to work. He knows that.”

Dick was shaking his head before Bruce even finished. “That shouldn’t matter. He shouldn’t have to ask. Damian and Jason—they don’t ask us for help. But we still give it to them. Or at least try to. Even now—we talked about them first. Not Tim.”

It was true. Damian’s moodiness and Jason’s unexpected appearance upstairs—they’d defaulted to the same topics they’d been worrying over for months.

“I talked to Babs about this,” Dick added. “About why Tim’s hiding things from us. I was complaining that we’re his family and he’s supposed to talk to us about these kinds of things. And she looked me dead in the eye and said, ‘I lie to my dad every single day.’”

Dick let the statement hang in the air for a moment. Bruce knew that Barbara had probably done the same thing when she said it. She sometimes laid out a sentence like a thrown gauntlet and dared you to pick it up.

“Duke too,” Dick added. “We ask him to lie to his cousin all the time.”

“That’s different,” Bruce said. “Tim has no reason to lie to us. He knows that.”

Dick shrugged. “He clearly thinks that he does.”

“Then we need to convince him otherwise.”

Dick grimaced. “That’s going to be tricky. The last few months...it feels like Tim’s never really honest with me anymore. He just tells me what he thinks I want to hear. So even if we figure out what he wants or needs to hear from us—”

“He might think we’re doing the same thing. Telling him what we think he needs to hear, whether or not it’s really true.” Bruce sighed. “He used to believe us.” He was almost certain of that. Things had rarely been perfect, but there was a time, right after Tim’s adoption, when everything had finally felt right.

“I think so,” Dick said. “But it took us a long time to get there, remember? Way longer than with anyone else in the family. And Tim—well, he kind of is treating us like family. Like his old family. They weren’t exactly a close-knit bunch.”

That much was true. Bruce had come to understand very early on that Tim’s sense of family was more complicated and ambivalent than his own. For Tim, time spent with his parents was something of a special occasion, not a normal part of everyday life. The Drakes dropped in when they felt like it and played at being a happy family for a few weeks at a time, but it was always temporary.

Tim clearly missed his parents when they were gone and craved their time and attention when they were home. But he also chafed under the extra scrutiny when their visits lasted longer than a week or two. The strain of sneaking out and continually coming up with excuses for his frequent absences obviously took a toll on him, and when they finally left the city again—usually with no return date in mind—he always seemed torn between disappointment and relief.

Even after Jack began spending more time in Gotham following Janet’s death, Tim’s relationship with his father still baffled Bruce. The Tim that Bruce knew—the Tim that became his Robin—was strong-willed, stubborn, and often argumentative. But Tim rarely fought with his father. And when he did, he was usually uncharacteristically morose afterwards.

But in a strange way it made sense. Tim never really argued with his parents during their jet-setting years. He sometimes complained during patrols about things they had said or done, but his stories about them rarely involved any sort of confrontation. Back then, they were gone so often that it wasn’t worth letting a minor disagreement ruin the brief time they spent together.

And now he was recreating that dynamic. Hiding the more dangerous or worrying parts of his life. Limiting the time he spent with the family. Letting things slide to keep the peace rather than telling them how he really felt. He was careful with them in a way that made Bruce’s chest ache when he thought about it too much.

Tim wasn’t the kind of kid who could ever be described as carefree, but with his friends there was something close to carelessness in some of his words and actions. He spoke without thinking. He argued and traded insults and didn’t seem particularly worried about causing offense.

He’d used to be that way in Gotham as well. But somewhere along the way, things had changed. He no longer acted like his place on the team—in their family—was secure. An immovable, unshakeable fact of existence.

Bruce had thought, after the adoption, that Tim would know what it meant. That family, for them, was forever.

“What do we do?” he asked.

He didn’t expect an answer. But Dick looked pensive for a moment and then said, “Do you think Tim cares about us?”

“What?”

“Do you think Tim cares about us?” Dick repeated.

“Yes,” Bruce said, feeling faintly bewildered.

“How do you know? He and his friends drop I love you into every other conversation, but he doesn’t say that to us. So how do you know?”

It was an absurd question. “Because he does,” Bruce said after a moment. “Because it’s obvious.”

He wasn’t struggling to find evidence to back up this belief. There was just too much evidence to know where to start. There were extreme examples of how much Tim cared about them. Going on a quest to save Bruce’s life was a fairly obvious one. His away protocol and all of the time and effort he put into creating it was another. But there were also an uncountable number of smaller incidents, many of them inconsequential on their own, that nevertheless pointed to the same conclusion.

“He shows it,” Dick said. “Even when he’s mad at us or not really talking to us—he still goes out of his way to look out for everyone. I’ve seen way less of him this year, but I’m pretty sure he could tell you exactly what I’ve been up to the last few months.”

That was likely true. Barbara and Alfred were probably the two people who had the most thorough and up-to-date knowledge of everyone’s whereabouts and schedules at any given time, but Tim was a close third. Whenever Bruce was out of town on business, Tim almost always sent him a text message sometime in the hour before his first meeting, even when they were in drastically different time zones.

Bruce didn’t need the reminders—he’d managed his own schedule for decades and when he was late, it was usually on purpose—but he’d always understood, without really thinking about it, that the texts weren’t really about ensuring punctuality. They were just Tim’s way of staying in touch while Bruce was gone.

In retrospect it made sense that Tim expressed affection by keeping track of people.

“I think we have to pull a Tim,” Dick said. “We have to show him that we care about him and then we have to keep showing him. We can’t just have a conversation with him and then go back to normal. We have to find a new normal. The one we have right now—it’s not good enough. It’s not working.”

“I agree,” Bruce said slowly. “He does need...consistency. And to see more of us. But we still need to talk to him about what’s been going on. Not all of it right away,” he added. “But some of it. What happened last week—he can’t do that again.”

Dick nodded, looking thoughtful. “He was mostly okay with talking about that on the video call. He expected us to be upset and he was ready to deal with that. He only got flustered when we found out about his spleen.”

“Barbara suggested that we not try to cover everything at once,” Bruce said. “Sticking to only last week—that would be the place to start.”

“I can do it,” Dick said. “I’ve been wanting to get some one-on-one time with him anyway. I’ll bring it up.”

Bruce was nodding, already accepting the plan, when Dick added, “I know you wanted to talk to him about WE. And cutting back on how much work he’s doing there. I can talk to him about that too.”

That was when he realized, abruptly, that this was wrong. He was letting it happen again. Letting his children take responsibility for each other while he stayed on the sidelines and did nothing.

Dick was undoubtedly better at handling delicate conversations, but that was in large part because he had so much practice at it. Every time Bruce failed to step in when one of his children needed it, Dick invariably moved to fill in that gap.

He’d made a lot of adjustments to accommodate his siblings. During his tenure in Blüdhaven, he regularly made the long drive back to Gotham to spend time with Jason or Tim. And he’d eventually moved back altogether, trading his hard-won independence for the responsibility of looking after his younger siblings.

When Bruce disappeared, Dick took up his mantle and the task of raising Damian. And when Bruce returned, Dick gracefully, carefully, made space for Bruce and Damian to get to know one another but never stepped back far enough to let either of them flounder alone.

Dick was good at that kind of thing. Better than Bruce could ever hope to be. But he shouldn’t be the one responsible for this. If he and Tim were ever going to repair their strained relationship, they didn’t need to start with a possibly contentious conversation about Tim’s questionable decisions.

Things would go better if Dick focused on just the two of them. If he tried to fix everything—as he usually did—he’d likely fail to accomplish anything at all.

“I’ll talk to him,” Bruce said. “About last week and about work.” When Dick looked surprised, he added, “You should still spend time with him but—just do that. Spend time with your brother.” He paused, thinking it over, and had to raise a hand to hush Dick when he tried to protest. “I think it would be good for him to spend less time working. And the best way to convince him to take time off is by doing it with him.”

Dick mulled this over. “That might work. But are you sure you want—”

“I’ll talk to him,” Bruce repeated. “If it doesn’t go well—”

“Then we’ll figure something out,” Dick said. “Okay. I think we can make this work.”

He looked almost as tired as Bruce felt. Tired and worried and still a touch overwhelmed.

Then he shifted, stretching his arms into the air, and stifled a yawn. And it threw Bruce back to when he was still just a child, even younger than Damian, and how he used to wait up for Bruce to come back from patrol, stubbornly insisting that he wasn’t tired even as he yawned so widely it left tears in his eyes.

Bruce still couldn’t believe how much he’d grown.

“Do remember what it was like?” he asked. “When it was just the three of us?”

Dick grinned. “You mean back when I was an only child? Completely and utterly outnumbered by you and Alfred?”

He’d made that joke a lot when Jason lived in the manor. That it was kids versus grown-ups. The fact that Dick was already an adult by then didn’t matter. Sibling solidarity outweighed the technicalities of age.

“Back then,” Bruce said, “I never thought that everything would change so much. That we would—”

He couldn’t find the right words to encompass all that he wanted to say. How profoundly his life changed when Dick first set foot in the manor all those years ago and how it had continued to change ever since then. How wonderful and complicated and messy their lives had become. The family they had now would have been unimaginable to Bruce when he was a child. Was still unimaginable to him during those first few years with just Dick and Alfred, before he’d found all of the others. Barbara and Jason and Tim and Cass and Stephanie and Damian and Duke. All of these children, half of them adults now, or nearly so. People that Bruce could no longer imagine living without.

Dick was still watching him, patiently waiting for Bruce to sort through his thoughts.

“Thank you,” he said finally. “For being here for all of it.”

Dick grinned again, softer now. “Nowhere I’d rather be.”

On Sunday, they both tried to spend some time alone with Tim, although neither of them ever quite managed it. But what little time they did spend with him and his friends only reinforced Bruce’s belief that Tim and Dick weren’t nearly as estranged as Dick seemed to think.

Dick, however, still seems less convinced. Even now he’s not wholly relaxed. He’s managed to draw Conner into a conversation about his summer classes, but his leg’s bouncing underneath the table and he keeps checking the clock. Obviously measuring the dwindling time they’ll have before Tim’s out the door and on his way into the office.

Alfred’s in the process of presenting Bruce with a full English breakfast when they all hear the short chime of a text notification.

Conner’s phone is on the table in front of him—Bruce recognizes it because it spent half the weekend slowly drying out in a bowl of rice in the kitchen—but the screen hasn’t lit up with an incoming text. Instead, Conner reaches into his backpack and pulls out a second phone. It takes Bruce a moment to realize that it’s Tim’s.

Conner taps in the passcode and then frowns at whatever he sees on the screen. He immediately starts typing a reply.

“Everything alright?” Dick asks.

Conner doesn’t look up. “Yeah, it’s just Tam checking in.”

“You guys are gonna be late,” Dick points out, glancing at the clock again. They’ll have to leave in the next twenty minutes if they want to make it on time.

“Nah, we’ll be fine,” Conner says. He lifts up the phone, grins at it, and then snaps a picture of himself. “It’s not like they can start the meeting without him, right? Besides, we’re pretty sure the first one isn’t real anyway.”

Dick raises both his eyebrows. “You think Tam set up a fake meeting?”

“Yeah, probably.” Conner taps at the phone again and then turns the screen toward Dick. “Tam sent the schedule yesterday. It says he’s booked solid all day—including a lunch meeting—but there’s no way she’s gonna wait that long to find out what’s been going on. So one of the meetings must be fake. Probably the first one. Hopefully the first one.”

“Has she done this before?” Dick asks, obviously intrigued.

“Er. Yeah?” Conner looks like he regrets saying anything. “I mean—she’s not actually doing anything wrong. This is Tim-approved behavior. He says her poker face used to be worse than mine. So it’s good for her to practice tricking people. Plus, being in charge of his schedule means she’s the one making excuses for his sudden absences and helping him keep secrets and stuff. So occasionally messing with him is just, like, one of the perks of the job?” He pauses and then adds, “This made way more sense when Tim was explaining it. Basically, lying and making excuses and stuff like that is an important skill set now that she’s part of your crowd, so she’s got to work on honing—” He cuts himself off abruptly, looking a little bit panicked. “Wait. You guys know that she knows that—”

“We do,” Dick says. “Tim mentioned it when he got back. To explain the fiancée thing. But he never really told us what happened. He just said she figured out his identity when she found him abroad.”

Conner grimaces. “Yeeeeah. He didn’t really make the best first impression. Anyway, Tim says he’s happy to put up with some slightly vengeful scheduling chicanery as long as she never fakes an engagement ever again.” He pauses, tilting his head a little, and then glances up toward the ceiling. “Okay, we might end up being a little late actually.” When Dick gives him a confused look, Conner points one finger at his own ear and adds, “Tim just hit snooze.”

“I always forget about the hearing,” Dick says. “Clark almost never draws attention to it.”

“Eh, he might just tune everything out at this point. I can’t really tell.” Conner shrugs and adds, “Whereas I still naturally achieve a level of creepily invasive that Tim says he can only dream of someday attaining.”

“Not a problem,” Dick says, grinning a little now. “But are you sure Tim’s not going to change his mind? The company won’t collapse if he decides to take another day off.”

Conner shakes his head. “If he hits snooze one more time, I’m supposed to drag him out of bed whether he’s conscious or not.” When he sees how disappointed Dick looks, he adds, “Sorry, but he was pretty adamant about it.”

Dick sighs. “It’s okay. I just feel like I barely saw him this weekend.”

“We did sort of monopolize his time,” Conner admits, although he doesn’t look particularly apologetic about it. “But we hardly ever see him nowadays. He’s always doing Gotham stuff with you guys. If he hadn’t gotten kidnapped by Bezneetan, we’d have probably ended up doing it ourselves.”

Dick frowns. “Yeah. He’s been working a lot lately. But we don’t see him much when he’s not on the job.” He tips his head toward Tim’s phone and adds, “And it sounds like I’ll be lucky if I see him at all this week.”

Conner opens his mouth to speak, still frowning a little, and Bruce can see the exact moment a new thought strikes him. The frown abruptly shifts into a grin.

“Okay, I’ve just had a brilliant idea,” he says as he picks up Tim’s phone again. “See, the fun thing about Tam’s willingness to abuse Tim’s schedule is that you can sometimes convince her to use her powers for good.”

“Whoa, wait,” Dick says. “I don’t want to mess up his week or—”

“We’re not messing it up. We’re improving it.” He’s already holding Tim’s phone up to his ear. “Pro tip,” he says, still looking at Dick, “you have to call Tam if you wanna ask her for a favor. If you text, she always says no.”

Dick looks like he wants to protest more, but Conner’s already talking into the phone. “Hiiiiii,” he says. “It’s your favorite non-Gothamite.” He pauses, clearly listening, and then says, “We’re not gonna be late. No, sorry, he’s still asleep but—”

He stops again, frowning. Across the table, Dick catches Bruce’s gaze and raises his eyebrows. He looks like he’s trying not to grin.

“No,” Conner says, “we’re definitely not gonna be late, but if we were late, it wouldn’t matter because you can just blame it on Tim’s foot. No, it’s only a little bit broken.” Another pause. “Yeah, okay, will do. Yeah, I promise. Anyway, the actual reason I called is because we need a favor. Dick wants to hang out with Tim sometime this week. Could you—yeah? Uh huh.” He grins and gives Dick a thumbs up. “Okay, let me check.” He presses the phone against his shoulder for a moment and says, “Does Wednesday at noon work for you?”

“Yes?” Dick says cautiously.

“Yeah, that would be great,” Conner says into the phone. “Can you make it look like it’s someone horrible so Tim will be relieved when Dick shows up? Who was he trying to avoid last month? Yeah, perfect. Thanks. Yes, absolutely.” He glances at the clock, frowns, and then crosses his fingers before saying, “We are definitely gonna be on time.”

He’s quiet again, for longer this time, and then says, “Eh, it really wasn’t that bad. Just way weirder than usual. Tim’s gonna explain it all. Yes, I’ll go wake him up right now. Okay, yeah, see you soon.”

Conner hangs up but makes no move to go upstairs. “All set,” he says, clearly pleased with himself.

“I’m really not sure that was a good idea,” Dick says.

“It’ll be fine. Bart and I have both done it before. Besides, in subjective time Tim hasn’t been in the office in nearly a month. By Wednesday he’s gonna be so sick of reading emails, he’d probably welcome a visit from Killer Croc if it meant getting away from his inbox.”

Dick’s given up on maintaining any semblance of concern and looks thoroughly amused. “Okay. I guess I owe you one. Assuming this actually goes well.”

“It’ll be fine,” Conner says again. “And we’re good. You help me with my brother, and I occasionally save yours from alien mercenaries and tamper with his schedule. It all evens out in the end.”

Dick frowns, obviously confused. “I’ve never helped you with Jon.”

“Sure you have,” Conner says. “I mean, maybe not directly, but I bug Tim about big brother stuff all the time. And his advice usually boils down to What Would Dick Grayson Do.”

Dick raises both his eyebrows at this. “Tim’s been giving you advice about Jon?”

“Yeah? I mean, a little bit, but—” Conner sighs. “Look, I’m kind of new to this whole big brother thing, but it’s a lot more involved than I expected. Like, Jon seems to be under the frankly bizarre impression that I have my life together—which, ha—and he comes to me for advice and stuff? Which I am uniquely underqualified to provide? I don’t know how to solve problems for an eleven-year-old. I didn’t even know eleven-year-olds could have problems. I thought they just, like, ran around on the playground and watched cartoons and stuff. Tim kind of remembers what being that age was like. And he’s the only one of my friends who even has siblings. I mean, some of my Smallville friends do, but when they get a new brother or sister, it’s usually a baby or a step-sibling or something. Not our whole weird thing.” Conner shrugs. “Anyway, the point is, Tim knows what it’s like to get a surprise older sibling and he tells me about stuff you’ve done or would do or whatever. So we’re basically even. I might even owe you, honestly.”

Dick stays quiet, obviously processing what he’s just heard. Then Conner glances at the ceiling again. “Tim’s up,” he says. After a moment, he winces. “Sounds like he’s in a great mood too.”

Tim drags himself into the kitchen less than ten minutes later. He’s dressed in a suit with no tie, and while his hair’s a bit messy, for the most part he looks presentable. Except for his expression. He pauses in the doorway, looking both surprised and annoyed to see other human beings, and then glares blearily at them.

“Mornin’, sunshine,” Conner says in an aggressively chipper voice.

Tim spares him a dark look and then zeroes in on the other side of the room where Alfred’s already standing by with a large thermos at the ready. Tim makes a beeline for him, clutches the thermos protectively, then leans forward and mumbles something directly into Alfred’s shoulder. “You’re quite welcome,” Alfred answers, patting him gently on his shoulder.

Tim pulls back, drinks the coffee—Bruce assumes it’s coffee, since Alfred isn’t likely to fill a thermos with Zesti—and then sighs. After another moment of silence, he turns back toward the rest of the room and squints at them all suspiciously.

“Good morning?” Dick says after a moment.

“No such thing,” Tim replies. He steps closer to the table, looks at Conner, and then scowls. “Seriously? Please tell me you’re joking.”

“Nah, this is the best I could find,” Conner says. He pulls the two ties over his head and holds them up for Tim to inspect. One is bright green and covered in golden currency symbols. The other is a reproduction of the central figure in Edvard Munch’s The Scream.

“Why are you doing this to me?” Tim asks.

“I looked everywhere,” Conner says. “If there was anything else in your room, it’s long gone.” He pauses and then adds, “You did tell Bart he could borrow whatever he needed.”

“I regret everything,” Tim says after another moment of staring at the ties.

“You can borrow one of mine,” Dick offers, already standing up and heading for the door. “Just give me a minute to find one.”

Tim doesn’t sit down to wait. Instead, he accepts the boxed breakfast Alfred hands him, opens it, and then immediately starts stuffing a breakfast burrito into his mouth.

Alfred sighs. “I made that for the express purpose of allowing you to eat in the car without making a mess.”

“I’m not eating in the car,” Tim says, holding the thermos in front of his mouth in a half-hearted attempt to hide the fact that he’s talking and chewing at the same time. “I’m napping in the backseat of the car.” He swallows, takes another bite, and then says to Conner, “Remember the void? I slept so much when we were in the void.”

“Space paste,” Conner says. “Just keep thinking about the space paste.”

Tim manages to get through most of the burrito by the time Dick returns with a bright red tie in his hand. It’s covered in small cartoon hamburgers.

Tim just gives him a baleful look. “Do you think you’re being funny?” he asks. “Because you’re not. At all.”

“Counterpoint,” Conner says. “I think it’s hilarious.”

Tim glares at him and then looks back at Dick expectantly. After a moment, Dick relents and pulls another tie out of his back pocket. This one’s a sedate dark blue. “I brought you the lucky one,” he says. “Good enough?”

“It’s not lucky,” Tim says. “But yes.”

“It is lucky,” Dick says. “We did great in Monte Carlo when I was wearing it. Here, let me—”

Tim’s hands are still full—thermos in one, remains of the breakfast burrito in the other—so he obligingly ducks his head so that Dick can place the tie behind his neck and carefully start tying it. “One good run doesn’t mean it’s lucky,” Tim says. “And you were cheating in Monte Carlo.”

“Yeah, but we didn’t get caught, did we?” Dick straightens the tie and then steps back to inspect his work. “All set.”

"Thanks," Tim says. He lets out a jaw-cracking yawn and then rubs at his eyes with the back of his hand. “Why did we stay up so late?” he says to no one in particular.

“You can still back out,” Dick says. “Pretty sure the company can survive without you for another day.”

Tim shakes his head. “Can’t. I promised Tam.” He frowns and then looks over at Conner. “How bad is it?”

“Eh.” Conner raises one hand and makes a so-so gesture. “Not that bad, all things considered. But we definitely don’t want to be late. Or later than we already are, anyway.” He stands up, pulls on his jacket, and starts shoving his remaining notebooks into his backpack.

“Do you have—”

“Phone, keys, wallet,” Conner says, holding up Tim’s phone and then patting his pockets. Tim stuffs the last bite of burrito into his mouth—to Alfred’s obvious dismay—and then accepts the phone from Conner. “Tam already grabbed your laptop from your apartment. I’m also supposed to tell you that she finished your R&D presentation for you and that she added a lot of star wipes.”

Tim sighs. “She’s definitely mad.”

Conner just grins, throws an arm over Tim’s shoulder, and starts steering him toward the door. “Thanks for having us over,” he says, “but we’ve really gotta—”

“I’ll be driving Tim to work,” Bruce says, pushing himself away from the table and standing up.

Conner looks surprised. Tim doesn’t.

“You don’t have to,” Conner says after a moment. “We’re good.”

“I insist,” Bruce answers. He holds his hands out for the keys. To Tim, he adds, “You can still sleep in the backseat if you want.”

Tim and Conner exchange a look that contains at least five separate expressions each, and then Tim says, “Yeah, okay. Thanks anyway, Conner.”

“You sure?” Conner asks.

“Yeah.” Tim’s already fishing his wallet and keys out of Conner’s jacket pocket. He hands the keys to Bruce and pockets the wallet.

“Okay. I’ll drop by later this week?”

“Yeah, I’ll call you,” Tim says.

Conner still looks uncertain for a moment, but when Alfred offers to let him out the front door, he shakes his head. “I can let myself out. Thanks for having us over.” He throws Bruce and Dick a sloppy two-fingered salute and adds, “Have a nice and nonviolent week!” before disappearing in a blur of superspeed.

Tim’s silent on their way to the garage, and when they reach the SUV he hesitates for a moment before sliding into the backseat and settling on the passenger side. That’s probably a good sign. It means Bruce can still see him in the rearview mirror. If Tim really wanted to avoid him, he could have hidden himself in the blind spot directly behind the driver’s seat.

He doesn’t sprawl out the way he used to when he wanted a backseat nap in the Batmobile. Instead, he just leans his head against the window and closes his eyes.

For a moment, Bruce feels like he’s looking at a stranger.

He’s had time to get used to this new version of Tim, but it’s jarring to see him in this context. The young man in his rearview mirror looks so different from the boy Bruce used to drop off at school on his way into the office. Now Tim wears suits and ties and worries about his appearance in a way that he didn’t when he was still a student. Back then he’d been endearingly unfashionable. He’d worn cargo shorts—to Alfred’s unending horror—as well as jeans with rips in the knees from skateboarding accidents, and fully half of his wardrobe was made up of t-shirts that expressed his interests: television shows, bands, obscure internet jokes that Bruce didn’t understand even after Tim tried to explain them.

Those shirts were the kind of thing that someone else might notice and gravitate towards if they were a fan as well. Tim had made friends with his t-shirts and his skateboard and his general air of earnestness.

There’s nothing personable or approachable about the boy sitting in the backseat in his suit and his carefully chosen tie. Nothing to show off his personality or tastes, no hint of who he is or what he likes. No sign at all that he has any interest in getting to know new people or make new friends.

Bruce noticed the change when he first returned, but he’d assumed it was Alfred’s influence or just the natural result of Tim’s work with Wayne Enterprises. Tim’s possible role in the company was something they’d discussed long before Bruce got lost in the time stream. But back then it had felt abstract. A contingency plan that might never be deployed at all.

He hadn’t thought through what it would actually mean for Tim. How it would derail other plans he might have made. And he never considered how seriously Tim would take his responsibilities and his public image.

During his first pass through Tim’s WE files, Bruce hadn’t paid much attention to the PR folders. They contained exactly what he expected: official press releases, drafts of speeches, interview requests, information on blacklisted press—Vicki Vale was at the top of that particular list—and also a subfolder labeled “Media Coverage.”

He’d clicked through that one briefly, already knowing what it would contain. Tim kept a similar set of files on the cave’s servers and updated it regularly. It included any piece of media that referenced vigilantes in Gotham: news articles, editorials, social media posts, forum threads, and more.

It was an expression of paranoia that predated Tim’s time as Robin. He’d pieced together Bruce and Dick’s identities from media coverage and often worried that someone else might do the same. In addition to keeping track of their public presence, he also made occasional suggestions about staged outings and sent anonymous tips to gossip rags about sightings of family members. There were a thousand little ways to create a paper trail that pointed away from them instead of toward them, and Tim was diligent about throwing out red herrings whenever an opportunity presented itself.

The WE files were similar, although the organizational system he used for them was different. They were divided into positive and negative stories, and some files were flagged, presumably because Tim felt that they needed to be dealt with in some way. But those were few and far between. Not all bad press needed to be addressed—a public image that was too squeaky clean would invite just as much scrutiny as an image that was overly negative—and there was always going to be garbage in the tabloids that was best ignored. Ever since Dick reached adulthood, gossip sites regularly reported on some kind of falling out between him and Bruce. It usually involved both of them pursuing the same woman or some other such nonsense. Tim found those articles mildly hilarious and always made sure to let them know when a particularly amusing or absurd storyline started cropping up again.

But that had been back before Bruce’s disappearance. Tim hadn’t sent him anything like that in the months since he’d returned. He’d assumed it was because Tim was too busy juggling his other responsibilities and no longer had time to cyberstalk them all as thoroughly as he used to. But the abundance of articles in his system seemed to indicate otherwise.

Bruce hadn’t given this much thought when he first skimmed through the files. But he found himself dwelling on it after his failed attempt to talk to Jason.

Jason insisting that he wasn’t part of the family anymore was no surprise. But Bruce hadn’t expected him to say the same thing about Tim. To claim that Tim was a Wayne in name only and that everyone knew it.

Bruce would have brushed that off as nothing more than a vicious expression of Jason’s short temper...but Jason was the one who’d spent the most time with Tim in the last few months. And if Tim no longer considered himself part of the family, it was plausible that he would talk to Jason about it.

The possibility bothered him enough that he eventually found himself digging through the PR files again on Sunday afternoon, looking for anything that might confirm or contradict Jason’s words.

Tim’s name cropped up often in articles about Wayne Enterprises. In addition to official interviews about the company, there were also numerous tabloid features about his relationship with Tam. These mostly focused on their brief engagement and the fact that they still worked together. Some articles were sympathetic to the imagined plight of two young lovers torn asunder by the disapproval of their families. Others painted Tam as a gold digger or speculated that Tim, as her boss, had taken advantage of her, making promises of marriage and then reneging the moment the press caught wind of the truth.

Even in these articles, Tim was elusive. He was sometimes referred to as Tim Wayne, sometimes as Drake-Wayne, often just as Timothy Drake. He talked effusively about the Neon Knights program and other WE projects during interviews, but he refused to answer any questions about his personal life, romantic or otherwise.

There was no smoking gun. No open speculation about Tim’s relationship with the rest of the family. Just small insinuations and asides. Some articles mentioned his time abroad and the fact that he’d dropped out of school when he started working for the company. Others noted that he’d declined all requests for joint interviews back when Hush was still posing as Bruce. And Hush openly admitted to not knowing where Tim was during his months away from Gotham. This was at odds with Bruce’s image as a hopelessly flighty socialite whose main redeeming quality, outside of providing the public with occasional entertainment, was his devotion to his children. The fact that Tim was emancipated and living on his own in the city while the rest of the family resided in Bristol was also considered a cause for concern.

The distance between them had been obvious even to outsiders who didn’t know about their vigilante activities. And Tim had never mentioned it. He never sent any of the articles to Bruce with a note that this was a problem that needed to be dealt with or a joke about how laughably off-base the coverage was.

Eventually, Bruce had to admit to himself that brooding over the files all day wasn’t doing him any good. He needed more intel, and Lucius seemed like the best person to ask.

He blocked off a solid hour for the call, assuming that Lucius would want to go over a variety of WE issues before he let Bruce redirect the conversation to Tim. And Bruce certainly owed him that much. Lucius had left him six unanswered voicemails in the last few days. The messages themselves were vague. Lucius seemed to know that Tim was taking some time off and that Bruce had started taking over some of his projects, but he didn’t know why.

Interacting with Lucius was sometimes difficult. He was well aware that Bruce’s airheaded public persona was a facade, and he’d been surprisingly tolerant of Brucie Wayne’s antics over the years. But he didn’t allow Bruce the luxury of hiding behind frivolity when they were interacting privately. He seemed almost offended by it when Bruce tried. So Bruce tended to be a bit more like himself when it was just the two of them. He was still more expansive, more effusive, and as charming as possible, but he didn’t bother hiding his intelligence. It was important that Lucius understood that Bruce, despite his public peccadilloes, did care about the company. He was too good of an employee to drive away. And also, after all this time, something close to a friend.

But striking the right balance with him was difficult, and Tim’s willingness to run interference for Bruce had left him out of practice.

When Lucius picked up, Bruce immediately launched into a lengthy apology about not responding earlier and not wanting to take up too much of Lucius’s time on a Sunday and so on. Or, at least, he tried to. He didn’t get through more than a few sentences before Lucius cut in and asked, “Is Tim alright?”

His voice was calm and unhurried. But Lucius never interrupted him, no matter how meandering or inane his prattling sometimes became.

“Yes, of course,” Bruce said. Belatedly, he realized that he didn’t know what Tim’s cover story was. He wasn’t even sure if Tim had given one already or if Tam had made it up on her own. “Tim’s a little worse for wear,” he added, “but it’s nothing serious. Didn’t Tam tell you he was alright?”

“She’s been extremely vague about it,” Lucius answered.

“Well, I’ll let Tim tell you the whole story himself,” Bruce said, keeping his tone breezy and unconcerned. “But while we’re on the subject, I noticed something in the press recently.”

He sketched out the contents of one of the sleazier articles he’d come across. This one claimed to have “insider information” from a source close to the family and implied, among other things, that Tim was in danger of being poached by an unspecified rival company.

Lucius didn’t seem particularly surprised by what he was hearing. “Just more of the usual would-be muckrakers trying to imply instability, sir. It’s nothing we haven’t seen before.”

That much was true. There were plenty of other companies in Gotham that would see trouble at Wayne Enterprises as an opportunity to elbow in on their massive market share. But there had been multiple articles insinuating the same thing in the last few months. More than Bruce would have expected, given how stable things had been since Hush was brought under control.

When Bruce pointed out as much, there was a short moment of silence. That kind of hesitance from Lucius was rare. He was generally deliberate and even-mannered, but not usually slow to respond. Finally, he simply said, “There was some confusion last year when Timothy first started working at the company and you were...not feeling like yourself.”

That was how he always referred to the few months when Hush was carelessly disposing of millions of dollars on a monthly basis. It was possible—probable, even—that Lucius suspected some small part of the truth. But if so, he was still fully committed to acting as if Bruce’s uncharacteristic behavior during that time period was the result of a months-long mental breakdown.

When Bruce didn’t immediately respond, Lucius continued, “It was a strange time, Mr. Wayne. We’re still cleaning up some of the fall out. And there is a popular perception regarding some kind of rift in the family. Anyone who’s spent any time with you and your children would know there’s no truth in those rumors, but—well, people believe what they want to believe. And Timothy doesn’t exactly go out of his way to disillusion them.”

That wasn’t what Bruce was hoping to hear. “He doesn’t?”

“No, he insists that it’s useful,” Lucius answered. “People tell him things. Try to get on his good side. Between the tabloids and the injunctions your other son filed, many people see Tim’s position as precarious. And they offer to help him find security. At your expense.”

“And he tells it all to you,” Bruce said. It was just like Tim to gather information on Bruce’s enemies unprompted. Even the ones who just wanted to fleece him instead of kill him.

“I thought he was telling you as well,” Lucius said.

“No. He hasn’t been.”

Lucius was quiet for a moment. “That makes more sense, actually,” he said. And Bruce was glad that he’d at least cleared that up. That Lucius no longer thought he’d knowingly allowed his son to pretend to be estranged for nothing more than a slight business advantage. “But don’t take it too seriously, Bruce. Everyone who’s actually worked with him knows that you chose Tim for a reason. His loyalty’s never been in doubt. Any rumors to the contrary are as credible as the reports that he and my daughter are now secretly married.” He paused and then added, “We’re lucky. They’re both good kids.”

Bruce hadn’t spent much time with Tam, but based on Lucius’s obvious pride in her and Tim’s unwavering insistence on her reliability, he had no trouble agreeing that Lucius was right. They were both lucky.

The conversation moved on from there, but even now, a day later, it’s still on his mind. He never meant to force any of his children into a particular role. He’s always pushed them to guard their secrets carefully but he never expected any of them to do exactly as he had. To falsify so many parts of themselves for the sake of the mission that they were hardly recognizable anymore.

But he’s not sure how to bring that up. There are too many problems crowding his mind. Tim’s secrecy and his reckless disregard for his own safety. His position on the team, in the family, within the company—all of it’s too tangled together. Picking out just one thread to follow feels almost impossible.

The files seem like the safest place to start. It’s a small thing, but it’s been bothering Bruce ever since their interrupted conversation on Saturday.

He keeps his eyes on the road in front of him, but he can still see Tim’s reflection in his peripheral vision. Tim’s leaning against the window, but the stiffness in his posture means that he’s still awake.

“There was nothing wrong with them,” Bruce says. Tim’s head starts to turn, just a little, eyes glancing at the rear-view mirror briefly before returning to the window. “The files,” Bruce adds. “They were fine.”

“Okay,” Tim says.

“You left them for me. In your protocol. So I worked on them.”

“Okay,” Tim says again.

“We thought that you would—that it would be good for you to rest. When you got back.”

When Bruce glances at the mirror to get a better look at him, Tim’s frowning at the window. “Alfred said the same thing. Last night.” The unspoken implication is that if Alfred couldn’t convince Tim to rest, Bruce isn’t going to manage it either. But he still feels compelled to try.

“You don’t need to go into the office today,” he says. “We can turn around. I can talk to Tam.”

Tim just shakes his head. “You can’t. You aren’t the one who disappeared for a week, dumped all your work on her, and then made her wait an extra three days for an explanation.” He sighs, rubs at his face, and then adds, “I thought I’d have a chance to catch up with her before this, but—I just really didn’t expect everyone to stay for so long.” Now he turns his face toward the front of the car. When Bruce glances at the rearview mirror, Tim’s looking right at him, his expression strangely expectant. Bruce looks back at the road, not sure what he’s supposed to say.

“Seriously,” Tim says after a moment. “I can’t believe you let my friends stay for the whole weekend. Two full days. I really—I cannot believe—”

“Was I not supposed to?” Bruce asks, cautious and confused now.

“You weren’t not supposed to,” Tim says. “I just didn’t expect—I mean, they’re gonna be impossible to deal with from now on, Bruce. You let them get away with so much. They were supposed to be on their best behavior. And that? Not their best. Not even close.”

“I would hope not,” Bruce says, keeping his voice neutral. Tim’s tone has slipped from cautious to casual. He was careful when talking about Tam, but on the topic of his friends, he’s now openly exasperated.

But that, at least, is understandable. Tam is an employee of Wayne Enterprises. She’s someone who might need or want Bruce’s good opinion, so Tim is careful when he talks about her. Slightly protective. Whereas Tim’s friends are, in theory, beyond Bruce’s reach and entirely unbothered by his censure. Or at least determined to pretend that they are.

“It made sense to have them over,” Bruce adds. “They wanted to spend time with you. To make sure that you were okay. And so did we.”

Tim gives him a dubious look through the mirror. “I feel like you didn’t really think this one through, B,” he says, his voice overly grave in a way that Bruce thinks is meant to be a joke. “I’m not criticizing. It was nice. It was fun. I will remember this weekend fondly. But at some point in the future this is definitely going to come back to haunt us. They probably think they can just pop into Gotham whenever they want now.” Tim pauses, shaking his head at this prospect, and then adds, “This is not how I expected the weekend to go when I let them sneak into the city.”

“How did you expect things to go?” Bruce asks.

Tim shrugs and goes back to looking out the window. “I figured you’d drop by on Friday and, you know, scare them. A little bit. Just enough to keep them humble?” After a moment, he adds, “Now humility is a far off dream that we’re going to have to give up. Possibly forever.”

Bruce sighs, not at the prospect of Tim’s friends running roughshod through the city—he doubts the situation is as dire as Tim’s making it out to be—but because Barbara was right. Tim expected them to get caught. And, by the sounds of it, he’d also expected exactly the kind of confrontation that Barbara managed to prevent.

“What was going on anyway? On Friday?” Tim asks. When Bruce doesn’t answer—doesn’t know how to answer—Tim adds, “Trouble in the city?” He’s looking at Bruce through the mirror again.

It’s an odd question. If there’d been trouble in Gotham, Tim would have heard about it by now. “No. The last few days have been quiet.”

“Oh,” Tim says. “Stuck in the office?”

“I’ve been working from home,” Bruce answers. “Why?” He feels a small prickling of suspicion, though he isn’t quite sure why yet.

Tim shrugs and turns back to the window. “Just wondering. The girls said nothing much was happening, but I just figured—I was just wondering.”

The repetition is a tell. Bruce just isn’t sure what it’s telling.

This isn’t supposed to be an interrogation. Bruce knows that. But it’s hard not to approach it that way when Tim’s being so reticent. And now he has the distinct impression that Tim’s trying to pursue his own line of inquiry, although Bruce has no idea just what he’s trying to figure out.

He keeps his eyes on the road and considers the question, turning it over in his mind. The answer comes to him slowly, but once he tries to think about it from Tim’s perspective, the reason is obvious.

Tim expected to see him on Friday. And he hadn’t shown up.

He feels a sudden sinking sensation in his chest. He knows that Barbara was right. Confronting Tim while he was still angry would have ended badly for both of them. But staying away entirely, without explanation—

That was a different kind of mistake. Tim had expected to see him, and Bruce hadn’t shown up, and three days later it’s still bothering Tim enough that he’s trying, obliquely, to figure out what happened. Tim, who’s almost compulsively curious, who can’t quite stop himself from trying to connect dots and fill in blanks. He probably has theories about why Bruce didn’t come to see him. And based on Tim’s inability to accept that he’s not in some sort of trouble, none of those theories seem to be optimistic.

Tim still looks fine, albeit tired. He’s staring out the window as if nothing’s wrong. As if Bruce didn’t just admit that there was nothing important keeping him from welcoming his son home after he’d been off-planet for days.

“I was advised not to interfere on Friday,” Bruce says slowly, trying to pick his words carefully. Tim’s gaze swings back to the mirror, clearly surprised. “Barbara seemed to think that your friends might mutiny if I showed up.”

Tim raises both his eyebrows. “Am I missing something?” he asks. “I mean, Barbara’s right—I’m pretty sure my friends were trying to get in trouble in some kind of misguided attempt at solidarity—but I’m not really following the logic of just...letting them have their way?”

“Solidarity?” Bruce repeats.

Tim rolls his eyes. “Something like that. Apparently ‘being in trouble together sucks less than being in trouble alone.’” Tim air-quotes the last bit, and based on his cadence, Bruce is fairly certain that he’s imitating Bart. “Obviously it was not a great plan, Bruce. And their lackluster efforts have now been rewarded. They’ve been given positive reinforcement. This is gonna go straight to their heads.”

Bruce sighs. “Tim, you’re not in trouble.”

“Right,” Tim says, sounding entirely unconvinced. “But you are upset with me. About last week.”

“No,” Bruce says.

“Right,” Tim says again, not even pretending to believe him.

“I was upset,” Bruce admits. “You were in danger. We couldn’t reach you. There’s no scenario where that doesn’t upset me.”

He wants to say more. To explain that he’s still upset but not angry. Not being upset would mean that he didn’t care, and Tim has to know that he cares, doesn’t he? But Bruce doesn’t know how to pick apart all the things he’s feeling—fear, anxiety, frustration, concern—and lay it all out clearly and coherently. It’s too much of a mess to explain.

And he doesn’t have time to sort it out. Tim’s looking at him through the mirror again, his expression serious.

“I understand that,” Tim says. “And if you’d been here when it happened, I would have done things differently. But you weren’t, and I had to make the decision myself, and I made the right one. And it all worked out.” Bruce very much wants to disagree, but Tim’s on a roll now. “Look, I know we haven’t really talked about this, but I understand why you might question my judgment after last year. I know that I messed up. But what happened last week—that wasn’t a mistake. I know it’s not how you would have handled it but—”

“Tim,” Bruce says, purposefully breaking his momentum. “I’m not questioning you because of things that you did last year. I don’t even know what happened while you were gone.” That phrase feels strange when he says it. While you were gone is how the kids usually refer to the months Bruce was lost in the time stream. He doesn’t like using it for Tim’s time abroad.

Bruce shouldn’t bring this up. He’s supposed to stick to recent events. But Tim is the one who mentioned last year, and Bruce needs to know what happened. He needs to know what price his son paid to help bring him back.

But Tim, of course, sidesteps that particular question entirely. “I don’t mean while I was gone. I mean the things I did while I was in Gotham.”

“The things you did in Gotham,” Bruce repeats, trying to figure out what that means. There have been more than a few incidents where Bruce has questioned Tim’s judgment since his return. His handling of the Lynx situation and Lucius’s fake death are the first two that come to mind. Tim’s pursuit of Captain Boomerang was another obvious point of contention. But it could just as easily be something that Bruce didn’t think to question.

Bruce is a detective. He’s skilled at reading people when he knows that he’s supposed to be paying attention. But with his family sometimes—often—he takes it for granted that he knows what a conversation is about.

When he first came back, he and Tim talked about Tim’s plans to renovate the theater on Park Row multiple times. Tim kept coming back to the subject over and over again, and Bruce hadn’t understood the undercurrents of those conversations until Tim finally asked him outright if he approved. If it was okay that Tim was rebuilding the place where Bruce’s parents were killed.

He’d thought it was obvious that he approved. But he’d never explicitly said so, and that fact obviously bothered Tim more than he’d been willing to admit.

There could be other things that Bruce missed. Signs of anxiety or uncertainty that he failed to recognize. So he lets the silence hang in the air between them, waiting for Tim to offer up some kind of explanation.

“I left Gotham,” Tim says eventually. “I left while the city was unstable. While Dick and Damian and Steph were all still finding their feet. I let Jason out of Blackgate and then didn’t keep an eye on him.” Tim pauses, waiting for a reaction, and then adds, “I know you think that was a mistake.”

“You’ve done well with Jason,” Bruce says. “Better than anyone else has.”

Tim frowns at him through the mirror. “I was under the impression that you didn’t approve.”

Bruce knows better than to lie. “I didn’t, at first. Not because of you. I just—”

He pauses, trying to find the right words, but Tim’s quicker than he is. Better prepared for a conversation that he clearly expected them to have. “I know,” he says. “You don’t like not being involved. And with the way things went those first few months…” Tim shrugs. He mostly doesn’t talk about the battle for the cowl. None of the boys do. “I’m just saying, I get why you would question some of the things I did. I know I made mistakes last year. And some of those mistakes got people killed. And I—”

Tim cuts himself off and turns to look out the window again, his jaw suddenly tight. And it takes Bruce a moment to understand. To draw a line between the things Tim is saying and the things he’s leaving out. But when he does, the weight of it settles on his chest, makes him grip the steering wheel in front of him just a little too tight.

“Tim,” Bruce says. “What Jason did—none of that is your fault.”

“It is,” Tim says, voice matter-of-fact. Perfectly calm. Like this is where he expected the conversation to go, eventually. Like he’s been waiting for it this whole time. “I let him out knowing that he would need help and then I didn’t follow through. He was my responsibility the moment I helped him escape Blackgate. And that wasn’t the only time that I—” He pauses, obviously choosing his words carefully. “I got wrapped up in the things I thought I needed to do and I didn’t let myself worry about the collateral damage. But I’m not doing that anymore. I’m more careful. I think things through. And if there are going to be consequences, I try to minimize them as much as I can. But there’s only so much that I can—” He cuts himself off again, still frowning at the window, and then continues more slowly. “Giving myself to the Tetrahedra was the right move. It protected the city, minimized potential casualties, and kept everyone safe. And I couldn’t pull it off without lying to the others. I know that I broke their trust. And I know I’m going to have to earn it back. But that doesn’t mean it was the wrong thing to do.”

There are so many points Bruce wants to argue with that for a long moment he can’t figure out where to start. Finally, he just says, “Tim, you weren’t safe.”

Tim’s frown deepens. “You know what I mean,” he says. “Look, I know you’re not happy with how I chose to handle that. And, full disclosure, I’m probably going to do more things that you don’t like or agree with. But that’s what you trained me to do. To be independent. To make decisions, knowing what the consequences of those decisions will be. If I only did what I thought you would do, I might never have found you last year at all.”

There’s a touch of defensiveness in that last sentence. It’s not nearly as strong as the tone Tim adopted during the video call, but it’s still there. And Bruce has no idea why it’s come back now. He hasn’t once criticized Tim for leaving Gotham to search for him.

But Bruce’s knowledge about Tim’s activities during that search is hopelessly incomplete. When he finally returned to his own time, Tim had been part of the rescue party waiting for him. Bruce’s memory had been a mess then, but he’d recognized his Robin. And that was the moment when the world finally righted itself. When Bruce really understood that he was finally home.

When his colleagues in the Justice League recounted their search for him, they made a point of praising Tim’s contributions. And Bruce assumed that the Tim they described—serious, steadfast, self-possessed—was an accurate reflection of Tim’s state of mind throughout his search.

He never dug deep enough into the particulars of what actually happened. But Tim also chose to ignore or evade all of the questions that Bruce did ask.

A small part of him is still furious about this. But the longer he’s known the truth—a small fraction of the truth—the more he’s starting to understand why Tim kept it to himself.

Tim almost died, trying to save him. His son almost died.

Ever since he found out, that fact won’t let go of him. The knowledge that he almost lost another one of his sons weighs on him, and he can’t stop himself from imagining a world in which things went differently. Where he made it home, somehow, and Tim wasn’t there waiting for him.

He can understand why Tim might want to spare him the truth. At least for a little while. But it’s clear that Tim knew these secrets would come out eventually. He knew that Bruce would find out, someday, about his missing spleen or the full extent of his entanglement with the League of Assassins.

For the entirety of this conversation, Bruce has felt like they've been on unequal footing. Tim’s resistance to talking about this hasn’t stopped him from preparing for it. He already has all his arguments lined up, while Bruce is still grappling with the basic facts of what happened.

That’s something Bruce has always appreciated about him. Tim’s always been willing to argue with Bruce when necessary, and for the most part he comes into those arguments well prepared.

But that’s because Tim broods over things before he brings them up to Bruce. He constructs his points ahead of time and tries to anticipate the arguments and counter-arguments that Bruce might offer in turn.

And Bruce hates the idea that he might have been doing that all this time. Carrying the weight of his secrets and running through arguments in his mind, over and over, ever since Bruce came back. Or, worse, since before he even returned.

Bruce knows from experience that it’s hard to argue with a ghost.

He breathes in slowly, holds it, and then lets it go. “Whatever happened last year—” He stops, unsure where he’s going, and tries again. “I know it was a difficult time. For everyone. Especially you. You were the one on the ground. You had to make decisions on your own. I don’t want to—I can’t pass judgment on what happened when I wasn’t here.”

“Pretty sure you can,” Tim says, voice carefully neutral. He doesn’t add, Pretty sure you have before, but Bruce hears that part loud and clear.

He’s not doing this right. He can’t find words to convey the thing he really wants to communicate. He knows that he’s harsh sometimes. He knows that he can be overly critical. But he needs to push his children to continually improve themselves, to become smarter and stronger and faster. They’re vigilantes. They face life-and-death situations on a weekly basis, and he wants them to live, and even a small mistake could cost them everything.

But those criticisms and questions and judgments—they belong in the here and now. They belong to the time that Bruce gets to share with his children. When his advice works and they improve, he can acknowledge it. And when his criticisms are unwarranted or unrealistic or—as Barbara sometimes puts it—just downright wrongheaded...he can acknowledge that too. He can still apologize and make amends.

But someday he really will be gone. Hopefully long before any of his children pass. And he wants to prepare them for when that time comes, but he also doesn’t want his harshest criticisms to be the main thing they take with them into that unknown future. He doesn’t want his children to feel like they still have to justify themselves to him when he’s gone.

“My parents would have hated this,” Bruce says abruptly. In the mirror, Tim looks startled. “What we do—it’s for them. It’s because of them. And it’s important. But I know that it’s not what they would have wanted for me.” It’s something he never thought about when he was younger. But then he had children of his own, all of them fighters in their own way, and sometimes he wishes that they were just a little less like him. He wishes that he could have somehow fixed enough of the world that they wouldn’t feel the need to follow in his footsteps. “It’s not what I want for you. Or the others.”

“But it’s necessary,” Tim says, and his voice still carries the same ring of conviction that first convinced Bruce that this boy could be—would be—worthy of taking up the mantle after Jason’s death.

“Yes, but—I don’t want you to think that you have to—that you could ever do anything that would—” He stops again, aware that he’s not being clear. His emotions are getting in the way. He’s caught up in the peculiar feeling of hope and fear that his children often inspire in him, and he doesn’t know how to explain all of this to Tim in a way that will make sense.

Finally, he just sighs, wistful in a way that he rarely allows himself, and says, “I wish you could have met them. My parents. They would have loved you.” That thought, at least, is clear and concise and true.

And then it hits him all over again. How long they’ve been gone. More than a lifetime. Both of them were buried years before Tim was even born.

This mix of emotions is one that he knows well enough to name. He was never naïve enough to think that he could ever truly leave this grief behind, but he used to think that it might become more manageable with time. He’d thought that the feelings that had been so overwhelming and inescapable when he was a small boy would somehow stay the same. That they would become a part of him, softened by familiarity, and that he would eventually grow enough to encompass them.

Instead his grief has grown with him, its nature shifting over time. When he was young, he used to focus only on the things he lost. His parents’ presence in his life, their love, the pleasure of their company. He spent hours wondering what they would have said or done, what stories they could have told him. Now, more and more often, he can’t stop thinking of all the things that they’ve missed in the years since their deaths.

His life feels like an inverse reflection of theirs. They got his childhood, but nothing else. He got the opposite. He never saw any of his children when they were small. He never held them when they were babies, never taught them to speak or walk or read. For almost all of them, he missed the entire first decade of their lives. The years when they were most vulnerable, most in need of protection and affection.

But he’s had everything since then. Their tumultuous teenage years, and now the beginning of adulthood. And he wishes he could share that. Wishes his parents could meet these beautiful, brilliant, fiercely dedicated children. He’s spent hours at their graves over the years, wishing he could explain, but he knows he could never do any of his kids justice.

Language always falls short. He could never properly express how he felt just after his parents were killed. There were no words big enough or precise enough to describe that experience and how it changed everything forever.

And so it is with his children. There aren’t words to describe them. Saying that Dick is bright doesn’t convey even a fraction of his warmth, his spirit, the light he brings to every room he enters. There aren’t words for Jason’s sharp mind and fierce sense of justice, the fire in him that never seems to go out. Tim’s wholehearted commitment to the things he cares about and his deep sense of compassion for others. The gentleness that Cassandra has cultivated in herself despite her violent upbringing. The endearing way that Damian’s facade of mature stoicism dissolves into childlike enthusiasm when he’s excited. Barbara’s astonishing intelligence and boundless patience. Stephanie’s indomitable spirit. Duke’s optimism in the face of so much darkness.

It’s difficult to think about all the things his parents have missed. The best part of his life, never to be shared with the people who made him. The people who ensured that he knew, early on, how very loved he was. The one thing that he can’t seem to convey to one of his own sons.

He doesn’t realize how long he’s been quiet until Tim shifts in the backseat, leaning toward the center console to get a better look at him. They’re in Gotham now, but Bruce doesn’t remember crossing over the bridge or entering the city.

“I really freaked you out, didn’t I?” Tim says. His voice is softer now, and the stubbornness is gone from his face, replaced by a mixture of contrition and concern.

“I’m just glad you’re home,” Bruce says when he trusts himself to speak. “But you can’t do that again, Tim. I know you had your reasons. And I know you survived this past week. And last year. But—”

“I promise it wasn’t that bad,” Tim says, his voice still gentle in a way it wasn’t before. “It wasn’t anything like what you went through. No Darkseid levels of danger or anything. And I—”

“I don’t know how much danger you were in,” Bruce says, cutting him off. “I don’t know what happened last year. You’re my son and I don’t know—”

“You know all the important parts,” Tim says. “You trusted me to tell you the parts that actually matter. The rest is just details.”

Bruce has to take another long breath before he responds to that. He doesn’t feel angry or frustrated anymore. He’s just tired. “We must have very different ideas about what is and isn’t important.” When Tim doesn’t respond, Bruce adds, “If it really didn’t matter, you would have told me about it already. You’d be telling me about it right now.”

He keeps his eyes on the road and waits, but there’s no response from the backseat. That, in and of itself, is an acknowledgment that he’s right. But the silence stretches on. When Bruce glances back, Tim’s looking out of the window again, his face stoic.

Bruce used to do this on purpose sometimes—letting silence linger, knowing that he was more patient than his sons and that they would inevitably start speaking if he was quiet for long enough. It always worked on Dick, although Jason often lapsed into his own stubborn silence. Tim had been a mix. Sometimes he filled the silence with quiet chatter, obviously nervous and awkward and painfully young. Other times he’d say nothing at all. Like he thought that might be what Bruce wanted.

He doesn’t want that uncertainty here now. He doesn’t want his son to wonder where they stand or question how much he means to this family. But he doesn’t know what else to say. He doesn’t want to push Tim into an argument. He has a vivid memory of fighting with Dick when he was Tim’s age. When the shouting gave way to angry silence, Dick simply waited until they hit a red light and then got out of the car and walked away.

And Bruce just let him go. He shouldn’t have. He won’t this time, if Tim decides to leave.

But Tim’s still sitting quietly, his forehead pressed against the window, every breath he takes fogging up the glass.

“I’m sorry,” Bruce says. “Whatever happened while you were gone—I’m sorry.”

“Not your fault,” Tim says.

“I should have been here,” Bruce answers. He keeps his eyes on the road now, but he can see Tim’s reflection shifting in his peripheral vision, probably getting ready to argue. “Even after I got back, I didn’t—I was still gone. I spent too much time away from Gotham.”

“You weren’t exactly out on a vacation, Bruce,” Tim says, his tone dipping toward admonishment. “Batman Inc. is important. It’s worth the time and effort that you—”

“I should have stayed closer to home. At least for those first few months. When I got back, all I wanted was to see you all. To spend time with you. But then—” He knows, again, that he’s not explaining it properly. He’s not making sense. “You were all doing so well,” he says. “I didn’t want to ruin that.”

Tim looks confused now. “We’ve been doing well because you trained us. You being here couldn’t ruin that. You’re the reason that we—”

Bruce shakes his head. “I don’t mean that. As a team, you were doing well and I’m proud of that. But you were also—you were all so much happier than before. While I was gone, you—”

Tim is staring at him through the mirror like Bruce just started speaking Kryptonian. “You thought we were happier while you were gone?”

And that’s not what Bruce means, not really. “I thought you were doing better. Without me. I wasn’t getting in the way. Making things...worse.”

“You didn’t say that. You said happier.”

“You were,” he says, after a moment. “When I got back, you were all...so much lighter than before. You were happier than when I left and I—”

“We were happy because you were back,” Tim says.

“I don’t mean right after,” Bruce says. “I know you were glad I made it home. But even after that, things were—”

“We were happy because you were back,” Tim repeats, sounding incredulous. “We still—Bruce, you haven’t even been back a year. You—” For the first time in this conversation, Tim looks like he’s completely at a loss for words. Finally, he says, “Bruce, the others all thought you were dead and then you came back and—”

He pauses, obviously frustrated, and then starts again. “Look. I knew you were still out there. I knew. But everyone else thought you were gone. Forever.”

“I know that,” Bruce says.

Tim shakes his head, obviously impatient. “You don’t sound like you get it. You—Listen. You know how when someone’s gone, it takes a while for your brain to really understand that they’re not there anymore? Like, it feels so stupid because they were such a big part of your life, but somehow it just won’t sink in? After Conner and Bart—there were so many times when I’d see something and think, ‘Oh, I need to tell Conner about this,’ or ‘I wonder if Bart’s already heard about it.’ And it’s not that I forgot they were dead, it was just—there was a moment when part of me still expected to see them again. And then I’d remember that they were gone. Really gone. Does that—has that ever happened to you?”

It has. After Jason’s death, he still found himself instinctively looking for that familiar flash of red and green when he was out on patrol alone. And there were other things he’d done automatically. Turning towards Jason’s room in the morning, intending to wake him up, and then remembering. Or setting food on the side of his plate, fully expecting a ravenous teenage boy to swipe it the second he looked away. For months, a part of him was always surprised when he made it to the end of a meal and everything he’d set aside was still there, untouched.

He nods, although he still doesn’t really understand where Tim is going with this.

“I had the opposite thing happen when they came back,” Tim says. “By then I’d gotten used to telling myself that they were gone. I’d think ‘If they were here, I would have told them about this.’ And then it would hit me that I could. They were back and I could talk to them whenever I wanted about whatever stupid thing was on my mind and I—” Tim stops and slows himself down again. “I knew you were coming back. I knew that if you were still out there, I’d find you. But the others—they didn’t. So every time they saw you, I’m sure it was like that. Like a miracle all over again.”

Bruce finds himself thinking of Jason again. Their first few encounters after he came back to Gotham, still pit-mad, were terrible and traumatic. But he tries to imagine what it would have been like if Jason had come back as he once was. Or even if he’d come back, mad and murderous, but still calling himself Bruce’s son. Still coming home, to the manor, to the family. What it would have been like to suddenly come across him in the library and remember, all over again, that he was back.

“Oh,” Bruce says, belatedly.

“Yeah,” Tim replies. “Yeah, they—we—I can’t believe you thought we—Bruce, that’s just—that’s the stupidest thing I’ve ever heard. And you just spent a whole weekend with my friends, so you know that’s saying something.”

“Some things did get better,” Bruce protests. “Dick and Damian. You and Jason. Barbara and Stephanie. You all—you found a new way of doing things. A better balance for the team. I didn’t want to disrupt that.”

“We’re still better off with you here,” Tim says firmly, his voice brooking no argument.

Here, at least, Bruce knows what to say. “We feel the same way about you.”

Tim frowns, obviously caught off guard. “We’re not talking about me.”

“You’re the one who was gone this time. You were—we didn’t know where you were. Or if we’d find you.”

“It was only a week,” Tim says. But he sounds less sure of himself.

Bruce sighs. “It was a very long week, Tim. We were all worried. That’s why everyone was at the manor the last few days. To see you. To make sure that you were alright.”

It only hits him after he says it.

“I think that was the first time,” Bruce says slowly, thinking it over.

“First time what?” Tim asks.

“The first time we've all been together.”

Someone’s always been missing. Jason, for the longest time, and then Stephanie during her fake death as well. And then Cass was in Hong Kong and—

“No, it wasn’t,” Tim says, frowning. “We were all at that big bust up with Black Mask a couple of months ago.”

“I don’t mean having the team together,” Bruce says. “I mean the family. I don’t think we’ve ever had everyone together under one roof before. Not outside of an emergency.”

“Oh,” Tim says.

Bruce can’t quite believe it. All of his kids, safe, alive, relatively well. Getting along, for the most part. Being together. The sheer impossibility of it. Something that he’d thought could never happen after they lost Jason. Something that wouldn’t have happened if Tim hadn’t made it back home again.

“Tim,” Bruce says. “If you hadn’t come back, we would never have—”

“It wasn’t everyone,” Tim interrupts, brow furrowed now. “Barbara wasn’t there.”

That much is true. She’d stopped by on Friday, but her time at the manor never overlapped with Tim’s. And while she’s not one of Bruce’s children—and would be horribly offended if anyone implied that she was—she’s just as much a part of the family as Stephanie or Duke.

“You’re right,” Bruce concedes reluctantly. “After last week, I think she needed some downtime. But I’m sure she’ll catch up with you soon.”

“We talked on Friday,” Tim says. He looks guilty now. “She did sound...really tired. I know I left her a lot of files to sort through. I meant to clean them up but—” He gestures a little hopelessly.

“Never had the time?” Bruce offers.

Tim makes a face. “I always feel like if I just have one really good week I’ll be able catch up and get everything under control and then—but something always comes up. Hood needs help or there’s an Arkham outbreak or I end up in space for a week and I just—”

“There’s always going to be something else to do,” Bruce says, interrupting him as gently as he can. “I think you should consider taking some time off. You’ve already—”

Tim, of course, protests immediately. “That’s a terrible idea. Things are just going to keep piling up and—”

“You’re not the only person on this team,” Bruce reminds him. “The rest of us can take care of some of your responsibilities. At least for now.” When he glances at the mirror again, Tim is frowning, obviously skeptical. “Tim, there’s only so much you can do while you’re healing. We already have all active cases covered. You can afford to rest. The alternative is filling your days with nothing but company work and cold cases.”

In the mirror, Tim grimaces. “Okay, that is a really depressing combination.”

He’s not, Bruce notes, actually acquiescing. But it’s still a better reaction than he’d hoped for.

“When you get better, you don’t have to do both,” Bruce says. “The company and Red Robin—” Tim’s frown deepens, his expression suddenly guarded again, and Bruce sighs. “I’m not asking you to stop anything if you don’t want to. There’s nothing wrong with the work you’re doing. It’s just—it’s too much, Tim. And that’s not just my opinion. Barbara agrees.”

Tim’s mouth, already open to argue, snaps shut again. Even he thinks twice before arguing with Oracle.

“No one’s going to take anything from you,” Bruce adds, thinking of the way Tim lost Robin. “I just want you to be able to take time off when you need to without feeling like everything will fall apart while you’re gone. And Wayne Enterprises—you were supposed to take over in my absence. But I’m not gone anymore.”

“You don’t like doing company stuff,” Tim points out.

“And you do?” Bruce asks.

Tim grimaces—a clear enough no—but then shrugs. “I don’t hate it. I think it’s important and useful and—”

“But is this actually what you want to be doing?”

“Yes,” Tim says immediately.

“Indefinitely?”

This time Tim hesitates. “I don’t know,” he admits. “Things have been so—I don’t want anything to change right now. Which is stupid because things always change. But I just—it would be nice. If things just—”

He lapses into silence then, but Bruce knows what he means. The last few months, busy as they’ve been for Tim, have probably felt stable in comparison to the years that preceded them. That short period of time when Tim lost so many of his friends and family, one after the other.

“It’s not stupid,” Bruce says. “I wish that some things...hadn’t changed so quickly.”

He’s still grateful for so many of the things that have happened in recent years. But losing Tim as his Robin—that had been difficult.

He wonders what might have happened if he’d made different decisions when he first returned. If he’d stayed in Gotham and insisted that the city could have two Batmen and two Robins. Or if he’d just taken Tim with him when he started Batman Inc.

There probably would have been a ripple effect of good and bad. It would have caused problems with Damian, he’s certain of that. And Jason might have continued to spiral out of control.

But maybe Tim would have told him everything by now. Would have already explained all the things that happened to him while Bruce was gone.

Maybe he still will. Eventually.

For now, though, their time is running out. There are still so many things Bruce wishes he’d said, but Wayne Enterprises’ main building is just now coming into view. They’re only ten minutes late.

He has time, at least, for one last thing. “You’ll be convalescing for the next few weeks,” he says firmly. “You and Jason both. If you want to argue, you’ll have to take it up with Alfred and Barbara.”

Tim rolls his eyes, but mutters, “Yeah, okay. I kind of figured.”

Then he scoots over to the middle of the backseat and leans forward, one forearm resting on the center console, which means—

“Seatbelt,” Bruce says automatically.

“We’re practically already parked,” Tim says, which is blatantly untrue. They haven’t even made it into the parking lot yet. “Also, I know I said it was a bad idea—and I still maintain that it was—but thanks. For letting my friends stay over for so long.”

“As long as they keep saving your life,” Bruce says, “they can keep coming to Gotham.”

Tim snorts. “Yeah, I’m not telling them that. They definitely can’t be trusted with an open-ended invitation.”

“Next time—” Bruce stops, his mind stuttering over the idea for a moment, unsure of it. But it feels right. It feels possible, now, in a way that it didn’t before. “Next time,” he says again, “I’d prefer if we got the family together without them. Everyone this time,” he adds. “Barbara might be more inclined to come if the house wasn’t—” He stops again, looking for a charitable turn of phrase.

“In a state of complete and utter chaos? Yeah, you’re probably right.” Tim’s still leaning forward, one elbow propped up on the center console, his expression thoughtful now. “Jason would be tough. But maybe for Alfred’s birthday? Or Cass’s? We probably shouldn’t invite him outright, but maybe if—” He pauses, mulling it over. “Let me think about it. I bet I can figure something out.”

“Whatever you think is best,” Bruce says.

He hasn’t even put the car into park when the doors to the building slide open and Tam Fox starts striding toward them across the pavement. She’s carrying a pair of crutches under one arm, and the expression on her face is thunderous.

Tim sighs. “I deserve this,” he says bleakly.

“You said you were running on time,” she says as soon as Bruce starts opening the car door. “This is not on time. And didn’t you—” She stutters to a stop the moment Bruce steps out of the car.

“Good morning, Miss Fox,” he says, offering her his most congenial smile.

“You—” she says, wide-eyed. “Mr. Wayne, I am so sorry, I thought you were—where’s Conner?”

“On his way home, probably,” Tim says, sliding out of the backseat. “Does Lucius ever yell at you?” he asks Bruce.

“Lucius never yells at anyone,” Bruce answers.

Tam stares at them both for another moment. Then, to Bruce’s surprise, she says, “You’ve obviously never seen my dad at a Gotham Knights game.” Then she leans against the crutches and gives Tim a long, hard look. “Are you okay?” she asks. She somehow manages to sound concerned and accusatory at the same time.

“Yeah, mostly,” Tim says, answering with more honesty than Bruce expected. “I’ll tell you all about it later. Thanks for the ride, Bruce. I have to run, but—”

“Wait,” Bruce says. “We forgot one thing.”

He's worried, for a moment, when Tim just frowns at him, obviously confused. It’s not until Bruce raises his arms that he seems to get it.

Then, to Bruce's relief, the frown drops off Tim’s face, and he’s grinning as he steps forward into Bruce’s arms.

They show up in the group chat the next day.

There had been one last burst of messaging late on Sunday as Anita, Cissie, and Greta all dutifully reported that they’d arrived home safely. But on Monday the chat was quiet, and Bruce assumed that it would be entirely forgotten within a few more days.

Instead, halfway through Tuesday morning his phone starts filling up with a long string of notifications yet again. And when he opens up the app, he finds pictures of himself and Tim.

There’d been paparazzi across the street. Bruce noticed them while driving and then immediately put them out of his mind. He recognized most of the photographers in Gotham well enough to know that these weren’t assassins in disguise. That was generally all the attention he paid to them when he wasn’t worried about switching between identities.

The photos mostly showed up on gossip sites. Anita must have an alert set up for mentions of Tim online, because she’s sending screencaps to the chat less than five minutes after the articles were posted. The pictures, for some reason, are followed by the number five. Based on the other messages, Bruce thinks it’s a reference to some sort of rating system, although he’s not sure if she’s judging the contents of the photographs or the articles.

There’s the usual round of light ribbing from Tim’s friends. His choice of tie is met with almost universal condemnation as soon as Conner mentions the other ones that he rejected. In retrospect, Bruce probably should have realized that those were gag gifts from his friends. From there, though, they’re mostly mocking the articles for their complete lack of journalistic integrity. When Bruce actually clicks through the links provided, he understands why.

The stories are a mix of sparse facts and baseless speculation, mostly centered on Tim and Tam’s doomed romance and the idea that Bruce is meddling with it somehow. One article features a picture of Bruce hugging Tim followed by a photo of Tam looking furious. The fact that the second photo isn’t a reaction shot and was actually taken moments earlier, before Bruce and Tim even exited the car, is conveniently not addressed in the captions or article.

It’s nothing Bruce hasn’t seen before. It’s commonplace for unscrupulous publications to capture the image of a single expression in transition and pretend that it accurately reflects the entire story instead of just one small part of it.

Still, excised from the absurdity of the surrounding text, the photos themselves aren’t all bad. There’s even one that he actually likes.

In it, Bruce’s arms are still wrapped around Tim’s shoulders, holding him in place for just one moment longer. Tim’s already starting to pull away, but he’s still smiling. They both are.

Tim does look a touch sheepish, though. Like a teenage boy who’s just remembered to feel embarrassed about hugging his father in front of his workplace. Bruce hopes that’s a phase that he’ll grow out of given time or, perhaps, repeated exposure.

And Bruce, for once, looks exactly the way he was feeling at the time: proud and fond and deeply happy. Still caught up in one of those rare moments of absolute clarity that his children sometimes give him. It’s something he often forgets until he has one of them in his arms again and the world suddenly narrows down to just that. His child, alive and well. In those moments, it’s hard to imagine anything else ever mattering as much as this.

Even looking at the photograph now, a day later, makes him feel calmer. He still has questions and concerns. He knows that there are things they still need to talk about and that some of those conversations will be difficult. But that fact doesn’t feel so overwhelming anymore. As long as Tim’s alive, he knows they’ll have more moments like the one in this photograph. Scattered, perhaps, between disagreements and arguments. He knows that no matter how hard he tries, the good moments will only ever be part of the story. But if he keeps trying, if he does better, maybe he can tip the scales enough that the good will always outweigh the bad.

He saves the photo, sets his phone aside, and then, after a momentary hesitation, picks it up again.

The chat’s still going strong, although Tim’s friends have mostly moved on to discussing the potential ramifications that a long-standing Tim-and-Tam plotline might have on Cissie and Tim’s future relationship. Other than a few exasperated comments between meetings, Tim’s mostly been quiet. However, he does jump back into the chat long enough to let them know that he’s not interested in fake-dating anyone anytime soon, but that Tam has valiantly volunteered to go on friend-dates with celebrities if necessary. The idea of a Cissie-steals-Tam storyline is met with general enthusiasm and judged infinitely more interesting than Cissie stealing Tim.

Bruce has no intention of interrupting any of this high-spirited nonsense. It’s not really his place and a message from him would only derail the conversation. So he exits the app and goes to his phone’s regular text messenger instead.

His last text exchange with Tim is from the day before he was taken. The notification came through just as Bruce cleared customs in Moscow. It was just a short message wishing him a safe arrival in grammatically dubious Russian. Tim hadn’t even switched his keyboard to Cyrillic, instead opting to type it out phonetically. Bruce had sent back a simple “Спасибо” in response.

Bruce knows Tim probably composed the message in only a few seconds, while distracted and trying to multitask. But he’d still stopped whatever he was doing long enough to reach out. To let Bruce know that he was thinking of him and wishing him well.

He selects the photo that he saved but then hesitates over what to say.

He could just send the picture without any commentary. It seems like a clear enough message. But he’s trying to make an effort. And his kids already know that he’s worse at texting than he is at talking. It’s a fault they seem to find funny more often than they find it frustrating.

Finally, he just types out, “I like this one.”

It’s not a particularly good text, but he hits send anyway.