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Tim smashes Riddler into the ground, one hand fisted in the front of his jacket and the other gripping a sharpened shuriken above his throat. He growls, and by the look on Riddlers face, he can tell his glare isn’t far off from Batman’s. “Too far this time, Nygma. Where are they?”
“Come on, Red, you know that’s not the game,” Riddler tells him, smiling warily.
Tim presses the shuriken tighter against his throat, drawing small droplets of blood. “Tell me where to find them, or I swear to god I’ll break Batman’s number one rule right here.”
Behind him, he can hear Kon make a small noise of distress, but he ignores it. Riddler stares at him with wide eyes, “You wouldn’t! You bats are too soft--”
He chokes, cut off by more pressure to his neck. Tim glowers. “Last chance.”
“Red, don’t .”
“Shut up, Supes.”
“You can’t just kill--”
“Who’s stopping me?” Tim hisses, pressing into Nygma’s neck further.
“ Rob ,” Kons stresses, using his old nickname like a plea, “I can hear their heartbeats.”
None of the tension leaves Tim’s body, eyes still locked on Edward’s. “Are they okay?”
“Jo-- Superboy sounds out of breath, inhibitor collar, probably. Robin sounds like he might have a few bruised ribs.”
Edward chokes again, and Tim doesn’t move. He could do it. He could kill him right now. After three days of searching with the rest of the bats busy or off world, the stress of wondering if his brother is alive or dead, it’s enough. Tim could do it. He could slide his shuriken across Nygma’s throat and leave, easy.
“Red,” Kon says softly, tugging at his arm. “Let’s go get them.”
Slowly, Tim stands, pointing his staff at Riddler as he glowers. “Last strike, Riddler.”
“Any guesses?” Riddler asks hoarsely as Tim turns, sinking back into the rubble with a groan. “For the riddle?”
Kon drags him away before he can reply.
They race through the halls together, some old fun house that was abandoned years ago with the circus recession, when Joker first surfaced. Clowns have been a sore spot in Gotham ever since. Figures that Riddler would come here, always trying to one up the Joker, fighting for top spot on Gotham’s most wanted.
Tim’s boots skid on the ground as he turns a sharp corner, following after Kon. They don’t run into any goons, which Tim finds odd, but he can figure that out once he makes sure their brothers are safe.
Kon smashes through the heavy rolling door like it’s nothing, shouldering through the hole. Tim follows, yanking his cape away from a jagged edge.
“Conner!”
“ Names ,” Damian whines, but when he sees Tim, his eyes widen, “Drake!”
Tim takes a breath for the first time in three days, rushing to kneel next to his brother. He gets to work on the chains binding him to something Tim honestly doesn’t have time nor energy to worry about right now.
“Are you okay, squirt?” He hears Kon ask.
“Report,” he commands quietly, face soft.
“I have three bruised ribs, I believe a cracked collarbone, and minor bruising to my face.” Damian glares at Jon over Tim’s shoulder. “Before the kid tells you he’s fine, his nose is broken, and his ankle is sprained.”
So Damian took the worst of it. Figures. He sighs, pulling the chains away. “Can you walk?”
“Yes,” Damian grumbles, but teeters the moment he stands.
Tim catches him under his armpits, careful of his injuries. “Dehydrated?”
“Moderately. Nygma is not as bad as he leads the public to believe.”
“He held us captive for three days!” Jon protests, voice nasally, already sitting comfortably on Kon’s back. “He beat you up!”
“Apologies.” Damian grunts as Tim lifts him, wrapping his legs around his waist so he can carry him against his chest. “I simply meant Nygma is not as bad as other Gotham super-villains.”
“I hate this city,” Kon whispers.
Tim turns to smile reassuringly at him, but Kon looks away before he has a chance. Tim frowns, but doesn’t say anything about it. “Okay, Batcave? Alfred said Bruce and Clark should be back soon, they’ll probably head straight there.”
“Fine,” Kon agrees in a clipped tone.
Furrowing his eyebrows, Tim follows him out the way they came. Damian, apparently giving up on preserving his dignity, drops his forehead down onto Tim’s shoulder. “What’s wrong with Kent? Did something happen before you found us?”
Tim shakes his head, watching Kon’s back. “No. At least, I don’t think so.”
Kon stops in his tracks, whirling on Tim with a scoff. “Seriously?”
“What?”
“You’re kidding, right?” Kon snaps. Tim takes a step back. Sure, Kon’s a hothead, but he’s a lot calmer lately, and he hasn’t snapped at Tim like that since the early days of Young Justice. Kon glares at him, “You come this close to breaking the absolute number one, non-negotiable rule, and you’re just going to pretend everything’s fine ?”
Damian sits up, eyes wide as he looks at Tim. “What is he talking about?”
Jon looks between his brother and Tim, his expression matching Damian’s. “Did you kill someone?”
“No! Of course not.” Tim sighs, “Can we please do this later?”
“Do this later? Tim, you held a weapon to Riddler’s throat, you would have slit it if I hadn’t stopped you!”
Damian drops to the ground, and Tim doesn’t miss the way his shoulders stiffen and his fists clench, standing in front of Tim like a shield. “This is not the place, Kent.”
“Would you really have killed him?” Jon asks softly, staring down at Tim. His body is stiffer now too, his elbows locked from where they’re looped around Kon’s neck. Tim wonders, briefly, if Damian would fight his best friend for him. The thought makes him sick.
The walls are a lot closer, and before Tim can think about it he’s hoisting Damian onto his back and shoving past Kon to make a beeline for the door.
“Running away?” Kon calls after him, copying his movements. “Didn’t think that’s how the Bats did things!”
Tim turns, pressing a button on his toolbelt. “I’m not running. I’m getting Damian to Alfred, because he might have internal bleeding and he’s definitely in pain. Safety comes before your stupid morality speech.”
“ My stupid morality?” Kon says back, watching as Tim’s bike speeds around the corner on autopilot. “I don’t know what the hell happened back there, but whoever you are right now, you’re not Tim!”
“That’s not true,” He thinks he hears Damian whisper, but he’s on his bike and speeding away with the wind rushing past his ears before he can register it.
***
The clone is an idiot. Damian has always said so. Like most things, no one actually paid him any mind, but that doesn’t mean he isn’t right.
Timothy doesn’t say a word to him as he climbs off his bike, just hoists him into his arms and takes him straight to the med table, where Pennyworth is waiting.
“I am glad to see you well,” Pennyworth says with poorly disguised relief under his calm exterior.
Damian grunts, watching Timothy move to the batcomputer mutely. He allows Pennyworth to take account of his injuries, bandaging his ribs and giving him a sling to keep his collarbone in place. Damian even takes the pain medicine without complaint.
The clone and Jon arrive just as Pennyworth is finishing, and Damian wonders what took them so long.
“That should be all for now, Master Damian, but I expect you to tell me if something else starts to hurt,” Pennyworth says, giving him a stern look. He pats the table next to Damian and nods at Jon, “I believe it’s your turn, my boy.”
Jon does as he’s told, and Damian can see him out of his peripheral vision, trying to get his attention. Damian ignores him, watching as Timothy very carefully avoids Kent.
“You okay?” Timothy asks finally. He stands, closing something on the computer, most likely finishing his report. He sidesteps Kent easily on the way to Damian’s side. “No psychological damage?”
Damian snorts, “If you count Riddler’s unnecessary quips and questions as damaging, then absolutely.”
“I’ll look into getting you therapy,” Timothy says sarcastically, smiling at him. A few feet away, Kon scoffs, and Timothy’s smile freezes on his face. “As long as you’re good, I’m gonna go call the others. Dick’s been blowing up my phone since I updated them.”
“Very well.”
“Do you need anything?”
Damian starts to shake his head, before he glances at Kent out of the corner of his eye. He hums, “Hot chocolate would be adequate.”
Timothy huffs a laugh and ruffles Damian’s hair gently, “Sure. With marshmallows.”
He disappears up the stairs, head ducked.
Pennyworth frowns. “I do hope none of you said anything to him, after all the work he’s put into bringing you back safe.”
The butler mostly directs the sentence at Damian, which by all accounts is probably fair, but this time, it’s not actually his fault. He scoffs defensively, “As if I would condemn a job well done.”
Pennyworth nods once, sets the rag he’s drying his hands on down next to Damian’s thigh, and hums innocently, “I think I will join Master Tim in the kitchen. The boy can barely make toast without burning the manor down.”
Damian scowls. He did that on purpose. Pennyworth is always trying to make him interact more.
“How’s the nose?” Kent asks Jon as soon as Pennyworth has left, tipping his chin back so he can look at it.
“Fine,” Jon says, muffled by his stuffed sinuses.
Kent looks at Damian, and his eyebrows unfurrow slightly. “Look, I know you’re pissed at me, but you didn’t see Tim back there. He’s off, and it’s worrying me. What if I hadn’t been there to stop him?”
“I presume he would have killed Nygma.”
“And you don’t see the issue with that?”
“Of course I do,” Damian snaps. “Timothy has always practiced careful restraint. He values life just as much as you do.”
Kent nods, gesturing up the stairs, “So you agree it was out of line.”
“No.”
“Damian--”
“Jon, do you hate me?” Damian interrupts, turning to his friend.
Jon stares at him, shaking his head rapidly, and then wincing when it hurts his nose. “No! You’re my best friend, how could I hate you?”
“Because I’ve killed people.”
“That’s different,” Jon says defensively. “You were raised as an assassin. Before you met Batman you didn’t know any better.”
Damian glares at him, “And yet, I still took a life. I was under immense pressure from my family, and I was terrified to disappoint them. How is that any different from Timothy today?”
Kent sighs, sitting down next to Jon and wrapping an arm around him. “Because Tim didn’t grow up like you did, and he had back up today. There was no pressure on him to kill.”
“In his life, Timothy has lost his parents, his second father, all of his brothers, his girlfriend,” Damian levels Kent with a scrutinizing look, “and his best friends. Pardon me if I think the possibility of losing someone else he cares about is sufficient enough reason to be angry enough to kill.”
The room is silent, and Damian feels a wave of gratification wash over him when Kent looks away.
Footsteps echo in the cave, and Timothy walks back into view, holding a tray of mugs. He looks them all over slowly, before he sets the tray down on a nearby table and picks up a mug, passing it to Damian.
It does, in fact, have copious amounts of marshmallows. Damian pokes one with his tongue.
Timothy sits down on his other side, smiling at him softly, “Bruce will be back in an hour. Dick wants you to video call him ‘as soon as you’re in the right headspace to watch him cry’.”
“Is there such a thing?” Damian says, rolling his eyes. He leans back into Timothy’s side, ignoring his brother’s bewildered expression. “Thank you, for saving us.”
It’s the choosing moment, whether they want it to be or not. Jon sends Damian a friendly smile and nods, “Yeah, you guys are awesome.”
Damian does not let out a sigh of relief. He does not hook his pinky with Jon’s on the table between them. He never doubted his friend.
At the very least, he never had reason to.
Kent lets out a slow breath, “I’m sorry, Tim. I didn’t mean to be an asshole.”
Timothy shrugs. “It’s okay.”
“Would you really have killed him? If I hadn’t been there?”
“I don’t know,” Timothy mumbles, curling in on himself slightly. Damian puts more weight on him, pressing into his side.
Kent seems to think about that, and then he smiles, and it’s soft like Richard’s smiles when he sits with Damian after a nightmare. Kent reaches over Jon and Damian to squeeze Timothy’s hand, “But I was.”
“Yeah,” Timothy rasps. He swallows, “What if you weren’t?”
“I would’ve been pissed at both of us, probably,” Kent says, and Damian sits up halfway, an admonishment on his tongue, but then Kent shrugs, “Then I would’ve forgiven you.”
Timothy stares at him for a long time, and then he grins. “Thanks.”
“For forgiving your hypothetical killer self?”
“For being my friend, no matter what.”
“Well,” Jon says with finality. He drops an arm over Damian’s shoulders, careful of his injury, “that is what us Kent’s do.”
Damian rolls his eyes, but he pats Jon’s hand and nods once. He looks up at Tim, “You forgave me, for everything I’ve done. So in case you decide to think any differently, I would do the same for you.”
Tim nods, still smiling, but his eyes are dull.
***
“Can I come in?” Tim asks softly, knocking on the frame of Bruce’s office door.
Bruce sets the legal papers in his hand to the side, giving Tim his full attention. Getting back the day before in a state of both guilt, worry, and relief had been usual, if not dreaded, and even though both Damian and Jon had come back relatively unscathed, Tim had been acting off ever since. Kon seemed reluctant to leave, and Bruce is worried that something may have happened during the rescue.
He manages to scrounge up a small smile, and nods. “Of course, Tim. Come in.”
Slowly, hesitantly, Tim does. He inches forward like he used to, when he was first Robin. Maybe Bruce didn’t notice back then, but he does now, and it doesn’t sit right in his gut. Tim sits down on the edge of his seat like he’s expecting to get up quickly.
“Have you… forgiven Damian and Jason?”
The feeling in his gut gets worse. Bruce puts the pieces together slowly, and he watches as Tim shrinks back, watches his son avoid his eye like he’s scared.
“Yes,” He says, and it’s the truth.
Tim swallows, pulling at his fingers. “Would you-- I know I’m not them but would you still--”
“Tim,” Bruce says, and it comes out more pleading than he meant it to. He gets up and moves around his desk, kneeling in front of Tim. “There is nothing in the world that you or your siblings could ever do that would make me hate you.”
Clearing his throat, Tim nods, not so subtly reaching up to wipe his eye. Bruce pretends not to notice.
“Okay.”
“Tim,” Bruce says again, setting a hand on his son’s knee. “Did something happen when you rescued Damian and Jon?”
A rattling breath and a shake of his head, but Bruce still isn’t convinced. Tim licks his lips and looks away. “No. But it almost did.”
“But it didn’t.”
“Is that even the point?”
“Yes,” Bruce says with conviction. “We have all been at the end of our ropes, where the line between us and them is blurred. I have been there more times than I’d like to admit. Dick too. That you didn’t is exactly the point.”
Tim finally looks at him, and his face is open and vulnerable in a way that still catches Bruce off guard. “It terrified me, B. I could have done it, and most of me wanted to. I’m scared that I’ll cross that line. That I’ll… that I’ll fall, or whatever.”
“Funny thing about falling in Gotham,” Bruce says softly, “is that there’s always a bat there to catch you.”
Tim’s breath hitches and Bruce pulls him into a hug so fast he barely has time to lean forward so Tim doesn’t fall off the chair entirely. He squeezes the back of Tim’s neck, rubbing his thumb along his hairline. His other arm stays wrapped securely around Tim’s back as he presses his face into the crook of Bruce’s neck.
“I’m so sorry, dad. I didn’t want to let you down.”
“Oh, chum.” Bruce turns to press a kiss to his head. “Never.”
There’s a moment of quiet, and Bruce allows himself to have it, to have this, to have his son. It is, of course, interrupted with noise. But Bruce is used to that.
He looks up as his office door slams open, and Damian barges in, looking half between angry and desperate. “Whatever fabrication Timothy is telling you--”
When he sees the two of them hugging, he freezes. Tim snorts against Bruce’s shoulder. “It’s okay, Damian. He took it fine.”
“Oh.” Damian shifts, and then takes a backwards step towards the door. “Apologies. In that case, I suppose I will leave you.”
Tim sits up far enough to look back at Damian, roll his eyes, and drop his head back down again. Bruce huffs a laugh, raising an eyebrow at Damian, “How’s the collarbone?”
“I’ve had worse.”
“Not the question,” Tim prompts, chidingly.
Damian sighs, a little dramatically, in Bruce’s opinion. “It’s fine. Sore, but fine.”
Bruce holds out an arm, “Fine enough for a hug?”
“Is Timothy going to snivel all over me?”
“You are such a brat.”
He does hug them though, without any further complaint, tucking himself between the two of them like it’s routine. He crosses his arms when Tim wraps an arm around him and presses their cheeks together. “I hope you realize how stupid you’ve been, now.”
“Yes, Damian. I’m a saint, thank you for reminding me.”
Damian looks up at Bruce, lowering his voice to a stage whisper, “I let him believe that, for the sake of his fragile sanity.”
“Brat!”
Bruce laughs, hugging his boys tighter to his chest. He wasn’t lying, when he said they could never make him hate them. He supposes it’s something he just didn’t realize in his earlier days, before he met Dick.
Love is final.