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It’s quiet. Not the good kind of quiet, where you don’t need words because you’ve already entrusted all the important ones to the person you’re with. It’s heavy, suffocating. Like being balanced on the edge of a knife and not being sure – which side you’ll fall on. It’ll probably hurt either way.
There’s an echo in the air, things they can’t take back.
“I wanted this to work,” Tim says, barely more than a whisper. “I wanted – you’re my dad. You said you were going to try harder, and I. I think I believed you.”
Jack stays quiet, but there’s hurt in his eyes. Tim tries not to look directly at him. “When I was… I tried. I tried so hard to be someone you and mom wanted. But I never could.” His hands are clenching around his knees so tight he thinks he might be cutting off circulation somewhere. “You never really wanted a kid, did you? You or mom.”
Jack stumbles forward, looking heartbroken because that’s what a dad’s supposed to do, right? “No, Tim, we wanted you. You weren’t a mistake – “
“You didn’t,” Tim corrects, and it almost sounds gentle. “You wanted… offspring. An heir. A continuation of the bloodline. You wanted Athena to spring from your forehead, fully-formed and ready to carry on the legacy. But you got a kid instead, and kids ruin things.”
His dad can’t kneel on the floor to look him in the eye, but he does sit down next to Tim and take his hands. “Don’t say that. You’re an amazing kid, and your mom and I couldn’t have been luckier having you.”
“Don’t say that,” He hisses out, and when Jack lets go of his hands in surprise, Tim presses himself against the other side of the couch, as far away as he can get. “Because – either you’re lying, or you’re – “ If the problem wasn’t with Tim, then it was with them. There’s something broken in one of the people in this room. There has to be because this isn’t what a family is like. They don’t just… ignore each other for months at a time to pursue their own interests. It’s not right. There’s something fundamentally broken in one of them, and Tim’s not sure who.
Jack’s been shaking his head since Tim started talking, and there’s a peculiar kind of despair in his eyes. “Tim. You are amazing. You’re intelligent, talented – there’s so much you can do, so much you can be. I am so proud of you.”
“Then why didn’t you love me?!” Jack jerks towards him immediately, like Tim’s words were the strings that force the dad-puppet into motion, and Tim vaults off the couch before his dad can touch him again and lands neatly in a crouch, remembering too late that moves like that are Robin’s, not Timothy Drake’s. “Why didn’t you want me with you? Why did it take mom dying to make you realize I was still here? If you want me to do and be so much, then why do I have a chemical burn on my wrist from trying to develop the pictures I took alone? Why weren’t you there to help me? Did you even notice?”
Tim could see in Jack’s eyes that he hadn’t. That he either didn’t even see the little discolored patch of skin or that he made up his own story to go with it, like that one time we tried to cook together and Tim got hurt, I barely remember it because it was so long ago. “Tim, please. I know I’ve made mistakes, but I’m trying to make it better. There’s always going to be stumbling blocks, you just have to be a little patient with me.”
“I’ve been patient!” Tim thinks about running, about storming out of here and slamming the door and not looking back. “My entire life, I’ve been patient!”
“Then be patient with me a little longer!” Jack started to move closer again, then hesitated when he realized Tim wasn’t going to let him get close enough. “Please. I love you, and we can fix this.”
“You love me?” He’s so still, and he wants to cry and laugh and scream and throw things and the sensation’s choking him from the inside out so he can barely breathe. “You love me? Is this how you show it?” Tim waves a hand at the wall, where Jack dropped his overnight bag when he let himself in the house after being gone for a couple nights and found his son waiting for him. “Did you love me yesterday? I guess you must have, because that’s when you remembered you had a son who wanted to know where his dad went. What about tomorrow? Or next week? Are you still going to love me then?”
“Jesus, of course I am!”
“Really? Even the week after that? Or a month? When do you forget again? Did you know I used to have nightmares about that? I used to dream that I woke up one day and everyone had either died or left and forgotten me. And then I woke up for real and looked for you and you weren’t there. It’s too late to love me!” Tim stops, and tries to take a breath. “I think… it’s too late. I wanted us to be better, but we left it too long. You left it too long to decide that you loved me, and now I’m always going to be waiting for you to forget again. And I don’t know if I can keep doing this.”
Jack’s crumpled, like his heart was just torn out and stomped on. Tim thinks he might still have it in himself to be sorry, but he has to find it again. “Tim, please…”
“I think we both need a little more time away from each other,” he says, and pretends he’s not ripping his family apart right now. If it was ever whole to begin with. “I’m going to stay with a friend for a few days. I’ll be safe. Don’t try to talk to me until I get back.” And maybe it’s Robin who walks out the door, away from where his father is trying to convince himself he has the right to forbid Tim from leaving, because Robin knows what to do in a crisis and Tim Drake thinks he might throw up.
He already packed a bag and put it in the Redbird, just in case. Robin was always good at planning. He sits mechanically, buckles himself in. Jack is at the door. He turns the key in the ignition and eases out of the driveway. His dad’s walking fast, heading for the Redbird. He checks for cars coming down the road on either side of him and pulls out into the street. Jack’s running.
Tim drives until he can’t see his father anymore.