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Batman is in one of his moods again.
He’ll stop pulling punches against super villains, maybe knock a human mugger’s head against the pavement instead of tranquillizing and restraining them.
He’ll decline every other meal from Alfred, subsisting on protein cubes instead; and he’ll get so lost in his work, Tim will have trouble discerning where the bat ends and the man begins.
Tim sees the signs before Bruce can spiral out of control now (the darker circles, the long pauses), but getting Bruce out of a mood is like trying to dodge Charybdis: it’s hard not to get sucked in.
Tim trots down to the Batcave wearing his best easy-going smile.
“Ready for our meditation practice, Bruce?”
“Hn.”
Tim takes Bruce’s untouched tea and a sip, it’s cold. He picks up Bruce’s strewn case papers and neatly stacks them. Most everything Batman works with is on the computer now, but some of the GCPD’s files haven’t been digitized yet; at least, that’s what Bruce claims.
Tim suspects Bruce misses the feel of paper sometimes; it reminds him of the early days.
Every other spot of the cave is clean. The pieces of Batman’s uniform are neatly stacked, the med bay has been stocked and sanitized, and even an uneaten dinner has been thrown away -the dish scrubbed.
Being raised by a butler, Bruce has some stress-cleaning tendencies when it comes to the cave. Alfred would never be able to keep up with the manor’s care if Bruce didn’t. All that bat guano.
Tim reaches a hand for Bruce’s shoulder, but doesn’t dare.
“Bruce?” He says instead.
“Hm?”
“Is today a bad day for training?”
Bruce is silent, lost sometime between a bright street kid jacking his tires and a warehouse explosion in Ethiopia.
Tim sighs, “Guess I’ll go fill the Batmobile with sad clown paintings again.”
Batman glares.
“Just making sure you're with me,” Tim smirks.
“Computer, run training simulation 32.” Batman says in lieu of a reply, and he raises himself from his chair like he’s lifting the weight of the world.
Tim doesn’t smile so much as let go of a breath he’s been holding. Bruce and Tim have that in common when it comes to fulfilling their respective duties.
Bruce saves the city, and Tim saves Bruce.
Batman notices a fresh bruise along Tim’s elbow, Tim notices and shrugs, “Happens.”
When Tim doesn’t tell him is that he’s spent the last few weeks wearing concealer and trying to convince the school they shouldn’t be calling CPS, with how many days Tim misses and how many injuries he shows up with.
Both Bruce and Tim fall into fighting stances as the holograms for the training simulation appear. Unarmed, unanticipated combat is Tim’s weak point right now, he’s more of a planner than a brawler, and it shows in his quickly accumulated record of scars.
“I wonder sometimes if I should wipe your mind,” Bruce admits.
Tim dodges a high kick from the holo-ninja. They’ve been through this socratic dialogue before.
“What do you mean?” Tim asks anyways. He’ll go through it as many times as Bruce needs for it to stick.
“Batman copy-cats get sent home because it’s too dangerous for civilians to do what we do, but you’re just a kid, Tim.” Bruce says. “Jason was just a kid.”
Tim had often wandered the same line of thought: why me? Why was I allowed to stay when so many other children would kill for the chance to be Robin.
“Because you can’t get rid of me,” he decides, “and because Jason needed Robin, I think.”
“I could just ask the Martian Man Hunter to erase your mind,” Bruce repeats. His eyes are the same empty-hollow as when he stares over tempting ledges when he thinks Tim isn’t looking.
Tim swallows, “But if you did, I would find out your secret identity again, and again. And I would decide again that Batman needs a Robin.” Logically, maybe it wasn’t true. Maybe erasing Batman from Tim’s mind would end his obsession, and he would lead an average life running his family’s business. But without a Robin, eventually Batman would die, and another Batman would have to rise to take his place. Maybe Dick, maybe a stranger, but Tim knew that a lot of people in Gotham would suffer for every day Bruce was gone. The world was getting more dangerous by the week with the advances in technology brought about by alien contact. Gotham was at the center of everything new and old clashing in a great cacophony. Tim wouldn’t miss the chance to help for anything.
Bruce ducks under a holo-ninja and destroys another with a well-placed jab. “You might put yourself in danger again,” Batman agrees, “But Jason wouldn’t.” He destroys three more ninjas, “Jason would have been put in foster care; he would have had a real father, a real future.”
Tim frowns, flips, and catches an opponent at the knee, “Or he would have died on the streets, put himself in harms way, or been killed by one of Gotham’s terrorist attacks. Gotham’s foster system isn’t exactly great, B.”
“I know, I’m working on it,” Bruce says.
The muscles behind each of Bruce's attacks are still getting tenser. Tim had hoped that talking this over would help, that getting moving would help. Tim whiffs a punch and takes another from a holo-ninja. A bright red warning appears: "ONE OUT OF THREE HITS USED." The third Robin shakes his wrist back into fluidity. He says, “Robin is what both of us needed in one way or another. I needed to serve a greater purpose, and Jason needed to feel safe and make others feel safe.” Tim winces at the carelessness of his last words; the Robin mantle didn’t grant Jason safety, in the end. “All I’m saying is: we both chose to be Robin.”
“You’re children,” Bruce says “Children can’t make that choice.”
The devastation living beneath his stony features is close to breaking through. Bruce launches himself at the final cluster of opponents and becomes a whirlwind of kicks, punches, and flips -a perfect execution.
Tim leans on his knees, breathing heavily as another simulation ends. He turns to leave, too exhausted to continue.
_____
“You’re children. Children can’t make that choice.” Bruce repeats, like picking at an open wound.
A snort, “But we DID make that choice, B. And you couldn’t bring yourself to get rid of us, because it would mean erasing our minds, putting us through legal hell to get us into different homes, or moving us away from our city. And you wouldn’t do that. Not after having been through the same helplessness we did. You know how hard it is to leave the place that took everything from you and inflicted upon you everything you are.” He walks slowly around Bruce, circling him with sad eyes, “To give us what we needed, really needed, you would have had to fix Gotham completely. And we both know that you either can’t or won’t.”
Bruce looks up to shout his retort, but no one’s there. How long has it been since Tim left? A few minutes? Hours?
Sweat runs freely down Bruce’s forehead and he checks the computer to find that he’s run through 26 simulations. They’re in solo-practice mode after the first three.
Bruce sits on a bench off the training mats and wipes the sweat from his neck with a towel.
He stares at the lonely case with Jason’s uniform inside. He wishes he could have buried Jason in the uniform at the same time that he wishes he had never helped design it. The plaque says “A Good soldier."
Bruce kicks the case. Over and over. He kicks it until the foundation cracks and the plaque comes sailing off. And then he falls forward, forehead against the cold glass. He sobs so hard his ribs creak.
He thinks: You should have never been my soldier; I should have been yours. I should have burned Gotham to the ground and built a better city for you.
I should have been there for you, as you were, so you never felt the need to go looking for Sheila without me.
But it’s too late.
It’s been too late for years now.
The warehouse exploded. The ashes rained down, and Bruce found a limp body among them. Jason never felt it when his father's arms finally found him and squeezed him painfully tight; he never felt the sting of Bruce's animalistic tears, or the grit and ember of flaming shrapnel. The world could never hurt him again.
Jason is finally safe. Safe in a coffin and in memory.
Bruce will take all the hurt for him.