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It wasn't long after Bruce had come back from being lost in the time stream that he got the idea to have a training day in the Batcave. So much had changed in the time that he had been gone - costumes and personalities and more - that he felt as if he needed to see where they all stood for himself before something went wrong out in the field.
Before someone got hurt in a manner that couldn't be fixed just by being brought home.
(He didn't know that plenty of things already had been so thoroughly changed in such ways, in all of his children.
He would find out soon.)
It had been hard to get them all to agree to come, harder still to find a day when everyone actually had the time to do so, but one Saturday not long after Tim and Cass had gotten back from a trip to Paris, they all found themselves in the Cave once more.
Bruce would blame himself for months to come, thinking that he should have noticed earlier that something was clearly wrong with two of his children when Tim and Cass were even closer to one another than they normally were through out the day, but he just didn't see it then, the emptiness.
Not yet.
Not when Damian still half wanted all of the other of his children dead - even though all of his older siblings found the efforts laughable at best - and Damian, Dick, and Bruce himself were going through something of a rough patch with adjusting back to the new status quo with Dick being Nightwing once more and Bruce having a new Robin at his side. One that he hadn't trained and couldn't help but think of another as his Batman.
Not when it was so clear that Cass hadn't been in the states for a very long time, and was adjusting to being home once more.
Not when there was still some tension between Jason and Tim over something that had occurred when Bruce had been lost, while they had been deciding who was going to take up the cowl.
Not when there even more tension involving Tim and Steph. And Tim and Dick
Tim and nearly everyone it seemed to be.
So honestly, his third son sticking close to his daughter was almost relieving to see, because at least that was two people that he didn't have to worry about seeing fighting over something or another.
Most of the day went well. He had them working through old cases from some of the others that they hadn't seen before to see if their tactics in solving things had changed. Then came a quick round of talking through the aliases that they all still had and information that they had given them to make them seem more real.
It had been surprising to learn then that Tim hadn't burned one of his oldest ones, but they hadn't been really able to talk about the reasons around that when Steph had brought up the Caroline Hill identity that he had used around the same time… an identity that the rest of the bat clan had not known about and had been far more interested in. Bruce assumed it was because the eldest two brothers were looking to make fun of the third, but that head been shut down when Tim had pulled up old security footage that he had saved from the hospital that showed that he actually had passed very well at the time for a girl.
It was hard to make fun of something that he had done so well.
"Did you wear heels to?" Jason had asked, a laugh at the edge of his voice. One that lacked any of the malice and anger that it almost always held within Gotham.
(Something that was true for far too many of his children)
"You know, I can run in them but walking in them is a pain," Tim answered in turn, closing down the footage with something like pride in his eyes. It was by far not his worst disguise, not that anyone else was ever going to learn of Mr. Sarcastic then those that already knew.
"How does that work?" Dick asked, a laugh in his voice as well.
"You run on the toes alone," the third Robin answered once more, Steph nodding at his side as Cass looked between the two of them as if they were insane before laying her head on her brother's shoulder, choosing to ignore them all.
Bruce watched as she tapped her fingers against his twice. Small little movements that wouldn't have been noticed unless you were looking for it.
Tim tapped back the same.
The bat thought that it was nice.
The first major blunder came with sparring though. Came when Tim and Jason went against one another, a bow staff in the younger's hand and the elder held a crow bar and Bruce and Dick pretended that the sight wasn't a painful one for them both.
They all watched on the edges of the mats as the pair punched at one another and ducked under the swings of the other. As they moved faster and faster in their fight until bat approved moves started to slip away until the pair moved more based on instinct than how they had been before.
Bruce didn't know what to say when he saw the League in both of their movements, and only surprise in his own at the sight. When the fight stayed even in a way that it hadn't been before then, the older always willing - and aiming - to do more harm than the younger, something that had held Tim back in the last but didn't right then.
It didn't at all as he managed to get Jason to the ground, the end of his bo staff hovering over the top of the other's form.
"Do you yield?" Tim asked then, something in his voice dangerous in a way that it usually wasn't.
It was a sound that belonged to Red Robin.
Tim could see the other beginning to move instead of answering, moving the fight once more. He shifted the end of his staff first, settling it above Jason's eye and twisting it so that the blade slid out, stopping just short of grazing the other. Of causing damage that couldn't be undone.
"Do you yield?" He asked once more, and this time Jason hit his hand against the ground, knowing better than to try to move his head while speaking.
Bruce frowned at the violence as Tim nodded and pulled away, not used to seeing it from one of his youngest. Cass titled her head at her brother for the same reason, though she knew more than her father did right then.
All of Bruce's kids did.
"If I wasn't as good a person as I am," Jason started, making Dick and Damian both make small noises of disbelief at the words, "rude - I would call that cheating, Timmy."
"I was Lady Shiva's student long before you ever were," Tim reminded the other, "and she never would have let me choose this weapon if I didn't have some sort of trick within it. It wouldn't have been deadly enough for her."
After all, she had asked him to pick anything else than what he had.
Jason wasn't quite sure what to say to that, to the idea that it had been there from the start but the other had just never felt the need to use it until Bruce had been gone.
That he had never been enough of a threat for the other to use it on him.
Bruce chose not to say anything about this, to just nod for Dick and Cass to spar next because other than this it actually was going well and he knew how rare that was.
Maybe it would have been better if they had ended it there though.
But he hadn't, because he hadn't known what would occur.
They ended with a cool down in lock picking, something that should have been fun for all of them as they tried out all of the different locks that Bruce had stolen from the rouges that they commonly went up against.
The last lock that they got to (not the last one that he had) was a pair of shackles that he had stolen from the Riddler of all people, from one of the times that he had taken hostages and chained them up.
It was supposed to be quick work in getting to lock picks when both hands were above you head as you were chained to the ground. A work in moving quickly and silently in getting to the lock picks while not altering others that you had moved.
That's not how it ended though.
Steph and Damian had gone first, the pair of them wanting to race the other to see which of them could get out the fastest. Most of the room had cheered when it turned out to be Steph just because it wasn't often that they got to see the fifth Robin pout for such a mundane reason as this.
Dick and Jason had gone next, the two of them finishing at the same time, much to the annoyance of the others and themselves. Steph had gone as far as to boo them for that while Damian tsked at their 'incompetence'.
Tim and Cass were the last two that had been meant to go.
(They were the only two that wouldn't go at all)
Bruce noticed at once when Tim began to walk slowly towards the chains, much slower than he had moved all afternoon, reluctance in ever step. He could have sworn that he saw the other's hands shaking at his sides before his son had taken one wrist in his own grip.
He looked haunted right then.
He flinched when his sister touched his shoulder, a full bodied thing that only relaxed when he realized just who was holding onto him then.
It was a painful sort of sight to see, more so when the eldest detective noticed how fast the teen was breathing as Cass pulled him against her.
It took him a moment to realize that Tim was at the beginnings of a panic attack.
He wouldn't find out the reasons behind it for longer than he had liked, but no one stopped Cass when she took the other out of the cave.
—-
"Tim?" Bruce asked later that night, after the others had gone to their homes or to their rooms, depending on the child.
Tim had gone to his Nest.
Bruce hadn't wanted to go there, never really did, not when this was the place that everything that had started.
He went anyways.
Cass was the one that let him in when he knocked on the door, motioning to the door that the man assumed was the bedroom.
There was silence on the other side of the door for a long time before it creaked open slowly.
"I don't want to talk about it," the teen said, even as he let the man in all the same.
"Please?" Bruce asked, pushed, all the same.
The former Robin sighs and sits down on his bed, not looking at the other.
"Something happened while Cass and I were in Paris… the reason why we ended up in Paris to begin with…"
—-
When Dick had come into his life, Bruce had learned what it meant for the sun to shine again.
When he and Cass had chosen one another as family, he had learned what it meant to grow past the past that you had been dealt.
When Jason had died, he had learned why animals died from the loss of another.
When Damian had been brought to him, he had learned what betrayal felt like when it reached down to his bones.
When Tim told him this, he remembered the need for revenge that he had been trying to forget since he buried his second son in the ground.
(Since marbles and blood painted an alley ground)