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Bruce hadn’t wanted Tim, he knew that.
Hadn’t wanted another Robin period, not after what happened to Jason.
And Tim got that, he did. He too had grieved for the boy he’d formed a parasocial reaction with through the lens of his camera. Naturally, he would never presume to have grieved in the same way as a father would for his child. Tim wasn’t as broken up as Bruce, but he did still understand on some level why Batman went off the rails and why he didn’t want another Robin.
Fact was he needed one. Here Tim was.
Sometimes, Tim wasn’t sure if Bruce was hard on him to get rid of him, if he did it because he didn’t want Tim to die or if this was simply how he’d been with all the Robins.
Sometimes, he wondered if Dick had fled to Blüdhaven to escape the myriad of bruises blooming on his skin and if Jason had traded one shitty painful life for another.
It wasn’t that Tim wanted to be whiny. He didn’t. Really, he was happy about the attention. His parents couldn’t give that to him, not when they were eternally busy and Tim was little more than a prop to them. He was grateful that Bruce let him stick around. He was grateful that Bruce cared enough to send him to Lady Shiva, even if Tim had come back feeling not quite right and not quite himself and even if he wasn’t sure he would ever get that part of himself back. He had learned at least and while he would never be Jason or Dick, something Bruce liked to almost gleefully remind him of, he was not half-bad. He was still alive, after all.
Another thing to be grateful for, even if being alive meant limping back to Drake manor on a sprained ankle and breathing through bruised ribs.
That was a problem for later Tim though.
He had plenty of other problems now and they had nothing to do with the burning in his chest and the annoying ebb and flow of pain in his ankle, spreading up to his knee.
Instead, it had everything to do with Bruce.
Bruce who was very pissed.
It should have been a routine patrol, a routine fight. Just some bank robbers. But one had been so very young and Tim had balked at her age, no more than thirteen. The moment of hesitation had made everything collapse and had ended with Tim hurt, half of the robbers free and running, and Bruce pissed.
This wasn’t the first car ride back like this, but it hardly ever got better.
It started with yelling, usually. Or the closest Bruce came to it, which wasn’t all that loud but furious enough to make up for it. Cutting words. Taking Tim apart until he was nothing but tendons and bones and his insecurities.
Bruce’s lectures were unfortunately heavily based on audience interaction.
Tim resented it.
He tried not to, but he couldn’t help it, even if it would make him a better Robin.
“We were perfectly coordinated, but then what did you do?” Bruce asked, knuckles white from where he was holding the steering wheel.
Tim eyed them wearily, knowing it would likely end with a brutal training session for him. Hopefully tomorrow. He wasn’t sure he had it in him today.
“I hesitated when I shouldn’t have,” Tim said for the fifth or sixth time, his voice carefully regretful. His eyes were in his lap now, fixed on his hands. They were trembling. He hoped Bruce didn’t notice.
“You did. Her age shouldn’t have mattered.”
Tim disagreed.
Batman didn’t hurt children. All Tim had wanted to do was to apprehend her without hurting her and then help her, because clearly she needed help.
“She’s a criminal, not someone to pity.”
He wondered what had happened to the Bruce that had taken in a thief as a son.
“But you were-” Bruce prompted.
“Too weak to do what needed to be done,” Tim dutifully recited.
It was always a littany of the same thing. Tim was not good enough. He was too weak, too hesitant, too soft. He wasn’t trained well enough, he was too bad at fighting or parkour or stealth. He was a bad listener. He was a bad Robin.
“You almost got us killed,” Bruce said viciously and Tim’s mind flashed to the gun, aimed at Bruce. The shot had gone wide, but the shot wouldn’t have happened at all if Tim hadn’t hesitated.
There was another bit of silence, waiting for Tim to fill it.
“I almost got us killed,” Tim repeated in the manner of a confession.
His hands started to tremble harder. He was such a failure. It didn’t matter that he wasn’t much older than the girl he had failed to capture. It didn’t matter that Batman didn’t hurt children, not when Tim was right there and Bruce was so very angry, so very sad, so very full of grief. Convenient targets had a tendency to stand in the way, unfortunately.
He hoped Bruce wouldn’t make him train on injuries again to prepare him for the real deal.
Much to his horror, tears started to sting in his eyes.
Useless.
He was useless.
He tried to move his hands, but all it did was send tremors up to his shoulders, so he stilled them again.
“What did you do wrong?” Bruce asked after a few moments of silence.
They were transitioning then. From the yelling, the lecture into the repetition. Tim hated it. He hated the step after more, the deep, disappointed silence that reminded him a little bit too much that in the end attention was something Bruce chose to give him and he could take it away easily.
“I hesitated when I shouldn’t have. I was too weak to do what needed to be done. I-I almost got us killed.” He swallowed compulsively, another small tremor running over his body.
Bruce hummed.
“I’m sorry,” Tim said, the words slipping out against his will as he went off script. “I’m a bad Robin.”
Bruce sighed, a heavy noise full of disappointment. He didn’t say ‘Yes you are’, but the words wavered between them anyway. He didn’t say ‘The worst Robin’, but they both knew it was true anyway. He would never be Dick or Jason.
He would never have Dick’s easy confidence, would never smile at Bruce the way the older vigilante did, would never square his shoulders and stare Bruce down.
And he’d never have Jason’s magic.
Oh, Tim could laugh when he flew from rooftop to rooftop. He could smile at civilians and the alley kids trusted him almost as much as they’d trusted Jason, but he lacked the spark of the dead boy. He lacked the thing that had made Jason good, had made him a good soldier and a good son and a perfect Robin. There was nothing Tim could do about it, not when he wasn’t sure which part of himself needed to be fixed. It couldn’t be the part that broke in Europe, Tim had already been inadequate even before that.
“What did you do wrong?” Bruce prompted again and with a small, rebellious, fleeting amount of anger, Tim suddenly wondered if Bruce ever got bored of hearing the same things over and over. Of making Tim say them. Perhaps he thought that he could eventually drill it into Tim’s mind.
Perhaps he thought that eventually it would make Tim better.
“I hesitated when I shouldn’t have,” Tim recited obediently.
It wouldn’t make Tim better.
“I was too weak to do what needed to be done.”
Somehow, Tim could not imagine Jason or Dick in this position. Somehow, he can’t picture either of them with their heads bowed and their hands trembling as they repented for their mistakes over and over again.
Perhaps it was because he couldn’t picture them being as stupid as Tim.
But…perhaps it was because he didn’t think they’d take it.
Which once again begged the question. Was Bruce always like this or was this the special brand of Batman mentorship that he spared for Tim?
Was Tim the problem?
“I almost got us killed.” His voice trembled right alongside his hands now.
He was so, so tired. All he wanted to do was lay down in his bed, carefully on his back so he wouldn’t accidentally stab his lungs, and sleep. All he wanted was for his breaths to not hurt. All he wanted was for his ankle to stop throbbing.
Disappointed silence settled over them and Tim’s first tear fell.
He had expected it, of course.
Had known it was coming.
Still, the silent treatment always sped his heart up. He formed his hands into fists, but by now the small tremors had morphed and his entire body was shaking as Tim clung to the edge of a panic attack.
Children were to be seen, not heard and the same went for bad Robins.
If you fucked up, you didn’t get to be acknowledged, Tim knew that, but he couldn’t quite swallow the whine. It was a small noise, but it might as well have been a gunshot with the way it rang through the car.
Tim half expected Bruce to start lecturing him again, to make him repeat his words so he knew that he was in no position to whine and cry about it.
But Bruce stayed silent. Icy. His eyes didn’t even flicker.
Alfred was waiting for them in the cave with two mugs of hot tea and Bruce took both and put them to the side.
“Check him out,” he said briskly and then stalked past Tim without looking at him as the butler started to move towards the cots.
“What happened, Master Tim?” he asked and the sympathy in his voice was almost enough to set off another round of trembling cries.
“I hesitated when I shouldn’t have,” he replied blankly and if he didn’t know better, he would have almost said Alfred winced at his words. “I almost got us killed.”
The butler hummed. “I see,” he said, not unkindly. “Where does it hurt?”
“Ribs and ankle,” Tim reported dutifully, hissing when Alfred started prodding and rotating.
A sprain and bruised ribs. As expected. Tim held still and stayed quiet as he was patched up.
Then he limped back into the cave. Bruce was drinking his tea, every line in his body tense. Tim swallowed. “Am I to come for training tomorrow, sir?” he asked and fervently hoped the answer was no.
Bruce ignored him.
Tim’s heart dropped to his stomach.
“Master Bruce,” Alfred said from behind Tim and there was something sharp enough in his tone that the boy flinched.
Bruce didn’t turn, but he cleared his throat somewhat awkwardly. “Well, no. Don’t come back until you’re healed,” he instructed.
A strange wave of relief flooded over Tim, despite his disappointment and self-loathing.
“Yes, sir,” he replied and then made his way to the exit.
Neither of them stopped him. He didn’t think Bruce was even looking at him.
It was a long walk to Drake Manor on a sprained ankle, but he knew better than to ask Alfred. The butler would do it, of course, but Bruce had forbidden it last time. Natural consequences, he’d said. He was pretty sure they’d had a fight after that, he’d heard raised voices as he’d walked away.
His home was empty.
Cold and silent in the same way Bruce had been.
Tim swallowed around even more tears. He deserved this, he reminded himself.
He had hesitated when he shouldn’t have.
Tim dragged himself up the stairs.
He had been too weak to do what needed to be done.
Shakily, he peeled off the sweats and hoodie he had hastily put on over his costume and then his costume. His hands trembled so hard he barely managed.
He fell into his bed.
Something in him itched to call Dick, to vomit out all the frustration and upset and guilt to his not-quite-older-brother. He wasn’t sure Dick would get it though. Wasn’t sure Bruce was like this with him.
He had almost gotten them killed.
No.
No, he thought that Bruce was only like this with Tim.
It was fine though. It would make him better. Maybe.
Probably.
Hopefully.
Tim buried his face in his pillow and sobbed.