Chapter Text
“Hey, Dick? Can I speak to you in private?”
It had been a long and gruelling night. They had just finished tonight’s debrief. Tim and Dick were the only ones left at the table, Jason and Damian having gone into the locker room to change out of their costumes. Or at least that’s where Tim assumes they’ve gone. He’s had enough of them tonight to care much about what they do after patrol.
The night would have been less gruelling if Alfred, Bruce, and Cass hadn’t taken advantage of one of Cass’s infrequent visits to see the ballet halfway across the country. Tim doesn’t begrudge them for wanting to have some father-daughter (and grandfather) time. It does, however, mean that Tim is left alone with his brothers.
Dick looks to him with curious eyes and smiles. “Of course! What about?”
Tim shook his head ‘not here’ and led them both to the medbay. The medbay inside the cave was a small, isolated room off to the side. The four walls, a roof, and a door meant that it was infinitely easier to keep equipment and injuries clean and sterilised, as well as free from bat guano. It had the added benefit of preventing any echoing from giving away your precious secrets to the whole cave system. This particular feature is why Tim chose the medbay to have this conversation. That and the broken ribs he wanted to treat immediately after.
Why not talk to Dick after sorting his ribs and changing into clean, comfortable clothes? Well, he needed the extra courage the Red Robin suit gave him, and if he didn’t have this conversation immediately, he might never build up the will to have it again.
Tim motioned for Dick to sit on one of the cots as Tim pushed the door closed behind them. Dick was eyeing their destination with a slight furrow in his eyebrows. “You’re not gonna give me ‘good news, bad news’ are you?” he joked as he finally sat down, facing Tim.
Tim sat opposite him on a separate cot. “Nothing like that,” he smirked. “I just wanted to catch you before you disappeared, and before the other two reappeared.”
Dick’s face scrunched slightly at that as he looked vaguely in the direction of the locker room beyond the wall, his detective brain already connecting dots. He turned back to his brother. “Did something happen on the drug raid?”
Yes, but nothing that hasn’t happened a dozen times before, which was part of the issue he wanted to address.
“Yes, it-“ he hesitated. Would it be better to just get to the point? His usual strategy of ‘build up to his argument to make it more persuasive’ hasn’t worked on Dick the last few times, mostly because the man would fill in the blanks himself (incorrectly) and interrupt him before he can make his demands. This habit was especially prevalent when their two other brothers are the topic of discourse. Tim never manages to get more than a few sentences in and it’s incredibly frustrating.
“You need to stop pairing me up with Jason and Damian for patrols.”
Dick looked at him for a beat before closing his eyes, head tilted towards the ceiling, and taking in a deep, calming breath. “Tim-“
“Listen,” he interrupted, “I know we’ve had this conversation a few times before-“
“And nothing will change from the last few times-“
“- but I’m being serious this time! Tonight-“ He was cut off again.
“I’m tired of having this back-and-forth with you, Tim,” Dick sighed. “The reason Bruce and I have decided to pair you up with Damian and Jason so often is to improve each of your teamworking abilities. You know this. When you work with either of them, the two of you have the worst performance of any group among the bats. I know you can see the value in working together to improve in the field.”
God, Dick was giving him that ‘Bruce trying to be reasonable’ voice. He adopted it after he was forced into the Batman mantle so he could parent Damian, but he couldn’t seem to shake it when talking to Tim. He hated when he did that; it made him feel like a petulant child.
“Dick, the reason we don’t work well together is because they hate me. They never listen-“
“They don’t hate you, Tim,” Dick said exacerbated, “they both had difficult upbringings and experienced-“
“-very traumatic events, and I need to be patient and give them time, I know, but this isn’t-“
“Well, if you took my advice instead of focusing on every little misgiving, then we wouldn’t keep having these conversations,” he said in a low voice. Dick looked properly annoyed now. He stood up and began to pace.
Tim could feel his face start to heat up in frustration. “Dick, please, if you just let me-“
“No, Tim. This needs to stop. I know you’ve had your disagreements with the others-“
“Dick-“
“-but holding onto grudges for this long… Tim, you’re better than this.”
His eyes have begun to burn now as well.
“Please just listen to me-“
“You have been assigned to work with them to get over your differences. If you find it so difficult to work civilly with them then perhaps you need to take some time off to reflect a little-“
“Shut up!”
Tim was panting, tears falling down his face now despite his best effort to halt them. “Just shut up and let me speak! Please!”
Dick, for his part, was looking equally shocked and guilty at his brother’s outburst. Any anger quickly drained in the face of the younger’s obvious distress, not helped by the fact that he caused it.
“Timmy-“ Dick started but was cut off by Tim waving him away.
“Don’t- just- give me a minute.”
Tim put his face in his hands and took a few deliberate deep breaths to gather himself before wincing. Those fucking ribs, fucking, ow. Dick had sat back down and was now looking at Tim his open worry, although the lack of mother-henning meant he was worried for his emotional state and not physical one. Small mercies. If Dick found out he was injured now he would not be able to get another word in for the rest of the night.
His worry made sense though. He didn’t usually lose control of his emotions like that, let alone at his older brother. If only he had shown this worry from the start instead of immediately siding with-
Tim took another tentatively deep breath to clear his thoughts. Dick had the truly uncanny ability of being the only person capable of bringing him to tears in frustration, although usually they fell in the privacy of his own home. He couldn’t help but feel embarrassed; he can count on one hand the number of times he’s cried in front of the older man, and usually it takes some catastrophe before the flood gates open, not, what is by all means, a routine argument. Maybe he can use this to get Dick to listen. Dick will feel guilty for making him cry and will be less likely to interrupt him again, hopefully. Worst comes, he can put on the waterworks again to make him shut up. It would be easy too, once he starts crying it’s like every little thing will set him off again for the next couple hours.
Once Tim knew he wasn’t going to emotionally combust again, he lifted his head and looked Dick in the eyes. His brother was looking at him with such worried eyes. He genuinely felt bad for concerning him so much, but he needs to get through this.
“I can’t keep patrolling with Jason and Damian, Dick,” He croaked. Maybe he should have cleared his throat before speaking, because that sounded a bit pathetic even to his ears, but seeing that Dick wasn’t going to interrupt him he continued. “Pragmatically speaking, when working with either Jason or Damian, we have the lowest productivity and highest number of reported injuries of any of the bats. On average, missions take up to one and a half hours longer to complete, all whilst having more unnecessary encounters with hostiles and less thorough information gathering. There has been no improvement in any of these areas in the months I have patrolled with them, so I think it would be in the best interest of the Mission to cut our losses and no longer patrol together, but-“
Tim’s voice cracked. Goddammit, keep it together. Dick was looking at him with such intensity that he had to look away. He started fidgeting with his gloves to try and divert some nervous energy away from his mind.
“But truth be told, I’m fucking miserable on these patrols, Dick.” He took a shuttering breath. A quick glance at the older man told him he had to get his feelings out quickly before Dick got upset enough to butt in.
“Patrolling with them is unbearable because they’re just… they’re just mean.” He chuckles wetly. “Damian will criticise everything I do. He’ll comment on my form, on my decisions in the field, on how quickly I spot targets. It doesn’t matter what we’re doing, or what he hasn’t seen or done, he has to say that Batman would solve the case quicker, that Nightwing would have ended the fight faster, that Black Bat wouldn’t have been noticed by the target. He’ll throw a batarang at my head and insult my reaction time when it almost hits me. And God forbid I make some sort of mistake, then I’m useless, and it’s a miracle Batman has kept me for so long, and that I should keep to the report writing because clearly, I’m worthless as a vigilante.”
He’s crying in earnest now. Dick tries to reach out to him, but he shakes his head and leans away. He thinks Dick says something to try and get his attention, but he can’t stop now, everything is coming out whether he wants it to or not. His breath hitches when he tries to take one in but continues regardless. “And Jason, he just- goes on these long tangents about how no one wants me here, about how I’m just a replacement and no one actually gives a shit about me ‘cause I was kicked from Robin at the first opportunity. Sometimes he just threatens me, says he could get away with doing anything to me because no one would look for me. Or he’ll shoot far too close to me so I get hit with shrapnel. Or he’ll ‘miss’ and hit me instead. Or- or he’ll let some grunt get a hit on me that I know he saw coming but just didn’t call out.
“And- and when it’s both of them, God, it’s so much worse. They just gang up on me. The whole night they’ll be degrading, and demeaning, and insulting. They seem to know every little insecurity I have which they can dig into for the. Whole. Night. They seem to have some running bet on who can make me more upset. I’d say Jason’s currently in a comfortable lead,” He snorted humourlessly.
Dick had at some point in his rant moved to crouch in front of him, both his hands touching Tim’s knees. He met the man’s eyes only to be shocked at how distraught Dick looked. His mouth was set in a thin line, his brows furrowed, and his eyes were wide and teary.
“Tim…” he trailed off. Tim used his hesitation to cut in.
“They never listen to me; they never even hear me out. Whenever I try to suggest a plan of action, they shoot it down immediately, or they criticise it and find issues that don’t exist, or they talk over me. Those two seem to come up with their own schemes that they never clue me in on, then when something inevitably goes wrong, they blame me, because I’m supposed to be the smart Robin and I should have had some sort of contingency. Which makes no fucking sense, but they do it constantly and it’s exhausting.
“And recently they’ve- they’ve started doing this stupid thing where we’ll get into a confrontation and then they’ll just leave me-“
“They what?!-“
“They’ll leave me to deal with however many enemies there are, and at first it was annoying, but it was manageable. But tonight with the drug bust, there were about twenty men, and we actually had a plan, so I went in with Hood’s signal and it wasn’t until I was already fighting that I realised I was alone, that they never followed me in. They just left me to fight twenty armed opponents with no backup, which I can do by myself, but I just wasn’t expecting to have to, and it meant that they got some hits in-“
Which is true Goddammit. He was victorious against a group of assassins that even Ra’s al Ghul’s best struggled against. He was a good fighter and a good strategist. But, well… he really thought he’d have backup this time round. He hadn’t prepared for the eventuality that his two supposed teammates would trick him into fighting a whole warehouse by himself. Which was stupid in hindsight; that was exactly the sort of thing Jason and Damian would pull. He was just blinded by the faint hope that this could be a turning point in their partnership, or even that it was one good night. Egg on his face, really.
He sniffed and wiped his eyes with the back of his hand. “So, yeah. I just realised that things aren’t going to get better between the three of us. They’re actually, probably, going to get worse. So, if you can stop pairing us up in the future that’d be great.”
There. It was all out in the open. He’s said his piece, aired out all his grievances from the past several months and now there was nothing left for him to say. He honestly feels lighter, like all the hurt he’s accumulated has shrunk in size. Maybe talking about your feelings isn’t as bad an idea as Bruce makes it out to seem. Unfortunately, now everything hinges on if Dick takes him seriously. God, what will he do if after all that he still isn’t convinced? He needs Dick to agree to stop whatever bullshit teamwork bonding excuse keeps him tied to his two personal demons, because otherwise Bruce will never be swayed. He very desperately needs Dick to back him up in this.
Speaking of Dick, he’s been very quiet. Finally looking at his brother, he can see that he’s still in his crouched, hands-on-Tim’s-knees position, but he isn’t looking at Tim. He’s not really looking at anything, his eyes distant with deep thought. His expression, though, is poorly concealing Dick’s patented pissed-right-the-fuck-off look.
Tim swallowed nervously. He knew Dick always got defensive when the topic of his younger brothers came up, but he had really hoped Dick wouldn’t be that mad at him for effectively dissing his two favourite people for ten minutes straight. The man’s temper was legendary, and if he started shouting at him, he might genuinely dissolve into a puddle of sadness. Tim steeled himself before placing his hand on top of Dick’s. The man’s eyes immediately snapped to him and Tim stiffened slightly.
“You okay, Dick?” he asked tentatively.
His brother’s eyes soften as he looks at him. Dick must have picked up his hesitation because he takes a deliberate moment to calm himself before standing up. Tim can only watch anxiously as the older man starts pacing the length of the medbay, running his hands through his hair and over his face as he runs through breathing exercises to compose himself. He is doing this without saying a single word. That out-of-character detail is what puts Tim most on edge. Dick is loud, it’s just who he is. His laughter is loud. His arguments with Bruce are loud. Even his subsequent cold shoulders are loud. If he has an issue, or news, or even a simple observation he will speak it. Except he’s not speaking now, and Tim doesn’t know what to do.
When he finally stopped pacing, Dick stalked back to his cot with a single-minded intensity, Tim’s eyes following him the whole way. When he sat down opposite Tim, it was at the very edge of the cot, as if to be as close as possible to him.
“Tim,” he said as he took both of Tim’s hands carefully between his own, as if they were fragile, or precious. Tim looked up warily, only to be met with the saddest fucking expression he’s seen on his brother in a very long time. You would have thought he’s just learned that Tim was slated for death within the week with how he was holding back his tears by a thread. Seeing that he got his younger brother’s attention, he continued.
“Tim, I’m so sorry. I’m so fucking sorry,” his breath hitched. “You have to believe that I didn’t know. I swear to you that I would have stopped it if I had known. I wouldn’t have let them keep abusing you if I had even an inkling of the shit they were doing on patrol.”
Dick’s hands squeezed his own. His brother was crying now, but Tim was distracted. Abuse? Is that what all that was? He filed that thought away to be analysed in the comfort of his own cold shower and focused on the more pressing issue.
“I tried to tell you though. I tried to tell you several times but you never listened,” he said, voice slightly hollow, “and you must have had an ‘inkling’ because they call me awful shit in front of you all the time, and even worse, you tell me off or give me a look when I try to defend myself against them,” he took a breath. “I don’t understand why you’re acting surprised,” he finished quietly.
He could feel Dick’s hands shaking around his own. His brother’s face was twisted in agony, as if Tim’s words had physically grabbed onto his heart. “I’m so sorry, Tim,” he choked on his words. “I didn’t think it was as serious as this. Jason and Damian are assholes to everyone, I thought you just weren’t as tolerant to them as everyone else and need extra nudging to be patient with them.”
“You told me to be the bigger person. As if Jason isn’t a grown-ass man and Damian hasn’t had ‘lessons in human decency’ drilled into him as Robin,” Tim replied, unimpressed.
“I know. And I’m sorry about that as well. I think- I just thought you were being petty, that you were holding onto some grudges from when you all first met-“
“Seriously?”
“-and that that was what was keeping you from bonding properly as brothers. Not… this.” Dick let out a pained laugh, taking one of his hands to wipe his eyes. “But it doesn’t matter what I thought, because this wouldn’t have happened if I had just listened to you from the start. Or just told them to pack it in.” He took a shaky breath. “From my point of view, they had improved so much over the last few years, that when you brought up your concerns, I didn’t want to hear it, because then it meant that they haven’t actually made all that much progress at all. But you’re my little brother too, Tim, and I shouldn’t have brushed you off. I’m sorry.”
Despite having received about a million apologies in the last five minutes, it was this one that finally began to unfurl the tight knot that started building when he first asked Dick to talk. He’s not going to lie, he’s a bit hurt that Dick would believe him to be vindictive enough to purposefully antagonise their other brothers, but he gets it. Dick has a rose-tinted view of both Jason and Damian, but especially Damian, and someone was to blame for their persistently negative relationship, and if Dick didn’t want to believe it was those two, then that left Tim. He wasn’t happy about it, but he got it.
“You know, you should really know better than think I’d sabotage any of my relationships, let alone with those two.” Tim hesitated, not sure if he should continue on this deeply personal line of though, but decided Fuck it, we’re in this far. “I’ve wanted nothing more than for us to be brothers. Like, proper ones, not just because we have the same dad,” he admitted, “you’ve seen how many photos I have of Jason’s Robin. Kid-me practically worshipped the ground he walked on, and even if he wasn’t my favourite Robin, he was still Robin. I would have killed to be his brother, and that sort of childish adoration doesn’t just disappear easily.
“And Damian, God, I was so happy when I learned I’d have a younger brother. I’ve always wanted a younger sibling, you know? I wanted someone who I could guide, and teach, and pass all my wisdom onto. I wanted to be the person I never got growing up. Except, Damian’s had it out for me since day one, they both have,” Tim frowned. “And now I don’t think we can ever really be brothers.”
“Don’t say that,” Dick said quietly, “we can still fix this, if you let me talk to them, or even better, I’ll talk to Bruce and we can both sort this like we should have in the beginning, then I’m sure you guys can get along eventually,” he said almost pleadingly.
Tim wanted to have faith in what Dick was offering but he knew it wouldn’t work. He knew that both Dick and Bruce have had several talks with mainly Damian, but also occasionally Jason, all of which yielded no results. At least not where Tim was concerned.
“There’s nothing to ‘fix’, Dick. ‘Fixing’ implies there was something broken in the first place. There was never a relationship to begin with. I mean, we’re functionally strangers; they know nothing about me, and I only know things about them at a very shallow level because I like profiling my allies, but that’s it.”
Tim sighed and looked at his brother. Dick still had tears running down his face which bore such a heartbroken expression. His shoulders were slumped with defeat. Tim genuinely felt really bad for him; Dick held his loved ones so close, and learning that he completely misjudged the dynamics of several members of his family, especially to this extent, must be hitting him hard. He freed one of his hands from Dick’s tight grasp and reached up to wipe the tears on his brother’s face.
“I know you want us all together and happy now that everyone’s in the same city, and more-or-less on speaking terms, and alive, but sometimes people just aren’t compatible. Some things just aren’t meant to be, and it’s okay to let them go.”
Dick leaned into his hand, face screwed up again as more tears fell. His restraint must have finally ran out because the next second Dick practically pounced on Tim to smother him in an all-consuming hug. This close, Tim could feel the older man’s chest hitching with every sob he let out into Tim’s hair. Tim let out a few tears of his own. He had already mourned the relationship he could have had with both Jason and Damian years ago, but this felt final. After today there wouldn’t even be the illusion that they were family. There will be no Dick or Bruce to maintain the façade of comradery between them. At least he won’t have to see either of them anymore outside of emergencies. God, what a mess.
A particularly hard squeeze from Dick reminded him of his very broken ribs. He couldn’t tamp down the hiss of pain he let out, nor could he count on Dick not noticing due to their very close proximity. His brother immediately pulled back and stared at him, scanning him for injuries.
“You said that those men got a few hits in.” It was a statement. He’s officially lost his brother to his ‘brother-hurt-protect-brother’ instincts. The complete one-eighty in demeanour gave Tim minor whiplash.
“Yeah, some guy came at me with a lead pipe and got a lucky shot in or two. Pretty sure my ribs are a bit fucked.”
He hadn’t even finished speaking before Dick was up and moving around the medbay, gathering supplies. Not wanting to disturb the strange atmosphere, he decided to not be difficult for once and started stripping the top half of his uniform without prompting. Dick returned to his side with bandages, bruising cream, and an icepack. He looked at the younger’s ribs with a grimace, poking around the already deeply bruised skin, muttering apologies under his breath whenever Tim winced in pain.
He sat back and began to apply the cream. “You’ve got four broken ribs on your left side, and several more are bruised. It’s honestly a miracle at least one didn’t pierce a lung whilst you were fighting or swinging back.”
“Yeah, well, they don’t call me the boy wonder for nothing,” Tim replied with a grin, dutifully lifting his arms up so Dick could wrap the bandage round his chest.
“Uh huh, and don’t think I’m forgetting the fact you just conveniently didn’t mention your broken ribs at all throughout this entire conversation. You know better than to do gymnastics with broken bones,” he reprimanded whilst handing over an icepack.
“We literally just sat here,” Tim deadpanned.
“Emotional gymnastics. Equally as important to avoid when you can’t breathe properly,” Dick shot back with a sparkle in his eyes, before getting up and cleaning away the rest of the medical supplies.
Tim smiled at him despite the soft reprimand. At least Dick was back to slightly better spirits. He had to leave though, so he began putting his Red Robin suit back on.
“I can’t convince you to stay, can I?” the man asked, resigned. Tim smiled apologetically.
“No, sorry. I can’t stay here after tonight; I don’t think I’d catch a wink of sleep. Which reminds me-” He points at Dick with a serious expression. “Don’t have a ‘talk’ with them about this. If you say anything to them then they’ll know I snitched, and snitches get stitches an’ all that. I’m not kidding when I say you’d be releasing the furies of hell upon me. Just stop pairing us up and let this blow over, please. It’s not like I interact with them outside of vigilante business anyway.”
He tried to impress the importance of this upon his brother, but his morose demeanour told him he got the picture. Dick slowly took Tim in for another, much gentler hug and bid him farewell. “Drive safe, okay? And I’ll talk to Bruce about changing the patrol groups around.”
“Thanks Dick, I appreciate it,” he said as he pulled away. They walked to where his motorcycle was parked. As he got on his bike, he looked to Dick one more time. “I’ll see you for our coffee date later this week?” he asked.
Dick smiled. “I wouldn’t miss it for the world, babybird.”
Tim smiled back then put his helmet on. He revved his bike before mock-saluting his brother and peeling out of the cave.
It’s strange though. The door of the medbay hadn’t locked. He really hopes that their shouting hadn’t attracted any attention. He dismisses the idea though; if someone had overheard, he definitely would have been confronted about it by now. Especially since the only two people who could have heard anything were not ones to stay passive when being talked about.