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Steph doesn't know why she said it, why she started it, she just knows that the scene was familiar enough to her, another late night after patrol, Tim wrapping an injury of hers at a random safehouse, and her college friends had started thinking about the future, which of course only made her start thinking about the past more.
“You know,” She starts, not having to face him as he stitches up a wound in the back of her shoulder. She tries to sound amused and nostalgic. “This used to be the time where I'd get trapped in a lecture from you about how I shouldn't be going out anymore, how you never want me to put on the Spoiler costume again.”
Tim pauses his stitching for a moment, but doesn't say anything.
“You wanted to control me so badly.” Steph finds herself continuing, almost against her will. She doesn't think she hides the hitch in her sentence very well.
They sit in silence for a long while before Tim finally says something. “I… I wanted Batman's approval, so I tried to follow in his footsteps, do what I thought he'd want.”
It's not an apology. It never is with him. With either of them, really.
“No.” Steph says, teeth gritting, not out of anger, but just an attempt to hold back too much emotion. “I'm sure that was part of it, but you don't get to place all the blame on that. On him. You've always felt a need to control the people around you, even outside of Bruce's influence.”
Tim falters slightly. Neither of them are good at vulnerability. “I guess I'm… scared. If I lose control, then I lose everything. If I control the people I love, maybe I can keep them safe.”
“And maybe they'll stop leaving.” Steph concludes, even though Tim wasn't going to say it himself. She didn't know much about Jack and Janet Drake, nobody but Tim did, and he didn't talk about them much, but she knew they left him behind in boarding school, or with a nanny, to go travel the world a lot. Steph glances over at a mirror to see that Tim is slightly struck by her words, like he thought he hid it well, like he wasn't so obvious in his need.
“My parents were good.” He says defensively, and Steph can't help but laugh slightly.
“The fact you already know I'm talking about your parents is telling. But don't worry, I never said they weren't. I'm sure they were… fine. You got pretty lucky in the grand scheme of things, I suppose. Anyone would take mediocre over bad.”
“If they were bad, would it matter then?” Tim murmurs, voice quiet and soft with uncommon vulnerability.
“What do you mean?” Steph tries to turn her head to get a better look at him, but she winces at the pain in her shoulder and leaves it, resigning herself to glimpses in the mirror.
“Nevermind.” Tim dismisses, voice cold like it had never stopped being in the first place, like the moment meant nothing, was meaningless. Steph kind of hated him for it.
They continue in silence.
“When we were dating, sometimes I wondered if you loved me, or the idea of what I could be once you shaped me.” Steph says, her statement feeling like an obnoxious announcement in the dark quiet.
“What?” Tim exclaims, sounding incredulous for a moment. “No, of course I loved, love, you for who you are. You're Steph, I wouldn't want to change that.”
“I know that.” Steph pushes through, mildly frustrated. He was a frustrating guy. She really hates him. “But it didn't always feel like that when we were dating, even now sometimes…”
Tim falters again, he's doing it a lot, so out of depth in a conversation simply because it's about feelings. Well, maybe Steph is a hypocrite to judge. “I love you, as you are. I don't know how to show it, I suppose… When we were younger, I think there were times I did wish you were different, really. Less defiant, so I could keep you safe. I know it's wrong now, but at the time…”
“You didn't think I was very competent, and as my boyfriend, it's supposed to be your job to keep me safe, because I couldn't possibly help myself, right?” Steph finishes for him, curt and harsh, and she sees him nod slightly in the mirror, head down in shame. Good. She hated him, she did, she did. “I…” She swallows. “It felt like I was always looked down on, by my Dad, but that was fine because he was a bad guy, so I shouldn't listen to anything from him, right? But you and Batman… you were so good, and yet I still…”
"You were one of the best of us, really. For persevering through all of that, persevering through Batman." Tim says abruptly, and that's all he really has to say. He doesn't have anything to say for his younger self. There wasn't really an excuse, other than Batman's paranoia and protectiveness, combined with both their needs for control, and Tim's adolescent misogyny. Because that's what it was half the time. When Tim was a teen, he always underestimated the women he allied himself with and fought against, apart from Cassandra, and with her, even if there was more respect, there was something else instead… and nobody really taught Tim better. Jack Drake wasn't the most progressive, and even Bruce, as progressive as he tries to appear and be, didn't really notice the underlying misogyny with how Tim saw and thought about women when he was fourteen and hormonal. Tim learnt it from women themselves, after getting his ass beat multiple times over his career as Robin. Maybe not the best way to learn, but it produced results.
“Do you ever think that sometimes, maybe Bruce wasn't the best influence?” Steph pivots slightly. She doesn't know where this is all coming from. She'd always had these thoughts, but she'd never dared to say them out loud, especially in front of Tim, who sometimes seemed like Bruce's number one fan since he was brought back from the timestream, even if Bruce didn't return the sentiment.
Tim opens his mouth, body tense and defensive, ready to argue immediately, but he pauses, shutting his mouth and relaxing his body. Thinking about it. Steph thinks it's progress, from the boy who would sneak around with Steph against Batman's wishes, but ultimately agreed with him, even when he wasn't right there, looming.
“Do you remember what Batman did on my sixteenth birthday?” Tim says after a moment, having finally finished the stitches. Steph doesn't say anything. She doesn't turn around to face him, even if she could now. She thinks they'd both wimp out of this.
“I remember. You nearly quit Robin.”
“But I didn't.” Tim says, sounding slightly defeated. “I didn't. I went back, because I didn't want to lose having Bruce in my life. He made me just as paranoid as him, and I still wanted him around. I don't- I don't even really know why I love him sometimes.”
“Because he's your Father, and you just can't help yourself.” Steph says quietly. She knew what it was like, to love a man who hurt you, because he was a father, your Father. Even if most of her remaining love for Cluemaster had curdled into hate by now, she understood.
“Yeah…” Tim trails off solemnly.
“I think… there were times I wanted him to be my father too.” Steph says. “Maybe not literally, or consciously, but no matter how many times he put me down, put me through my own stupid tests, I still wanted his approval of me, his endorsement of my crime fighting. You already know that though.”
“Yeah, I do…” Tim turns her around so that they're face to face, and she lets him. He studies her face with a mix of love, apprehension, and something still burning angry and sad, even if the flame is small by now. “I think I hated you, when you faked your death, and when you chose Bruce over me when he was gone, helping him put me through the tests you yourself hated. I think I hated you for proving Bruce right that I couldn't trust anyone. I was so angry with you, but I think a part of me was angry with myself too, for not being good enough to you for you to choose me, and- and about how, if the roles were reversed… I think I would have done the same thing. For Bruce.”
“Always for Batman.” Steph says with a small, tense smile, her voice wet and her eyes watery.
“And then- then you reached out to me, but you didn't believe me, and I thought- I thought out of the two of us you should be the one not being believed and I-” He cuts his rambling off, clearly struggling to get the words off his chest.
“I just wanted to help you. I know I didn't believe you when I should have, but all I wanted was to help you get better, to stop hurting.” There's a croak in her voice from a sob trying to escape.
“I know… I know. But at the time, it just felt like another thing to add to a list of reasons why I couldn't trust you, couldn't trust anybody…” He trails off apologetically. He didn’t want it to sound like he was blaming her for things he chose to do. He knew he had made that impression plenty of times before when they were younger. He wanted to be better. He wasn't sure if he was yet.
“I'm sorry.” She breathes out, watching the last flame of anger in his eyes be swallowed up by something else, something vulnerable and tired, so tired.
“I'm sorry too. I was a really shitty boyfriend, wasn't I?” Tim replies, voice hitching with emotion that's so rare for him to show, and she doesn't know who starts it, but suddenly they're both hugging and crying into each other's shoulders in a manner that borders on dramatic.
“I wish I could hate you.” Steph cries loudly into his shoulder.
“I'm glad you don't.” He replies quietly, and Steph briefly wonders where he learnt to cry so silently, wonders why he had to learn to.
“I wish I could hate him.” She sobs, and Tim holds her tighter.
“I think I wish I could too sometimes.” He practically whispers, like he's confessing a sin, saying such things about the man he went to the ends of the Earth for to bring back, had given so much of his life and nearly died for.
They stay like that for a while, crying in their embrace. Bruce Wayne was a good Father sometimes, an average one most of the time, and sometimes he was a man who took and took and took, their minds, their bodies, their souls for an endless mission, and only sometimes seemed to remember how small they were, while he was so much larger than life, remembered how they only had so much to give before they withered, only rarely seemed to remember that the whole Batman and Robin thing was supposed to be a partnership, and gave back, watered them and loved them fiercely, for however briefly before he went back to work. And it was always enough for the children who had nothing else, who looked up to him as a mentor, and father, and protector. For the children who grew into adults on even more unstable feet than most.
Eventually, they separated from the hug, but still held onto each other.
“Blame it all on Batman?” Tim asks, voice snotty with tears in a way that should gross her out. She should be mad at him for joking about this. Instead, she finds herself laughing, laughing at the absurdity of it all, at the vulnerability they were sharing for once, at all their issues and problems that made it so their relationship could never fully work, that seem so silly in the grand scheme of things. At the absurdity of their entire lives. At the way this would end with them on the couch, watching shitty movies until they fell asleep. It would be good, it could be good. There were still plenty of grievances to share and fight about, but this was a start.
“Yeah. Yeah, let's blame it all on Batman.” She says with a wide smile and a giggle.