Chapter Text
Tim stared at the doorway both of his brothers had disappeared through. He'd stayed behind, fingers anxiously twirling in his lap, watching Bruce's stormy face from the corner of his eyes. A million things he could've said — should've said, if he'd wanted to be deserving of the titles of friend and brother — ran through his mind, too late now. He was such a coward.
The doorway filled again and for a second, the hope that he hadn't missed his chance after all bloomed in Tim's chest. But it wasn't Jason. He was gone, just like Tim’s brief hope. Dick had returned alone. Dick, who'd barely even been in contact with Jason these past months and yet hadn't hesitated to run after him, while Tim, who had prided himself on being Jason's friend, hadn't found it in himself to act. Too stuck in his own head, too unfamiliar with standing up for someone he'd never stood up for before.
"What the fuck, Bruce?" Dick snapped at the man. "This is your fault!"
Bruce stood with a dangerous impassiveness before him. "Calm down, Dick,” he commanded, as if he had any right to command.
"Calm down?!” Dick pointed a finger in severe accusation. “You completely dropped the ball! I've never seen you fail this hard, and I've seen you fail a fucking lot."
Bruce stared at Dick for a moment, as unreadable as always, before dropping his gaze to the floor. "I didn't expect him to be the murderer," he admitted, though it didn't sound like a recognition of guilt in the slightest. "I wasn't prepared for that kind of conversation."
"What kind of conversation were you prepared for?" Dick demanded with the hint of a growl. "Tim and I suspected it was him who killed Chuck from the very beginning. Why was that so outside the realm of possibility for you that you didn't even come up with a backup plan, man who always has a backup plan? I trusted you to handle this!" He was still slightly panting, both from running after Jason and yelling at Bruce, and if Tim didn't have bigger problems, he would've been worried for his lungs.
When Bruce looked back to Dick, he did so with a matter-of-factness that made the air stand still. "Did you manage better with him?"
Dick stopped, and his face twitched like he was experiencing physical pain. It had been a cruel thing to ask him, but judging by his reaction, not entirely misguided.
"Well, no... But I didn't... I never implied that he was a killer for the fun of it,” Dick defended, but it lacked conviction.
If Dick started questioning himself, this conversation was about to turn into a bad direction. It just added fuel to the fire building inside Tim.
"Considering the company he-"
Whatever bullshit Bruce was about to spit out, no one ever got to hear.
Because Tim couldn't fucking listen to this anymore.
He stood up. "Dick's right.” Two pairs of blue eyes shot to him, like they'd both forgotten he was in the room. "Jason has a code. We know that. He doesn't act out of impulse. Even if we disagree, he intellectualises his job. That includes the killing." He swallowed his pride and admitted, "And he's not wrong about all the other stuff he said either."
A silence fell over the room, as the other two digested his words. Then, Bruce nodded, but Tim had the sinking feeling it wasn't to signify agreement. "Even so, we can't let him go on like this. He needs help. Murder isn't justified just because he puts thought into it. Jason has had a hard life that he never learned to heal from, which I can admit to be my fault, and that now manifests in dangerous ways. As his family, it's our responsibility to save him from himself.” That alone was bad enough, but Bruce just had to make a worse addition. “And his choice of friends."
It was said with such finality, like there was no room for discussion. Like whatever Tim or Dick had to say wouldn't matter anyway. Arguing with Bruce nowadays was always an uphill kind of battle, Tim knew that all too well, but he usually was open for disagreement, for suggestions or criticism. He had a narrow moral compass, sure, but he had never been this deadlocked. Not even when it came to Jason, who received the blunt force of their father's stubbornness more than anyone. For the first time, Tim considered how unfair that really was. Bruce had undeniably stepped over the line now, but even before, he'd always been more intense with Jason than with anyone else.
"Bruce-" Dick began, voice strangled, but Tim didn't let him.
"I don't like the way you speak about them," he asserted, finally letting the heat of his emotions seep into his words. "Jason's not an incompetent child! And his 'choice of friends' includes me and my friends too, and I'd argue we're all pretty alright people."
Bruce blinked at him, still so maddeningly unbothered. He wasn't taking Tim seriously. "You’re fully aware you and the Teen Titans are not who I'm referring to."
"I know." Tim crossed his arms and stared him down. "And you're still wrong."
Dick's attention was solely on him now, brows furrowed in surprise, their father’s mistakes overshadowed by the implication. "Tim?"
He didn't answer because Bruce said, filled with all the confidence of someone stating an irrefutable fact, "You hate Superboy Prime."
And maybe Tim had become weak over the last weeks. Maybe the karaoke had softened him. Maybe he'd successfully been bought with Vietnamese soup.
Maybe he'd just had a really good time.
"I don't think I do," he confessed, uncertain at first but growing in confidence and sincerity with every word. "I mean, yeah, I hate what he did and I don't think he's really made up for it yet, but... I don't hate him. He's not the villain I always thought he was. He's just kind of a weird guy." His lips curved into a small smile as he remembered messing around at that fancy event and forcing a hundred or so real estate moguls to listen to the Spice Girls. Prime had tried his best to make them all laugh that day. "But he's also funny, and entertaining to be around, and he has really made an effort. Sure, a lot of that is him trying to buy friendships, but at least it means he values friendship now and he knows he has something to make up for. If I'm being honest, I think he's treated Jason much better than we have."
The image of those two on that karaoke stage had been permanently seared into his mind, first as something to torture himself with, and now... as something he was grateful to have witnessed. He'd been allowed to share a precious moment with a brother he really hadn't been that close to before. And Prime hadn't been a bothering factor, he'd been the reason any of it had happened at all.
Bruce and Dick were looking at him in equal surprise. Potentially even concern. Though Dick seemed a little more neutral in his shock, while Bruce had a crease to his brows in displeasure.
He said, slow and severe, "How can you excuse what he did to Kon-El?"
"Wha- I didn't-" Tim felt the anger rise in him like boiling water. "Did you even listen to me?" His nails dug into the skin of his hand and if Dick hadn't taken him gently by the upper arm and started pulling him away, he was sure he would've jumped Bruce for his infuriating obtrusiveness. He had to be doing it on purpose at this point.
"Let's go, Tim," Dick muttered on their way out. "I don't think anything we say today is gonna be productive. Let's postpone this until we've calmed down." He pointedly glared at Bruce over his shoulder. "Until we've all calmed down."
"Dick-," the man tried to reprimand.
"You're worse than usual, Bruce. Get your goddamn act together."
Tim agreed with that assessment. Quietly, though, because he had no energy left to offer up. Even just looking at Bruce filled him with a slow-moving dread he didn't want to feel.
He and Dick left without further words. There was nothing left to say there that the oppressively dark halls of Wayne Manor needed to bear witness to.
Once they reached the cool night air, Dick pulled him aside. "Did you mean that? About Prime?"
Tim's eyes were caught on the muddy wheel trail staining the pristine asphalt of the driveway, leading away from the house, away home, away from them. "I wouldn't have said it if I didn't," he replied absentmindedly.
"You don't think he's... bad for Jason?"
He turned to Dick, then, and found him vulnerable, searching Tim's face for answers he didn't think he possessed. It was disconcerting, wrong, to see him like that — him who had always been resolute when it came to his opinions, had never shown insecurity in his worldview. Had stepped up into the role of Batman once, just to show the family they could lean on him in those times of turmoil.
The times were different now. No less tumultuous, that was certain, but somehow more personal. Something had been brewing on the horizon that they'd all been blind to, and now it was too late to start fixing something that had been broken from the foundation up. Jason had never felt welcome with them. They should've seen it. They hadn't. It had boiled over. And still, the horizon kept darkening.
Tim shrugged, but it wasn't dismissive at all. No, he found that he meant every single word. "All that I know is that I've never seen so much of him before Prime."
Nor heard his laugh so much, seen his smile, bantered and bickered like brothers should.
Dick sighed quietly, thoughtful yet relieved at the same time, as if Tim had solved a great puzzle for him. Tim wasn't used to being in this position, the one he'd always seen Dick in. The one with answers, someone people leaned on, emotionally speaking. It was new, but he was glad to do it. Glad to do it for Dick, so they could weather the storm together.
He couldn't swallow the regret that he couldn't have done so for Jason.