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“Come along, Timothy, this way. Let the adults handle it.”
Tim felt a tickle in his nose. Mrs. Garnier was one of the better people at this party, and although she always wore too much funny smelling perfume that made him sneeze, she was good company and treated him with more respect than most of the other people at these galas, adults and children combined.
Tim would be more inclined to listen to her suggestion if it wasn’t his father in the middle of all that yelling.
They were at a gala of course- Usually when Tim’s parents came home for a few weeks, there was a gala or two involved- but this time mom couldn’t make it. And now dad had gotten into trouble, and he didn’t have her to save him.
So. Naturally, it was up to Tim. Tim privately thought eleven was a good age for this type of thing: it made people underestimate you as well as hesitant to fight in front of you, but it meant you were smart enough to come up with the right words to defuse a situation. So. Good thing he was eleven.
It was odd that there was so much aggressive yelling so early into the night, before the grown ups had even had a chance to have much champagne, but as Tim marched over he began to be able to see and better hear the problem.
“-my wife!” someone was yelling, straining against the arms of another man and a woman with a bright red face.
Mr. Langsley.
“If it makes you feel better, I’m certainly not the only one!”
Dad. That was Dad.
There were several gasps and Mr. Langsley broke free and socked Jack in the face, nearly bowling him over. Tim gasped and rushed to him, crying out as he did. “Stop!”
Jack froze, and then both he and Mr Langsley turned to face him.
“Control your brat, Drake, this is between us men.”
Tim straightened up, remembering what he was here to doubt suddenly feeling a whole lot less sure of himself.
“I- gentlemen, I’m sure we can all find a way to-”
Mr. Langsley chuckled. Tim didn’t like it.
“Polite kid. He get that from you?” he narrowed his eyes and smirked, looking Tim up and down. “On second thought, he get anything from you? This even your kid? Or is it just your wife’s bast-”
Jack reared up and punched Mr. Langsley back.
They got evicted from the venue.
The ride home was mostly quiet. In the end, Tim broke the silence.
“Did… you and mom cheat on each other?”
Jack sighed. “It’s more complicated than that.”
“How?”
Jack contemplated for a second before saying anything. Tim stared out the window of the front seat of the car, not looking at his father’s face. He was still technically supposed to sit in the back seat of the car, small for his age and not heavy enough to be legal. It wasn’t very safe, but Jack sometimes let him ride up front when it was just the two of them. Janet never did.
“I’ll tell you when you’re older, Tim.” A non-answer. Perfect.
“Are you going to get a divorce?”
“Absolutely not. Your mother and I do some- unconventional things, but we’re a set. Same can’t be said of that prick back at the party and his loudmouth wife.”
“Dad?” Tim asked. Jack didn’t look at him. “Are you… actually my dad?” Tim didn’t see how it could be possible for Jack to not be his father. They looked far too alike, sharing more physical traits with his father than his mother. Still, what Mr. Langsley said stuck with him, and Tim felt something sink in his gut as his father continued to look straight at the road, not responding.
“Dad?”
“You don’t need to worry about that, Tim.”
Tim looked at his lap. Tears threatened to prick his eyes. He suddenly felt very small.
“Are you going to do a paternity test?”
“No, Tim.”
“Why?” Tim didn’t understand. This was it. This was the kind of scandal that caused shouting matches, bribes, scandals, ruined marriages and custody battles. Why was his dad so calm about all this?
“It doesn’t change anything,” he said. “I’m your father, Timothy. Case closed.”
And… maybe that was enough. Maybe if Tim didn’t examine the cracks too closely, it wouldn’t shatter on him. Life could go on.
“Ok dad.”
Jack smiled. “There’s a good son.”
Tim had listened in to his parents’ conversation that night. It was disorienting, and enlightening, and overall Tim didn’t know what to think of it.
So Tim didn’t think of it. Not for a long time. Even when his parents (mom and stepdad????) would stay away for months and he’d feel the chill of loneliness threaten to take over, he didn’t indulge in the tempting fantasy that maybe, just maybe, there was someone out there who could whisk him away and pay him some attention from time to time.
Tim didn’t realize exactly how much of a problem it would be for him to become Robin until he realized he’d have to submit a DNA sample. Tim had known for a couple years now that he and Jack were likely not biologically related, despite their resemblance. That said, his mother would never “lower herself” to sleep around (ick) with someone of ill-bred stock. Logically, that meant that some other rich upper crust man with similar features to him was.
And there weren’t very many of them in Gotham, and his mother was too professional to do such a thing on a work related event such as a dig.
Tim panicked. There was such a low chance it was him, so low Tim could barely even think to consider it, but the cold truth was that Bruce fit that demographic neatly. But it couldn’t be- not when the loss of Jason Todd was still a weeping wound on the Dark Knight.
So Tim did what he could- he deliberately sabotaged the integrity of the first sample (a blood test) and bought himself time before Bruce had time to notice and collect a new one.
He spent approximately 90% of that time panicking and the remaining 10% executing it. In the end, he swiped some sample tubes from Bruce, filled them with fake blood, swapped them for his real blood, and set up a program on the batcomputer to open a fake preloaded genetic profile when the results were ready.
When the notification pinged from the batcomputer at the end of all this, he was sure he’d made a huge mistake, and then he’d have to explain that he did it because he thought BRUCE could be his father, which was a LUDICROUS idea, offensive even, how dare he after all the man had been through, after already having sons and losing one of them-
But Bruce just grunted and informed him his blood type was A-. Tim could’ve fainted.
Later, Tim would consider testing his DNA for real, and decide not to.
He has no right to replace what was there before.
Tim thinks maybe this is what fatherhood is supposed to be. He knows on some level that he’s not really supposed to be left alone each night without a nanny, that he should have someone cooking for him in addition to the twice weekly grocery delivery Mrs. Mac brings, but his parents have never been bad to him. He would argue he’s perfectly happy with Jack and Janet Drake as parents aside from the persistent lonely ache in their absences. So really, he has no reason to want for more.
Except.
Except that whenever he surprises Bruce and makes him bark out a laugh, or helps him solve a particularly tough case, or gets his hair ruffled by his mentor-hero-possibly-father his heart soars. With every bit of praise, something in him glows. He clings desperately to every scrap of affection. With every new acrobatic feat or well landed kick or grin at Dick as they use their grapples to ride on the night winds, he feels a hum in the air and it says family family family. It feels like a brother, a grandfather, a father.
That illusion breaks along with 6 ribs and his left arm. Jason Todd, his Robin, his hero is looking down at him with murderous intent, furious at what Tim’s had the gall to take from him.
“I can’t believe this is what the old man thought I was worth,” Jason sneered, digging his heel into Tim’s back. “I guess he never really cared after all.”
“That’s not true!” Tim yelled. “You’re his son! You’ll always take priority!”
“If I was really his son he wouldn’t have found someone to fill in for me. But look! He sure didn’t waste his time replacing me with you!”
Maybe you’re the one replacing me Tim thought bitterly, dodging Jason’s boot once again. Maybe I’m standing where I was meant to be all along. But then the knife came out, and Tim was choking on iron blade and blood, and the thought of being loved was so far away indeed.
The problem with love is that it won’t leave you alone when its sweet comfort turns into grief and heartache. His mother is like a missing limb, but almost worse is his father, with everything that made him him locked away, even when it had been so long since he’d heard his voice and longer since he’d seen him upright and about in person. That he’s now laying in a hospital bed hooked up to a million machines and no guarantee they will come off before he’s dead and ready to be buried is almost more than Tim can handle.
And Tim hates himself a little, because this is a man who most certainly knew he was not his biological father, who claimed Tim as his anyways and would never, ever in his life consider letting another man into that role and Tim had repaid him by all but replacing him. A man who was busy and flighty and imperfect but loved Tim and was probably one of the only people to have ever done so, to have ever wanted him.
So when Jack Drake wakes up, paraplegic and Gotham bound and a widower, Tim resolves to do better. He’ll repay Jack tenfold for the fatherhood he’s gifted him, for the spot in his life he’s granted him, and they’ll be a family despite their only connection being dead now.
But things are tough between them. Jack is irate and frustrated, and who would blame him? His freedom in his own body and his wife have been taken from him in one fell swoop. His company is in shambles. Tim doesn’t know how to talk to him anymore.
Tim doesn’t know how to talk to him anymore.
As far as worst case scenarios go, Jack digging a gun into Bruce’s gut and screaming at him to stay the fuck away from his son was pretty far up there. Tim stamped down on the ripping sensation in his chest as he watched Bruce calmly deal with the threat to his life and identity that was Jack Drake. He hardly even felt manhandled as Jack dragged him by his arm back to the car.
And-
Something inside Tim chipped apart and broke at his feet. Because this is what he’d wanted for so long. He’d wanted someone, anyone, to care and to be there, to fight for him like he was something half as valuable as the things his parents dug up halfway around the world instead of being home with him. He was getting that now, after so long, but at the worst possible time because he’d already found it somewhere else and now he was being made to choose.
The car door slamming jammed Tim’s focus back to his father-? Dad?? Jack- and not a word was said until they had peeled out of the Wayne’s driveway and were speeding away from Bristol.
“I don’t want you anywhere near that son of a bitch, you hear me? If I ever catch him around you again there’s going to be hell to pay.”
Tim didn't respond.
“Do you hear me, Tim??!”
“It’s him, isn’t it?” Tim said, voice monotone and detached.
Jack gripped the steering wheel harder.
“I don’t know what you mean.”
“I mean he’s my father. Isn’t he.”
“I’m your father, Timothy. Me . ”
Then where were you when I wanted to be a son? Tim wonders. But he stays silent.
Jack swallows. Looks at Tim. Looks back at the road.
“Tim… I know I wasn’t- I wasn’t always there, okay? I know that. And you grew up to be a man while I was in that damn coma, and… and while I was abroad so often…”
Tim bites back tears. He doesn’t want to hear this. He can’t listen to this.
“But you’re my son. And if I have to get rid of the goddamn Batman to keep it that way, by god I will. Understand?”
Tim should be touched. He should be grateful. He should be relieved.
“Yes, dad,” Tim says, completely numb.
At first, it feels a little like nerve damage. Tim has that now, in small amounts, mostly courtesy of Jason attacking him in one of the places he felt safest. It feels like something permanent and absent, something he used to have but will never get back.
Only time proves him wrong. Jack is there, hesitant and bumbling and making the wrong choices half the time, but he’s trying. It doesn’t feel like much at first, but each day the chasm between them closes a little and Tim is delighted and guilty all at once because this is everything he once wanted, and it’s still what he wants, but he can’t help but want more . He wants to be Robin, he wants to fly through the night again, he wants the family he almost had.
And isn’t that so stupid of him? Isn’t that so selfish of him? To take and take and take because he’s a greedy fool who doesn’t know what he’s worth.
Maybe it matters. Maybe it doesn’t. Either way, he gets what he wants back in the worst possible way when his time with him is cut short with a boomerang.
Tim is adopted by his own biological father and he doesn’t know why it makes him so discontent. Maybe it’s that the man who should be his father is dead. Maybe it’s that now Bruce feels obligated to deal with him. Who knows.
He gets emancipated as soon as possible.
Jason was like a slap to the face, a boot to the chest. A rude and blunt way to wake someone up and kick them while they were down. The revelation that his hero, a boy who could have easily been his brother under different circumstances hated him was crushing, and Tim knew that somewhere deep down his heart was still bruised from the ordeal.
Damian, though. Damian was like a stabbing knife- figuratively and literally. He could see aspects of his own face in the kid, since he knew where to look, and it only solidified what he already knew.
If only Damian would look at him with anything but hatred.
“I will not lower myself to tolerating the presence of an interloper in what is my birthright,” Damian had said to him, haughty and angry before the time he’d first tried to kill him. At the time he thought the kid was prickly, but that they would warm up to each other. That they could try to be brothers.
That theory had gone out the window pretty quick.
He told himself not to take it personally. Family had always been an unconventional thing for him anyways.
However, even after the murder attempts died down, Damian still remained distant. He remained cold as can be even as he warmed up to everyone else, and even though Tim told himself not to care this was strike three on having a brother, and this one was actually biologically related to him. Probably.
With Bruce stuck in the timestream, Tim was feeling regret in ways he had never felt before. He should have told Bruce the truth about their relationship to each other. He should have seized every chance he could to be a good son. Now, unless he could gather all the evidence he needed to convince the Justice League to save him. He would never get the chance.
But then he did, at a cost to his health and spirit, and no one apologized or thanked him, and his bonds with the family had never felt more tattered.
Maybe he didn’t need to tell anyone after all.
When he wakes up, he feels like shit from head to toe. He arguably feels worse than when he went out, which is incredible considering they’d been treating him for a GSW, but anything is possible he supposes.
“Tim.”
Ah.
Tim turned weakly toward Bruce… only to see him disheveled, suit rumpled and face wrecked.
“Bruce?” His voice comes out hoarser than he expected. “Wh-how long?-”
Bruce pressed a button for a nurse and leaned forward, fingers laced. “What do you remember?”
“I- I was shot- you were putting me into surgery…”
Bruce continued to stare.
“What?”
Bruce opens his mouth, but unfortunately that’s when the nurse came in. After a thorough vitals check and initial assessment, Leslie entered the room too to speak with Tim. She gave him a long, hard look.
“Tim, you’d better have a damn good explanation for this, because he sure doesn’t.”
Tim felt a little offended. “What do you mean?”
“Tell me, Tim, what is the point of having your blood type on file if it’s the wrong type? ”
Tim froze. Oh no , he thought, please no .
“We wasted valuable time and resources trying to find a suitable match for transfusion purposes because of this. Trying to match your blood to other type A- blood isn’t going to do us any good because you’re type O+. If we hadn’t done a crossmatch before surgery it would have hemolyzed and clotted your blood and possibly killed you.”
Blood? Tim knows what blood is. Tim can feel the blood leaving his face. He very deliberately did not look at Bruce.
Leslie continues to chastise him, but all Tim could hear or feel is Bruce’s eyes on him.
“-hope you’ve learned your lesson about this.”
Tim nods numbly. “Ok. Thank you Dr. Thompkins.”
Leslie exits the room, door clicking shut behind her. Tim continues to stare at the bedsheets.
“...you falsified your bioprofile.”
Tim hesitates. Nods.
“You knew.”
This time he cringes.
“I suspected,” he confirms.
“Why.”
“Why?” Tim asks incredulously. “Why what? Why did I use a fake profile?”
Bruce nods.
“Because I already had a father!” Tim exclaims. “Jack raised me, and he considered me his kid even though he knew too, and I didn’t- I didn’t want to lose my family, B, shit- not to mention you’d just lost Jason. I was already busting down your door to get you to pull yourself together, the last thing you needed was to hear that you had a bio kid out there whose parents were out of town 7 months out of the year. You would’ve felt like you needed to be involved .”
“I should have been involved-”
“Oh shut up! You could barely get yourself up in the morning or back to the manor come dawn. You were beating petty thieves senseless. Maybe I didn’t want to wave a son-shaped red blanket in front of the bat-bull!”
“You think I would have been angry at you for that?? For something you couldn’t control???”
“I didn’t think you felt many positive emotions back then, so excuse me for taking care of myself!”
“Tim, I’m supposed to take care of you. I’m your father. ”
And Tim?
Tim laughed. It was a hot, bitter, wet noise. His entire life he’s been on this roller coaster, swinging him up and down and jerking him around at all the worst moments.
It doesn’t change anything He’d once said. I’m your father, Timothy. Case closed.
“Bull shit,” he said, raking his hand through his hair. “This is fucking ridiculous. I went through all the effort of hiding it but I hardly had to do anything. You didn’t suspect a thing. You adopted me, for god’s sake!!! Because it never occurred to you that I might be your son even though we look alike and I was born nine months after you slept with my mother!!! And the only man who ever actually wanted to be my father never even stuck around to do the job and now he’s dead and you feel obligated to add to your collection because you smell blood in the water. I only ever wanted a dad.”
Bruce looked at him, startled and agonized. He looked like a man who had lost something precious he had taken for granted. Something precious he didn’t know he had.
Worst of all, he looked a little like Jack Drake. Because deep down Jack knew that he couldn’t keep Tim from loving Bruce the way he loved Jack, and it killed him inside.
“Leave me alone,” Tim demanded abruptly.
“Tim…”
“Now!” he yelled. “Or I’ll scream for Leslie and tell her you’re disrupting her patient’s ability to heal.”
Bruce looked at him long and hard. He looked like he was taking Tim in like it was the last time that Bruce might ever see him. And then he stood up, and the door swung shut.
Tim had never felt so fatherless in his life.
Tim, upon discharge and a lengthy lecture from Leslie, went straight back to the nest. There was no use in going back to Wayne Manor when he’d essentially told the man to fuck off for the crime of bringing him into existence. He wasn’t a fool,he knew he could only avoid being confronted for so long. Still, Tim expected at least a little bit of a delay before being confronted, and he certainly didn’t expect who would confront him first.
“Is it true?” Damian hissed at him, perched on the back of his couch.
“Hello to you too, brat.”
Damian tensed. “You have not answered my question. Is. It. True?”
Tim sighed. “I didn’t expect him to be telling you all this soon.”
“Father has admitted nothing. Why did you never say anything?”
“Are you kidding?” Tim deadpanned. “Risk the wrath of a self-righteous murderous kid for stealing his birthright? Why would I do that? To secure a spot in a family that barely tolerated me as it was?”
Damian frowned. “But you were not just tolerated. You were a valuable threat. That is why I sought your death: I knew that not only were you an admirable fighter, but you held power over me in your position as Robin and at Wayne Enterprises.”
“Is that praise I hear?” Tim asked incredulously. “The heavens wept.”
Damian did not reply right away. But when he spoke, it was with a tremble in his voice.
“What about after? When we had… bonded . Was the idea of being my brother still so loathsome to you?”
Tim opened his mouth to reply, but Damian wasn’t done.
“I thought that we had progressed beyond my past transgressions. Did I forever forfeit the right to be your kin when I tried to slay you?” The boy swallowed. "Do you not… want me?”
“It’s so much more complicated than that. I’m not going to force you to be my brother just because we were fathered by the same man. Family is complicated. Biology is complicated. I dunno.”
“...But I want to be your brother,” Damian admitted.
“No you don’t.”
“I do,” Damian pressed. “I have wanted such for some time. I assumed you felt the same.” His voice sounded flat and disappointed.
They stared at each other a long moment before Tim spoke up.
“Shit, Damian. I guess we’re brothers.”
Tim could only avoid the manor for so long before there was something he would inevitably need to go back for. He knew it would be an impossible task to avoid everyone, so he chose carefully a time where he knew that minimal people would be around to catch him retrieving some of his more important things from his room.
Duke was one of the people that would be around. Tim expected that Duke would be out of the loop, and thus allow him to do what he needed to do and get out. So It was a little odd when Duke, upon seeing Tim, stiffened up and tried going the other way.
“Ah,” Tim said. “So I’m guessing you’re the one that told Damian. He threaten you or something? You know he’s not supposed to do that anymore.”
Duke’s eyes widened. “No, no it was Steph! That girl is terrifying. She smelled blood in the water like a shark and went after me.”
“Of course she knows too,” Tim said, dragging his fingers down his face.
Duke shuffled on his feet nervously. “So… how long have you known?”
“I don’t see how that’s any of your business.”
“Right,” Duke said, looking embarrassed. “Sorry. Sorry.”
Tim sighed. “I’ve known it was a possibility since I was eleven. The confirmation only came when I needed the transfusion.”
“Oh, wow. That’s…”
“Yeah.”
There was an awkward pause.
“You know… I kinda get it?” Duke said.
“Really?” Tim asked, incredulously.
“Yeah,” Duke said. “It’s like… on one hand I don’t get it. Because the guy is literally your biodad, and you have a relationship with him and everything. And you have the chance to keep that relationship going, and you’re kind of tossing it. But also… I already have a dad. It would feel wrong to ‘replace’ him with Bruce, no matter how great the guy is. I feel like the others would probably get it too.”
“You think so?”
“Well. Maybe not Damian. He doesn’t really have the same experience as we do, yanno?”
Tim nodded mutely.
“So, I guess what my advice would be is just… try and take the time you need, but don’t feel like you have to choose.”
“Thanks. I’ll keep that in mind.”
Of all the things to come back to the nest to, Cass painting Steph’s nails should have been higher up there. Maybe.
“Cass. Steph. What are you doing in my swamp?” Tim asked. He made himself a cup of coffee.
“Alfie doesn’t let us paint our nails in the house anymore,” Steph responded. Tim could see why. Even with the towel laid under them, there was a considerable mess that would take some serious scrubbing to get up. “Plus, I wanted to see my favorite ex-beau but he’s been avoiding the manor like the plague. So. What’s up, batboy?”
“I heard someone browbeat poor Duke into giving up some personal info is what’s up.”
“Yup,” Steph said, popping the p.
“You’re as leakproof as a paper bag. Why would you take that information and spread it around? What’s wrong with you??”
“Relax, I didn’t tell anybody. Well. Except Jason.”
“You told Jason??”
“Well duh,” Steph said. “Who else?”
“I don’t know. Cass?”
Cass waved a hand with a nail polish brush in it. “Always obvious,” she said.
“How about Damian? Are you the one who told him?”
“Oof, the brat knows? Good luck,” she said.
“Great,” Tim said. “Is there anyone who doesn’t know? Vicki Vale? The mailman?”
“I don’t see why you’re so upset,” Steph said. “If you want the guy to be your dad this is the perfect in. And if you don’t you can just do what I do and say ‘no’.”
“It’s not that simple.”
“Sure it is,” Steph said. “Saying no to adoption: it’s quick, easy, and free!”
“You’re not biologically related to him,” Tim said. “I am.”
“So? Just pretend you aren’t. That’s what I do with my sperm donor.”
“Please don’t ever refer to Bruce as my ‘sperm donor’ ever again.”
“Steph,” Cass said. “He is… stressed. Be nice.”
“Alright, fine,” Steph said. “You want to get your nails painted and watch a movie?”
Tim sighed. “You know what? Yeah, I do.”
“B thinks he did something wrong, you know.”
Tim nearly fell off the roof. It wouldn’t have been a big deal- he had his grapple with him- but he preferred to not chance it.
“O,” Tim greeted. “How did you- what am I talking about, of course you know. You probably knew first. Stupid question.”
“He thinks he did something wrong. So unless you think that too, you should clear it up before it becomes another huge misunderstanding.”
“Noted,” Tim said, before turning off his comm.
“God damn it,” Tim said as he stared down the Red Hood. “If you’re here to get your panties in a twist about favorites again, just shoot me before you start.”
“Do you have any idea how fucking stupid I feel? Trying to kill a kid because he dared to have a relationship with his real actual dad??”
“Can you not?” Tim snapped.
“Why did you never tell anyone??” Jason demanded.
“For the love of- shut up!! I’ve had enough of people telling me how to feel about this! This is my mess! I get to choose how I deal with it!”
There was the sound of a grapple and boots landing behind Tim. Tim just shut his eyes.
“O tell you?”
“Robin did,” Dick responded.
“Great. How did Robin find out?”
“He overheard Duke telling Steph.”
“Of course,” Tim sighed. He sat down heavily on the high up roof they were on. Dick hesitated before sitting down next to him, followed by Jason.
“This is a disaster,” Tim laughed. “I never meant for this to come out. I never meant for anyone to find out.”
Jason and Dick looked at each other.
“...I think a lot of us are trying to figure out why you did that, baby bird,” Dick said.
“Yeah,” Jason said. “You’ve already proven you’d tear apart time and space for this family. Why are you so determined to distance yourself from it?”
And Tim just… thought.
“...because I was scared,” Tim admitted. “I was scared that it wouldn’t be enough. That being biologically related to him should secure me a place as his son, but wouldn’t. I was scared he would resent me for pushing my way in that far. Especially after Jason died. He didn’t want another son. All I’ve ever wanted is to be wanted. And after we actually started getting along… it seemed like it was too late. I had already earned my spot as second best. Not a real son. I didn’t want that to change out of obligation or biology. So I just. Didn’t change it. Decided to not find out.”
“Baby bird…” Dick said.
“That’s bull,” Jason said.
“Hood,” Dick hissed.
“No, no, let me speak, Dickhead. If you think that hiding this from B was the best way to save you from heartache, then fine. Sure. Whatever. But saying you did it partly for him?? That’s insane. The man is addicted to being a father, and you hiding this from him was the best way to convey that you took a long hard look at him and said not today, sucker. I’d rather take it to my grave than admit you’re my dad.”
“But that’s not why .”
“Then you need to tell him that, RR. Because right now, he thinks you’re angry with him because he wants you to be his son and you don’t.”
For the first time since getting shot, Tim was in the cave. Alfred had prepared him hot chocolate instead of his usual coffee, and for once, Tim had accepted without complaint. He didn’t feel eager to be wired for the conversation he was about to have.
As the batmobile roared into the cave, Tim stood up from the batcomputer. Damian exited the car first, stopping dead in his tracks as he saw Tim. Bruce did the same.
Alfred emerged to save the day. “Come along, Master Damian,” the butler said. “They have much to discuss.”
As Alfred and Damian exited the cave, Bruce and Tim stared at each other as if standing off against one another.
“Tim-”
“Listen-”
They stared at each other again.
“You go first,” Tim said.
“No, please, go ahead.”
So Tim gathered himself, took a deep breath, and said, “I’m sorry.”
Bruce frowned. “Tim-”
“No, let me speak. I didn’t mean to make you feel like I thought being your son was some horrible thing. It’s not. It’s just that all my childhood I thought my father was a man who loved me but was never around. Then, when you’d lost Jason, I thought I had the choice between a man who loved me but was never around and a man who would be around but couldn’t love me. And obviously I know different now, but thirteen year old me made some interesting choices and now all of us are living with those choices. Which sucks. But honestly? We can move forward. We can’t change how the past went, but we can try to do better now.”
Bruce nodded. “So how do you propose we move forward?”
“Let’s just… start fresh. Establish a baseline.”
Bruce seemed to think about this, then held out a hand. “Hello, Tim. I’m your father. It’s nice to meet you.”
Tim smiled and shook it. “Hello, Bruce. My name is Tim. I’m your son. It’s nice to meet you too.”