Chapter Text
“I always figured a witch’s hut would look more…” Tim wiggles his fingers over the windowsill, adorned with various kitchen herbs and Rae Dunn pottery. “You know. Hovel-y.”
“That’s because it’s an apartment,” Bruce responds. “Don’t touch that.”
Tim doesn’t know how he knows, considering he’s still inspecting the bookshelves and facing the opposite direction. He makes a face, setting the purple mug that proudly proclaims sweater weather in spindly font back down where he found it. “Do you think any of this stuff is cursed?” he asks, poking curiously at what he thinks might be a basil plant.
Bruce sighs through his nose, turning his head to fix him with a glare until Tim puts his hands up in a sorry gesture and backs away from the window. Only then does he admit, “Unlikely, considering she obviously didn’t expect anyone to find her. But we’ve already got nine people in need of counterspells - I don’t need you making ten.”
Most of the spells they’ve dealt with so far have been more like pranks than actual curses - a teenage girl who breaks any electronics she comes in contact with, a man who says everything he eats tastes like cilantro, a woman whose shoes keep melting like wet cardboard as soon as she puts them on.
But given the witch’s predilection for handing them out willy-nilly, real harm was bound to come of it. The girl had caused her friend’s Tesla to wreck, nearly killing them both and a bystander, and had taken down an ambulance and Gotham General’s entire computer system when she was brought in to treat her whiplash and broken wrist - the final straw that had gotten Bruce involved in the case.
Tim concedes his point. The shoes and the cilantro wouldn’t be too bad, but he thinks he’d go nuts if he couldn’t touch his phone or the batcomputer for however long it takes Bruce to figure out the counterspells.
He wanders over to the shelf Bruce is studying - one of several. The books here are easily the most witchy part of the little apartment. Other than a few romantasy novels on the small shelf by the couch, most of the books in her impressive collection look old. Leather bindings, some flaking and worn, some so tattered they’re held together with string.
“Do you think she got into all this because she worked at an antique bookstore, or do you think she applied to the bookstore for easy access?” Tim wonders, standing on his tiptoes to peer at the book Bruce is holding.
He gets a glimpse of what looks like handwritten latin before Bruce snaps it shut, replacing it on the shelf. “It’s hard to say,” he replies. “Either way, she’s got a good eye. Some of these books could be worth a fortune to the right collector… or the wrong one.”
He gives Tim a look. The past six months Tim has been working at his side, while short, have still granted him enough time to understand that look as the closest Bruce ever gets to looking apologetic.
Tim sighs. “You’re going to make us haul all of these books back to the cave so we can make sure none of them fall into the wrong hands, aren’t you?”
Bruce tilts his head slightly.
Tim sighs louder. “Maybe one of us could stand outside and the other one could just toss them out through the window instead of having to carry them all down four floors with a broken elevator?”
“This is the job, Robin,” he says flatly, turning away and beginning to methodically remove books from the top shelf and piling them onto the kitchen table next to the SALT and PEPPER shakers. “If you’re not up for it, you can go home.”
“Yeah, yeah, I know,” Tim waves a hand, having heard these words enough times by now to be able to brush them off with only a little sting. “All I’m saying is the job looked like it had a lot fewer staircases from a distance.”
Bruce hides it well. But Tim could swear, as he turns to go on his first trek downstairs to fetch some evidence boxes from the batmobile, that he earns himself a little smile for his efforts.
***
The books are brought back and piled up in a climate-controlled section of the cave, and Tim is allowed to go home to rest his poor suffering calves for the night, knowing the stacks will be there to haunt him come morning, safe and sound.
He expects most of the work of sorting and cataloging to fall on his shoulders. It seems like the exact kind of menial task Bruce usually loves to pawn off on him instead of letting him do fun things - it’s even arguably important enough that Bruce would be able to get away with taking Tim off patrol for a few nights to work on it without too much pushback on Tim’s part. There’s no doubt that he’s warmed to Tim’s presence since he first forced his way onto the scene, but still - Tim’s never known him not to jump at an excuse to make Tim sit in the cave and do busy work instead of joining him on the streets.
But the next day, as Tim stands in the doorway of what he’s decided to call the archival room, noting that the stacks have reorganized themselves overnight, Bruce informs him that he’ll be handling the job himself.
“It’ll waste too much time just to train you what to look for,” he’s informed when he questions it. “And there’d be too high a chance for error, considering the breadth of books we confiscated. I’d have to check your work anyway - easier just to do it myself.”
“How do you know what to look for?” Tim asks, genuinely curious as he perches on the rolling chair beside Bruce’s, in front of the monitors before patrol. “Have you ever studied the occult?” Bruce doesn’t even need to look at him for Tim to sense the Look. “Nevermind. Stupid question. Of course you have.” He stretches a leg out to spin the chair. “What do you want me to do, then?”
“Tonight?” Bruce hands him a bulging manilla folder waiting conveniently under one of the monitors. “You’re going to prepare a report to send to Zatanna containing relevant details on all the known curse victims so she can help us with the counterspells.”
Now that’s more along the lines of what Tim was expecting from him. He takes the folder, actually a little relieved - he likes reports far more than a week’s worth of book archiving. “You can’t do the spells yourself?” he pokes at Bruce, just because the man seems to be in a relatively good mood tonight. “Be kind of cool to have a bat vigilante who was also a wizard.”
“Research doesn’t make an expert,” Bruce responds, returning to his typing. “I’ve researched photography too. If I needed a portrait taken, I’d still ask you.”
Tim’s so startled he nearly drops the file. Thankfully, he doesn’t - he thinks if Bruce gave him a disappointed look right after what he’s pretty sure was one of the only outright compliments he’s ever offered, Tim might actually have to crawl into a hole and die.
He clears his throat, feeling the silence become awkward by the way Bruce’s keystrokes slow. “Thanks,” he says. “I mean. Yeah, I’d always be happy to. Take some photos. You know, if you ever needed.”
Bruce’s typing has stopped, and Tim can sense the exasperation he was hoping to avoid beginning to grow. “Okay!” he squeaks, hopping to his feet. “I’ll get started on this, then. Just, uh. Let me know if there’s anything else!”
Never let it be said that Tim doesn’t know how to make himself scarce.
The next day, after his report is sent, Bruce texts him to let him know that Zatanna was able to undue the curses on all the known victims, and they’d all been released from the hospital. The police were encouraging any other hex victims to come forward, and with the witch in custody for assault charges the case was officially tagged as closed in the Batcomputer’s records.
The books, however, are another matter.
Tim can’t say he totally minds Bruce’s apparent hyperfixation on them over the following days - with his mentor’s attention centered on the new archive, pages of notes and diagrams around him, Tim’s been more or less brushed off to the side from the time he arrives at the cave after school to the time they actually leave to go out on patrol. Which, while maybe a little disappointing, also means their training sessions have been reduced to little more than a warm up before they leave for the night, a far cry from the brutal, painful sessions Tim had gotten used to at the beginning of his career as Robin, when he’d have to all but crawl off the mats at the end of the night.
Actually, he decides, this is a good thing, really. It means Bruce both trusts him enough not to need the kind of training he had been giving him, and also means he’s not trying nearly as hard to drive Tim away from the job as he was at the start. Good signs all around.
What’s more concerning to him is Bruce himself.
“Timmy!” Dick’s voice is a cheerful crackle over the phone. There’s some rustling and bumping, the sounds of children yelling in the background growing quieter. “What’s up, baby bird?”
Tim knocks his foot against the side of the building in a steady beat, growing faster as he pulls his phone back briefly to double check the date. “Dick! Hey! Are you at work? I’m so sorry, I thought you still had Mondays off. It’s not an emergency.”
“Nah, you’re fine.” A door clicks shut on the other end of the line, and the sounds of gymnastically-inclined children are replaced by the distant and familiar hum of traffic, echoing Tim’s own surroundings. “I usually am, but, uh, I signed up for some extra shifts this week - just, you know, feeling a little cooped up in my apartment, and no harm in padding out a paycheck once in a while…” He trails off, then clears his throat. “Anyway! We just wrapped up the last class for the night. The assistant coach can handle getting the kids out the door. What are you up to? Aren’t you supposed to be out with B already?”
Tim blows out a breath. “Yeah,” he says. “Yeah, um. I am.”
“You’re supposed to be, or you are currently calling up your big bro for entertainment on a boring stakeout?” Dick’s voice is light, playful, but there’s the curious edge he gets when he senses something under the surface that he won’t resist the urge to dig for.
Sometimes Tim hates that about him. Tonight, it’s just what he needs. “I mean, yeah, I’m out on patrol.” He gnaws his lip. “But I’m not with B. He, um. He sent me out alone tonight - he’s kind of busy with a project back in the cave. And, um, we don’t really have any major investigations running right now, so it’s just an easy patrol to keep an eye on things, and he said I should be up to it by now and to just call him in if I run into any trouble -”
“Hold up. Stop.” Dick cuts him off, and there’s no more amusement in his voice. “You’re telling me Bruce sent you out as Robin alone?
“Uh huh.” Tim kicks at a loose piece of brick, watching it crumble into the alley below and feeling somehow both relieved and even more tense at Dick’s tone. After a moment of silence, he feels compelled to add, “Which I thought was kind of weird, because, you know, he said before that I wouldn’t be going out on my own until I’d been Robin for at least a year, and he put a lot of emphasis on the at least part.” He takes a deep breath, realizing it’s been a minute since he’s done so, and then lets it back out in a rush. “Dick, he’s been… I’m not sure he’s doing okay.”
Dick doesn’t say anything immediately. There’s some rustling on the other end of the line, the sound of traffic getting momentarily louder. Tim thinks he might have taken the phone away from his ear. He waits patiently.
After a few moments, he comes back. “Okay,” he says, sounding weary in a way that makes Tim regret not trying harder to confront Bruce before calling in reinforcements tonight. “Okay. Here’s what we’re going to do. You’re going to go back to the cave - no, seriously, I know you probably can handle a simple patrol by yourself, but a simple patrol can get un-simple in a hurry, and I’m not comfortable having you out there without any backup, baby bird.” It ruffles Tim’s pride, but he agrees anyway, trying to sound more reluctant than relieved. “Just… go home and hang tight for a couple hours. I’ve got some errands I need to run, but as soon as I’m done I’ll come over, and we can go out together, okay? Besides, it’s been a while since we had a patrol, just us Robins.”
The last part is said with obvious forced levity. Still, Tim can feel himself perk up a little. He does love getting to patrol with Dick. “Okay,” he says. “Cool. Yeah, I’ll meet you at the Manor. Um. Thanks, Dick.”
***
Tim’s thank-you continues to ring in Dick’s ears even after they’ve said their goodbyes and hung up. He tips his head back to look up at the smoggy Bludhaven sky, thunking his skull against the wall of the gym.
The kid just sounded so relieved. So confident that Dick, somehow, was going to have the answers.
He’d almost forgotten what a burden that responsibility could feel like.
He closes his eyes against the starless sky and just breathes for a minute. Really, he should have expected that this was going to happen. Maybe on some level he did.
But Bruce had just been doing so much better since Tim -
Doesn’t matter. Tim might literally be a lifesaver for their shattered little family, but he’s a kid, and Bruce isn’t his responsibility, especially this week of all weeks.
Dick just wishes sometimes that that didn’t make him his.
The fire escape door bangs open. His TA, Hailey, a round-faced college student and former cheerleader who works at the gym part time, pokes her head out.
“Hey, um. Dick?” she says, snapping her gum. “Last class starts in five. Also Emma’s mom is here, and I think she wants to complain again about Emma not getting enough one on one attention, and she looks like she’s gonna bite my head off if I try to sell her again on signing up for actual one on one tutoring, sooo… can you, like, tell her to either stop being cheap or stop complaining that her kid’s in a group class?”
He allows himself another three seconds to breathe. Then he picks his head up off the wall and shoots her a smile. “Yeah, of course. Be right there.”
Tim texts him a little bat and a hole emoji when he gets back to the cave, which uncoils some of the tension in his chest and makes the rest of the final hour easier to bear.
But as soon as class is done and the last student has been waved out of the building, Dick beelines for his car and heads for home.
Alfred greets him with the same note of relief Tim had on the phone. “Master Dick,” he says, drying his hands on a dish towel before giving him a brief but tight hug. “It’s a pleasure to see you, dear boy.”
Dick grins at Tim, seated at the kitchen counter and still dressed in his athletic undersuit, and comes over to ruffle the kid’s hair. “You sound surprised, Alfie. Tim didn’t tell you I was coming?”
Tim flushes, leaning into the touch while Dick pretends not to notice. “I know you were busy tonight,” he mumbles. “Sorry. I didn’t want you to feel pressured.”
Dick’s smile feels artificial. The coil in his chest that’s been winding tighter with every mile he crossed over the bridge has started to feel hot with anger that he knows he can’t reasonably vent. Certainly not here. “Hey,” he says quietly, ducking his head as Alfred turns away to give them their moment. “I’m glad you called me. Reinforcements, right? That’s what Robin should do.”
Tim practically melts at the affirmation, shoulders loosening in relief, just the way Dick knew he would. The poor kid hopes for praise like a dog hopes for a piece of bacon, and god knows Bruce doesn’t give him enough.
Dick lets his hand linger on his hair a moment longer - as long as he can get away with before Tim catches on to the fact that he’s doing it on purpose. “Bruce down in the cave?” he asks casually as he pulls away.
Still, he can feel the way the energy in the room tightens. “Indeed,” Alfred says, sounding clipped. “He’s in the climate control cubical.” He turns around, setting a small platter of sandwiches down in front of him. “If you wouldn’t mind.”
Dick takes the plate, understanding the unspoken implications. “Thanks, Alfie,” he says quietly, flashing Tim a last, quick smile. “Back soon.”
Sure enough, he finds Bruce in the archival chamber he’d built off in the recesses of the cave, a little glass-walled fishtank of a room for handling older and more delicate artifacts and technology. Though at first glance, he almost misses him among all the books.
He lets the door thump shut behind him as he steps from the humid cave air into the cool dry space, full of the scent of old paper and dusty leather.
Bruce doesn’t startle. He never does. But Dick can tell from the way his bloodshot eyes snap up from the tome he’s hunched over that he hadn’t noticed Dick come down.
“Dick,” he says, and clears his throat. Dick can hear his back pop as he straightens up. “What are you doing here?”
“Nice to see you too, Bruce.” He drops the plate of sandwiches on the table. Bruce snatches the book out of the way just in time before it can get crumbs on it. “Tim called me. From a rooftop. Alone.” It’s foolish to start this conversation on such an aggressive note, but he can’t bring himself to care.
Bruce narrows his eyes at his tone. “He’s been doing well in his training. You were out patrolling alone at his age.”
“I started when I was eight,” Dick hisses. “I had years of experience before you let me go off on my own, and even then I was a teenager before you stayed home and let me handle an entire patrol by myself. He’s twelve, and has been doing this for months. If it’s your goal to end up with another dead Robin, this is a hell of a technique, Bruce.”
He’s bordering on cruel and he knows it, even if he couldn’t see the way Bruce’s expression shutters like a door slamming shut.
But this is about Tim.
Dick grabs the other chair, moving another small stack of books off of it so he can slide it over across from Bruce, noting the pentagram etched in the cover of the top book. “Bruce,” he sighs as he sits down. “Look, I know… I know this week is hard -“
“This has nothing to do with that,” Bruce says harshly.
“It’s been a year this Friday,” Dick continues gently like he never spoke. “That was always going to be hard. I’m having a hard week too, it’s okay -“
“You don’t understand.” It’s sharp, almost dismissive.
But Dick’s known him long enough that he pauses. Under the harshness, there’s something… desperate.
“Okay,” he says softly, tilting his head. “Okay. Explain it to me then.” He gestures at the books surrounding them. “What is all this?”
Bruce leans back, his jaw set and eyes narrowed. He’s readying for a fight - Dick just doesn’t know which one he’s going to pick yet.
The seconds tick by in silence.
Okay. Trying to block him out isn’t the worst option he could pick. He’s not sending Dick away, and he’s not lashing out. Dick can work with this.
Dick leans forward, pushing the plate closer. “Eat something, please,” he says quietly. “I know it’s been a while since you have.”
This, of all things, is what makes him bristle. “I’ll eat later,” he growls. “I have work to do, Dick. If you’re so worried about Tim, you can go out with him, but I don’t have time for this.”
The urge to rise to the bait is strong. But Dick tilts his head as he thinks. “So it’s time sensitive. You’re not just archiving books, or even studying them. If this was just something to distract yourself, you’d be using it to fill the time between patrol and casework, not replacing them completely.”
He snaps his hand out and grabs the book Bruce is clutching. Bruce tries to jerk it back, but Dick isn’t trying to take it from him. He just tilts it upright so he can see the leather cover, which he reads aloud.
“An Introduction to the Methods and Materials of Necromancy.”
The words are so simple and clear as they hang in the air. He almost tricks himself into believing they don’t mean anything.
For a few seconds after, they are both silent, frozen. And then he drops the book. It bangs onto the table at the same time as his chair screeches back.
“Bruce,” he says, and he can barely hear his own voice through the static in his ears. “What are you doing?”
Bruce looks away. A muscle in his jaw ticks.
Dick can feel something bubbling up in his throat. He doesn’t know yet if it’s a scream, a shout, or just sick. He keeps his mouth clamped shut and waits, praying there’s some other explanation - any other explanation.
“I wasn’t going to tell you before I knew anything for sure,” Bruce grits out, after what feels like eons have passed. “There’s no guarantees when it comes to something like this. I know that.”
“You’re trying to bring him back,” Dick croaks. His hands are shaking under the desk. He doesn’t recognize it as anger until he hears himself speak. “You’re trying to bring Jason back from the fucking dead.”
“I’m merely investigating -”
“You know you can’t.” Dick hurls the words at him and is terrified when he doesn’t even see him flinch. He leans towards him, gaze searching frantically for a crack, a glimmer of fucking reality in his father’s face. “Don’t you try and tell me you’ve never looked into magic like this before now,” he hisses. “If you try and tell me you didn’t call up every magician you know to ask them if there was any way to save him after he died you’re a goddamn liar.”
“The occult is a deep well, Dick,” Bruce counters like an angry cat skittering out of reach. “Just because one person doesn’t have the answer doesn’t mean someone else -”
“Who? Your witch?” Dick scoffs, his throat so tight it hurts. “Is this the same witch Tim was telling me about that’s been running around casting cilantro curses?”
Bruce’s nostrils flare. “One of her books,” he says lowly. “One of Akaris Black’s missing journals. She seems to have gotten her hand on possibly the last copy in existence. There’s… a spell.”
“A spell,” Dick repeats. His lips feel numb. He should condemn it, fully and outright. Instead, he hears himself ask, “What kind of spell?”
Bruce’s jaw works. “Not one that’s usable in its current form. But there are loopholes. That’s what I’m researching - if there’s a way to modify the spell, or perhaps to combine it with another one -“
“Why isn’t it workable?” It’s an old spell. Perhaps there’s an ingredient it calls for that doesn’t exist anymore, some arcane stumbling block rendering the spell nothing more than an antique - some simple, easy reason to forget about this.
But Bruce just shakes his head. “It’s not workable,” is all he says.
Dick sits back in his chair. His stomach aches like he’s taken a punch. “Bruce,” he exhales. He bites his lip until he tastes blood, and still can feel his expression crumpling. “Bruce, this is not okay.”
“I didn’t intend to tell you like this,” Bruce says, stilted.
“You didn’t intend to tell me at all.” He stares at the books surrounding them, caging them in like bricks, and has a sudden flash of the Edgar Allen Poe story he once read back in high school, of the man bricked in down in the basement.
He imagines Bruce, bricking himself in.
“What’s the deadline?” he asks abruptly, so abruptly that he sees Bruce blink in surprise. “There is one, isn’t there? You said earlier that you didn’t have time.” He swallows down the absurd laugh that wants to bubble up. “But it’s not like Jason’s going anywhere. So what’s the big rush? What’s the deadline?”
And this time he can’t resist the way he laughs as he says it.
Bruce’s fists close and open on top of the book like birds spreading their feathers protectively atop their nests. “The anniversary,” he says, after a few moments, almost like he can’t restrain himself from admitting it. “The spell must be completed within the first year.”
Dick nods along, head tilted like he’s listening to nothing more than one of Bruce’s mission briefings. “What was your plan if it worked?” he asks. “Call me up, say hey, Dick, you’re coming over for Sunday brunch, right? You’ll never believe who else is going to be there -”
Bruce’s fist suddenly slams down on the table. “This isn’t funny,” he snarls. “It’s Jason, Dick. My son. If there is even a chance, it must be explored, no matter how uncomfortable you are with the idea.”
Dick looks at him. “That’s my baby brother,” he returns, low and venomous as he pushes back his chair and rises from the table, knowing in his bones that the line of self restraint between him and bloodshed is a shadow. “I don’t think any of this is funny. That’s my baby brother, and you won’t let him rest. When are you going to let any of us rest, Bruce!?”
By the end, his voice has risen to a shout, and he’s breathing like he’s just lost a race. He turns away from Bruce’s stony, stubborn face before he can give into the urge to break it. “I love you, Bruce, but genuinely, from the bottom of my heart, fuck you for doing this to us.”
He slams the door so hard on his way out that the glass rattles in its bat-built frame.
Tim is waiting for him right outside the study. He pulls up short just in time to avoid trampling the kid.
“Hey!” Tim says immediately, twisting his fingers together anxiously as he searches Dick’s face. And then, before Dick can say anything at all, he deflates. “It didn’t go well,” he says resignedly. “Dick, I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have bothered you, I knew he was in a mood, I just hoped…”
He trails off, but Dick understands anyway. He’d hoped Dick would be able to make it better.
Dick wishes he’d stopped in the study for just a few more minutes before rushing out - given himself a little bit more time to get a grip. He should have known Tim would be waiting. The kid’s more sensitive to the moods of adults than anyone Dick’s ever met, other than Jason.
He shoves his hands in his pockets to hide the way they’re trembling, forcing a weak smile onto his face to try and reassure him. “Look,” he says quietly, “You didn’t do anything wrong.” Because Tim always needs to know that. “It’s, um. This Friday is the anniversary of when Jason…”
Tim’s eyes widen. “Oh,” he says, just as softly. “Shoot. I’m sorry.”
But Dick waves him off. “You just need to know not to take anything he says or does personally right now, okay? He’s, uh. He’s having a rough time.”
Tim nods quickly. He huffs, blowing his bangs back out of his eyes. “Don’t worry about it. I never take anything he says personally.” He shoots him an uncertain smile, tone light, but Dick can feel that his own expression is a grimace.
Lacking much else he can say right now, he reaches out and ruffles Tim’s hair. “I’d stay clear of the cave for the time being,” he says. “Take a vacation night tonight, buddy. Things -” his voice cracks. He clears his throat. “Things will get better again after the anniversary is passed, I promise.”
He turns away, ready to go upstairs to his old room and just. Hide for a little while. Scream into a pillow, maybe.
“Dick?” Tim calls after him. He turns back around, his last shred of self restraint going into keeping the despair off his face.
Tim’s looking up at him with solemn blue eyes. “Are we still going to patrol tonight?” he asks.
God, Dick had completely forgotten his promise to go out on patrol with him. What an optimistic idiot past him is. “Uh, no, kiddo, not tonight, I think,” he replies, voice strained. “Like I said, just, take a vacation day, okay?”
“Oh,” Tim says behind him as he walks away. “Yeah, okay. Um, have a good night, Dick.”
Dick makes it into his room before breaking down into tears. But it’s a close call.
***
Tim can’t believe he forgot about the date.
Of course Bruce would be struggling right now. He always gets worse around times that remind him of Jason.
The day before Jason’s birthday a couple months earlier, he’d screamed at Tim so loud and long that Tim’s ears had still been ringing by the time he fled the Manor for home. Bruce hadn’t called him back for three whole days after that.
And Tim had understood! Like he said to Dick - he’s never taken it personally. Yeah, under most circumstances, it would be a pretty dick move (sorry Dick) to take it out on a kid like that, but Tim didn’t exactly wait for him to complete therapy before inserting himself into Bruce’s life. He can give the man some grace.
He should have had the anniversary on his calendar this entire time so he could recognize when Bruce started to pull away and adjust accordingly.
Damn. What a stupid screw-up. No wonder Dick doesn’t want to go on patrol with him anymore.
***
The next few days pass like the morning before a thunderstorm.
With Dick home to keep an eye on him, Tim’s first step in how he can best support Batman during this difficult time is to fuck off and make himself scarce unless Bruce asks for him. The last thing adults want when they’re going through it is a kid hanging around.
This plan falls apart the very next morning after Dick arrives, when he calls Tim at eight AM and greets him with a cheerful, “Good morning! If you plan on leaving me here alone with Bruce all day, I’m going to take you train surfing again and this time I’m punting you off.”
So Tim comes back to the Manor after school.
But in spite of what Dick said, Bruce remains more of a theoretical presence in the house than a physical one.
He suspects that Alfred, at least, attempts to get him up out of the basement. He thinks Dick slips away occasionally to check on him too.
But if either of them have any success, it happens when Tim’s asleep or at school.
When Tim is around to see, it seems like Dick is doing his absolute best to distract them both from the giant bat lurking under their feet. They’ve had more movie and video game hang-outs in the past few days than they have in the whole month before that, and Dick approaches each hour they spend together with a maniacal enthusiasm that’s more alarming than fun.
But Tim won’t deny he likes being a distraction a lot more than a punching bag.
So he follows Dick’s lead, and doesn’t even mention Bruce, or Jason, or anything that it seems like Dick wouldn’t want to talk about right now.
On Thursday, as Dick’s shepherding them both into the theater room with a bowl of popcorn just a few minutes after Tim’s arrived at the Manor after school, his phone buzzes.
“Shoot,” he mumbles as he pulls it out to check. He passes Tim the bowl of popcorn. “Hey, Alyssa, what’s shakin’?”
Tim turns away, pretending at some privacy as he takes advantage of his head start on their shared popcorn.
“Oh, no, I’m so sorry,” he hears Dick say sympathetically. “Is he going to be okay?” Tim can’t hear the words on the other end, but he can hear the stressed cadence of the woman’s voice. “Yeah, of course, anything I can do. Uh,” Dick hesitates. “You already checked that Trevor couldn’t come in?” More stress. Now she sounds stressed and apologetic. Dick looks down at his bare feet, cheeks puffed out. “Yeah. Hey, no, stuff happens - you’ve already covered me so much this week, don’t even worry about it.”
Tim’s pretty sure he makes out the words “Thank you, thank you, thank you,” said at high speed.
They say their goodbyes, and Dick hangs up the phone. He sighs, rubbing the bridge of his nose.
“Do you need to go to work?” Tim asks through a mouthful of popcorn.
“Yeah,” Dick says wearily. “That was the coach who’s been covering me this week - apparently her dog ate a sock. She’s taking him to the vet.”
“Oof,” Tim says sympathetically. “How long are you going to be gone?”
“Should be back by… probably no later than ten?” he says, tucking his phone back in his pocket. “Last class wraps at nine, and then I’ll need to clean and lock up before I can drive back to Gotham.” He runs a hand through his already rather mussy hair, lacking the product he usually styles it with.
Tim studies him, taking in the dark circles under his eyes that he’s been politely ignoring, his heart panging for him. He wishes he was better at knowing how to pretend to be a little brother at a time like this.
But he really doesn’t.
“It’s okay,” he says, trying to put all the sincerity he can into it. “It’s only a few hours, we’ll be fine here. You should get out of the house anyway. Place is starting to stink like you.”
“Hey,” Dick says, reaching out to rumple Tim’s hair, but his grin is closer to natural than Tim’s seen all week. Still, it fades almost immediately. “You sure?” he asks. “My manager can cover if I tell her there’s no way I can make it.”
Tim thinks maybe Dick’s forgotten that Tim didn’t actually know Jason. That his grief this week is only an abstraction, a wish, not the whole and solid thing that the others in this house have to carry.
Tim lets him forget. It must be awfully lonely, sometimes, for Dick.
Grieving with Bruce must be like grieving alone.
“Yeah,” he says, keeping it bright as he settles back on the couch. “Like I said, it’s a few hours. I usually spend way more time alone than that when I get home from school, and I’ve only set the house on fire, like, one time.”
The grimace is back again. He hesitates one more time before he leaves the room. “I don’t think you’ll see Bruce tonight. But if you do, just… leave him be, I think. Tonight might be a bit rough.”
Tim nods. Dick leaves.
He waits for a full thirty minutes after he’s left before he goes for the study.
He gets what Dick is worried about. He won’t even deny that he’s bracing for it himself.
But he’s known from the very start - if there’s one fact about Bruce that he didn’t need to meet him to learn, it’s that Bruce needs a Robin in reach, and if it’s not Dick it’s him.
This close to the anniversary, he’s ready to find just about any version of Bruce down those stairs - the Bruce who screams at him, who slams him into the mats with the desperation of a man trying to throw him across a cliff to safety, the Bruce too drunk or sleep deprived to even recognize Tim who calls him Jason and begs him for forgiveness.
He might even find the Bruce he found once, just once, on a snowy night in December sitting with a gun in his hand.
He hopes not. But he’s ready for it.
He’s not ready to open the clock and nearly crash right into the man.
Bruce’s large hands catch his shoulders and steady him before he can ping off his broad chest like a golf ball off a wall. “Tim!” he gasps, sounding as startled as Tim is. “I was just coming up to see if you were back from school yet.”
He looks, quite frankly, wretched. His eyes are raw and bloodshot, sitting pouched in eyebags deep enough to use as pockets, and his jaw is shadowed with at least two, probably three days of stubble. The combination has given him a shaded, gaunt effect, even though Tim knows it hasn’t been nearly long enough for him to actually lose weight.
Tim leans back unconsciously, nostrils flaring as he tries to subtly scent the air. But while the man could definitely use a shower and a toothbrush, he’s relieved to find no hint of alcohol on his breath or skin. Okay. Tim can probably work with this.
Whatever this is.
“Bruce!” Tim says. “I, um. I was just coming down to check in and see if you… needed any help with anything.”
Ugh - he shouldn’t have phrased it like that. Bruce can get defensive when he’s in a bad way, especially when someone - Tim, mostly - implies that he needs help.
But Bruce doesn’t rear back and scowl at him, nor does he snap at him for daring to imply that he might in any way need him.
He just keeps staring at Tim’s face, giving Tim the uncomfortable feeling that this is what a fresh piece of evidence must feel like when they put it under a microscope. He still hasn’t let go of Tim’s shoulders.
“Bruce?” Tim tries tentatively after a few moments.
Bruce blinks like he’s coming back to himself.
And then he smiles at Tim. “I’m so glad you’re here,” he breathes. “I was just coming up to see if you were back from school yet.”
Okay. Tim’s heart sinks a little. “Yeah, I am,” he says, keeping his voice low and gentle as he braces a small hand against his wrist, as though he’s got a shot in hell at keeping his bulk upright if he collapses from exhaustion right here at the top of these steps. “Hey B, you know, I think it’s been a little while since you got a good night’s sleep. Why don’t we go upstairs and take a nap -?”
Bruce is already looking through him, hazed eyes flicking to the door. “Where’s Dick?” he asks.
Tim is seriously considering whether he needs to send out an emergency alert and get Dick back here ASAP. “There was an emergency at his day job,” he says. “He had to go in, but he’ll be back as soon as he can.”
Bruce refocuses on him. His eyes widen a little. “He’s already left?” he says, as though he can’t believe what he’s hearing.
“He’s coming back,” Tim tries to reassure him. “He didn’t want to go. But he’s not leaving the Manor, just stepping in to cover a coworker.”
Bruce blinks at him. “He already left,” he breathes, squeezing Tim’s shoulders. “Perfect.”
Tim’s worry peaks into alarm. He tries to step back out of Bruce’s grasp, but Bruce’s grip only tightens, hard enough that Tim winces. “B - hey, that hurts.”
It’s like watching a light come on in the window of a house. Bruce lets go of him like he’s been burnt, rearing back, and suddenly it feels like Bruce standing in front of him again - exhausted, shoulders weighed down by stress, but Bruce.
“I apologize, Tim,” he murmurs, rubbing a thumb across the bridge of his nose and squeezing his eyes shut. “I merely meant…” he hesitates for a moment, reopening his eyes and looking at Tim, gaze unreadable. “I’d been hoping for a chance to spend some time with you. And I’m afraid Dick and I… we aren’t seeing eye to eye right now.”
Tim wraps his arms around himself. He moves to rub at the aching spots he can still feel on his bicep where Bruce’s fingers gripped, but stops himself, knowing even Bruce in this state won’t miss the movement, and certainly doesn’t need the added guilt. “It’s fine,” he says. “Um. You wanted me for something? Did you. Need help with a case, or…?”
But Bruce shakes his head. The corner of his mouth spasms strangely, like it can’t decide whether it wants to turn up or down. “No,” he says, an uncomfortable gentleness to it that makes Tim hug himself tighter. “No. I thought… I thought maybe you’d like to watch a movie.”
Tim has to resist the instinct to pinch himself.
Bruce has never watched a movie with him. Twice, now, he’s joined him and Dick for a movie night, mostly at Dick’s strong encouragement. But Tim? No.
He doesn’t just hang out with Tim outside of their work.
“Bruce, are you okay?” Tim asks, a little urgently, tilting his head as he steps closer, wondering if there’s a fever flush hidden under that stubble. “Can you tell me what day it is?”
Bruce’s expression clouds. Still, he doesn’t snap at Tim. “I know what day it is,” he says, with the same weight he gives to telling a victim that someone they love is dead. He takes a deep breath. “Please,” he says quietly, and Tim flinches like he’s raised a hand to slap him. “Just. Stay with me, for a little while.”
Tim’s not qualified for this. This is the kind of thing Dick knows how to do - how to comfort Bruce, how to be an emotional support for him when he needs someone he actually cares about. Tim just knows how to be Robin - how to be a living, still-breathing reminder of what Batman is supposed to stand for, whether Bruce likes to be reminded or not.
But… maybe this is just an extension of that.
Maybe Bruce really does just need to not be alone with himself right now.
And… Tim won’t deny it.
Some pathetic little part of him wants this - wants Bruce to sit with him and watch a movie and need him.
Maybe he is just a poor substitute for a boy who’s not here anymore.
But if it helps Bruce… is that such a bad thing to be?
“Yeah,” he says softly, swallowing hard. “Yeah, B, of course.”
Bruce’s face twists - relief and something more pained all tangled up in one. He reaches out, and Tim takes his hand on instinct. He squeezes. “Thank you,” he breathes. “You’re… you’re a good Robin, Tim.”
And then, as Tim gapes at him, he steps backwards down the stairs. “But first,” he says. “I need your help.”
And Tim never has been able to turn away when Batman has needed his help.
***
Downstairs, he listens.
He takes in everything Bruce shows him. Every calculation, every piece of old text his mentor has scanned and notated. Some of it, Tim understands perfectly well, even without much background in the subjects Bruce has so clearly thrown himself into. Some of it less so.
But at the core of it, the theory Bruce presents is simple, and to Tim’s ears feels sound even without the analysis of magical theory to back it up.
If you want something, you must trade for it. Sometimes you need a bit of trickery to make a deal that doesn’t cost too much.
Who knew Jack and Janet Drake were so little removed from the witches of old?
And at the end of the day, the true theory, the heart of everything, is even simpler than that.
It’s Jason. They have to try.
“Okay,” he breathes. “Okay. Let’s do it.”
***
Dick tries to call Tim as soon as the last class lets out. Tries, because he’s sent straight to voicemail.
He hangs up without leaving a message. But by the time he opens up their text chat, a typing bubble has already appeared.
hi dick!! b and I are just watching a movie :)
Dick actually stops in the middle of the parking lot, car keys in hand, to squint at the words as though they’re going to start to make sense.
They’re watching a movie? Together?
Dick had been absolutely sure that Bruce wouldn’t be able to bear the sight of Tim right now.
oh cool!!!!! he replies, throwing in a couple extra exclamation points to cover his uncertainty. b’s doing ok?
Typing. Two thumbs up.
Huh. Okay.
Something bubbles in Dick’s chest. He tells himself it’s optimism, not unease.
He gets into his car. Before he starts the engine, he asks, are YOU doing okay?
Typing. Typing.
The bubble hovers for almost a full minute before Tim finally just sends,
Everything’s fine, Dick. please don’t worry :) And then, a few seconds later, Drive safe!
That odd, uncomfortable bubble in Dick’s chest gets bigger. He breathes in, breathes out. Tries to tell his body that there are no tigers here.
Kk, he sends. Thanks, Tim. Love u. Driving home now, see you soon! <3
Typing.
Typing.
Stopped.
Dick gives it another minute, just in case, before he starts the car and puts his foot on the pedal as hard as he dares risk the whole way home.
***
The only moment that Tim truly feels like he’s doing something wrong is the moment when they break into the cemetery, bag of ritual materials in hand.
Bruce helps him down over the wall, both of them very conscious that some of the supplies they’re carrying are nothing that can be replaced on short notice if Tim fumbles them on the cold wet grass of the cemetery grounds.
He shivers as he looks around the dark space, lit only by the ambient light of the city and the street lamps outside - no flashlights for them, nothing that a security guard or a passerby could spot.
Rows of headstones sprawl before them like hunched figures, and Tim has the sudden stabbing jolt of an audience - the sensation of running into a classroom late and feeling the eyes of an entire class fixed judgementally on you, and he thinks, we’re not supposed to be here.
But then Bruce takes the bag. Takes his hand, too. The gloves between them are just gloves, not gauntlets - they’ve left Batman and Robin at home in the cave.
And Tim settles, following him trustingly into the dark.
***
Tim lied to him.
That’s what keeps running through Dick’s head, again and again.
Why did Tim lie to him?
He can tell that Alfred feels guilty over the revelation that both Bruce and Tim had somehow slipped away from right under his nose. It’s obvious from the way he’s attacking the Manor and cave’s surveillance systems with the ferocity of a sheep dog searching the forest for its missing sheep.
“They left the house just over an hour before you arrived home, Master Dick,” he’s finally able to report, though the information does little to remove the tension from either of their shoulders. “They took one of the civilian cars. The black, unregistered Mercedes.”
The car Matches Malone has been known to drive - low-key, tinted windows, unconnected to Bruce Wayne. They’re not out there as Batman and Robin.
And Dick… Dick thinks that’s worse.
There are some things that Bruce might be able to do that Batman never could.
“I think I might know where they went,” he says, and hears his own voice break.
***
Though Dick has never once seen Bruce go visit Jason’s grave, there have been flowers on it every time he’s gone to visit alone.
There are flowers on it now too, white petals glimmering like dull stars in the candlelight.
They trample under Dick’s feet.
Everything here is a snapshot, his eyes taking in one horrific detail on top of the next. The flowers around candles around white and red lines of salt and clay around a dagger and a body and Bruce, hunched over it all like the stone angel atop Jason’s grave.
Unlike the angel, his skin breaks under Dick’s nails.
“What did you do!?” Dick howls as he throws himself at him, clawing, kicking, punching like a wild animal. Bruce has no armor to protect him, blows meeting tender skin and muscle beneath his black shirt, but Dick doesn’t care.
Because there’s a small body on top of Jason’s grave, chest cracked open like the red breast of a robin.
Bruce’s urgent voice is a bell clanging in his ears that he ignores. Even when one big hand wraps around his wrist like an iron band, Dick doesn’t hesitate before wrenching so hard he feels his thumb dislocate, the hand loosening as soon as it feels the pop.
“What did you do,” he wails, a banshee promising more death to come, because that is his little brother lying dead atop his first brother’s grave, and Dick doesn’t know that he can bare it, thinks that he will be the next to lie down beside them and it will have been Bruce’s hand to kill them all.
A blow to the jaw staggers him, and he stumbles backward with lights popping in his eyes.
Still, it is instinct to step back over the body on the ground, bracketing it safely between his feet where nothing else can hurt it.
Bruce puts his hands up in a show of peace. But there is nothing peaceful to him. His eyes are wild in the flickering light of the remaining candles, his jaw set and lips curled back away from his teeth, as animal as Dick feels. “I need to bring him back,” he hisses through his teeth. “Dick, move.”
“I should never have left him alone with you,” Dick spits the words like venom. “You’re not going to fucking bring him back. You’re a fucking monster -”
“Not Jason,” Bruce snarls. “Tim. He’s not dead.”
The words hit Dick harder than the punch ever could. He rocks back on his heels, and finally, finally allows himself to look down at -
At Tim.
At Tim who looks so very dead.
“What?” he gasps, but even as he says it his own body is moving, stepping back and dropping to his knees at Tim’s side, giving Bruce space on the other. “What - what did you do?”
This time, there’s hope in the question.
Tim is on his back in the center of the circle of candles and flowers. There’s red all over his bare chest - red clay, mostly, Dick thinks, but there’s blood in there too in the streaks and sigils marring his pale skin. But now that he’s looking at it up close, the gaping hole he’d thought he’d seen in the dim candlelight doesn’t exist - only a dark painted swirl above his heart.
His face is pale, lips turning blue. Dick can’t tell if his chest is moving in the flickering light, no matter how hard he looks.
But Bruce is. There’s a metal box just outside the ring of candles - Dick hadn’t even noticed the portable defibrillator from the medbay.
“The ceremony requires the sacrifice’s chest to be pierced by a ceremonial dagger, and for them to die,” Bruce says, his fingers moving rapidly, flicking switches as he sticks the electrical pads down on Tim’s chest. There’s blood trickling from his nose where Dick must have caught him - Dick doesn’t even remember. “It doesn’t specify that the subject must be killed by the dagger.”
The subject. Like this is a case, an experiment, like this isn’t Tim lying still between them.
Dick’s eyes finally find the wound - a small cut, just over his sternum, the edges smeared with blood. The dagger at his side is only red at the very tip.
“I drugged him,” Bruce continues. “To stop his heart. I was giving him the antidote right before you arrived. Clear.
He doesn’t wait a moment after saying it - lucky Dick hadn’t dared to touch Tim yet anyway.
Tim’s body jolts once and falls limp again. The instant it’s done, Dick grabs for Tim’s hand, squeezing tight as he feels for Tim’s pulse - Bruce does the same against his neck, and Dick resists the urge to slap his hand away from his little brother’s defenseless neck.
A few seconds pass. Bruce growls, pulling back. He glances down at his watch. “Three minutes.” Then, “Clear.”
Dick drops his hand just in time, snatches it up again as soon as the shock is over. This time, he only holds it for a couple beats before he moves to hunch over him the same way Bruce had been, starting CPR. “B,” he says, his voice cracking as the seconds tick by.
“I know.”
The desperation in Bruce’s voice is so thick and sharp it’s unrecognizable to Dick.
He squeezes his eyes shut, thumb aching as he pushes up and down. How many seconds has it been since they hit the three minute mark? Ten? Twenty? Thirty?
At four minutes, severe brain damage becomes all but inevitable.
“Clear.”
Tim’s body bucks.
And then, his chest heaves as he takes in a great, rattling gasp.
Dick wails as loudly as he did the first moment he saw him there on the ground. He desperately gathers his little brother up against his chest, cradling him, uncaring of the clay and blood and graveyard mud that’s staining his clothes. He yanks the electrodes off and tosses them to the side as he tucks Tim’s face against his neck, curling around him where he can feel the unsteady rise and fall as his lungs fill with air again and again.
“What -” Tim croaks in his ear. And then he coughs, the sound painful. “Did it work?”
Dick feels himself shudder to a stop, his frantic rocking coming to a halt even as his grip on Tim tightens, hard enough that he’s probably hurting the kid.
But he can’t make himself loosen it.
He picks his chin up off Tim’s shoulder to look at Bruce. If everything before now has been in snapshots, photo-sharp in terror, everything now has taken on a hazy quality - artificial and dreamlike.
The only thing that feels real is Tim’s body pressed against his chest.
Bruce isn’t looking back at him. He’s curled in on himself, still on his knees in the dirt, hunched down to stare at the soil beneath them with wide, unblinking eyes.
“You knew?” Dick asks softly, the question directed at Tim even though his gaze is fixed on Bruce.
Tim tenses sluggishly, then relaxes again, his body too exhausted to hold the tension for long. Still, he finds the strength to pick his head up and look at Dick. “I volunteered,” he says, when Dick finally meets his eyes. “I promise Dick. I volunteered.”
His tone is so earnest. Dick doesn’t know if he even notices the tears streaking down his pale cheeks.
Dick closes his eyes, swallowing hard. The scent of graveyard dirt is so suddenly so thick it feels like it’s clotting in his throat. “Well?” he rasps at Bruce. “Did it -?” he falters, unable to finish.
Bruce still won’t even look at him. “I don’t know.” His knuckles whiten, fingers curling against the soil. “I don’t know. I don’t -“
Suddenly, he picks his head up, his face contorted in wild desperation. “We have to dig him up,” he breathes. “I can’t believe I didn’t - if he’s alive down there, we have to dig him up.”
Dick looks at him, allows the look on his face to brand itself forever into his mind. And then he twists around and vomits, right there on Jason’s grave.
I’m sorry, he mouths repeatedly when he’s done, tongue sour with bile. He gives it no voice, too aware of his living brother still clinging to his neck who needs someone to not be having a mental breakdown right in front of him. He hopes Jason will hear him anyway.
He keeps his eyes squeezed shut, able to hear the scrabbling sound of Bruce clawing at the grave underneath them like he’s going to dig his way right down to the bottom. He adjusts Tim’s weight, holding him like a too-large child as he stands up.
He takes a deep breath, turning away from his father’s madness and a grave that almost belonged to two tonight. “Clark!” he cries, his voice cracking.
It takes forty-two seconds for Superman to drop to the earth in front of them. Dick counts.
But it’s Clark’s wide eyes that take in the scene. “Dick?” he says, sounding horrified in a way Dick is beyond feeling. “What’s -”
“I need to take Tim home,” Dick cuts him off, holding Tim tighter when he feels the kid start to squirm like he’s going to resist. “You need to stay with - he can’t be alone, Clark.” Dick’s voice breaks completely on his final plea.
And Clark, a hero if Dick has ever known one, doesn’t push for answers, even though he must have so many questions swirling in his head right now. He just sets his jaw, placing a hand on Dick’s shoulder. “Alright,” he says, so painfully gentle that Dick feels his eyes start to burn. “Go on, Dickie. I’ll - I’ll bring him home when he’s ready.”
Dick takes a breath that feels like it’s his first since he came home and realized that Tim had lied. The only thing keeping him upright is the kid in his arms.
He doesn’t even have the strength to say thank you. He just nods at Clark, brushing past him as he sets out through the darkness that somehow feels far more eternal than the agonizing stretch he ran through to find them not so very long ago.
Behind him, he hears Clark’s voice, deep with concern as he speaks low and soft to Bruce. He doesn’t stay to hear the answer.
“I can walk,” Tim rasps, after he nearly trips over a headstone in the darkness.
But even though his legs are still trembling finely with shock and exhaustion, he just hugs Tim tighter. “No,” he says simply, unable to handle the thought of letting go of his little brother here in the dark cemetery that still feels like it just might swallow them both whole.
And maybe Tim feels the same way, because he doesn’t fight Dick beyond that.
He doesn’t put him down until they reach Dick’s car, parked crookedly in the visitor’s parking lot, and he’s forced to relinquish him to the passenger seat. Tim’s fingers are shaking and clumsy as he tries to buckle the seatbelt, and in the end Dick does it for him.
Neither of them say a word to each other.
***
It’s 3:35 in the morning when Clark brings Bruce home.
They come in through the kitchen door, not the cave. There is no Batman tonight, and while he may be in uniform, it’s all Clark that walks into their kitchen, expression drawn with exhaustion in a way Dick doesn’t think he’s ever seen before.
Still, he tries to muster up a smile for Dick, though it looks more like a reflex than anything else. It falls away within seconds.
He’s got a hand on Bruce’s shoulder. He makes it look easy, like he’s just there for support, but Dick suspects from the way his father all but collapses into one of the kitchen chairs that it was the only thing keeping him up.
Dick studies him, his eyes burning with exhaustion and emotions he hasn’t allowed himself to feel yet, even over the hours he’s spent sitting here, silently staring at the door and waiting.
Bruce looks aged.
Dick hadn’t recognized the manic spark for what it was the last time he’d seen him before everything, down in the basement when he’d checked in on him that afternoon that feels so long ago, even though it was less than twenty-four hours.
He recognizes its absence.
Bruce wraps his hands around each other, resting them both on the table. They’re filthy - dirt under his nails, mud streaking his wrists like veins. Dick can see at least one nail that’s actually broken, his fingertips tattered.
“What took you so long?” he asks, his voice painful to his own ears after so long in silence. There’s a quaver in it that he thinks would probably be undetectable to anyone other than the two men in front of him.
Bruce stares down at the table. He doesn’t meet Dick’s eyes.
When it becomes clear that he’s not going to answer, Clark offers up quietly, “He said… Jason died at 10:21 in the morning in Ethiopia. Which meant it hadn’t been a full year, officially, until 3:21, Gotham time.” He swallows. “He wanted to wait. Just to… just to make sure the spell didn’t work.”
Dick bites his lip until he tastes blood. He looks down at the table too, a mirror of his father, until he can blink his vision clear again.
He gets up, stepping away from the table, and Clark follows him. Bruce can probably hear them anyway, but Dick’s not completely sure he’s even aware of what’s going on around him, let alone that he particularly cares. Still, he drops his voice, and Clark leans in as if he needs to. “And it… it didn’t work,” he murmurs, the tremor in his voice worse now. “Right?”
Clark’s face crumples. He can be jarring, sometimes, Dick thinks as he watches him react - the way he is so open in a way none of the bats have ever been.
“No,” he breathes after a moment. “Dick, I’m so sorry.”
Dick shakes his head hard. He doesn’t know exactly what he’s feeling - grief? Relief? “The dirt on his hands -” he croaks.
Horror flashes across Clark’s face, disgust too. Dick wonders how many times he’s felt those emotions tonight. “No,” he says firmly. “Jason… he’s still at rest, I swear.” He catches Dick’s wrist, squeezing gently. “I didn’t even look,” he promises. “I just listened. I didn’t think… when Bruce comes back to himself, I didn’t think either of you would want me to see him like that.”
It’s a kindness that hadn’t even occurred to Dick. But he’s right - the thought of Clark, looking down into that coffin and seeing Jason as he must be now -
Dick shakes his head again to try and get rid of the image in his mind. He knows he won’t succeed.
Clark’s expression has gentled back into exhausted sympathy. “How’s Tim?” he asks softly. “He didn’t tell me everything, but…”
But Clark’s not stupid - he must have seen the defibrillator and the bloodied dagger as clearly as Dick could. “Leslie came and looked him over,” Dick says, and now he doesn’t bother to quiet his voice. “There’s no sign of brain damage from the oxygen loss, but we’ll be doing some more testing tomorrow to make sure there’s no damage to his heart.”
Apparently Bruce is aware enough of his surroundings to listen in. He flinches at the words, hard.
Dick looks away, finding that it brings him no satisfaction at all.
He can’t even really bring himself to be angry. He only feels like he should be.
“Thank you,” he says to Clark, quiet again. “For bringing him back. I didn’t - I didn’t know what else to do -”
“No one would,” Clark murmurs, shaking his head. “No one would. It’s gonna be okay, Dick, just… give it time.” He glances at Bruce. “Do you want me to stay tonight? I don’t mind, if you want an extra set of ears.”
Dick shakes his head, pulling his wrist out of Clark’s hand. The reassuring words bounce off without sinking in.
He walks over to the kitchen table. Bruce is swaying slightly in his chair as he tilts his head back to look up at Dick, gaze lost, like a child awaiting the verdict of a parent. If Dick sent Clark away and walked out right now, he’d probably stay put until he fell from his chair from exhaustion.
Dick thinks, if he wanted to, it wouldn’t be hard to hate him enough to walk away.
“C’mon,” he murmurs, reaching out and taking Bruce’s hand to help him up. “Let’s get some sleep. Nothing’s going to feel better until we do.”
He nods to Clark, who’s standing with hands slightly outstretched, like he’s thinking of reaching out to help him half-carry Bruce up to bed. But he doesn’t.
The fall out of this will already be bad enough. His part is done - it’s time for the bats to do what they always do, and retreat back in on themselves to lick their wounds alone.
Bruce still hasn’t said a word since coming home.
The stairs feel longer than normal, given the way Dick can feel the way Bruce’s steps falter as they make their way up. But he’s bracing most of all for the hallway to get to Bruce’s bed.
They’ll have to pass by Jason’s room.
Sure enough, Bruce’s feet slow to a drag as they pass it by, head turning to stare at the dark crack under the door as though if he looks closely he might see a reading lamp left on in the hollow tomb of a space.
But to Dick’s surprise, it’s Tim’s door that he actually stops at, digging his heels in like a dog against its leash. “I want to see him,” he rasps. He sounds like he’s been screaming.
Dick lets out a low hiss between his teeth. His temper flares star-hot for a brief moment, vicious in its protectiveness as he remembers how Tim’s pulseless wrist felt beneath his fingertips.
But it extinguishes just as swiftly.
“He’s not in there,” he says wearily. “He’s down in the cave with Alfred for monitoring.”
Bruce slumps next to him like his body has suddenly grown twice as heavy. They stand there for a minute while he processes this, and Dick wonders if he’s going to have to fight to keep him from going all the way downstairs to see him.
But after a moment, Bruce nods, and they continue on. Dick doesn’t know if he’s relieved, or if this is just a new low of disappointment.
He all but undresses Bruce for him, tossing muddy clothes at the hamper with the vengeance he can’t take out on the pathetically hurt looking man in front of him tonight, pushing him down onto the bed when he’s done and tossing the quilt over him like he’s burying a body.
And then he lies down on top of the covers next to him, where he’ll be able to feel if Bruce tries to get up.
They can start to dig through all of this in the morning. But he’s not leaving Bruce alone tonight.
Even if Clark is probably still going to be listening no matter what Dick’s told him.
He can feel sleep dragging at him almost as soon as his head hits the pillow, his body having been begging him to shut down for hours since they got home and the adrenaline wore off, held back only by the need to see Bruce safely home too.
But before it can claim him, Bruce shifts beside him, and he can feel the weight of his gaze on him in the dark.
“Please forgive me,” his father whispers. “My boys. Please forgive me.”
Dick stares at the ceiling for a long time before the sun comes up, even long after Bruce’s staggered breathing has evened out as he finds some form of peace.
When he dreams, he dreams of Jason sitting at his bedside. And when Dick tells him he’s sorry, Jason just turns the empty sockets of his eyes on him and grins.