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Ra's offered to put the League at her disposal. She could have used that against him, taken the opportunity to memorize his strongholds and bring him down. Maybe she should have; it would have given some point to this useless search she got herself into, looking for evidence that Bruce was alive. But she had Tamara Fox to think about, and, if she's being honest, she doesn't trust her own judgement right now.

(She was so sure. A part of her wants to just keep looking for the evidence she thought she could find, but - it doesn't exist. If it had, she would have found it. Her father's dead, again, and she can't bring Bruce back any more than she could have resurrected Jack.)

Instead, she bargains off what she knows to buy herself and Tam out of the entire mess. Tam can go back to her father and tell him that she brought back Timothea Drake-Wayne, and Tim... she goes home. Well. Assuming she can force herself to make the last few steps towards the Manor's entrance. It's more of a struggle than she'd like to admit to not turn around and go to a safe house to just lie low for a while, lick her proverbial wounds, but she supposes she's done enough running already.

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There's a knock at the door to her safe house, but it's not going to be who she expects. Dick realised she was missing when he went to go and see if she could help him with some research, conscious that she was getting itchy feet and wanting to keep her distracted - apparently it had come just a little too late.

It took him a little while and some investigation to figure out where she'd gone, but as soon as he'd figured it out he headed straight over. He supposes he shouldn't be surprised, none of them are very good at staying put, but he had hoped that he had enough authority for her to listen to him.

It's not. Tim takes a minute to gather a little calm before going to the door to face Cassie. She has zero illusions that this is going to be an easy conversation, but Tim owes it to her.

...except it's not Cassie at all, and the look on her face goes from carefully neutral to genuinely confuses. "Dick...?"

While he's waiting, he's trying to decide exactly how to handle this, he can't exactly pull off the stern, angry parent thing, but he knows he has to lay down the law.

"Funny," he says with forced casualness when the door opens "this doesn't look like home..."

He's... here to complain about the relative hominess of her safe house? Tim stares at him blankly. "...I wouldn't raise a family here, but that's not really the point."

"Not what I meant Timmy, this isn't the manor , which is exactly where i told you to stay until you were healed."

Oh, hey, he's getting the hang of the dad voice, mostly it's just to cover up the fact that he was worried, for her to have disappeared again, still injured, after everything she had told him... he had, initially, panicked.

It's not a bad dad voice, all things considered, but the fact that it's (a) coming from him and (b) not at all what she expected is diminishing its effectiveness somewhat.

"I'm okay to go out. I'm not doing anything strenuous, I just wanted to talk to Cassie."

"Well maybe if you'd asked me, we could have talked about it, instead of just disappearing. I had no idea where you were, i had to track you down - do you have any idea how worried i was until i found out where you were?" He's getting in the swing of it now, he feels like Damian's given him some practice, but mostly this is just big brother mode in overdrive.

"I wasn't aware I had to ask you to go out somewhere," she says. Which is maybe not the best plan given that this trip was about apologizing to someone for running off and scaring them, but - it's not like she's a kid. "You know where I am now."

"You do when i've told you to stay home! You didn't think i'd want to know where you were after everything that happened?" He demands. When she points out he knows where she is now, he frowns deeper "that's not the point, young lady."

He did it, he said the words, he was in full dad territory now. He didn't totally mean to set himself up as a father to the rest of them in Bruce's absence, but he was struggling to find a balance between brother and dad, because the kids in this family had lost enough parental figures.

"'Young lady'," she repeats with a distinct sense of disbelief. Because what the hell. When did Dick even start using that phrase? "What is the point then?

Ok, yes, he had probably got a bit carried away with that one, but he couldn't exactly go back on it now.

"The point is that i was worried about you, i told you to stay in the manor and you didn't. Look what happened last time you went off on your own!" It was probably a bad idea to bring that up, but he was on a roll of bad ideas right now.

Oh. Oh, that was a very bad idea. Her eyes narrow at him. "The last time I went off on my own, you'd fired me. Or did you forget that part."

"Well maybe if you actually listened to me i wouldn't have had to!" He half-yells back, before realising how far he was going and catches himself, the wind coming out of his sails almost immediately. He sighs, running an awkward hand through his hair.

"Shit, no, wait, i didn't..."

Oh.

Okay. Sure. That's... that's fine. It's not like it's news to her, that he had reasons for deciding to give Robin to Damian. It stings a little to wonder what the hell she did so wrong that Damian seemed like the better choice, but that's okay. There's barely a flicker of hurt in her eyes before her face smooths out into blankness again.

Quietly: "Anything else you want to get off your chest while you're at it?"

"No.. no Timmy, I'm sorry, I didn't mean that," he's completely deflated now and he just feels like the worst brother in existance. He's struggling with this, but he shouldn't be taking it out on anybody else. "Listen, you're my little sister and i love you, i'm just trying... i was just worried about you, i overreacted, i'm sorry."

She shuts her eyes for a second. "Look. You have a new Robin. You don't need me in the family anymore. Damian's hard enough to deal with on his own. You could go back to the Manor and concentrate on him and not feel obligated to try to be responsible for me, too."

"That's not how family works, Tim." Dick tells her seriously, gently "you don't stop being family even if you're not Robin... and I'm sorry about that, I shouldn't have ever said that stuff to you."

Trying to make her smile, he added "Do we need to all watch Lilo and Stitch again? Ohana, Timmy, nobody gets left behind."

Yeah. That's nice, Dick, but family means getting left behind a lot. Sometimes on purpose, sometimes not. Saying otherwise is an admittedly well-intentioned lie. "I don't take relationship advice from cartoon aliens."

So, an apology and a disney reference weren't getting him out of this, he supposes that's probably to be expected, but he sort of hoped it might help a little.

"Ok, no cartoon aliens," he agrees, holding his hands up "But I mean it, Tim, we make mistakes and we say stupid things and we're not perfect, but we are family. Even when we're arguing you're always going to be my little sister."

Yes, obligation-family. Just what she's always wanted.

"Dick..." This really isn't a conversation she wanted to have right now. She came here to salvage her relationship with Cassie, not discuss the relative longevity familial relationships. "Are you done?"

He sighed, running an awkward hand through his hair again. He realised he wasn't exactly getting anywhere with this, it would probably be best to give Tim a chance to cool down, and himself a chance to rethink what he was saying.

"Ok... look, I'm going back to the manor now... please come home when you're done, Timmy, please?"

"Fine."

At some point. When she's done talking to Cassie. Probably.

"Please, Tim, come home?" he knows he can't force her, but he hopes this argument hasn't completely ruined everything. "I'll see you later."

He turns to leave.

Lucky for her, Cassie's late. It gives her enough time to get her head together again and have the conversation she meant to have. Afterwards, she stays at the safehouse for a while before finally deciding to leave.

She doesn't go back to the Manor. Instead, she heads to a few other safe houses that don't have official existence, just so she can be alone for a while. Because she doesn't want this to turn into another disaster, though, she checks in with Alfred every day to let him know she's fine.

Still. It's a few days before she heads back to the Manor, and when she does, she times it when she knows Dick is going to be out on patrol so she can put off the inevitable conversation by holing up in her room.

Dick spends most of the day pacing up and down waiting for her to come home, when Alfred finally comes to tell him she's left word as to her location, he's a split second from going after her again until the older man talks him down.

He gets more and more impatient as the days wear on, but he has to concede that at least he knows where she is, and he's fairly confident she's not getting herself in any more trouble.

When he arrives back from patrol, he's exhausted from taking his frustration out on Gotham's criminals, but one look on Alfred's expression when he arrives and he's taking the stairs up to Tim's room two at a time.

He pauses just short of bursting straight in and forces himself to knock.
"Tim?"