thegoshdarn | (no subject)

(no subject)

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.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

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?"

Well. No disappearing now.

Tim's sitting on her bed with her knees drawn up to her chest when he knocks, and she sort of might glance at her window a little longingly. Again. "Yeah."

Taking a deep breath, he pushes open the door and leans in, not quite fully stepping inside just yet.

"Hey..." he started a little awkwardly "We should probably talk..."

She tips her head back. "Probably."

He can go first.

He steps inside and closes the door behind him, leaning against it. The last thing they need right now is Damian interrupting this rather delicate conversation.

"I'm sorry." he says first "I... look, honestly? I'm.... I'm struggling." it takes a lot for him to admit it, he didn't want to admit any weakness in case they needed him to be strong, but he'd thought about this and he hopes t will help.

"You're doing good," she says, after a second. "As Batman. You're not Bruce, but no one ever asked you to be."

"That's... that's not what I'm struggling with," he admits "Being Batman, I can do that, I know being so different to Bruce is causing a few questions but I can handle that... " Crime fighting was always the easy part.

"It's... it's replacing Bruce altogether. In everything..."

He doesn't want to say it, but he feels like it's a little different for him to, say, Jason or Damian, Jason had been away a lot and Damian had only arrived recently, they hadn't known Bruce as a father in quite the same way Dick had. Tim was probably the closest to knowing how he felt, and he still had no idea how to explain to her that he hadn't actually given himself time to grieve.

In all honesty... probably none of them have. Tim's just... getting used to having some loss or another weighing on her chest. Add it to the pile.

"Dick. You don't have to."

"But I do," he says almost desperately "he left such a big... such a big hole in the world, someone needs to fill it."

She sighs. "It doesn't have to be just you. There's other people in the world, too."

"Like it or not I'm the head of the family now, Tim, there's a lot of responsibility involved... Bruce had people for a lot of it, but there's still plenty he did himself."

"Still doesn't mean you have to do everything Bruce did."

After all, Bruce was... Bruce. There's not really another way to put it.