I’ve been reading Batgirl (2000), which is great. But, boy, is her relationship with Bruce a whole lot weirder than the modern fan interpretation of ‘oh, she’s his adorably badass daughter’ had led me to believe. As far as I can see, he never really treated her as his daughter and under at least two writers she has a crush on him. Barbara adores her and Tim loves her and Nightwing has a nodding relationship with her.
Meanwhile, Bruce mostly treats her as... his beard.
Summary: Tim spends his first night as a real Robin
Next you're going to tell me how simple it all is."
"Well, yeah. It's pretty basic math."
On his first night living in Wayne Manor, Tim lies, unable to sleep, staring up at the roof of his bedroom.
He had stayed in The Cave, curled under the weight of his cloak, until four AM, pretending to work as he monitored Batman from the cave and then watched him go through his warm down and debrief. The truth is he hasn’t retained more than a half-dozen data points all night about the villains he had been tasked to study.
When even Batman was ready to finish up for the night, he had asked to stay down in the cave a little longer, to more fully accustom himself to the computer’s system. But Batman had been stern. “We sleep when we can. That’s as important a part of the job as any other if we want to maximise operation at peak capacity.” He had said, not unkindly and sent Tim to go change.
It was easier to be Robin. As Robin, he felt tougher, safer. He could keep the pain at arm’s length. It was all harder to deal with when he was just Tim. The pain felt sharper, more immediate.
At the foot of the stairs, Bruce, now in sweats, had reached out and, when Tim gave a tiny nod, placed his hand on his shoulder. “You’re doing very well.”
“T-thank you.”
Bruce had walked him to the door of the guest room – no, not the guest room any longer – his room now, Alfred had said, for as long as he needed it, but hadn’t come inside. “I’m just down the hall. You know where to find me?”
“Yes.”
“Good night.”
It’s a nice room, if impersonal. His duffel bag and boxes of belongings still sit on the floor. Alfred had wanted to unpack them, but Tim had asked him not to, preferring to do it himself.
There had been a tray sitting on the table by his window when he came in; a glass of milk and a sandwich. Alfred had gone to bed as soon as Bruce had jumped out of the car and proved himself not in need of stitching up. That was, apparently, his custom, but he had left the snack for Tim before retiring. Tim just hadn’t been able to summon up an appetite.
Now he is lying in bed, staring straight at the ceiling, willing himself to sleep.
Bruce will be disappointed with him if he doesn’t sleep.
He has been released from school this week, in deference to his father’s illness and his mother’s death. The funeral will be Thursday. There was no family to help organise the fine details of the memorial, so his father’s lawyer had looked after the legal side, and Alfred had looked after the personal details. Alfred is good at that sort of thing. Tim is beginning to realise that Alfred is good at everything.
So, it doesn’t actually matter if he doesn’t get any sleep. It’s okay if he wastes the rest of the night thrashing, or lying, gazing up at the roof. He doesn’t actually have anywhere to be.
Except, if he does not sleep now, he won’t be sharp come tonight and there is no excuse for that.
Nightwing had promised to come over later today too and play video games with him. Tim had told him thank you, but that his aerial work was still weak and could they practice that instead, please? They had compromised on Dick taking him to the track and showing him how to do pin turns on the bike as long as Dick could take him out for burgers after.
He tries shutting his eyes. Whenever he does, he sees his mother’s body on the slab in the mortuary when he had been taken by Bruce to legally identify it - her. He hears the beep of the respirator doing his Dad’s breathing for him. When he thinks about those things, his stomach bucks and his breathing quickens. All the control, the mastery over fear he had maintained during their kidnapping, is slipping through his fingers like smoke. To his mortification, he realises he is crying.
He buries his head in his pillow and bites down on it, trying to stop himself from making a noise. God, please let Bruce not have heard that. Please.
After a while of quiet sniffling, he throws the covers off himself, pulls the throw from the end of the bed and wraps it around himself like it is Robin’s cap. He discretely wipes his eyes on the corner. Then he slips out of his room.
The mahogany panelling makes everything in the manor’s upstairs corridor seem darker, but dawn is starting to slide through the eastern window, enough to see by. Alfred had told them that the floorboards are designed to squeak, a nightingale floor to act as an extra layer of security if someone dangerous makes it as far as the manor. He hasn’t learned the trick to walking silently across it yet, but he does the best he can. He reaches the top of the stairs, wonders about the likelihood of being able to get into the cave without Bruce or Alfred being alerted and decides it is not very likely. He keeps walking.
Eventually, he comes to a door and eases it open.
The room is spotless. Alfred wouldn’t abide dust. There is a copy of The Big Sleep thrown down on the bedspread, as if the room’s occupant has just left for a moment and will be right back. But things are too tidy, and the air is thick, undisturbed. After less than a year, the room is already turning from a bedroom into a museum.
He walks a circuit of it once, afraid to touch anything in case it would be seen as an intrusion. It’s just an ordinary room, books, a sleek laptop closed on the desk and a closet full of clothes that will never be worn again. There is a big bay window, east facing with a window seat set beneath it. Outside, the woodlands are a riot of autumn colours, red and gold and deep green. Silver mists gird the lawns. Beyond the forest, the city lies, handsome and unthreatening at this distance, like a lounging apex predator.
Wrapping his blanket-cape around him he sits down, curling into the deep pillows of the window seat.
Ives had called yesterday, and the day before that and there had been a card sent over signed by all the kids in his homeroom. People know how to do these things properly in Gotham. He has signed a couple himself in the past. One for Cecily when her sister had been hit by joker venom. One for Mark after the fire that had killed his dad.
There had been one for Jason too, or for Bruce and Alfred. It had been passed diligently around the classroom and Tim had felt unable to sign it. Anything he could have written would have felt too much like a lie.
“What was he like?” He had asked Dick about Jason once, and Dick had squirmed and said, “You’re nothing like him,” and quickly changed the subject.
But lately, Tim has realised that Dick didn’t really know Jason at all. They had been legally foster brothers for almost three years, but Dick had managed it so their lives were kept carefully separate. Tim thinks about it from time to time, when Dick’s helping him with his rapelling or teaching him capoeira or they are just sitting on the couch, scoffing popcorn and playing videogames. He wonders if Dick’s doing this because he enjoys Tim’s company or because of an obligation to the dead boy for whom he didn’t have room in his life.
It occurs to him sometimes that even though he only knew him through a lens, he might have known Jason better than anyone alive except for Bruce, Alfred and maybe Barbara. That this is true, that this will always be true and that there is no way for him to fix it, sits like a small stone in the pit of his stomach.
He has missed his chance. He will never know Jason better than he does now.
Just like he will never know Mom.
He blows on the glass and traces geometric shapes with his finger. Up and down. He tries his breathing again, tries to put all the raw, broiling emotions back on the high shelf, not gone but... removed.
When every window pane has a hexagon or a tetrahedral drawn on it he instead switches to tracing the loops and eyes of the window seat’s wooden panelling.
...And sees the knot.
It’s an imperfection in the wood just where the wood panels become window frame. Close enough to the window to be well camouflaged, but not so close it will interfere with the sensors. You would have to be sitting precisely where he is sitting even to notice it.
There is something squeezed inside.
After a minute and a couple of wooden splinters beneath his fingernails to get it out. It’s a piece of ordinary copybook paper, rolled up like a cigarette. He can see the faint blue copy lines.
He unrolls it and holds it up to the light. On the side facing him is just the letter “R”, simple and un-stylised. He turns it over. On it, in neat cursive script are five lines of text.
He reads it. He reads it again. He reads it a third time. He rolls it back up into a cigarette.
He is crying again. He’s not sure why. He longs absurdly, pathetically for his mother, as if she had ever been the sort to hold him and rock him to sleep.
Outside, sunshine is starting to line the distant skyscrapers in gold. He presses his head against the window. The glass is cold against his cheek.
The next thing he knows, there comes a gentle knock on the door and he realises he has fallen asleep. “Master Timothy?”
He lurches up, remembering where he is, remembering what a violation it is to be in here, let alone sleep here.
Alfred looks around the edge of the door and seems entirely unsurprised. “Ah, there you are. When you weren’t in your room I began to worry.”
Alfred waves this away. “Calm down, lad. It’s alright. I just came to see did you want your breakfast and when I couldn’t find you I was worried.”
“You were?” Tim is confused.
Alfred crosses the room and joins him at the window. Tim expects him to sit, but Alfred is not the sort of person who sits. “Shall we say, it would not be the first time a grieving young man left this house to go do something... impetuous.”
“You mean Jason?” He glances around the room as if the ghost will be sitting cross-legged on the bed or over at the desk.
“Not exclusively, no. Grief is, I’m afraid, this family’s constant companion.”
Tim realises that ‘this family’ includes Tim himself and doesn’t quite know how he feels about this.
“At least,” Alfred’s eyes sparkle a little, “You are not dangling from the chandeliers.”
Tim smiles a watery smile. “I could dangle from some chandeliers. Would it make me feel better?”
Alfred returns his smile. “Perhaps. It often worked wonders on Master Dick.”
“And Jason? What worked for him?”
Alfred would never do anything so gauche as to flinch, but there is a definite loosening of his hold of his sang froid. “The roots of his pain had grown rather deeper. He was alone for a long time before he came to us. I sometimes wonder...” He trails off
“Bruce says he was angry.”
“Often, yes.”
“Bruce says that it made him reckless, that that’s what got him killed.”
Tim realises he was mistaken in his assessment, because this time Alfred does flinch. “Ah,” he says, “Yes.”
“Alfred?”
“Yes?”
“I want to be Robin but... I don’t want to die.” His face burns with shame at saying it and he wants to bury his head in his hands.
But Alfred smiles and says, “I am glad to hear it. I don’t want you to die either.” He hesitates and then says in a kind tone. “Do you want to stop being Robin.”
“No!” It comes out much louder then he meant and the depth of emotion, of alarm that it might be taken away from him, surprises him. He never wanted to be Robin, not truly. He’s an understudy and when the time comes he will step aside. But now, just now, having Robin, having this life makes him braver. When he feels better, when the pain faids, it won’t be hard to give it up. “No thank you, I mean. I still want to be Robin. I just have worries, sometimes.”
He shoots Alfred a nervous glance. “You won’t tell Bruce?”
“On my honour.”
“Thanks.”
“Perhaps you would like to come help me prepare breakfast in the kitchen?” says Alfred. “I could certainly use the company.”
“And Bruce doesn’t like people in this room?” he guesses aloud.
This time Alfred makes a show of irritation. “Well, you know him. Something of a hoarder. Cards and pennies and dinosaurs. “ And glass cases, neither of them say. “He likes when things remain as they were.”
Tim’s hand must have tightened on the roll of paper, because the movement attracts Alfred’s attention. “What do you have there?”
“Nothing.” Tim crumples the note he found in the knothole up in his hand. “Just a message someone sent me.” He looks around the room again. “Alfred, were we anything alike? Jason and I?”
Sometimes I think Jason and Tim are a good example of what would happen if the two lead characters of a shonnen series had their roles reversed so the rash, hotblooded hero goes evil and his clever, standoffish friend is socialised and makes a lot of good friends. It’s also a good example of why this switcheroo does not work. Tim makes a couple of reasonable attempts to reach Jason but when Jason persists in being a murderous loon, sensibly backs off. You need to be a certain brand of reckless stubborn if you want to rescue your brother in blood’s soul from the forces of evil. Had their roles been reversed they would presumably have been nakama by now. (And one of them would probably have lost an arm.)
