Going off from what anon is saying, one thing that has always irritated me and I've found tremendously unfair about fanon is that Dick and Tim's firing from Robin is usually painted fairly similarly in fanon/canon? Like Bruce fired and kicked Dick out in his teens from Robin in perhaps a well-meaning way and replaced Dick with another kid, in the same Dick does. But ofc in Tim's case, this is a huge, terrible offense that needs to be rectified and held against Dick forever and Dick is 100% in the wrong. In Dick's case, however, usually fanon paints it as something he just needs to get over and accept and that truly, it's Jason and Bruce's feelings that matter, not Dick, who is being sooooo petty and mean to adorable little Jason, who ofc Dick just needs to accept is adorable and a better Robin than him the true angry Robin, and broken-hearted Bruce, who really is the victim of all his arguments with his teenage son when you think about it. Tim is a victim of this situation and Dick is just a petty asshole. It clearly comes from fandom emphasizing with Tim and Jason way more than they do with Dick but like, it does tick me off. Especially when Bruce doesn't even need to say "hey, chum, sorry for how I handled that!" in a lot of Jaybin & Dick fics lollll
To me, the fundamental problem with the Tim and Dick discourse about Robin is the need to have an antagonist. People need a bad guy in a narrative.
It’s not that Dick didn’t hurt Tim, or even vice versa. Tim felt like his *brother*, one of the most important people in his life, was abandoning him and taking away the last tether he had to the family, This is how Tim felt, and how he felt mattered. You can’t dismiss that. It is also true that Alfred had been the first one to give Damian the suit, Dick had let Damian continue as Robin because he needed a reason for this 10-year old to stay, and Dick hadn’t forgotten about Tim. Dick planned on having Tim operate as the Nightwing to his Batman because he thought too highly of Tim to keep Tim a Robin. He thought Tim was too good to be a sidekick.
But they were two people mourning a horrible, horrible loss in a lifetime filled with loss (seriously, Tim and Dick being in a “how many loved ones have died and left me” competition would be brutal), and both were burdened by immeasurable responsibility. Tim felt like he had to find Bruce. Dick had to preserve the legacy of Batman, run the Justice League and manage WE, protect Gotham, and become the guardian to a child he only somewhat knew with no notice (and I feel like this is downplayed a LOT; how would you, a person in your 20s with no plans to have kids, feel about SUDDENLY BEING GIVEN A CHILD????). Of course the two of them would struggle. Of course they might accidentally hurt each other, either by being too sensitive to actions that weren’t meant to be harmful or too insensitive when they themselves act.
We see their relationship drastically improve pretty quickly from there, too. They never, even at their worst points, hated each other. They were just hurt. Like people tend to be during hard times. Who would have thunk. By Blackest Nights, which really wasn’t that long after (not sure the specific timeline, but couldn’t have been more than a few weeks-months), Tim was already telling Dick that “of course he trusted Dick” in response to a plan Dick had that put both of them at risk during a Black Lantern encounter. They collaborated immensely WHILE still Batman/Red Robin.
Sorry, this is detracting from your point. I guess that word vomit was just meant to establish that neither was evil, or even bad, or even middling. I genuinely perceive both Tim and Dick in their initial “fight”, if you want to call it that, as earnestly good, hurting people who BOTH FUMBLE. Gosh, can you imagine it? Two people that love each other stuck in enough grief and pain to accidentally hurt each other, and whose immense love actually contributes to that pain? But nooooo, someone has to be the villain. Someone has to be put down and yelled at by the narrative for being a very bad boy, how dare you, how could you hurt <insert other person here>.
And I guess this can also be applied to the Jason and Dick mantle exchange debacle. Either it’s “Jason felt so left out and so maligned and SO HURT by Dick being unhappy” or “Dick felt so slighted and so robbed and so mistreated by his mantle being STOLEN FROM HIM”, when canon Dick and Jason, though both starting from angles of insecurity for different reasons, readily (within a single issue) reached a point of support for each other. Dick was giving Jason his original costume and telling Jason to talk to him whenever. They liked each other almost from the get-go.
The main villain in both of these instances is the need for a villain. Y’all love found families until found families go through familial conflict.
I need to stop here or I’m going to keep typing, but I hope I got my point across. I cannot stand the need to villainize parties for being human, or being hurt, or even being mean/callous in the moment, when this is just a MOMENT in a broader context of people who love each other who fumble a bag occasionally. God knows how many interactions I fumble a DAY.
Dick and Tim love each other. They always have and always will. Read Contagion or the Tomasi run. Thank you.
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