anytime youre talking about the worst shit bruce did to his charges as a guardian or mentor and you get down the line to tim, it always feels a little. anticlimactic, or something, to follow up dick jay and cass with the tims 16th birthday incident (particularly bc usually next in line is steph). but thats still generally the one people list (when sticking to preboot canon) both bc the story itself was so memorable and bc its kind of a. very concentrated microcosm? of stuff bruce had been doing to tim for uh. years
its all... patterns. the only way it would have been MORE patterns would be if bruce had managed to weaponize steph specifically against him but 1, she was taking a break from being spoiler at the time and 2, lewis actually *liked* steph, unlike certain others i could name.
but the point is, in isolation its like... yeah its fucked up but Bruce does fucked up training exercises all the time, right? he encouraged cass to just live in the cave, for fucks sake. and then steph, well... steph.
but like. this is from robin 120 after timmy throws his cape in bruces face, yells at him, and quits
"he did that kind of a crazy test thing to me, too. not as elaborate, but..."
and then you remember that bruce has been playing these two off each other for *years*.
like one of the main reasons he jerked steph around the way he did (after the part where she canonically reminded him of jason 💀) was--sometimes consciously, sometimes unconsciously--because of the leverage it gave him over tim.
like for the longest time bruce kept an active strain on their relationship by insisting Tim couldn't tell her his identity. and then he turned around and told her it himself in robin 87 and damn near gave tim a panic attack
okay i just found this in my drafts and i dont feel like finishing the post. just imagine it, thanks in advance
