"You know... I always wanted to ask and you don't have to answer." Tim fiddles with the pen in his hands as takes a deep breath. "... why did you let me put on the costume? As Robin? I'm not... complaining because it worked out... sort of.... If you think about it I was nine and yeah I could have blackmailed you and Dick but who was going to believe a nine year old? Especially when you took my camera.... Bruce, I was... nine and I was being trained on how to punch a man twice my size and doing things a nine year old shouldn't do... just because I said Batman needs Robin and I happen to figure out who you were... but you let me do all of it... Why?" ── @batcrested .
IT WASN’T AN EASY QUESTION. Not even in the way Tim had asked. But there was an easy answer that was just as hard for him to swallow as it is for everyone else to wonder. It was simple. He knew it. But he did his best to hide the uneasiness in trying to say it out loud.
To admit it to Tim, perhaps, of all people.
A soft sigh and he leans back into the seat, regarding the boy much older now than when he had come in, practically barreling through every wall and security and defense he had built up to protect himself from the world and from the grief that had taken over after losing Jason. It was too much to put on a child’s shoulders. Too much to have let it get away this long.
He’s not alone in the trepidation. Clark and Jim have said something similar once before. The Joker is a constant reminder of the threat that loomed before them every night. The danger he had been pushing these children into.
“ Would you believe me if I said I needed you? “ He asked, voice still despite the strain in his throat. Or the impulse to curl his fingers around the words and shove it down there. “ That perhaps you made it less lonely. “ He adds eventually, fighting the wall that threatened to cage it all in.
He had come nearly close so many times between then and now to crossing that line, to finding that lee way to break it, ultimately and perhaps lose himself to the abyss. But all it took was one boy to bring him back into the light. The daunting crusade that could have suffocated him, burned him to his spine and no more. A little less heavy. “ You came at a pivotal time. Or perhaps rather barged your way in. But I don’t think I would still be here if it weren’t for you.”
Could he handle this? Was this too much to put on the boy’s shoulders? But he did ask. And once the truth has come out, its often nearly impossible to shut back down again.
“ I had never thought you had to do this. To be Robin. To fight by my side on the streets every night. But it has been more than...a comfort to know we’re fighting the same fight. And if you feel as if...I’ve robbed you of a childhood you most rightly deserved, I understand.” He holds his breath, studying the silence he felt that echoed inside of him now that the words were all out. “ But...BATMAN NEEDS A ROBIN. It has been true then and it’s still true now.”
unprompted : always accepting.
