cw for blood and injury as well as grief

Robin expected some praise, maybe a little pat on the back or perhaps a simple quip about never doing that again from the older vigilante. He was always a lot more tactile and outspoken than Batman. It had been a welcome change for Robin to work with Nightwing, one that he'd been excited about for weeks but now as they both sat up from where they'd been thrown back onto the pavement thanks to the explosion, he felt something tense. The air had shifted and Nightwing was making no attempt to bring it back to how it once was. Cautiously, Robin looked over to the hero only to see him scowling back at him. 

"Uh, oops?" he said unsurely.

"Oops? You almost got yourself killed and all you can say is oops?" he snapped back. He turned to get onto his knees and stood up, wincing and hissing at every movement. If he didn't have adrenaline pumping through him and the need to get Robin home then he probably would've stayed down longer. 

"I was trying to save you. Considering I did and we're both alive, I thought you'd be happy. You were already injured before the countdown-"

"Robin, if you know what's good for you, you'll be quiet until I drop you off at the cave." Robin snapped his mouth shut and looked away in shame. He didn't understand though. He'd saved Nightwing's life and his own. Sure, he could've done more to stop the bomb but this wasn't a normal reaction to one of his fuck ups. This one felt different. Still, no matter how pissed off he appeared to be, Nightwing stuck out a hand to help him up and gave him a once-over to find any injuries that needed immediate attention. He was half tempted to say that the acrobat should do the same but decided not to say anything for fear of making him angrier.

"How'd it go?" Bruce asked without looking up from where he was working on the Batmobile. He hadn't noticed the tension between the pair before greeting them but that wasn't surprising. Whilst his detective skills were amazing, he had a distinct lack of ability to tell when there was something going on with his kids. Tim cringed immediately because he just knew that phrasing would set off Dick to say something glib or snippy. Not to mention he was already pissed off for no feasible reason. Sure it was embarrassing to be saved by someone younger than yourself and he understood that some of his anger came from the worry of almost Tim taking a risk but it didn't warrant this much anger. 

"You need to teach the kid better self-preservation. Next time he might not be so lucky," Dick explained, conveniently leaving out the bit where he needed the saving. There was something tense about his voice that made both Tim and Bruce uneasy. A certain tightness like one wrong word would set him off in a blind rage or into a sobbing mess. Both would be as bad as the other.

"I do have self-preservation," Tim grumbled. 

"You wouldn't get that close to the bomb when it's just about to go off if you have self-preservation. You need to be more careful."

"I am careful! You were injured before the bomb was starting to countdown and I made a calculated move that sure, involved risk, but it was ultimately the better of my options. If anything you have no self-preservation."

"You're injured?" Bruce questioned, his head snapping up to confirm the accusation, but his question was swiftly ignored.

"I had it handled besides it's better off having one casualty than two. That's basic math! You're a smart kid, you know this."

"What's the point in letting someone die who doesn't need to die?" Tim defended. "My options were to allow the bomb to detonate with or without you in the picture. I'm so sorry that I don't want you dead."

"I would've been fine. I could've stopped the countdown or I could've escaped if I thought it wasn't worth it. What wasn't an option, or at least not a smart one, is you jumping in when I already told you to leave and trying to save me? Being a hero is more than saving people," he argued back. His hands shook either from his adrenaline crashing, his injury worsening or his anger being restrained. None of which were good. "You have to learn when you're better high tailing it."

"You two can discuss this later," Bruce began. "You're hurt-

"You blamed me for not being there once and I'm not gonna let it happen again," Dick stated, glaring at his ex-mentor before turning back to Tim with something significantly softer. "I don't need to be saved, I don't need to be rescued, I don't need to survive my fuck ups. You stay away from them and you never look back."

"You're asking me to let you die?" Tim deadpanned. He shook his head and pinched the bridge of his nose in annoyance as though they weren't talking about life and death. His life and death.

"I'm asking you to fucking put yourself first."

"I'm not going to let you die!"

"Yes, you are. He needs you far more than he ever needed me so you're going to stay alive even if it means I don't."

"You can't expect me to do that."

"Why not? You wanna be like Bats? You wanna do the right thing? You stick around for it and look after yourself."

"You're not understanding-"

"Oh, I'm not understanding am I?"

"Yeah, you're not! Why can't you understand that it was worth the risk to save you?"

"Why can't you understand I'm trying to protect you, Jason? I want to see you grow into the hero you're meant to be."

"Jason?" Bruce repeated.

"What?"

"You called him Jason."

A heavy silence fell onto the room only interrupted by Dick taking in a sharp inhale upon realising his mistake. No one made an effort to break the silence so it droned on. He hadn't meant to let it slip, especially not in front of his ex-mentor. Everyone saw Jason in Tim since he donned the costume even though they didn't speak a word of it but he'd gone and said it aloud now breaking that silent rule. He looked down to the floor, spotting that he'd been steadily dripping blood onto it. He furrowed his eyebrows and rubbed his hand over his torso to find the source of it, stopping when he found a tear in his suit and a sharp pain from pushing down on it. A stab wound. Right. Adrenaline and anger had stopped him from noticing it too much but now it was wearing off and he could feel the cold sweat he'd been drenched in alongside the throbbing of blood oozing out of the cut. He sucked in a breath and pressed a hand against his side, already wondering what his likelihood of infection was. Probably pretty high since he hadn't been sick in a while and he always got sick when everything went wrong. This was definitely fitting of the "everything went wrong" title. 

"Fuck," he breathed before walking to where the medical supplies were kept. For a brief moment, he wasn't followed. It was like they were playing Simon Says and he's not listened properly before moving, therefore, losing the game. He certainly felt like he lost some sort of game. 

Eventually though, as he rooted through their medical supplies because he sure as hell wasn't trekking back to Bludhaven to waste his own, the pair trailed in after him. He didn't greet them and concentrated completely on his task as well as willing himself not to cry. It wasn't fair. A lot of the time he had with Jason was taken up by his fight with Bruce over Robin and then his time in space. If he had known the kid wouldn't make it to old age, he would've done more. He would've brought him on more patrols, provided him more advice that wasn't backhanded digs at Bruce and he would've been the best big brother. He would be everything he was to people he didn't have the need to be anything to. He still found himself smiling at memories of Jason telling him about the latest book he was reading and talking about the characters as though they were people in high school that he was spilling the best gossip on or when Jason said Robin gave him magic. They'd be ruined by the memory of coming home to talk to Bruce, to help him through his grief only to be blamed for not being there like he wasn't in space.

Tim was like his second chance at getting this right. Everything with Bruce was put behind him and he was going to be the best big brother to this one like he should've been before. Tonight was supposed to be a chance to get to know him better. To figure out his personality and how it could slot into Dick's life. Dick was going to tell him they should do this more, maybe suggest another time to work together but then he had to go and save him. 

Dick's fingers fumbled as they tried to grip the packaging for a new needle and he was on the verge of bursting into tears already but the damn broke when Tim put his hand over the shaking appendages and took the needle from him.

"Bruce will do it," he said.

"I don't need anyone to do it."

"You're shaking." Dick hummed and didn't protest much further when he was led to the medical cot that used to dwarf him when he first started out as Robin. He hopped up and silently took off his top, wincing at how the movement tugged on the open wound. He frowned as he gathered the fabric in his hands and poked his finger through the hole in the bloodied material. Sewing it up was going to be annoying and really ruin his streamlined look. Bruce got to work quickly, moving him when needed rather than asking him. He didn't deal well with Jason being brought up at the best of times and especially not when Dick brought him up so the silence was to be expected.

"You've got more injuries on your back," he finally muttered.

"They're superficial," Dick replied.

"How do you know? Do you have eyes on the back of your head?" Tim teased lightly, likely to attempt to relieve the tension in the room. It didn't work all that well so he decided to bite the bullet. "It wasn't your fault, you know? What happened to Jason?"

"I didn't say it was," the acrobat said.

"But you act like it was. It's not just today. It's all the things you do like you're trying to make it up to him by being nice to me. You can't tell me you would've taken the whole me stalking you the same if you didn't lose Jason."

"I can't like my super fan?"

"You can but not the way you do. Either of you," he countered. "I'm... I won't let you die if I know I can save you, Dick. You can't ask or expect that of me the same way I wouldn't ask or expect the same of you." He glanced at Bruce as though expecting their mentor to weigh in and offer support but he was entirely concentrated on cleaning and fixing up wounds. "Robins have to stick together and that means we don't leave each other behind because there's a slight chance we'll get hurt ourselves." 

"If anything happened to you, I would never forgive myself. You need to know that," Dick insisted. "If I ever had to pick between you or me, it'd be you every time. You mean too much to B and me." The teen watched him for a moment before shaking his head, seemingly giving up on trying to convince him if he was just going to be in denial. 

"I'll go see if Alfred made leftovers. You need to eat," Tim told him before leaving.

"Shit," he muttered. He'd made the same mistake with Starfire enough to know this was going to bite him in the ass later.

"You mean a lot to me too," Bruce stated. He stopped what he was doing on Dick's back and sighed. "What I said to you that day in the cave, it was out of order. I should've apologised sooner and yet I didn't because it was easier to wait for you to forgive me than for me to apologise and for that I truly am sorry. I never meant to put this burden on your shoulders."

"Say that to my face," his ward replied, partially to taunt him and partially hoping he would. To his surprise, Bruce moved and stood in front of him before putting his hands on his shoulders. They made eye contact.

"What happened to Jason was not your fault. You were in space, it was not your responsibility. I was angry and needed someone else to blame for my failure. His blood is not on your hands, it's not on my hands, it's on Jokers."

"He wanted to start a book club," Dick whispered before bursting into tears. "He wanted to do English literature in college, he was gonna convince you to give him one of your cars when he got his licence, B he was gonna enter a poetry competition and I promised I'd read it but then I went to space and he died and I can't-" The hands on his shoulders slipped and suddenly he was being brought into a tight hug he so desperately needed but had never asked for. 

"I know. God, do I know."