Chapter seven: Confrontation
"Where were you?" Tim winced at the anger in Bruce's voice, and then got angry himself. "I was out trying to regain my sanity. That is kind of hard to do with you storming all over the place." "You should have told me where you were going!" the man snapped "WHY?" Bruce was taken aback by the boys' outburst. Tim stopped and took a deep breath, forcing himself to calm down, before opening his eyes again and looking directly into the eyes of his surrogate father, just as R.J. had suggested he do.
"Look, Bruce, I know I should have told you where I was going, but with the mood you have been in for the past few weeks, you would have said no or gotten on my case about it." The man frowned, "Tim, you're overreac-" "No. I. Am. Not." The teen stressed each word. "Ever since Blue-Jay turned up you've been driving all of us up the wall. You've been snapping at Barbara, Dick barely comes around anymore, and you chew my head off every time I make a joke. No one can stand to be around you anymore, not when you're acting like this, even Alfred's been avoiding you, or haven't you noticed that you've been patrolling and working in the Batcave alone?"
Bruce was staring at Tim, wide-eyed, neither noticing that they had spectators. Barbara, Dick and Alfred were standing at the bottom of the stairs that lead up to the house. They were all watching and listening avidly. But Tim wasn't done yet.
"We all know that you want to find out who Blue-Jay is, and we all respect that, we all respect you, but the more you act like this, the more difficult it is to keep that respect. You've been so busy being frustrated and angry with yourself that you don't realize that not only are you hurting your own health, but you're hurting us, the people who love you most, you're hurting Gotham because you can't concentrate on what you should be doing: protecting your city, not running around after a teenage vigilantly who's actually very good at what she does, who's actually really helping Gotham just like we are, who has the right to the anonymity that you yourself value so much."
Tim stopped for a moment to catch his breath, everyone was staring at him, but his eyes never wavered from his mentor, who was standing, stock-still, his eyes wide and mouth slightly open. "You have every right to be frustrated and angry," Tim continued after a few moments, "But you have no right to take it out on anyone but yourself. To do so is to wallow in your own self-pity, that's not like you, Bruce, and it's not like me or any of the people here to respect someone who can't stand on his own two legs." The teen then turned on his heel and walked away, putting on his mask as he did so.
When he reached the bat-cycles, Robin turned to look at Dick, Barbara and Alfred. "I'm going out on patrol, when and if he decides to grow up give me a call, I think I might have some useful info. on Blue-Jay that he could use." And with that he put on his helmet, revved up the bike and burned rubber out of the cave.
"He's right, you know." Bruce snapped around to look at the three standing at the bottom of the steps. Dick had been the speaker, he was leaning against the wall, looking at his mentor, "You've been a royal pain ever since B.J. came to Gotham to roost. You've been so busy trying to unmask her that you never noticed that the crime rate has actually dropped in the past few weeks thanks to her help, and she's been doing it all on her own. If you want my opinion, not that you ever asked for any of ours on the subject, it might be a good idea to keep her around as an ally, I mean," he looked at Barbara "All she's ever done is help the cause."
The redhead nodded "She hasn't been around much for the past week either," Barbara said "With any of us that usually means that we're onto something big. Makes me think she's discovered something that we are currently clueless about." "I wouldn't be surprised." Alfred put in "She's smart, that one." "No kidding." Dick said as he made his way over to the costumes "Trying to find out who she is at this point and with that motive is pointless, Bruce. She's been too smart to leave any clues before, so why should she start leaving any now?"
Barbara joined him in taking out their costumes "Truth be told, maybe you should concentrate on doing what you should be doing: Protecting Gotham." "We're going out on patrol." Nightwing said "Later." And he and Batgirl exited the cave.
Bruce turned to Alfred. The old man was watching the two teens exit, then he turned and began to walk back up to the house, asking himself "I wonder if Master Timothy rehearsed that speech."