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Chapter 2

Friction

Dick woke up unaccountably energetic the next morning with the sure knowledge that all the people he cared about most were close by, safe within the same walls. Even if the murky gray light filtering through the windows was the same as always, it felt bright and new all the same. He swung himself into the hall with a hand on the doorframe like a pivot, reaching the top of the stairs only to slide down the railing instead, plunging into the welcoming warmth of the first floor below. Not even Jason's festering frustration as he passed the open door could make him lose his smile.

"Dick…" Jason moaned, face down in his pillow with the air of one trying to suffocate himself. "Dick, if you have any pity at all…"

"You've got it good, you know." It was actually uncharacteristically kind of Bruce to keep Jason at the manor instead of letting him serve his sentence in Blackgate. Dick found himself wholeheartedly approving this tactic of keeping his brother close so the family could watch over him. Whatever he had done—and he had done it, Dick didn't believe him innocent for a second, not anymore—subjecting him to the good will of the rest of the family seemed a fit punishment. Let the man cry foul play, there was no doubt in Dick's mind that he had brought this on himself and deserved every second of pleasant family atmosphere Bruce saw fit to inflict upon him.

Jason turned his head enough to stare at him, aghast.

"Good…?" he spluttered. "I'm handcuffed to the bed!" Maybe they could have found a different way to keep the man locked down, but well, it wasn't anything Jason couldn't handle. "Did I mention the bedtime stories?!" His expression said Shoot Me Now.

"Don't worry, Jay." Dick grinned. "It'll be good for you."

"Don't think you can escape! It's only a matter of time before they suck you in too!" But Dick wasn't listening, already heading farther down the hall.

He reached the study, finding Bruce comfortably situated on one of the sofas, basking in the gray morning light that was as bright as Gotham ever got.

"Morning, B!" Dick braced a hand on the man's knee, leaning over to steal one of the pages Bruce had already turned over before retreating to the other sofa. Bruce only grunted.

Dick looked down at the page he'd stolen. It was always good to see which stories made it to Gotham and what newsworthy events his family had been up to. It didn't take long before he was deep in an article about the recent gang warfare, sharing the study in companionable silence with Bruce.

Jason paced, as much as he could with one arm still handcuffed to the headboard: forward a foot and back a foot. Each iteration felt tighter, his leash choking him short, each turn at the end whiplash sharp and getting sharper, his frustration growing. At the end of one particularly harsh turn, brought up short by the same arm pulled taut behind him yet again, he jerked furiously hard on the handcuff—it was solid, no chained links to pry apart, and while it did slide along a metal rail as part of the headboard, that was soldered down. The lock no longer used a key either, now requiring a fingerprint after one of his earlier attempts to break free. He was fast running out of escape plans.

If the mechanical parts had no more exploitable flaws, he'd just have to work on the human parts of his cage, but Bruce was a rock and he'd almost given up on getting through to Tim. The kid had helped put him in here in the first place after all. He'd tried to help the kid and this was what he got for his troubles: solitary confinement. Maybe not so solitary. It would have been better if it were solitary. He'd take the painful emptiness of the room every time over Bruce's very much unwelcome company at least once a day and Tim's attempted camaraderie when he brought meals or books to share. Or worse, the two of them together. Slowly breaking down his defenses with their persistent presence.

Working on Tim wasn't going so well at all, and now Dick had come along. Dick was his one hope out of this mess, and the man wasn't taking him seriously.

No, he hadn't given up his plots to escape, but after the first three tries he'd had to slow down his approach, patiently pry at his family's weaknesses instead of headlong breaking out.

Movement by the door had him turning sharply to see who was there. Heaven help him, he was starting to look forward to the replacement's visits just for the company. Or someone to needle. Anything to break the monotony. Anything to keep him from going insane in these four walls.

Because he wasn't ready to give in.

He couldn't just sit there and pretend they were all one happy family. He couldn't accept Tim's warm smiles or Bruce's companionable silence, even if he wanted it.

It was Tim this time. The kid walked in, bearing a tray covered with toast and eggs and orange juice, setting it on the nightstand. Somehow Tim's appearance didn't precede the relief from the suffocating silence it usually did. Maybe it was Dick's arrival riling up the old animosity, the indignation of his situation. Whatever the case, he could only find a deep well of biting causticity in store for his would-be brother.

He caught Tim's wrist before the boy could say anything absurdly cheerful.

"Sure you want to be down here with me instead of with Bluebird?" His nail grated over the kid's wrist, pressing down hard where the cuff trapped his own. "I'm the bad brother after all." It was a bit stupid. Acerbic and stupid. His issues weren't really with Tim. Tim was a good kid, who'd only ever treated him as an (undeservedly) wise older brother. A kid who was just caught in Batman's web as much as the rest of them were.

"Don't worry. I've had my rabies shots." He smiled knowingly, looking up at Jason from beneath a fan of coal-black eyelashes. "This won't work to push me away either. We're not giving up on you." With his free hand, he reached up to push a little on Jason's chest, as if he didn't already have his full attention. "I'll stay as long as you want." And that was just wrong. Wrong that the kid should give him everything like that. Should say it like that. Like he cared.

He would've stopped the boy, captured that hand before it touched him, connected them, but he already had one graceful wrist in custody, and his other hand was still attached to the bed.

He wouldn't accept this.

"You have a naively optimistic view of me, kid." Always a kid to Jason, even if lately he didn't much look like one. "What's going on? You dragging Bluebird into it now too?"

"Dick came home to see us because he cares about us."

"Because he doesn't know what you're really about." Tim only frowned at him. Jason tugged at the kid's wrist still trapped in the circle of his fingers, causticity eking into desperation. "Come on, baby bird, I know you're still in there somewhere. Bats doesn't own you completely yet. You know this is wrong."

He hadn't given up working on Tim, even if the kid was as stubborn as the old man.

"Yes. We should never have left you on your own for so long. Not when you needed us." We. The kid was practically a little clone. But there were edges there, places still where Batman and Robin didn't quite mesh and Jason could pry at the gaps and try to get under.

"Whatever Bats has on you, whatever he's done to you, you can fight it!"

"Why are you so determined to hate us? Why can't you believe we just want you back?!"

"Not B," Jason growled. "Never B. He wants the kid I used to be."

"He loves us!" Those blue eyes were wide, earnest. The kid really believed it. "He gave us a purpose! A home!" It was almost sad, that misplaced devotion. If it wasn't so frustrating.

"You don't lock people up you love!" He was going to pry apart all of the kid's defenses if he had to. "You don't force them to stay with you!" Expose him, raw and vulnerable, to the truth. "This isn't a home, it's a prison!" Even if it destroyed him.

"You know that's not true."

"It is!"

"You were once part of this team. I know you understand. You were once Robin, just like I–"

"Stop it, Tim! Stop it! You're not Robin!" It was the anger boiling up, the frustration for his own inability to accept anyone else in his old role—feelings he'd thought long lost dredged up by the friction and spilled, blistering hot, over them both. "There is no Robin! Robin died!"

For a full minute there was only silence settling back in, Tim's mouth open around words that wouldn't come out. Then the kid threw the tray at him, food and all. Jason should have seen it coming—those huge, wounded blue eyes. For all the little replacement had grown up all beautiful and limber and shrewd, he was still broken like all of them inside. Jason knocked the tray away before it could hit him in the face—if not before the contents splattered his clothes and face and arm—but his room was empty again. The younger boy had fled.

Jason took a good five minutes to seethe, storming back and forth again, wringing his wrist bloody. He'd clearly won. He'd gotten to Tim. So why did he feel angrier than ever?

Later, trying to wipe tapioca pudding from his hair one-handed, he realized he'd perhaps been a little harsh, blowing up like that on the kid. Especially about Robin—the one thing that held them all together, the one thing Tim treasured above all. He really was an idiot.

Then he looked down at the mess Tim had left: upturned plates and glinting silverware.

And he grinned.

Dick was almost to the end of his article, contemplating the ramifications of such warfare on Gotham's streets, when his musings were broken by Tim's sudden appearance in the doorway, looking flustered and a little too wide-eyed.

"Tim, what's wrong?" Dick asked, setting the paper aside immediately. Even Bruce looked up, tilting the top of his own newspaper to watch, but Tim's attention was all for Dick. He strode across the distance, settling on hands and knees on the seat next to Dick, slender legs half under him and half draped over the edge.

"You're going to stay, right, Dick?" Tim leaned forward earnestly, hands on the seat between them, fingernails tightening agitatedly in the upholstery.

"For a while," he hedged, taken aback by this turn and wishing immediately that he could give Tim the answer he obviously wanted. The boy studied him for a minute, and Dick forced himself still under the examination of those too-smart blue eyes and that tight, tilted mouth—his little brother had grown so much lately—until the boy's shoulders slowly sank with acceptance.

"It isn't the same without you." The tension seemed to leave him all of a sudden and he slumped forward, resting his head against Dick's shoulder. And that… Well, Dick smiled. Oh, he'd missed this family. Missed this boy. He hadn't realized how much.

"I have to go back to the 'haven eventually." He pulled the boy closer with an arm around his shoulders, giving in to the urge to run his fingers soothingly through Tim's silky hair.

"Why?" Tim asked, eyes sliding closed under the caress of Dick's fingers.

"I'm needed there."

"You're needed here." Tim's blue eyes opened again to regard him silently.

"I'm too old to stay in the manor," Dick teased. Across the way, Bruce made some little noise of disagreement. "Oh, you know it's true, B! I grew up! I fledged!" He looked down at Tim for the last part, wondering if the boy had taken the hint.

"Never." Bruce hummed thoughtfully. "Even grown up birds could stick around a little more often."

"Seriously, B?" Dick shook his head, torn between skepticism and incredulity.

"Maybe I like having you all under my wings." He was looking down at the paper while he said it.

"It's warmer that way," Tim agreed.

"What is with the two of you?" Dick's smile eked into dismay, looking back and forth between them. "You're supposed to let us fledglings fly free and all that!" Finally he turned to Tim, suddenly sly. "It's almost time you fledged too, Little Brother. Don't deny it!" Tim blinked wide eyes at him. And he looked so tempting like that. Dick pounced, flouncing the younger boy back into the mound of throw pillows along the opposite arm of the sofa.

"No, Dick!" Tim's eyes widened farther, but it was a token protest, and it was too late anyway. Dick had already dug fingers into the boy's ribs, tickling mercilessly until Tim's laughter choked out his protests, ringing into the far corners of the room, and he was squirming deliciously under the assault.

"Look at you! All fine feathers and pristine pinions!" Dick caught one long, slender arm, holding it out and pretending to examine illusory feathers while Tim huffed breathlessly, still splayed in glorious disarray. "When did you get all this plumage? Where's the little downy hatchling who loved to follow me around? What did you do with him?" With wicked glee, he proceeded to search for that little hatchling, fingers finding all Tim's weak spots, making him gasp and writhe helplessly. The boy's bare feet thudded uselessly against the cushions, toes curling in his mirth, face still lit with delight.

Across the way, Bruce had gone back to reading, but there was a poorly stifled smile turning up the corner of his mouth. Dick's grin widened in response. He'd missed this family so.

After Dick had finally soaked in enough physical contact and gone to get breakfast, Tim lay limply sprawled out along the sofa where his brother had left him, staring emptily at the ceiling. The haze of pleasure had dissipated quickly in the wake of Dick's departure. Give up Robin? Robin was the only reason Bruce wanted him.

"He's right," Bruce said, as though he'd been listening to Tim's thoughts. He folded the paper and set it aside. "You don't need these… downy feathers anymore." Tim sat up, twisting around to more fully take in the man across from him.

"You don't want me… as Robin?" The stark and sudden feeling of estrangement caught him by surprise, like another one of Gotham's moldering ledges crumbling beneath his feet. He could only stare blankly, uncomprehendingly, heart thudding in alarm as everything seemed to drop away.

"No, Robin, listen to me." Bruce got up and came to sit beside him, strong hand gripping Tim's knee, thumb pushing into the hollow around the patella, rubbing at the tendon there. Tim could only look up at him, caught mid-fall with only that touch to moor him. "You'll always be Robin. It'll always be a part of you, but you can be more than that. You don't have to be just Robin."

"Not just Robin," Tim echoed emptily.

"You're capable of operating independently now. You've been capable of it for a while. I think you're ready." The man's thumb continued to rub reassuringly, but the corners of Tim's mouth pulled down in a frown. Was this some kind of test?

"I don't want this to end."

"It won't." That thumb pushed a little into the notch of his knee again. "I'll never completely let you go." It shouldn't have been so reassuring. "But I think you've already chosen colors for yourself." His smile was fond, commenting on the reduction in green Tim had made to the Robin suit some time back. Tim turned so that he could hug the man—press his face into Bruce's chest and find Batman in the smell of sweat and Kevlar that never really left him. The man murmured his contentment, more of a bass rumble. His large hand stroked down Tim's back, much like one stroking down ruffled feathers. "You've grown up so much. Let me see what kind of bird you've become." Tim felt the tension slowly seep away.

"When I'm ready?"

"When you're ready." Bruce's hand came to a thoughtful rest over the swelling of vertebrae between Tim's shoulder blades, and if his fingers happened to be gently pressing at one of the sedating pressure points, it might have been accidental. "Jason might be able to offer some ideas."

"Right before he strangles me and makes his escape." The curve of Tim's lips held no humor, half-pressed against the man's shirt.

"I'd hoped he would come around by now." Bruce's fingers tightened a little. Tim pulled back to look up at him, to smile Robin's reassuring smile. The one Batman needed.

"He will." Dick's arrival had renewed Jason's stubborn defiance, but his resistance was crumbling. His desperation was proof of that. "It's nice having Dick around at least."

"Yes. You two get along well." Bruce looked down at him meaningfully. "Wouldn't it be nice if he stayed on a more permanent basis?"

Author Notes: I hope this helps fix the impression of Jason a little. I know from Dick's point of view last chapter he looked a little… ridiculous? Tim is my favorite character, so there will be a lot of him too (even if I feel I'm struggling with him in this fic more than most, maybe because of how happy he is here during a time in the comics when he was so depressed, maybe that's why it feels wrong). I'm also giving him a little push here, because it's going to be hard for him to give up Robin without Bruce's death. *shakes head* This fic is getting so long. Every time I turn around it gains another handful of scenes and a new chapter. It's nearly 15,000 words now and I'm betting on 20,000. Definitely a big jump from the previous installment.

Oh, my wonderful reviewers, I love you so much. I want to give you everything you want! I never want to stop posting!