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"Hey, Timmers!" Jason called out to the teenager when the click clacking of the keyboard had stopped.
"Yes, Jaylord?" Tim pushed his chair back from the Batcomputer and stretched with a satisfying pop.
Jason grinned toothily at him." I have a question."
Timburine rotated to face him and raised an eyebrow. "Then ask! Nothing you can say to me will be dumber than you rushing into that building to 'save me' today." He made the quotation marks with his fingers, then turned away shaking his head.
Jason huffed. Yeah, maybe the kid was right. But that exactly was the root of Jason's question. Eariler that day Red Hood had barged into a civil negotiation between the other vigilante and some hired goons, thinking he would be rescuing Red Robin from immediate peril. Instead it turned out that Tim had convinced his once-kidnappers to turn away from the path of crime with a few simple logical arguments, only one out of which was scaring them with the Bat of vengeance.
Unfortunately the appearance of Red Hood, nowadays known as a Bat associate, had spooked the goons terribly and Jason ended up with a graze bullet wound which he was now finishing to patch up. Anyhow, a question had been born in Jason's mind.
"Whatever happened to the shy, timid little bird that used to stalk us on patrol and never peeped a word our way in years and years of him spying on us?"
Tim glanced at him in confusion. "Hm? What? What sort of riddle-"
"Little Wing! Heard you got shot at?!" Their older brother chose that moment to barge into the cave, the Big Brooding Bat in his civvies in toll.
"Literally how! It just happened!" Jason's accusatory gaze flew to Timbo who sat crosslegged in the computer chair, all innocent-like.
"I get an alert whenever certain terms are entered in an injury report page." Bruce deadpanned.
Jason blinked up at him, wavering between being touched, amused and frustrated. He couldn't help but think about how that system just begged for work-arounds and exploits. He didn't voice that thought however, instead groaning. "It's only a graze. I'm fine."
Dick started examining the now finished bandaging anyway. Knowing he can do nothing at the moment, he glanced at Tim. "Is he fine?"
Tim smirked slightly. "Yes, he is. Even let me give him stitches."
"I am literally right here!" Jason threw only his undamaged hand in the air but still flinched at the movement. Dick moved to find him some painkillers and suddenly there was a dark shadow above Jason's sitting form. Two icey eyes penetrated him to the bone, making him shiver.
"I am fine. Nothing happened. The perpetrators are alive and behind bars."
The stare didn't let up. After almost a minute of no mind-reading powers spontaneously developing between the two of them, Bruce rumbled "How did this happen."
Jason swallowed and looked away, trying his best to not look directly down at the floor. "I thought Tim was in danger."
At that Bruce visibily softened. He finally stepped away, his eyes finding Timmy, who was still cross-legged, but a touch more tense. "There's a report on the computer." He offered. Bruce nodded and moved to roll up another chair.
After some silence Jason cleared his throat. "So as I was saying, you used to be all shy and insecure. Whatever happened, Timbuktu?"
Tim's eyebrows shot up to his hairline.
Next to Jason Dick hummed in agreement. "Yeah, I remember when you used to hide behind your mom's dress during charity galas." He cooed. "You grew so much! I'm so proud of you, baby bird!"
Jason grinned. "He used to do that, huh? I don't remember that one."
Tim's face was Robin-red as he avoided their eyes. "That's because I only did that up until I was seven. That's when my dad told me to stop as it's undignified and I was embarrassing them."
Jason blinked through a wave of green. "Wow. You're so lucky they died before I started taking a liking to you."
"Jason!" Dick admonished.
"What! I'm just saying the kid probably wouldn't want to find both his parents splayed in bloody pieces on the living room floor!"
Dick only clicked his tongue at that.
"It would have happened!"
"I know, Jason." Tim smiled at him softly.
The man huffed. "So? What happened?"
Tim straightened up and took a deep breath. "It all changed one cold December evening..."
Jason grunted. "Alright Timmerella! You don't have to tell me if you don't want to! Jesus!" He moved to stand up, prickly all over.
Tim made a noise of surprise. "Hm? No, wait, Jason! I'm not joking. It all actually did change in one day!"
Jason froze in place. He glanced at Tim's genuine face. "Huh. So the clown was right about Something."
Dick made a pained noise from his place on the cot. Jason smiled wryly. He had the thought so he had to share the misery. He scooted back in his seat.
"So. As I was saying." Tim continued, shaking his head. "It all started on the evening of a Christmas Charity Gala hosted here, or rather above us, at the Wayne Manor. It was the first important event I was invited to after taking up the role of Robin." Tim paused there. "Well, I wasn't invited, my parents were. But it was one of those Christmases they would spend abroad, so I went in their stead."
Jason just stared.
"Which in retrospect is not great that they sent their twelve year old alone to a Charity Gala. Good thing I knew somebody there."
If the first offense didn't make Jason want to strangle someone, the second one for sure did. Unfortunately for his hope for catharsis the guilty throats had been long under ground.
"So I was talking to this woman, Maria Caldwell, she was one of the Charity's big donors from Gotham. She was whining about how Bruce didn't attend her big Golden Jubilee party two months earlier. It just so happened that I knew why he wasn't there, as two days before that I had found him passed out in a dumpster with three broken ribs. It was after a big criminal ring take down which landed us all over the news, everyone knew that Batman got knocked around. So I told her that yeah, It sucked that he couldn't be there but I heard he had had an accident while kitesurfing. "
"Kitesurfing?" Dick murmured.
"She also seemed confused about that. About the kitesurfing part. I didn't get to elaborate as Bruce appeared behind me, asked if he could talk to me for a second and dragged me away."
"He wanted to know why I told her that if I didn't know what the actual cover story was. I didn't know what he meant. He said that there is an official cover story for that particular absence and we should keep to it so people don't start finding holes. During that particular week Bruce Wayne was supposed to be sick in bed, in Wayne Manor, in Gotham and not at a beach kitesurfing. I was a bit annoyed by then. I told him that she surely wouldn't have a problem with the stories not matching. Bruce asked me why I thought so, so I told him that they're all silly excuses anyway, not meant to be looked into. He didn't know what I meant. They were actual well planned cover stories, to which I responded:
'Well, she is a Gothamite anyway so she knows she's not supposed to actually believe in these.' "
"Bruce looked very confused and worried then. He started looking at me that way he does when he's inspecting us for injuries. Probably thought I had brain damage, poor guy. He asked why would she know that. And i finally said: 'Because they're all just for plausible deniability. Everyone knows you're Batman.' "
There came a surprised laugh and a high-pitched noise from the cot in the medbay. Jason keeled over breathlessly. "You thought that everyone Knew?!"
"I thought that all Gothamites knew and that they were just quiet about it out of politeness.Then for a good few minutes I thought that Bruce was in denial or that everyone kept the fact that they knew secret from him to make him feel better I guess? I mean, I had figured it out when I was eight! If I did that at eight years old then surely all the adults must have known! I figured it was like Santa Claus or the tooth fairy!"
Jason gasped. "The tooth fairy isn't real?!"
"Bruce Wayne is the tooth fairy?!" Dick added almost instantly.
Jason went to elbow him but winced at the sudden pain. His brother handed him the painkillers which he begrudgingly swallowed.
"It took Alfred confirming it for me to start actually believing that nobody other than me had figured it out."
Jason shook his head in disbelief. "B!? Did you hear that?! Your identities all hung by a hair for a second there! You're so incredibly lucky that the kid hadn't blabbed!
Bruce's chair swung backwards. The man's face was a white mask that Jason could easily read as real, palpable dread. "Oh, I'm aware."
The two bigger birds once again erupted with laughter, Tim on the other hand looked slightly embarrassed, but was still smiling.
"So what you're trying to say is-" Jason managed through the tears.
Tim smirked. "What Alfie told me was basically that I was special, that what I had managed to do was unprecedented, and that I was a genius. Ever since then I never really struggled with insecurity."
His two brothers barked with laughter.