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He took Robin.
He took Robin.
And gave it to Damian.
This does not compute.
Tim watches the two of them leave for patrol and can’t muster a single word.
This doesn't make sense.
Damian snarks something that at any other time would probably be cutting but for once it just glides right off Tim’s back as he turns away, hand to chin as he thinks.
He doesn’t understand.
The Batman and his Robin leave the cave in a roar of the Batmobile and Tim slowly sinks into the chair at the batcomputer.
He doesn’t understand.
But he will.
That’s a promise.
Time slips past amidst a blur of files as Tim searches almost desperately for the missing piece to what’s happened.
There has to be one, it isn’t a question. There simply must be something Tim is missing.
Dick wouldn’t just… wouldn’t just take it like that if there weren’t a major reason. Giving Damian something to stay for is a good start but that can’t be it.
Tim needs something to stay for too after all.
And Dick knows that. He’s seen what happened every time a new Robin entered the fold– how the previous Robin had struggled to adjust and adapt to the new status quo.
Dick himself hadn’t been home in ages when Jason was first starting out and back then the two had had a relationship that was stilted at best.
And Jason…
Well.
Tim doesn’t like to think about how Jason had handled no longer being Robin but the point is that Dick knows all this. He knows that statistically speaking when a Robin is ousted from the position with little to no warning or input there comes a period of time where they leave the nest until they manage to find new wings. If Dick’s words earlier about needing Tim at his side now more than ever are true– and Tim is inclined to believe that they are– then there must already be some task or position lined up for Tim to fill.
It’s the only way it makes sense.
Tim just needs to find it.
It’s as the clock is striking four and Tim has long reached the end of his emergency energy drink supply that it finally hits him.
It’s so simple yet it answers everything.
And suddenly the world makes sense again.
Because Tim has just stumbled upon an article from a couple weeks ago about Dick Grayson moving back to Gotham.
***
Dick is tired.
No.
He’s so far past tired he can vividly recall waving as tired passed him by.
He’s exhausted.
Drained.
Totally scooped empty like the jar of coffee in his hands.
He frowns at it, setting it down on the counter with a clank.
He doesn’t remember picking it up.
His mug before him is full of water that is swirling murky and gray with what must be sugar and Dick can’t work out if he’d scooped the coffee somewhere else or if the container had already been empty when he took it out.
This should be worrying but that would require energy to spare and Dick has none of that stuff left so he simply swigs from his sugar water and heads down to the cave because...
Because Tim is gone.
Alfred had gone to call him for breakfast and reported that Tim’s bed did not look slept in.
And now Alfred is gone too, off taking Damian to school and Dick is left with his excuse for a wake-me-up as he slips through the clock passage to see if maybe Tim has left any clues to his whereabouts on the batcomputer.
As it turns out Dick’s hopes were half right.
Tim’s whereabouts are on the batcomputer.
Literally.
Because Tim’s head is on the keyboard– the letter G rapidly scrolling across the screen on what looks to be page 500 of whatever document Tim had had open before he’d fallen asleep on it.
Dick’s relief hits him like a punch to the gut.
He doesn’t know what he would've done if Tim had really left.
There are energy drinks scattered around the sleeping teen and Dick is not ashamed to admit that he shakes each one to ascertain whether there is anything left for him.
He finally finds one with what feels to be about two swallows left and he downs it immediately, grimacing as the lukewarm liquid hits his tongue.
Desperate times and all that.
He leaves his mug of sugar water behind to carry Tim upstairs.
The boy stirs briefly when he’s tucked into bed, mumbling something that sounds like, “won’t let you down,” and Dick smiles.
“I know you won’t Tim,” he murmurs, running a hand through the other’s hair.
When he wakes from his own nap to check on Tim later, the boy is nowhere to be seen.
***
It’s only two days later that Dick finds out where Tim has gone but in his exhausted heartbroken haze it feels like a lifetime has already passed.
It starts like this: Dick sat at the breakfast table, cradling a caffeinated tea Alfred made him– feeling like he finally understands Tim on the atomic level if not the intellectual one– when Jason comes storming through the door like he owns the place.
Dick can’t do more than muster an eyebrow raise as he practically inhales his tea and wonders if this is how Bruce really manages to be so unflappable all the time. Just constantly sinking under the pressure of expectations and exhaustion and too tired to show proper emotion.
Honestly he feels like someone could jump out from behind him and scream boo directly into his ear and Dick would still probably lag for a couple seconds before actually getting scared.
And he hates it– feels like he’s losing the best part of himself as he struggles to hold this family together with his bare hands.
But he can’t let go so he doesn’t, even as bits and pieces of him start to fall through the cracks.
Jason slams his hands down on the table and case in point all Dick can manage is to slowly lift his head from his tea and blink in his little brother’s direction.
He hates it.
“I asked you a question, Dickwad!”
Dick sighs, setting his mug down so he can massage his aching head. “Sorry. Zoned out there for a second. You were saying?”
“Yeah,” Jason snarls, “I was saying I thought you were gonna be out playing Daddy Bats from now on. So who the fuck was that last night?”
Dick can practically feel his brain struggling to keep up. “Me? I don’t get what you’re asking.”
“Oh yeah?” he sneers. “If you were out playing Batman then who the fuck was running around Bludhaven?!”
This manages to wake Dick up like nothing else in the past couple weeks and he startles to his feet in shock. “What???”
Jason taps at his phone before passing it over and sure enough, front and center on page 1 of the Bludhaven Times is a shot of Nightwing swinging away from a large group of downed thugs. The headline reads ‘A Hero Returns’ and the fluff piece that follows is all about how the residents who had lost hope when Nightwing returned to Batman’s side finally have hope again.
It’s a beautiful piece honestly, tributary in the best way, but it leaves Dick burning with guilt and dread because he hadn’t even thought about Bludhaven, not once since he quit his job to move back to Gotham, and he should have, he knows that, but there’d been so much going on and he hadn’t and now there’s some imposter running around in his suit pretending to be–
Dick stops.
Time slows.
He stares at the picture wide-eyed struggling to make sense of what he’s really seeing.
Because there’s only one person that knows where he keeps his suits– knows all his haven safehouses– all his moves and his gadgets and his quips and his routes– only one person that could have realistically pulled this off so well as to have fooled even Jason that this was indeed Dick in the photo.
The call goes straight to voicemail.
***
In the end everything had come down to that one article.
Dick Grayson moves back home.
Because here’s the thing.
Dick is amazing.
But he’s no Batman.
Tim doesn’t mean that in a malicious way or anything.
It’s simply a statement of fact.
Bruce is over 6 feet tall and Dick… Well Dick is 5’10.
An impressive height on anyone else but in Batman’s shoes?
It would be obvious to anyone looking that this was clearly a different Batman. And that coupled with the fact that Nightwing leaving Bludhaven coincided with Dick moving back home? Well it all spells disaster for anyone with half a brain trying to work out their secret identities.
Tim himself figured it out when he was nine and that’s always made him more prone to noticing when the others start accidentally leaving clues behind and he’s always worked behind the scenes to clean up those trails, but this? This could have been a disaster.
Except Dick had noticed it immediately like the amazing detective he was.
He’d obviously realized that more than Bruce’s massive height, the thing that made him almost tower over everyone around him is that he had a Robin at his side. It’s the height difference, the contrast, that helps sell the illusion that Batman is more than just a taller than average man, but a massive icon that can’t be reached.
That’s why Dick gave Robin to Damian. Because Tim is too tall.
Having a 5’10 Batman beside a Robin that matches that height almost exactly would practically scream that this is a new different Batman. Especially if Nightwing is no longer around.
But Damian… Damian is still a child who is at minimum a full head below Dick in height!
And that height difference almost perfectly matches the one Tim and Bruce had had before!
It’s genius!
And Dick had even left a perfect hole for Tim to slip into, a perfect role for someone with his training and the height that’s a near match to Nightwing’s.
And with the addition of Dick Grayson staying in Gotham while Nightwing makes a comeback in Bludhaven it ties up all the loose ends flawlessly.
Tim couldn’t have executed a better plan himself.
He makes himself comfortable at the console in his chosen Nightwing safehouse and grins to himself as he checks his phone.
Dick is counting on him.
Tim won’t let him down.