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This time when Tim goes down, Bruce thinks he might finally stay down.
The cave is filled with the sound of him hitting the mat, echoing over and over again. His controlled breaths have turned to harsh wheezes, and he pushes one knee up, a hand resting on his heaving chest.
“You’re not leveraging your weight correctly,” Bruce snaps at him. “You’re still trying to pull me down. You’re too small for that. You need to concentrate your weight against the pressure points I showed you, and you need to be fast about it.”
He had almost been fast enough when they started, when he still had the strength for it. If this had been a real fight, how much sooner would he have tired? How long before his opponent would have taken advantage of his weakness, the gaps in his defenses, before his exhaustion would have killed him?
Not long enough. Long before this.
He turns onto his stomach, drawing his shaking arms up under him and pushing himself to his knees.
Bruce catalogues every opening. Back turned partially towards him, flank unguarded. A kick, landed just right against his ribs. A blade, drawn from his belt and plunged down into his spine or the side of his abdomen. The time it takes him to drag himself to his feet is long, and it makes Bruce’s stomach twist.
Tim rises, dropping back into the defensive stance Bruce has drilled into him. His feet are unsteady beneath him, bangs glued to his forehead with sweat, but his eyes are bright and jaw set with determination.
Bruce circles him. He’s barely broken a sweat, highly conscious of the lack of ache in his own muscles. “You need to improve your stamina,” he growls. “This isn’t good enough.”
His tone is cruel, biting.
Tim should lash out at it. He should snap back that he’s trying, that he’s doing his best, that he is improving.
Instead, he just nods, adjusting his stance. He swallows, throat audibly clicking with dehydration. “Again,” he croaks out. “Let’s do it again. I’ll get it this time.”
And Bruce should refuse. He should insist he take a break, should send him to go get something to drink, should tell him they’re done for the night so he won’t be too sore to train again tomorrow.
Instead, he matches his stance.
Tim’s attack is sloppy, movements uncontrolled and easily blocked.
Fatal.
He doesn’t understand, this boy. He doesn’t see his own fragility, how hopelessly outmatched he is.
Hand, wrist, lock against the joint. Press towards the child till his arms are crossed against his chest.
Bruce has had visions of his children dying in his head since the day he brought Dick home. They were never this sharp before, not until - until.
Sometimes, now, he sees Tim, puddled in red on a concrete floor.
It feels like a betrayal every time.
Twist, weight thrown back. A leg, swept behind his knees. Tim goes down easy as a dropped doll.
It will be his fault, he knows, if that vision ever comes true. When it comes true. Just like it was his fault before. His child, his responsibility, his failure.
Does every parent feel this much terror?
Or is it because he knows, deep down, that he will never be strong enough to shoulder the burden of their protection, of their loss?
Tim’s arms are pinned in place. He can’t catch himself as he slams back against the ground. His head bounces against the mat. If it were concrete he’d have a concussion, if his skull didn’t crack outright.
Now he needs to roll. If he brings his knee up, he can destabilize Bruce and break free of his hold.
He blinks up at him, dazed.
He needs to break free. He’s too vulnerable like this, pinned by Bruce’s bulk.
Bruce sees every weakness like he sees the ghosts in the corners of his room.
A hand against his throat, windpipe crushed. Pick up the head and twist, neck snapping like a bird’s wing.
Bruce presses down harder.
Tim bucks, wrist twisting within his grasp, but not enough. He’s forgetting what Bruce has shown him, exhaustion fogging his brain, and it’s going to kill him.
Jason was fierce and vibrant and dedicated, and it wasn’t enough. It didn’t matter how brightly he shone. In the end, all it meant was that when someone decided to snuff him out, the darkness he left behind was heavier than ever.
Tim needs to break free.
He needs to break free.
He needs to -
Snap.
His arm gives beneath Bruce’s weight.
The worst part isn’t the sound of the bone breaking. It’s the sound Tim makes, the choked scream that strangles itself behind his teeth.
Bruce isn’t aware of releasing him, of scrambling back away from him, but suddenly Tim is lying alone on the mat, curling onto his side with his arm gripped against his chest. His face is sheet white.
“Oh god,” Bruce chokes out. “Oh - Alfred. Alfred!”
It takes him a moment to remember that Alfred isn’t down in the cave with them, that there’s no possible way he can hear him. It almost physically hurts to yank his gaze away from the tiny body on the floor, to force his feet up the steps to the computer until he can hit the button that will call the butler down.
Part of him, a pathetic, cowardly part, wants to wait right there at the console for Alfred to come fix it.
A bigger part of him sees that Tim still hasn’t gotten up again.
His feet take him back down the stairs almost without his input, slowing as he crosses the mat. This close, he can hear Tim’s quiet, hitched breaths, can see the way his chest shudders unevenly. It’s obvious he’s trying to be quiet, and it makes Bruce’s stomach turn.
The elevator dings behind him, and Alfred’s brisk footsteps echo across the stone as he hurries towards them. Bruce moves to the side, and the light behind him falls unblocked across Tim. Tear tracks glisten on his cheeks as he turns his face towards Alfred’s approach.
Bruce’s hands feel numb.
Alfred brushes past him, dropping down to kneel at his side. “Here we are, Master Timothy, you’re alright,” he murmurs, gently helping him sit up. He tuts sympathetically as he places a hand under the cradled arm, keeping it stabilized as he shifts. Tim gasps softly anyway, biting his lip so hard the skin turns white. “And however did this happen?”
Tim’s eyes meet Bruce’s, too wide and bright against his ashen skin. “I fell,” he says, voice quiet but steady. “I didn’t do the move he was showing me correctly, and I landed badly. It was my fault.”
And in that moment Bruce knows two horrifying facts with perfect clarity:
That Tim, without hesitation, will lie to protect him,
and that
he will do it because to him, the second sentence is not a lie.
“No.” The word wrenches itself out of him, a reflexive recoil from the very idea of letting Tim carry that for a single second longer.
Tim’s gaze snaps to him, startled and confused, and Bruce swallows thickly. “It was my fault,” he continues, in a voice that sounds dragged over glass. “It was…I made a mistake.”
Tim just keeps staring at him, brow furrowed. He doesn’t look relieved or angry.
He looks like the words are completely foreign to him.
Alfred has gone unnaturally still beside him, and Bruce can’t bring himself to look at him. After a long moment, he finally moves, supporting Tim as he eases them both to their feet. “Come, Master Timothy,” he says, quiet and calm and deadly. “We’ll get you sorted out in no time.”
Tim goes with him obediently, head bowed, until they’re just a couple feet away from Bruce as they go to pass him. He hesitates, meeting his eyes, something strangely desperate in his gaze. “I can keep training, right?” he asks softly. “I can - I’ll do it right next time, I’ll get it, I promise, I just - my arm will heal, and I can keep training, right?”
His voice cracks, and Bruce’s heart with it.
It takes him a moment to speak. “We’ll - ” he falters. Alfred’s face is a blank mask, lips tight and eyes intense. “Let Alfred take care of your arm,” he finally says quietly.
Tim’s face crumples. He doesn’t say anything else, just lets Alfred coax him gently up the steps towards the med bay, leaving Bruce to stand alone, fingernails carving half-moons in the palms of his calloused hands.
Maybe he should stay in the cave. He should stay while Alfred sets the child’s arm, should offer - what? Comfort?
To the quiet sound of Alfred speaking soothingly to Tim in the background, Bruce goes upstairs and waits.
***
Alfred’s precise, measured steps sound like a death toll against the hardwood of the dining room where Bruce awaits him, shoulders hunched.
“Sit,” Alfred orders, clipped and cold as the arctic.
Bruce sits.
“It was a clean break,” Alfred finally says, after a long moment of silence, and through the thick tension strung through the air between them, the words feel weighted as a whip. “I’ve set it, and I’ve sent him to one of the guest bedrooms for the night.”
Bruce swallows against the noose that’s wrapped itself around his windpipe. “Thank you,” he says hoarsely.
“I am asking for you to tell me exactly what happened. I will not ask a second time.”
The echo of breaking bone still resonates through his palm. “Does it matter?”
Alfred lets out a soft breath through his nose. “Was it an accident?”
He turns his hands over in his lap, examining them, the tiny scars and bruises that decorate his fingers. “I didn’t mean to break his arm,” he says. “I wouldn’t - ” he cuts himself off, swallowing again. “I knew I was hurting him,” he finishes. His voice sounds lifeless even to himself.
The heaviness of the silence this time feels different, a hand pressing on cracked glass, a growing chasm lying beneath.
He can’t stop himself from dragging his gaze up, seeking the condemnation he knows he’ll see in his father-figure’s eyes.
He doesn’t find it.
Alfred isn’t even looking at him. His face is turned away, his age achingly clear in his grief-stricken expression.
It hurts so much worse than condemnation ever could have.
“I have had…reservations, about your handling of that child from the beginning,” Alfred says at last, and the slight unsteadiness in his voice may as well be an earthquake. “But I did not hold it against you. How could I? How could I ever think less of you, for loving the child you lost so deeply that your grief kept you from being the kind of man I had the privilege of witnessing you become, once?”
Bruce can barely breathe, but Alfred doesn’t stop.
“You have always carried your grief as a part of you, Master Bruce. I have known this since you were a boy, that… much as you may hide it, you feel things so strongly, and you do not let them go, be it love or fear. There are times where it is a fantastic strength, and times where it makes me…terrified, for you.”
He takes a deep breath, and a fine tremor runs through his hands. “But never,” he says fiercely, and the light shines off the tears in his eyes as he finally looks at Bruce. “Have I been as ashamed of you as I am tonight.”
Bruce has been shot, stabbed, beaten, burned. He would gladly take every one of those wounds again, a thousand times over, above the black hole that feels like it’s opened behind his ribs.
There is nothing he can say. Even if he could speak, there is no apology he could give that wouldn’t just be a disrespect atop the wrong he has already committed. The list of wrongs.
He bows his head, and takes the blow of the words without a sound.
“This will not continue as is,” Alfred says, firm as oak.
“No,” Bruce agrees softly.
“If you fail to prioritize Master Timothy’s well-being, I will.” The threat in his tone is clear, a razor under velvet.
Bruce raises his head. This time, Alfred’s hard stare meets his. He dips his head, accepting. “Yes,” he murmurs.
“I acknowledge that it may not be in your power to stop him from the course he’s chosen, and it would likely be even less safe for you to turn him away outright than it would be for you to continue training him. If you cannot handle his training yourself safely, you will find someone else who can, and you will send him to them instead.”
The emotions that triggers are…mixed. But he can’t deny the validity of it. He nods slowly.
Alfred takes a deep breath, and Bruce’s heart sinks. “You will begin attending therapy immediately.”
Bruce’s head jerks up. “Alfred - ”
“You broke a child’s arm, Master Bruce.”
The air rushes out of him, and all his protests with it.
Alfred’s eyes are shining, stoic composure cracked. “You are not getting better. You are not healing, and I fear the day that I cannot recognize you anymore.”
“Al,” he whispers brokenly.
“This is non-negotiable. If you do not seek help, I cannot stand by you any longer.”
The man who raised him never needed the weight of a hand to break him.
“Okay,” he lets the word slip free, and doesn’t fight it. “Okay.”
The line of Alfred’s shoulders loosens ever so slightly. He tips his head in acknowledgment. “Thank you,” he breathes out, and Bruce allows his own gaze to drop away again.
There’s a moment of heavy silence, and then he walks towards the doorway, passing Bruce as he goes. He pauses, just a few feet away, farther than he would have lingered before.
He surveys Bruce, gaze still hard, but gentler than it was before. “If I didn’t believe, truly, you were capable of better, we would be having a very different conversation,” he says quietly. And with that, he turns away once more, and the sound of his footsteps echo as they follow him out of the room.
Bruce has never felt so wrung out and hollow.
The entire night has taken on the unbearable inescapability of one of his nightmares, and he suddenly wishes wildly to simply close his eyes and curl up and hope that when he opens them, the horror is far away and long ago and all that’s left are the ashes and the grief.
Instead, he finds it in him to stand up and walk up the stairs and down the long, endless halls until he finds himself in front of a door.
He stares at the handle for too long before quietly pushing it open, deja vu wrapping its long fingers around his lungs.
In the low light, Tim’s tear-streaked face is pale, the braced arm cradled against his chest even in sleep. Alfred must have given him pain medication, for him to be asleep so soon.
Bruce wonders what he’ll wake up to. Will his nightmare feel left behind, edges worn away by the tides of sleep?
Or will it just feel sharper, without the cushion of shock?
But he will wake up.
He’ll wake up, and he’ll heal.
He’ll heal.
It’s easier to remember which child is asleep in the bed than it was before he opened the door, Tim’s peaceful face imprinting itself in his mind the longer he looks.
He shuts it behind him, silent as he came, and the memory lingers.