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“How could you let them take it?” Robin, not the Demon Brat but the first Robin, asks, heartbroken and teary eyed and grieving.
Tim blinks, confused, watches Dick close his eyes and respond in a language that Tim doesn’t know.
It doesn't calm the younger Dick down, in fact it makes him even more agitated, makes him respond back with yelled words in the same language Tim can’t understand until finally—
“It’s ours!” He screams, actually trembling with rage, “It’s ours and they had no right. He had no right!”
Jason scoffs from near the exit, “Newsflash kid, it doesn’t belong to you. It’s mine, and the replacement’s, and the brat’s and even Spoiler’s now too. You don’t get dibs just because you decided you own it.”
And young Dick—
He bursts into tears.
And then promptly tries to attack Jason with trembling fists and screams that Tim doesn’t need translated to know mean something foul. The kid manages to get hits in, which is maybe not as surprising considering how agile and quick he is, even this young.
Tim sighs, Robin has always been a sore topic among the former Robin’s, Dick’s stubborn attachment to the name and feeling of entitlement enough to draw out all of their tempers. And it seems it’s the same no matter how old Dick is.
“Robin,” Dick calls and tiny Dick seems to lose all of his fight in an instant.
In fact, he seems to lose all emotion in one fell swoop. Goes still and quiet and blank in a way Tim has never seen Dick do before.
“I hate you,” young Dick says, his voice thick with tears and laced with a type of hatred Tim has never seen in Dick before. A darkness he has never imagined the first Robin could feel.
“The feeling’s mutual, kid,” Jason says.
Tim mostly just wants this conversation to be over. It’s dumb to be hung up on it right now, when the most important thing is getting young Dick back to his time or dimension, they haven’t even figured out which one it is yet.
Robin scowls and turns to the computer where Batman has been standing resolute since the argument started. He’d been close to the Batman of Tim’s past before the argument, gentle and joking and light in a way Tim hasn’t seen for a long, long time. But now—
He’s cold, distant, hardened.
“I hate it here,” young Dick spits, “I hate it here and I hate you, first this place takes my parents and then you take my name. Robin is mine Bruce! It’s mine, it’s the last thing I have of them, how could you- how could- I-" He breaks down into sobs and Dick, the one from their time and universe sighs, walks over and gathers his younger self into his arms and whispers softly to him.
Tim blinks, and then restarts his brain, and blinks again, “What the fuck.”
“I hate to agree with the replacement,” Jason says, sounding actually aggrieved, which, rude, “but yeah. What the fuck.”
But neither of the Dick’s or Bruce are listening to them.
“Why?” young Dick asks, sounding so young and so destroyed it hurts to listen to.
And Bruce doesn’t respond.
“It wasn’t yours to take,” young Dick pleads, “It was theirs, it was mine. It’s me. Bruce. It’s me. She isn’t here anymore but I’m still her Robin, I’m still her little bird how could you take it from me?”
And suddenly Tim understands, and his blood goes cold.
“Dick?” he asks, mouth dry with the sudden realization that he might’ve made the biggest error in judgement about this that he has ever made.
“What. The. Fuck.” Jason says, and Tim thinks he’s realizing too.
“Someone better fucking answer me right the fuck now,” Jason seethes, in the way he does when he’s missing information and anxious because of it.
Dick, their Dick, closes his eyes, “I wasn’t going to tell you guys, you know? It’d already been so long and the wounds had scabbed over some. It's grown so much and been passed around so much it didn’t matter anymore, didn’t mean the same as when I started using it for heroics. You guys didn’t need to know.”
“But,” Tim prods, eyes lazer focused on the two Dick’s, vaguely aware of the way Jason is glaring daggers into Bruce’s still unturned back.
Dick sighs, “But,” he agrees, “circumstances are what they are.”
Young Dick sniffles, scrubs his face and speaks, shaky and choked up and grieving, “Robin was my Mama’s name for me.”
And two things happen in very quick succession. Bruce finally turns around, cowl off, and Jason shoots Bruce in the leg.
It’s a rubber bullet, Tim acknowledges distantly, and it’s Bruce’s bad leg so it isn’t a surprise when it buckles. It’s only rubber, but the gunshot is enough to startle all of them into defensive positions.
Jason just stands there, gun in hand and glaring at Bruce with the type of anger Tim still sort of fears, in the distant part of his brain where he keeps it shut away.
“Jason,” Dick hisses and is ignored.
“I’d like to expand on that What the Fuck now,” Tim says, because this is quickly becoming a hostile situation when what Tim needs is to understand because, “I was under the impression that you gave Robin up, but why would you if it was your mothers name for you.”
“Excellent observation Timbo!” Jason says, cheerfully, gun still in hand, “Because that’s what I want to fucking know too!”
Their Dick sighs, and Bruce, surprisingly, is the one to speak up from the chair he collapsed into, “Robin was reckless, too reckless, so I fired him from the position.”
There is silence.
"And then you gave it to me," Jason realizes.
"Jason," Dick starts.
"No!" Jason tells him, "No, I wanna know. Did he know the entire time? Did he seriously let us say all the fucking shit we did and stay silent when this whole thing is his fault?"
"It was irrelevant," Bruce grits out. "There was no reason to disclose the information when Dick himself hadn't deemed it necessary."
"Oh so it's his fault now. Sure Bruce, blame all your fucking problems on everyone but yourself just like you always do," Jason yells.
"I did what was necessary.”
“No,” Tim says, realization setting in, “you were scared.” Bruce doesn’t respond, but when Tim meets Dick’s eyes he gets a sad smile and a nod.
Young Dick, and he really can't be any older than 9 or 10 with how tiny he is, huffs. He glares at Bruce, “I trusted you.” He says and Bruce doesn’t meet his eyes.
Dick sighs again and picks his younger self up easily, walking toward the cave’s manor entrance, “C’mon mini-me, lets go get some hot cocoa. You can even try conning Alfred out of some cookies.”
Young Dick nods, but all of the excitement and energy from the first few minutes Robin had been here is gone now. Leaving behind only rage and sorrow and betrayal.
Dick takes his younger self upstairs and doesn’t look at Bruce once.
Tim watches them go and can’t help but feel like they’ve all fucked up irreparably.