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It always felt so odd whenever someone called Tim Bruce's son. Yes, legally he was adopted. But that's where that starts and ends.
Dick is Bruce's son. Jason is Bruce's son. Damian is Bruce's son. Cass is Bruce's daughter. Tim was never his son, and never will be. And yet outside of Bruce and Tim himself everyone else sees Tim as his son. It's absurd since it's clearly the other way around.
"Come on Bruce, you're tired, probably starving and dehydrated, just take a break. Two hours, that's all you need. Enough to eat and drink and take a nap." Tim says tiredly to Bruce, who instead of taking his advice like a responsible person would, just grunts and goes back to tapping away at the Bat-Computer. He swears he might as well be Bruce's parent with how he has to semi gentle parent him. Hmm… Maybe he should lean into that.
"Bruce, you won't be helping anyone like this, you could make a mistake and end up hurting someone else unintentionally. You don't want that right?" God if this works Tim's not sure if he's gonna cry or be happy. There is a hesitant grunt though so Tim takes it as it's working. "This is a sensitive case, it's also very difficult, so let's just… take a break and come at it with fresh eyes, yeah?" A grunt and slight nod. Tim nearly breathes a sigh of relief, he can see several mistakes Bruce has already made. Tim will make sure to come back and fix it and hope Bruce won't remember what he put down.
Bruce goes to stand up and stumbles, probably from the hours of sitting down without any food or water. Either way, Tim hurries to catch him and almost falling over with his weight. Thankfully the training Tim's been through accounted for carrying someone far heavier than he is, so Tim is able to get Bruce up to the Manor and sat down at a table while Tim makes him some soup. He's not exactly great at cooking but if he has a recipe he can make it vaguely good, and thankfully canned soup is easy to make.
He sets down a bowl of soup and some water in front of Bruce and sits across from him to make sure he eats it all. He narrows his eyes at Bruce as he goes to push the bowl away and stand up. "You haven't eaten it all." An annoyed grunt. "You need to eat a good amount to keep up with patrols." Irritated grunt. "Five more bites? Please, Bruce? Just five more, easy spoonfuls" Bruce begrudgingly grabs his spoon again ad eats the five more spoonfuls, even eating a sixth bite. "Thank you bud, just drink your water then you can rest and head back to the case." The nickname rips itself out of his mouth without warning, and Tim can see the moment that Bruce realizes what he called him and he's waiting for the yelling and…
Bruce stiffened and then relaxed. Looking far more tired than before. He drinks his water without any fuss (isn't that what parent's say about their kids..?) and slowly gets up, but waits for Tim to also stand up.
Tim's… not sure how he feels about this. On one hand Tim was 13, and Bruce was 40. On the other… Bruce was listening to Tim. He got Bruce to take care of himself (slightly) without issue.
Tim shoves the slightly uncomfortable part of him deep down. Bruce ate and drank water (not coffee!) it'd be selfish of Tim to not like that, right? He gets up and leads Bruce to his room and make sure he lays down before leaving.
He feels… weird. Very weird. He chalks the feeling to actually being in the manor for once. Normally he gets there and immediately heads to the cave, or sometimes forsakes the manor and heads in through a different entrance. Regardless he heads back down to the cave to fix the mistakes Bruce put down.
The look on Bruce's face when he called him bud is pushed into the back of his mind. Not gone though.
Bruce was hit with a gas of some kind. Tim's not sure what kind it is, it's not fear toxin, that makes Bruce violent, and it's not Joker Gas cause… well Bruce isn't laughing. Bruce is however… timid. Quiet. Tim was able to get Bruce into the Bat-mobile with no issue thankfully, and Tim was able to stop the gas from spreading any more ad no one else was hit with it thankfully. The ride home is.. awkward. Bruce is in the passenger seat, trying to make himself look smaller. Tim doesn't have much time to focus on that though, too focused on making sure he gets them to the cave.
He feels so much relief when he sees the cave entrance and finally parks the Bat-mobile. "Alright Bruce, come on we need to find out what you were hit with." He makes sure his voice is soft. Since that day where he accidentally called Bruce 'bud' he found that Bruce… Reacted well to Tim 'parenting' him. The only things to work with Bruce have been Tim acting like Jason (Too dangerous. He runs the risk of Bruce realizing it wasn't a hallucination and getting violent at Tim for 'replacing Jason') and Tim parenting him.
Bruce slowly gets out of the car while holding onto Tim's hand which is… Odd. But not horrible surprisingly. Tim leads him over to the med-bay and sits him down (once again very odd. But then again everything about their relationship is odd now.) and grabs a syringe to take some of Bruce's blood for testing. They've done this plenty times there should be no issues and yet…
Bruce flinched. Batman flinched. Tim ignores the sharp pain of something that hit him. "It's okay, it's okay, I'm just gonna take a little blood, it'll be quick I promise, okay chum?" Tim did it again. He's heard Bruce call Dick that a couple times during their good days. He's overheard him call Jason that countless times when Jason was alive. He did it out of instinct (instinct? Why was it instinct to call Bruce the pet name he calls his sons?) and now Bruce is gonna yell and-
"..Okay." Bruce voiced out softly. Which sounds wrong out of him but… Tim just feels glad. Tim slowly but quickly takes the blood sample. He puts a band-aid on the spot, feeling every bit like a doctor giving a child a shot.
"You did great, thank you Bruce." Tim goes to move and start tests, wanting this done as soon as possible and then…
"Don't go." Bruce's voice calls out. Sounding weak, and soft, and everything Batman shouldn't. "…please."
Tim hesitates slightly, he really should start testing but… "Okay. I'll stay here for a bit longer." How can he just leave when Bruce is asking him to stay? He's never been asked to stay somewhere. Never been wanted somewhere.
"…thank you, dad." That seals it. Tim isn't his son. He could never be his son. He doesn't hesitate this time.
"Of course, chum."
Tim's settled into his role in the family perfectly. He knows exactly who each of the members need him to be.
Dick needs him to be his little brother he can always go to to cuddle, Jason likes him best when he's unable to take care of himself, Cass likes him (which is weird and Tim is honestly still not sure exactly how to do that but he thinks he has a handle on it now), Damian likes it best when Tim is standoffish, Steph likes chaos Tim, Duke enjoys Tim when he helps him with homework and plays games, Babs likes competent Tim.
Alfred likes the Tim that takes care of Bruce. He likes Caretaker Tim. (When did Tim stop hating that fact..?)
Bruce… Likes Dad Tim. That Tim is reserved for Bruce. It makes Tim feel so many things. It's weird, he knows that, and it leaves a weird feeling in him that lasts for days but it also… makes Tim feel needed.
Robin was taken from him. For a bit he thought that meant he wasn't needed. He forgot he does something that none of the others could do. As long as Bruce still needs it he won't let Tim go. Not when he's still a child who needs his dad.
The others wouldn't understand. They already don't understand how Tim can get Bruce to actually care for himself.
He still remembers when he benched Batman. He could see the others think he was about to get scolded, or benched himself, or just thinking it was funny. The utter confusion when Bruce just grumbled about not needing to be benched but accepting it replays in his mind months later, he wishes he had a picture of it.
He knows they wouldn't understand. He's well aware. Just like Bruce knows. That's why they make sure no one is near to hear Tim call Bruce 'Chum' or to hear Bruce call Tim 'Dad'. They wouldn't understand.
It's not weird though. It doesn't matter that it's very similar to the cases Bruce specifically keeps away from Tim. It's different, those ones were weird, those kids never asked to be their parent's parent.
Besides Tim was never Bruce's son.
Dick is Bruce's son, Jason is Bruce's son, Damian is Bruce's son, Cass is Bruce's daughter, Bruce is Tim's son.