Steady On Forward

Chapter 8

A/N:

Since it's referenced in this chapter, the comic pages referencing Bruce's rape by Tarantula in Batman & Son, Part Two: Man-Bats of London are linked under 'External Link' at the bottom of the chapter (desktop users only, unfortunately) for those who didn't read/don't remember and want a refresher on what exactly happened.

—

A couple days later, Tim had finally contacted Black Canary and made an appointment to meet with her.

He only made it three minutes in the Watchtower before Bruce stormed up to him, a bemused Superman trailing behind.

"Red Robin. Just what are you doing here?"

Tim sighed and turned to face him, looking beyond exhausted, even with the mask hiding his eyes. "It's none of your business."

"Of course it's my business, you're⁠—"

"Fine," Tim cut him off. If just telling Bruce would get him off his back quicker, then he didn't really give a shit about arguing right now. "It still isn't, but I'm going to talk to Black Canary."

"Is this about a Birds of Prey case you're somehow involved in?"

Tim stuck his chin out petulantly, his anger bleeding through the fatigue that weighed him down.

"No. It's not," he said firmly.

"If this has to do with what happened on Sunday⁠—"

"Of course it has to do with Sunday!" Tim burst out.

"Then absolutely not," Bruce shouted right back. "You don't get to make decisions about other people's personal information!"

Tim stomped right up to him, and pointed a finger in his face. "I haven't slept since then. I've not been able to sleep for four fucking days because I can't stop hearing it. And I'm not the only one either!"

"Red Robin," Bruce warned, but Tim ignored him, plowing on.

"Batgirl, Signal, and Black Bat are all hearing it too still, they're all having awful nightmares every night. And you know what? I told them to get some fucking therapy too, but they won't because of you."

"Black Bat is in therapy," Bruce interrupted.

"You know what I fucking mean, the others! And what about Robin, huh? How do you think he's fucking dealing with it? He's barely left his room since he finally came back after patrol Monday night ⁠— don't think A doesn't talk to me about that sort of thing.

"I know you and Oracle think you can just pretend it didn't happen and throw yourselves into the case, but how are the rest of us supposed to deal with this? Have you thought about Red Hood? Do you even give a shit how extra fucking horrible that must have been for him? That he probably hasn't even taken a second for himself because he's too busy worrying about Nightwing?

"And I don't even want to think about how Nightwing's probably dealing with it. Have you even reached out? Or done fucking anything besides yell at him for going out on patrol, and yell at Hood for being on his fucking side?

"We all need help. We've all needed help forever, and you're fucking delusional if you think we can all just move on from something like that!"

Tim panted as he finished his rant.

"Are you done?" Bruce asked blankly.

"Yes."

"Good. Go into the conference room. I'm not having this discussion in company."

For the first time, Tim noticed that several Justice League members had arrived to investigate the yelling, and were standing around looking on in shock.