Chapter Text
The reality of it doesn't sink in until later, after everything is done and over. He knew what he was doing at the time, of course he did, but.
The kind of training they have, it's dangerous. (How many people have said that in the past? That Gotham's Bats are dangerous, worse than the villains they protect her from?) It doesn't take skill to kill, not really, but it takes so much more to do what they do. (Harder to protect than attack, always something to lose.) It takes so much more to do what they do, because they're not meant to kill, but sometimes. Sometimes things...blur. (Morals, boundaries.)
Grief and anger are terrible things, can warp and bend and twist. A form of madness, maybe. He knows this too, has seen it, faced it in others time and again. That he didn't recognize it in himself – is that what Dick saw? What Steph and Cassie saw?
If he'd listened to them then, but no. Bruce would still be lost in time, and Tim would. Tim would what? He'd had nothing, nothing, just another borrowed suit and the certainty (another form of madness) that he was right, that Bruce was still alive and nothing (truly?) would stop him from finding proof, from finding Bruce.
“Tim?”
Kon approaches carefully, like Tim's a spooked animal, and maybe he's right to do it because. Because.
“I think,” Tim says, looking down Gotham, glittering lights and darker secrets. “I think I killed people, Kon,” he says, voice barely above a whisper. (He knows he did. Medical reports and news articles.)
“What?”
Tim clenches his hands. “When I went looking for Bruce,” he starts, not looking at Kon. “I wasn't as careful as I could have been.”
Reckless, yes, God, yes. He just. It's harder to care when you have nothing left, when you can't see a reason for boundaries in the first place. (Jason.) Tim shakes his head, and tells Kon, not everything, he doesn't need that, just.
Madrid, hitting a little too hard, broken bones and an explosion. (Hard to get away when you can't walk, when you're unconscious.) Paris, his bo staff through the engine of a car, like something out of a Michael Bay movie. (The real world doesn't work like the movies though, and it's hard to live through something like that.) The other countries and cities in between then and Ra's League. And maybe those could be considered acceptable losses (live by the sword, die by the sword), but they were still people with lives of their own, and they're not meant to kill.
“Tim, I - “ Kon breaks off, like he has no idea what to say, and Tim gets it, he does. What do you say to your best friend after he admits to being a killer, even if it hadn't been intentional? (Cause and effect, though, Tim knows how they follow each other, so was it really unintentional?)
Tim looks up, looks at Kon because this. He needs to see Kon's face to do this, look him in the eyes to ask for something he isn't entitled to but wants so badly. “Don't tell anyone, Kon, please.” Tim lost everything once, he can't go through that again, not with Bruce back. Things aren't the way they were (they never will be), but it's building towards something...okay. “Please.”
Kon stares at Tim like. Tim doesn't know, he can't see clearly enough to interpret it, panic clawing at his chest because. This is all he has, this small, broken family, and he can't lose that even though he deserves to. (They were never meant to kill and now Tim's ruined that too.)
“Tim,” Kon says, soft and sad, and Tim tries to pull back, but Kon's Kon, and there's no fighting the grip he has on Tim's arm, pulling him in close, Tim's face pressed against his shoulder.
“You - I can't, please,” Tim says, the last thing he has to give. “You can't tell anyone.”
Kon's arms tighten around him. “Jesus, Tim, I won't tell anyone, promise.”
Secrets, so many damn secrets, and so few have done anyone good. (Luthor's DNA for one, and look how well that turned out, but maybe this once, maybe.)