Your gateway to endless inspiration
Tim accidently referring to the Joker as Dad but those who know about Joker Jr aren’t present and so everyone is left with the ‘realisation’ that Tim is the son of the biggest nightmare to their family.
It’s probably Jason and Steph, her there to bother Tim but Jason went to the manor for food and the two naturally started arguing. Maybe Jason tells Tim to stop costing on his case and prove a point be made against blonde, but Tim just offhandedly goes, “Later, I think my dad broke out of Arkham again but the guards aren’t doing anything. Maybe they’re in on it…”
The two present naturally look at each other with confusion and for the first time stop bickering to peak over his shoulder and see what his case is because, holy shit Tim had a villain for a dad and didn’t tell us? Only to see numerous photos of the Joker in his cell and many reports over the last week of how he’s been behaving and Jason…
Steph pushes the man out of the room when she sees his face go from frozen fear to anger, thinking it’s towards Tim and his secrecy and, while she totally gets that, now isn’t the time.
Though when they get into the Jason starts a rant about how Bruce and Dick should have told him that the monster had a child, even if that child wasn’t Tim! Jason protects kids! Did they think he’d hurt him just because of who his father is?
No!
If anything, he’d become the kids full time body guard to stop that mad man from making Tim into another version of himself!
The two naturally go to tell the others, pulling Damian, Cass and Duke into a mostly unused room and telling them what they discovered, all while Tim stays in the library working on his case.
Cass is beyond worried but also confused because he doesn’t seem to have any physical characteristics of the Joker or Harley, but maybe the mother is different? Perhaps it’s still Janet and either she had a fling with the Joker or something far worse, which makes the young girl enraged on the woman’s behalf.
Damian makes a comment about him killing Tim, not in a serious manner but more as an option, but Duke shuts it down, saying that having a villain for a parent doesn’t mean anything about who you will be. He points out those in the family of that nature and other heroes like Superboy.
When asked why they didn’t get Dick or Babs involved, Jason says they defiantly know and lied about it.
It’s only after another three hours of working that Tim catches himself referring to the Joker as dad and shuts his laptop, making his way to Bruce’s room to hide under the older man’s bed like he usually does when that happens, only to overhear what his siblings are saying.
Tim presses his ear against the door to hear better.
“If that maniac had a kid, surely he’d have told everyone he had an heir or something.” That’s Steph’s voice, filled with worry that only he and Cass could detect as she hides it under a whiney tone.
Jason is next to respond, “maybe he doesn’t know? I mean, did Tim ever even interacted with him before he became Robin?”
It doesn’t take much more than that for Tim to realise that he must have been talking aloud again or absently answered someone earlier and misspoke in front of them.
Panic fills him as he avoids telling Bruce when he gets bad, even if it’s just a small thing, because the older man will start of being a concerned parent then go into Batman mode and only just stop himself from putting Tim in the confinement cell. Sure Tim came up with the idea of the cell so he wouldn’t hurt anyone if his conditioning got too bad, but he’s learnt the signs. He’s not a mindless drone, he still knows who he is and doesn’t hear someone talking to him or anything like that.
He just… sometimes forgets the Joker hurt him.
It’s not Tim’s fault that memories of watching TV with him and Harley, tucked between them with a big bowl of ice cream felt better than most memories of his real parents.
But he knows it’s wrong, always comes back to calling the Joker his enemy.
Bruce just doesn’t get that.
Tim hears them talk a bit more, theories about who his mother might be, if Tim is safe at the manor, if Joker knows he has a son…
Opening the door, Tim stands there and stares at them as all eyes snap to him in alarm.
He doesn’t let anybody speak, cutting them all off quickly, “He’s not my dad. Go the cave and search for file number 26557933301-JJ and put in the code AGELAST, all caps.”
With that he turns and leaves, walking at first before running to Bruce’s room to hide.
He goes to family dinner and pretends not to notice the quietness or how Jason is still there, eating his food quietly and waiting for the ball to drop.
Naturally, Damian is the one to say what he wants first, “So why is okay that Tim shot the joker but I got in trouble for stabbing Bane?”
Everyone groans.