#and he slowly learns about Dick's flaws and eventually Dick tumbles off the pedestal

[danny-chase]

Is it just me that thinks it would be really interesting to explore Dick’s thoughts when he meets Tim (for the second time)? Like, imagine that he genuinely likes Tim, but he finds it hard to be around him because he’s pretty much the walking talking reminder of the worst day of his life. Like, his emotions just contrasting with each other in delicious angst.

Oooh yes - I've seen posts point out how yeah. In canon, Dick didn't immediately accept any of the other Robins, his first impression with Tim in A Lonely Place of Dying was essentially go home kid, you're going to get hurt (which like... correct assessment there buddy).

What a lot of people don't know is that along with Jason dying (which oh my gosh - the agnst of finding out months after the fact - not even having anyone tell him - and being told in like... the rudest way possible - most people don't realize this affected him enough to go to therapy) a couple other things happen shortly after he met Tim - this is a rough timeline:

1. He fires Danny (who's a younger teen) from the Titans on the titans (happens in the same issue he finds out Jason is dead - Bruce also insinuates it's Dick's fault he ever even took in Jason because he made him care about ppl which just ow what agnst) because he feels he can't be responsible for Danny's safety anymore

2. A Lonely Place of Dying happens, he meets Tim, says no we don't need a Robin, goes to try and help Bruce, they get trapped in a collapsed building, Tim becomes Robin to save them, Tim's Robin etc. (I can see this being Dick basically being like okay if Bruce is going to take in a kid, I'll help, train him, but it's on Bruce if anything happens this time - of course he likes Tim - but trauma)

3. The Danny plotline keeps going in NTT, there's an arc where Danny dies (because he keeps trying to help even though Dick made it clear he didn't want kids doing hero things - under his leadership at least). And notably, this arc also sees Joey, Raven, and Raven's mom die, and Vic ends up comatose.

And I headcanon this is what really spurred Dick into "I must be the absolute perfect big brother" mode, because Tim had wormed his way into his heart, and he realized through Danny he wasn't really going to stop anyone, so the best thing he could do is support Tim and be backup anytime he called for any reason. Which in Robin (1993), we see this "Dick will pick up the phone any time any place kind of thing" and in YJ 98, he even goes to a parent teacher conference for Tim.

Dick imo, trauma bonded to Tim (who imprinted on him like a duck all the years ago) relatively soon in their relationship (i feel like realizing he couldn't stop Tim is a turning point - because ultimately Bruce had control of this situation - he had the power in the relationship with Danny, but Tim wants to work with Bruce). And i would guess (though we see Tim's side of the relationship so canon wise you can't actually tell) that everytime he sees a call from Tim, he panics because he remembers giving a very similar kid his phone number. And i think this feeds into the way he snaps in Last Laugh - killing the Joker because he thought Tim was dead (and the clown bringing up Jason's name just tipped him over the edge).

TL;DR Tim's a walking reminder of multiple worst days of Dick's life and I think about their relationship a lot