[ He thinks about it, for a moment, quiet, but he's already had the reason. Kept it close, tucked beneath his rib cage to keep him burning instead of breaking, keep him moving forward long past the point when his legs should have given out. ]

They didn't believe in me. There was something I needed to do, and I was right, but no one else could see it.

[ Bruce. Wasn't. Dead. And, finally, he had the proof. ]

They took away the one thing I had left--

[ He'd lost his parents, his friends, his girlfriend, nearly everything, and then he lost Robin. Benched him, stripped him of his identity as a hero, pitied him, and damn Dick for thinking he was doing Tim a kindness for it. ]

--and they told me it was just grief finally pushing me off the deep-end.

[ His eyes are burning; he scrubs at them, wearily. Takes a moment to let the anger and hurt drain from his throat, settle back down. ]

Hindsight's twenty-twenty. 'Cause we -- I -- already did the same to someone else. History repeating.

[ Not for the first time, beneath the frustration and the stress and the violence that characterizes every confrontation, he still hopes Jason's gonna make it. ]