This is mostly fanon!batfam but I desperately want to read fics where Tim and Bruce have a complex relationship. Not complicated, complex. (Okay maybe a little complicated).
But what I mean is that essentially, Tim had to step up to a role parallel to a caretaker with Bruce, at least at the beginning of their relationship, and this would obviously stand to reflect on the dynamic they build later on. I don't want a complicated relationship between Tim and Bruce where Bruce essentially views Tim as a stand-in to Jason in the beginning or whatever. No, that's overdone and angsty and I don't particularly like it. I want a complex relationship, of essentially power dynamics, between Bruce and Tim because the entire reason Tim barged in on Bruce was due to the fact that his self destructive ways were bleeding into Batman, and he couldn't allow that. There's gotta be times Tim stepped in, and told Bruce no. There's gotta be times where he's pointed at a direction, and said, this way, instead. This was Tim taking care of a grownup who was in the depths of depression and self-destruction. This is essentially a 12 year old who was thrust into a caretaker role, but with a man who wasn't even his parent, who was essentially a stranger to him. There's gotta be times where Bruce would, I wouldn't go as far as to say deferred to him, but at least listened to him. And he wasn't Tim's father at the beginning. He wasn't Tim's anyone. There wasn't a previous relationship to build on between the two of them when Tim first became Robin.
So what I'm saying is, Bruce is Tim's father. But Tim's first relationship with him wasn't father or mentor or partner. Tim's first relationship with Bruce was of one where he was a dependent, to Tim, and that's gotta have some holdover on the relationship they have later on.
