This short series focuses on the mentor/mentee relationship between the original team and the new team. There will be five chapters, each one focusing on a different pairing and a different skill to learn. Everything has already been written, so I will hopefully be updating daily. Also, there are no spoilers for after True Colors.

I know Barbara isn't technically part of the original team, but I like to think that she joined the team pretty early on in the five year skip. She's older and a little more experienced than some of the newer and younger members of the team and would certainly count as a mentor. In fact, in Satisfaction, Jaime even tells Bart that Batgirl is one of Robin's mentors, so there's some justification for this. :)

Thank you all so much for reading this story! I really enjoyed writing it and hopefully you all enjoyed reading it. :) This is the end to this particular story, but I'm working on some new material so hopefully I'll be posting a new story soon. :D Thanks again to all of you lovely, lovely people!

Disclaimer: I don't own anything you recognize.

Growth by Degrees

Barbara, Tim; first aid
takes place during the five year skip

A person would have to be blind, Barbara thinks, to miss the smile that appears on Tim's face when Dick congratulates him. The corners of his mouth perk with unexpected pride as Tim finishes debriefing their latest ret-con.

"Good job, Robin," Dick says sincerely, looking like he's one encouragement away from ruffling the army-regulated haircut of the younger boy. "Go home, get some sleep."

"Thanks, Nightwing," Tim nods, still smiling and tugging his cape around his shoulders as though he's cold. He moves like he's going to head towards the zeta tubes, but a flash of black and yellow whips around a different corner.

Boy Wonder, he might be. But the movement does not go unnoticed by Dick and Barbara who exchange curious glances. Dick makes a move as though about to stand, but Barbara waves him off and moves quietly after Tim.

She makes nearly silent footsteps in the hallway, the soles of her boots somehow soft against the stone floors, until she can see a light in medical bay. Peering in carefully, she sees Tim standing by a counter, an array of bandages on the surface beside him. His cape is draped neatly over the back of a nearby chair and the top of his uniform has been removed, bunched down around his waist to reveal a bruised torso and a several inches long cut along the curve of his upper arm.

"Nasty gash," Barbara comments casually, her words alerting Tim to her presence.

He looks up quickly at her, nearly dropping the antiseptic-soaked cotton ball in his surprise. But he catches himself, training his expression back into indifference.

"It's not so bad," he informs her. She doesn't respond except to raise her eyebrows at him and he sighs before stressing, "Really."

At second glance, she can see that he's right. The cut is shallow, longer than it is deep and it looks as though it stopped bleeding a while ago. Still, she removes her mask, pocketing it in her utility belt, and moves to stand beside him.

"So what," she asks, holding her hand out expectantly for the cotton ball, "now you're a tough guy?"

Tim looks as though he might refuse to give her the cotton ball for a second, but she remains unmoving and he resigns himself to handing it to her and exposing his cut a little more openly towards her.

"The toughest." He tries to smile, but it comes out as a grimace as she presses the cotton ball to the wound.

"Nice try, kid," she smirks, easily catching the grimace he tries to disguise with a cough.

Barbara peels off her gloves to wash her hands in the counter's sink. They stand in silence, except for the sound of the running faucet, as the water cleanses the soap suds from her thin hands. She nods to him and he turns the water off for her as she shakes her hands relatively dry in the basin before grabbing ointment from the small collection of bandages on the countertop.

"So why are you patching up here?" she asks, smearing antibiotic cream over his cut. "Alfred's got a certain finesse to dressing wounds that I've never been able to master."

"Well, I'll bet you'd be pro if you had to patch up Batman for that many years."

"Two jokes in less than five minutes?" Barbara notes, amusement in her voice as she rips open the packaging and covers his small wound with a tefla pad. "You must be hurt."

"I'm not hurt!" he snaps, mouth tight with the defense.

Taken aback by his reaction, she leans back to stare at him more carefully. One hand still pressed to the tefla on his arm, she removes his mask with her free hand. He doesn't make any motion to stop her, but his gaze refuses to meet hers once his blue eyes are revealed.

"So that's it," she says quietly.

"What do you mean?"

His eyes finally find hers and she finds herself, as she always does, shocked by how young his expression can be sometimes.

"You don't want anyone to know you're hurt."

He doesn't say anything in response and she falls silent, too, making noise only to wrap gauze around his arm a few times, securing the tefla in place. She rips a piece of cloth tape and presses it gently to the gauze, careful not to let it come undone. Reassured that the gauze won't come undone, she rests a gentle hand on his arm.

"You know," she starts, her voice equal parts reassuring and cautious, "it's okay to get hurt."

He stares at her hand determinedly, as though the weight of her small gesture caused internal debate. But he sighs and moves away from her to sit down on the cape-covered chair.

"No, it's not," he answers, tucking his uninjured arm back into the sleeve of his uniform.

"Nightwing used to get hurt. He still does," she tells him, kneeling next to him in the chair. "I get hurt. Gar, Cassie, M'gann. Everyone gets hurt." She pauses for a moment before smiling, "Well, maybe not Superboy. That whole indestructible thing."

Tim's eyes still avoid her, but she nudges him playfully into a smile. He flickers his glance to hers, eyes catching for a second before he looks away in favor of carefully adjusting the sleeve over his injured arm.

"Everyone gets hurt," Barbara continues, hands hovering at his sides, ready to help him if he needs her. She hesitates for a moment, realizing he's fine on his own. "No one is going to be upset with you if you're hurt. Bruce wouldn't do that."

It's quiet for a long moment, Tim fiddling with the latches of his uniform. Finally he breaks off with a heavy sigh, back slumping and neck craning to look at Barbara.

"It's not that," he reveals, bright eyes more tired than they appeared just moments before.

"Then what?"

She stares at him and something in his expression, something in the way he silently pleads with her brings to mind another set of brilliant blue eyes.

"Oh," she falters, realization catching in her throat. "Jason."

He lets his head hang and she fights the urge to brush his hair or to even pull him into a hug. She reaches out and pulls away, awkward with comforting. Instead, she tucks her elbows to her side and tries to coax him into looking at her again.

"Tim, you are not Jason," she promises. "You don't have to walk on eggshells thinking that everyone expects you to be like Jason."

"Jason died," Tim stresses, hands balling into clenched fists in his lap. "I don't want anyone to think-"

"That you're human?" she interrupts hastily. "That you're vulnerable? You don't have to be the strongest, most infallible person on the team."

"I just don't want people to look at me and see a dead hero."

And the truth of it is, she gets it. She understands what he's saying and what he's doing here in the stilted whiteness of the medical bay and why he won't tell anyone when he falls. But she's didn't become a hero just to sit idly by with only warm words of comfort to offer.

"Okay, get up," she starts briskly. Barbara stands up, hands on her hips and a no-nonsense look on her face. Tim looks up from his clenched hands, eyes surprised. She continues to stare at him until he obliges her, standing slowly from the chair.

"You are not going to mope and you are not going to worry," she continues, walking to the counter to grab his discarded mask. "No more hiding when something goes wrong. If you spend all your time trying to avoid making Jason's mistakes, then how are you going to learn from your own?"

She hands the mask to him, letting him decide for himself if he wants to put it back on. He holds it in his hands, a calculated look etched deep on his face. Barbara pulls her own mask from her belt and secures it to her face, snug and conforming to her every curve.

"You're part of the family now, we're going to help you." She lets herself clasp his uninjured shoulder tightly, squeezing once before letting her grip drop. "But only if you let us."

"Easier said than done," he says. But he smiles up at her, unsure but steady, and she thinks he's catching on. She wraps an arm around his shoulders as he picks up his cape and they leave the medical bay, worries and confessions left behind.

One step at a time, she thinks, watching from the corner of her eye as he puts his mask back on.

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