Tim snorts lightly, twirling his staff a little. "You think so?" he asks Terry mildly. "You can try. But I don't know how well that will work. The only way to save him--" he gestures at Sam, using him as an example, "--is to kill him, and I'm pretty sure you don't work that way."

He's counting on Terry not knowing his words for the lie that they are. And he doesn't like at all the way Tim's consciousness and his body responded to the change in Terry's voice.

The Batman/Robin dynamic can't be that deeply ingrained, can it?