It's Not That Funny

by Ionaperidot

Summary:

“I’m sorry I killed you, Jay," Tim says. "Please don’t be mad at me.”

Jason sighs, raising his head slowly. “You are not handling the Pit nearly as well as I thought you were.”

 

After Tim kills the Joker, Bruce sends him across the country with his parents, where he'll be safe. After Jason finds out, he tracks him down to visit. It's all going pretty well until Ra's al Ghul gets involved.

Notes:

Updates twice weekly, usually Monday and Thursday

Chapter 1

He’s off-world with Roy and Kori when it happens, so it takes a couple months for Jason to find out his Replacement killed the Joker. It takes him a couple more months to actually find the kid, because Bruce sent him away, and he doesn’t trust Jason enough to tell him where. Like he thinks Jason’s going to attack him for taking out the Joker first or something.

He isn’t sure Bruce even knows where Tim is—apparently, the kid still has family alive and kicking, and they still have custody. So after Timmy-Bird endured weeks of torture and broke Batman’s precious no-kill rule, Bruce just sent him back to his parents and moved on with his life.

Asshole.

-

“Tim. Timothy. Calm down.”

The man is grabbing his shoulders, and Tim can’t calm down, he thinks this is his dad, but his dad just wants to hurt him, and he—and he—

“You’re not helping, Jack,” the woman—the woman—Dana?—snaps. “Take a walk.”

The man—Dad?—the man rolls away in his wheelchair, and the woman kneels down by Tim.

“Tim, sweetheart, it’s going to be okay, okay? I promise. We’re going to figure everything out.”

And for a minute everything really is okay, but then he remembers that his mom wants to hurt him too—she’s just sneakier about it.

-

It isn’t exactly a surprise when Jason tracks Tim to a mental institution in California. The good kind, though. Not like Arkham. If Bruce ever puts another kid in Arkham, any kid, Jason really will kill him this time, he swears he will.

But Tim Drake is safe and sound in a psych ward paid for with the last of his family’s fortune, while his step-mom lives in a tiny box of an apartment, doing everything she can for him. (Jack Drake died suddenly, less than a month after the family left Gotham. Jason wonders if Bruce knows. If he even cares.)

It wasn’t supposed to go like this. He was gonna track the kid down, see for himself that the Joker hadn’t killed him, congratulate him on doing what needed to be done, maybe make sure he knew that Batman was a self-righteous, constipated asshole whose opinion didn’t matter. But somehow, he finds himself renting a crap apartment downtown, visiting Tim every day, and having lunch with Dana Drake a couple times a week.

The thing is, he likes Tim. Really likes him, now that his rage has faded and they’re in the same boat, destroyed by the Joker, abandoned by Bruce.

He’s only had one brief conversation with Dick since the incident. It went pretty well, for a conversation with Dick—he wouldn’t tell Jason where Tim was, but it wasn’t because he thought Jason might kill him or anything. He said Tim had been through too much, and this was his chance for a normal life.

Jason knew Tim was never going to have a normal life, not with the mostly faded scars where the Joker tried to carve a smile onto his face, the strange twitches and even occasional seizures from all the electrocution. Even if he had the slightest chance of recovering from all of the mental and emotional trauma, that physical damage wasn't going anywhere.

And honestly, Jason doesn’t think he will recover. He might not spend the rest of his life locked up in here, but he isn’t going to have a normal life, any more than Jason is going to go back to being Robin.

Tim doesn’t really talk. Not to Jason at least. Sometimes to people who aren’t there. Bruce, Dick, the Joker. Sometimes he starts laughing like the Joker, and Jason has to leave the room for a few minutes, until the urge to shoot him in the head passes. Tim won’t come too close to him, usually won’t meet his eyes, mostly doesn’t seem to be paying attention to him at all. But every day, at the end of visiting hours, a nurse will come in and tell him, “Say goodbye to your friend, Tim.”

And Tim will hug him, and whisper, “Bye, Jason,” into his chest, and that’s why he comes back every day.

-

“Sing for me, Birdie,” the woman says.

She says she’s his mother, but that can’t be right—Janet has brown hair. And Janet’s dead. He has Dana now.

Dana’s blonde. But this isn't Dana, right? Because Dana loves him, right? Right?

She pushes a button, and Tim screams.

-

After a few months of this, Jason goes on a mission with Roy and Kori for a weekend, which turns into a week, which turns into six. He feels terrible about it, but when you gotta save the world, you gotta save the world. It’s still visiting hours the day he gets home, so he goes directly to the hospital.

Tim’s not there. Tim was checked out nearly two weeks ago by the next-of-kin who took custody after his stepmother was killed last month.

He gets the details from a well-meaning nurse, lowering her voice to tell him how Dana was found, killed with one deep stroke of a blade from her lips clear down past her navel. No suspects.

Still reeling from this news, Jason doesn’t realize for over an hour that Tim doesn’t have next-of-kin, and there’s no way Dana’s senseless murder is a coincidence. He does the only thing he can think of. He calls Dick, who answers on the second ring, worried and confused. Jason never calls him.

“Jay? Are you okay? Where are you? I can—”

“Before you found out it was the Joker, who did you think took Tim?”

“What?”

“Answer the damn question, Dick.”

“Um, Ra’s al Ghul was the prime suspect, I guess. He was obsessed with Timmy.”

Jason hangs up. He spends the rest of the night emptying out various bank accounts to get an emergency flight across the world.

If Ra’s was obsessed with brilliant Robin Tim Drake, what is he going to do with this completely vulnerable version he’s taken?

Try to fix him, of course.

He has a two week head start. There’s no way Jason will be in time to spare Tim the Lazarus Pit, but he can get him away before Ra’s tries much else.

The worst part of it, he thinks as he boards the plane, is Dana. Such a gruesome, senseless death—they could easily have spirited Tim away without ever touching her. She didn’t have to die. It didn’t even make things more convenient. The only purpose her death serves is hurting Tim.

Which—of course. Jason has read enough of Bruce’s records, and seen plenty of Tim firsthand, particularly on the worst days, when he’s hallucinating, having episodes—that kid thinks he’s worthless. His parents treated him like shit, and the Bats weren’t much better, especially when Damian showed up. Sounds like the first thing that brat did was try to kill Tim, and Bruce and Dick did nothing about it.

But Dana—Dana loved that kid, and he knew it. And Ra’s had obviously had spies, who would have reported on Jason and Dana. He’d probably assumed Jason was there to watch Tim, sent by Bruce or something. So he waited until the bodyguard was distracted, and took away the only connection Tim had before taking Tim himself. No one else left for the kid, Pit-mad and all, he’d have no reason not to stay with Ra’s. Not Tim. He’d be too damn grateful someone wanted him.

Well, fuck Ra’s. He and Talia never understood Jason. How he cared. Probably thought he’d be glad to have the responsibility taken off his hands. But Jason wasn’t here for Bruce. He didn’t do anything for Bruce. This was about Tim, and he wasn’t about to let a second Robin be destroyed by the same two psychopaths. The Joker was enough. They shouldn’t have to share this too.

And it’s not—fuck. It isn't fair. Dana was great. Jason doesn’t know how much she knows—knew—he never told her the truth, but he didn’t tell lies, either, and she’s a smart lady. She was—she liked him, thought he was good for Tim, good in general.

She wasn’t related to Tim, hadn’t even known him until a couple years ago, but she’d given him everything. Married a millionaire, then stuck by through the loss of his fortune, his descent into alcoholism, and even his death, then kept sticking around to take care of the fucked-up stepkid she’d barely even known before he lost his mind.

She never visited Tim, because he flipped out if he saw her—seriously, lost his shit in a way that made him seem downright stable in the middle of his worst hallucinations, and none of the doctors had a clue why. But she called the hospital every day, and once a week or so he’d talk to her, or at least hold the phone and listen to her, sitting a little closer to Jason than usual. And on the days he had lunch with her, Jason would tell Tim about it after, and it was so clear that he adored her, whatever issues he had face-to-face.

She collected reports from Jason regularly, and always insisted on paying for his food when they met, even though she couldn’t afford it. She’d put every single cent Jack Drake left behind into getting Tim a private room in one of the fanciest hospitals in the country. She worked two jobs and lived in a shitty studio apartment in a bad neighborhood, all her income going to the stepkid who screamed and raged at the sight of her. (And it wasn’t enough, it still wouldn’t be enough for more than another six months, and Jason was getting ready to buckle down and talk to Bruce, demand he cover all the bills since this was all his fault anyway. But he wouldn’t have to do it now. Because Dana was dead and Tim was probably in the Pit already.)

It wasn’t fair. He hadn’t—and he was being selfish, maybe, because he was scared for Tim, furious for Dana, yeah, but that wasn’t all.

He’d had something here. A friend who was happy to see him every day, even if he was only intermittently aware Jason was there. A woman who fed him and asked about his day and actually cared about his answer. It kind of felt like a family.

And then Ra’s killed and kidnapped the only two people who really seemed to care about him, and Jason was going to make the bastard pay.

-

A couple hours of careful eavesdropping once he reaches the base tells him that Tim went into the Pit, came out of the Pit, and ran. He’s somewhere in the mountains now, presumably, and Ra’s isn't sending anyone after him. He knows Tim has nowhere else to go, and he knows that he’ll come back when he realizes he has no other options.

-

It feels unnatural how quickly Jason finds him, once he heads into the mountains, like they’re connected somehow, like maybe the Lazarus in Tim’s veins now, or maybe the Robin, is calling out to what it recognizes in Jason. He knows where to go to find him, just knows, like magic, and he knows, too, that it means something. Something big, means he won’t rescue Tim and take him back to Bruce or someone. Something that means they’re in this, probably in everything, together now. Tim is Jason’s responsibility now, and he always will be, no matter who the law says he belongs to.

He isn't conscious when Jason finds him, so he starts a fire, digs some easily digestible food out of his supplies, and waits. There’s no telling to what degree the Pit will have restored functionality—people usually go in for their bodies. As far as Jason knows, he’s the only other person to go in for his mind, and he and Timmy have very different minds. Jason was catatonic. Just…not there. Easy. Safe. Tim’s mind is fractured into a million pieces, and he feels it, all of it, all the time.

Jason falls asleep before Tim wakes up. In the morning he finds the kid curled into his chest, crying quietly. He sits up carefully, holding Tim out at arm’s length for a better look. Tim makes eye contact, and his eyes are clearer, more focused than usual, but they have that wild edge the Pit brings out. Jason pulls him close again.

Tim is sobbing, shaking, occasionally mumbling something about how much it hurts. And it wasn’t like this for Jason. There was intense pain, yeah, and the confusion and the fear. But when his mind snapped back into place, it happened suddenly, with a wave of white hot rage. Jason’s mind was gone, he reminds himself, and then it came back. Tim has a lot of little pieces to reassemble, and it will be longer before the pain recedes a bit. He needs a distraction, and something better than the one Talia gave Jason.

He pulls away to make eye contact again. “What’s gonna make it better? Anything in the world, babybird. What do you want?”

Tim thinks for a minute. “I want to kill Ra’s al Ghul. Permanently.”

And, okay, Tim’s never killed anyone before, but he was never sickened by Jason’s methods like Bruce and Dick are, and Ra’s definitely deserves to die for this, for everything. And if Tim has enough anger in him here—and Jason thinks he does—if he can put all his focus into Ra’s, and succeed the way Jason kept failing, with Bruce and the Joker, maybe it can satisfy the worst of the Pit in him, and let them move on, let Tim become something like the self that Jason has barely met.

-

It’s not so bad, really. If J.J. is good—bad? He thinks he’s being bad?—if J.J. is good they don’t hurt him as much. They don’t make him talk anymore, so he doesn’t talk, ever. He just smiles, because they like it when he smiles, and also because they fixed his face so he has to smile, and Daddy says that means he can’t ever be sad again, but he doesn’t think it’s really working.

-

Of course, Jason hardly ever worked with Tim, back when he was Robin—he was mostly trying to kill the kid. And sure, he kept an eye on things, read all the reports, had a good idea of who he was, but that was a long time ago, and he’s gotten used to the Tim he actually knows. So he wasn’t prepared.

Because Tim, under the influence of the Pit, is still essentially Tim, in a way he hasn’t been since the Joker. And Tim isn't fast and hard and bloody like Jason is. Tim is cold and calculating and likes to be prepared.

Which is how he ends up spending three months pretending to work alongside the League of Assassins while Tim plays a long con, wherein he is grateful to Ra’s for dunking him in the Pit, glad to be wanted, messed up from the Pit to just the right degree that he doesn’t mind, anymore, the evil that Ra’s carries out.

They don’t interact too often. He doesn’t know what Tim is doing, and he’s not entirely certain he wants to. They’re not going out on missions, not killing anyone, so Jason doesn’t mind much about being there, except for the games he plays with Talia. He suspects Tim knows about Talia, but they haven’t talked about it, and it’s not as if Tim asked him, specifically, for this. It’s just part of the game they’re playing. And Jason can do it. For the end of Ra’s, for the safety of Tim, for the chance this kid might not end up quite as messed up as he is, he can.

Until the day Tim nods at him as they pass each other in a hallway, and Jason knows.

When Talia falls asleep that night, secure in her control over the boy she brought back to life, Jason puts on his pants and slits her throat. Then he chops off her head and brings it with him—you can’t take chances with an al Ghul.

Ra’s is already dead when he finds Tim, drenched in blood and grinning like the madman he probably is, if Jason is being honest with himself. Apparently inspired by Talia’s decapitation, he goes to do the same to her father, and then they’re off.

Tim wanders around the compound collecting things, dropping things, and setting things up. Jason follows him, taking out the assassins that catch them. Then they run to the edge of the mountains, and watch the whole place blow up.

It’s only after they’ve caught and dealt with anyone who survived that Tim stumbles, and Jason catches him, hand coming away red and bloody. And really looking at Tim for the first time in hours, it’s obvious that he has much more blood on him than when they first met up, right after he killed Ra’s. And Jason is such an idiot, because of course, of course, a malnourished teenager is not going to come away from a fight to the death with the most experienced assassin in history unscathed, even a badass malnourished teenager like Tim, fueled by the blinding rage of the Lazarus Pit.

And Tim’s not stupid. Even in his least lucid moments, when Jason first came to the hospital, he doesn’t think the kid would ever have failed to notice if he was bleeding out. So he knows he’s on the fast track to death, and he deliberately hid it from Jason.

So instead of picking Tim up and tossing him into the nearest Lazarus Pit like he wants to, Jason asks, “What do you want to do now?”

“I don’t want to die,” Tim says.

“You know what we can do about that.”

“I’m afraid,” he admits.

So Jason enters a Lazarus Pit the second time, carrying a quickly fading Tim.

When he wakes up it’s the middle of the night. Tim is sleeping beside him, several feet from the Pit, and in the starlight he looks young and peaceful. Jason shakes off the feeling that something is wrong, and falls asleep again.

-

“Come on, Junior. Smile for Daddy.”

“You are not my father,” Tim says, as firmly as he can manage with tremors from the last electric jolt still running through him.

“Junior, J.J., my boy—”

“Stop it! Stop calling me that. My name is Tim!”

Impossibly, the Joker’s smile widens.

“Oh, tell me more, baby,” Harley says in that breathy voice that’s even more unsettling than her maternal one.

He isn't going to tell her anything, obviously, isn't going to blow his cover more than he already has—plenty of people are named Tim, and they’ve dressed him like a doll in this stupid purple suit, but they haven’t taken off his domino mask—it’s fine, everything is fine, his cover is still intact.

There’s a sharp, sudden pain in his arm, and the world goes even hazier than it always is now.

-

In the morning the first thing Jason sees is two heads bobbing in the water of the Lazarus Pit, and he realizes what’s wrong—he entered the Pit conscious and alive just as the sun was rising. He’s lost at least sixteen hours.

“Tim,” he says.

“Don’t call me that.”

“Um…okay?”

“Tim’s dead. I’m J.J.”

Tim does not look peaceful at all in the sunlight—he looks dangerous and manic and much less sane than he did this morning. Of course, nothing looks quite right at the moment; the whole world is red-tinged and hazy. The Pit. Right. He’s just been in the Pit.

He pulls himself together enough to ask, “So when exactly did I lose consciousness?”

“I knew you wouldn’t approve,” Tim says, “so I killed you when we got out of the Pit. It’s been a week, I think. I sort of lost track.”

Then he starts with the Joker laugh, which hasn’t happened since maybe a month before Jason went on his last mission, and Jason buries his head in his knees until it stops. They’re silent for a few minutes, while Jason keeps his head hidden and tries to control his breathing.

“What wouldn’t I approve of, Tim?”

“Not Tim. It didn’t—it didn’t work. I wasn’t—it’s still not—I thought maybe the Pit didn’t really fix me because I wasn’t really dead. I knew you wouldn’t let me kill myself, so I just needed you out of the way for a while.”

Jason puts his head between his knees again. He cannot deal with this. He listens to Tim walk away, and a long time later he listens to him come back.

“I’m sorry I killed you, Jay. Please don’t be mad at me.”

He sighs, raising his head slowly. “You are not handling the Pit nearly as well as I thought you were.”

“I had to keep trying. I had to make the Joker go away.”

“And is he gone now?”

Tim shrugs. “I got over it.”

Jason is finding it difficult to think about anything beyond the sick, dizzy feeling that is some combination of two recent dips in the Pit, the realization of how badly he’s failed Tim, and the fact that his favorite person just murdered him.

“Whatever,” he says. “Now what?”

Tim comes closer, until they’re nearly touching. “Are you mad at me?”

“I don’t know, Tim.”

“J.J.,” Tim corrects him. “No more Tim. You’re Jay, and I’m J.J., and we’ll be the best.”

“The best at what?”

“Whatever we want.”

Jason embraces the dizzy sickness so that he can push the anger down, so the Pit doesn’t make him hurt Tim. Tim, who wants, over a year after everything ended, to go back to being called Joker Junior.

He decides to ignore it—he has to ignore it, because he just spent three months fucking with Talia, got murdered by someone he trusted, and got brought back by the Lazarus Pit, again, and he is hanging on to his sanity, whatever’s left of it, by a thread.

“Something tells me you have a plan already,” he says, and wraps an arm around Tim's shoulder, pulling him closer, because the kid is still hovering, awkward, and he looks like he needs it.

“There are still League members alive,” Tim says, “and you never did get back at Bruce for letting you die.”

Somewhere beneath the dizziness and the Pit rage and the concern over exactly what Tim meant by “keep trying,” Jason is vaguely aware that this is a Bad Idea.

“Gotta finish what you start, Ti—J.J. Let’s go find some assassins.”

“Someone should know about this.” Tim smiles, sharp and vicious. “Gotham’s a long way to go, but I hear Cass is in Hong Kong.”

-

One week later, Cassandra Cain finds an unmarked box on her doorstep. Inside are two human heads, badly damaged, just beginning to decay. One belongs to Ra’s al Ghul. The other is his daughter’s. On Ra’s right cheek, someone has carved “JJJ.”

Cass closes the box and goes to call Bruce. She does not become ill, and is proud of herself for that—Dick and Stephanie, at least, would have gotten sick on the evidence. Damian too, she suspects, but only because they were his family.

Poor Damian.

She won’t worry until later that this likely means someone knows her identity. Even then, she won’t worry much. Whoever comes, she can take them.

Chapter 2

Summary:

“I’m sorry, Jay,” Tim whispers. He doesn’t know why he’s like this, why he keeps fucking up, why Jason keeps sticking around when he can’t control himself long enough to be worth sticking around for, if he ever was in the first place. No one’s ever thought so before.

They spend months running around Europe and Asia, doing whatever they want. They track down League members who weren’t at the base when they blew it. They bring down every kind of bad guy, all around the world, and everything is green-tinged and bloody, and it’s amazing.

Then the effects of the Pit start wearing off for Jason, but not for Tim.

It’s after they deliver the heads, but before the shit show in Belgium, that Jason starts to wonder what the hell he’s doing. He already tried this. It was horrible. That’s why he stopped, and went off with Roy and Kori instead. Roy and Kori, who he hasn’t spoken to since heading back to the hospital after their last mission.

And everything he’s feeling now—he knows it isn't real. It’s just the Pit. Which obviously didn’t fix Tim at all—kid is batshit crazy. And Jason doesn’t even know how old he is. Tim might still be a minor, and considering his condition before the Pit, someone probably has legal custody regardless. People living in mental institutions are wards of state or something, right? He should just stop this shit. Find out who Tim belongs to, take him home, and get on with his real life.

But then Tim will scream himself hoarse from some hallucination. He’ll laugh at something stupid Jason says. His nervous system will go wonky for a day because of whatever Joker did, he’ll hurt himself while Jason’s asleep, he’ll rant for hours about how he can’t understand what Bruce did to Jason, and when Jason has a bad day he’ll pull himself together and deal with it. And Jason realizes that he can’t stop, because he’s all that Tim has. And then Jason will realize that he can’t stop because he loves the crazy kid.

Still, he almost leaves Tim to fend for himself in Belgium. It’s not the kind of place where you expect to find yourself nearly buried in a never ending storm of criminal activity, but Tim has taken to tagging everything they do, like some sort of serial killer, JJJ.

The need to make his presence known is understandable—this is the kid that got replaced as Robin not once, but twice, first by his ex-girlfriend and then by an actual assassin. But it makes it easy for enemies—and they collect enemies fast—to track them down. It’s the only thing that makes it easy for enemies to track them down, because they don’t have identifiable costumes or code names, and they don’t have contact with any villains or vigilantes.

Out of all the lunatics who end up coming after them in Belgium, Tim has to go and kill the one guy that almost all the other guys will get upset about, and then he has a bit of an episode, with lots of hallucination, which still happens sometimes despite the multiple entries into the Pit. Jason barely gets them out of the country alive, and they spend six weeks hiding in Russia before he deems it safe to go out again.

-

“I’m sorry, Jay,” Tim whispers when he gets in one night, in Russia. He doesn’t know why he’s like this, why he keeps fucking up, why Jason keeps sticking around when he can’t control himself long enough to be worth sticking around for, if he ever was in the first place. No one’s ever thought so before.

He remembers the first time his parents left him for more than a week or two. It was about a month after the circus, after he watched Dick’s parents fall. He wasn’t adjusting normally after the trauma, he was too fixated on Dick, worried about some random circus brat he didn’t even know, who certainly doesn’t need your concern, Timothy, he’s a big boy, Timothy, not like you, look at him smiling for the cameras, Timothy, he’s over it, why can’t you be, why do you have to act like such a baby, Timothy, I’m so sick of being woken up by his nightmares, Jack, this isn't normal, I’m so tired, I need to get out of here.

“Whatever, J.J.,” Jason says. “Go to bed; we’ll have to move again in the morning.”

“Sorry,” he whispers again, but Jason’s already gone back to sleep.

-

Jason tries once to get Tim back under control. Once is all he needs to know it’s never going to work.

He doesn’t know when Tim started hurting himself, but he has nightmares for months about the day he notices.

He just wants to be done with all this death and disaster bullshit. So they move to a new location, and he convinces Tim, through various threats and promises, to at least attempt to behave himself. (He’ll regret the threats later, because obviously, obviously, he’s not just going to up and leave Tim behind, but Tim is desperately afraid of being alone, and sometimes misses the obvious.)

It never goes well, but it’s not bad, at first. Tim is sullen and twitchy in turns, but he doesn’t leave the apartment. No one gets hurt—at least not physically, and Jason doesn’t care what damage he can do to people when he works on the computer for hours every day. He’s just sick of hiding from cops and heroes and washing out blood stains.

He’s irritated, but not particularly concerned, the morning he wakes up to find that Tim has, instead of sleeping, carefully removed every bit of electrical wiring in the apartment—Timmy’s been understandably weird about electricity since being electrocuted by the Joker, and it’s not the first time Jason’s had to rely on candles and a gas stove for a few weeks while he gets it out of his system.

He’s pretty sure Tim’s still just expressing general displeasure at the situation when he starts gauging holes in the walls and ripping up carpet, but since Tim stopped speaking to him nearly a week ago, he can’t be positive.

It’s when Tim cuts his hair that Jason starts to worry. Because Tim hasn’t gotten an admittedly-needed haircut so much as he’s hacked off large chunks of hair and also nearby scalp. His left ear is bleeding profusely, at least one fingernail is no longer on his finger, and he seems completely unconcerned about all of this.

Jason applies bandages while the silent treatment continues. And since Tim is clearly still angry with him, and also pretty out of it (which might be due to the bad day he’s very clearly having, the blood loss, or both), Jason decides to give him some space, and try to talk tomorrow.

The next day he comes home from the grocery store to find Tim in a pool of blood, which actually isn't that unusual for Tim, except for the fact that it’s clearly his own.

“Shit,” Jason says, dropping the groceries. “Shit. Babybird, come on, look at me. What did you do? Are you okay?”

He grabs Tim’s shoulders, and he can feel the blood on his hands. “J.J.?”

Tim blinks up at him, once, twice, very slowly. “I needed to hurt, Jay,” he says. Then he passes out.

After that, Jason lets him take out his violent tendencies on other people as much as he wants—he just tries to point him toward people who might sort of deserve it.

-

“Hey, Robin,” Spoiler says, appearing beside him on the roof. They’ve been dating for a little over six months. He is recently fourteen, she is nearly fifteen, and she has not yet taken his place.

“Slow night?” he asks.

“Not for long.” She taps him on the shoulder and runs away across the rooftops; laughing, he gets up to chase her.

They wind up on the other side of town, nearly an hour later, and Steph leans in to kiss him. Tim hasn’t quite got the hang of kissing yet, still thinks it’s kind of gross, still thinks it’s because he’s not as mature as Steph yet, but he smiles into her kiss, and usually that seems to be enough for her. For now, at least. He doesn’t know yet that he’s doing everything wrong, that he’s not just young and inexperienced, that he will never have it in him to be what Steph wants, that it doesn’t matter anyway because he and Steph are a disaster.

His comm link beeps, and he leans away from her, mostly relieved.

Steph sighs deeply, then smiles. “Someday, Timmy, we’re gonna run away across the world where not even Batman can stop our fun.”

-

“Jay?” Tim asks.

“What’s up, Babybird?”

“I don’t want to be in Europe anymore.”

-

Back in the States, they keep doing what they’ve always done—Jason vets people for legitimate badness before letting Tim kill them, Jason plays with his guns and snatches snippets of normal life while Tim siphons money out of various large accounts with his laptop, occasionally destroying random companies along the way, and they move, constantly, always ahead of everyone tracking the Triple J that Tim still uses to mark their presence.

Once, Jason swears he sees the Flash in the corner of his eye as they disappear into a hiding place. Another time, there are several sightings of Wonder Woman just after they leave town. The Justice League is catching up to them. Jason doesn’t know where to run.

“You know,” Tim says when they’re watching the news one day, listening to a special report about the threat of Triple J, “there are no metas in Gotham, and we’ve been learning to hide from Bruce since we were kids.”

“All right,” Jason says, because seriously, at this point, what do they even have left to lose? “Gotham it is.”

Chapter 3

Summary:

Jason makes it to the entryway seconds after Alfred, watches him open the door. Sees Tim on the other side. Not J.J. Tim.

Timothy fucking Drake, in casual, obviously expensive, rich-boy clothes they didn’t own yesterday, with a brand new haircut, scuffed up Converse, unfamiliar glasses, a backpack, and a shy, hopeful smile.

“Hi, Alfred,” he says. “Can I come in?”

Jason isn't too worried when they have a run-in with Poison Ivy. He isn't hit, and he knows what to expect from Tim—Bruce keeps meticulous files, and Jason’s copied and read them all. But Tim’s last encounter with Ivy was before the Joker pumped him full of who-even-knows-how-many crazy chemicals, and, well.

Tim isn't so much hot and bothered as he is screaming and hallucinating with a dangerously high fever. For three days. They’re already in Gotham—Jason is about to give in and call Bruce when the fever breaks. Tim is sleeping, finally, by then. He wakes up later that night, announces his intentions to kill Harley Quinn, and immediately passes out for the next eight hours.

Jason is way too wired to even think of sleeping, despite how completely exhausted he is, so he starts the process of tracking down Harley. Tim’s been out of it, sure, but he doesn’t say things like that unless he means them.

Besides, this is the first time he’s ever heard Tim mention Harley Quinn when not having a major episode, back in the hospital. Harley Quinn, who was an active participant in his torture. And Tim spent the entire time under Ivy’s influence answering to Tim, Timmy, Babybird—anything but J.J., which sent him into a panic like nothing Jason has ever seen. And he knows Tim’s sudden desire to kill Harley isn't a coincidence, but he suspects it’s about more than a bad trip.

And he needs to get himself under control. Now. Before Tim wakes up. Because Tim never, never talks about his time with the Joker, and Jason has figured out enough of it that he knows asking would cross a line, possibly the only line that exists between Tim and Jason.

Hey, Babybird, did Harley rape you? Was it the Joker? Did they both?

Yeah. No. Tim’s time with the Joker is off-limits, no matter what did or didn’t happen.

He doesn’t let himself relax until Tim wakes up and starts planning. Then he can finally sleep. It’s been a long three days.

When he wakes up, Tim has every detail planned out. He’s also burned another brand into his side.

Jason doesn’t say anything. Just goes for the first aid kit, because he knows the kid hasn’t dealt with it properly.

It’s a harlequin mask. Jason still doesn’t say anything, because if he opens his mouth he’s going to vomit.

He’s been trying to rein Tim in. Really, he has. But he cannot wait to kill this clown bitch. Everyone else who ever hurt his bird this badly is already in the ground. Maybe when this is done—maybe he can get better. Maybe they can finally stop all this. Settle down somewhere, get Timmy a whole fleet of therapists. Live real lives.

Yeah. Right. And maybe Batman will find out they’re back in Gotham, welcome them with open arms, and congratulate Jay on taking such good care of his brother.

But it’s so hard sometimes, not to hope. So hard to live with the deadliest person he’s ever met, this absolute force of nature, who looks at Jason like he’s the only safe thing in the world. So hard not to think, he was good, and I ruined him, somehow it’s gotta be my fault. Because Jason has never been safe. Not for Tim, not for anyone. And whatever this is, between them, he should never have let it get this far. But it’s too late now. He’s all Tim has, and if he ever left, the entire world would pay.

-

It’s easy to break Harley out of Arkham—she’s confused but excited when Junior comes to rescue his mommy.

Jason takes care of getting her to the old church where they’ll be doing it—Tim needs some time to scream and cry and throw up, after the show he puts on for Harley.

It shouldn’t be a surprise to find he also tagged Harley’s room after Jason left.

While Tim does what Tim does up in the bell tower with Harley, Jason gets to fight off Batman downstairs. The fight really only lasts a few minutes—if they hadn’t beat Bruce here by half an hour, before word got out from Arkham, they wouldn’t have had a chance.

The problem: usually Tim and Jason don’t bother with masks at all, because no one close enough to ID them is going to live. Jason grabbed some dominos when they came back to Gotham, but, well. Bruce is pretty used to seeing Jason’s face behind a mask. That was half the point of the Red Hood helmet.

Bruce steps back, holds up his hands. “Jay?”

“Shit,” Jason says, because he knows he’s not going to be able to deny it. “Shit.”

“What are you doing, Jason? What do you want with Harley?”

He’s still standing back, so Jason takes the risk of backing up a little, instructing Tim, on the other end of the comms, to abort mission. Jason doesn’t know if he can take Bruce or not, but he knows he doesn’t want to. He doesn’t think Bruce’ll chase him. They can still get out of here. Make a clean escape, go back to staying far, far away from Gotham.

“Why?” Tim asks. In the background, Jason can hear Harley scream.

“Batman’s here.”

“So kill him,” Tim says, casual, like Bruce means nothing to him, like this is like everything else they’ve ever done, nothing personal.

Jason makes eye contact with Bruce, holding his gaze as he says to Tim, “I don’t think I can do that, J.J. You better make it quick.”

Then he swings around to hit Bruce again, and the fight is back on.

“I can’t let you kill Harley Quinn, Jay.”

“Hey, I’m not killing anyone. But who knows, maybe you still have a shot. My partner likes to take things slow.”

He lands one more good hit—Bruce is a little off his game tonight, but that’s probably to be expected, with his long lost son returning as a murderer a second time.

“Now, Babybird!” he yells into the comm, and then he’s running, the bells ringing furiously in his wake. He’ll go out. Tim will go down. And Bruce? Bruce will go up, for Harley, because that will always be his priority. Tim and Jason will be long gone before he thinks about Jason again.

-

“You get her?” Jason asks when they’re back at their warehouse.

“Batman should’ve been there just in time to watch her die.”

“Good.”

-

The next night Jason leaves Tim at the safe house and goes out in his old Red Hood suit to beat up some bad guys. Yesterday was hard, beyond hard, and he needs to work out some stress without having to keep Tim in check. The kid’ll stay put as long as Jason gets back when he said he would, so he’s got a good three hours to himself.

He really didn’t want to run into Nightwing halfway through.

“Hey, Little Wing,” he says when Jay gives up on escape and pauses on a rooftop to talk. “Heard you were back in town. Didn’t hear you were wearing this.”

“What, you never get sick of wearing the same damn outfit every night?”

Dick takes a few careful steps forward, and his voice is gentler and more serious when he speaks again. “Seriously, Jay. It’s good to see you. No one’s heard anything for—I don’t even know. Almost two years?”

“Been busy.”

“Yeah. You gonna try to kill us again, Jay?”

“I don’t know,” Jason says.

He isn't surprised by the blow to the back of his head. He’s mostly relieved.

The relief lasts until he wakes up in the cave and asks Dick how much time has passed.

“Um. About three hours? Sorry—Damian gets a little…overenthusiastic. We sent him to his room.”

That’s a long time to leave Tim unattended, but Bruce appears before he can say anything, or even decide if he should.

“You have Tim,” Bruce says.

“Not against his will.”

“You tracked him down after the last time you were here. You’ve only been on the radar once since then, at least before we knew you were Triple J. Have you had him all that time?”

“Yes.”

“How did you get him to go with you?”

“He didn’t. I followed him. Look, Bruce—I know I’m an asshole, and I’ve done some really shitty stuff to Tim before. But I swear I didn’t hurt him. I didn’t make him like this.”

“I know,” Bruce says.

“You do?”

“An hour ago he blew up a random apartment complex. Fifty six casualties. Eighteen of them children. You would never go along with something like that, Jay.”

“No,” Jason denies automatically, even though that is absolutely something Tim would do.

“You know I have to stop him,” Bruce says.

“I won’t help you bring him in. I know what happens to kids who let you down.”

“What happened to Harley—you kill, Jason, but not like that. I saw her—I heard her—dying. I held her intestines in while I waited for an ambulance. She suffered. You could never be that cruel.”

“And you think Tim could? Think he’s the bad guy here?”

“After the Joker and Ra’s? Yes.”

“I won’t let you hurt him.”

“I don’t want another fight. I just want my sons to come home.”

“We aren’t your sons.”

“Jason, please. Come home. Bring Tim home. If I can supervise you here—if Tim won’t come to the manor, I’ll have to put him somewhere else, before what happened tonight can happen again.”

“We won’t hurt him, Jay,” Dick promises. “We want you guys home, not locked up in a cell in the cave. And I know you can’t enjoy being a part of this, any more than we enjoy watching it.”

“You swear you won’t lock him up?”

Bruce answers, but it’s Dick that Jason looks at, relaxing slightly when he nods. He doesn’t trust Dick to take care of him, and he doesn’t trust Bruce with Tim or himself, but he believes that Dick will take care of Tim. Mostly. As long as it doesn’t interfere with taking care of Damian.

“Okay,” Jason says, “okay. I just—I need a minute.”

He takes back his comm link from Dick and goes to the other end of the cave. He’s going to do this. He thinks he’s known he was going to do this since the moment Batman said his name, but that doesn’t make it easy. Either Tim will do anything not to lose the only person he has, or he’ll think Jay’s betrayed him, and nothing will ever be all right again, for any of them.

“Hey, Babybird,” he says into the comm line.

“Jay,” Tim says, and Jason lets himself breathe for the first time since waking up. Tim’s okay. Whatever crazy, stupid stuff he’s been up to, he’s okay. Jason braces himself for what comes next.

“I’ve been compromised, Babybird.”

Tim agrees to come to the Manor with surprisingly little trouble, but it doesn’t occur to Jason, until they’ve all been waiting in the cave for several hours, that maybe he lied.

It’s midmorning, and Jason, miserable, has fallen asleep on a couch upstairs, when the doorbell rings.

He makes it to the entryway seconds after Alfred, watches him open the door. Sees Tim on the other side. Not J.J. Tim.

Kid always was a damn good actor. It isn't real, but it’s good enough for the rest of the family. Or maybe they just want it so badly they’re willing to pretend it makes any kind of sense.

Timothy fucking Drake, in casual, obviously expensive, rich-boy clothes they didn’t own yesterday, with a brand new haircut, scuffed up Converse, unfamiliar glasses, a backpack, and a shy, hopeful smile.

“Hi, Alfred,” he says. “Can I come in?”

For the rest of the day he answers calmly to Timmy, endures Dick’s hugs, and generally fails to give Jason any indication as to what he’s planning.

Tim waits until the rest of the family has been out for hours, patrolling, before he appears like a ghost in Jason’s room. It’s fine. He wasn’t really sleeping anyway, and he’s been waiting all day for a chance to talk.

“Tim?” he tries, because that’s what it’s been all day.

Mostly invisible in the dark, Tim makes a sound of deep disapproval, and Jason corrects himself quickly.

“J.J.? What’s the plan here?” He really hopes the plan isn’t to kill Bruce. He’s over that now.

“No plan. I’m Tim. I’m just Tim.”

Jason scoots over in bed and holds his arms out. Tim slips into the space he’s made, pressing himself into Jason’s chest, burying his head in Jason’s shoulder.

“I’m so tired, Jay.” And then he’s crying, and Jason resigns himself to another long night without sleep.

It goes on like this for about a week. In the day, Tim is Tim, a nearly flawless mask, all changes easily explained by the torture he’s experienced. He cheerfully interacts with Bruce, Dick, and Alfred, and mostly ignores Damian, who mostly ignores him right back. There are rules—stay in the Manor, stay out of the cave, stay off the computers unless you’re supervised—but no one says a word about Triple J’s serial killing crime spree.

At night, Tim sneaks into Jason’s room to be J.J., which involves blood, tears, threats, screams, and very little sleep for Jason.

Then Alfred finds Jason after dinner one night and rushes him down to the cave.

Tim is locked in an emergency containment cell. Damian has a black eye and an ugly cut on his arm, but mostly looks smug. Jason turns his attention to Bruce and Dick.

“What the hell.”

“He attacked Dami,” Dick says. He looks a little ill.

Jason looks at Tim, standing blankly in the cell, apparently not even registering his presence.

“He’s lying. Damian started it. If Tim attacked Damian, Damian would be dead, and Tim would be gone long before you found the body.”

Dick looks even more ill, but at least Bruce is willing to give Tim the benefit of doubt.

“Damian? Is this true?”

“He killed my mother.”

“I killed your mother,” Jason says.

“I killed your grandpa,” Tim adds, rallying just enough to be completely unhelpful.

“Your mother raped me,” Jason says, before his brain can catch up to his mouth.

Oh shit. Shit. That wasn’t supposed to—he was never going to tell. He wasn’t—he was—

“Damian, come upstairs,” Alfred says. The kid follows him without a word.

“Jason...” Bruce says.

“Let him out.”

Bruce hesitates, so Jason pulls out the gun he isn't supposed to have, and shoots the locks off the containment cells. He hands the weapon to Dick before walking in.

“You promised,” Tim says.

“I know, Babybird. I’m sorry. I’m so sorry.”

Tim is crying now, and Jason pulls him close, holds him tight, and hopes this hasn’t ruined everything. Bruce and Dick are still watching.

“Get out,” he says, and surprisingly, they do.

Chapter 4

Summary:

All things considered, it isn't a shock when Tim pulls the trigger. The shock is that it’s the Joker, not Bruce, that falls over, clutching his chest, that chokes on his own blood and dies. Bruce doesn’t know how long he stands there, frozen, horrified, before he registers that Tim’s hysterical laughter has faded into sobs, and moves mechanically forward to scoop the boy up.

Dick is worried. To be fair, they’re all worried, but unlike Bruce and Damian, Dick isn't afraid to admit that he’s worried. They knew who’d given Cass those heads as soon as Bruce recognized Jason, and they knew things had gone really, really bad, but this is a whole new thing. What Jason told them—and whatever else he is now, Tim is obviously pretty fragile, and locking him up for something he didn’t even do, after everything it took to get him here—Dick is really worried.

So he decides to go downstairs in the earliest part of the morning, before anyone, even Alfred, will be up, to try talking to his brothers without Bruce and his emotional constipation around to screw things up.

But if he thought he was worried before coming back to the cave—

Dick is going to need a whole new scale to rate his worry after this. And he was a cop in Bludhaven, okay? He knows worry.

They aren’t in the containment cell anymore. Jason is sitting calmly in a desk chair. Tim is sitting on the ground in front of him, cutting small gashes in Jason’s leg.

“Hey, guys,” Dick says, aiming for casual and missing the mark by a very wide margin.

Jason glances at him briefly. Tim doesn’t react. He makes another slow cut down Jason’s calf, and Dick winces in sympathy, though Jason shows no sign of even feeling it.

He flounders a bit, apparently the only one feeling this tension, before bracing himself and going back in. “Hey, not that this isn't fun and all, but maybe we should keep the kinky shit out of the cave?”

“It’s not kinky unless you’re having sex,” Tim says, without pausing or looking up.

There’s a brief pause before Dick bites the bullet. “Aren’t you?”

“Ew,” Tim says, his knife hand finally stilling. He sounds more genuinely Tim-like than he has all week. Jason hasn’t spoken, but appears to be debating between outrage and disgust.

“He is sneaking into your room every night,” Dick points out, shifting focus. It’s much easier to address Jason, who at least is still Jason in the midst of the wreckage that is Tim.

“That’s enough, Babybird,” Jason says, and Tim drops the knife, rising gracefully to his feet. He walks quietly across the cave, and Jason meets Dick’s eyes. “That’s not why he sneaks into my room.”

Tim comes back with a first aid kit, and sits down again to open it.

“Seriously,” Dick says. “What are you guys doing here? You’re bleeding like crazy, Jay. This isn't okay.”

“J.J. needed to inflict some pain. I volunteered myself. You’re welcome.”

“J.J.?”

“That’s me,” Tim says. No other explanation is forthcoming, and Dick notices, belatedly, that Tim has not made any attempt to actually treat Jason’s wounds. Instead, he is carefully sorting through the contents of the first aid kit, rearranging with a look of intense concentration.

“All right. Hey, why don’t you let me take care of Jason’s legs there?”

“No.” Tim wraps himself protectively around the kit, and Dick turns back to Jason, completely at a loss.

Jason just smirks at him, the asshole. “He can’t clean me up with something that’s such a mess. Come on, Dick.”

“When is the last time you sanitized your sanitizer?” Tim asks.

He’s categorizing the band-aids now, by character and color, because few things in the world make Dick happier than sticking Hello Kitty on Bruce’s arm because it just happened to be what they had in the box, no, Bruce, I absolutely did not plan this, yes, I know you have a very serious meeting with the Justice League in half an hour.

“Sanitized the sanitizer?” he repeats, utterly baffled.

“There are streaks of blood on the bottle. How are you all alive? How do none of you have HIV?”

“I don’t know,” Dick answers honestly, because this conversation has gotten away from him in more ways than he can even count, and Jason, whose blood is dripping onto the floor now, just looks smug about the whole thing. Is this real? Did Dick actually wake up this morning?

Finally, Jay takes mercy on him, just as Tim begins to dab a cut with antiseptic. “I’ll meet you and Bruce in the library in an hour, okay Dick? Just let us wrap this up quick.”

Grateful for the suggestion, Dick flees the cave. He needs to seriously reevaluate the situation before trying to help his brothers again.

-

Jason can’t decide what’s worse. Even if he doesn’t always think of Tim as his brother, in Dick’s mind they’re all siblings, so he basically just accused them of incest. Also, he apparently thinks Jason’s the kind of despicable person who’d be caught dead fucking a severely mentally ill teenager who’s experienced unimaginable torture and is clearly not capable of consent. Then there’s the fact that he’s apparently clueless about his beloved baby brother’s sexual orientation, as well as his obsessive-compulsive tendencies. They realized in, like, the fifties that electroshock therapy did not effectively alter sexualities. Tim had always been ace, and sex-repulsed. Dick should have known stuff like that about him.

And to top it all off, Dick has not made any attempt, in an entire week, to put any stop to what he should definitely have seen as some sort of abusive situation.

Whatever. He knew he couldn’t rely on his family the moment he woke up in a Lazarus Pit the first time. It’s just, he thought Dick cared more than that, about Tim at least.

He goes upstairs to meet Bruce and Dick.

“He’s not going to be Tim anymore,” Jason says. “I won’t let him.”

Bruce and Dick are obviously not pleased about this, but he cuts them off again before they can really get started.

“Oh, come on. You’re not stupid. It’s obviously an act. And it’s killing him. I guess I know now what you think we’ve been up to every night—fucking disgusting, you Dickhead, he’s my mentally ill little brother—but he just comes into my room and cries. He’s trying so hard to be what you want, Bruce, because he’s terrified of what you’ll want to do to the person he actually is.”

“I don’t want him to be—I just want him to be okay, Jay. And not murdering people.”

“He doesn’t believe that. He can’t. It’s not about the Joker or the Pit or anything he’s done since then. It’s just a Tim thing. That kid has never believed that you cared about him as anything more than another child soldier in your stupid war, and as far as I can tell you’ve never given him a reason to.”

Bruce opens his mouth to speak, and Jason cuts him off. Again.

“You don’t understand him. You never have. I do. Even Ra’s did. And I’m not sorry about the League, Bruce. I’m not. Tim wanted that, and he deserved it, and he was still mostly himself, then. Ra’s could have just taken him from the hospital. Instead, he had Dana Drake murdered, and then pretended to be Tim’s next of kin. Just discharged him, all legal-like. And Tim—he couldn’t see her face-to-face without flipping out, but he loved that woman, and he knew that she loved him.”

Dick makes an awful choking sound that makes Jason feel both guilty and vindicated. He ignores it.

“And that’s all Tim has ever wanted. To matter to someone. To be loved. And Ra’s knew that. So he murdered the one person Tim had left, and dunked him in the Pit, with the idea that Tim would, after an adjustment period, be happy to give Ra’s everything he wanted, just because Ra’s seemed to care about him, and there was no one else. I think it would have worked, too, when the anger from the Pit had faded. He just didn’t count on me.”

Dick looks appropriately devastated. Bruce just looks like Bruce, and Jason is way too tired to translate that into normal human facial expressions.

“Things didn’t get bad until the League was gone. Timmy got hurt, real bad, and I took him to the Pit again. Walked right in with him, because he said he was scared. Then he—he killed me. To keep me out of the way, you know?”

Dick makes another small sound of distress, and even Bruce is visibly disturbed. Jason keeps ignoring it. The murder still hurts, more than he thinks it should, considering how many times he tried to kill Tim, considering that Tim never meant to leave him dead. If he doesn’t power through this now, he won’t be able to later.

“When I woke—when he brought me back. It had been a few weeks. And he’d completely lost it. He wouldn’t answer to Tim anymore. Just J.J. It’s been J.J. since I woke up. He had the heads preserved in Lazarus water, and he’d burned everything else. He’d—shit. Shit.”

“Little Wing?”

“I’m fine. I’m—just give me a second.” He does his best to pull himself together. It’s just so hard, always being okay for Tim, and it’s been so long since he could afford to break down at all.

“Okay. Okay. I’m good. The Lazarus Pit doesn’t make you sane, you know that. They dumped me in catatonic, and it woke me up, but it also made me batshit crazy. Tim was never just…gone, like I was. He was scattered, and the Pit pulled him all back into one place, I guess? So he could focus. So he could have been useful to Ra’s. But then all the messed up shit was right there, you know? Where he could feel it all the time, instead of sort of drifting away when things got bad. So after we—he killed himself. At least four times. Rigged it so his body would fall into the Pit, bring him back. He was trying to drive himself sane. But he just kept getting more and more fucked up, until he was too fucked up to care. And I just…went with it. Because I was fresh out of the Pit, too, but—but mostly—I just couldn’t leave him alone. All he—all he ever wanted—and I was the only one left. So I had to. I had to.”

“Oh, Jay,” Dick says, looking heartbroken. Bruce, uncharacteristically, hugs him, and Jason lets himself enjoy it, just for a moment, before he pulls away.

“No. No. Fuck you. You threw me in Arkham. You slit my fucking throat. I’m here for Tim. This isn't some fucking family reunion.”

He hides out in the library, because Tim, hopefully, is sleeping in his room, and he can’t face him now, either.

It’s about an hour before Alfred comes to find him. This time Jason accepts the hug, and lets himself be vulnerable for a while.

Bruce doesn’t mention the incident, later. Just asks what else he needs to know about J.J. Jason is almost grateful for it.

“You know when he moves stuff around in the kitchen? Like, you turn around for one second, and suddenly your orange juice is on the other side of the room?”

Bruce nods.

“He’s not just being a little shit. It’s a thing. The liquid can’t be too close to the appliances, or someone might get electrocuted. The amount of candles we burn through in our bathrooms—it’s ridiculous, Bruce. And anytime we move into a safe house with a sprinkler system, I have to disable the fire alarm right away, because ‘what if there’s a fire, Jay? And the water from the sprinklers gets into the wires from the fire alarm and there’s a surge and we die?’ He knows, mostly, that he’s being ridiculous, but he can’t help it. It’s best just to humor him—I figure after three weeks of electroshock therapy with the Joker, he’s entitled to an irrational fear for electricity.”

“Anything else?”

“Don’t ask him about stuff. Ever. He does not talk about the Joker. He never talks about the Joker. Don’t call him Tim, and don’t let Damian call him Drake. If you can’t handle J.J.—I can’t, sometimes—find a pet name he’ll respond to. Don’t try to force him into anything, because he can and will eviscerate you, and don’t argue with him, because it doesn’t accomplish anything. Either make it worth his while to do what you want, or have me ask him about it, because like I said, he wants to matter. And he’ll do almost anything for me, because he’s so scared I’ll leave, even though I never, ever would.

“If he spends time with you, give him your complete attention, because that is a gift you cannot afford to waste. Don’t expect him to feel guilty about what we’ve done, because he can’t. He doesn’t have it in him anymore. I’m the only living thing he’s shown any sign of caring about since the Pit. And Bruce?”

“Yes, Jason?”

“You have to love him. You have to love him so much he believes it. Because if he does, he’ll give you everything, and he might even get better.”

-

All things considered, it isn't a shock when Tim pulls the trigger. The shock is that it’s the Joker, not Bruce, that falls over, clutching his chest, that chokes on his own blood and dies. Bruce doesn’t know how long he stands there, frozen, horrified, before he registers that Tim’s hysterical laughter has faded into sobs, and moves mechanically forward to scoop the boy up.

Someone, he thinks, should call the police. Someone should call Jack Drake. Someone should go after Harley Quinn. Someone—but there’s only him. He knows it was stupid, going after the Joker alone, and with so much on the line, but it had seemed equally stupid, bringing someone else into this, after Jason, after Barbara, after—after Tim.

Bruce takes him to the hospital, still Batman, and demands that the first person he encounters call Commissioner Gordon. Jim will know what to do. Jim always knows what to do, him and Alfred, but Bruce isn't ready to put Alfred through seeing this.

Tim starts screaming almost as soon as Bruce lets go of him, so he picks him back up, but it doesn’t help. Nothing helps. It takes Batman and the commissioner to hold him down long enough for sedation to kick in, while Jack and Dana Drake watch, and Tim has never looked so small. His purple suit is torn, and green hair is plastered to his forehead, color leeching out onto his skin. The makeup is streaked, revealing unnaturally pale skin and a smile carved into his face, scabs peeled away by the struggle with the doctors, blood trickling sluggishly down his cheeks. Even sedated, Tim doesn’t look peaceful, and Bruce is afraid he’ll never look peaceful again, and all he wants to do is take care of his son.

But he can’t, because Tim belongs to the Drakes, and he’s only Batman, and all of this is all his fault.

He allows himself, even as Batman, to brush Tim’s hair back and press a kiss to his forehead, because he has a feeling this is the last time he’ll see him.

-

“We need to deal with Triple J,” Commissioner Gordon says the moment Batman appears the night after the bombing. Harley Quinn was one thing, but he’s not going to put up with another team of unhinged freaks blowing up kids in this city. Enough is enough.

“It’s done,” Batman says.

“You weren’t sighted at all last night. How the hell did it get done?”

“It doesn’t matter. They’re not a threat. They’ve been contained.”

“I’m gonna need a little more to go on here, Batman. Contained where? Because I know they’re not in Arkham or Blackgate, and I don’t—”

“Leave it, Jim,” Batman snaps, and Jim pauses, leans forward to study the man as well as he can on a poorly lit rooftop.

Yeah, Batman’s having a rough day. He turns around, looks out at the city.

“It’s a pretty slow night,” Jim says. “I think I’ll go down to that diner on Fifth for a while.”

Batman doesn’t answer—he’s already vanished. But Jim knows that sometime in the next hour, Bruce Wayne will meet him in the diner. It’s not often that they do this, not often that Bruce comes this close to breaking character. But for the big things, things Bruce won’t talk to Alfred about because they hurt Alfred too—they do this. Dick leaving town, Jason dying, Jason coming back, Tim getting taken, Tim being found. They hadn’t gone to the diner after the Joker attacked Barbara, but Batman had sat beside him on the police station roof for hours.

-

“This will be the first night I’ve ever had all my sons at home,” Bruce says.

“Tim and Jason?”

“They showed up—well, Jason showed up in the middle of the night. Tim came this morning. They’ve been together since shortly after Tim and his family left town.”

“Are they doing better?” Jim asks.

“I don’t know. Jason is really only talking to Tim and Alfred, and Tim is acting like everything is fine and normal, which is obviously a lie, but I’m afraid to push him.”

Bruce doesn’t talk like this, doesn’t admit to experiencing normal human emotions like fear, and Jim casts about for a subject change so he doesn’t have to think about how Jason Todd and Joker Junior make three Js, and seeing fifteen year old Jason’s broken body during the medical examination, and the way Tim could do nothing but scream when the police went to the hospital to question everyone involved. They’d gotten nowhere with the questioning, but it hardly mattered—killing the Joker had obviously been self defense, and the boy was obviously not in his right mind. Jim had sent all the other cops out of the room, and he had helped hold the kid down while a nurse sedated him. He doesn’t want to acknowledge, even in his own head, that that kid blew up an apartment complex last night, left Harleen Quinzel hanging from the bell tower rafters the night before, guts hanging out, heart still beating. Jason is bad enough—it still gives him whiplash, sometimes, the difference between the Red Hood and Dick Grayson’s obnoxious kid brother.

“How’s Cass?” he asks, finally, failing to come up with any possible topic of conversation that isn't a potential landmine.

Bruce smiles, slightly; for once Jim must have landed on something safe. “She’s doing well. I believe she’ll be gone for several months yet, but that’s just as well, with Tim and Jason home. She’s been talking to your daughter a lot lately; they’re working on some big project I’m sure we’ll all regret.”

-

Tim doesn’t leave Jason’s room for the rest of the day, and no one quite dares to disturb him. At breakfast the next morning, he trails behind Jason, a completely different person. He doesn’t speak to anyone, doesn’t even look past the floor, never mind about eye contact. He’s wearing clothing that, judging by size, definitely belongs to Jay, constantly twisting and untwisting the hem of the shirt. He doesn’t touch his food at all, but scoots closer and closer to Jason as the meal progresses, until their chairs are touching, and Tim can lean against him.

Jason pours a glass of water and thrusts it into his hands, but otherwise doesn’t acknowledge his presence. A fork clanks against a plate, and Tim flinches, burrowing even closer to Jason, who wraps an absent-minded arm around his shoulders. Watching, Dick wonders, not for the first time, how his little brother can be so dangerous.

“Timmy,” he says. He doesn’t get any farther, because Tim pulls away from Jason to look directly at him.

“I could have killed Damian last night, but I didn’t want to upset Jason. I don’t care about upsetting you.”

“J.J.” Jason snaps, and Tim deflates instantly, leaning into his side again.

Dick thinks about yesterday, watching Tim sort through stacks of hero-themed band-aids, watching Tim calmly slice up his brother, and admits to himself that breakfast is only the beginning of this shit show.

The table resumes its uneasy silence. Tim doesn’t speak again, and neither does Jason. When they all go their separate ways, Dick follows Jay, since Bruce and Alfred will likely be focused on Timmy.

“You okay, Little Wing?”

“Fuck off, Dickface.”

“Hey, chill, I’m just—”

“Being an idiot,” Jason finishes for him. “Leave me alone, and go stake a claim on Timmy. I know he’s going to have to interact with someone today, and you’re the safest option. Find him before Bruce does. And whatever you do, don’t call him Tim again.”

Jason continues walking off, headed for either the kitchen or the grounds—both relatively safe places to leave him unattended. And maybe he’s not as mad as he’s trying to sound. Smiling slightly, Dick heads back the way he came.

-

“Okay,” Dick says, dropping to the floor in front of Tim. “I’m going to need a list of acceptable things to call you, because sorry, but I’m not using the name you got from the guy who tortured and murdered my baby brothers, you included.”

Tim doesn’t answer.

“Jay calls you Babybird,” Dick offers.

“No.”

Dick sighs, leaning forward until they’re almost touching. “I missed you.”

Tim rolls his eyes, and his blatant skepticism about Dick’s feelings hurts more than his own negative feelings toward Dick. He wants to grab Tim and shake him, say to him “I don’t care if you hate me, but how can you believe I don’t love you?”

He doesn’t; it wouldn’t change Tim’s mind.

“It’s not like I was hard to find,” Tim says. “Not before Ra’s.”

“I know. I—Timmy—sorry, J.J.—I didn’t—Bruce didn’t tell me where you ended up. He would have, if I’d asked—I didn’t want to know. I didn’t want to be tempted to—I thought, after everything, you deserved to have a life away from all this shit. You deserved a chance to be normal.”

“Well, I guess it is pretty normal for me to be abandoned by the people I love,” Tim says, bitter. “There’s a precedent.”

Dick doesn’t know what to say to that, so he doesn’t say anything, just sitting there, close and quiet and trying to be comforting, until Tim gets up and walks away.

He doesn’t follow him.

Chapter 5

Summary:

“I don’t know how to do this,” Jason says. “I’ve only been a real person once since I came back, and that ended when Ra’s came after Tim. I don’t know what to do, Dick. I don’t want to be comfortable. Any time I’m comfortable, it ends with dead moms and Lazarus Pits.”

“If you’re not going to wear any of that stuff you stole when we came back here, we should probably get new clothes,” Jason says.

Tim, sitting on the other end of the bed, doesn’t look up when he speaks. He’s doing something on a tablet—Jason’s being trusted to monitor his use, which is worth more to him than he wants to admit—and absently scratching at the skin of his ankle with his free hand.

“I don’t need clothes,” he says.

Jason grabs the scratching hand—he’s already drawn blood, and Alfred can only do so much laundry. They’ve changed the sheets three times already this week, between Tim bleeding on them and Tim experiencing the compulsive need to rip them to shreds.

“You’re swimming in everything, kid.”

“Well, you’re a lot bigger than me,” Tim points out reasonably. He’s been almost exclusively stealing Jason’s clothes since he gave up on pretending things were normal.

“I just think you’d be more comfortable in clothes that fit,” Jason says. And more importantly, maybe anyone else they encounter would have one less reason to jump to the conclusion that they were sleeping together. He’s still pretty freaked out about that.

“I wouldn’t be,” Tim says. He’s abandoned his tablet, using the other hand now to scratch at his ankle. Jason grabs that hand too.

“Fine. Whatever. But you gotta stop bleeding on the sheets, dude.”

Tim looks down, apparently noticing for the first time that he’s thoroughly mauled his leg. Jason sighs. Things aren’t getting easier. Sometimes he thinks it’s getting worse, without the murderous violence as an outlet.

He tries to suppress that thought before he gets the urge to do something he’ll regret.

-

Alfred finds his most worrying charge in a sitting room, methodically gauging the carpet with a knife he is positive he confiscated just yesterday. He kneels beside him slowly, partially to avoid startling Tim, and partially for the sake of his knees.

“Why don’t we find something more productive for you to do,” he suggests.

“No,” Tim says without looking up.

Sighing, Alfred grabs the knife before standing again, offering a hand to the boy on the floor. “Come along, Master J.J. Something to occupy your mind, that’s what you need.”

Tim accepts the hand reluctantly, still not looking at him directly. Master Timothy, Alfred remembers, struggled a great deal with eye contact when he was younger. Physical contact as well. Alfred finds the best way to interact with Tim now is often to focus on memories of Tim as a child, rather than more recent ones. One must be careful to avoid startling or confusing Timothy. It hardly matters that his reaction is far more likely to be violent now—before he grew accustomed to them, Tim was often startled and confused. One must not argue with Master Timothy unnecessarily, as it causes him disproportionate stress. He responds well to firm but gentle instruction. Subtle hints and stern commands are less successful.

One must be patient with Tim, because whatever he is doing, it is almost certainly his best.

-

By the second day, Tim knows Batman isn't coming for him. By the third day, he knows the Joker isn't going to kill him. On the fourth day, he makes his escape.

The Joker laughs when he goes for the torture table instead of the stairs, says he’s a bigger coward than the last little birdy. But Jason wasn’t a coward, and neither is Tim. He knows he can’t escape from the Joker, especially after a few days of torture. His best bet is to preemptively eliminate the threat the Joker intends to turn him into.

That’s when Harley shows up, bandaging various wounds and speaking softly about how Daddy means well, he really does, Junior just has to be good so Daddy doesn’t have to hurt him anymore. She promises to be a much better mom than the one he used to have, and Tim thinks that isn't a very high bar.

Well, Dana—Dana is a—he hugs her back, and wonders, in a distant sort of way, exactly how much of his brain the Joker has fried away so far.

Later that night, his heart stops on the table for the first time. But the Joker doesn’t give up that easily.

-

Jason, Dick observes, is freaking out. He isn't quite sure why, and has a feeling Jason won’t just tell him, so he goes for the fairly wide-ranging, “Everything is going to be okay, Jaybird.”

“You don’t even know what I’m upset about,” Jason answers, and, yeah, maybe the generalized assurance wasn’t actually the best route to take.

“It doesn’t matter what it is,” he tells his little brother. “I know it’s going to be okay, because we’re all here now. We’re together, and we’re a family, and we’re going to take care of each other, no matter what.”

Jason flings himself into an armchair on the opposite end of the room. “Family. Again. Great. That’s just what I fucking need.”

Dick sits down more calmly across from him. “Talk to me, Little Wing.”

They sit in silence for an almost unbearable amount of time, Jay still clearly seething, and Dick is about to give up and leave when something finally happens.

“I don’t know how to do this,” Jason says. “I’ve only been a real person once since I came back, and that ended when Ra’s came after Tim. I don’t know what to do, Dick. I don’t want to be comfortable. Any time I’m comfortable, it ends with dead moms and Lazarus Pits.”

“It’s not going to be like that this time, Jay.”

“Yeah. Because all the moms are already dead. Unless Bruce is planning on getting hitched.”

Dick sighs. “What do you want me to say, Jason?”

“Why do you need to say something?”

“I would like it if you didn’t hate me.”

“I don’t hate you,” Jason says.

“Tim hurts you, Jay. And you like him more than me.”

“Tim hurting me is always my idea. And that’s because I like him. I don’t—we went into the Pit together, Dick. And we had each other when no one else wanted us. I don’t know you like that. All I know is that I’ll never be as good as you.”

“It’s not a contest.”

Jason rolls his eyes. “Says the guy jealous of a psychotic trauma victim.”

“He’s not psychotic.”

“It’s not an insult, Dick. It’s a legitimate condition. Tim is psychotic. He experiences psychosis. So do I, to a lesser degree. If you want to be closer to us, you can start by not ignoring what we’re dealing with just because it sounds bad. It is bad. It’s also real. You could try trusting me not to call Tim names when I’m talking about the extensive torture he’s undergone.”

“I didn’t mean—”

“I know. Sorry.”

“I just wish—you’ve got Bruce and Tim here, and I don’t understand why you’re so mad at me.”

“Dammit, Dick. I’m not mad at you.”

“You sure about that?” Dick asks, eyebrows raised.

The amusement in his voice isn't quite strong enough to disguise the hurt, and Jason realizes belatedly that he’s standing now, and that he’s been yelling. He takes a deep breath and sits back down. Dick waits quietly while he thinks, slowly acknowledging to himself that he is angry, taking the time to figure out why. When he speaks again, his voice is softer, anger still present, but tinged now with confusion.

“Why didn’t you do anything, when you thought I was sleeping with Tim? How could you let me take advantage of him like that?”

Dick looks shocked for just a moment before he pulls himself back together and answers, a little angry himself now.

“Give me some credit, Jay. Give yourself some credit. We didn’t know what was up with Tim yet, but I knew you weren’t a rapist. If Tim was with you, it was because he wanted to be and was capable of making that decision. You would never take advantage. Plus, you know, he killed nearly five dozen people last time we separated you.”

“Right,” Jason says, still struggling to process the fact that Dick didn’t do anything because he trusts him.

“Besides, honestly, Jay? He literally murdered you, and he hurts you on a regular basis. If I’m going to worry about someone in that relationship, it’s not gonna be Tim.”

“It’s not like he’s abusing me, Dickie.”

“Isn’t it?”

“He’s—it’s like—there are two separate things, okay? There’s the self harm, which is a naturally occurring problem, and then there’s the compulsive need to inflict pain, which is a Lazarus Pit issue. I can’t stop him from hurting himself. But if I give him somewhere other than his own body to act on that compulsion, it’s a lot easier to keep him from going too far when he does hurt himself. Sometimes I point him at some bad guys, but it’s getting harder to find people who deserve Tim’s particular brand of working out his issues. I don’t know, maybe I’m going soft, but it is gruesome when he goes at it. If I let him do me—Timmy has no natural desire to hurt me, okay? Kid adores me. So his compulsion conflicts with his desire not to hurt me, and he stops as soon as I tell him too. And then the Lazarus Pit compulsion isn't as strong the next time the Timmy compulsion comes, and I don’t have to worry about him killing himself.”

“Is that a risk?” Dick asks.

“I don’t know, not right now. I know he’s killed himself at least four times in the past, deliberately. I know he’s cut himself enough to pass out from the blood loss, and sometimes he jumps without a grapple gun. I know he was under twenty four hour surveillance at the hospital—he freaked out, way before I got there, about people watching him, so they set up a two-way mirror, nurse always on duty on the other side. Dana couldn’t have afforded that much longer, when she died. I was going to come—I was going to ask Bruce—it was all his fault, anyway.”

“Jason—”

“Look, we just stopped fighting. Let’s keep Bruce out of this and see if we can keep it up.”

“I wasn’t going to say anything about Bruce. I was just going to say I’m sorry that you’ve had to deal with this alone for so long.”

“Oh.”

-

“I don’t want to see them,” Barbara says.

“Babs…”

“No, Dick. It’s not—they’re not my little brothers, but they were my friends. And I don’t want—things were all right, between me and Jason, last time he was in town for any length of time. We understand each other, in ways the rest of you can’t. But that was well over two years ago, and everything since then, everything with Tim—if they want to come and visit me, they’re always welcome, both of them. But nothing you’ve said has indicated that Tim would derive any pleasure from seeing me, and I know it would hurt me to see him. I’m not coming all the way out to the Manor to put myself through that pain. If they want me, they know where to find me, but I have no intention of intruding on the lives they’re trying to rebuild without an express invitation.”

“Babs,” Dick says again.

“Tell them I love them. Tell them I’m here if they need me. Stop pestering me about this.”

Jason comes to see her the next day.

“Hey, Batgirl.”

“It’s Oracle,” she says, but she doesn’t mind, not from Jay.

“You gonna yell at me?” he asks, looking down, shuffling his feet a little.

“Why would I yell at you?”

“What were you thinking, Jason?” he says in a high pitched voice, not quite looking at her. “Of all the people to trust—Talia al Ghul? You should have come to me, you should have talked to me, you know that I of all people understand about the Joker!”

“Yes, well, last time you came back from the dead you were a colossal idiot. This time you were trying to take care of your little brother and got in way over your head. But you still should have known you could come to me.”

“I really couldn’t,” he says.

“Why not, Jay?”

“You just told Dick you didn’t want to see him.”

“Sit down, Jason,” Barbara says, sick of him towering awkwardly above her chair.

He does.

“That is not what I said to Dick. If Tim has any interest in seeing me, you bring him right over. But he doesn’t have any strong, positive emotional ties to any of us at this point, and with Bruce and Dick and Alfred, proximity isn't helping. So if Tim doesn’t want to see me, and seeing me wouldn’t benefit him in any way—you know Dick calls me to vent about him. I know what things are like over there. I’ll be here if he needs me, but yeah, since he doesn’t, I guess I’d rather not be a part of this.”

Jason sighs. “I still couldn’t have come to you. Babs, I broke him. He was fine in the hospital. He was even fine after the Pit. If I hadn’t let him go after the League, if I hadn’t taken him back to the Pit when Ra’s got him—”

“If you’d let him die? Jason, none of this is your fault. None of this is anyone’s fault, except the Joker, and he’s dead. You’ve spent so much time alone in the world, Jay, and you’re still so young, and I know you’re not getting proper treatment for your PTSD, or any of it. And you hated Tim, and you’re not in any position to be an authority figure. But you let go of all of your anger, and you put him first, again and again and again. I don’t think you made all the best choices, but I believe that you tried to, that you did the best you could with what you had to work with.”

“We killed so many people, Babs. I don’t—I still think I’m right about that, but if Tim was himself—”

“But he’s not. And no one blames you for what happened. No one expects you to have been able to control him any more than you did.”

Notes:

Hi, everyone! Thank you so much for reading. I'm so glad you're enjoying the story.

As a reminder, updates are twice weekly, typically on Mondays and Thursdays. (This chapter is a day early because I have a funeral tomorrow.) The completed story will be fifteen to twenty chapters long; I'm still working out some final details.

Chapter 6

Summary:

“Tim?” she asks again, sounding young and frightened and hopeful.

Jason sighs. Tim can’t cope with this. It’s all on him, and Stephanie hates him. Understandable, since he tried to kill the entire family, with special focus on her boyfriend. But it’s going to make this a difficult conversation.

“Steph,” he says, “this is my little brother, J.J.”

Tim is at it again. Has been for hours. It almost hurts, how badly Jason wants to help, wants to do something, to do anything—offer some expanse of flesh, a criminal’s or his own, for Tim to carve, to hold him tight enough he doesn’t have free hands for this, to just sedate him until things are somehow better.

He’s not even hurting himself, not right now. Just the Manor. Jason suspects that soon Alfred will stop trying to replace carpet, repair furniture, repaint walls. Tim just needs to destroy things, sometimes, when he doesn’t need to fix them, which happens less often, but with a much more focused intensity. He scares Jason, like this, the days when he’s blank and unfocused and his hands move to break things without thought behind them.

So Jason follows, and he watches, and he waits for Tim to do something else.

The worst part of today is that somehow the entire family has ended up in this room. There was some talk of watching a movie, Jason thinks, and probably they’d intended to include Tim, make him feel like part of the family, ask him what he wanted to watch. But now they’re all just standing here, watching the slow movement of Tim’s hands, bruised and bloody, as he tears at a rip in the carpet.

“This is ridiculous,” Damian huffs. “Grayson was raped after watching his childhood home and apartment complex destroyed, and he doesn’t run around killing people and destroying the upholstery.”

There is a moment of stunned silence.

“Dickie,” Jason says, sounding strangled, “you—what?”

“Damian,” Dick answers calmly, as if the kid hasn’t just blown all of his secrets, as if his secrets haven’t been blown at all, “my situation is entirely different from Tim’s and Jason’s. I am an adult, and was already an adult when I experienced these things. Jason and Tim were children. I have also never experienced significant head trauma, or been in a Lazarus Pit.”

“Okay,” Jason says, “can we just go back to what the hell—”

“Go to your room, Damian,” Bruce interrupts, “and stay out of locked files. You had no right to that information, and you certainly had no right to share it.”

Damian must realize he’s crossed some sort of line, because he does as he’s told without another word.

Jason looks over at Tim and isn't surprised to find him still completely focused on property destruction—generally, if Tim hasn’t spoken to Jason by breakfast, he isn't going to be really present that day.

It doesn’t mean he won’t remember this conversation, and know things Dick probably doesn’t want him to. But it does mean Jason isn't about to leave him unattended for the sake of Dick’s privacy.

With Damian gone, Dick swears, loudly and profusely, before turning to Jason. “She’s in jail. I will not tell you the name, you will not kill her, you will not go after her. It was a long time ago, it’s the reason I left Bludhaven, the reason I’m living at home again, and we’re not going to talk anymore about it.”

He makes a swift exit. Bruce hesitates for a moment, looking at Jason, looking at Tim, who still hasn’t reacted, but ultimately he goes after his oldest son.

Jason remembers accidently admitting what happened with Talia, and how afterwards he had to shoot his way to Tim, then scream at everyone to leave so he could spend the rest of the night comforting him, before being the kid’s punching bag and running interference with the rest of the family. Remembers how everyone dropped the issues of the al Ghul’s deaths, but never said another word about what happened.

There’s no reason to be jealous. Dick is Bruce’s son. Jason hasn’t been anything but a criminal to him in a long damn time. He sits down on the floor and drags Tim closer, practically into his lap, holding his wrists loosely as he surveys the damage.

“Shit, kid. Your hands are wrecked.”

Tim doesn’t answer, but he doesn’t squirm away, so Jason drops the wrists in favor of wrapping his arms around him entirely. Tim leans into him, a little, and they stay there for a long, long time. It’s nice, having one person to rely on, even if that person is even more messed up that you.

-

“Hey, Timmy.” He sits beside him on the bed—a risky move, since Tim is likely to panic over the proximity if he’s having a bad day. “You miss me?”

Jason’s been gone for two days, largely incapacitated by his own mental health issues. He should have called the hospital and let them know he couldn’t come, but even that level of communication had seemed well beyond his capabilities.

Tim turns to him, eyes blank and unfocused until he notices the mark on Jason’s neck. His gaze sharpens, and he reaches out, stopping just short of touching it.

“Jay?”

“It’s nothing, kid.”

The scar was Bruce’s answer to the question “Who matters more, your son or the man who killed him?”

Jason hadn’t liked the answer.

It usually isn’t this eye-catching, but he has a tendency to pick at it when he’s in a bad place, and without Roy and Kori to stop him, his neck is raw and aching and inflamed.

Tim looks skeptical.

“Really, it’s fine. What do you want to do today?”

It turns out he doesn’t want to do anything, which suits Jason just fine—he’s exhausted after the last few days. They sit on the bed together for nearly two hours before a nurse knocks on the door to say it’s time for Timmy’s lunch. There are two trays of food, because everyone is used to Jason now, and he sends the nurse away. He can handle making sure Tim eats.

-

Tim appears silently at Dick’s side, on the edge of the roof outside his bedroom.

“Hey,” Dick says, because he has to be nice to Tim if things are going to get better. He doesn’t say anything else, because it’s four in the morning, and he’d rather be alone than in the company of the seriously disturbing remainder of his baby brother, especially after Damian’s announcement last night.

“Damian sucks,” Tim offers after a few minutes of silence.

Dick turns around slowly to face him, because commiseration is not something he’s been told to expect from J.J.

“But Bruce will always love you more,” he continues, “and that’s why Jason will always hate you, no matter how hard either of you tries.”

He slips back inside, and Dick flops down on his back. He tries to find some constellations, but the only shapes the stars are making tonight remind him of the Joker. Joker’s smile, on his baby brother’s face. Joker’s helmet, on his baby brother’s head. There’s no escaping it, any of it, and maybe he should try to talk to Jason about Talia, like Tim seems to be suggesting, and maybe he should rip out Damian’s vocal cords before he shares any more fun family anecdotes, but all he can do is go to bed before he tries something stupid like jumping off the roof.

-

“Fuck you, Bruce,” Dick says. “You try being the only non-Alfred adult around here.”

“Excuse me?”

“You heard me. Damian’s a child, Tim and Jason never had the chance to mature past fifteen, and you—it’s always ‘I can’t go to Dami’s parent-teacher conference, Dick, I have to go put on a costume and hit people.’ ‘You’re in charge next month, Dick, I have a play date in outer space.’ ‘I can’t deal with this, Dick, I have to go act stupid at a party.’ I’m not even thirty, Bruce, and some days I feel like your goddamned parent. Take care of your sons. I’m going out.”

Dick barges out of the Cave, not even acknowledging Jason and his blatant eavesdropping. The front door slams behind him.

Jason is a little nervous, heading into the Cave—he hasn’t heard Bruce and Dick fight like that since he was a kid.

“B? You okay?”

“What do you want, Jason?’

If he hadn’t overheard, he would think Bruce was mad at him, but he had overheard, and he had spent the happiest years of his life with Bruce just out of a fight with Dick. He feels suddenly uncomfortable here, as if he’s intruding on his own past.

“Um, nothing. Sorry.” He turns to go back upstairs.

“Jay,” Bruce says.

“What?”

“Are you all right?”

“Am I all right?” he repeats, incredulous. “Am I all right? What the hell kind of question is that?”

“A fairly normal one, I believe.”

“Like you care,” Jason says, but he finds himself walking back toward Bruce, still.

“Dick didn’t mean it,” Bruce tells him. “Well, not the parts about you. He’s just mad at me.”

“Why?” Jason asks, remembering the countless times they’ve had this exact exchange before.

“He’s a little overwhelmed. We all are, right now. He feels the burden of making all of the rest of you feel loved has fallen too heavily on him. Perhaps he’s right. But you and Tim don’t want to spend time with me, so it seems the best way to show my care is to deal with the things behind the scenes. Creating new paperwork. Analyzing the Lazarus Pits. Finding out exactly what the Joker did to Tim.”

“You can’t cure PTSD, Bruce.”

“I know that. But Tim isn't only dealing with the mental and emotional aftermath of torture. We still don’t even know exactly what the Joker injected him with. The trauma can’t be taken away, but we can work on lingering physical side effects. And we can make plans to medicate anxiety, depression, better understand the psychosis. If we can collect the data to medically treat him for what can be medically treated, he’ll be in a much better position to cope with what can’t.”

“That…actually makes sense.”

Bruce smiles slightly. “I know my best is often not good enough, but I do try to take care of all of you in all the ways I can.”

Resigning himself to an actual conversation with Bruce, Jason sits down on the edge of his desk. “He was on a lot of meds at the hospital. Intermittently, at least. It was—it felt more like a nursing home than a psych ward, sometimes. Private room, basically eternal visiting hours, no therapy sessions, at least not that they made him go to. I mean, not that Tim would have put up with any of the standard stuff, anyway. He didn’t really trust anyone after the Joker. Didn’t even trust his mom. Wasn’t gonna just do whatever some—it was always nurses. I only saw a doctor go near him once, and he screamed himself hoarse. Guy had the sense to leave before he did any further damage.”

“We have some footage,” Bruce says, “from the—from when—the Joker recorded it. He appears to have worn a lab coat the entire time.”

“Shit,” Jason says. “That explains that, I guess. Dude was in the standard uniform. Anyway, I don’t think it was a place to get treatment, so much as a place to get taken care of. So the meds were—when he was cooperative. It wasn’t worth it if some untrustworthy stranger forcing him to swallow pills was more stressful for him than whatever symptoms the pills might alleviate. He was much more cooperative after I got there, whatever there is to say about the legal complications of putting some random guy off the streets in charge of feeding and medicating your patient. Dana was fine with it; I guess that’s all that really matters.”

“Did it help?” Bruce asks. Jason knows he’s still talking about the meds—Bruce tends to have a one track mind like that.

“I don’t know. I think, probably? I wasn’t there for the worst of it. He started to chill a lot once I was coming regularly. And a day where he was willing to take his meds was already a good day before he took them, so it was hard to tell how much was him and how much was the pills.”

“But you being there,” Bruce says, “that always helped?”

“Yeah. He’d done background checks on me, you know? And me being nice wasn’t really in line with his other hallucinations, so I was probably real.”

“How do I help him, Jason?”

Jason shifts on the desk, discomfort slowly returning for reasons he doesn’t particularly want to evaluate. He pushes past it.

“He’d be happy if—um. He likes attention, but he’s also justifiably paranoid. So, like, hang out near him. Not close enough to touch, but in the same general area, and just do your own thing. Don’t look at him a lot or anything. And you can talk to him, like, tell him things, or ask him things, but, like, ‘how do you do this?’ Not personal questions. The most personal I think you could get right now without upsetting him is stuff like, ‘did you see the thing?’ Or ‘do you want to do whatever?’ Nothing about how he’s feeling. Even if he slept well last night is risky, because what does that have to do with you? What are you going to do with that information?”

“How did things get so bad?” Bruce wonders.

“It probably started with you training small children to fight insane, powerful, murderous adults.”

There’s a short pause where the post-fight-with-Dick nostalgia is overridden by everything between them in the present. Jason presses back another wave of discomfort.

“Go hang out with him. Get Dick off your back. You’re just running simulations on a blood sample here, right? I can do that.”

-

It isn't until he’s talking to the receptionist at Tim’s hospital that Jason realizes he probably should have made a plan beyond finding the kid. Obviously, you can’t just show up and demand to see a minor in a mental institution without any ID or anything.

He’s not as good with computers or Dick and Tim, but it doesn’t take him long to hack into the hospital servers and get a phone number.

“Hi, Mrs. Drake? This is Jason Wayne. Yeah, one of Bruce’s kids.”

Half an hour later, he’s standing in Tim’s doorway as a nurse goes to speak to him.

“Tell him his brother’s here,” Jason recommends, reasoning that he’ll get in easier if Tim is expecting Dick, and he can work things out from there.

Except Tim flips out as soon as the nurse says it, and from this distance Jason isn't exactly sure what he’s saying, but it’s pretty clear that Timmy does not want to see Dickiebird.

“Tell him it’s Jason,” he calls out to the slightly frantic nurse. At the sound of his voice Tim turns, and he looks—he looks really bad.

Pale, alarmingly thin. Dark, dark circles around red eyes, new pink skin stretching out across his cheeks in a horribly familiar pattern, faded bruises scattered across any visible skin.

Jason misses whatever communication leads to the nurse leaving them in the room alone.

“Hey, Timmy,” he says when the door swings shut.

“Hey,” Tim says, without exactly looking at him. Jason can tell he’s still beyond freaked out, so he settles on the floor at the opposite end of the room, back against the wall.

Tim doesn’t look at him again, but Jason can see the exact moment he relaxes in his presence, the way the tension bleeds out of him. They sit in silence for nearly an hour before a nurse enters the room and kneels in front of Tim.

“You gonna eat lunch for me today, hun?”

Tim shakes his head.

“Come on, Tim. I bet your friend is hungry.” The look she gives Jason suggests that it’s definitely in his best interests to be hungry.

Tim shakes his head again.

“I can’t feed your friend unless I feed you, Tim.”

“I’m starving,” Jason adds, in a tone that is perhaps less than sincere.

“Tim?” the nurse asks again.

He nods this time, and a few minutes later they’re sitting at a small table in the corner of the room, both staring down at plates full of food they don’t really want.

Tim starts shooting anxious glances around the room before either of them gets around to eating anything. Jason doesn’t realize he’s hallucinating until he starts talking to the walls.

As Tim gets more agitated, Jason goes to the mirror on the wall, which he’s fairly certain is how people monitor Tim when they’re giving him space.

“We’re fine,” he tells the mirror, then he goes to Tim, close enough that the kid mostly has to look at him, but careful not to touch.

“Tim. Hey. Replacement. Come on, what are you doing, letting your guard down around me? You know I’m unstable.”

“Robin?”

Jason shrugs. “Close enough. Yeah, kid. I’m Robin, and you’re Robin, and Robin gives you magic, so just chill out and let it do its thing.”

Tim sweeps wide, panicked eyes around the room, but after a few minutes his gaze settles just to the left of Jason, which Jason decides to count as a success.

“Being replaced sucks,” Tim says.

“Yeah. Tell me about it.”

Tim’s eyes drift away again, but he isn't freaking out anymore. Unsure how to start a conversation, and unwilling to just walk out, Jason sits there, watching him, for several hours.

Tim doesn’t pay much attention to him. He stares into space, wanders around the room, mumbles fragments of conversations with people who aren’t there. Occasionally he’ll notice Jason, appearing startled by his presence each time. Jason has given in and eaten the provided lunch by the time another nurse enters the room; Tim has not.

“All right, Tim,” the nurse says. “It’s time for your friend to go home for the night.”

“Bye, kid,” Jason says, standing up.

Once again, Tim seems surprised to register his presence, but when he has, he shocks Jason by hugging him.

Jason has experienced twelve hugs since his death—seven from Kori, three from Alfred, and two from Roy.

He’s too surprised to even hug back, and then Tim is saying, “Bye, Jay,” and then the nurse is escorting Jason out.

He didn’t even get the chance to talk to Tim about any of the things he came here for. There’s no way around it—Jason will have to visit again. He finds he doesn’t mind much.

Later, a doctor will tell him that this is the first time since Tim’s arrival at the hospital that he has spoken directly to someone actually present.

-

“Bruce?” Dick calls into the cave.

Jason swivels his chair around to face him. “Sent him to play with Tim. You’re the one who guilt-tripped him, so I’m putting you in charge of the funeral.”

Dick takes up Jason’s previous seat on top of the desk. “I’m sure they’ll be fine.”

“Whatever.”

“I was going to apologize for earlier, but I’m not about to interrupt actual family bonding.”

“Timmy’s blood is seriously weird,” Jason answers. He’s back on the computer studiously avoiding Dick’s gaze.

Dick sighs. “You’re mad. How much did you overhear?”

“Given Bruce’s immediate reassurance that you didn’t mean it, I’m guessing I missed the worst of it.”

“All I did was call you immature. Bruce wouldn’t worry about that. It’s probably just because we were fighting. He knows how much you hate that. Hated that. When you were a kid.”

“Whatever,” Jason says.

Dick gives up and goes upstairs to find someone who actually enjoys his company. He doesn’t know how to explain it to Jason, how he meant the opposite of what he said to Bruce, how yeah, sometimes Jay has tantrums that would put a toddler to shame, but if he’s never grown up it’s only because he never had the chance to be a kid in the first place, and it hurts Dick how all his siblings had their childhoods stripped away, how Tim and Jason finally found love and safety and fun just in time to be murdered for it. He doesn’t know how to say, without upsetting them, “I know I act like a kid sometimes but I’m the only one in this family who ever got to be one in the first place, and consequently the only one who really gets to be an adult, and sometimes the mature thing to do is to make sure these poor, sad, stunted people have some joy in their lives, whether they want it or not.”

He sighs. He really does owe Bruce an apology; the man may never have dealt with his own loss, but he was the only reason Dick had been able to cope with his.

-

Bruce and Dick and Alfred are helping. Jason knows that. But some days he feels like he’s watching Tim fade away right in front of him. He hasn’t been outside in months. He doesn’t speak to anyone, Jason included, unless he absolutely has to. Lately he’s just been eating whatever food Jason puts down in front of him, like he doesn’t even have the energy to complain, which would be a relief if it wasn’t so out of character, except for the fact that Tim’s poor abused stomach apparently can’t handle consistent food intake anymore, and he’s constantly getting sick, and doesn’t seem to care much about that, either. Dick is constantly offering to supervise him on the computer, but Tim’s apparently lost interest. Mostly he just sits down somewhere in the general vicinity of Jason and stares at nothing for the next several hours.

And Jason knows he can’t blame Bruce for this—he’s doing way more than they have the right to expect for a guy who killed fifty-six innocents the night before he came home. Tim pretty much has the run of the manor. He could go out on the grounds too, if he wanted to, and he knows it. He’s allowed to use computers with supervision, even though he’s absolutely deadly with tech. No one talks about what he’s done. They let him destroy things all over the house, rearrange rooms in the strangest ways until he’s satisfied with the flow of electricity—there’s just something in this system that he can’t cope with. They can all see something’s wrong. They’re all worried. But Jason doesn’t think there’s a version of J.J. that wouldn’t worry them, and he’s been around long enough to know this one is extra concerning.

And somewhere in the midst of all the worry, somehow, there’s still enough room in Jason that it hurts how jealous he is, that he feels the last lingering traces of the Pit well up in him whenever he lets himself think about it, because he never got to have this, and Tim doesn’t even care.

Bruce never disregarded dozens of deaths to bring Jason home; he just threw a batarang at his neck. Jason went through all those terrible side effects that no one ever mentions with only Talia as support, Talia who had been fucking him over in literally every way possible right from the start, and he didn’t have anyone there who’d been in the Pit before, who knew what it did and how to deal with it—Ra’s hated him almost as much as he loved Bruce and Tim, the creepy old man.

There was no one to understand that the Pit healed you technically, fixed up your body well enough it wouldn’t hamper you but didn’t take away the pain, fixed your mind up well enough you could function, more or less, but left you with so much more damage than the blinding rage that was the only part of him anyone could see for years.

Tim doesn’t just have Jason, to understand what his head is doing because his own head has done it too, to adjust their lives and plans accordingly, to explain to him why he’s being betrayed by every part of his body and mind. Because Jason explained it all to the rest of the family, too, the way he wasn’t able to when he was going through it himself, and Tim gets love and understanding and constant allowances for every misbehavior, while Jason only had anger and confusion.

And they all know, now, why Jason was always so angry and afraid, why he disappeared for so long sometimes, why his behavior was so erratic, and sometimes they’d actually seem to make progress, but the next time they saw him, he would just go right back to fighting—he’d act like he didn’t remember the not-fighting at all, because he didn’t, because his head was full of holes and the good stuff was more likely to run right through than the bad.

And they know that he really does think killing is necessary, but sane he’s willing to compromise, and back then he wasn’t capable of it, that sometimes the red on your hands is the only way to get rid of the green in your head, that something inside you hurts so much it drives you mad and the only way to make the pain go down, even a little, is to move it somewhere else, and it’s too strong for you to even think about holding back, you aren’t capable of enough thought to stop yourself until it’s too late, and then there’s just more pain of a different kind, and regret, so much regret, until it all builds up and you’re doing it again.

They know all this now, and they’re so careful with Tim, so gentle, so kind because of it, but they still don’t know how to deal with Jason.

And even if he hadn’t helped them all understand, when Tim came home, he thinks the kid would still have had it better than he did, because Timmy was all fucked up in the head before the Pit, because Timmy came to the Pit from a fucking asylum, because the five or six die-and-dunks may have greatly improved his general lucidity, but they also clearly aggravated whatever issues the Joker gave him, in a big, big way. And, forget it, what is Jason even thinking, being jealous of that? He doesn’t have time for this shit; he has to make things better.

So Tim’s got a whole manor at his fingertips. So what? He still doesn’t have freedom, exactly. Maybe that’s the problem. He waits until they’re halfway out the door to announce that he and Tim are going to see a movie. Easier that way. They can yell at him later, but they can’t stop him now.

Tim perks up a little when they get on Jason’s bike, and a little more when they park downtown and he gets to be in the city again. He doesn’t really want to see a movie—Jason doesn’t, either, but he can’t think of an activity less likely to get Tim in trouble, and he’d really like Bruce not to be too mad at him when they get back.

They don’t have any trouble until they’re out of the theater, walking back to where Jason parked. That’s when Batgirl drops in front of them—literally drops, skidding to the ground and scraping her knee. She pops to her feet almost immediately, grinning brightly.

“Well, that was embarrassi—Tim?”

Tim turns immediately into Jason’s chest, and he can feel his tension, how hard he’s trying not to freak out on his ex.

“Tim?” she asks again, sounding young and frightened and hopeful.

Jason sighs. Tim can’t cope with this. It’s all on him, and Stephanie hates him. Understandable, since he tried to kill the entire family, with special focus on her boyfriend. But it’s going to make this a difficult conversation.

“Steph,” he says, “this is my little brother, J.J.”

“Tim?” she asks. Again. “Tim, it is you, right? Are you okay?”

“Steph,” Jason repeats as Tim tenses further, “this is my brother, J.J.”

She seems to fully register the presence of the Red Hood for the first time then, and he tries not to be too miffed about it—they didn’t spend a lot of time together even in costume, and Jason’s going full civilian, these days.

“What did you do to him?” she demands.

“Nothing. I would never—”

“Like hell you wouldn’t,” Steph says, and, okay, there’s precedent, not that he likes to think about it.

“Look, Stephanie, it’s not—”

“Tim,” she interrupts. “Tim, come on, look at me.”

Then she grabs his shoulder, and, well. Jason has to act fast to prevent something they’ll all regret. This wasn’t a completely spontaneous trip to the movies. Jason wasn’t about to risk lives on this outing—he came prepared.

Tim turns to look at him as the tranquilizer hits, shocked and betrayed. Whatever. He’ll be grateful later.

“What did you do to him?” Steph asks again.

Jason sighs. “Why does everyone assume I’m the bad guy here? He literally murdered me.”

“I was always gonna bring you back,” Tim mumbles.

“Oh, no. We are not having this fight again right now. Fratricide is fratricide, Babybird.”

Tim has passed out completely before he finishes speaking.

“I don’t understand,” Steph says quietly, voice soft and hurt.

“I’m sorry,” Jason says, and he means it. “Call Oracle if you need to; she’ll tell you I’m okay.”

Steph does, walking a few steps away to talk in private. Jason adjusts his hold on Tim, wishing he’d thought things through more, remembering he’ll have to carry the deadweight halfway across town before going home on a motorcycle.

It doesn’t take Steph long to wrap things up with Oracle.

“We’re not done here,” she tells him.

“Of course we’re not. Finish your patrol, Blondie. You can come by the cave after—he should be awake by then.”

-

The first thing Stephanie says, when she enters the cave three hours later, is “What the fuck.”

This is likely in response to the fact that Jason is currently sitting in Bruce’s chair with Tim in his lap, facing him, flicking a cigarette lighter on and off against the skin of his right forearm. Bruce and Dick are standing nearby, paying no attention whatsoever, while Damian argues quietly with Alfred on the other side of the cave.

“Seriously,” she says, “what the hell. Jason! He’s hurting you. Make him stop, Bruce. Make him stop.”

Tim turns to look at her, grinning his insincere but almost believable Timmy grin. “Steph!”

“Hi,” she says, voice completely flat in what Jason suspects is an attempt to hide a great deal of emotion. She’s even almost successful.

“That’s enough, J.J.,” he says, and Tim flicks the lighter off again, handing it to Jason before slipping off of his lap and disappearing deeper into the cave.

“Okay,” Steph says, her flat stoicism quickly failing her, “who is going to tell me what’s going on here?”

No one else answers, and Jason assumes this is his punishment for sneaking Tim out for the night, having to deal with a confused, hurt, angry ex-girlfriend who already hates him. He stands up, ignoring the pain in his arm, to lead her across the room, where they sit on the mats together.

“You know what happened?” he asks her. “Before he left.”

Stephanie nods. “He’d just gone back to being Robin again, after I—after I took it from him. Two, maybe three months he’d been back at it? And Damian had just got here, and Tim and I weren’t talking anymore—we’d been fine when we broke up, but Robin—I shouldn’t—I shouldn’t have—I’d hurt him enough already. I was a kid, you know? I didn’t understand, when we started—when he didn’t want to—I thought he hadn’t really cared about me.”

“Stephanie,” Jason says, feeling distinctly uncomfortable with his expanding role as ex-Robin therapist.

“Sorry. Things were bad. Cass was out of town, when it actually happened. We weren’t speaking. Damian was—Damian was really bad, and Bruce and Dick were putting him over Tim—I don’t know why we didn’t—it’s so obvious now. And he’d been patrolling alone, and no one—no one noticed he was missing. It might have been days—we figured he was with his family, or maybe the Titans, and I guess everyone else was thinking the same thing. We say three weeks, but that’s when we realized. The Joker could have had him for over a month. It was summer. No school. No one looking for him.”

Jason hadn’t known this, and he struggles to control his temper. He’ll explode at Bruce later about the extra time Tim may have been missing.

“His family moved across the country,” he says. “I know you know that part. Then his dad died. His mom put him in a hospital. The good kind. Not like Arkham. Somewhere they were equipped to take care of him. That’s where I found him. That’s where Ra’s found him, after murdering his mother.”

He looks at Stephanie. She’s shaking with rage or sorrow or both, a hand clasped over her mouth. He forges on.

“He was in the Lazarus Pits. More than once. We killed the entire League. His idea. And then we just kept going.”

“You were Triple J,” she whispers. “That’s why Babs benched me when all that happened.”

“Probably.”

She looks at the burn marks on his arm, then back into the corner where Tim disappeared. “I don’t want to be here anymore,” she says.

“That’s okay, Steph,” says Dick, coming up behind them and finally putting an end to one of the worst conversations of Jason’s life. “Go home. Take a couple days. We’ll patrol together this weekend.”

Nodding, she stumbles to her feet, not looking back as she exits the cave.

-

Tim knows his dad is dead. He’s pretty sure he killed him. A bullet that turned into a joke that turned into an arrow or a spear, and his dad watching, so disappointed, while his dad laughs and chokes and dies.

No. that doesn’t make sense. Too many dads. And neither of them is his dad. His dad is dead. He’s pretty sure he—a voice says something about medicine. Damian is laughing at him. He thinks someone is always laughing at him, but not usually Damian. He barely even knows Damian. Why is he here?

-

Jason knows he should be grateful that Tim’s not doing anything dangerous or illegal or downright evil. He knows. But before they came to the Manor and started being good, Tim had other things to focus on, and his OCD didn’t usually mess with Jason’s stuff.

Today he’s decided that the Dewey Decimal System is inadequate, so he’s rearranging the entire library by color. Jason knows he’ll stop caring about it by the time he’s halfway through, because this is just what Tim’s brain does when he doesn’t have something to focus on. But when he’s done caring, he’s done caring, and he won’t help put the books back where they belong again.

Jason is closely guarding a large stack of books he’s unwilling to lose to this color coded nightmare, watching Tim work with increasing horror.

Bruce walks in, wincing at the state of his library, and Jason offers an apologetic smile, because he really is trying to do better with the family. Bruce is holding a carefully wrapped box, and he approaches Tim slowly.

“J.J.? I have something for you.”

Tim turns to study him, eyes narrowed.

“Do you trust me?”

“No,” Tim says, but he accepts the present, dropping down to the floor to open it. Bruce sinks to his knees as well, and Jason sets aside his book, scooting closer. He trusts Bruce, with Tim at least, but there’s still a high chance this could backfire.

“Bruce?” Tim says. Bruce nods.

Tim lifts up a camera, looking delighted, the usual edge completely missing from his smile. For a moment it looks like he might hug Bruce, but he doesn’t. He takes a picture of him, though, and then turns around to get one of Jason, too.

“Going outside. Promise I won’t kill anyone.”

He races away, looking more like Tim than Jason has ever seen outside of video footage, and Jason walks over to Bruce, finds himself hugging him, which was definitely not the plan.

“Thanks, Dad.”

“Tell me this bothers you as much as it bothers me,” Bruce says when the moment has passed. They spend the rest of the day fixing the library. And it’s good. It’s peace. And somewhere outside, Tim is happy.

Days later, Jason will realize this was Tim’s eighteenth birthday.

Chapter 7

Summary:

Bruce laughs. “Come on, Jay. Time to start your homework, or you won’t be able to patrol tonight.”

Jason leaps to his feet, dashing down the hall without another word. Bruce laughs again.

When Bruce gets home from work, the first thing he does is trip over Jason’s backpack, abandoned in the entryway. This is odd, because Jason is the sort of baffling and delightful child who is genuinely eager to finish his homework. It’s after five, and this bag clearly hasn’t been touched since he came stomping through the front door.

Alfred directs Bruce to his office, where Jason is sitting at his desk, looking about as somber as it is possible for a scrawny twelve year old with a Wonder Woman band-aid on his cheek to look.

“Hello, Bruce,” he says, sounding very serious and not quite as dignified as he likely intended.

“Hello,” Bruce answers.

“We need to talk.”

“About what, Jay?”

“About why you adopted me,” Jason says. Then, forging ahead before Bruce can answer, “Because if you’re trying to replace Dick it isn't working. Everyone’s always complaining about it. Why can’t you be more like Richard? Why can’t you be a good student like Mr. Grayson? Why would Bruce Wayne adopt gutter trash when he already has a wonderful boy like Dick?”

“You’re a great student,” Bruce objects, this being the first response that he can think of.

“I know that. So Dick was a mathlete. Whatever. I always listen to the teachers, unless they’re being stupid, and I pay attention, and I never talk to my friends during class. Dick even skipped school sometimes. Alfred said.”

Bruce refrains from mentioning that Jason recently skipped school for an entire year—it hadn’t, after all, really been feasible when he was living on the streets.

“People,” he explains to his younger son, “are terrible. When I first took in Dick, they called him circus freak and monkey boy and gypsy.”

“Oh,” Jason says.

“And you’re not to replace him. You’re both my sons, and you’re both irreplaceable.”

“Okay,” Jason says, relaxing slightly.

“Now. What happened to your face?”

“What?”

Bruce reaches out to poke the band-aid on his cheek.

“Oh. That. Yeah. I got in a fight.”

“Really?” Bruce asks, decidedly skeptical.

Jason sighs. “I have a zit.”

Bruce laughs. “Come on, Jay. Time to start your homework, or you won’t be able to patrol tonight.”

Jason leaps to his feet, dashing down the hall without another word. Bruce laughs again.

-

Jason is having a bad day. It’s the first time since coming ho—since coming back to the manor that things have been this bad.

He’s been amazing, okay? He has fucking Dealt with things. Everyone in the manor is still alive. No one is in jail. No one’s even been seriously injured. He has done so well.

But it’s not like Tim has the monopoly on being screwed up, and Jason doesn’t have it in him to be okay all of the time. He doesn’t have it in him to be okay today.

“Jay?” Tim asks. “You getting up?”

Jason makes a muffled sound he can’t convince even himself was an actual word, and Tim leans over, looking concerned.

“Oh. I’ll bring you some breakfast, okay? Just stay here.”

Tim closes the door gently behind him, and Jason rolls over in bed, telling himself again that he has to get up. It doesn’t help. The panic is pressing in on him, and there’s nothing wrong, he knows there’s nothing wrong, but it isn't—it isn't—shit.

-

This is the first time Tim has ever appeared at the table in the morning alone. Everyone is looking at each other, not saying anything, and he can tell they’re uncomfortable, they don’t know what to do with him standing there without Jason as a buffer, and he isn't sure how that makes him feel, isn't even sure it makes him feel at all, only he wishes someone would say something.

Alfred walks in. “Good morning, J.J.”

“I need food for Jason,” he says.

“Where is Jason?” Bruce asks.

“He’s sick,” Tim says, too quickly, he knows he said it too quickly, he knows it sounded suspicious—“He can’t come downstairs. He’s sick.”

“All right,” Alfred says, “let’s go and see what we’re dealing with.”

“No,” Tim says, darting around to block his path, realizing this is even more suspicious. He hates when Jason has bad days. He’s not good at dealing with things on his own.

“No,” he says again. “He doesn’t like surprises. I have to ask first.”

“I’ll be here when you need me,” Alfred assures him, taking everything in stride the way the others are largely failing to do.

Tim runs back upstairs. He makes sure to knock before opening the door, even though he knows Jay won’t say anything; the warning is important. He kneels down at the edge of the bed and waits for Jay to open his eyes and look at him.

“Do you want to see Alfred?”

Jason shakes his head. Things are getting increasingly fuzzy, and the panic is getting stronger, and the Joker is laughing again, and he just wants it to stop, he doesn’t even care, he just—he just wants—he wants to—

He wants his dad.

“Bruce?” he asks.

“Okay,” Tim says. “If you say so.”

Jason doesn’t talk much when he’s having a bad day, so Tim figures if he’s asking for something he’s going to get it.

Of course, Jason isn't really with it right now, at all, and the day would probably go better if Tim ignored him. Bruce always hurts Jason. He should just make sure Jay eats a little, then grab a bunch of extra blankets, close the curtains, turn off the lights, and sit in bed talking to him about stupid things like they usually do when Jason gets bad.

But he asked for Bruce. So Tim is going to get him Bruce.

-

Bruce’s first thought when Tim comes downstairs alone is that he’s done something to Jason. He may think Jason hung the moon, but he’s also incredibly violent and unstable, and far more agitated that usual. Bruce is willing to give it a few minutes when he goes to ask if Alfred can see him, but he doesn’t like this. He isn't expecting Tim to come back to the dining room, much more calm, and demand that Bruce come upstairs instead.

“He asked for you,” Tim says. “I don’t know why. Maybe he’s having the dying flashback again. So you have to be nice.”

“J.J., what’s going on?”

Tim pauses and turns to look at him, apparently surprised that Bruce doesn’t automatically understand everything that’s happening this morning.

“He’s having—it’s like an episode or something. He hasn’t had one in a while. Not a really bad one, anyway. It’ll probably last all day. And he asked for you. So don’t screw it up. I’ll tell Alfred to cancel all your plans for the day.”

Tim knocks softly before opening the door. “Jay?” he says in the voice Bruce used to hear him use for comforting victims when he was Robin. “Bruce is here for you.”

“Dad?” Jason asks blurrily, lifting his head a little.

Bruce goes to sit on the edge of the bed. “It’s all right, son. I’m here.”

Tim leaves them to it. Bruce called Jason “son,” and that means he’s going to be good about this. It’s easier to stay calm now that he knows Jay is okay, so he goes downstairs to explain to Alfred, and even eats one piece of bacon, because usually it’s Jason’s job to take care of Tim, but when he’s sick it’s Tim’s job to take care of Jason and himself. He sits in the study alone for a few hours, the study closest to their bedroom, and tries to focus on making his thoughts work the way Jason and Bruce and Dick and Alfred want them to, instead of the way the Joker and the Pit want them to.

It doesn’t usually work very well, but he keeps trying until Dick finds him, sitting down a little too close. Tim doesn’t get up and leave like he wants to, because Jason is sick, and that means he has to be good.

“I thought you didn’t trust Bruce,” Dick says.

Tim looks up at him. “I don’t.”

“But you left him alone with Jason. When Jason can’t even defend himself.”

“Bruce would never hurt Jason,” Tim says.

“Then why do you think he’d hurt you?”

“Jason’s his son. And I’ve done all the same things as Red Hood, except I’m not sorry for it.”

“You’re his son too.”

“Dick. He only had custody of me for a few months, and only so I could stay Robin while my dad was sick. He never chose me, and he never really wanted me. I was just useful.”

Dick wants to argue, because of course, of course Bruce wants Tim, loves him, chose him. But reviewing their history, he can recognize that this is, from the perspective of even the sanest of Tims, a completely logical conclusion. He moves on to his next point.

“You know you’re sick, right, J.J.? That’s why you’re not sor—why you don’t care about things like you used to.”

“Is this the part where you cart me off to Arkham while Jay’s distracted?”

“Of course not! This is—this is the part where I suggest that, if you were willing to give it a try, maybe some therapy would help you work through some things.”

Tim looks amused. “Yeah. Right. Find me a therapist I can actually tell about Robin and Ra’s and the Joker, and maybe I’ll consider it.”

“Black Canary?”

“I killed her boyfriend’s ward’s daughter’s mother.”

“Um. What?”

“I’m the reason Lian doesn’t have a mommy, Dick. You’re also gonna have to find a therapist willing to talk to me. Good luck.”

As usual, Dick decides to be optimistic. Jason is bonding with Bruce, and Tim has all but agreed to see a therapist if they can find one for him. Things are definitely looking up.

Chapter 8

Summary:

“He’s really sick, isn't he?”

Jason lets his voice go a little softer, a little gentler, than it usually does for anyone but Tim. “Yeah, Damian. He really is.”

Notes:

Warning for seizure in this chapter - not described in any detail.

Dick is just about to prepare for patrol when Damian races into the cave, uncharacteristically devoid of uniform.

“I can’t find Father. You have to deal with Drake right now.”

“Don’t call him that,” Dick corrects automatically, before he registers that this isn't a routine complaint, that his little brother is actually verging on panic.

“Come on,” Damian says, half dragging him out of the cave.

Jason emerges from behind a couch in the library, scowling when he sees them. “When I said get an adult, I meant Alfred,” he snaps.

“Be more specific next time,” Damian says before racing down the hall, presumably in search of Alfred.

“What’s wrong, Little Wing?”

“Timmy’s having a seizure,” he says, ducking back behind the couch where Tim, Dick thinks, must be located. Seizing.

“What?”

Jason pops up again. “I don’t have time for this, Dickface. Go on patrol.”

“I’m not going to patrol while my baby brother is having a seizure, Jay.”

“I need Bruce! And he’s not going to stay with me if Batgirl is out there alone.”

He returns to his position behind the couch, speaking too quietly to make out the words. Dick goes on patrol.

He does not fail to note that Jason wants Bruce for himself, not just for Tim, but that’s a conversation that can wait until morning, when Tim’s okay.

-

Dick tries to talk to Damian when he gets back from patrol, figuring no one else would have thought about it in the chaos.

Damian doesn’t want to talk, of course, but he’s still, hours later, visibly upset, and it bothers Dick a lot that Dami could just be shoved to the side like this, when he’s the only actual non-adult in the house, and also the person present when his big brother suddenly started seizing.

Dick doesn’t understand how he became the responsible one here, and he isn't sure he likes it.

Alfred gets a pass, because he’s probably been monitoring Tim all night, and Tim gets a pass because he’s just had a seizure, and also not really feeling the empathy these days. Jason and Damian don’t interact, likely, Dick admits to himself, for good reasons.

The problem with Bruce is that he can’t deal with more than one thing at a time. Sure, he can save Gotham and save the universe, juggling Scarecrow and Penguin and an alien army with ease, but the man can only cope with a single emotional investment. Right now it’s Tim, with occasional attention to Jason since they’re a package deal these days.

That’s probably how all the trouble started with Tim in the first place, now that Dick thinks about it. In the months leading up to his capture, Damian was, as a new arrival, Bruce’s one emotional focus. And Dick can admit, now, that he got caught up in it too, was so excited about a new baby brother that Tim, moved mostly back in with his dad, had fallen by the wayside.

He had more than fallen by the wayside, because when Damian had attacked him, they had attempted to address his complicated emotions without punishing him for hurting Tim.

If Dick had been patrolling with Tim in those last few months, as he should have been, instead of trying to bond with Dami, he might never have been captured by the Joker.

And if Dick and Bruce had been there for Tim at all, had made Damian treat him properly, maybe he wouldn’t, three years later, be firmly convinced that none of them had ever cared about him.

None of that can happen again. Dick will be there for the entire family, if no one else can.

-

“What is the point of being here if I can’t rescue the animals?” Damian asks.

This day at the zoo is not going the way Dick had hoped.

“Well, you vetoed the park, and the arcade, and the mall, and the beach, and the amusement park, and the library.”

“You are acting even stranger than usual.”

“What? I can’t spend time with my baby brother?”

“In daylight?”

Dick sighs. “Bruce has been really busy lately. I just want to make sure you know how much you matter to us.”

“Of course I matter.”

“Five years ago, Tim would have said the same thing.”

“Drake is…” Damian pauses, considering. “Mentally unsound. I am not.”

“Yeah, well, let’s keep it that way, huh?”

“Please. As if I could ever be as weak as Drake.”

Dick chooses to ignore this. “I’m proud of you, Dami. You’ve been doing a good job being nice to him.”

This is an exaggeration—mainly Damian is doing a good job ignoring him. But it’s significant progress from the first few weeks, and from the time before the Joker, especially considering that Tim killed his grandfather and is now taking up all of his father’s time and attention.

“Not as nice as I would be to that gorilla if you let me rescue him from these miserable conditions.”

Right. The zoo failure. He’d almost forgotten about that.

“Fine,” Dick says. “We’ll bond your way and patrol together tonight.”

“I did not intend on going out tonight,” Damian answers, not quite meeting his eyes.

“You were going to skip patrol?” Dick asks, deeply skeptical.

“It is Pennyworth’s night off. He has plans. I believe he will cancel them in favor of looking after Drake and Todd. It isn't fair.”

“So you were going to look after them instead?”

Damian nods.

“That’s so sweet, Dami.”

He flushes, looking away.

“Okay,” Dick says. “That’s a great plan, but I have a better one. How about you and I go on patrol, Alfred takes his night off, and Bruce takes care of Tim and Jay?”

-

Jason scowls. “I don’t need a babysitter.”

“I’m not here to babysit you, Jay,” Bruce says.

“J.J. doesn’t need a babysitter either.”

“J.J. had a seizure less than twenty four hours ago. Forgive me for needing to see with my own eyes that my son is safe.”

These must be the magic words, because Jason deflates instantly.

“He’s usually pretty quiet after a seizure. Easier to manage. Watch a movie with him—something he liked before. It will help him stay calm.”

Bruce goes to set up the television, aware that this is a test; Jason wants to see if he will successfully remember what Tim enjoyed.

Tim is very subdued tonight, and lets himself be herded over to the couch by Jason, sitting between him and Bruce, trembling slightly. Bruce piles on blankets, not that it seems to help much. But Tim does watch the movie, does stay calm and even, apparently, focused, at least until he falls asleep.

“Will he be all right?” Bruce asks, quietly, over Tim’s head.

Jason nods. “He had twelve seizures in the hospital. Twelve that I know of, at least. This is only his third since the Pit. All that electrocution, I figure.”

“Will you be all right?” Bruce asks next.

Jason hesitates for just a moment, and then his face closes off. “I told you I don’t need a babysitter. Just watch the damn movie, Bruce.”

-

Jason is sitting on the couch with a book when Damian appears. Tim is sitting beside him, with a long, sharp sewing needle. Jason has just redirected the absently stabbing hand from Tim’s thigh to his own, and Tim seems unaware of the change. He tries to ignore Damian, and the stinging pain of the needle, but braces himself for trouble, anyway.

The kid stands there for several minutes, just staring at them, silent. When he speaks, he sounds almost like the child he is.

“He’s really sick, isn't he?”

Jason lets his voice go a little softer, a little gentler, than it usually does for anyone but Tim. “Yeah, Damian. He really is.”

Damian nods, looking thoughtful, and then he drops to the floor at Tim’s feet. “J.J.?”

Tim looks up slowly. Jason takes advantage of his distraction to snatch the needle and shove it deep into the padding of the couch, where no one will ever find it again.

“Will you tell me about how you killed my grandfather?”

“Why?”

“So that I will be better prepared for future attacks.”

Tim frowns, but his face clears quickly. “Okay. Sure.”

Jason quietly gives up on his book for the day. This is going to be the most fucked up story time ever. This is a terrible idea. This is obviously a terrible idea that can only end in huge amounts of bloodshed. But Damian is interacting with Tim willingly and without anger, and Tim is calm and animated and no longer stabbing. And hey, they’re both fucked up kids. Maybe this is some kind of fucked up therapy that Jason’s just the wrong kind of fucked up to get.

And things are better, somehow, after that. Like between Tim and Damian, ‘tell me how you murdered my family’ is a peace offering. They don’t fight. They don’t even avoid each other. Sometimes Jason will find them in the cave, playing with sharp, deadly weapons that neither of them is allowed to use.

Jason begins avoiding the cave. He trusts Damian not to kill Tim. He trusts Tim not to kill Damian. He trusts Tim not to kill him. He does not, however, trust Damian not to kill him. Or vise versa.

There’s not really a way to come back from ‘your mom fucked me when I was way too sick in the head to consent, so I waited a few years then chopped her head off.’

He’s pretty sure he could take the kid, but if he attacked, Jason would automatically retaliate in a way he knew he’d regret later, and Tim would probably come to his defense in a way he’d really, really regret later, and overall, it’s just better if Jason, Damian, and very dangerous weaponry don’t spend much time in the same place.

Chapter 9

Summary:

Bruce pulls his son closer, stroking his hair. “I’m here, Jay. I love you. You’ll never be alone again.”

Jason walks into the cave to find it occupied by a machine he’s never seen before. Tim is lying in this machine, while Bruce does something on one of his dozens of computers. The machine is glowing.

“What are you doing?” Jason asks, with a level of dismay he feels is appropriate to the situation.

“Bruce is trying to fix my brain,” Tim says. He sounds bored, but he’s cooperating easily enough to make Jason seriously concerned about what Bruce has promised him in exchange for whatever this is. A brain scan?

“It’s an MRI,” Bruce explains.

“Oh.”

He’d almost forgotten that Bruce was trying to figure out what was wrong with Tim. Beyond the trauma and the Pit, of course.

“You okay, Babybird?” he checks.

“Yeah,” Tim says, voice slightly muffled by the whirring of the machine.

Jason shrugs and heads back upstairs. Bruce can waste his time however he wants to as long as Tim doesn’t mind.

-

Tim is hanging upside down from the edge of his bed, and Jason is trying very hard to resist the temptation to flip him right-side up again before his hair dries weird. It was just such a struggle to get his hair wet in the first place.

He’s been coming here for about two weeks now, and he’s gotten friendly with Dana and a lot of the staff; he’s got a crappy apartment, and Roy and Kori know he’s busy for a while, but he can still do research and surveillance crap for them.

This morning, he walked into the middle of what is apparently an ongoing battle between Tim and everyone else over personal hygiene.

It’s not like the kid is gross and filthy. He’ll keep himself reasonably clean, because Tim is not the kind of kid who can handle being gross and filthy, at least not for longer than it takes to beat up the bad guys and get home to take a shower. It’s just that it’s been several weeks since he was actually submerged, or whatever—Tim’s doctor feels that sponge baths and dry shampoo are not quite equal to the occasional shower.

And the showers are occasional, because he tends to pitch a fit—one of the nurses tells Jason that someone got a black eye last time. If he would actually communicate about why the shower freaks him out they could figure something out. But he won’t. So Jason’s just spent two hours trying where various medical health professionals have failed.

The good news is that if you’re a traumatized former Robin under the constant supervision of strangers for whom you have not run background checks, a fellow traumatized Robin is preferable to said strangers in pretty much any situation.

“They’re always there,” Tim says first.

“I’m pretty sure they just want to make sure you’re safe, Timmy.”

He looks skeptical.

“Promise. I ran checks on all of them.”

Tim relaxes slightly at that, but only slightly. “They have to watch me. And I don’t like the lights. And their watches and their pagers and—it isn't safe, Jay. It isn't safe.”

And that’s something they can work with. Even after just a few days, Jason understands the electricity issue.

“Is there any way,” he asks a nurse, “that he can shower in the dark?”

She frowns. “That seems a bit unsafe, doesn’t it?”

“You could use candles.”

It takes about an hour of consultations and negotiations, but eventually Tim is in the shower, and then Tim is out of the shower, and then Tim is hanging upside down, and the blood is rushing to his head and his hair is drying weird.

Jason just watches him. He isn't sure if he should try to talk to him or not; Tim’s been anxious but fully lucid for the entire morning, so maybe he needs a break, some time to sort through his thoughts while he has full access to them.

Or maybe Jason needs to take any chance he gets to actually communicate with the kid. He decides to attempt a conversation.

“So I met your stepmom the other day.”

Tim flips upright immediately. “Dana?” he asks warily, as if Jason might mean someone else.

“That’s the one.”

“Oh. What did you tell her?”

“That you were my little brother.”

“Are you—are you sure it was Dana?”

“Positive,” Jason says, thinking maybe this was a bad idea. He knows that Tim doesn’t see Dana, can’t see Dana, but he’d figured since Tim was lucid maybe they could talk about why. Like they did with the showers. Only Tim is getting kind of weird about it.

“Did you see my dad there?” he asks.

After a brief hesitation, Jason decides not to pull any punches. “Your dad is dead, Tim.”

“Oh.”

“You went to his funeral. Two weeks later Dana used his life insurance to put you here, because you were terrified of her and she wanted you to feel safe.”

“Oh,” Tim says again. “That was nice of her.”

Then he flops onto his back and closes his eyes, a clear indication that the conversation is over. Half an hour later he wakes up screaming. He isn't lucid again for nearly a week.

-

Jason wakes up to Alfred shaking him, which hasn’t happened in years. It’s still the middle of the night, and he’s alone in bed.

Shit.

“Alfie? Where—”

“He went out.”

Shit, shit, shit, shit, shit. “Like, out, out?”

Alfred nods. Jason starts pulling on clothes.

“We got a tracker on him?”

Alfred gives him a comm link, Oracle pouring out information as soon as he lifts it to his ear. He’s out the door and down the hall without another word. Grabs a spare bike. Doesn’t even bother with a domino mask. No time.

Timmy, what are you doing?

The man is clearly dead when Jason arrives. Robin is on the other side of the alley, unconscious but breathing steadily. Batman and Nightwing are still on their way, and Jason tries, desperately, to think of a way to make this disappear before they come.

Tim stands in the middle of it all, drenched in blood, lacking the manic grin usually present at times like this.

“J.J.?”

Tim makes eye contact, letting out a long, shuddering breath. “I wasn’t going to—fuck. This was not the plan. I don’t have—my stuff is still at the manor. Fuck. Whatever. You coming?”

And that’s it, isn't it? Tim can’t be locked up. Jason can’t leave Tim in the world alone. So they’ll run. He nods once, sharply, and pulls the comm link out of his ear, tossing it to Tim. Tim crushes it with his boot, then moves to join Jason on the motorcycle. They’ll have to ditch it soon—it definitely has trackers. But they can’t escape Batman on foot, either.

Except they can’t escape Batman at all, because before they’ve even left the alley, he’s grabbing the back of Tim’s shirt, pulling him straight off the bike.

Jason slams the breaks. There’s a brief scuffle, then all the fight goes right out of Tim, so Jason lets it go, too. Tim, suddenly limp, is wrapped up in Bruce’s cape, and Dick collects Damian from the ground, still unconscious. They leave. They know Jason will follow them—of course he will. They have Tim.

They all gather back at the cave, Alfred taking care of Damian while Jason wraps an arm around Tim, who’s completely checked out, glaring up at Bruce and Dick.

“You can’t lock him up. It’ll kill him. It’ll kill him. And if it doesn’t, it’ll destroy the world.”

Damian begins to wake up, and Dick rushes over to the exam table, like this, like Tim’s entire life, doesn’t matter at all. Bruce just keeps staring at them.

“Do you see him right now, Bruce? He’s not hearing this conversation. He’s not here. And sending him to—we’re talking about him not coming back. If you did that, when he’s just starting to trust you, if I let you do that, that level of betrayal—if you don’t get an empty shell, you’ll get a killing spree like you’ve never seen. If he can still function, after we lock him up like I promised we wouldn’t—and that’s a huge if, Bruce—if he can still function, he’ll break out immediately, and then he’ll keep on doing what we were doing, but without me as a calming influence. And I know that me as a calming influence is pretty hard to picture, but the things I’ve talked him out of—Bruce. Bruce, Dad, please. You’ll kill him. Please.”

It won’t come to any of that, he knows. He won’t let it—they’ll run. But where? With the Bats actively looking for them? He can’t go back to Roy and Kori—not ever, but especially not with Tim. Roy went back to rehab after Jade died, had to leave Lian with Ollie fucking Queen for six months, and there’s no proof, but Jason is pretty sure Tim killed Jade to upset him, after a particularly stupid fight, back in the early days before he learned not to fight him about stupid things.

He’s let Tim burn every bridge he had left, and he has no idea where they can go from here. And Bruce still hasn’t said anything, and he doesn’t—he doesn’t—

“It’s not his fault,” Damian says. “I switched lines, so we could continue a conversation while I patrolled. I got taken by surprise, and he was the only one to hear. That’s why he went out. That’s why he killed the man.”

“Jason,” Bruce says.

“Yeah?”

“Take him upstairs. Get him clean. We’ll continue this discussion over breakfast.”

He nods, picking Tim up and carrying him to the stairs, since Babybird still isn't here, at all. He’ll snap out of it soon. And if Bruce was sending him to Arkham in the morning, they’d probably be in a containment unit. Not their bedroom.

Jason sets Tim on a bathroom counter, peeling off his blood soaked clothes, and allows himself to hope.

But he’ll still be packing emergency bags tonight, just in case.

Tim is fully aware of what’s going on in the morning, as far as Jason can tell, but he isn't speaking or making eye contact. Jason herds him out of bed and down the stairs. If they don’t go to Bruce, Bruce will come to them, and he’d rather have this confrontation in an open space with multiple exits, like the dining room.

“What happened last night,” Bruce says as soon as they sit down, “cannot happen again. Do you understand me, J.J.?”

Tim nods.

“Look at me, J.J.,” Bruce says.

Jason kind of wants to yell at him, but Tim killed a man last night, so he’s not willing to press his luck as long as things stay calm.

Tim meets Bruce’s eyes.

“You don’t leave the grounds alone. If there’s trouble, you come to one of us.”

Tim nods again. Jason wonders if Bruce can see how he’s shaking.

“Dick says he talked to you a while ago about seeing a therapist, and he’s been looking for someone trustworthy. We’re going to do that. Twice a week.”

“Okay,” Tim says, voice hoarse and strained.

“Come over here,” Bruce says.

Tim circles the table warily, stopping a few feet from Bruce, who stands and hugs him.

“I love you, J.J.,” he says, “and I’m very proud of you for protecting your brother.”

Jason watches, awed, as Bruce walks away, leaving Tim stunned. He did it. He actually fucking did it. He handled the problem without pushing Tim away or making him feel threatened. He even used the opportunity to potentially build more trust.

He really did not think Bruce had that in him.

And a small hard part of him wonders why Bruce could never answer Jason’s murders with I love you, never be proud of him for the people he saved, even if he hated the methods.

He shrugs it off and goes to collect Tim, still standing where Bruce left him. He takes him back to their room, privacy to ask the question that’s been bothering him since last night. The others can take things at face value, but Jason knows his babybird, and he really doesn’t believe that Tim cares whether Damian lives or dies.

He doesn’t hate him or anything. Tim just hasn’t had it in him to care about anyone since the Pit.

“Why did you protect Damian, J.J.?”

One of Jason’s favorite things about Tim is that he knows exactly what he’s supposed to say, in situations like this, but he tells the truth instead.

“I thought it would make you happy, and it would make Bruce trust us more. I wasn’t planning to kill him. You know how I get when it’s been too long. And it’s been a really long time, Jay.”

-

About an hour later, Tim appears like a ghost at Bruce’s side. “You made Jason sad.”

“How?”

Tim’s look of profound disgust suggests that Bruce should already know this. “I know it’s only because you’re afraid I’ll go on another killing spree, but you’ve never been this nice when Jason kills someone.”

He’s gone as quickly as he came, and Bruce sighs. Tim was right to be disgusted. He should have known. But it’s so much harder with Jason. Because Jason will tell him exactly what to do with Tim, and there’s no one to tell him what to do with Jason. Because Jason seems so much stronger, more stable, in comparison with Tim. Because Tim is dangerous, right now, in a way that Jason clearly isn't, and it’s so easy to get caught up in it, to do what he can to neutralize the threat that is J.J., and forget that his love is more than a tool, is something that his sons deserve and need.

He goes to find Jason.

“That was flawless, B,” Jason says. “The name, so it’s clear you’re talking about who he is, not who he was. Calling Damian his brother, to affirm his place as part of the family.”

Bruce sits down on the couch beside him. “Jay.”

“Yeah?”

“You’re doing such an amazing job taking care of Tim. You were there for him when none of us were, and I can’t even imagine how bad things would be if you hadn’t been. I can help Tim because you tell me how. But I don’t know how to help you. I don’t know what you need.”

It takes Jason several minutes to answer.

“You almost killed me,” he says. “I asked you to choose between me and the Joker, and you made your choice. You cut my throat.”

“I know,” Bruce says, with a calm that is far from what he’s feeling. “And I don’t know how to apologize, because nothing will ever be enough.”

“It would be something.”

“I’m sorry, then. Jason. I’m so, so sorry. It was the worst decision I ever made. I thought I could save everyone, but I should never have risked it at the cost of you.”

“What would you do? If we could go back.”

“I still wouldn’t kill the Joker. I’m sorry, Jay. I can’t—I couldn’t come back from that. I’m not as strong as you are, as Damian is, as I hope Tim will be. But I would let you do what you needed to do. For the Joker—just for the Joker. And then I would bring you home.”

“No Arkham?”

“No Arkham,” Bruce confirms, and watches some of the tension bleed from Jason’s shoulders.

“I know you didn’t mean to—the hospital was good, for Tim. I know you meant it to help.”

“I should have known better than to turn to Arkham for help. Especially with the Joker there too.”

“I could hear him laughing, Dad. All the time. I thought—I thought I’d die again, just from the sound. I’d rather be dead, than living like that. And you chose him. He killed me, and you chose him.”

“I’m so sorry, Jay. I’m so, so sorry.”

“You won’t send me back?”

“Never.”

“Not back to Blackgate, either?”

“No matter what you do.”

“Say you won’t hurt me again,” Jason says.

“Never intentionally.”

“I’ve been alone for so long.”

Bruce pulls his son closer, stroking his hair. “I’m here, Jay. I love you. You’ll never be alone again.”

Jason doesn’t believe him. Not quite. But he lets his dad hold him, and he pretends that everything will be okay.

Chapter 10

Summary:

“He’s a lot better,” Jason tells Barbara, and means it. Tim is too small but not skeletal, covered in scattered scars but not currently sporting bruises or bandages, quiet and focused but lacking that frightening intensity that so often characterizes such moods. He’s better. He’s actually getting better.

Dr. Derkin stands up when a young man enters the room. He’s a few minutes early, and usually she’d collect him from the waiting room when she was ready. She’ll have to talk to her receptionist about letting him through.

“Hello. You must be Tim.”

“Nope. He starts next session. My name is Jason, and I’m here to make sure you don’t screw this up.”

“This isn't really—”

“How things work? It is now. Bruce Wayne is paying for these sessions. You do what he says. And the first thing he says is that you better be really serious about your doctor-patient confidentiality, lady. Someone asks you about Tim Drake? You say ‘who’s that?’ Your receptionist, too. Timmy’s been kidnapped and tortured enough times already. No one knows he’s in Gotham. No one knows he has anything to do with Bruce.”

“He’s been kidnapped and tortured more than once?” This is why she asks patients to fill out a basic information form before the first appointment. Not that anyone ever does.

“Yeah. This is the part where I give you the recap so you don’t freak out on him next time. He was held by the Joker for three weeks when he was fifteen. He killed the Joker in self-defense, was rescued by Batman, then left Gotham with his family. He spent several months in a psychiatric hospital before his stepmother was killed, and some seriously unsavory types managed to get custody through a variety of broken laws. That’s when the psychotic break really occurred.”

“This is the boy who killed the Joker?”

“The Drakes did everything they could to keep his name out of the papers. Bruce Wayne helped—he had custody of Tim while Jack Drake was in his coma. He has custody now, as well. Or whatever you call it when you’re legally responsible for an adult who can’t be responsible for himself.”

“That would be—”

“I don’t actually care. Here’s the deal. You don’t see Tim alone. I’m in all these appointments unless he asks me to leave, which is pigs-fly levels of unlikely. You’re going to see right away that he’s a danger to himself and others. Doesn’t matter. You never say anything about holding him anywhere. That is the worst thing you could possibly—I might actually murder you. And you don’t call him Tim. Or Timothy, or Mr. Drake. It’s J.J. That stands for Joker Junior, but you never, ever say the actual words Joker Junior in his presence. It’s just J.J. He’s gonna break your shit. We’re gonna replace it. We’ll see you on Thursday.”

-

Bruce is grateful that Jim comes to the house instead of confronting him as Batman. It makes it easier to be a father instead of a crime fighter.

“We found a body last night,” Jim tells him.

“Oh?”

“Missing the tag, but otherwise it looked a lot like what we were finding when Triple J was in town.”

“I thought Batman dealt with that,” Bruce says, careful to maintain eye contact and keep his voice level.

“So did I,” Jim says.

“There’s no evidence?” he checks, even though he knows there isn't, because he and Dick went back and cleared the scene.

Jim doesn’t answer. “I’m on your side, Bruce. You know that. But if my city is in danger…”

“It’s not. It’s handled. And Arkham wouldn’t hold him any better than it did the Joker.”

“It was Tim, then,” Jim says, because Arkham has already succeeded in holding Jason.

“Can I see them?” he asks after a few minutes of silence, thinking this whole mess will be easier with sweet, scrawny, awkward little Tim Drake fresh in his mind.

“Call him J.J.,” Bruce answers.

Tim looks mostly like he always has, and Jim can’t decide if this is more disturbing because he should have grown in the last three years, or because he looks nothing like a serial killer. He’s curled up on the couch like a cat, halfway onto Jason’s lap, but sits up when Jason says, “Hey, commissioner.”

Tim blinks a few times, but otherwise doesn’t acknowledge Jim, turning around to tug on his brother’s sleeve.

“Jay,” he whines, “I was sleeping.”

“Sorry, babybird. Stay here, okay?”

Jason stands and leads Bruce and Jim out of the room, giving Bruce a look he hopes expresses his extreme displeasure. He’s damn lucky he brought a cop over on the day Tim’s week of screaming nightmares finally caught up with him, and not on a day when he was itching to rampage.

“So, what’s up?” he asks the commissioner.

“Just visiting. You taking care of yourself, Jason? Keeping your nose clean?”

“Don’t I always?”

Jim allows himself to smile, a little, at the blatant lie of this rhetorical question. It’s the first time in years he’s seen Jason unmasked, and he’s surprised but how much he still resembles the little boy in the Robin suit who used to steal cigarettes from his pocket while he was talking to Batman.

“Take care of your brother,” he tells him.

“I will.”

-

Half an hour into her first appointment with Timothy Drake, Dr. Derkin is seriously considering an early retirement.

He’s an attractive kid, slender and pale with big blue eyes and messy black hair, older than he looks in too-large clothes. For the first few minutes everything is normal, aside from her lingering irritation over scare tactics, as well as the presence of Jason. Tim—J.J.—is constantly turning to the man for confirmation, leaving him to answer her questions more than half the time. J.J. is quiet and anxious, clinging tightly to Jason’s arm until he climbs halfway into his lap. This is when the tone begins to change.

“Tell me about your relationship with Jason,” she says.

He straightens a little, eyes narrowing. “We’re not fucking, if that’s what you’re asking.”

It’s a bit of a shock, hearing him phrase it that way, and so casually, after the impression she’s gotten in the last few minutes. Jason, she notices, is smirking now.

“That’s not what I’m asking, J.J. I’d just like you to tell me about Jason.”

“He’s Jason.”

She isn't sure why or how the conversation has taken such a turn, or even what kind of turn it is. Nothing has really changed, except that J.J. no longer seems frightened and breakable and innocent. The subject matter has entered his comfort zone, she assumes, but there’s something about his comfort zone she doesn’t like. He has become suddenly unsettling, in a way she is not yet sure how to articulate.

“He’s Jason,” she repeats. “What does that mean?”

J.J. shrugs, displacing his too-wide collar and revealing a shoulder covered in faded scars. Jason reaches out to hide them again, and Dr. Derkin takes note, but waits for J.J.’s response.

“He came for me. Twice.”

“When you were kidnapped?”

“Sure,” he says after a moment of unfocused hesitation. It is at this point that she notices Jason’s steady tapping on the inside of his arm.

“What about the rest of your family?”

“I don’t want to talk about them.”

“I think you need to.”

“He doesn’t want to,” Jason says. The tapping increases. It occurs to her, not for the first time since meeting Jason, that the lack of privacy in therapy is highly irregular, and that Wayne’s habit of collecting orphan boys is decidedly peculiar.

“All right,” she says. “Let’s talk about Morse code.”

Neither man answers, but Jason’s fingers still.

“J.J., is Jason telling you what you should and shouldn’t say?”

“Yeah,” he says, leaning casually back against his chest, seemingly unconcerned.

“Is your family hurting you, J.J.?”

He looks at Jason, then starts laughing, which is when she really begins to regret things, because he doesn’t stop, the laughter slowly shifting to an eerily familiar pitch.

Jason seems frozen, looking as young and frightened as J.J. did when they first walked in.

“J.J.?” she asks. She wants to reach out and touch him, try to calm him down, but gets the impression it would only make things worse. All amusement has faded—he just seems unable to stop.

Jason snaps suddenly to attention when she speaks, pulling J.J. closer and wrapping his arms tightly around the small, shaking form.

“Come on, kid. You’re okay. He’s dead, Babybird. They’re all dead. You put a spear through his chest, remember? It’s okay. You’re scaring the therapist, Babybird.”

He continues for several minutes, until J.J. is quiet and still, while Dr. Derkin sits helplessly across from them.

J.J. murmurs something she doesn’t catch, then turns back to her, apparently completely calm and collected. His voice is a little different, too—in fact, he seems almost like a different person entirely.

“I apologize for my outburst. No, my family doesn’t hurt me. In fact, I hurt them. Jason, at least.”

He smiles, a mocking, vicious expression, and flicks a wrist at Jason, who obediently rolls up his sleeve, muttering something about the stupid Timothy Drake-Wayne CEO voice.

The rolled sleeve reveals an arm littered in scars—cuts, burns, and other marks she can’t identify.

“J.J. did this to you?”

Jason shrugs carelessly, his other arm still wrapped around the boy’s shoulders. “It’s better than doing it to himself. Much harder to stop when he gets going on his own skin.”

It takes her a moment to regain her bearings, suspicions of domestic abuse having spun wildly out of control.

“I appreciate the effort to help J.J., Jason, but this really isn't healthy.”

“Don’t care,” he says. He tugs J.J. closer, and the kid leans back, beaming at her. The Morse code has returned, but now it’s J.J. tapping messages onto Jason’s thigh. This is when she starts to think about getting out while she can.

Because, all right, it was fine when she was dealing with a deeply traumatized boy who couldn’t cope with being separated from his caretaker for the length of one session. She knew what to do about an abuse victim being accompanied to therapy so he wouldn’t spill the beans. She thinks she could have worked out the truly unnerving bout of hysteria. But what was she supposed to do with this codependent mess? One boy hostile, the other completely unpredictable and evidently violent—Jason had mentioned that he was a danger to himself and others, but she hadn’t realized the danger was to Jason specifically. She couldn’t treat a boy who refused to discuss pertinent topics, had secret conversations with his companion, and either had DID or was putting on an impressive act for significant parts of the session, especially when said companion completely supported his refusal to cooperate. And she couldn’t treat an abuse victim who was only present to supervise his abuser.

“Ask him what’s wrong with him,” Jason suggests.

J.J. answers without waiting for the question to be posed: “PTSD. An attachment disorder. OCD. Some abandonment issues. Pseudo -psychopathy caused by severe damage to the—what is that? Frontal? Amygdala? It doesn’t actually matter—they’re both damaged. Several hours of electroshock by a psychopath with no training, you know? I’ve got a brain scan if that would help, but it’s before round two.”

“Round two?”

“They did all the testing after recovering me from the Joker. Been through some shit since then.”

“Would you like to talk about it?” she asks.

“No.”

-

“Come over tomorrow,” Barbara says. “Bring Tim.”

It’s really a shame they’re on the phone, preventing her from seeing the extreme skepticism on Jason’s face. “I thought you didn’t want to see him until he asked for you. You were really firm on that point, actually.”

She sighs. “Alfred called. Asked me to come up with something to keep him busy. I want to test it.”

-

“He’s so tiny,” Babs says, watching Tim as he works on her computer. She’s designed a set of programs intended to keep him occupied without enabling him to access anything potentially dangerous; Alfred says he’ll feel better and cause less trouble if he has something to keep his hands and his mind occupied.

Jason eyes Tim critically. “He’s actually put on a lot of weight since coming to the Manor. Fifteen, maybe twenty pounds?”

“Shit,” Babs says, even though Babs never says things like that.

Jason thinks of the Tim immediately before the one that showed up at the doorstep looking like a real person. The Tim run ragged by a race around America with the Justice League at his heels. The Tim who got dosed with sex pollen and spent days screaming and crying, caught in terrible hallucinations. The Tim who expressed his frustration by blowing up an apartment complex, the Tim who pressed hot iron into his skin.

That Tim hadn’t slept, had very seldom eaten and never kept food down, and had, Jason can recognize now, been spiraling farther out of control than ever before.

“He’s a lot better,” Jason tells Barbara, and means it. Tim is too small but not skeletal, covered in scattered scars but not currently sporting bruises or bandages, quiet and focused but lacking that frightening intensity that so often characterizes such moods. He’s better. He’s actually getting better.

“Barbara,” Tim calls, and she turns to cross the room. “I’ve finished it. Give me another?”

“Of course. Harder this time?”

“Of course,” he repeats, and Babs turns back to look at Jason, smiling.

He smiles back; this was a good idea. Much better than Alfred’s last idea to help Tim, which had begun with a reorganization of the kitchen and ended with calling in a construction crew and eating takeout off paper plates for three days.

-

“I know our conversation went in a different direction last time, J.J.,” Dr. Derkin says at their second appointment, “but I really would like to discuss your relationship with Jason. It’s obviously important to you, but I don’t know what it entails.”

The two look at each other, and it’s another quick round of Morse code before J.J. answers.

“We might be brothers. It depends on the exact nature of Bruce’s current custodianship over me. And on whether Jason is alive or not.”

Well, that’s interesting. “Why do you think Jason might not be alive?”

He looks surprised for a moment. “Jason Todd? Bruce Wayne’s second son, killed tragically and mysteriously in Ethiopia?”

Jason elbows him.

“What? You said I needed to be honest with my therapist.”

“Brat,” Jason says, sounding more fond than annoyed.

She decides to leave his tragic and mysterious death for later—Jason doesn’t like talking about himself unless he can see a way for it to benefit J.J.

“So Jason is your brother,” she says.

“I don’t know, at the moment. I’d have to ask Bruce.”

“All right. Let’s talk less about your legal relationship and more about your personal one.”

“He’s Jason,” J.J. says, just like he did last time.

“I still don’t know what that means, J.J.”

“I trust him,” he says, and she gets the impression this is the highest praise he can offer.

“Can you tell me why you trust him?”

“He visited me in the hospital.”

She waits for more; J.J. opens his mouth, then pauses and turns to Jason, who shakes his head.

“None of your business,” Jason says.

They don’t make any more progress that day.

-

When Jason arrives at the hospital he’s met immediately by a frantic nurse.

“You have five minutes to get him calm before we proceed with sedation,” she says.

“What happened?” Jason asks. He gets the feeling Tim spent a lot of time sedated before he found him.

“He was hurting himself,” she says. She’s one of the younger nurses—probably hasn’t been here long, and probably won’t stay here long either. She’s always too distressed when the crazy kid acts crazy. “And he’s stronger than most of us, and he wouldn’t stop. We’ve got Mark restraining him, but that’s started him screaming. Something about Bane?”

Shit.

Mark, as it turns out, bears no resemblance to Bane, but then Jason has to take into account the fact that Tim is injured, constantly hallucinating, and being held down by a man significantly larger than himself.

Tim also has blood streaked down both arms from scrapes he could only have made with his fingernails, which is odd since he usually bites them off.

Mark seems relieved to step aside and let Jason take over the pinning. Tim’s stopped screaming now, but he’s still doing everything in his power to heave himself away.

“Hey, Timmy,” Jason says quietly, doing his best to sound non-threatening and he holds down the kid’s wrists and ankles. “Come on, man. Bane’s gone, okay? Promise. But you gotta calm down.”

“Robin?” Tim asks.

“Close enough,” he says, like he does every time Tim makes this heartbreaking and infuriating mistake; this is the fourth. “You gonna be okay if I let you up now?”

Tim nods, and Jason slowly draws back, allowing him to sit up.

“Can you tell me what happened to your arms, Tim?”

He frowns; Jason isn't sure how to interpret that, so he leaves it alone.

“Mark and Stacy are here. You know Mark and Stacy?”

Tim nods, which at least means he’s somewhat connected to current reality.

“Good. Can you let them help you clean up your arms?”

“Mark?” he checks.

Jason nods. “Mark.”

“Okay.”

“Do you want just Mark, or Stacy too?”

“Just Mark.”

“Okay,” Jason says. “Do you want me to stay with you?”

“I’m fine,” he says. “I’ll remember. Mark.”

Chapter 11

Summary:

“I know I’m not exactly an excellent father, Damian, but you can always come to me, no matter what I’m busy with.”

Damian’s face scrunches up alarmingly. “Not exactly excellent? My mother is dead. She’s dead, and no one cares. And I’m not supposed to care either, because she hurt Todd, but I do. The only person who’ll even listen to me is J.J., and he doesn’t care about anything.”

Jason is actually pretty excited when Selina Kyle appears in the front sitting room. He likes Catwoman, and he hasn’t seen her in ages, probably hasn’t had a real conversation with her since he was fifteen.

“Hey, Selina. Haven’t seen you since we got back. You and Bruce have a fight or something?”

She doesn’t return Jason’s smile. “Oh, we’re about to. Bruce?”

He steps into the room immediately, which is a sure sign that Jason’s not as observant as he should be today.

“Is there a problem?” Bruce asks.

“That depends. Did your kid kill my friend?”

“I’m not sure I understand.”

“Bullshit, Bruce. Harley died in your arms after Timmy fucking Drake practically sliced her in half. And after all these years of shit about moral codes and not killing, he’s living in the manor with you like nothing ever happened."

Jason gives them a few minutes to work themselves up before he gets sick of it and decides to remind them he’s in the room.

“Look. Tim hasn’t told me about Harley. He doesn’t talk about anything to do with the Joker, ever. But there are three things I know that seem pretty damn pertinent. Harley Quinn was there the entire time Joker tortured him, he decided to kill her after a really bad reaction to sex pollen, and he killed her the same way the League of Assassins killed the stepmother he loved and couldn’t stand being near. Also, he’s just as crazy as her, maybe crazier, so I don’t know where you get off holding him responsible for this, when you’re willing to forgive her for pushing him to the point where something like this could happen.”

For a moment, they both look stricken. Then Selina tilts her head toward a different room; Bruce follows her silently.

Sighing, Selina sits down on one of Bruce’s ridiculously elegant couches. “She never would have hurt him if it hadn’t been for the Joker.”

Bruce remains standing. “Selina, he never would have hurt her if it hadn’t been for the Joker, either.”

She sighs again, running a hand through her hair. “At least he’s still alive.”

“If you ask, he’ll tell you Tim died. He’s J.J.”

“Shit,” Selina says. “The Joker actually won.”

Bruce doesn’t answer. They stare quietly at each other for a few minutes.

“I need to leave town for a while, Bruce. Is there anyone I should bring with me?”

“If he wanted someone in Gotham dead, they’d be dead already.”

She nods and stands to go.

“Selina?”

“Yes, Bruce?”

“How did you know?”

“A little bird told me. I think your Robin is feeling neglected.”

-

“Is that really all that you know?” Bruce asks Jason when they’re alone.

“It’s all I know for sure. Except—well, the idea was that they were going to make him into their son, right? Joker Junior?”

Bruce nods.

“I think, after his shitty parents, and you sending him away, and killing the Joker—I think maybe a part of him was expecting—maybe even hoping—that she would come after him. I mean, he definitely hated her, and I think she was the reason he couldn’t see Dana, but at the same time—he just wanted someone to want him, you know?”

“Stockholm Syndrome?” Bruce asks.

“I don’t know. Maybe. Probably. Shit, Bruce, we all know the kid’s fucked up. But Harley hurt him, bad, probably in a few different ways. And I’m not sorry, anymore than I am about Ra’s. I’m not. I don’t care about your stupid moral code—I’ll follow the rules, because I’m living in your house. But I still think they deserved to die. And maybe it was too brutal, the way we did it. But it’s what Tim needed, and I did my best.”

“I understand, Jay. I don’t approve, but I understand. And I’m not holding Tim—not holding either of you—responsible for the things you’ve done when not of sound mind. That mistake has cost us too much already.”

Jason shrugs, uncomfortable. “Sorry about Selina, though.”

“She loved Harley. I love Tim. We can understand each other—she just needs time.”

“Right.”

Bruce pauses, considering. “Are you all right, Jason?”

“I don’t want to talk to you about it right now.”

“Okay. Do you want to talk to Alfred?”

He thinks about this. “Yeah.”

“Okay. I think he’s in the kitchen. I need to go find Damian now.”

-

“I hear you’ve been spending time with Selina.”

Damian looks up. “She does not mind my company.”

“I’m sure she doesn’t, but neither do we, Damian.”

“You and Pennyworth and Grayson are busy with the…less mentally stable members of our family.”

For Damian, that’s remarkably tactful. He’s been doing well in general lately; Bruce should probably have mentioned something by now about how proud he is.

“I know I’m not exactly an excellent father, Damian, but you can always come to me, no matter what I’m busy with.”

Damian’s face scrunches up alarmingly. “Not exactly excellent? My mother is dead. She’s dead, and no one cares. And I’m not supposed to care either, because she hurt Todd, but I do. The only person who’ll even listen to me is J.J., and he doesn’t care about anything.”

“Damian,” Bruce starts, and finds himself unsure how to continue.

“Selina lets me play with her cats, and she is better at pretending to care than J.J. is.”

Bruce rallies and makes a second attempt. “I’m sorry you didn’t feel you could come to me with this. I’m not always good at juggling my responsibilities, and parenting tends to be where I drop the ball.”

“You’ve been busy,” he says again, apparently calm now.

“That’s not a good enough excuse. I loved your mother too, once. It has been difficult for me to think about what she did to Jason, and what Jason did to her, so I haven’t. I should have considered how that repression would impact you.”

There is a long pause in conversation.

“Thank you, Father,” Damian says eventually, very stiff. “I would like to go back to my drawing now, if you do not mind.”

“Of course, Damian.” Bruce makes a note to find Dick and send him Damian’s way; he connects with the boy much better than Bruce does.

-

“Do you miss him?” Tim asks abruptly.

Dick immediately turns his full attention to his brother—Tim almost never initiates conversation.

“Miss who?”

“Tim,” Tim says.

Dick reaches out to tap him gently on the shoulder, which is the most physical contact he can generally get away with in absence of express permission.

“How could I miss you? You’re sitting right here.”

“You know what I mean,” Tim says.

“Yeah.” Dick sighs. “I do.”

“So?”

“So what? Why do you care? I thought you didn’t feel things anymore.”

“Wow,” Tim says. “You’re in a bad mood.”

He sounds like he might, just maybe, be a little hurt—one of the many emotions he claims not to feel, and not something that anyone would notice who didn’t know Tim like Dick did—had. Like Dick had.

“Sorry,” Dick says. And then, since Tim’s still waiting for an answer, “Yeah. I miss you. I love you no matter what you’re like, but I miss the version of you that loved me too. I hate that you don’t trust me or care about me, that you don’t trust Bruce, I hate that the Joker did this to you, and there’s nothing we can do about it, not even kill him, because he’s already dead.”

“You wouldn’t kill him anyway,” Tim says.

“Does that matter? You’re my brother. I love you. And the last time I saw you—the version of you I miss—you wouldn’t have wanted us to kill him.”

“He killed me first,” Tim yells. “And you left me all alone.”

“I’m sorry,” Dick says, helplessly, because there’s nothing else to say, “I’m sorry.”

“Whatever,” Tim says dismissively, transitioning seamlessly back into his don’t feel don’t care attitude. “I want on a computer.”

Sighing, Dick gets up to make computer time happen. Manipulative little bastard, his brother. Dick isn't even sure if any of Tim’s distress was genuine, or if it was only to guilt-trip Dick into what he wanted.

He does miss Tim. He really, really misses Tim.

-

Tim always had an exceptional memory, so now that his head is sometimes still enough to really think, it’s pretty clear where things went wrong. The first gap in his memories dates back to about a year before he was taken by the Joker. There are a lot of gaps in his head for that year, but there aren’t more gaps than memories until the Joker. He’s missing the majority of the first eight months, and things don’t start to improve until Jason.

And then there’s the Pit, and suddenly he has everything again, in startling, overwhelming clarity, and all of the blank periods coincide with moments when he knows he wasn’t even remotely lucid.

Everything about Damian is fragmented, snatches of violence and hatred here and there. He is missing the memory of meeting Dana, but he remembers the wedding clearly, and months worth of frustrating family meals, where his dad acted like this was normal for them, and Tim tried desperately to escape for patrol. He remembers breaking Jason out of Blackgate, and shortly afterwards, Jason trying to kill him, again. He remembers not minding, because he understood how messed up Jason was, and he is so grateful that Jason is here now to understand how messed up he is.

The problem is that Tim remembers exactly who he was before this shit. He can recall every detail that ever defined him, perfectly, up until he was fourteen and a half. But he can’t figure out how he got from there to here, and he can’t understand why going back hurts so bad, when it’s so easy to slip back into that person, except there’ve always been a lot of people Tim could slip into easily, but none of them were ever real. And Robin-Tim is always going to be a fourteen year old character—he can’t make up a natural way for him to grow up and fit where he’s supposed to fit, because he’s eighteen, and he knows Robin-Tim grows up like this, into crazy Joker-Junior-Tim, and all the pretending in the world can’t make that go away.

-

“Tell me what scares you,” the doctor says.

“I’m afraid of losing Jason, and I’m afraid of being locked up.”

“Anything else?”

“What else is there? I’ve already died, like, eight times.”

“Excuse me?”

“The Joker.” Tim’s casual tone is gone. “He used to—you know, when he shocked me too much? He’d have to shock me some more to restart my heart.”

“He’s also afraid of electricity,” Jason says.

“Yeah,” says Tim, and turns away from the doctor to further invade Jason’s personal space. Jason does the math. Eight deaths. At least four suicides at the Pits. That’s—that’s a lot of times to have his heart stop. It’s the most information Jason’s heard about the Joker so far, and if Tim is willing to share it with the class, everything else was probably significantly worse. Worse than being shocked to death and shocked back multiple times in the span of less than a month.

Sometimes Jason wants to stick the Joker’s body in a Pit so he can have a turn at murdering the bastard, too.

-

It’s all just impossibly real fever dreams for a long, long time. Then Jason starts showing up. Not even Robin or Red Hood. Just Jason. And that’s when Tim starts to realize that maybe he’s not entirely in touch with reality. So he starts hugging Jason before he leaves, because he’s wanted to hug Jason since he was nine, and Jason being a hallucination isn't going to stop him.

Jason is there consistently, and sometimes he interacts with the other people—doctors? Nurses?—that Tim is occasionally aware of. Slowly, it occurs to him that Jason may be the only thing that isn't a hallucination. Which makes no sense, because why would Jason Todd come to the—hospital? Was he in a hospital?—come to sit with him for several hours every day?

Then again, how would it ever occur to him to hallucinate that?

He finds it’s easier to keep track of reality if he can focus on Jason. Not that he can focus on Jason for more than a few minutes at a time, but it helps. It helps enough that he starts to notice when the pattern breaks, when he isn't there at the times he’s always there.

But Jason always looks miserable when he comes back, and he always says he’s sorry, so that’s okay. It’s good to have someone, even if it doesn’t make any sense at all.

-

Things are getting better, Jason tells himself. This morning Tim was playing with Damian’s dog, looking almost exactly like a normal teenager. Last week he actually sat down to watch a movie with Dick, caused no damage for the entire two hours, and allowed Dick three affectionate touches—Jason counted. It’s getting better. Therapy’s been running smoothly, Tim’s talking casually with Babs when she sends over more computer stuff for him, and Alfred’s collection of Ways to Keep Tim Occupied is moderately successful and steadily growing. Tim had a civil conversation with Bruce last week. He hasn’t caused significant property damage in days, and he hasn’t used Jason as a substitute for self-harm for so long that his legs are mostly healed. He’s getting better. He’s obviously getting better.

And that’s a good thing, right? It’s good. He should be happy. He knows he should. But if Tim gets any better, Jason is going to scream.

Their family is starting to actually function like a family, and it’s the worst thing that’s ever happened to him.

Dick notices, of course, because Dick is only ever observant and perceptive when Jason doesn’t want him to be. And he keeps on asking all the usual stupid questions, all of the what’s wrong, why are you upset, are you okay questions, until it gets so annoying that he just has to answer.

“Because as soon as he gets better, you’re going to take him away from me!”

“Why would we do that?” Dick asks, careful to keep his tone calm and neutral. He hates when Jason gets like this. Angry Jay is fine, but angry, irrational Jay is a horrible, painful, uncooperative reminder of everything that happened at the height of the Red Hood days.

At least Bruce isn't around—he always says the exact wrong thing and makes Jay worse, no matter how hard he tries.

“I know you’re only putting up with me because of Tim. As soon as he gets better he’ll realize how awful I am, and then you’ll send me back to Arkham.”

Dick isn't sure if Jason intended for his tips on managing Tim to be applied to himself as well, but they help. It also helps that Jason isn't actively trying to murder them. Still, he can’t wait too long to respond, or Jason will get even more agitated. And he has to think before he speaks, or there will be no salvaging this until Jason’s able to think clearly again. And he can’t point out that he isn't thinking clearly, because Jason already knows that, and it doesn’t help.

“Jason, I don’t think anything could make Tim think you were awful.”

“You could,” Jason insists. “You could do anything.”

“But I wouldn’t, Little Wing, because none of us can handle Tim like you do. We need you.”

“Not when he gets better.”

The conversation isn't exactly going anywhere, and he’s obviously still upset, but maybe less likely to blow up. Mostly, Dick is relieved everything didn’t go immediately to shit when he accidently broke one of Jason Todd’s Official Rules for Dealing with Irrational Timmy (And Also Jason). No nicknames. No terms of endearment. Preferred names in their entirely only.

Unfortunately, the Jason who offers helpful advice like that is not the Jason Dick is dealing with right now.

“Jason, Tim still thought you were cool after you tried to kill him. I’m pretty sure nothing is going to change his mind.”

“I’m going upstairs,” Jason says abruptly.

Dick sighs. It’s better that way; given more time to talk, he would absolutely fuck it up.

Chapter 12

Summary:

“Where was he?” Tim asks. “He can hear my heartbeat, so where the hell was he?”

They’re both outside, for once, when it happens. Originally they were with Damian, in some half-assed response to Dick’s insistence that they bond or whatever, but the kid took off with his dog pretty quick. Jason is lying flat on his back, enjoying the grass and fresh air. Tim is wandering around with his camera; Jason makes an effort to lift his head and smile a little every time it points in his direction. Things are quiet and peaceful and safe.

Then Superman’s clone lands in their backyard.

Jason is on his feet and on alert immediately, moving toward Tim. He knows the guy was his friend, remembers seeing him when he attacked Tim at the Titans’ base, but he also knows Superboy has anger issues and a lot of power.

Tim is standing frozen. He’s dropped his camera.

“Tim,” the other kid says, voice reverent and awed. “Tim, we thought you were gone. We thought we lost you.”

“Don’t touch me,” he snaps, and for a second Jason thinks the Babybird’s finally completely lost it, because clearly no one is touching him. But the Superkid looks more hurt than confused, and, right—he has some telekinesis shit, doesn’t he?

“Tim,” he tries again.

Tim doesn’t answer, doesn’t even object to the name, but he does take a few steps back, closer to Jason.

“Leave him alone,” Jason says.

“What?”

Tim takes another step, so he’s pressed against Jason’s back. He turns away from Superboy.

“This isn't a good time,” Jason says. “You need to leave.”

“What did you do to him?” the kid demands.

“Okay, fuck you. I didn’t do anything. Everyone always thinks I did something. Babybird, you wanna weigh in here?”

“Go away, Kon,” Tim says, his voice slightly muffled by Jason’s shoulder.

“Tim?”

He flinches in a way that probably means the telekinesis is happening again.

“Back off,” Jason says.

Tim relaxes, turning around slowly. “You were not here when I was missing for weeks. You were not here when I was in a hospital less than two hours away from the Tower. You were not here when I went missing from said hospital. I don’t want you here now.”

The kid looks devastated. “Tim, I didn’t—”

“I don’t want you, Kon.”

He flies away without saying anything else. Tim pushes away from Jason, going to check on his camera.

“Where was he?” he asks as he looks it over. “He can hear my heartbeat, so where the hell was he?”

“I don’t know, kid.”

Tim thrusts the camera into Jason’s hands and stalks away. Jason doesn’t see him again for six hours. He refuses to eat dinner or breakfast, and the next day Jason finds Superman’s symbol carved into Tim’s ankle. He kind of wants to murder the Superkid.

-

“Time for therapy, Babybird,” Jason says.

Tim looks up, briefly, from whatever it is he’s working on—general property destruction, probably. “Yeah. I’m not going today.”

Jason sighs. Tim’s been a mess since the Superkid touched down. More of a mess than usual. And Jason is sick of it. It’s not like the kid hasn’t proven himself able to function at some level. But everything is a struggle this week.

“Fine,” he says. “I’ll see you when I get back.”

Tim looks up at him. “You’re going to my appointment without me?”

“Yeah. Maybe she can tell me why you’re such an asshole lately.”

-

“Jason? Where’s J.J.?”

“Timmy’s in a snit,” he says, throwing himself onto the couch. “Refused to come today, so I came on my own just to get away from him.”

“Is there something you want to talk to me about?” she asks.

“No.”

“Jason, if this was your appointment, you would be welcome to sit here in silence for as long as you liked. But it isn't your appointment. So if I’m going to let you stay here for the next hour or two, I need you to talk to me.”

“I don’t have anything to talk about,” he insists.

“Why don’t you tell me more about J.J.’s—what did you call it? A snit?”

He nods.

“Tell me what happened. Did you have a fight?”

“His best friend heard he was back in town. Surprise visit. Didn’t go well.”

“Why not?”

“He didn’t help with the search parties when Tim went missing, he didn’t visit him in the hospital even though his family has a house about two hours away, and for some reason he thought Tim would be happy to see him now.”

“All right. That explains why J.J. is in a bad mood. But why are you upset with J.J.?”

He scowls, shifting in his seat the way both boys do when they’re searching for a way to avoid a subject.

“I can’t help you if you don’t tell me what’s wrong, Jason.”

“I don’t want your help.”

“Then go home,” the doctor says. She has no intention of actually kicking him out; she’s painfully aware he’s desperately in need of therapy. But she needs his cooperation.

The scowl deepens, but Jason does answer.

“All the stupid shit he’s always pulling—I used to think he couldn’t help it. But he’s gotten better, and now I know he can help it, so it pisses me off when he keeps it up.”

“It sounds like he’s been through a difficult experience recently. He might be getting better, but that doesn’t mean he’s going to be doing as well every day as he does on his good days.”

“I know that,” Jason says. “I need him to be better. We have to be better. It has to be something we can get over.”

He stands abruptly, walking to the window. She gives him a few minutes before pressing again.

“Jason, what’s really wrong?”

When he turns around she thinks he might be on the brink of tears. “They all think—every time we meet someone he used to—they always—they think I did this. I hurt him. They all know about the Joker, but they think it’s my fault he’s like this. Even Dick—even our brother—for the first week we were home, he thought I was sleeping with him. Everyone just—they just—he was tortured and brainwashed for twenty three days by the most terrifying psychopath in history, and they look at him and think, wow, Jason really messed him up good.”

“I understand why that would be very upsetting,” Dr. Derkin says, not quite sure how else to react yet.

Jason wipes furiously at his eyes. “And I get it, okay? I do. I was a major asshole to Timmy, before. They left me for dead and I didn’t get back home for a few years, and there was this new kid there and it was like they just replaced me. And my head was majorly screwed up still and no one seemed to really care that I was home, that I wasn’t dead, and my dad had just up and adopted another kid instead of trying to find me, making sure the body was actually mine—so I attacked him, a few times. And I got really violent. But I’m not the fucking Joker.”

She gives him a moment to compose himself. “You don’t think they were glad to have you back?”

“I know they weren’t. Because I was a mess. A dangerous mess. But not any worse than Tim. And everyone is so happy he’s here again, and it’s not his fault he’s a mess, because someone obviously hurt him, and it must have been me. It’s my fault. It’s always my fault, and all his friends are always coming up to us and trying to save him from me, while I’m trying to keep him from fucking attacking them, because his flight instinct is totally fried so he always defaults to fight.”

She hums thoughtfully. “Have you talked to your family about how this makes you feel?”

“And say what? Hey, I really wish you guys would stop acting like I’m going to murder Tim even though I literally tried to murder Tim on two separate occasions?”

“I’m not going to get involved in that right now,” she says, because a known attempted murder several years ago that the victim and family never pressed charges for is not something she feels prepared to dredge up today, “but I do think you would benefit from talking to someone other than J.J. about your feelings, whether it’s myself or your father or brother.”

His phone beeps before he can answer; he pulls it out, glances at the screen, and walks out.

“Sorry,” he calls over his shoulder. “Timmy duty.”

-

“You’re harder than you used to be,” Ra’s comments.

Tim shrugs, not looking up from his work. “Guess you drowned all the feelings right out of me. Bad reaction with the Pit and the Joker venom?”

“Perhaps,” Ra’s says.

Tim doesn’t look up as he walks away.

They could have blown this place two weeks ago. Tim knows he has no one but himself to blame for the way this strange, uncomfortable relationship with Ra’s drags on.

He came back wrong. He knows he did. He can feel it churning in his gut, swirling in his head. And as long as he can focus on this project, he doesn’t have to think about it.

Jason is doing terrible things for this. Tim knows that, but he didn’t ask him to, and he’s not going to tell him to stop. Maybe that’s proof of how wrong he is.

But it’s worse now. He knows the Pit never works the way you want it to, but he thinks it worked wrong even for what it is, with him. He used to be able to hide from the Joker. Not well, but well enough. Bruce or Dick would show up instead. Or Jason would come and chase them all away for a while.

He doesn’t hallucinate as much anymore, and when he does he knows it. But the Joker is always, always there, inside his head, talking to him. Always. He can’t count on Jason to chase away something even Tim can’t see.

And he knows, somewhere behind all the rest of it, that Dana is dead. Just like his dad. Just like his mom. Just like the Joker.

Just like him.

He can’t deal with it, any of it. Not yet. And as long as he’s destroying Ra’s, he doesn’t have to.

Chapter 13

Summary:

Sometimes Jason thinks Tim was better before the Pit. Sometimes Jason thinks he was better before the Pit, and he was brain dead.

“Absolutely not, Damian. You’re staying home tonight. Dick, Jason, suit up.”

“Me?” Jason asks.

“Do I have another son named Jason?”

“Well, the way you go through orphans…”

Bruce just glares at him, and, okay, maybe that joke was in poor taste.

“Sorry. But seriously, aren’t I, like, eternally benched? How desperate are you right now?”

“You’re not benched. J.J. is benched. I thought you just didn’t want to come out if you had to play by my rules.”

“I thought you didn’t trust me to play by the rules.”

“Guys,” Dick says, appearing at Bruce’s shoulder. He’s gotten into the full Nightwing suit while they’ve been talking, and he can’t believe that he has to say this to them. “Emotions later. Violence now.”

Jason hesitates. “Timmy’s not going to be happy if I go out when he can’t.”

“Tim will get over it. I’ve got Penguin and Black Mask to deal with tonight, and a brand new super-powered pedophile. I know how you feel about pedophiles, and you know why I can’t have a cocky kid dressed like a traffic light on the streets tonight.”

“Fine,” Jason says. “But you better have some rubber bullets for me, because I’m not going without my guns.”

The superpowers end up being pretty insignificant, and Jason calls Oracle to have someone else finish the job once he realizes he’s not going to be able to restrain himself from killing the creep. Batwoman can inflict maximum pain without a flatline. Jason doesn’t have the self-control.

He catches up to Black Mask just after Nightwing, who got held up by a run-in with the mob. Just as they’re wrapping that up, Oracle calls to let them know Poison Ivy is on the move.

“I’m going home,” Jason says.

“What? Why?”

“I’ve already let one sexual predator live tonight. If I see Ivy, I will kill her.”

“Okay,” Dick says. “Go home. I’ll punch her real hard for you.”

He doesn’t say anything else, in case it irritates Jason, but Dick plans to tell Bruce later how well he did—it’s been years since Jason demonstrated that much self-restraint in a situation like this.

-

It’s been two or three days since Tim spoke to him, and Jason is fairly certain he isn't even mad. He’s just drifting, the way he used to do in the hospital, before he had the rage of the Lazarus Pit to keep him focused and present.

Sometimes Jason thinks Tim was better before the Pit. Sometimes Jason thinks he was better before the Pit, and he was brain dead. So maybe this is a good thing. Maybe this is the Pit wearing off.

Except he’s pretty sure it’s mostly worn off on him, twice, and he’s never come close to being brain dead again. Though Roy and Kori might disagree, after some missions.

Mostly he doesn’t like this, because Tim is the only person he can really trust here, and he misses him.

It’s been five or six hours since he’s even seen the kid, and he’s just thinking he should probably track him down when Tim wanders into the room.

“Jason?”

“Yeah?”

“What day is it?”

“Wednesday.”

“Oh.” Tim sits down on the couch beside him. “I’m bored.”

Jason shuts his book and sets it aside. Finally.

-

They terrorize Barbara for a while, Jason keeping half an eye on Tim, but mostly focused on being as obnoxious as possible, trying to get her as infuriated as possible, trying to chase away the sadness in her eyes every time she looks at Tim.

Tim’s fine. He’s fine.

After Babs kicks them out, they wander around Gotham for a while, and Jason gets distracted for thirty seconds, tops. When he turns around, three creeps have Tim backed against the wall. He would have been furious, but he knows Tim. Kid started this, just so he’d have an excuse to beat someone up. Never mind that he’s half the size of the smallest goon. Jason stands back and watches as Tim takes the assholes to town, then kneels on the dirty alley street to rifle through their pockets.

He comes up with four hundred dollars cash, a pack of cigarettes, a gun, a couple dozen small knives, a small bag of what looks like coke, a shit-ton of weed, and a couple coupons for a bar six blocks over. Tim pockets the knives and the weed, offering the rest to Jason with a sharp, dangerous smile.

“Wanna party?”

“Hell yeah,” Jason says, and they’re off.

They get kicked out of four bars, all together, and Jason maintains that this is at least 60% Tim’s fault. Jason does most of the drinking, but Tim holds his own, and he jumps into bar fights with much more enthusiasm.

At some point there’s the coke, split carefully in half, mostly to reduce Tim’s intake, as Jason’s half goes quietly down a toilet. Jason chain smokes while Tim has target practice with some street lights, tossing the gun into the river when he’s finished. They round out the night with a stolen six-pack, sitting together on a rooftop, Jason drinking while Tim smokes the entire shit-ton of weed.

Bruce is going to kill them.

-

Bruce doesn’t kill them. It only takes a slight rewording of the facts for him to let everything else slide.

“Some creeps attacked Timmy, so we had to kick their asses.”

Tim doesn’t even react to the use of his given name—he knows a damn good avoidance tactic when he sees one.

He pays even less attention to breakfast than usual, but Jason doesn’t say anything. He’d gotten tons of food into the kid when he was still high as fuck last night.

-

The first ten minutes of therapy were fairly productive—as productive as they ever are, with J.J. But he has been struggling more, since the incident with his friend that Jason described. He’s wandered to the other side of the room, ignoring both Dr. Derkin and Jason, who’s asking her about prescribing drugs.

“It’s hard to medically treat someone with such inconsistent symptoms. I can give him something for the anxiety, and we can try a mild anti-psychotic. But honestly, it’s mostly going to be about the therapy.”

“Can you give him something to make him hungrier?”

“That’s not really how it works.”

“Figures,” Jason says. “Whatever. Alfred Pennyworth will pick up the prescriptions.”

“I’m sorry, Jason. You just have to keep bringing him here, and hope he’ll open up more. That’s really all we can do right now.”

He looks over at J.J., who turns from the window to not-quite-meet his eyes. “I can’t make him more open. I’m the only person he trusts, and if I cross the wrong lines I’ll lose that.”

“I know, Jason. I’m not asking you to cross any lines. I’m just telling you where we’re at. We’re not going anywhere J.J. doesn’t want to go, and right now he’s determined to stay where he is.”

Jason takes the prescriptions she offers. But, remembering the night they partied, he spends the next night tracking down a small-time dealer, too. If the doctor can’t make Tim eat, marijuana can.

Notes:

Hi, guys. Sorry I haven't been replying to comments or anything; I was sick pretty much all last week. I'll get caught up on that soon, but first I've gotta get caught up on the actual writing. The finished story, btw, is going to be 19 to 20 chapters depending on some pacing issues. It's fully written through chapter 15.

Chapter 14

Summary:

Dick lowers himself carefully to the floor, back against the couch, and turns on the TV, keeping the volume low. As long as Tim’s asleep, he can pretend his little brother actually came back.

Notes:

Sorry I'm a day late. Crazy week!

Tim doesn’t—thank God—run around Gotham taking photos of Batman in the middle of the night anymore. He does keep his photos close to the chest, so it takes even Jason a while to notice that he’s carefully recording every instance of chaos he leaves in his wake.

On the one hand, this makes it a lot easier to catalog some better-hidden property damage. On the other, well. No one feels great about the way he snuck into Dick’s room and got a photo of him crying. Damian’s black eye is an interesting choice, too, but at least he was aware it was taken.

The thing is, Tim’s an amazing photographer. It’s been years since anyone thought about how damn artistic the kid is. They remember how smart he is, good at figuring things out, good at hiding things. They haven’t been given the chance to forget any of his talents for physical violence. And there’s certainly nothing beautiful about these things before he photographs them—scars and bloodstains, broken furniture, various images of family in distress. But he makes them seem more real, somehow, on camera than they do in real life.

His photos speak to a depth of emotion he consistently denies being capable of.

Jason, flipping through before he makes the executive decision to share them with the rest of the family, pauses on a picture of himself. He’s looking directly at the camera, but has no recollection of it, which would be a sign, if nothing else was, that he’d been having a bad day. His eyes are wide and unfocused, slightly bloodshot, and Bruce is sitting on the edge of the bed, facing away from the camera—Bruce would never be in his bedroom without permission, and Jason would never give permission on a good day.

Everything else in these pictures—does Tim think Jason’s trauma is somehow his fault?

-

When Bruce sees the photos, he has a few framed, and hangs them in the hallway. Tim does a nearly believable impression of someone who is unaffected by this.

-

No matter what Tim says—no matter what Tim thinks—the pseudo-psychopathy thing is bullshit at least 30% of the time. He averages about two days a week where his emotional responses are essentially normal. Not normal for a normal person, granted, but the expected emotional responses of a teenager in the aftermath of severe and devastating trauma.

Jason waits until one of those relatively normal days to bring up the issue that’s been bothering him since Tim’s photo series materialized.

“You know, I was pretty messed up before I even knew you existed.”

“I remember,” Tim says drily, and Jason winces, recalling his greatest hits in attempted fratricide.

“Are you all right, Jay?”

“Yeah, Babybird. You don’t have to worry about me.”

Tim looks puzzled, still, but he shrugs it off and resumes fiddling with his camera. Jason decides this conversation is going to be harder than he thought, and goes upstairs to call Cass again.

Barbara says he can’t come back to the Clocktower until he’s apologized about the heads, but that girl does not answer her phone.

Maybe because their last interaction was the heads. Maybe because she’s mute. Maybe Jason needs to find a new method of communication.

-

Alfred watches Tim and worries. All of his children have experienced more trauma than any child should ever experience, but none of them have ever reacted quite like Tim, and Alfred frequently finds himself out of his depth.

For months after a loss, Bruce might as well be as dead as those he mourns—he’s been like this since he was a small child. Alfred had once been relieved by Dick’s normal, healthy reactions to grief, but as he ages the boy tends more and more toward stoicism and repression. It had taken eight months after he came back home before Dick would even acknowledge that there had been trouble in Bludhaven.

Damian becomes increasingly aloof in distress. Cassandra is quiet in sorrow, as she is in everything, but she will not hide, and she will accept comfort when it is offered. Jason’s tragedies come out in bursts of violent anger, and this, Alfred understands, though he has learned better coping mechanisms by now, himself.

But Tim. Tim is like nothing, sometimes, so much as a wild animal, feral and frantic and injured, backed into a corner and ready to do anything to escape. And Alfred has no idea how to help someone so desperately certain that he’s unsafe.

Tim is all right, for now. Alfred spent the better part of last night throwing the kitchen into a complete state of disarray, in hopes that fixing it would keep him occupied for several hours. The kitchen may never be the same again, but Alfred is reasonably confident that it will at least be sensible; Tim only retreats into his more bizarre organizational methods when there is nothing in actual need of straightening out.

For now Tim’s attention is fully on his task. When he realizes that Alfred is watching, he will panic, and then he will lash out, and then there will be a much bigger mess in the kitchen, which Tim will not help to clean up. It’s all right; Alfred is good at slipping away before Tim notices. And if he doesn’t, well. The messes are worth it, to have him home. Besides, it won’t be the first time they’ve redone the kitchen this year.

Tim stops abruptly, standing frozen for a full three minutes, before he shudders violently, then quietly continues with his task.

Dick appears beside Alfred, peering over his shoulder at Tim for a few minutes before he speaks. “He would be better off in—” He pauses. “He would be better off with someone professional.”

Alfred concedes that this is likely true. However, Tim would never consent to it.

“I just don’t understand,” Dick says quietly. “By all accounts he was better at the hospital. And it’s not as if he likes or even trusts us.”

“I suspect the hospital is strongly associated with abandonment, regardless of how he currently feels about those doing the abandoning.”

Dick nods, gaze still fixed on Tim as he sorts the fine china. Alfred takes note of the cupboard he places it in before pulling Dick away; Tim is bound to notice their presence soon enough.

-

“How is he?” Dana asks as soon as Jason sits down at their usual booth.

He makes a face. “Not great. He was talking to Batman when I got there. Kept that up for quite a while. Then he kind of had an episode, but I was able to calm him down without calling the nurses, and he was better after that. We watched one of those crap cartoons they let him have. He actually didn’t want me to leave, but I said I was coming to see you, and then he was good.”

“Are you going back after lunch?”

“After he asked me to stay? Obviously.”

Dana smiles at him then, warm and maternal and everything Tim needs if only he wouldn’t go into a panic at the sight of her. “And how are you, Jason?”

She sends him away forty minutes later with two bags of cookies, one for him and one for Tim, even though she knows getting Tim to eat is a constant struggle, and Jason will eat most of his cookies, too, when he visits.

Back at the hospital, he coaxes Tim into accepting a call from Dana, which is unexpected considering his episode this morning. Jason’s been saving photos of Dana on his phone—he’s hoping they can get Tim to the point where he can see them without freaking, then work their way up to a video call before talking face-to-face again.

Three weeks later he gets a call from Roy and Kori. Jason and Tim never see Dana again.

-

Dick finds Tim passed out on the couch. Jason—hopefully passed out elsewhere—had described last night as hell. They’d all heard the screams to support that claim. Dick lowers himself carefully to the floor, back against the couch, and turns on the TV, keeping the volume low. As long as Tim’s asleep, he can pretend his little brother actually came back.

Jason joins him after an hour or so, slumping down on the couch beside Tim. “He okay?”

Dick nods. “Are you?”

Jason shrugs. “Sometimes we have bad nights. Used to it.”

“You should still be sleeping.”

“I’m fine. What are we watching?”

By the time Tim wakes up, the whole family has gathered. He takes note of Dick and Damian sitting on the floor, and Bruce and Jason on either side of him; Alfred is standing a few steps apart.

“Sit down, Alfie,” Tim demands. He shifts closer to Jason and closes his eyes again.

Chapter 15

Summary:

"I know the Joker isn't standing beside your ficus in the corner pulling the feathers off a live robin one at a time and laughing, but I can still see him, and I can still hear him.”

Jason flips through Tim’s newest round of photos, because he’s left them sitting out in their shared bedroom, which for Tim is as good as asking him to please look at them.

Alfred in the kitchen, facing away from the camera, looking exhausted and old in a way Jason doesn’t like to think about. A large bloodstain on the carpet—he’ll have to find that and try to clean it. Jason’s Robin suit, still on display in the cave. Bruce, cowl off but Bat suit on, bandaging Stephanie’s elbow. Damian playing with his dog. Dick back-flipping off the edge of a buil—wait.

There’s a dumpster behind Bruce and Stephanie. And, duh, Steph hasn’t even been to the cave in weeks. Dick’s downtown. Dick’s Nightwing. Steph’s Batgirl.

Shit.

He’s been following them on patrol.

Bruce is going to kill him.

And Tim left these here. Tim knew Jason would look at them. So what is he up to?

Jason flips through the rest of the photos, looking for clues. Finding none, he goes straight to the source, who has made good progress on sorting the Manor’s absurdly large video collection. By director, it looks like. It’s not ideal, but it could be worse. Three weeks ago he’d sorted all of Dick’s music by album cover designer. Poor guy was still trying to find things.

Jason looks at Tim. Tim looks at Jason.

“You’re bored,” Jason says.

“I’m dying,” Tim answers.

“You’re being melodramatic,” Jason counters. He sighs and drops to the floor, looking through the movies on the bottom shelf. “Me too. I’ll work something out, get us out of here. Just stick around the Manor until then, okay?”

“They didn’t catch me when I was nine. You really think they stand a chance now?”

“No,” Jason says, “but I do think you made a promise to Bruce.”

“This isn't going to work forever, Jay. I can’t take it much longer.”

“I know,” Jason says. He wishes he had a contingency plan.

-

“What bothers you the most?” the therapist asks.

“The hallucinations are the worst,” Tim says. Jason is suddenly paying much more attention.

“But I thought—you haven’t had a hallucination since the—you know.” He doesn’t quite dare to say “Lazarus Pit” out loud in front of the doctor.

“They never stopped,” Tim says, seeming surprised that Jason thought they had. “That’s when I started being able to tell.”

“Able to tell what, J.J.?” the doctor asks.

“If they’re real or not. I couldn’t tell until—until then. Now I can, but that’s about the only difference. I know the Joker isn't standing beside your ficus in the corner pulling the feathers off a live robin one at a time and laughing, but I can still see him, and I can still hear him.”

“Shit, Babybird,” Jason says. “Why don’t you tell me this crap?”

“I forgot you couldn’t tell.”

“Shit,” Jason says again. They leave the appointment early.

“What are you seeing now?” Jason asks in the car.

Tim sighs. “Bruce and Harley are sitting in the back talking about how I’m a terrible son. Would you calm down? It’s not that big a deal.”

“Not that big…it’s a huge deal, J.J. And we’re going to get you on medication for it. No arguments.”

Tim sinks into his seat, scowling, but he doesn’t say anything.

-

Is it legal for Bruce, a random business man, to develop and administer an anti-psychotic drug for a teenager who is probably technically a ward of state, missing, presumed dead? Probably not.

But then, Bruce is Batman. Nothing he does is legal. And considering the run-in with Poison Ivy, considering whatever the Joker and the Pit have done to him, no one is going to prescribe anything significant to Tim without intimate knowledge of his blood work.

Jason talks to Bruce about it while he runs another brain scan on Tim; Jason has no idea what’s so interesting in the kid’s head, but every few weeks Bruce wants another one. Sometimes he waits until Tim’s really spaced out to do it, but he’s pretty lucid today, alternating between describing his hallucinations in vivid detail and loudly insisting that he doesn’t need any medication.

That’s Bruce’s problem. Jason’s delivered the message, and now he’s going to flee before anyone gets hurt.

-

It’s about four hours after Tim wanders off with his camera that Jason notices it hidden under an end table. He tries not to be suspicious, but given the camera’s proximity to Tim’s last known location, there’s a pretty good chance he made a show of taking it with him so Jason wouldn’t find out what he was really doing.

Tim is in the cave when Jason finds him, with several computers running, and the contents of multiple hard copy case files spread across the floor.

“J.J.,” he says, “what are you doing?”

Bruce is going to be pissed.

“I just solved six cases. And now I’m going to clean up my mess. You can tell Bruce I’ll accept payment in the form of new film for my camera. And permission to be down here. Not that it’s stopped me, anyway.”

-

“We are idiots,” Jason announces, flopping down on the couch beside his brother.

“Not that I’m arguing,” Dick says, “but why?”

“I just found Timmy in the cave. He hacked into the Bat-computer, he broke into the filing cabinet, and he just sat there, for hours, solving cases. It’s brilliant. All that time he spent tearing up carpet, we could have had him detectiving.”

“He was almost better than Bruce at that stuff,” Dick says. “Way better than you or me. I think that’s why Ra’s al Ghul wanted him.”

“Gross. But this is perfect, Dick. You let him leave the manor, he’s probably going to kill someone. You let him on the computer unsupervised, there’s a good chance he’ll start moving someone else’s money. But if we all give him the homework from our night jobs, he’ll be too busy solving puzzles to get caught up in the mindless destruction.”

“We are idiots,” Dick says. “Except, will he feel like we’re using him?”

“That’s why we don’t ask him to do it. We just, you know, let him. With some subtle monitoring in case he gets, um, violently distracted.”

Chapter 16

Summary:

Tim is not going to let himself care about Bruce again. He can’t. Sure, Bruce is pretty invested in his health and wellbeing right now, but he’ll leave eventually. Everyone always does. Except for maybe Jason.

“Hey, Jay,” Oracle says. “You want a job?”

He shrugs. They’re on comms, but she has enough cameras in this city, he’s sure she can see him. “Why me?”

“It’s the kind of thing I can’t ask Batman or Nightwing to deal with.”

“Oh.” Jason is pretty sure Barbara Gordon is asking him to kill someone. And, okay, he knows at least two of the Birds of Prey have killed before, while working with Babs, even. But still.

“Would it be a problem with Tim?”

If Barbara is asking him, of all people, to do this, it’s important. You don’t ask Batman’s kid to kill for nothing.

“I’ll talk to him. We’ll make it work.”

It shouldn’t be too hard; Tim was on the warpath a week ago, but Dick and Alfred have turned it around. Something about his old darkroom—Jason had flatly refused to permit any access, gotten Bruce to back him up, and then extracted himself from the situation before it got bloody. The kid has been quiet and happy for the last couple days; the rest doesn’t matter much.

-

Tim is not going to let himself care about Bruce again. He can’t. Sure, Bruce is pretty invested in his health and wellbeing right now, but he’ll leave eventually. Everyone always does. Except for maybe Jason.

Still, he can’t help feeling…good, when he thinks about the fact that there are two rooms in the Manor set up just for him, without even counting his abandoned bedroom. Not that he’s really allowed in his darkroom anymore. (Dangerous chemicals, Babybird. What if you have an episode and hurt yourself by accident? What if you get in a mood and hurt yourself on purpose?)

His new room has no outlets, lights, or cameras. Nothing electrical. It’s full of huge windows, soft things, and privacy. The door doesn’t lock, on either side, but no one else is ever allowed in unless they think Tim is hurting himself. He’s been in here for eight hours today, ever since Jason left before breakfast.

There’s a knock on the door, which he ignores.

“Hey,” Dick says from outside. “You wanna come eat something?”

“No.”

“Come on, it doesn’t even have to be solid. Broth or a smoothie or something? You haven’t eaten since last night.”

“No,” Tim says again.

“Alfred says if you go too long without eating, it’ll count as hurting yourself and I’m allowed to come and get you.”

Tim doesn’t answer right away, considering. “How long do I have?”

“He didn’t give me an exact timeframe. Just come out, please?”

He really doesn’t want to. But he promised Jason he would try. And what if Dick tells Jason he didn’t, and Jason decides to stay away longer?

“Nothing solid?” he asks.

“Nothing solid,” Dick confirms.

Slowly, reluctantly, he goes to open the door. Dick smiles widely.

-

“Are you sure about this?” Jason asks, not for the first time.

“Are you hesitating because you don’t want to do it or because of Bruce?”

“Bruce,” he admits.

Barbara sighs. “I’ve been working with and around Bruce for years, Jason. I’ve never worked against him, but I don’t work for him. He knows how I run things, and he’s smart enough to know what we’re doing. If he had a problem, it would be a problem with me, not with you, and I would have heard about it by now.”

“Okay,” Jason says, although he doesn’t sound quite convinced.

“I can find someone else to do this.”

He shakes his head. “Not for two weeks, at least—that’s why you asked me in the first place. And he needs to be stopped now.”

-

“J.J.? Are you ready to go to therapy?”

Tim looks up, startled. “Without Jason?”

“Without Jason,” Bruce confirms.

Tim stands up slowly, reluctantly. He doesn’t like going places without Jason. He doesn’t even like being here without Jason. But he promised to be good. And if he doesn’t keep that promise, why should Jason keep his promise to come back soon?

-

People in the waiting room stop and stare when Bruce Wayne walks in, and Tim seems to shrink in on himself, turning his head into Bruce’s side.

If Tim is initiating this level of physical proximity, he has to be pretty uncomfortable. Bruce strides up to the desk.

“I need a room for my son immediately.”

It takes Dr. Derkin about twenty seconds to get to the lobby when her receptionist buzzes. J.J.’s appointment is in ten minutes—any buzzing around this time tends to be urgent.

She arrives just in time to see J.J. peel himself away from Bruce Wayne’s side.

“Mr. Wayne. I wasn’t expecting to see you here today.”

He smiles charmingly, holding out a hand to shake. “Please, call me Bruce.”

She takes the offered hand, then turns her attention to her patient.

“J.J., is Bruce going to come talk with us today, or would you like him to wait in the lobby?”

He hesitates, biting his lip. Finally he says imperiously, already moving down the hallway, “Come on, Bruce.”

J.J. holds himself carefully apart from Mr. Wayne, keeping himself within reach, but never close enough for casual touch. He looks to him constantly, like he does with Jason, but his glances today are more wary. If it was anyone else, the tension might be a red flag of some sort, but it’s J.J., so she’ll wait and see how things go.

“Mr. Wayne, why don’t you tell me what brings you in today? How do you feel J.J.’s treatment is progressing?”

“She called you Mr. Wayne,” J.J. reports, just loud enough for her to hear. He sounds delighted, probably because she never fails to use his preferred name.

“You used to call me that, too,” Mr. Wayne answers, slightly louder.

“Yeah, when I was, like, eleven.”

She’s never seen J.J. quite like this. He’s clearly incredibly wary of Wayne, but there’s a sense of casual familiarity, as well. He’s only ever acted like a teenage boy in her presence, before, when he was being sullen about it.

“J.J., how do you feel about having Mr.—about having Bruce here today?”

He shrugs. “Bruce pays for it, right?”

“That’s not an answer to the question I asked, J.J.”

He looks over at Bruce and sighs. “Bruce is all right, for now.”

“Why only for now?” she asks.

“Well, he’s gonna get sick of this sooner or later and send me away. Pays to be prepared.”

“J.J.,” Bruce says. There’s something heavy and deliberate about the way he says it, and she remembers her conversation with Jason on the origin of the name, and thinks using it is a great sacrifice for Bruce. “J.J., you’re my son. Why would I get sick of you? Why would I send you away?”

“It’s what you do, Bruce. It’s what everyone does. I’m your son, until my actual parents come back from a six month vacation, and then I’m back in a cold, heartless house alone. I’m your son, until my shit dad wakes up and I’m not welcome in your house anymore. Then the bio-kid shows up, and you let him play Pin the Katana on my face, and I kill a monster so I can survive, and I can’t even function anymore but you let my shit dad take me across the country like you think he can actually take care of me, like I wouldn’t have been dead in a week without Dana there, and you don’t call or write or visit or anything. I’m your son. Sure. And it’s nice while it lasts, but it never lasts long.”

“Tim,” he says, and J.J. recoils.

“J.J.,” he corrects himself, “J.J., I’m sorry, I didn’t mean—”

J.J. turns to the doctor. “He can leave now.”

Bruce Wayne sweeps out of the room, and Dr. Derkin is alone with her patient for the first time, wishing desperately that it hadn’t happened like this.

“J.J., where’s Jason today?” she asks.

He takes a moment to collect himself before answering. “He had something to take care of for a few days. I told him I’d be okay here.”

“Are you okay, J.J.?” The constant repetition of his name seems to calm him; she’s noticed that before. They’re going to have to talk about why he chose the name bestowed by his abuser at some point, but for now she’ll pick her battles.

He shrugs. “So Bruce isn't the best parent I’ve had. He’s a hell of a lot better than the Joker. And at least he cares sometimes. More than Jack and Janet ever managed.”

“Who is the best parent you’ve had?” she asks.

There’s a long pause before he says, voice soft and wounded, “Dana. Dana loved me every day.”

“I’m sorry.”

He shakes his head, but doesn’t answer. She changes the subject.

“How do you feel about Jason being gone?”

“I’m pretty sure he’ll come back. He always has before. Besides, he left his stuff here.”

“I’m sure he will,” she says. “Is it okay if we talk about something serious, J.J.?”

“You can try,” he says. She recognizes this as the closest she’ll get to cooperation.

“We talk sometimes about your difficulties connecting to people other than Jason, which you’ve identified as coming from brain damage in the regions controlling things like empathy. How much of those difficulties do you think might actually be due to fear of rejection?”

“I don’t care about Bruce,” J.J. says. It’s not exactly an answer.

“And if you don’t care, then he can’t hurt you again.”

He curls tightly in on himself and doesn’t respond. She calls his name a few times, but doesn’t press further—any attempt to draw him back out will only result in hostility, possibly undoing today’s tentative progress. It’s about forty five minutes later, long after the end of their appointment, that Bruce Wayne sticks his head in, beginning a hesitant question that trails off when he sees his son.

“All right, J.J.,” he says, kneeling in front of the couch, “I’m going to pick you up now.”

He lifts the boy easily, pausing to thank her as he carries him out.

-

Bruce picks Tim up again when they reach the manor, carrying him up to his new room.

“I hate you,” Tim says, even as he clings to him. “I hate you.”

“I understand,” Bruce says. “I’m always going to love you, no matter how you feel about me.”

It’s about half an hour before Tim lets go of him. He puts as much distance between them as possible, eyes carefully elsewhere, and Bruce takes the hint to leave the room.

-

It takes Jason half the time allotted to complete his mission—something Babs almost certainly planned, since he’s now about three hours from the city he lived in for several months while Tim was hospitalized.

He could never, never ask Tim to come here with him, and he could never leave him behind specifically to come here himself—it’s Tim’s mom, after all.

Dana Winters-Drake is buried beside her husband, a thousand miles away from all their friends and family, a thousand miles away from the grave of Jack Drake’s first wife. There is an empty plot beside Dana—not Jack—for Tim, though Jason is fairly certain it will never be used. Tim belongs to Gotham.

He brings roses for Dana. He brings nothing for Jack.

-

“He was always afraid of me,” Dana says, “after we got him back, but he was afraid of everything. He was less afraid of me than he was of his father—Jack was a good man, but I don’t think he was ever a good parent. He had a tendency to lash out when he was afraid. And he never knew how to be gentle.

“It was at the funeral that things got—well. I really did think I would be able to make things work for us. The money would have gone a long way, just living, and I thought he was…coping. He still wasn’t talking, but he’d stopped flinching every time I got close. He seemed—I thought I could take care of him.”

“What happened?” Jason asks.

“I don’t know. The funeral—he just started yelling. I thought maybe—maybe it was a good thing. He was saying actual words, for the first time since—then he just stared at me, for a long time. And then he started laughing. Like—he sounded like the Joker. He was choking and hyperventilating. We had to call an ambulance. And since then he’s been terrified. I had to get him out of the house, away from me, as fast as I could. Before he hurt himself over it.”

-

Jason comes in through the cave when he gets home, sometime in the middle of the night. Everyone is there except for Tim and Damian. Tim isn't allowed in the Cave, and it’s past Dami’s bedtime, so this shouldn’t be a surprise, but, well. It’s Tim and Dami.

He hugs Alfred, then drops onto the edge of the training mat where Dick is stretching. Bruce is on the computers, still half dressed in the Batsuit.

“Timmy okay?” Jason asks. He’s really not that concerned about Damian.

Dick shrugs, which is an impressive feat considering his current contortions. “I got him to eat a little Wednesday afternoon. He had some juice yesterday morning. Bruce took him to therapy.”

“B?” Jason asks. Bruce doesn’t quite meet his eyes.

“He chewed me out, he kicked me out, and I waited in the lobby until about twenty minutes after the appointment was supposed to end. He was—I had to carry him out to the car, then back up to his room, and stay with him a while. He wouldn’t stop talking about how much he hated me, but he wouldn’t let go of me, either.”

Probably a fairly productive therapy session, then. Jason knows, even if Tim doesn’t, that the kid loves Bruce as much as he hates him. He’s been there, too. Some days he still is.

“Where is he now?”

“Sleeping,” Dick says. “Dami’s grounded this weekend, so we let them spar while we were out—don’t worry, Alfie was here. Anyway, they went at it for hours, wore themselves out. Surprised Timmy made it that long. He hasn’t had anything all day, just juice yesterday, and nothing solid since you left. Just broth and a protein shake.”

“Fuck,” says Jason. “Whatever. I’m going to bed. I’ll feed him in the morning.”

Chapter 17

Summary:

"He was my baby brother. And now he’s a ticking time bomb and I can’t help him because he hates me."

No one thinks anything of it when Tim and Jason don’t come down for breakfast—Jason was patrolling last night, and Tim doesn’t eat without Jason prodding. They probably overslept.

Dick is a little surprised, though, when he stumbles upon Tim in a sunroom, dissecting what appears to be the Gameboy Bruce gave him for his first birthday at the manor. Discarding mild anger at the theft and destruction of his things, and the slight fear that he’s using it to build a bomb or something, Dick decides to focus on the core issue, which is that there’s no sign of Jason, who would normally have put a stop to this. Unless he was mad at Dick, but they’ve been getting along better lately.

“Where’s Jay?” he asks.

“Bad day,” Tim says, not looking up from his handful of wires and circuitry.

“Bruce went to work. You didn’t tell him?”

Bruce always drops everything when Jason has a bad day, so he can be there for the flashbacks like he wasn’t for the original traumas.

Tim shrugs.

“I’m going to go check on him.”

“Don’t,” Tim says sharply. “He doesn’t want you. Besides, he’s at the clock tower.”

“I was on the phone with Babs ten minutes ago, and she said nothing about having Jason with her.”

Tim finally looks at him. Well. Glares at him. Dick will take what he can get.

“Of course not,” Tim says. “If you are the person someone goes to in the midst of paranoid delusions, you do not betray that trust.”

“I though he trusted us now.”

“Paranoid. Delusions. Dick. He doesn’t trust anyone today. And the Manor is covered in bugs. No one spies on Babs. Babs spies on everyone. Best way to make sure no one’s out to get you.”

“Fine,” Dick says. “Any idea when he’ll be back?”

Tim shrugs, turning his attention back to the Gameboy. “Could be a couple hours, could be a couple days. Shouldn’t be more than a week.”

“A week?”

“A week,” Tim confirms, looking up again. He smiles, that vicious one that makes Dick think of the Pit. “Why? You afraid to have me on the loose that long?”

“No,” Dick says, only sort of lying, “but I would like to know what you’re doing with my Gameboy.”

Tim looks down at his hand, lips twisting in confusion, as if it hasn’t been taking up most of his attention for the entire conversation.

“I don’t know,” he says slowly, before thrusting it into Dick’s hands.

He’s gone from casually cruel to small and afraid in an instant, and it’s heartbreaking, like it always is.

“Timmy,” Dick starts before he catches himself.

Tim doesn’t react immediately, staring blankly ahead for several seconds before standing abruptly and walking out of the room.

Dick resists the temptation to go after him, knowing it will only make things worse. He adds the corpse of the Gameboy to Alfred’s collection of things to keep Tim occupied.

He calls Barbara later, just in case. “Is he okay?”

He knows without seeing her that she’s rolling her eyes.

“He’s fine. He’s looking right at you, in fact. Smile—you’re on camera.”

Dick sighs. “I just don’t understand why he—”

“We’ll talk later, Dick,” Babs says firmly. “Right now I’m busy with my favorite Robin.”

He takes this demotion well, simply demanding that she call him tonight before hanging up. Barbara turns her attention back to Jason.

“Are you okay?” she asks, even though he’s obviously not.

“I’m fine. Someone’s robbing a grocery store on Fifth Avenue.”

Babs wheels over to check the video feed. “Keep an eye on it. I’ll call my dad.”

-

She isn't as star-struck as most people upon meeting Richard Grayson, on account of having been a senior when he was a freshman at Gotham Academy, in all his dorky, obnoxious, I-skipped-a-grade-and-am-physically-incapable-of-holding-still glory. All of the charm and sexiness in the world is not going to overwhelm the memory of a tiny mathlete climbing to the gym rafters and refusing to come down after insulting an assortment of angry eleventh graders.

Now, her receptionist, on the other hand, may need to be reminded not to mention this to her friends, on the off chance that Jason was serious that first day and Bruce Wayne has them quietly taken care of.

J.J.’s attitude toward Dick is different than both Bruce and Jason. He is never quite close enough to Dick for physical contact, and if he lacks the wariness that defined his interaction with Bruce, he makes up for it with an air of cool indifference. He doesn’t turn to Dick for help with questions he doesn’t wish to answer; he ignores him.

Dick doesn’t let this attitude faze him, keeping up a steady stream of charming chatter whenever he can insert himself into the conversation. She considers asking him to leave, as he’s mostly just a distraction, but the last time she was with her patient alone, he had a small breakdown and had to be carried from the room by his father. If J.J. wants Dick gone, he’ll say so. In the meantime, she does her best to steer the conversation in a more productive direction.

J.J. has spoken only once in the last ten minutes, just now, asking, “Would you shut up, Dick?”

She takes advantage of the momentary silence as Dick attempts to comply. “J.J., can you think of something you like about Dick?”

The kid answers easily and immediately, which would be a pleasant surprise if it weren’t for the response he came up with. “He’s never tried to kill me.”

“Well, that’s nice, but maybe we could—”

“No, seriously,” Dick interrupts. “Bruce has this thing about troubled kids. Jason and Damian have both actually attempted murder.”

Dr. Derkin is no longer surprised by much about J.J., but she is still concerned.

“I mean, it was years ago, and it was dealt with at the time. Don’t worry about that. Just, all things considered, that’s not a really low bar—it’s a legit thing to like about me.”

She isn't quite as relieved by this as she thinks Dick intends her to be; it’s hard to deal with the fact that the obnoxious child she remembers is the most well-adjusted member of the family. Sighing, she resolves to work with what she’s been given.

“J.J., would you like to tell me a little more about your relationships with your brothers?”

“We have a sister, too,” Dick tells her. She is already aware of this, of course, but Cassandra seldom comes up in discussion, as she has been overseas since several months before Jason and J.J. returned to Gotham.

“I talked to Cass.”

“You did?” Dick asks. “That’s great! When?”

He continues ignoring Dick, turning his attention fully to Dr. Derkin. “Jason made me. He had to talk to her because Babs wouldn’t let him come over until he apologized, so he decided I had to apologize too, even though I wasn’t visiting Babs.”

“And who is Babs?”

“The Dick’s girlfriend.”

She decides not to mention the article attached to Dick’s name. “Do you get along pretty well with her?”

He shrugs. “I make her sad. But she gives me stuff to do, and she’s really good for Jay.”

“Okay. How about Cass? What were you apologizing for?”

“Um.” For the first time he hesitates and turns to Dick. “I, um.”

Dick answers smoothly, “He and Jason ran into her while they were in Europe last year. I’m afraid tensions were running high at the time.”

“Thanks,” J.J. whispers, just loud enough for her to hear. She decides not to press for details on the nature of the tension; one woman can only take so much attempted murder in one hour.

Dick smiles, the same lopsided grin she remembers from just before he fled to the gym rafters. “Hey, what are brothers for?”

And that’s when it all falls apart, J.J. turning on a dime as he so often does, suddenly and viciously angry for reasons she can hardly guess at.

“Jason’s my brother. I don’t know what you are.”

“Timmy—”

“If you call me that one more time I will continue the family tradition of fratricide, and unlike them, I will not fail. I need space. I’ll get you when I’m ready to go home.”

J.J. leaves the room, door slamming behind him. Dick looks at the doctor. The doctor looks at Dick.

“Fuck,” he says, with great feeling. “I guess I should go after him.”

“Didn’t he specifically tell you to stay here?”

“He’s not really supposed to be unsupervised. Ever.”

“He got angry with you, recognized that he was lashing out, and chose to remove himself from the situation. That strikes me as behavior that should be encouraged.”

Dick relaxes slightly. “You know, that’s the first time in years—first time since the Joker—that he’s called me his brother? Sure, it was in the context of murdering me, but hey—it’s something, right?”

“I suppose it is.”

“He wouldn’t actually hurt me, you know. You don’t have to worry about that, either.”

“But he does hurt other people,” Dr. Derkin feels obligated to point out.

“We’re working on it,” Dick says, growing defensive. “Half the time Jason tells him to do it. And that’s not why he isn't here today. He had an…episode, or whatever. Bruce and Alfred’ll baby him all day, and tomorrow everything will be back to normal.”

“Does Jason have a lot of episodes?” she asks. It’s not a breach of doctor-patient confidentiality, because technically Jason isn't her patient.

“I don’t know. It’s hard to tell, because we got them back at the same time, and Tim’s in a constant state of—whatever. Jay just seems so good in comparison.

“He used to be worse—I know that for sure. I don’t have details because he hated us even more than Tim does then, and he wouldn’t come home so we could take care of him. When he showed up with Tim, it was like seeing him for the first time since he was fifteen. It was like he was actually him again.”

The door opens before she can answer.

“I’m still mad,” J.J. says, addressing Dick, “and I’m not ready to sit in an enclosed space with you, so we can’t leave early. I just want to sign that paperwork that says she can talk to you, because Jay and I have trouble with that, and you’re better than Bruce. And there’s like forty minutes left here, and I’m done talking.”

She doesn’t question it, just pulls out the forms that allow her to share patient information and shows J.J. where to sign. His two letters are large and harsh and jagged, and she doesn’t enjoy telling him that she actually needs him legal name. But he just sighs, crosses out the first signature, and writes “Timothy J. Drake” in a flowing, elegant script that looks as if it was written by a completely different person.

J.J. retreats back to the lobby, where hopefully he isn't torturing her receptionist. It’s all right; Molly will buzz her if things get out of hand.

Dick doesn’t tell her much, because there’s not much he can afford to tell. They’ve never had psych evals because our dad believes all problems can be solved by beating up bad guys? They probably have PTSD, but so does everyone else we know? Ditto on the brain damage?

Finally he settles on, “I’m the only one who had a happy childhood before Bruce. I’m the only one that had a childhood at all. Cass and Dami were raised like machines, but Tim and Jay raised themselves. So they were both really independent when we got them. Tim always seemed fine—too fine, I guess. I mean, nothing fazed him. Not his mom dying, not his dad being sick, not Jason coming back from the dead and attacking him in a fit of unbalanced rage.”

“He tells me very often that he doesn’t process emotions well; he calls it pseudo-psychopathy. Are you saying that’s a trait you noticed early in his life, before the trauma?”

“No,” Dick says. “No, it wasn’t that he didn’t feel things. I think he just didn’t want to get in the way or cause any trouble. Like I said, his parents were shit. So he didn’t really get that Bruce wouldn’t think he was a nuisance if he was sad or hurt or scared. And he was really good at pretending he wasn’t.”

“He’s not so good at pretending now, is he?”

“That’s the thing. He’s actually fantastic at it. He acted perfectly normal for the entire first week they were home. Because he didn’t want to cause any conflict. He told Jay he was tired. But it was—repression never helps anything, you know? Not that that’ll stop me from repressing all my shit, but it doesn’t help. So he just, like, exploded into…this. Whatever this is. And sometimes I think, he was always so repressed, maybe I never knew him at all. Maybe he was always like this.”

“Do you really believe that?” Dr. Derkin asks. She wonders idly if she could get a raise; she works with Jason just as much as she does with J.J., and now another one of Wayne’s kids is gearing up to have a breakdown in her office.

“No,” Dick says, slowly. “No, I don’t. He adored Bruce. He adored me. It was only the bad stuff he hid. He was—he always—he was my baby brother. And now he’s a ticking time bomb and I can’t help him because he hates me.”

Chapter 18

Summary:

And he doesn’t want Tim to hurt himself, to reach out for Jason with literally blood-soaked hands. He doesn’t want to think about Tim with a needle in a vein in his arm, or snorting coke as a compromise, or his mom’s body on the filthy floor of their shitty apartment when he was ten.

Jason and Alfred are doing laundry. He likes helping Alfred around the house; no one else in the family does, which means it gives him time away from them.

“Where’s Tim’s stuff?” he asks as he folds clean clothes. They’ve done five loads—it should have come up by now.

“Master Timothy has not worn any of his own clothing in over three weeks.”

Oh. Well, that explains why Jason’s had so much trouble keeping up with his own laundry lately.

He’s used to Tim wearing his clothes, because the kid doesn’t pay attention when he’s getting dressed, or because he feels better in something too big. But nothing of his own for almost a month? He wonders, suddenly, if Tim even has any clothes that fit right now. He does have a habit of destroying things, wardrobe included, and these days he’s almost—almost—at a healthy weight, for the first time in three years.

“Alfred, I think there’s a shopping trip in my immediate future.”

-

Tim whines the whole way to the mall. Jason is more amused by it than anything else—it’s bratty teen whining, nothing worrying, nothing dangerous. He’s been in the cave messing with cold cases for hours, and the fresh air will be good for him. They can handle a couple hours in public.

Only as soon as they step into the first store, they run right into someone they know. She takes a step back and blinks at them a few times, obviously as surprised by the meeting as Tim and Jason are. They haven’t really seen Batgirl since that first night.

She recovers first. “Oh! Um, hi…J.J. Jason.”

“Hey, Steph,” Jason says, striving for casual and polite, hoping Tim isn't going to be an issue.

“Hey,” Tim says dully. He avoids Steph’s eyes, moving past them both to a rack of sweaters.

Realistically, it’s about the best outcome Jason could expect, especially considering the violence the last time they encountered Tim’s ex. But it does leave Jason, again, in the uncomfortable position of holding a conversation with a girl he barely knows who pretty much hates him.

They manage a few minutes of awkward small talk.

“So,” Stephanie says. “Any advice on how to tell your literally psychotic ex you’re having a baby?”

“I’d recommend the direct approach,” Tim says from behind her shoulder. Stephanie jumps.

“Ti—J.J. Hi! Um, yeah, so. There’s this guy. And we’re, and I’m—yeah.”

Tim frowns his confused frown, not his upset one, and Jason relaxes a little. “Why would you even want to tell me? It’s obviously not mine.”

“You’re an important part of my life. And now my life is changing in an important way, and you deserve to know about that.”

Jason knows Tim is confused by the idea that he’s important to her, but he doubts Stephanie understands that.

“We dated four years ago, Steph.”

“I know,” she says, “but you died.”

“I’m still here.”

“Yeah, sort of.” She leans forward to kiss him gently on the cheek. “Bye, Boy Wonder. Maybe I’ll see you around someday.”

She walks out of the store without looking back, and Tim turns to press his head into Jason’s chest, struggling to cope with an emotion his brain can’t remember how to process.

“Come on,” Jason says after a few minutes. “We’ve got shopping to do.”

-

“How do you feel about the rest of your family?” the therapist asks. They’ve discussed J.J.’s feelings on Jason quite thoroughly.

He considers for a moment before answering. “I would not cause them serious harm on purpose without a reason. Regardless of the reason, I would first search for a feasible alternative.”

“Have you noticed that you talk like a dictionary when we have these serious conversations?”

J.J. frowns. “That doesn’t mean I’m lying. I have to think about things like this. Plan how to say it so you’ll understand. And it’s a habit—my parents always expected me to sound like an intelligent adult when I was a small child, and your interrogations remind me of my mother.”

“It’s therapy, not an interrogation.”

“Whatever you want to call it.”

“All right,” she says. “Let’s talk about your mother.”

Jason sighs. Of course they couldn’t just quit when they were ahead. Feasible alternative is really something for Tim. Something big enough to make Jason feel a lot better about living in the manor.

But Tim doesn’t want to talk about his mother—and who could blame him? So the lovely doctor implements her favorite strategy for getting him to open up.

“Jason, why don’t you tell us about your mother?”

He decides to stick the two of them together and get it over with. “My mom sold me out for drugs, then overdosed and died. I found the body.”

Clearly, this is not the sort of assistance she was hoping for. “Oh. Well then. J.J.?”

He sighs. “My mom spent all her time travelling. When she saw me I was expected to be perfect. When she was gone, I lived alone for months at a time, starting when I was very young. My stepmom was nice. Then she got murdered, and I got kidnapped. I don’t want to talk about Harley Quinn.”

“I really think it might help if you did.”

“I don’t want to talk about Harley Quinn,” he repeats, his voice sliding into something slightly dangerous.

“All right, I can understand why you don’t want to tell me about this.” She’s been pushing more lately. “But you need to tell someone. Have you at least talked to Jason about it?”

“No. And I’m not going to.”

They’re not getting anywhere else today—Jason is not helping her on this one. If Timmy doesn’t want to talk, he doesn’t have to talk. Not about the Joker.

-

When they get home, their bedroom window is open, and there are four brightly colored kids hovering around the sill. Titans, Jason thinks. One of them is Superboy. It’s been a long day, and Jason decides to let Tim deal with it himself for once, at least until he actually needs the help.

“Hi, Tim.” They speak almost in unison, which is beyond creepy, and they all sound nervous.

Tim rolls his eyes. “What is this, an intervention?”

“Well…yeah,” says Bart.

“All right, get on with it. Where, exactly, did you want to intervene? Was it about the reckless violence? Murder, specifically? Or my general bad attitude? Of course, there’s also the self-harm, the Jason-harm, the food issues, and the frequent drug use.”

“Drug use?” Cassie asks. Which seems comparatively mild. Maybe it’s the only thing Steph didn’t tell them to expect.

“And on that note,” Jason says, “I think it’s time for you to eat, Babybird.”

It occurs to him as soon as the words leave his mouth that this is the worst possible subject change when he very often has to get Tim high to make him eat without hurting himself for it. Jason looks at Tim. Tim looks at Jason, then at the drawer where he keeps a small stash of weed. Then at their uninvited guests.

“Not hungry,” he says. “I’d recommend you start with the murder, if you really feel the need to intervene.”

“Tim,” Conner says.

“Um. Not you. They can intervene. You can go fuck yourself.”

“Tim!” Cassie says, scandalized.

“And so can the next person who calls me Tim, actually.” He glances over at Jason. He’d like him to confiscate his knives before he does something he’ll regret with them, but he knows he’s on his own for the next few minutes, at least.

He really shouldn’t have mentioned the drug use. The first time he tried something, after the Pit, Jason had a full-blown panic attack. It was the first panic attack, or bad day, or anything, he’d had since they’d left the League behind, and Tim had been terrified and too drugged up to deal with the situation. That was Tim’s first and last attempt at injecting something, but he does still try stuff, occasionally, when the opportunity presents itself. It confuses the Joker in his head.

It also upsets Jason, way more than even the killing, which is why they never acknowledge out loud that sometimes Tim gets stoned and sometimes Jay lets him. Tim needs drugs, sometimes. Jason needs Tim, all the time. So he doesn’t stop him. But actually confronting the issue head-on is going to throw him enough that he’ll be useless to Tim until it’s too late.

So Tim has to control himself. He tightens his grip on the small throwing knife beneath a pillow, but doesn’t let himself bring it into view. He can handle this. He can.

“So, what should we call you?” Jaime asks.

Tim relaxes a little. Jaime is safer than the other three, mainly because they never had time to know each other well. Jaime doesn’t have the same frame of reference for him, so he won’t be so angry at what he’s become.

“You can call me J.J. After Conner leaves.”

Conner doesn’t fight it, just casts one long, mournful look at him before flying away. Tim is relieved. He really hates Conner lately, and he doesn’t trust himself not to stab him as soon as things get heated.

Not that stabbing would do much good, with the regular steel knives he has, but still.

“All right…J.J,” Cassie says. “What happened? You just disappeared. Batman wouldn’t say anything. No one in the League would. We all figured you must be dead and it was too hard to talk about. And then you come back as a villain?”

Wow. There are not words for how much Tim does not want to talk about this. He looks at Jason again, but he’s still unfocused, the way he gets sometimes when he can’t deal with his feelings. Tim slides a little closer, because sometimes physical contact can help, for Jason. When Tim gets like this he pretty much has to sleep it off.

“I spent some time with the Joker,” he says, finally. “Then I stabbed the fucker in the heart. Good little Robins don’t kill people, so I went far, far away. Then the Demon’s head brought me back. So I killed him too.”

“Um,” Bart says. He doesn’t get any farther than that.

Tim realizes belatedly that he’s been gripping the blade, not the handle, of his forbidden knife, and the sheets are being slowly soaked in blood. He should really remember to tell someone he probably has nerve damage—he only feels it half the time he hurts himself, and he’s been noticing lately that sometimes he feels it when he’s hurting Jason, too, which is not a Lazarus Pit side effect that anyone has mentioned before.

Cassie, Bart, and Jaime are all still staring at him in fascinated horror. He sighs. “I’d really rather not talk about it.”

“The Justice League knew about this?” Cassie asks.

Tim nods.

“And they didn’t tell us?” Bart demands.

“And they didn’t take care of you?” Jaime asks.

It occurs to Tim suddenly that their horror is on his behalf, that all of their considerable anger is no longer pointed at him, and he does not know how to deal with this.

Jason is freaking out, the way he does every time he has to actually think about the drugs—the marijuana he can deal with, he hates it, but not in the same way, not as much as he hates the blood dripping down Tim’s sides, hates counting out the number of scars on his stomach on the days he demands a cut for every bite of food he eats. The coke, twice, three times, that one day with the LSD, but mostly what he freaks out about is the heroin, and the way he will do anything, let Tim do anything, kill himself any way he wants, but not like that. Anything but that.

He feels something damp and sticky on his wrist, and grabs Tim’s hand as he pulls away—his palm is gushing blood.

“Shit, kid.”

Jason looks up. All Tim’s Teen Titans friends are still here. Great. He points at the one in red.

“Mini-Flash. Go find a first aid kit. Ours is almost empty. Wonder Girl, Bug Kid, leave or come inside, but pick one and close the damn window. It’s freezing in here. Babybird, are you okay? What did you do this time?”

“It was an accident,” Tim says. And it really was, for once, but he’s pretty happy with the result. Jason is focused on him again. Now he can tell these people to either start making sense or go away.

Except he doesn’t. Bart comes back, and Jason starts cleaning and bandaging his hand. Dick shows up, since the first aid kit Bart found was actually in his hands at the time, and he helps Cassie strip the sheets after Tim mentions the blood beneath his pillow, feeling oddly sheepish. Jaime introduces himself to Jason, and they start talking about how unfair the entire situation has been for J.J.—and he calls him J.J. They all do. Every time. And Tim doesn’t know how to handle this.

He’s not like Jason, who mostly wanted to be vindicated when he came home, who needed Bruce to kill the Joker because Jason mattered to him. Tim doesn’t expect people to do unreasonable things like caring about him—he just wants them to leave him alone.

People are not doing that right now, and it’s more overwhelming than anything else, anything positive. And he can’t stop wondering if Conner would have been like this too, if he’d let him stay. Tim presses his thumb into the cut through the bandage, since he no longer has a knife, and looks to Jason for help.

No good. Jason is apparently having the time of his life ranting about the Justice League with Bart and Jaime. Dick and Cassie are hanging on the outskirts of the conversation, trying to be responsible and mature.

Something ugly and dangerous is building up inside Tim, and he cannot deal. He digs his thumb into his palm again. It doesn’t help. Sighing, he bites the bullet and tugs on Dick’s sleeve imploringly.

“Dick, I want them to go,” he says. He says it in his youngest, most pleading voice, because Dick is a sucker for that one.

Five minutes later, Tim is alone with his brothers, though not before standing frozen through two hugs. He’s really glad Jaime, at least, limited himself to an awkward wave.

“You okay?” Jason asks when they’re gone.

Tim presses into his palm again, and this time blood comes welling up through the bandage.

Jason doesn’t say anything, just pulls the first aid kit closer and starts unwrapping the blood-stained cloth.

“Why did they come?” Tim asks.

“They were worried,” Jason says.

“Why weren’t they mad at me?”

“Because they love you,” Dick says.

Tim shudders, unsure why this is upsetting. Did the older heroes really keep what happened to him a secret? Did Conner even know he needed to be looked for? He pulls his hand close as soon as Jason is done.

“Can I go to my room now?”

“Sure, babybird.”

“Just try to come out for breakfast,” Dick adds. That gives him over twelve hours to do whatever he does, still.

Tim hesitates at the door. “Jay?”

“Yeah?”

“I won’t mess around with any more hard drugs. But I think I want to try the stuff Bruce was working on.”

Jason nods, exhausted but relieved, and Tim leaves the room.

“Hard drugs?”

“Leave it, Dick.” He collapses face-first onto the unmade bed, wishing he could somehow kick Dick out of the room without being left there alone.

He’s so tired. Those kids had actually cared about Tim. All his shit hadn’t mattered; they’d been on his side. So Jason had to be friendly and open, if Tim wasn’t going to be, to keep them invested in the whole thing. But he doesn’t know them. He doesn’t want to know them. And he doesn’t want Tim to hurt himself, to reach out for Jason with literally blood-soaked hands. He doesn’t want to think about Tim with a needle in a vein in his arm, or snorting coke as a compromise, or his mom’s body on the filthy floor of their shitty apartment when he was ten.

Dick pats him awkwardly on the shoulder. “It’s all right, Jay.”

It’s really not, but Jason appreciates the effort. He curves closer to his brother, and Dick is smart enough not to touch him again, but he does sit with him, for a long time.

Chapter 19

Summary:

There’s nothing to be nervous about. Not really. Who cares what the Justice League thinks? Bruce can take them all. And he would, right? He’d choose Tim and Jason?

Last time Jason was one of the options, Bruce chose the Joker instead.

Alfred appears at the top of the stairs. “Phone call for you, Master Jason.”

He takes the phone. “Um. Hello?”

No one has called him at the Manor since he was fifteen, and everyone he talks to now is living here.

“Is it true?” Roy asks. Right. He ditched the last number Roy knew ages ago.

“Yeah.” He doesn’t need clarification—ever since the stupid Teen Titans found out, the entire superhero community has been in an uproar about Tim. And the details are coming out fast.

“And you were with him?”

“Well, not at that exact moment.”

“But you knew, Jason? You knew.”

“Not until the next morning, but yeah. I knew.”

“And you’re still with him.”

“Roy—it’s not—”

Roy hangs up. Jason sets the phone down on an end table. Then he kicks the wall so hard it dents the plaster, and a painting crashes to the ground.

Fuck.

He hasn’t had contact with Roy in well over a year. He knew there was no coming back from this thing with Tim. It doesn’t matter. It doesn’t—fuck. He needs to get out of here.

Eight hours later he collapses onto his side of the bed, not even bothering to strip off his bloody clothes.

“Jay?” Tim whispers. “Are you okay?”

Jason ignores him.

The wild anger has mostly died down by breakfast, leaving a dull ache and a sense of emptiness that makes it impossible to care about Bruce’s anger and disappointment.

The lecture is pretty standard, what he catches of it—six dead drug dealers, not our job to be judge and jury, thought you were done with this, thought we could trust you, rely on you, you agreed to certain conditions—whatever. He doesn’t care. He just doesn’t care about anything right now. They all had it coming, anyway.

Roy would have understood.

Roy hates him now.

“It’s my fault,” Tim says.

“How is it your fault, J.J.?” Dick asks, almost making the name sound natural for once. He hasn’t looked at Jason once today. Whatever. Jay’s always been a disappointment. They should be used to it by now.

“I—the phone records. Roy Harper called. I killed Cheshire, you know. And I—Jason loves Roy. And I made Roy stop loving Jason.”

Jason leaves the table before anyone starts asking questions about his relationship with Roy. Besides, it isn't like that, or not exactly. He doesn’t want to have sex with Roy so much as he wants to be Roy’s favorite person. It would never have been anything, anyway. Jay was just his ex best friend’s kid brother. He knows that. He does. And he knew what he was getting into, choosing Tim.

He doesn’t see anyone the rest of the day, except for Alfred, who delivers food to his room and knows better than to try talking to him right now. He falls asleep alone, and wakes up to Tim, sliding hesitantly into his usual spot.

“Timmy?” he asks.

“I can go back to my old room if you want.”

“Whatever.”

“I’m sorry,” Tim says. “I’m sorry I made him stop loving you. I’m sorry. Please don’t leave me.”

“Never,” Jason promises.

It isn’t okay. Things haven’t been okay for a very long time, and he isn’t sure they ever will be. But he won’t leave Tim. He’ll never leave Tim.

-

It’s two days after the whole Roy fiasco is resolved that Clark comes by. The Justice League had decided that he was the best person to talk to Bruce about how he was harboring the kids with a combined total of over five hundred kills to their names.

(To be fair, a significant number of those kills come from wiping out the League of Assassins. And really, does murdering murderers even count?

Clark would argue that it does.)

They’re all waiting for him in the cave. Tim is wearing Jason’s clothes again—way too big, obviously Jason’s, and this is just what Jason needs. Another person to think they’re fucking.

He’s got the sleeves pulled down to cover his hands, and his legs are pulled up to his chest, hiding beneath the shirt, and if Jason didn’t know better, he’d think the kid was nervous. Jason sits behind him, and Tim leans back into his chest.

There’s nothing to be nervous about. Not really. Who cares what the Justice League thinks? Bruce can take them all. And he would, right? He’d choose Tim and Jason?

Last time Jason was one of the options, Bruce chose the Joker instead.

He said it was the worst choice he ever made. But Clark is a lot better than the Joker.

Okay, so Jason, at least, is nervous. But last time he checked, that was not part of Tim’s limited emotional repertoire, outside of his triggers and occasional breakdowns.

But Tim jumps to his feet as soon as Clark lands in front of them, and yeah, Babybird is definitely feeling it too. Huh.

“Tim,” Clark says.

“Clark,” Tim says.

There’s no name correction, and Jason distracts himself by thinking about it. When he was angry and hurting and half asleep the other night, Jay had called him Timmy without a reaction. And now that he thinks about it, no one’s really called him J.J. since then. Not Tim, either—they just all tend to avoid name use when they can, because J.J. is the only approved name, and it hurts almost everyone to use it. But Jason’s called him nothing but Timmy or Babybird for three or four days, at least.

Tim’s been a little different in general since the Roy thing. Maybe something clicked? Maybe he’s getting better.

Or maybe he’s still terrified that even Jason will leave him if he pushes too hard, and he’s drawing back as far as he can bear to in order to compensate for Roy.

Tim tugs on his shirt, hard, and Jason tunes back in to find Bruce and Superman arguing about them. (He is Superman right now. No sign of Dick’s beloved Uncle Clark, here. They’re the bad guys.)

“They’re not on the streets. They’re not hurting anyone or breaking any laws. How would containing them in a prison or an asylum be any better than containing them here?”

“The idea is punishment, not prevention. It’s a mansion, Bruce.”

“The idea is not punishment. What the hell is wrong with you? The idea is correction of bad behaviors and protection of innocents, with the goal of someday reintroducing them to society as safe and functioning people.”

“Jason killed six people less than a week ago.”

“And considering the death tolls when he escaped from Blackgate and Arkham, I’d call this new strategy a significant improvement.”

Clark just frowns. “What are you going to do when they continue breaking laws because they’re facing no consequences for their actions?”

“Tim had one incident several months ago. Despite the lack of consequences, there have been no significant problems since.”

“They call it positive reinforcement,” Tim says, beaming at Clark. Clark looks uncomfortable for a moment, but he powers through. He may not enjoy it, but he’s going to do the job the League sent him to do. He can’t let it matter that Bruce is his friend, or that he watched these kids grow up. Bruce is obviously compromised, and Tim and Jason aren’t kids anymore.

“Bruce,” he says, “I know you love your sons. But they died. And they didn’t come back, not really. Tim is—”

“No,” Dick says. “Tim is ours. Jason is ours. Your data is way outdated, and even if they were still doing the things you just found out about, they’re our family, and we can help them. You don’t even know how to try. You don’t get to take my baby brothers away and call it justice.”

“I know where we keep the Kryptonite,” Damian says, and the fact that neither Bruce nor Dick objects fills Jason with a warm, giddy feeling he doesn’t think he’s had since Bruce first brought him to the Manor.

“Bruce, the Justice League doesn’t want to hurt you. We’re your friends.”

Bruce glowers. The whole family glowers. Even Alfred. In fact, Jason would bet anything the only reason Alfred hasn’t escorted Clark off the premises yet is that Bruce’s response is affecting Jason the way it is.

Alfred gets Jason. He always did, back when he was a kid and Dick and Bruce just couldn’t figure him out.

He’ll thank Alfie later. Bruce is talking again.

“Clark, if any of you were honestly concerned about my feelings and my family, rather than containing a perceived threat, you would have agreed when I asked to have this meeting with you in private.”

“Tim and Jason need to understand the consequences of their actions.”

“No one here is named Tim,” Damian says, and Tim flashes a brief, grateful smile before stepping away from Jason to command the room.

“I don’t think you fully understand the severity of the situation leading up to this point, Clark.”

Tim sits at the closest computer, swivels his chair twice, and pulls up the brain scans Bruce has been obsessing over.

“This is a normal, healthy brain. Not mine—even Bruce wasn’t paranoid enough to scan his kids’ brains, back when mine was healthy.”

He opens another screen. “This is a brain scan done at the hospital, after my rescue from the Joker. All of these spots here? Those are parts of my brain that weren’t functioning anymore, Clark. The Joker burned them out. Literally. It was essentially a lobotomy by way of electricity, though I doubt that was his intention. I don’t know if he even had an intention. I don’t really care. Either way, it was the same for me. Weeks of incredible pain, enduring every form of abuse imaginable, waiting for someone in no hurry to get me, and in a big hurry to get rid of me again once he did.”

“Tim,” Bruce says.

“Shut up. It’s fine, Bruce. As far as any of the doctors were concerned, these parts of my brain were gone. This impacted my ability to communicate, my short and long term memory, my emotional processing, and my ability to differentiate between past, present, and imagined events, among other things. Of course, there’s also the PTSD, and the constant aggravating factors for my previously low-grade anxiety, depression, and OCD, not to mention the abandonment issues and mild attachment disorder.

“This situation would have been infinitely preferable for the Justice League, I know—I was contained and unlikely to cause harm to anyone. But it wasn’t my idea to change things up.”

“Tim.” This time it’s Clark who interrupts. He doesn’t get any farther than Bruce did.

“You can’t even pretend you wouldn’t rather have me locked in a psych ward for the rest of my life than like this, Clark. Don’t try to lie; you’ve never been any good at it.”

Another new screen.

“This is the brain scan that Bruce had done when Jason and I came home. As you can see, most of the dead parts of my brain are alive and functioning again. As you can also see from the next seven brain scans—really, Bruce? Have some self control. Wait. Here’s two more.”

He pulls up all the scans.

“Okay. As you can see, comparing the ten brain scans Bruce somehow managed to get without me noticing, this functioning is in no way consistent. It comes, it goes. It’s there more often than not, but the activity is decidedly erratic. You can also see that there’s just something off, in the entire brain, compared to our normal, healthy, control brain. This would be the Lazarus Pit.”

“Tim—” Dick says. He’s not successful either.

“Ra’s threw me in the first time, because he wanted my brain functioning well enough that he could use it. I let Jason put me in the next time, because I was dying. Entry into the Pit the next several times was both voluntary and postmortem, as well as unsuccessful in driving the Joker’s voice out of my head. In fact, it mostly got louder. When the Justice League is done being unsympathetic assholes, I would appreciate the Martian Manhunter poking around a little—I’ve done thorough research, and my situation is entirely abnormal.”

While Tim is talking about the Joker’s voice, Damian leaves the cave, looking sickened, and Jason remembers, belatedly, that Damian was never told about the multiple Pit entries, and also is a child. It’s so easy to forget that Damian’s a child. And Jason is distracted enough by this that it takes a moment to register—Tim never talks about the Joker. This includes any mention of the fact that he’s been hearing him for years. Holy shit, Babybird. This is why they went to therapy. To deal with shit like that.

Tim continues to be unbothered by the reactions of everyone else in the cave.

“I don’t—Ra’s was in the Pit far more times than I was, of course. But I’m fairly certain no one else has ever had that much Pit exposure in that period of time. So what you need to understand, Clark, is that you’re not dealing with a bout of Pit madness and a negative reaction to being tortured, both of which I should have gotten out of my system several hundred corpses ago. You made allowances due to my mental health, but you didn’t make enough, Clark. The Pit madness is several times worse than what anyone on record has ever experienced, and it demonstrably failed to actually heal the damage it was intended to—they’re not just dead tissue anymore, but several parts of my brain are only intermittently functional, which means that I do not have consistent access to all of my higher brain functions.”

He swivels in the chair again.

“Basically, my head is extremely fucked up. I cannot always identify the present reality. There are several emotions I can no longer process appropriately—I can really only counter that by centering myself around Jason, but I am getting better at doing it with the rest of the family. Like right now, I understand exactly why Damian left, and I think I might be feeling slightly…bad, about it, which Jason can tell you is real progress. I might care about everyone living in the Manor, at least to the point that I would be—displeased, if they died. Jason has been a consistent presence in my life since shortly after the initial damage, making him something to latch onto, so I can have significantly more normal emotional reactions to him. It is almost insurmountably difficult for me to empathize or sympathize with nearly anyone else, because that part of my brain is largely non-functional. On top of that, there is the Joker constantly screaming at me to do terrible things, which I have largely ignored for several months now.”

“All right,” Alfred says, finally deciding they’ve all had enough. He is successful in closing out the brain scans and pushing Tim, in his wheeled chair, over to Jason.

Jason catches the chair as it approaches, pulling Tim off of it and into his lap. “Let’s head upstairs, Babybird. Let the superheroes talk.”

Tim nods and lets himself be herded away, but at the top of the stairs he stops and turns around.

“Clark?”

“Yes, Tim?”

“Bruce and Jason told you that if you locked me up, I would break out and kill so, so many people. I won’t. If the Justice League tries to contain me anywhere other than in the Manor, on the terms previously established by Bruce and Jason, I will kill myself. And then your best friend’s severely damaged young son will be dead, and it will be your fault.”

Tim follows Jason up the stairs, stopping to have a quickly whispered conversation with Damian before heading to the bedroom.

“Who are you right now?” Jason asks, and Tim understands.

“I’m Tim.”

“Why?”

“Because the Joker is getting worse. And I don’t think—it’s hard, because they monitor me so much on the computers, I can’t get conclusive data. But I don’t think it’s me, Jay. I don’t think it’s a mentally ill, I hear voices thing. It wasn’t worth having to talk about him, just for that. So I didn’t. But now—I think it’s something inside me that’s telling me what to do, and I think if I don’t listen it’ll start doing it for me.”

“Holy shit. Timmy—”

“I think he implanted something. Because I’ve been thinking about it, and even with all the horrible stuff I was doing anyway, there are times I can’t account for, when you weren’t there, periods where I did something really bad and I had a blackout while it happened. And they always came after I ignored the Joker voice for too long, and the electricity thing was always even worse than usual after. And I’ve been ignoring him for a really long time now, and I’m scared, Jay. I’m really scared.”

“It’s gonna be okay, Timmy. If the Joker stuck something in you, we’ll make the Justice League pull it out. And if they try to lock you up after, we’ll kill ‘em all. I bet Damian will even help—that kid was born to be an assassin.”

“Yeah, but he’s trying to defy his destiny or something.”

Jason hums in agreement and pulls Tim closer, and they’re silent for several minutes before Tim adds, quietly, “Also, you got hurt the worst way, and it was my fault. And nothing else has mattered, but I’m not ever supposed to hurt you. So I can’t have his name, because I can’t hurt you like him, and I can’t do what he wants me too. I can’t be junior him.”

He pulls away from Jason, smiling brightly. “It was a stupid idea, anyway, taking his name. Right, Red Hood?”

Jason scowls, shoving him away. “Brat.”

“Seriously? I run around Asia, Europe, and North America killing anyone in my way, and it’s mocking your codename that gets you riled up?”

Jason pulls him in again, laughing, ruffling his hair. “I really love you, Timmy.”

“Good,” says Tim. “Because you are extremely stuck with me.”

He knows it can’t last, but this is the best things have been since the last time he saw Tim in the hospital, at the end of the visit when Tim hugged him and said goodbye. This is the Tim he was drawn to the first time they met after the Joker, the Tim he might have known before if he hadn’t been so determined to kill the kid. The Tim that everyone in the Manor has been missing so much. This isn't Jason’s Tim, exactly, but it is a Tim he’d be very happy to keep.

Dick comes and finds them an hour or two later, making himself comfortable on their bed. “It’ll be okay,” he tells them. “Clark’s just doing his job. But we’re making him understand. And then he’ll explain it to the rest of the League. And they won’t apologize, because they never do, but Clark will, and then he’ll just be Clark again. Is it okay if I hug you, J.J.?”

“No.”

“Okay. Just checking.”

“No,” he says again. “You can—I just don’t want to be J.J. anymore.”

Dick’s face lights up, but he has the good sense not to make a big deal about it. “Okay. Can I hug you, Timmy?”

Tim hesitates.

“You don’t have to let me maul you just because you changed your name again.”

Tim hesitates some more. “You’re stressed about Clark, and you’ll feel better if you hug me.”

“I will,” Dick agrees, “but how will you feel?”

“Nonviolent,” Tim decides after a moment’s thought.

It’s been a particularly difficult learning curve for Dick, these last several months. Currently, Damian is the cuddliest of his little brothers. Damian. Jason only scowls and grumbles when Dick gets affectionate, but touching Tim without express permission, seldom granted, is basically asking to be murdered. And this leaves Dick a little lost on how to provide comfort and support. Not that Tim trusts Dick to support him now, anyway.

But today he gets a hug.

-

It’s a long time before Clark appears in the doorway, Bruce behind him. Clark reaches toward Tim, and he flinches hard, Dick and Jason silently shifting to shield him.

“I need you to come with me, Tim.”

Tim is gripping Jason’s arm so hard he thinks he’ll have scars, not bruises.

“It’s okay,” Bruce says. “Go with him. He’ll bring you back.”

“Jason?” Tim asks.

“I don’t trust Clark. But Bruce does, and I trust Bruce.”

“And I trust you,” Tim says. He steps forward, allowing Clark to wrap an arm around his waist and fly them through the open window.

Jason looks down at his arm. “I need an ice pack.”

Dick sits quietly with him until Bruce comes back with the ice pack, then slips out.

“What’s happening?”

“Clark’s taking him to J’onn,” Bruce says. “Then bringing him home. As he suggested.”

“And you couldn’t have told us that?”

“You didn’t give me a chance, Jason. As soon as I opened my mouth Tim was turning to you, and you just told him to trust me.”

“Right. Okay.”

“I didn’t know you trusted me.”

Jason doesn’t want to deal with feelings right now, so he throws the ice pack at Bruce’s head. Bruce hands it back to him before leaving the room, smiling slightly.

-

They’ve been in the air for several minutes before Tim decides he cares enough to ask, “What’s going on?”

“You wanted to see the Martian Manhunter.”

“And we’re flying to the Watchtower instead of taking the zeta tubes, why?”

“I was told you would likely find flight less distressing.”

“Oh.”

There’s another short period of silence before Tim tells him, “I’m not going to suddenly be good again or whatever, just because you pull the Joker out of my head. I’m sorry about Cheshire, because that hurt Jay. And I’m sorry about giving Cass the heads, and the guy after we moved back to the Manor—a little. It was disrespectful, when Bruce was taking care of us, but I did save Damian.

“I won’t apologize for the rest of it. I’m not sorry I killed the woman who tortured me. I’m not sorry for decimating the League of Assassins. I’m not sorry, and you and J’onn and the entire Justice League can’t make me be. I’m not going to do it again without a good reason, but I’m not going to beg your forgiveness, even if J’onn is capable of ripping all the crazy right out of me and fully restoring my ability to feel things normally.”

“We’ll see,” Clark says, which confirms Tim’s theory that he thinks they can just cure him and avoid the issue of whether or not to lock him up.

“I really would rather die,” he says.

“Bruce says he can handle you. I’m inclined to believe him.”

Tim doesn’t speak again until they land at the Tower.

-

He wakes up in his own bed, and Jason sits up almost as soon as his eyes are open, studying him intently.

“How do you feel?”

“Like shit,” Tim says.

“There was some sort of subconscious trigger in your mind—basically would have let the Joker, or what’s left of him, or his personality or whatever, take over your body. I don’t know. You passed out the second J’onn brushed your mind, then he brought you back himself, and it was a whole lot of technical jargon. But you were right, and it’s gone now. You’re okay.”

“By our definitions, sure. Superman thought they could yank the crazy right out of my head. I mean, hoping I could get, but I think he really believed it.”

They sit in silence for a while, and Jason thinks, foolishly, that the drama is over for the day. Then the kid has to go and open his mouth.

“I don’t remember what happened before the Joker,” Tim says, his voice flat and distant. “I don’t know how far back, exactly. Damian had been around for a week, maybe, where my memory cuts off. I don’t know how much I remember of the Joker and Harley. Plenty. When Bruce—I remember shooting the Joker, and Batman in the background, but nothing else from that night, and nothing after until the psych ward. And I think a lot of the earliest memories were hallucinations. I knew you weren’t, because that was just too weird for me to hallucinate. I mean, the childhood hero who keeps trying to kill me shows up to sit quietly in the hospital with me? I’m not that creative.”

More emotion has leaked into his voice by now, and Jason wraps an arm around his shoulders.

“I remember knowing my dad was dead. I don’t remember it happening, or anyone telling me about it. Sometimes I think I killed him.”

“Jack Drake died of alcohol poisoning, Tim.”

“Good,” Tim says.

Jason raises his eyebrows, but doesn’t comment.

“I didn’t want to be the reason Dana lost her husband.”

“She was pretty great, huh?”

“Yeah,” he says, soft and wistful.

“I’m sorry you couldn’t see her.”

Tim doesn’t answer, and Jason knows they’re done talking about the Joker for a while. Which is mostly a relief. He’s not surprised when Tim says, “I really need to hurt, Jay.”

He knows the others were hoping, on some level, for Tim to wake up and be just like he was when he was fifteen, before the Joker and all this shit. Jason knows better. Tim is healing, slowly. But that kid they remember is never coming back, and Jason doesn’t really understand why they’d want him to. How could they ask that kid to live in this world, with everything he’s done and had done to him? You become what you have to in order to survive. He knows that. He thought they did too.

But yeah, he thinks as they negotiate the terms of Tim’s self-harm, it’s kind of a nice idea.

-

“Hey Bruce,” Tim says, letting the door between the library and the cave swing closed behind him.

“What are you doing here?”

Clearly hurt and confused, Tim stammers out, “I, um, to, uh, to patrol?”

Silently, Bruce curses himself. He knows he’s gotten…harder, this last year, that losing Jason broke something inside him that may never be fixed. But he doesn’t want or try to be like this. He didn’t mean to upset the kid—this kid who reminds him so much of Jason some days it hurts, with the same build and coloring and flawless insertion into the center of Bruce’s life.

He does his best to correct himself. “Your parents flew out of Gotham at six this morning.”

“I know,” Tim says.

“I assumed you were with them.”

“You thought I’d just go to Argentina without telling you?” Tim demands, sounding horrified.

“I know how…impetuous your parents can be. I thought they’d decided at the last minute, and you hadn’t had time to contact me. It did not occur to me that they may have left their twelve year old child at home when they left the country.”

“It’s not a big deal,” Tim says. “Happens all the time.”

Bruce frowns, but doesn’t press further. That night they patrol late, way late, hours past the time Bruce usually insists Tim go home and go to bed. He’s more tired than he’s ever been before, and he crashes in one of the manor’s guest rooms. It’s not like his parents will miss him—they’re in Argentina.

Then Alfred lets him borrow some of Jason’s old clothes, and Bruce asks him to come right back after school to help with a project. And that night they stay out even later, so late that Tim sleeps through half the morning and wakes up to find that Alfred has called his school to excuse him for the day.

Bruce takes him on a ride in his fanciest car that afternoon, and then to a movie, and he spends the night again.

The it’s the weekend, and Bruce asks him to help plan a gala for the Wayne Foundation to raise money for the orphanage, and then Bruce says he really needs Tim’s help bringing in the Condiment King, and then it’s Spring Break and Dick wants him to come visit in Bludhaven, and somehow Tim doesn’t make it back home until his parents do.

-

After J’onn leaves, Bruce stands vigil at Tim and Jason’s door. Well, sits vigil, after Alfred insists at the third hour mark.

J’onn would have told him, had he asked, what he had seen in Tim’s mind. But Bruce had not asked. It would have been too invasive, when they were just beginning to rebuild trust.

He’s been sitting in a chair per Alfred’s request for nearly two hours when his third son finally emerges from the room.

Tim is Tim, as he always is no matter what he says, when he stumbles blearily through the door, hair sticking up at odd angles and just a little too long, squinting in the dim light of the hallway. He’s wearing a shirt he must have stolen from Jason, though Bruce is fairly certain it belonged to him originally, and he stands awkwardly in front of the door.

“Hi, Bruce.”

“Hello, Tim.”

“J’onn can’t just change me, like untangling puppet strings in my head.”

“I know,” Bruce says.

“You’re kind of a shit parent.”

“I know,” Bruce says again, because nothing can ever make up for letting the Joker touch his child.

“You’re my favorite dad, though.”

Bruce knows this isn't a very high bar, between Jack Drake’s neglect and Joker’s…everything, but it’s something Tim is giving him, when he has so little left to give.

“Thank you,” Tim adds, “for not letting them take me away.”

Bruce doesn’t have a chance to reply before Tim is turning back toward the door, slipping away inside.

Chapter 20

Summary:

“I cannot believe,” Tim says, “that you’re calling me a loser, moments after I’ve had a psychotic break.”

“What do you want from me? Kid acts like I’m the devil.”

“He’s afraid of you, Jack. He’s afraid of me too, but that’s because he’s traumatized, not because I yell at him.”

“If he would just listen to me the first time—”

“He can’t. You think this is willful disobedience? Some ploy to get your attention? He’s not okay, Jack. He’s never going to be okay again. You can’t expect the same things from him that you did before—” Dana cuts off abruptly. “It’s almost two-thirty. I am taking our son to his appointment. We’ll be back in two hours. So you have that long to figure out how to be a father. Get on it.”

-

Becky Derkin steps into the lobby between patients, and is surprised to see Jason Todd standing in the corner of the room. He’s alone, and it’s not the day of their appointment, or the time—Jason and J.J. always have the last two sessions of the day, so no other patients will pay for the inevitable chaos they bring.

She approaches warily—Jason at 2pm on a Wednesday can’t mean anything good, especially since they missed their last session without a word, and Bruce accompanied J.J. to the one before that, neither of them mentioning Jason at all.

“It’s Tim,” he says when she reaches him. “Not J.J. anymore. You can’t call him J.J., but you can’t make him talk about it. Kid’s been through the ringer this week. Me too. I don’t—we can’t. All week it’s been old friends who hate us now, and Tim’s at his limit. I’m past mine.”

Jason looks more vulnerable than she’s ever seen him, and she asks, gently, “Do you need me to fit you in today?”

He runs a hand through his hair. “No. I, um—no. Thanks though.”

-

It is his father’s funeral. He is sitting with Dana, and she is crying. Dana, he thinks, really loved his father.

“Not like us,” says a voice in his head. “We’re not that stupid.”

“Shut up,” he yells back, because it’s been endless weeks of this. “Shut up. Shut up!”

The room goes silent. Most of these people have never heard Tim’s voice. There’s been plenty of screaming, of course, but he hasn’t spoken once since being recovered from the Joker.

“Tim?” Dana says, kneeling down in front of his chair. “What is it, honey?”

She’s still crying. She’s crying because his dad is dead. Because he killed him, spike to the heart. Except that doesn’t make sense, because the Joker is right there. But the Joker isn’t his dad, right? His dad is Batman. But he doesn’t—he doesn’t—his dad is dead. Dana is laughing, everyone is laughing. And then Tim is laughing, and he can’t stop. He can’t breathe, but he can’t stop, and none of this is funny.

-

Jason knocks on the door of what he thinks of as Tim’s hiding room.

“Tim? You okay in there?”

No answer.

“Talk to me, Timmy.”

And nothing. No one’s seen Tim since dinner, which means he spent the night there. And it’s mid-afternoon.

“Come on, kid. I need to know you’re okay in there, or I’m coming in.”

“Fuck off,” Tim says.

Jason decides this is good enough to earn him another hour. He goes back when the time is up.

“Tim? You still good? You need anything?”

There’s silence for long enough that he’s about to bang on the door again when Jason hears a quiet, “Bruce?”

“Bruce?” he checks. “You want Bruce?”

There’s a long pause before Tim says, sounding a little unsure, “Yes. Bruce.”

Granted, Bruce is the only person Tim has ever allowed in this room. But Tim hasn’t actually asked for him since well before the Pit.

He used to cry for him during episodes, back at the hospital.

“He’s always asking for Bruce,” a nurse had told Jason once, “but no one knows who that is.”

“His foster dad,” Jason had told her. He hadn’t told them anything else. He didn’t think Bruce would come if he knew Tim was calling for him.

Now, though, he knows he’ll come. He goes to find him.

Bruce leaves the door open when he goes to see Tim, giving Jason his first look at the kid in the better part of twenty four hours.

And Tim does not look great, so he stays in the doorway, just out of sight, in case he’s needed.

“What did they do?” Tim demands.

“What did who do?” Bruce asks.

“You lied! You said they wouldn’t do things. You promised. You let them into my head. What did they do to me?”

“Tim, I’m not—”

“You moved my brain. It changed! This isn't my head, this isn't, I’m not—I’m not me and I can see them and you lied. You lied.”

Tim is getting increasingly hysterical, and he isn't, when Jason looks in, yelling at Bruce, but rather at the wall about a foot to the left of him. He’s pale and shaking and clearly having an episode—he may be speaking to Bruce, but it’s probably a hallucination of him, and he probably isn't aware that the real Bruce is even present.

This suspicion is confirmed when Tim starts shouting in response to things Bruce hasn’t said. Tim hasn’t had an episode—not really—since the Lazarus Pit. He’s still had all the hallucinations, sure. But he’s been able to recognize them for what they are. This is like before. Complete break from reality, panicking at something that isn't really there, not really able to see what is. This hasn’t happened since the hospital. And it’s a bad one. The regular episodes where he’d just start interacting with his hallucinations, where he’d see them and believe them and be afraid, Jason could usually talk him down, keep him calm, at least a little.

But this thing, this is what happens when he panics so hard he works himself up into a really bad hallucination, and they’ve only ever been able to stop it with heavy sedatives.

Jason fucking hates sedating his little brother.

He enters the room, not bothering to telegraph his movements since Tim won’t see them anyway. He wraps himself around the kid from behind, lowering them both to the floor.

Bruce kneels down beside them. “Jay?”

“He’ll probably need a sedative,” Jason says. He wants to start yelling, but this isn't the time—the fact that Tim is having an episode like this, after years, is pretty solid evidence that he’s right about them messing with his head. Jason holds him down while Bruce gets the sedative.

It’s not a very strong dose, just enough to get him from freaking out to spacing out. Jason wants to send Bruce away after, but doesn’t quite dare; Bruce was invited into the room, and Jason was not.

“Jason,” Bruce says.

“I’m not speaking to you. Not until we know what Tim’s upset about.”

Bruce accepts this, because arguing with Jason is seldom worth the trouble. They sit quietly until Tim begins to seem lucid again—the rest of the family is probably already getting ready for patrol.

“Hey, babybird,” Jason says, loosening his grip as Tim shifts.

“You sedated me,” he says, glaring up at Jason.

“You were freaking out, kid. It was necessary.”

He hums in what might be agreement, sliding out of Jason’s arms into a position where he can see both him and Bruce.

“You want to tell me what got you so worked up?” Jason asks.

He nods, turning to Bruce. “You said they would only take the Joker out of my head.”

“Yes,” Bruce says.

“You let them do something else. I know they did.”

Bruce just looks confused.

“How do you know?” Jason asks.

“I’ve been remembering things,” he says, staring intently down at the floor. “From before—from before you came to the hospital, and a little from the Joker. They were gone. I didn’t want them back. Why are they back?”

“I don’t know, Tim,” Bruce says, very gently. “To my knowledge, J’onn reached into your mind, removed the Joker trigger, and then left without changing or even looking at anything else. I do not believe he would have lied to me about that.”

“Okay,” Tim says.

“You believe me?” Bruce checks, a little surprised.

Tim nods.

“My best guess as to what happened is that things were slightly shifted by the one thing he did change. Would you like him to come here and check things out?”

“No,” Tim says, listing a little closer to Bruce; the sedative hasn’t fully worn off yet.

“Okay,” Bruce says, wrapping a hesitant arm around his shoulder. “What can we do to make this more bearable for you?”

“I want Dana,” he mumbles.

“Dana’s dead, Timmy,” Jason says.

“I know that,” Tim snaps. “I just want her.”

“I wish more than anything that I could get her for you,” Bruce says.

Tim pulls away from him. “Do you want it bad enough to use a Pit?” he counters.

“Would you ever forgive me if I did?”

“No,” he admits.

They’re all silent for a few minutes, Tim shifting closer to Jason until they’re tangled up in each other as usual.

“Would you like to patrol with me tonight?” Bruce asks.

Tim turns to stare at him, deeply suspicious. “I’m not allowed to patrol.”

“All right, let me rephrase. Would you like to run around Gotham rooftops in the dark with me, while the others take care of patrol?”

There’s a long pause before he says, “Okay.”

Bruce smiles so big he looks like he used to, before Jason died.

“Jay,” he says, “do you—”

“Don’t worry about me, B. I’ll just be here, hanging out with the only other cool person in this family.”

Bruce smiles again, smaller this time. “I’m sure Alfred will appreciate it.”

“He’d better. It’s not every day he gets a night without any of you losers.”

“I cannot believe,” Tim says, “that you’re calling me a loser, moments after I’ve had a psychotic break.”

Jason reaches out to muss up his hair; Tim dodges just in time.

“Whatever, babybird. Go play with Dad. I’m gonna help Grandpa around the house.”

-

“We need to talk about the future,” Bruce says, cornering them both the next morning.

“Okay,” Jason says, hopefully sounding less nervous than he feels. Tim glances up, briefly, from whatever he’s working on—it looks like a badly mangled GameBoy—but doesn’t answer.

“I’ve been talking with the League about their comfort levels in all of this, but I want you to know that ultimately all choices here are mine and yours.”

“Okay,” Jason says, relaxing a little.

“I need you both to continue living in the Manor indefinitely.”

“Deal,” Jason says, worry evaporating completely. Is that all? They had this conversation months ago. He was pretty much resigned to a lifetime of house arrest the day he called Tim back to the Manor, and now he can do whatever he wants, as long as he doesn’t commit murder and comes home most nights.

“Tim,” Bruce continues. Jason grabs the former GameBoy so he’ll be more focused on what Bruce is saying.

“I’m not ever letting you out on the streets to fight crime again. But I had always—the company is still yours, if you want it. You have to get a business degree, and you have to get better, but it’s yours.”

“How much better?” he asks.

“I need to feel comfortable putting you in charge of the livelihoods of hundreds of people.”

“Okay,” Tim says. “That’ll take a while.”

“That’s fine, Tim. I’m not terribly eager to retire, anyway.”

A month ago, Jason thinks, it would have been impossible to imagine that Bruce would ever consider offering this. Six months ago, it would have been impossible to imagine even having a civil conversation of this length, never mind calling Tim by his actual name throughout.

Soon, Tim isn't going to need Jason. Not like he has these last few years. And for the first time, Jason doesn’t dread that.

Bruce has nothing to offer him. It doesn’t hurt—it’s not about Jason. Damian has always wanted Batman, desperately, and no one but Tim has the faintest interest in running a business. Dick doesn’t have something special like this, either. It’s not about Jason. Still, he knows, looking at Bruce right now, that he’ll give him anything he wants. And Jason is surprised to find that what he wants is the exact same thing he wanted at fifteen.

“Jason?” Bruce asks. He looks worried—Jason’s probably missed something he’s said, and he probably thinks Jason is ignoring him because he’s upset about something, and not just spacing out.

He doesn’t bother figuring out what Bruce was asking originally.

“I want to go to college,” he says, and pretends not to notice how happy Bruce looks, just for a second before he gets in under control.

“Finish high school first,” Bruce says. “I’ll arrange for both of you to have your GEDs as soon as you feel ready.”

Deciding now is as good a time as any to push his luck, Jason adds, “And I want to work with Babs more. Out of town.”

Bruce sighs, but he doesn’t forbid it like Jason was half expecting. “Make sure you keep it out of town. Do things the way she tells you to, and don’t let it interfere with school.”

“And don’t get caught,” Tim says.

“And don’t involve Tim.”

Maybe, Jason thinks, things are going to be all right.

-

J.J.—Tim—walks into her room alone, and stands awkwardly in front of the couch.

“How are you today, Tim?”

“I get to stay with Bruce,” he says, voice flat and unreadable.

“Is that a good thing?”

Tim shrugs. “They—they wanted to lock me up again. And Bruce says I can have my darkroom back if I can stop hurting myself so much.”

It’s as close as Tim can come to admitting he wants to be with Bruce.

“Who wanted to lock you up, Tim?”

“Bruce’s friends. They just—they just found out about—they knew me from when Bruce had me when my dad was sick, and they didn’t think Bruce could take care of me. They wanted him to send me back to the hospital. Jason too.”

“Where is Jason today?”

“Parking.” There is a brief silence as they both consider how very little time it takes to park here. “The last two weeks have been really shitty,” he adds.

She nods encouragingly.

“Even more for him.”

“And why is that?”

Jason enters the room just as she’s speaking, wrapping his arms around Tim from behind.

“My best friend was one of the people trying to put Timmy away. Heard some of the stuff we got up to before going back to Bruce. Flipped out in a big way.”

“Do you want to talk about what you got up to?”

“No,” Tim says.

“No,” Jason agrees, “but I think it’s time we talked about Damian’s family.”

“Damian. That’s your youngest brother?”

“Yeah. More or less.” Jason sits on the couch, pulling Tim down on top of him.

“They’re the ones who took me from the hospital,” Tim says. “Damian’s mom and grandpa—they’re obsessed with Bruce. They hid Damian from him for years, but as soon as he found out he got custody, because he’s Bruce Wayne, and they were abusive. So they took me to get back at him for taking Dami, except he’d given me back to my dad and didn’t even know about it.”

He pauses, looking over at Jason, who shakes his head.

“Right. So Jason didn’t—he didn’t just swoop in and whisk me away. We were both there for months. It was—it was really bad.”

Tim has started scratching his arm, hard. Jason reaches out to grab his wrists, gently restraining him, before he speaks.

“Talia raped me. Not just—I was there before, too, when they thought I was dead, and I was fifteen, sixteen—I’m not even sure. But we had—it was when my brain was still mostly scrambled.”

He drops his head in a largely unsuccessful attempt to hide behind Tim, not loosening the hold on his wrists.

“It was a couple months after we got away before Jay was okay enough to notice how out of control I’d gotten, and then I—we—”

“I thought I could handle it,” Jason says. “I could, for a long time. We weren’t going to come back to Gotham. We weren’t ever going to have anything to do with Bruce again.”

“Why did you?” she asks.

Tim flinches, and Jason releases his wrists, letting him slide off his lap and onto the couch beside him.

“Timmy got sick. Real sick. We weren’t too far from Gotham then, and I thought he was going to die. I didn’t know what else to do.”

Before she can form a response, Tim pulls on Jason’s sleeve, saying, just loud enough for her to hear, “I don’t want to.”

That’s the end of meaningful conversation for the day, but it’s more conversation than they usually get in an entire month, so she’s not about to push for more.

-

“Hey, Little Wing,” Dick says.

Jason looks up slowly, blinking a few times. He’s been sitting on the couch, flipping listlessly through a book Dick knows he hates, for about three hours now, and Dick is getting worried. Tim has been hanging out with Damian downstairs since they got back from therapy—hanging out meaning, in this case, trying to stab each other, but in a friendly sort of way, so Alfred is supervising. Bruce is at work, so that leaves Dick to figure out what’s wrong with Jason. And fix it.

“You know,” he tries, “Damian’s not nearly as murderous as he could be, considering you killed his mom. I bet he’ll be cool playing with you in the cave soon, too.”

“Whatever,” Jason says, looking back down at his book.

Okay, so he isn't feeling left out while the little brothers bond. Or at least that’s not his main concern—Dick still plans to see what he can do about improving the relationship there. What else could be upsetting Jay?

“So I hear you finally get to go to college.”

Jason doesn’t even look up from the book he’s not reading this time.

“Tim seems like he’s doing better.”

“Uh huh.”

“Have you talked to Roy since everything happened?”

Jason tenses, his grip on the book tightening, but he doesn’t answer. Finally, Dick thinks. That’s the problem.

“He’ll forgive you, you know. It might take a long time, but he will.”

Tim enters the room just in time to see a book go flying at the wall.

“It’s okay, Jason,” Dick is saying. “I know it fucking sucks right now, but it’s not like any of this was your fault, and Roy’s not an idiot.”

Jason glowers at him. Tim decides this probably isn't a conversation he wants to be part of.

“So he’ll forgive me,” Jason says. “Fine. Will he forgive Tim? Because we all know that’s a deal breaker.”

Yeah, this is not where Tim wants to be right now. “I’ll be outside,” he says, grabbing his camera as he walks down the hall. He hopes things will work out with Roy. But he isn't counting on it.

Conner is waiting for him in the yard. “Hey, Rob.”

Tim is confused for just a moment before he realizes Kon’s never been told that his real name is okay again, and he would never call him J.J. Robin is a concession he can accept, and even appreciate, right now.

“Did you know?” he asks. Kon doesn’t have to ask what he means.

“Not about the Joker. Not until after. And the others never found out. Clark told me they wanted to keep the kids out of things, after what happened to Jason. And you. I got the basics out of him later, but everyone else just got told you were done. Don’t try to maintain contact. I knew—I had kind of a general idea of where you were, and then you were just gone, your heartbeat was nowhere in the country. I found out Jason had been in the area. I kind of figured he killed you.”

There is a part of Tim that wishes he could accept the apology this is clearly intended to be. Forgive Kon for not being there, for never being there, for never following his heartbeat far enough to actually be there. For failing to investigate further when it stopped. For assuming, so casually, that he was just dead at Jason’s hands, when Jason was the only one who ever tried to be there for him at all.

But that part of him is not nearly big enough. Maybe someday. Definitely not today.

“We miss you,” Kon says.

“Good for you. Why should I care?”

“Tim—I mean—I mean J—”

“It’s fine,” Tim says. “It’s all fine. Just don’t—I can’t.”

“Why not?” Kon asks.

“You think I want to be in this again? After everything? You think I want to go to Steph’s baby shower? Visit Bart in college? Be the third wheel on your dates with Cassie? I didn’t even want to be here, Kon, but I came for Jason. Jason, who followed me across the country, across the world—Jason who chose me every time, when I was obviously the wrong choice. I don’t owe you shit.”

“Tim—”

“Everything in me died, and it didn’t all come back. And I’m sorry. I am, as much as I know how to be anymore. But I don’t have enough heart left in my body to spare it on you. You have to go, Kon. You can’t come back.”

“Okay,” he says. “Okay, Tim.”

Tim nods. “Thanks.”

“Hey, if you decide to go on another killing spree, Clark’s been a real asshole lately.”

He takes off then, and leaves Tim laughing, a little, but mostly crying, waiting for Jason.

-

“You okay?” Jason asks, hugging him from behind.

“No.”

“Me neither,” he says. “You really cared about them, didn’t you?”

Tim nods, turning in Jason’s arms to put his head against his chest.

“What’s gonna make it better? Anything in the world, babybird. What do you want?”

Tim is quiet for a long time, thinking, but his answer is decisive and calm. “I want to hide under Bruce’s desk in the cave until I fall asleep, and I want Bruce to carry me up to bed.”

He pulls back to look Jason in the eyes, steady and sane and full of longing for a memory.

“Think there’s room for two under that desk?”

“Yeah,” Tim says.

Jason takes him by the hand, and they walk toward the cave together. Tomorrow, Jason knows, they will wake up in their bed. Whatever else happens, Jason knows, they are loved.

Notes:

A few things:

1. This is extremely late and I am extremely sorry.

2. It's over!

3. I finished it about five minutes ago, so this chapter isn't very polished.

4. The other day I found some scene fragments in a notebook that I forgot to type into the appropriate chapters, so I'm probably going to post those on Tumblr.

5. My Tumblr is http://iowriteswords.tumblr.com/

6. On there you can also find non-Batman writing things, like pieces of my published short story collection and information about my upcoming Oz Project.

7. Thank you so much for reading, and commenting, and kudosing, and all that stuff. It's been awesome!

Series this work belongs to:

• Part 1 of It's Not That Funny