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“Do you ever stop feeling the blood on your hands?”
Tim and Jason sit next to Jason’s favorite gargoyle, legs dangling over the side of the brick, staring at the murky lights of Gotham evening.
Jason ponders the thought, thinks about the various ways he’s killed. Pulses fading as his hands crushed throats. Limp bodies crashing to the ground, gushing blood. The recoil of the gun barely fazing him as he lodges bullets clean between the eyes.
Jason shrugs. “I try not to get the blood on my hands. Gloves and all that.”
Tim doesn’t narrow his eyes in his familiar glare, though Jason can’t be sure with the domino. Instead, he just bobs his head. “Right.”
Jason stares at him, trying to decipher what’s going on in his head.
He and the replacement aren’t exactly… close, per say. They’ve interacted. They cross paths during patrols.
When Jason’s blind rage dissipated and he wasn’t actively trying to kill the kid, he was actually pretty damn good conversation.
They talked about nothing. Empty words twisted with hidden meaning.
Maybe that’s why he’s so taken aback by the question. So raw, blunt, completely and utterly unfiltered to the looming ear.
Jason doesn’t really know Tim. Hasn’t really tried to, if he’s being honest. But from what he can tell, he’s a good cookie plucked from the high life. He’s everything Jason wasn’t. Put together, intelligent in ways that his street smarts could never measure up to, clever and cunning. He’s got morals.
So what does he mean?
“I think a part of me did it for you,” Tim whispers. “Vengeance and all that.”
Jason’s head snaps up. He’s not quite sure he knows what Tim is talking about.
“And then you came back and I… it was almost like it wasn’t… like I… like now he's... and it wasn't even for you anymore. Because you were back. So it couldn't be for you anymore.” He bites his lip. “I know he wanted me to kill Bruce, but I didn’t have to kill anyone. Bruce could’ve, could’ve taken him down. Easily. He had before. But everything was so… it was… I was…” Tim chuckles, pursing his lips to stop the sound. “I make excuses. And maybe the excuses are actually… maybe they actually make sense. But even if I wasn’t… even if I wasn’t really there then, that doesn’t change the fact that I…”
Jason’s heart has now sunk so far down, he thinks it may be in his ankles. “Red. You… killed someone?”
Tim looks up, lower lip trembling. He nods, a small, barely there thing.
“And you… did it for me?”
He nods again. His hands are twitching, shoulders jolting like he’s being shocked.
Jason, not being able to stop himself, asks, “who?”
Tim suddenly bursts into a fit of giggles, a manic cackle escaping his lips before he clamps a hand over his mouth, muffling the sound.
The sound sends a cold chill down Jason’s spine.
Tim is shaking his head wildly, hand still covering his mouth, the tight grip not hiding the sounds that are being ripped out of his throat.
The pieces click together and Jason can’t move.
“Jesus,” he mutters. “You?” he questions in disbelief. “You killed…”
Tim’s hand pulls away from his mouth and he lets out a bone-chilling laugh too similar to the one that haunts Jason’s dreams, and he feels himself scamper away, hand going to grab his gun.
The laughter stops abruptly and Tim’s posture goes ramrod straight. He’s sucking in shaky, labored breaths, hands now spasming at his sides.
“It happened when you were gone,” Tim says softly.
“Jesus,” Jason repeats. What else can he say?
“I think when you… it changes you forever. And maybe I’m changed forever because of what he did to me. But what I did to him. Maybe that was… it.”
Jason just gapes at the small teen.
“Will I ever stop feeling the blood on my hands?”
Jason gulps, the answering weighing him down as it escapes his lips. “No. I don’t think you will.”