Chapter Text
The pit has never been this strong. It’s set him aflame from the inside, and Jason can feel himself burning with every step he takes towards the Replacement.
Little Timothy Drake has his back to the wall, his eyes wide and scared, his face pale, his hands twitching uselessly by his sides like he’s looking for his Bo staff. Too bad, because it’s lying in pieces in some corner.
“Jason,” the Replacement babbles, his shaky voice edging the pit on further, “we can talk about this, you don’t have to-“
“Oh, but I do.” Jason bares his teeth in the approximation of a smile. “And when I’m done with you, Bruce is going to wish he’d never put another kid in that suit.”
The kid’s eyes widen even more, and he rasps, “Jason, watch out – Kon, no!”
Kon? Why the fuck is Tim calling out for Superboy? Jason is going to-
The world explodes in a burst of pain. The green inside Jason flares, then recedes quietly. And then – nothing.
*
Jason wakes up in his bedroom at the manor, with enough blankets piled on top of him to qualify as a murder attempt. He pushes most of them off, and he’s only just extricated himself from the last layer when the door opens, and a dark-haired kid comes in.
For the first crazy second, Jason thinks, Why didn’t Bruce tell me he had a secret son? But the closer he looks, the more superficial the initial similarities seem. Besides the black hair and the blue eyes, which in this family are arguably less of a gene indicator and more of an attribute that qualifies you for a likely kidnapping, he really doesn’t look that much like Bruce.
Then the kid opens his mouth, though, and Jason thinks, huh.
“Are you awake?” he asks, in exactly the same crisp Bristol accent that Jason has heard from Bruce every day for the past couple years. “How are you feeling?”
“Like shit,” Jason answers honestly, because it’s true. “Feels like I’ve been hit with a brick or something.”
“Close enough.” Something like guilt crosses the kid’s face, before it gives way to anger. He squares his shoulders, which instantly makes him look older, and Jason absently thinks about how this move is less Bruce and more Dick. “Are you going to attack me again? Because if you are, I’m going to taser you immediately.” He holds up a taser and waves it around threateningly.
“Attack you?”
“Superboy wanted to throw you off Titans Tower but I told him Bruce would want to see you, once he gets back from off-world. He can still see you from inside a cell, though.”
Jason is starting to feel like he missed something. “Superboy? That’s that clone Dick rescued, right? What’s his problem? And why the hell would you lock me up?”
The kid frowns at him, and then his eyes (blue, but not, Jason sees now, Bruce-blue) narrow. “Jason,” he says slowly, “what’s the last thing you remember?”
Oh, shit.
Jason is not an idiot. He can see where this is going.
“I’ve got amnesia?” he yells, loud enough that the kid winces. “Are you serious? You attacked me with a brick and gave me fucking amnesia?”
“It wasn’t a brick- wait a minute, you attacked me!”
“I can’t believe this,” Jason says, no longer listening. “How much did I miss? Wait – oh my god. Oh my god.”
The kid is subtly inching towards the door. “What?”
It all makes sense now. The hair – and the eyes – Jason should’ve known. “Bruce got another one?” he asks, incredulous. “I can’t believe that asshole. Where’d he find you? You’ve got the fancy accent, so kidnapping you must’ve taken a bit more effort.”
“What?” the kid repeats, but it’s too late, Jason is warming up to this now.
“Me,” he says gleefully, “me, he just basically shoved in the back of his car – didn’t even let me ride the front seat, and Dick, I don’t know, I guess he just bribed social services or something, it was weird. Hey, what’s your name?”
“Tim,” the kid says, wary. “Tim Drake.”
Drake. Something nudges Jason’s memory, and then it dawns on him. “Our next-door neighbours? Seriously? Man, I missed a lot.”
Tim’s hand has been on the door handle for the past minute or so, but he lets go of it now in order to cross his arms. He doesn’t come any closer, but he’s staring at Jason with an intensity that’s honestly a little uncomfortable. “You really don’t remember? You’re not feeling a little green?”
“Um.”
Tim grabs one of the books from Jason’s desk and throws it at him. Jason ducks, and it hits one of the bedposts instead.
“Seriously, nothing? No anger?” Tim asks.
“No ang- that was a first edition, asshole. I’m going to show you anger.” Jason pushes the covers aside and jumps out of bed, ready to tackle Tim because, seriously, what kind of psychopath throws a book – except that as soon as he’s in tackling range, Tim tasers him.
Jason goes down with a groan as 30000 volts run through him. He just continues lying on the carpet afterwards, too weak to get up, wondering if this is a kidnapping situation or whether Bruce adopted a sociopath or whether this is all a simulation or something (it’s happened before), when he hears two voices having a conversation somewhere near, too quiet to make out words, but loud enough that he picks up on the urgency of them. Finally, heavy footsteps advance, and suddenly he’s being lifted up into a set of suspiciously strong arms. Bruce?
“Don’t even think about it,” someone warns, although he doesn’t say what it is Jason shouldn’t think about.
Tim’s face appears in his line of vision then, and he says, “I did tell you. I knew you were faking the amnesia thing. Oldest trick in the book.”
“Is it?” the other guy asks, sounding sceptical, and Tim nods and says, “Yes, I swear,” and the guy makes a sort of grunting noise and says, “Huh,” and Tim says something else that Jason doesn’t hear because he’s too busy fainting. His last thought before he submits to unconsciousness is that this day fucking sucks.
*
The next time Jason wakes up, he’s in a cell. I did tell you, Tim said earlier, and Jason supposes that yes, he did. Doesn’t mean he’s not furious about it, though.
“Hey, asshole,” he calls out, banging on the glass that separates him from the rest of the Batcave, “let me out!”
Nobody replies, and nobody comes for him. He hits the glass a few more times, but only succeeds in hurting his hand, and in the end, he gives up. The cave appears to be empty, anyway. The cells are located at a place that doesn’t exactly offer a great view, but it’s enough to see the rear of the Batmobile, and the Batcomputer, and a giant whiteboard in one corner that’s got a million post-its stuck to it and that bears the title WHO IS RED HOOD? It looks like the work of a madman. The question also seems moot, because as far as Jason knows, Red Hood is an old alias of the Joker. Whatever. Maybe future-Jason is an idiot. Maybe future-everyone is an idiot.
This begs the question, though: exactly how much did he forget? It’s gotta be at least a few months, if Bruce had the time to adopt another kid. There isn’t a calendar in this stupid cell, and of course Tim must’ve taken away his phone, so there’s no way to find out for now.
Jason lets his head conk against the glass in defeat. When he pulls back, something catches his eye.
His reflection.
The lighting in the cave is weird, so it’s not exactly like looking into a mirror, but he can see enough to note that he is older. Not a lot, but- yeah. Older. At least two or three years, he’d say. And, huh, now that he thinks about it, he’s pretty sure that he’s taller, too. He didn’t notice it earlier, what with all the lying in bed and getting tasered and then lying on the ground stuff, but now that he’s actually been standing up for an extended period of time, yeah, it’s obvious that he’s grown quite a lot.
Jason looks down at himself and whistles lowly. Wow. He’s bulked up a lot, too. He can’t be sure without Bruce or Dick here for comparison, but it seems he’s definitely more ripped than Dick, now. Taller, too. As for Bruce, well, he’ll just have to find out, and then hopefully he can rub it in the old man’s face forever. He hopes Dick cried the day Jason gained an inch on him.
Tim said that Bruce was off-world, probably on a mission with the League, which could take days or weeks or months. But Jason feels certain that Dick, at least, is going to come looking for Jason soon, and he’s going to realise Bruce’s psycho new kid locked Jason up, and Dick is going to get Jason out, and then they can take turns dunking the new kid into the toilet. It’ll be great fun.
Jason bangs on the glass again, just for good measure, and he’s just withdrawn to the cot in the corner of the cell when miraculously, finally, someone approaches. It’s Tim, flanked by a ginger kid and, oh hey, is that Superboy?
“Are you ready to drop this charade?” Tim asks. When he turns his head to glance at his – friends? Teammates? Bodyguards?, his t-shirt shifts, revealing a ring of bruises around his throat. Someone has been choking him. Recently, too, from the looks of it.
“There’s no charade,” Jason snaps. “You’re all crazy. I don’t know any of you, my head hurts like a bitch, and I may not remember much, but I do know that tasering someone and locking him up for no reason breaks protocol.”
“You attacked Tim,” Superboy says flatly. On Tim’s other side, the ginger kid nods fast enough that his head blurs and, oh, hey, looks like the future has another one of the Flash’s million relatives. Of course it does.
“Call Dick,” Jason demands. His brother is going to fix this. He has to.
“Off-world with Bruce.” Tim’s eyes are cold. “Which you knew perfectly well when you came to the Tower. Your timing was exemplary. If Kon hadn’t come back-“
“Hey, dude,” the speedster kid says, “this was totally a team effort. Don’t knock down the team.”
“Fine. If Kon hadn’t come back because Bart spilled sauce on his shirt, you’d have killed me. You were already giving it your best effort.”
Jason can’t help but glance at Tim’s neck again, where the bruises are dark against his pale skin. “Mind-control?” he guesses. That would explain all the hostility. Would explain the cell as a precaution, too. Hell, Jason probably would’ve done the same thing.
Except Tim says sharply, “Cut the crap. You’ve had it out for me since you first came back, and you made perfectly clear how you feel about me, but it’s over now. It’s done. You lost. At least own up to it.”
“What do you want from me?” Jason asks. He’s starting to get really pissed about all this. “You want an apology? Well, why don’t you take that apology and shove it up your-“
“Hey, Rob,” Bart interrupts, “Rob, Rob, Rob, hey, are you listening?”
Tim sighs. “What is it?”
Bart is bouncing on his heels, and he points at something that Jason can’t see from his perspective, just out of his range of vision. His hand blurs again. “Why don’t we just scan him?”
“Because we already know he’s lying,” Tim says icily, but then he deflates. “Also because there’s no way the scanner would detect missing memories. It’s to check for DNA, not amnesia, and we already know that this is Jason Todd. We’d need a truth serum or something. Should I make one? I could probably make one.”
Bart holds up his hand and wiggles it until Tim says, warily, “Yes? Bart?”
“I’m just saying,” Bart says, “like, not that I don’t totally trust your abilities or anything, but if all we want to do is find out of he’s telling the truth, why don’t we go to Wonder Woman?”
“You mean we should steal the Lasso of Truth?” Tim asks. He looks pensive. “Huh.”
“No,” Superboy says, “that’s a terrible idea.”
Tim and Bart pay him no attention. “I meant we should ask her for help,” Bart says, “but, I don’t know, do you think we should steal it?”
“No,” Jason and Superboy say at the same time. They glare at each other.
“Maybe,” Tim says slowly. “I’ll think about it. If we had tangible proof, that would strengthen my case when Batman comes back. We’d need help, though. Kon, how do you feel about being the distraction?” He doesn’t wait for answer, already continuing: “Bart, when I give you the signal, you need to be prepared. I think if we wait until midnight-“ He turns on his heels and walks away, presumably into a different part of the cave, and Bart bounces after him.
Superboy stays behind. He’s still glaring at Jason. “One wrong move,” he says, “and you’ll regret it.”
“That’s literally the lamest threat I’ve ever heard,” Jason says. “They don’t teach you trash talk in clone school?”
Superboy stalks off without another word, and Jason settles on the cot, arms behind his head, staring up at the ceiling.
This can only go wrong, he thinks. There’s no way Tim can steal the Lasso of Truth. The plan is going to fail spectacularly, and then at least Wonder Woman will realise Tim’s keeping one of Bruce’s sons locked up in the Cave, and they can put Tim in the cell instead, and maybe Wonder Woman will smile at Jason, which is always nice.
All he has to do is wait for Tim to inevitably screw up.
*
Tim has run into his fair share of weirdo villains over the years, and from all his stalking, he knows that so have Dick and Jason. After the encounters with the universe where the world is ruled by superhero Nazis, the universe with the evil Justice League, the weird vampire one, the one with Tim as an apprentice of the Joker, and the one where everything got eaten by Cyberborgs, it’s only natural to be suspicious of someone claiming they have no recollection of beating you up when they have, in fact, just beat you up six hours ago.
“You think this dude is a vampire?” Bart had asked earlier. “Should I get a stake? Let me get a stake.”
Tim does not think Jason is a vampire. Personally, he thinks Jason is an asshole. They do say to never meet your heroes. Tim used to think that was stupid, because he met Bruce and Dick and they were really cool! Just like he knew they would be!
Turns out, nope, whoever said the hero thing was onto something. Because now that Tim has met Jason, he totally gets it.
And the thing is – if Jason had just asked. If he’d just come to Titans Tower and asked Tim, nicely, if maybe he would consider giving up Robin so that Jason could take his rightful place again, if Jason had done all of that, then Tim would’ve been happy to do so! There was no reason for all the death threats, or the choking, or the trying to throw him down a set of stairs.
But Jason did, and he probably would’ve done a lot more if Kon hadn’t shown up.
Tim keeps touching his neck, pressing on the bruises as though to reassure himself that they’re still there, that he’s not imagining this, that Jason really is back from the dead and he really did try to murder Tim.
He needs to remember, because Jason is gaslighting him and at this rate, Tim wouldn’t be surprised if Bruce believes Jason over him. That’d just be typical.
Tim isn’t an amateur, though. He knows how to cover all his bases, and he knows that the way to do that is to get Jason to say, on record, that yes, he tried to kill Tim, yes, he wishes Tim ill, and – maybe, while he’s trapped by the lasso and since there’ll never be an opportunity like this again – ask him if he thinks Tim has done a good job as Robin and then also ask him for an autograph. Not that Tim wants an autograph from his would be-murderer! But he kind of wants an autograph from Jason Todd, former Robin. He just thinks that’d be kind of neat.
Right now, it does not look like Jason is in any autograph-giving mood, though.
“Let me fucking go,” Jason snarls, struggling against the lasso even though he must know it’s futile. “This is kidnapping! And robbery! Wonder Woman is going to kick your ass for this. And you two – what are you, his minions? You’d jump off a bridge for him, too?”
“Probably,” Bart says.
“I can fly,” Kon says.
“Enough,” Tim snaps, tightening the lasso until Jason shuts up. “Jason Todd, what is the last thing that you remember before you woke up in the manor?”
He fully expects Jason to say, beating your stupid face in, Replacement.
He does not expect Jason to say, “Having breakfast with Bruce.”
Tim exchanges a look with Kon and Bart. Something like dread settles in Tim’s gut.
“I don’t suppose Batman had breakfast with the Red Hood recently,” Bart stage-whispers.
“How old are you?” Tim continues. He can still salvage this. Maybe Batman and Red Hood really did have breakfast last week. Maybe-
“Fifteen.”
Tim lowers the lasso. It twists one more time, glowing golden, before releasing Jason, who staggers back a few steps, glaring at Tim. For a few seconds, nobody says anything. Then Bart takes the lasso from him, saying, “I’d better put this back before Wonder Woman notices it’s gone.”
“I’ll come with you,” Kon immediately offers, but Bart is already gone.
Tim crosses his arms and scowls at him, because getting annoyed at Kon means putting off the actual problem a while longer yet. “Did you only say that to escape the situation?”
“Um. Yes?”
“Why?”
“Because clearly this is a family issue, and when Batman returns to earth, I’d rather not have him know I was involved,” Kon says, as quick as if Tim had trapped him with the lasso. “Not that I haven’t got your back! I’ve totally got your back, Rob. But Batman can be really scary.”
Tim rubs a hand over his eyes. He suddenly feels tired. “It’s fine,” he says. “You can go.”
“Are you sure? Because-“ Kon glances at Jason, then at the cell surrounding them, then at the Batcave, and then back at Tim. “Because you know you have to release him now, right?” he whispers.
“Of course I do,” Tim replies, even though just the thought of that is making him feel queasy. “I’m not a monster. Seriously, you can leave, okay? I’ll deal with this.”
“I will stay if you want me to,” Kon says, but Tim waves him off.
“I’ll be fine. I promise.”
Kon nods, gives him one of his patented quick bro-hugs that always make Tim feel embarrassed for him, and takes off.
“Cute,” Jason comments from the back of the cell. “Now, can you finally let me out of here? And maybe explain to me what the hell is going on and why you’re all treating me like I’ve got the plague?”
Tim is abruptly aware that he is now alone with Jason. He’s alone with Jason, and they’re in an enclosed space, and the time he’d need to get out the cell, work the keypad and lock the door to trap Jason inside would give Jason ample time to stop him.
He wishes Bart had stayed. He wishes he’d asked Kon to stay after all. He wishes that Dick was here, and he wishes that Bruce was here, too. Just for once, he wishes he wasn’t on his own.
He takes one step back, then another, until his back hits the wall. This whole situation feels like a twisted version of what happened in Titans Tower yesterday. Almost twenty-four hours later, Tim finds he is not yet over it.
“Hey,” Jason says, frowning at him, “you okay?”
“Stay away,” Tim tells him, except it comes out raspy, like he’s panicking, which he is. “Don’t touch me.”
“Whoa, hey, no touching, I promise.” Jason holds up both hands. “Take deep breaths. In, out. Nothing easier than that.”
Jason takes some exaggeratedly loud breaths, and Tim knows what he’s doing, because it’s what he does with scared kids out in Gotham at night, but it’s kind of working, because after he’s been breathing in synch with Jason for a couple of minutes, his chest does feel lighter. Somewhere during his panic attack (so embarrassing), he ended up on the floor, with Jason hovering over him. But not touching.
“Back with me?” Jason asks, giving him a gentle smile. It looks weird on his face. He sounds weird, too. Almost kind.
He looks and sounds, Tim realises, like Robin. Like Robin two years ago. And suddenly it seems like a strange thing that Tim ever thought this Jason in front of him could be Red Hood.
Maybe, if Tim had just listened instead of freaking out, they could’ve avoided this entire series of events. Maybe Tim could’ve just believed Jason, and explained things like a normal person, instead of gaslighting an actual amnesiac.
Maybe. But he didn’t, and now he has to fix it somehow. This is on him.
Jason holds out a hand, hesitatingly, like he’s not sure Tim is going to take it.
“Sorry,” Tim says, forcing himself to accept Jason’s hand and allowing himself to be pulled up off the ground. “Sorry, that was- I’m sorry.”
Jason’s smile disappears. He looks older now, more serious, less like that fifteen year old Robin and more like a seventeen year old who has no idea what to do. But still not like the Red Hood. His eyes, Tim realises, are blue, no trace of green to be found. God, Tim is so stupid.
“I’m sorry,” Jason says. “I take it you and future-me don’t really get along?”
Tim snorts. “That’s an understatement.”
But then he hesitates, because it feels cruel suddenly, to tell Jason the truth. How can he look at Robin and tell him, you died and you came back wrong, you’re mad because Bruce replaced you with me, you tried to kill me yesterday? How can he say any of that out loud?
Instead, he presses his hand to the panel at the wall, and the door slides open. “After you.”
If he knows Tim is deflecting, Jason is not showing it. “Fucking finally”, he says, pushing past Tim to step out into the main part of the Batcave, evidently happy to leave the cell behind. “Got any food? I’m starving.”
“Alfred is on vacation, but,” Tim starts, and stops, and then starts again: “But I could probably make something.” It comes out as doubtful as he feels.
Jason takes a look at his face and barks out a short laugh. “I think I’ll pass. What do you say we just order a pizza? You can tell me all about where Bruce picked you up, then.”
This, this right here, is basically a lifelong dream of Tim’s: Robin asking him to order pizza together.
He has no idea when Jason will regain his memories. But Tim decides right then and there that he’s going to enjoy this while it lasts. Even if it ends with Jason killing him in his sleep.
“Sure,” he says. “Let’s order pizza.”