Work Text:
You knew something was wrong in Gotham when it was quiet.
It was normal to hear scuffling. Shouts along with gunshots, even, depending on the area you visited. But the absolute silence, only hearing the soft passing of the wind through the alleys forming whistling sounds, made the hairs on the back of Tim's neck stand up.
If he were more naïve, he would think it was all about the dates. On a twenty-third of December, at midnight, few people other than the usual homeless would dare leave the warmth of their families to commit crimes. Maybe, just maybe, the Christmas spirit really did soften people's hearts, even in Crime Alley.
Except that's not how things worked, so it could only mean one thing. Something was brewing under layers of calm. Something that, sooner or later, would explode.
Cutting the patrol early, however, sounded too tempting.
With the extreme drop in temperatures in Gotham at this time of year, the armor was barely managing to do a bit in the face of the shivering cold that was hitting it. Even with the inclusion of heatpacks all over his body, he continued to feel thin blades scratching at his skin every time he stood still on a rooftop for too long, the snow cutting through every layer of clothing he had put on.
That was Gotham. Sometimes a blessing, sometimes a curse.
Dropping from the roof to the ground in a crouch, Tim looked sideways in the darkness until he came upon the shivering body of someone he knew very well.
"Hey. Did you call me?"
Adrianna tossed the cigarette to the ground before stomping on it with a high heeled shoe, letting the last of the smoke escape into the air. The poor woman, still freezing in the short dress she wore, was trying to look whole in front of the towering Red Hood. Which let him know that this was not, in fact, going to be a friendly encounter.
"Yeah. You told me I could do it whenever I wanted, right?"
That was their policy.
Prostitutes, children and teenagers had a direct line to Red Hood, without having to go through Oracle's exhaustive checks.
"I need... some money." Adrianna's words sounded quick, embarrassed, cheeks red from the cold, blushing even more at the request. "I'll pay you back as soon as possible, I promise. There's this kid..."
"A kid?"
"Yeah." Adrianna bit her lower lip. "Twelve, thirteen, at most? He's not... well, I know him from before, and... he was adopted, and he keeps running away from home, God knows how, to supply us. He gave Jessica a couple of bottles of water the other night, and Coral has seen him carrying food back and forth on our corners."
A kid in Crime Alley?
No wonder. Stranger things Tim had seen. A kid running around here and there feeding the corner girls, however, was a little stranger.
He folded his arms, thoughtfully.
"Do you need me to do a wellness check?"
"No, no!" Adrianne was quick to deny, for the first time looking at the two lenses she assumed would be Red Hood's eyes. "I don't think so. He... We've seen him a couple of times with his foster father. He looks happy. And brighter."
Finally a story that didn't end with a bitter ending. Stable families were lacking in a place like Crime Alley, far from the protection of Social Services and schools that kept a tight rein on children's homes. Tim had seen it for himself. Teenagers thrown into the system without protection, abused mothers doing what they could to feed their children.
"I want the money to get him a Christmas present."
Everyone knew about the Red Hood trust fund.
All it took was one little girl from Crime Alley to tell the story and the word started to spread: the new rogue in Gotham was counting on resources, and he expected nothing in return but to keep the kids out of business. That was the only condition was to ask for a little money from that pile.
"I know you have a lot of requests." Adrianne was suddenly overwhelmed by her own desire, shrinking into herself under the dark-colored coat that allowed her to pass unnoticed in the shadows. "Many more important, to be sure, so I understand if you turn it down. But... I'd like to dedicate something to him. From Crime Alley kid to Crime Alley kid."
The woman was right.
Tim received hundreds of requests every day, often very important ones like debt repayment or rent coming too soon. There was always a compelling reason.
And watching Adrianne's face, he discovered nothing but sincerity.
Red Hood would perhaps have denied the request. But Tim Drake could not.
"...Okay. Do you have the same account number?"
It was as if all the stars teleported into Adrianne's eyes once she let those words out, at the same time she saw the smile quickly widen on his red-painted lips. She was prepared to take no for an answer, surely, and have to fend for herself for the rest of the night. Knowing that the stubborn woman would soon retire on such a cold night made Tim sigh with relief under his helmet.
"Go home, Adrianne. I'll leave the money in the account for you tomorrow morning."
That was the end of their little encounter, though the thought kept running through his mind for the remainder of the patrol.
Jack and Janet Drake's inheritance had fallen on Tim's shoulders two or three years earlier. A landslide, the media and police reported, next to an archaeological building they were investigating. By the time he learned about it, there were nothing left but two graves in the local cemetery of a village in Egypt and a large amount of money transferred to the new account of Tim Drake, the couple's only legitimate child. No obituary. No honors, probably, if the inability to bring the bodies to Gotham was any indication. After so long on the job, they were left the same as when they started: with nothing.
Tim didn't have the heart to feel sad or sorry for the loss. The Pit would sometimes hiss in his ear with promises about what that money would get him, the voice too much like Ra's al Ghul's, but he learned to ignore it after the eighteenth time.
He could do far more having control of the inheritance than continuing his parents' enterprise.
The night continued with no major events. A couple of isolated thefts and quickly solved, a girl who needed company to get home. The uneasy feeling didn't leave Tim's stomach even when he returned to his penthouse, the clock ticking an earlier hour than he usually returned.
A package awaited him innocently on the dining room table.
It was gift-wrapped, unblemished, and decorated with a red ribbon he recognized immediately.
Alfred. Alfred was the only one who could do something like this, enter his home without the Red Hood's helmet sending out hundreds of trespassing alerts.
"Master Timothy,
I hope you know you will always have a place at our table.
Please make use of it.
Yours sincerely, Alfred."
Tim let out a soft sigh, clutching the card in his hands with a feeling in his chest that he was unable to describe. Pain, perhaps, was the closest thing. Pain because he knew, and despite that, it would be another year that he wasn't going to Christmas Eve dinner at Wayne Manor. It turned out to be a can of worms that he wouldn't touch with a stick from ten feet away.
The gift, he discovered, consisted of a suit tailored to Tim's true measurements-not one of those suits that Damian or Bruce were used to wearing, close-fitting and from a catalog, but one that he really liked. The shirt was cream-colored, and instead of a tie, it featured a thin black bow. The jacket, moreover, was such a soft fabric that he stood for a few seconds in silence, just touching it on top.
Damn it, Alfred.
He didn't have to be a genius to know it was made exactly to Tim's preferences.
He should take it back. Let them know that a suit wasn't going to change anything: not Red Hood's modus operandi, and not the tension Damian was charging at him as if he were an intruder. Damian didn't trust him. They had never gotten along, so it was no surprise the first time he spat at his feet on patrol as if Tim didn't deserve the ground he walked on.
But maybe, just maybe....
Dick still didn't hate him. Alfred didn't either. Bruce stood on a pedestal of neutrality. So...
No. He had too much to do.
Closing the box again with the unfolded contents in it, he rose from the couch to head to the bathroom in search of the peace that only a shower after patrolling would give him.
Alfred was one of the people who did not accept that things had changed. That, even if the truth hurt, Tim died in that abandoned amusement park after countless hours in which the only heat he received was from the blows. Bruce did not accept that Ra's al Ghul brought him back, that the first thing he felt after the pain was the weight of a medallion around his neck, proclaiming him the rightful heir of the al Ghul after Damian's departure. None of them managed to accept, or even understand, Tim's reasons.
Putting it all aside without a conversation that didn't end in shouting would only make the issue go away. And he wasn't going to let that happen.
Reflection would be better another day. He had things to work on.
The shower, while it cleared his thoughts a bit, did little to calm the green that was beginning to appear in the corners of his vision, a reminder of what was inside him. At least he didn't seem to want to go unconscious for the next two hours, which was a breakthrough in the investigation.
After slipping on the warmest clothes he could find, he embarked back into the multiple files open on his laptop.
Black Mask was back in town.
It was somewhat to be expected, being that his center of operations was always Gotham, but Tim expected him to stick around for at least a couple of months after dismantling the weapons deal involving a couple of Crime Alley kids in between.
What's the point of you doing that, Damian's voice hissed in his mind. He sells guns to people like you.
He didn't need Damian's lectures even when they weren't in the same room, thank you.
However, before he could continue reading the files that (thankfully) Bruce kept updated on Tim's computer drivers, his comm on the table made a sound. The same comm that connected directly to Blackwing, for those critical moments when they needed to be aware of each other. The comm sounded with a distorted voice on the other end, and for a few moments he thought about ignoring it.
Until he recognized the voice.
"...Robin?"
Robin stopped when he heard the tone of confusion in Tim's voice. He sounded agitated, his breaths causing interference in the built-in microphone.
"Robin, what are you doing with this comm? Where's Blackwing? Are you all right?"
The boy sniffled through his nose, a wet sound that let him know he was crying. And that couldn't be good, because Dick rarely burst into tears except to mourn his parents. But he was still in training, such a little boy couldn't ....
"...Dami said not to call you but I know you'll be able to help...."
A pang of pain hit Tim's chest.
"Dick..."
"Jay is gone." Dick broke down, again, in a loud sob that penetrated deep into Tim's soul. "We don't know... Damien can't find him, he's not in his favorite places..."
"Dick." He interrupted him insistently, "Slow down. What happened?"
The scuffle on the other end of the line caused Tim to stand up quickly, scanning the table for his helmet. If they were in danger...
"Drake."
Crap. Just the person I didn't want to hear from.
"Listen to me." Damian's tone of voice was nothing like Dick's. This one was full of hatred, cruelty and even threat. A threat directed at him. "I don't care about father's rules, Drake, because if you had anything to do with Jason's disappearance, you're going to pay for it, do you understand me? You did it once, you're not gonna..."
"Damian, I don't have Jason."
The accusation alone made Tim's blood boil.
It had been months since what happened. A mistake that, in the end, Tim would end up paying for the rest of his life.
"You're lying."
"No, I'm not lying. Did you lost Jason?"
Silence flooded the call for a few moments that felt like an eternity, and he could even swear he could hear Damian's teeth grinding on the other end of the call. Didn't he trust him? It was fine. A lot of people didn't. But he wasn't going to let the oldest accuse him of something so serious, after he'd redeemed himself as much as possible and tried to build a relationship of cordiality and distance with his sidekick.
"Have you lost Jason?"
"...No," the man's voice was forced. "We'll find him."
"So you did lost him." A certain part of the Pit in his mind, however, was glad of it. That Damian was suffering that great loss again, finally learning his lesson. The rational part of Tim made him take deep breaths. "Are you fucking insane? Tell me you've tracked him."
"He doesn't have a tracker on his civilian clothes."
Something in Tim's mind screamed.
Jason Todd knew the streets of Gotham like the back of his hand. If he didn't want to be found, then none of them would make it, and it wasn't the first time he'd disappeared without telling anyone. Bruce had several similar scares from what he remembers. Jason always returned without a scratch, but that didn't mean he should be left unsupervised. Now more than ever the boy needed a tracker.
"Did you two have a fight?"
"What's your point?"
"You know what I mean." Setting the laptop aside without bothering to turn it off, Tim got up from the couch. "You and Bruce."
It was by accident that he learned of one of Jason's deepest weaknesses. Back then, any show of pain fueled his anger without thinking twice about where it came from, and he even thought about using it to his advantage. The screaming. The boy hated to see the only stable home he knew crumble together in front of his eyes.
"Tt..."
"Fuck."
Suspicions were confirmed at Damian's sudden silence.
"ETA 10 minutes."
Along the way to the Batcave, despite having the older Wayne's semi-agitated breathing in his ear, he passed through the usual alleys where more than once he saw Jason. They were near Ma Gunn's old school, probably where the boy used to live with his parents, and if there was any good place to hide from them it was there. But all he found was a flock of teenagers graffitiing the walls.
The Batcave was chaos.
The whole family used to be chaos, but an organized one. Seeing everyone running around, giving orders and with nervousness as a flag made him grunt before he parked the bike in its designated spot.
"You can't go with us."
Of course Bruce's voice wouldn't let out a hint of affection.
"Why not?" Dick had Robin's suit half-buttoned, his watery eyes staring at his foster parent as if he'd committed the worst offense in existence. "He's my best friend! We have a promise!"
"Dick..."
"You never let me go with you!"
Tim's memories mingled with the scene in front of him, too familiar for his taste, except for the colorful suit Dick was wearing. Before, he might have questioned Bruce's love for him, angered to no end by the decision. Now, he saw it as the sensible decision. So much for Batman allowing him to go on certain cases together.
A cold, wet nose nudged his hand, slowly at first, before continuing more insistently. He didn't have to think too hard to recognize Titus' heavy breathing.
"Hey, big puppy."
The brown Doberman circled him, stepping through the gap between his legs. He wore his walking collar half on.
"I hope you're not here to be a nuisance." And, where Titus was, unfortunately so was Damian. The man had grown a couple of inches taller if possible, as if he wasn't built like a tank already. "We don't have the patience to put up with you today."
"You're clearly not doing anything productive yet."
If looks could kill, the Wayne's eldest son would take it upon himself to bury him a second time, but this time without Lazarus Pit to save him. However, as tempting as the idea of fighting him and taking him out of his mind sounded, he was not forgetting the real reason he was there. Why they were all there, for that matter. And he didn't even like Jason.
But he wasn't about to let another Sky die. The new suit didn't deserve to be hung in a glass urn like it was a display trophy.
"FUCK YOU!"
Both Tim and Damian flinched at the same time.
It would take a few days for Dick's annoyance to wear off, of that they were sure. Bruce's face, pale and expressionless but tense at the same time, was the trigger that managed to let him know that this was going to go on for a long time.
"...Wait. You're going out in Gotham as masks?"
Both men, who might as well be twins instead of father and son, turned to look at him.
"Jason has disappeared like a civilian." he commented, crossing his arms. It was the first time he'd had the attention of both of them at the same time, away from the accusing looks and mutual resentment. "If we go out into the city dressed as masks in search of him, the whole rogues' gallery is going to know we're doing it because the missing boy is Sky. And if they know who Sky is, they'll know who each and every one of us is."
It wouldn't be hard to guess the identities of the others as soon as they knew who was taking to the skies beneath the navy blue suit worn by the second smallest of them.
"Tt..."
"If the criminals know that Jason Todd-Wayne is missing, then the outcome will be even worse." Bruce grumbled with clenched hands, as if the very image of Tim in front of him brought back bad memories. He restrained himself from rolling his eyes at such behavior, and simply hooked his fingers under Titus' collar. "What are you doing."
"I'm going to report the disappearance to the GCPD."
Would that do any good? Probably not.
The GCPD was too busy most of the time for this sort of thing. A kid Jason's age could disappear for a hundred reasons: teenage rebellion, risky love, or even just a simple fight with his parents. Knowing officers, they would respond with a «sorry, we'll patrol the area, call tomorrow morning if he still hasn't shown up» before continuing their shifts as normal.
However, it was the first step of a concerned parent. That Bruce thought of going out as Batman sooner than that didn't surprise him at all, but it did come as a bit of a disappointment.
"I will notify the authorities." Damian interrupted before Tim took another step. "And I will go out as Blackwing."
Oh, great.
Mixing personal issues with work always worked out so well.
"Titus is coming with me." Was the only response to that revelation, as he bent down to gently pet the dog's head. "Go get your things, boy."
Titus was the closest thing Jason had in the mansion. Wherever he went, the sound of paws against the floor always accompanied him, and the pet enjoyed a good space on the boy's bed when Damian stayed up too late. He was surprised that Jason had surpassed Titus' senses, who made sure not to leave him alone for a second. Much less out of his range of vision. If anyone could track him down, it was Titus.
As soon as the dog was out of sight, he turned to look at Bruce.
"What did you two fight about?"
Damian's lips curled into a snarl that would barely affect Tim, too focused on Bruce's expressions. Because he was the only one of the two who would be able to get on someone like Dick's nerves, let alone Jason's.
"It's not your problem, Drake."
"...Master Bruce insisted on withdrawing Master Jason from school and home schooling him because of some problems he's been having lately." The new voice, coming from the stairs connecting the Batcave to the elevator, caused a little tension to spill from Tim's shoulders. "Master Damian insists that... an education based on discipline would do him good. Master Bruce thinks the boy should consider a college degree as a goal."
So, as usual, they argued in front of Jason, about Jason, without even stopping to ask what he thought.
The edges of Tim's vision colored green for a few seconds.
"You want him to hang the Sky mantle."
The accusation left his lips without thought, but he didn't stop it when he saw the way Bruce's eyes widened just slightly, denoting guilt. Turning to Damian, the al Ghul heir hardened his gaze at the correct assimilation.
"Why?"
Again, silence.
He'd never thought he'd be as bothered by silence in the Batcave as he was now. Because it meant they were hiding things. Hiding things that could be paramount to finding Jason.
"...He's becoming reckless."
"Reckless?"
"Father insists that Jason interfered badly in the Garzonas Case." For once, Damian's resentful tone was not directed at him, but at the person carrying the cowl he hated so much. "Even if there's no proof of it."
"I don't need proof." Bruce interrupted, "I've seen it with my own eyes."
The Garzonas Case.
He'd read a little about it in some files in the Batcave, but not enough to form an opinion about it. In the end, they turned out to be cases Bruce didn't wish to share with him, and Tim wasn't about to beg for something he didn't need.
"What are you guys talking about?"
"We found Gloria Stanson dead in her apartment three days ago, after being threatened by Felipe Garzonas from the GCPD station." The man's answer was so clear and forceful that he felt his whole body freeze quickly. "Sky escaped my sight for a few moments and when I realized it, Garzonas was on the floor after falling seven stories. And Sky was at the top."
Fuck.
That wasn't the legacy Sky should be leaving.
He didn't have to dig too deeply into Bruce's expression to discover how much it affected him to imagine Jason doing something like that, being so out of character for him.
"Well, he was a rapist piece of shit." He replied, after several seconds of silence, as he bent down to hook the leash Titus was holding between his teeth onto the collar. "Come on, boy. Let's go get your friend."
"…Aren't you going to say anything?"
"As a matter of fact, I am." He looked up disinterestedly again at Bruce. "Congratulations on screwing up one more relationship in your personal life."
The problem with fighting against Jason was that he knew too much about the space he was moving through.
He never fought in unfamiliar surroundings. He made sure, always, to have a control of his surroundings even knowing that the opponent was a single person. Perhaps it was those survival instincts of the street that urged him to avoid open spaces, where it was easier to be ambushed, and familiarize himself with those corners where he could protect his back. When Tim attacked him on Amusement Mile, he lasted the generous amount of ten minutes before collapsing from a concrete blow to the ankle with his former bo staff.
Zero sarcasm. Really, he saw it as something of a surprise.
This time they weren't working with Amusement Mile, but with an even more spacious environment than the old amusement park. This was an entire city full of ancient nooks and crannies, far from Red Hood's jurisdiction, and hidden even from Oracle's hawk's eye view. They could only pray that Titus managed to sniff something.
It didn't help that temperatures were beginning to drop. As the minutes passed, night crept in deeper, and a thick fog slowly took control of the city. It seemed like everything was against them.
"Tim?"
The little voice came over the comm, watery and intent on bursting into tears again at any moment.
"Hey." Unlike Dick's, he made sure to use a low, calm tone. "Haven't you gone to bed yet?"
"...'Not a baby."
Sure. Dick could swear and perjure himself that he was not a baby, but everyone saw him that way. The child had arrived only a short time back, when Red Hood's plans to take over the entire Underworld became real. Unfortunately, no one would be able to prevent the sabotage at Haly's Circus before Dick's parents rushed to the ground in the middle of the show. They knew the kid still had nightmares about it, no matter how much he denied it.
"It's not just babies that sleep." He commented, watching the way Titus sniffed the floor and walked slowly. "What do you need, Dick?"
"...Jay didn't do it."
Tim stopped.
"Do what?"
"He didn't push Garzonas."
Tim's hands clenched so hard he felt the blood slide down where his fingernails had scratched.
"Of course not." None of them were sure of it, but that didn't stop him from lying as easily as he could. "He's ten pounds soaking wet, I'm sure of it. Bruce is just being an idiot as usual."
"No bad words. I'll tell Alfred."
As if Alfred cared about Tim's current vocabulary.
"Okay, Dick." His attention on the comm channel was diverted as he felt a tug on Titus' leash. "I have to go. Get some real sleep."
They had to find Jason before the press got wind of the disappearance, because they tended to be crueler to Bruce Wayne's only foster son who came from a rather humble background. Jason hadn't been at the mansion more than two weeks when his whole life was uncovered in the tabloids, thankfully with less detail than actually existed in the Batcave files. Still, Alfred recounted it with great regret.
"Come on, boy..."
The tugging on the leash became more and more insistent, slowly inching between certain alleys he doubted Batman or Blackwing had ever passed through in life. The fog barely let him see a bit.
Titus then barked in the direction of a flickering light moving frantically in the cul-de-sac.
There it was. The red sweatshirt.
Titus barked once, twice, three times until the two women dozing by a small makeshift campfire opened their eyes, alert. One of them, the one who looked older, immediately took a defensive stance to Tim's presence next to the dog that was still barking menacingly toward the piece of clothing that either of them would recognize, which was draped over the younger girl's lap.
"That's not yours." Was the first thing he said, giving a gentle tug on the leash that managed to reassure Titus.
"And what about it?" The woman's expression formed a frown, watching Tim's every move. Her accent indicated she wasn't from Gotham. "We're not working right now. Go away."
The young girl watched his face for a few seconds before whispering something in another language in the direction of her companion.
Spanish. They spoke Spanish.
"El niño de esa sudadera." He said, avoiding creating more tension in the atmosphere and making the two of them defensive. "Es un amigo. Solo le buscamos, su familia está preocupada."
Jason couldn't be far from here, but finding him without help would be as difficult as finding a needle in a haystack. Now that he was able to get some help from the people who knew Gotham best, even if they were foreigners, he wasn't going to miss the opportunity.
"We're not snitches."
Tim bit the inside of his cheek with some force, really considering whether it was worth trying to convince them. The code of the streets near Park Row was very clear: those who went off the deep end didn't end well.
For trying again, he pulled several bills from his wallet and extended them toward the pair of girls.
"Para un hotel. ¿La sudadera?"
The expressions on both of their faces were complicated. A storm was coming, judging by the humid atmosphere that was beginning to flood the city along with the fog, and if they didn't get the money in time they were likely to get sick. No one was denying something like that.
"...Here." For the first time, the younger girl's face became soft, rising from the uncomfortable plastic chair to approach him in small steps with the sweatshirt in her hands. Previously, it covered her bare legs, the skirt she wore being too short for such volatile weather. "Don't be angry with him. He's a good boy."
They protected him. They protected him, and they were afraid he would hurt him.
"Do you know where he went?"
The girl looked at the older woman, barely for a few seconds until the latter let out an exasperated sigh. She was shaking like a leaf.
"Building on the next street," she replied. "Rooftop. He goes there when tired. Or hurt."
"Is he hurt?"
"Emotionally." She hastened to clarify. "Had a fight, that's what he said. He doesn't want to go home now."
He understood the feeling.
Tim held back the urge to sigh, just to keep the girl from getting any unnecessary ideas about what awaited Jason at home. He knew how touchy the people of Park Row could be about young children on their own: usually, they were either ignored if they had a black hand on their head, or they were protected with the fierceness of a mother wolf and her cubs. Gotham was like that, an intrinsic system of silent rules and codes that Tim had barely begun to delve into.
"Thank you." With that response, he wrapped the sweatshirt around his arm before walking out of range of the small campfire's heat.
If Jason didn't want to go home, no one could force him to. Maybe the police were on Bruce Wayne's side and would return him to the mansion as soon as they saw him alone on the street, but he would continue to run away without remorse.
Titus raised his snout to sniff the red sweatshirt, pointed ears alert for any sound. After a few seconds, he broke into a run toward the source of the scent.
They were not far away. The building the girl was talking about was an old one, looking like it would fall down at the slightest breeze. Some of the windows, moreover, were almost completely broken, although he could see families inside some floors. The state of the building was depressing. But even more so was the realization that it happened to be the one where Jason had grown up with Catherine.
Of course, he would find solace in the only place not corrupted by the hands of bats.
Climbing the emergency stairs quickly due to Titus' pace, it took no more than five minutes to reach the rooftop, despite the way his lungs ached.
And there, sitting by the edge of the ledge, was Jason.
He stopped, not taking another step for fear that the boy would disappear right in front of his eyesight after looking for him for so long. He must have been freezing if the way he was shivering was any indication, wearing only a short-sleeved T-shirt without his trademark sweatshirt.
"...I keep falling."
Jason's voice broke mid-sentence, and Tim didn't have to be very smart to figure out that he'd already heard him coming.
"It's never enough."
Jason sounded much older than he really was, with years and years on his mind. He rarely heard resignation in a voice as young as his.
"Gordon tried to help me one time." He continued speaking, oblivious to the change in Tim's expression. "When I lost mom. I needed a place to sleep for a few days, and he moved heaven and earth to get me a place that very night in a juvenile facility near Park Row. I escaped."
Because it probably wasn't safe. Tim understood that.
"...You pushed Garzonas?"
Silence.
Faced with silence for the next two and a half minutes, fervently counted by the older's mind, he knew the answer immediately. An answer that was not going to please Bruce when they returned home.
"No."
Of course he wouldn't.
"But I thought about it."
And that wasn't the same as committing an actual crime. There was a clear difference between the two. Jason wouldn't be the first or the last vigilante to think that, perhaps, the world would be a much better place without scumbags like Felipe Garzonas who were dedicated to being living nightmares to underprivileged people all over the world. Slowly he approached the boy, until he was only a couple of steps away.
"Why?"
"Because men like him..." the venom suddenly echoed in Jason's boyish voice, knuckles threatening to crack at the pressure against the ground. "Men like Garzonas never get what they deserve. They always tell you «don't worry, he's not going to hurt you again» until you see him the next day on the news partying with a woman twenty years younger and denying «misunderstandings» about being arrested. It never sticks."
This speech sounded familiar.
"How old was Gloria?"
"Twenty-one."
Such a young and humble woman would never have enough purchasing power to go against Garzonas.
"What about you?"
For a few moments, he swore Jason wasn't going to answer him. That the question would hang in the air, or that he would feign insanity to avoid giving a concrete answer to someone who might use the information to hurt him. However, vulnerability won out.
"...Seven. Nine. Eleven."
The Pit hissed inside Tim, a deafening sound akin to two swords clashing together. His blood boiled. And though he doubted very much that his expression had changed at the statement, Jason curved further into himself until he made himself look even smaller. Thirteen. Jason was thirteen.
"Who?"
"What does it matter?" Jason's lips pulled back into a snarl. "They're not going to get what they deserve. None of them."
More than one.
Of all the files on Jason's behavior and life before he tried to steal the wheels off the Batmobile, nothing had alluded to a possible past of sexual abuse, even though he checked all the boxes. His turning away from older men like Bruce, becoming volatile around them, and the way he shrank into himself whenever they argued in front of him. Jason, Sky yelled «don't, please, don't do it» when Tim ripped the symbol off his clothes, exposing some skin.
Nausea washed over him.
He tossed the sweatshirt toward Jason.
"Let's go."
The boy sniffled, though Tim couldn't tell if it was an attempt to hide a cry or just the cold.
"I don't want to."
"Then let's go to my safehouse."
"...Are you serious?"
"Yes."
Under normal circumstances, Jason would probably never have gone with him alone to an unfamiliar place. But these were not normal circumstances. Jason was in a vulnerable state, triggered by whatever Bruce had told him when he found out what had happened to Garzonas, and he wanted to escape from the very house where he had been hurt.
"Come on. Titus is waiting."
Those words had Jason springing into action, pulling his sweatshirt on as quickly as possible before rising from the rough ground to finish those few feet that separated them.
Sometimes he forgot he was as tiny as a button.
"I have to tell Damian I found you. And Bruce." He warned him, allowing himself to take his eyes off the boy. "Alfred must be worried too. Dick, you know how he is."
Jason sniffled. "Okay."
Without waiting for any more words from him, he reconnected to the only channel separate from the others. It was silent, but that didn't mean no one was on the other end. As soon as the sound reached the Batcave, he had the breath of the smallest of them in his ear again.
"Tim?"
"Hey. Good news, I found your best friend safe and sound." Dick, hearing those words, let out a squeal of happiness that almost pierced Tim's eardrum. "The bad news is... Dick, I don't think Jason wants to go back to the mansion. At least, not for today."
Explaining the concept of being triggered to such a young child would prove to be difficult. There were still some things Dick didn't understand, things like the real reason for Bruce's personal crusade on the streets, or why Tim himself took distance from the family after «miraculously resurrecting» for the glory of Ra's al Ghul. Sometimes he forgot that normal kids didn't know the sensation of a hard blow to the sternum in the middle of winter, a blow that knocked the wind out of them. He doubted very much that, despite Alfred's care, both Dick and Jason could ever regain some of that childhood that was taken from them.
"...Why not?"
"Because..." he bit his tongue, "he needs a moment to clear his head."
"Oh." He could hear, even through the comm, the way Dick's voice broke a little again. "Well, it's okay. We can have a pajama party when he's back... right?"
"Sure. I'm sure he'd love that." Jason's gaze lifted to meet his, eyes too much like Dick's own. "And Damian, I'll give you a proof of life in an hour."
Before the elder could protest on the other end of the line, he hung up the comm and grabbed Titus' leash.
"Let's go."
The ride to Tim's nearest apartment was so quiet that he had to check several times to make sure Jason was actually standing next to him.
He was quiet. Too quiet, in fact. The energy the boy transmitted most of the time resembled that of an incandescent light, with the same sound even, but what characterized him most was undoubtedly anger. The anger that gnawed at him, often without any sense, and that rushed him into the most dangerous situations in an attempt to prove who knows what. Perhaps that was one of the reasons why the Pit insisted on attacking him first, alone.
"Make yourself comfortable."
The apartment was no big deal. For Tim, it would be more than enough, and for Jason it seemed that way too when nothing on his face indicated contempt.
He took Titus' leash off and allowed him to explore along with the boy as well while he headed for the kitchen.
Note:
Do a background check on all of Brucie Wayne's friends.
He would not forget the conversation with Jason on the rooftop. Jason was thirteen, and his last abuse was when he was eleven, the approximate age of his arrival at the Wayne mansion. Something had to have happened in that time frame.
From the refrigerator, Tim took out a carton of chocolate milk and poured two crystal glasses before taking it next to the boy.
The news was on. They weren't talking about the disappearance of one of Bruce's children, thankfully, but an escape from Arkham Asylum. Nothing new under the sun. It happened every week.
However, the image of the Joker on the screen made him pause.
Joker. Joker escaped.
"...Did it hurt?"
Jason's small voice sounded right next to him, who took refuge on the only couch in the entire apartment that didn't have any suspicious stains on it. Titus was, moreover, occupying the remaining space, preventing anyone else from taking a seat next to him. He held back an exasperated sigh.
"What?"
"When he did that."
Jason was deflecting the subject for fear that Tim would ask even more questions about his past, and Tim understood that. So he took a few seconds off to just breathe.
"The first twenty strokes, yes." He replied, taking a sip from her glass of chocolate. Any other time, he would find this the perfect excuse to have a coffee, but this safehouse wasn't stacked up. "I guess the adrenaline did the rest afterwards. I don't remember much about that part."
Did he want details? Tim would give them to him.
"Is it true that Ra's al Ghul smells funny up close?"
For a moment he considered the possibility that Jason was laughing at him. And, really, it didn't seem to be far from the truth, since as soon as he turned to look at him, the boy was trying to hide a small smile that escaped from the corner of his lips, hidden behind the glass tumbler.
"Who told you that?"
"Dami."
Of course it would be Damian.
The man was still a bit self-conscious about being replaced as Ra's al Ghul's favorite by Tim, once the Pit was whistling inside his mind. It was one of the main reasons why they also refused to get along with each other: the former heir to the League of Assassins and the current possible heir were doomed to ignore each other from the beginning. That reminded him to send a proof of life to Bruce before he was put on a wanted list by every organization in the world.
Pulling out his phone, he snapped a picture of Jason before sending it to the contact labeled B in the agenda.
"So?"
"You're a brat."
And without answering the question, knowing the boy would draw his own conclusions, he took a seat on the lonely couch a few feet away.
D: How is he?
Tim: he's ok
D: Are you sure about that?
Tim: pretty sure. also you're paying 4 everything he eats here
D: Maybe I wouldn't have to pay for it if you brought him home.
Tim: maybe i could if bruce wasn't a jerk to him
Damian seemed to write and erase the message for a few minutes, until he finally regretted it.
Jason's eyes didn't leave the television for a second, though Tim knew immediately that it was nothing more than what the outside showed. In reality, the boy's mind was somewhere else far away from here, far away from what bound him to reality, if the hand absently stroking Titus' fur was any indication. The glass of chocolate lay almost untouched on the coffee table.
After letting out a soft sigh, he turned his eyes back to the phone.