Chapter Text
The thing is, Jason has been thinking about just going home.
It starts like this:
“Please don’t. Please, please don’t.”
With Robin begging.
Today Robin went on patrol without Batman, so Jason has been stalking him through the city, mostly on a whim. Curious to see what his replacement looks like in action. A horribly bright purple and pink sunset is peeking through the skyscrapers. Jason is hiding behind the air conditioning unit of a 32-story finance office building. His replacement’s voice barely carries over the roar of the unit’s fans. Jason takes the risk and peeks over the side.
Robin stands maybe three steps from the roof’s edge. His hands outstretched beseechingly, helplessly, to a teenage girl, maybe sixteen or so, wearing a light sweater and dark jeans. Dark hair whips over her face, courtesy of the strong evening breeze. Her silhouette glows in the soft pink sunlight. Brown hands tug on white sweater sleeves as she steps away from the ledge.
“I wasn’t–” The girl licks her lips. “I’m not–”
“It’s okay,” says Robin. “You don’t have to explain.”
“Everyone thinks it at least once,” the girl claims defensively. Her knee jerks, as if to move closer to Robin before thinking better of it. Instead, both knees buckle and she sinks slowly to the dirty rooftop ledge. “I wasn’t actually gonna–you know.”
“It’s okay,” Robin says again. He steps closer, likely encouraged by her new position. Slowly, telegraphing every movement, he sits next to her. Just out of arm reach.
“I’m fine,” the girl insists. “It’s just been a bad day.” She leans away from Robin but does not actually move, or exhibit significant fear in his presence. “I don’t need fixing.”
Jason slinks out from the air conditioning unit while they’re both distracted. There’s not a lot of places to hide on a flat rooftop, but he’s determined to get closer. Jason stands behind a water tank and hopes that Robin doesn’t look over and see two boots sticking out of the bottom. From his new hiding spot he risks a closer look. The skin around the girl’s eyes is just a little red. Her cheeks are stained with tears.
“I never said you do,” Robin says calmly.
The girl scoffs. She looks away from Robin, towards Jason’s hiding spot. Unsurprisingly, she completely fails to notice the water tank’s new feet. “You’re thinking it.”
“I promise I’m not,” Robin says steadily. “You have nothing to be ashamed of.”
Another scoff. The girl twists her sleeves into knots. “Bullshit. I was gonna jump because ‘cause I was left alone for one afternoon. How is that not pathetic?”
Buried deep beneath her anger, derision and retorts is a plea. Jason knows this attitude all too well. Whatever’s left of his heart reaches out to this little girl without his permission. He won’t expose his presence to his replacement if he can help it, but if Robin can’t help this kid, he will.
“It’s not,” Robin refutes. He scoots a little closer to the girl. “I know. I get it. I was–the first person I ever saved, before I became a vigilante.” His chest visibly expands and collapses. “Was myself. I was so alone. I thought…I knew if I uh, if I, I died, no one would notice. Not for a while.” A note of dry humor enters his soft, comforting tone. “I calculated the exact amount of time it would take someone to notice. I thought about…all the time. And then suddenly Batman was alone.”
The mention of Bruce has a familiar green rage sweeping Jason’s vision. But he doesn’t miss the girl’s tentative voice when she asks a dangerous question.
“Because Robin died?”
Jason’s vision clears. The girl has leaned closer to Robin, though her knees remain tight to her chest. A random civilian mentioning his death does not conjure the same overwhelming rage that Robin or Batman do. It waits, snarling and impatient, for Robin to say the wrong thing in response. Give me a reason to hate you, the rage demands. Give me a reason to hurt you.
“Yeah.” Robin huffs a laugh. “Damn, the whole city knows I’m just a replacement, huh?”
Jason doesn’t know if that was the wrong thing to say because mostly he’s just confused. His replacement wasn’t supposed to be calling himself a replacement, that ruins the whole point of a derogatory nickname! Jason can’t possibly use it now. He’ll have to use placeholder or something else that the new Robin doesn’t already think of himself as.
“Yeah, Robin died, and his other relationships were…strained,” Robin continues, oblivious to Jason’s furious re-thinking of nicknames. “I was so afraid he was trying to get himself killed. He was, he was trying to follow Robin to an early grave, and I, I had to stop him. I was the only one who could, who was trying, so. I–blackmailed my way in, actually, because the last thing he wanted was another Robin, so I didn’t give him a choice.”
The girl uncurls her legs and settles them over the ledge. “You blackmailed Batman?”
“Trust me, he was more surprised than you are.” The grin fades from Robin’s voice. “What I’m trying to say is, becoming Robin saved me, and it saved Batman too. So…there’s no shame in needing to be saved. Everyone needs saving sometimes. Even Batman.”
“Even if you gotta blackmail him,” the girl offers, and Robin laughs.
Jason always imagined that his replacement would laugh like all those people who looked down at him at all the galas he hated attending. But Robin’s laugh, well, it may be a weird, catlike, birdlike, wet shriek, but it’s nothing like what he assumed. Nothing about this is going how he thought it would, so instead of acknowledging that, Jason focuses on Robin’s laugh.
“You should go,” the girl mutters after an uncertain silence. “I’m sure you have better things to be doing. Bad guys to beat up, you know.”
“Hey, no.” Robin swings his legs over the rooftop’s edge and joins the girl in admiring the sunset. “Being a vigilante is about saving people, not beating up bad guys. If all I ever accomplish in my run as Robin is saving you it will have been worth it.”
The girl’s shoulders creep up to her ears. Jason suspects the blazing sunset is hiding a blush. Her hands are placed firmly on the ground by her hips. Robin affects a natural slouch while keeping one hand hovering by his grapple gun. They’re companionably quiet for a minute, just two kids sitting side by side, legs dangling off the office building.
Well. One kid and Robin.
“Can I ask a question?” The girl asks. “You don’t have to answer, I’m just curious.”
“Shoot,” says Robin.
“How old are you? It’s just you look–you act like–Nevermind.”
“Fifteen.”
Jason already knew this, and Robin’s birthday, due to his extensive stalking of the kid. But it isn’t until Robin tells the truth that Jason realizes he expected the kid to lie and age himself up a bit. It’s what every kid does, isn’t it? Pretend to be older than they are.
“Wow,” the girl marvels. Then her shoulders hunch again. Someone my age is a vigilante while I’m here, they say. “I can’t believe you’re my age.”
One kid and Robin. One kid and Robin. Robin’s not a kid. Robin’s one of Batman’s little soldiers. Robin is a rich brat who had everything and still stole everything that Jason ever had. Robin’s just a rich kid that– not a kid. Robin is not a kid.
It’s getting harder and harder for Jason to lie to himself.
“Hey.” Robin nudges her shoulder with his own. “Nothing to be ashamed of. Grass is always greener, right?”
“Yeah, yeah.” The girl relaxed her shoulders a little and pushes her hands out of her sleeves so she can fix her hair. “It’s just–do you have parents? Do they know?”
Robin snorts. “Nah. Trust me. They’ll never notice.”
“Oh.” This time it’s the girl’s turn to nudge Robin’s shoulder. “I feel ya.”
“Yeah?”
The single word is just open enough to invite further explanation without demanding it. Basic Robin training for dealing with victims.
“Yeah.” The girl remains quiet for half a minute, hands retreating into her sleeves. “This is my mom’s office building,” she admits finally. “She was supposed to pick me up from school after work, but she didn’t show, so I came all the way here, and she. She.” The girl wipes a sleeve over her face. “She’s always busy.” Her voice cracks open to make room for a long-trapped sob. “She’s always busy. I can’t believe I thought this time would be different. I’m so stupid.”
God, Jason wants to give this girl a hot cocoa and a hug. Well, one of Dick’s hugs. And that’s already too much thinking about his older brother.
“You’re not,” Robin assures the girl; a welcome distraction from Jason’s spiraling thoughts. “There’s nothing wrong with wanting–” He clears his throat before his voice can crack like the girl’s did. “–Your parents to spend time with you. That’s their job.” He quietens his voice and Jason strains to hear it over the wind. “And you’re not manipulative for trying to get some of their time.” It drops to a mere whisper, but Jason will be damned before he misses any of this intensely private conversation he’s eavesdropping on. “And you don’t have to be mature, or perfect, or…or good to earn it. Trust me. Trust me. It’s not your job to make your parents care.”
Unwillingly, Jason realizes that he absolutely trusts that this third Robin knows exactly what he’s talking about. It’s a revelation so unwelcome that Jason unconsciously blots out the rest of their conversation. He catches snippets–are they talking about an anime?–but he blinks and they’re both standing. Robin has one arm around the girl while the other pulls out his grapple gun. So he’s taking her on a rooftop tour of Gotham. An old Robin classic. Jason did that quite a few times for lost kids. He’s glad and furious that the tradition has continued.
Jason waits for the two kids to disappear into Gotham’s evening skyline before he slinks out from behind the water tank and lets himself think.
Jason’s tempted to dismiss everything Robin said as lies meant to comfort a volatile unknown. He wishes so badly that he could just dismiss every confession he just heard from Robin. But. But. It’s also been drilled into him to just believe in situations like this and fact-check later. The paranoia is Batman’s job, not Robin’s. So when Robin spilled his heart out on a barren rooftop to a total stranger through half-formed sentences and gentle allusions, Jason just…believed him.
Jason may not be the detective that Batman is, but he can still draw some goddamn inferences. It’s all too easy when he’s already inclined to believe everything Robin said. So If all I ever accomplish in my run as Robin? The kid’s already thinking that he too will be replaced. Every off-hand comment and reassurance he gave about parents? Well, it paints a pretty picture that Jason isn’t so fond of. He was trying to follow Robin into an early grave?
Bruce grieved him. Jason’s death affected him severely. Just not in the way Jason wanted. Because he was supposed to avenge Jason, not…fall apart. He was supposed to kill the Joker, not himself. This is all wrong.
There is no right way to grieve. Jason knows this. He comforted countless victims as Robin. It was his job to take care of them while Batman beat up the bad guys. That’s how the partnership works. So as part of Robin training, Bruce tried to teach him about grief.
Everyone grieves differently, Bruce had said. It was one of his stiffer lectures, one that said this is deeply personal and to pretend it’s not I’ll tell you this information as a lecture in the driest way possible. It was also true. No one could control how they grieved. No one should tell a victim that their way of grieving is wrong. Jason had rolled his eyes and said yeah, ‘cept for dressing up as a bat and punching criminals, that ‘s definitely wrong.
Foreshadowing, that. Because Jason just learned that Bruce dealt with grief over Jason by trying to kill himself instead of the Joker and once again Jason believes that this way of grieving is wrong. It’s just wrong. His murderer gets away with murdering him, but his dad who failed to save him tries to punish himself for the failure by getting himself murdered? Make it make sense. Make it make some goddamn sense.
Grieving doesn’t always make sense, Jaylad.
But Bruce was supposed to be–unfailingly rational and logical? Above being significantly emotionally affected by his son’s death? Isn’t that what Jason wants? What’s wrong with him?
Jason stomps around the rooftop until he finds an acceptable number of loose objects to kick. It’s still not enough to satiate the rage. It’s because he wasn’t affected in the right way, Jason tells himself. Bruce didn’t avenge him and then he replaced him as Robin and a son–
Becoming Robin saved me, and it saved Batman too.
The last thing he wanted was another Robin.
There is no right way to grieve. Jason knows this. Is he really gonna be pissed that Bruce didn’t follow him into an early grave? Is he really angry that Bruce found–or if the kid is to be believed, was forcibly given–a sliver of happiness even after Jason died?
Yes, he is. But also–no, he can’t.
Jason’s warring desires clash so ferociously that his stomach rebels and he pukes right there on the rooftop. Vile yellow liquid narrowly avoids his boots as Jason stumbles backwards, helmet under one arm. Fuck this. He’s going home.
(Where’s home?)
He’s going to one of his safehouses and never thinking about any of this ever again. Jason swings off the rooftop with all the grace of a drunk ballerina, heading away from the sunset and Robin.
(Where’s home, Jason?)
-oOoOo-
A few weeks after the rooftop encounter that Jason definitely has not thought about, he encounters a different bird in depressing circumstances.
Used warehouses in Gotham tend to be depressing. They’re ranked just below abandoned warehouses, because at least abandoned warehouses aren’t active crime hubs.
“–Totally secure,” one of the men is bragging. Jason completely tuned him out the moment their ware was brought in. He’s pretty sure that the man is seriously trying to convince him that Batman won’t be able to break into this warehouse.
As if.
“–A little token of our goodwill–”
It’s obvious that these men are unaware that Jason has lived in Gotham all his life. Every Gothamite knows that Batman will come for his little vigilantes. They’d have to be far from Gotham, say, Ethiopia or something, for Batman to arrive too late. And once he arrives, he’s exacting vengeance on whoever hurt his precious soldiers.
“Do I look like a joke to you?” Jason growls out.
The men finally shut up.
“No?” One ventures uncertainly.
“Then please explain,” Jason says, somewhere between pleasant and venomous, “why the fuck you’re trying to sell me Nightwing.”
Dead silence.
On the floor, Nightwing grunts a little as he attempts to shift into a sitting position. From the way he collapsed when the traffickers first hauled him in, his right ankle is sprained or broken. He’s wrapped up in enough ropes that left alone he’d need at least twenty minutes to get free of them, and a black gag is stuffed in his mouth, shutting up his trademark quips. The skin around his mask is bleeding from a dozen thin cuts, suggesting that the traffickers attempted to remove his mask with a knife before giving up. He’s still in his suit, which means he’s nominally bulletproof so long as he keeps his face out of the line of fire.
“We know your rules,” one of the men says obliquely. “But, obviously, Nightwing doesn’t count. He’s Nightwing.”
“Obviously,” Jason drawls. “I’m sure Batman will take that into account when he breaks your kneecaps.”
What is obvious is that they’re planning to let Jason take the fall for this whole capturing-and-selling-Nightwing scheme. Jason is really not a fan of this plan, seeing as there’s no way he’s walking away, legs intact, if Batman thinks he bought Nightwing. It’s also a mind-blowingly stupid plan, because finding the original traffickers will be a piece of cake for Batman even if he does find Nightwing with Jason, and then Batman will have even more people that he can break every bone of and not feel the slightest bit bad.
“Batman’s not here.” One of the braver or more idiotic men strides up to Nightwing and places one boot on his shoulder, like Nightwing’s just a fucking stool. He makes a big show of looking around and then shoves Nightwing down to the dusty concrete floor. Jason’s vision flickers in and out of green. Keep it together, he orders himself.
“Surely you’ve thought about getting revenge on the guy,” he continues, nudging the back of Nightwing’s head with his boot. “I mean look at him. You could do anything you wanted to him and he’d have to take it.” He presses the sole of his boot into Nightwing’s cheek. Jason’s finger twitches on his gun.
“Thought you weren’t afraid of the Bat,” another man sneers.
Jason sneers right back, though the expression is lost behind his helmet. “Anyone who’s not afraid of Batman is a fucking moron.” He draws his guns. “And Batman,” he says, seething with bitterness, jealousy, and dead certainty, “will always come for Nightwing.”
He starts shooting.
The last man is hitting the ground, dead on arrival, before Jason looks for Nightwing again. He’s half-hoping that he’ll be gone, snuck out during all the violence and chaos. Unfortunately, Nightwing’s sorry ass is freed of ropes but still limp on the floor. He doesn’t attempt to run as Jason holsters his guns and stalks over.
Figures Jason has to do everything by himself.
“Why are you still here?” Jason pulls out a knife and cuts the gag off. He pulls it out and Nightwing spits once at the floor.
“Wanted to thank my mysterious savior,” Nightwing quips through chapped lips.
Jason immediately shoves the gag back in. “Shut the fuck up. Get out of here–” And he physically clamps down on the nickname attempting to escape his mouth. Jason marches away, determined to make this the end of their interaction.
Naturally, Nightwing has other ideas. Jason hears, rather than sees, him spit the gag back out.
“I can’t walk!” Nightwing calls.
Jason freezes. He turns around, painfully reluctant, and there’s Nightwing, dragging his right leg across the cold gray concrete. He runs a brief risk assessment. Batman is coming for Nightwing, he’s sure of it. But he knows all too well that sometimes Batman comes too late. Can he really leave a grounded Nightwing alone in the middle of gang territory? Jason knows exactly what these sort of people would like to do with an injured Nightwing. Is he really just gonna hope that no one finds him before Batman does?
“Why would you tell me that,” Jason grumbles as he jams his gloves under Nightwing’s armpits and hauls him up none too gently. “I’m a crime lord.”
Nightwing throws his left arm across Jason’s back and lets said crime lord help him limp out of the warehouse. “You saved me,” he points out.
“I killed a bunch of traffickers,” Jason corrects. “You just happened to be there.”
Once out of the warehouse, Jason scans the street for vehicles to co-opt. The only one he sees is his own motorcycle. Goddamnit. Looks like he’ll be the one hauling Nightwing back to–
–The Cave that he’s not supposed to know about. Fuck.
“Still,” Nightwing says unfazed by murder (by murder!) “Not every day I get swept off my feet by a big bad crime lord.”
Jason shoves Nightwing into the motorcycle seat. “You are so fucking annoying,” he says plainly.
“Thanks,” Nightwing says cheerily, as Jason starts the engine. “I do try.”
The streetlights of Gotham blur. The musky smell of warehouses stained in blood melts away. Nightwing doesn’t ask where Jason is taking him, and Jason doesn’t tell him. He tells himself that nowhere in Gotham is safe, so Jason has to keep an eye on him since Batman clearly can’t be trusted.
Even in the privacy of his own mind he knows that’s a lie. There are a dozen safe places in Gotham he could drive Nightwing to if he wanted to. It’s just that he doesn’t want to.
Jason pulls up outside one of his safehouses about fifteen minutes later, briefly bemoans its loss, and then starts hauling Nightwing up the stairs.
“Not scared of being dragged into my evil lair?” Jason says off-handedly, pushing for a reaction. Scratching the urge to push him away while holding him close. Typical sibling interaction, honestly. With his gross and beloved big brother.
“Nah,” says Nightwing, infuriatingly.
He leans on his left leg while Jason opens the door and willingly hops inside. Jason flicks on the light, and the lightbulbs sputter for a second before casting the little apartment in yellow-white lighting.
Nightwing immediately collapses on Jason’s nice, new and emerald green sofa, getting dirt and blood all over it. “I’ve noticed that you protect the same people we protect,” he says obliviously while Jason seethes at the loss of his clean couch. “Thought we could establish a truce of sorts.”
“Batman has never protected Crime Alley,” Jason spits. “And get off my couch, you–” Once again he clamps down on a familiar nickname that Nightwing is sure to recognize.
Nightwing doesn’t move or rise to the bait. “You protect innocents,” he says. “So do we. Could be nice to have someone watching your back.”
Jason debates the merits of shoving Nightwing off the couch, but relents when he sees the careful way he’s holding his right leg off the ground. “I kill people.”
“So has Poison Ivy,” Nightwing counters. “We still work with her from time to time. And you care about people. She doesn’t. Well. Not really.”
This can’t be happening. Jason knew before he returned to Gotham that he would kill people, and that any chance of returning to his family (the family he didn’t want) would be killed as well. So Nightwing can’t be sitting in front of Red Hood, casually proposing an alliance with a known murderer and crime lord like Batman’s number one rule isn’t no killing. Surely, Nightwing and Batman just want to keep closer tabs on Red Hood. Friends close and enemies closer, as the saying goes. That’s all this is.
“Just stay the hell out of my territory,” Jason snarls, and stalks into his kitchen in search of ice packs.
When he returns, Nightwing has made himself even more at home; head propped on the couch’s arm rest, legs sticking up the other end. The entitlement should make Jason furious but for some reason, the sight of an injured Nightwing flopped on his couch just isn’t generating any rage.
“Sprained or broken?” Jason asks gruffly.
“Broken,” Nightwing replies. Wariness overtakes his perpetual nonchalance for the very first time as Jason sits on the coffee table and gestures for Nightwing to give him the broken ankle.
Jason rolls his eyes behind the helmet. “If I wanted to hurt you I’d break your other ankle. Just give me the leg–” Another nickname swallowed tight. The forced unfamiliarity itches Jason’s throat. “Moron.”
“Could just hurt this one more,” Nightwing points out while using both arms to lift his broken ankle into Jason’s lap.
“Smartass,” Jason grumbles while setting the broken ankle quickly and efficiently. The question is like pulling teeth but he forces himself to ask: “Any other injuries?”
“Nothing that can be treated with the suit on.” Nightwing pulls his leg out of Jason’s lap and observes him quietly. “Or the mask.”
Jason forces himself not to fidget under Nightwing’s observant gaze. What does a Nightwing who doesn’t know him see? What does he think of Red Hood? Does he see a villain, to be bargained and dealt with?
(Does he see a lost brother?)
“I’ll get something for your face,” Jason grits out, and stomps back to the kitchen, clenching and unclenching his fists.
I don’t care what Nightwing thinks of me, Jason tells himself. He gave up whatever brotherhood they had when he came back to life and didn’t tell his brother. Nightwing means no more to Jason than any other vigilante or superhero. Jason means no more to Nightwing than any other Rogue running around Gotham. That’s the life Jason has to live now.
(And doesn’t that burn?)
Jason clunks around the kitchen, searching through his overly large collection of kitchenware for the Neosporin. He buys too many appliances and groceries, considering he only cooks for himself. An unwelcome idea flits through his mind: Tonight I have a guest.
In the bathroom, Jason yanks the nearest clean washcloth off its bar, and dips it in cold water. He returns to the couch Nightwing has very rudely claimed with the wet cloth and the treatment for the cuts.
“Here.” He tosses the cloth and the Neosporin at Nightwing, who catches them one after another.
A soft hissing noise trickles into the living room from the direction of the kitchen. Nightwing carefully dabs the skin around his mask with the cloth, cleaning off the dried blood.
“What’s that sizzling?” Nightwing asks curiously, when the hiss coming from the kitchen becomes impossible to ignore. He dabs Neosporin on the cuts and winces.
“My branding iron,” Jason says flatly.
Nightwing actually laughs out loud at that. Idiot.
“Why are you laughing,” Jason demands, well complains really, but he’s not about to admit that. “What in your profile of Red Hood says he doesn’t brand people?”
“Hood,” Nightwing says, semi-successfully tamping down on the giggles, “I can smell the cheese.”
Yeah, okay, so while he was in the kitchen he slapped cheese on bread and stuck it in a sandwich press, sue him.
Jason takes a moment to regret all of his life choices. “Well it’s still not funny,” he growls, and stops back to the kitchen. He can’t let the grilled cheese sandwiches burn, after all. A fresh wave of laughter follows him. This is what he gets for trying to be nice.
The two grilled cheese sandwiches are roasted to perfection when Jason gets them out of the sandwich press. He throws them on the same plate, then turns to the refrigerator for closed cans. Nightwing should know better than to accept open drinks from strange crime lords, but Nightwing’s also a hopeless idiot. Jason chooses a Coke, knowing it’s Nightwing’s favorite, then remembers he’s not supposed to know Nightwing’s favorite drink and grabs two more options. He brings the three drinks and the plate of grilled cheese sandwiches to the coffee table, where they’re dumped unceremoniously near Nightwing’s ankle.
“Hurry up and pick,” Jason orders, when all Nightwing does is stare at the drinks.
Nightwing’s mouth curls. “You big softie,” he says as he reaches (past his toes, because he’s a goddamn acrobat and he never lets anyone forget it) for the Coke.
“I’ve killed people,” Jason says, no longer amused because this cannot be allowed to continue.
Nightwing can’t want to talk to him or ally with him. Jason can’t let him. Because inevitably either he’ll figure out Jason’s identity, or Jason will break down and tell him just so he can get a hug from his estranged older brother. He’s far from the most self-aware person, but he knows himself well enough to know he’s pathetic enough to do that.
“I’ve killed at least–don’t fucking shrug your fucking shoulders at me you fucking idiot! I’m a murderer!”
Nightwing chugs his Coke. “Wow, three f-bombs in one sentence, is that a record?”
Jason removes his helmet and bites into his grilled cheese viciously. He sits down on the coffee table a little more carefully, worried it might break beneath him. “How have you survived this long this stupid?”
Nightwing shrugs again. “I have the power of God and anime on my side.”
“I’m gonna give you back to the traffickers.”
“At least half of them are dead by now.”
“It’s the thought that counts.”
“As the one being trafficked, I beg to disagree.” Nightwing’s got a stupid little grin on his scarred face as he scarfs down his sandwich.
I forgot how easy this was.
Jason chokes on a retort. He can’t do this. He can’t start bantering with Nightwing like they’re friends, or worse, siblings, because they’re not and they never will be again. It’s just that the banter comes easier than anger, and nothing comes easier than anger to Jason these days.
I miss him.
That’s the problem, isn’t it? Jason misses his older brother while he’s sitting right across from him, trading quips and eating Jason’s grilled cheese sandwiches. He can’t even pretend to be angry at him. He misses him too much. There’s just so many more important emotions than anger at the forefront of his mind as he watches Dick lick melted cheese off his gloves. Disgust, mostly, because his brother is a total slob. But also.
(Don’t say it. You can’t take it back. Not even in your mind).
Jason grunts instead, then regrets the sound as it reminds him of Bruce. “Whatever. I’m not allying with you, or any of the bats and birds running around this hellhole city. I’m actually trying to help the people everyone else gave up on. If you actually wanted to help people, you’d kill the Joker.”
The last sentence slips out without Jason’s permission. Maybe it’s inevitable, given how often he thinks it, that the accusation would sneak out the moment he’s confronted with his older brother. It’s far too revealing for Jason’s liking. But it’s too late now, so he keeps his breathing even and hopes that Nightwing thinks nothing of the comment.
Nightwing’s lips twist, bitter below his mask in a way Jason has never seen on him before. “The Joker’s died like a dozen times,” he says lightly, like he isn’t completely destroying Jason’s whole worldview. “He just doesn’t stay dead.”
The grilled cheese sandwich slips out of Jason’s grip. “What?” He croaks. “How? Why?”
Jason has never seen such cold-blooded fury on his brother’s face before, and it occurs to him belatedly that he would very much prefer to never have such freezing fury directed at him, ever.
“Because the universe likes playing this cruel joke,” Nightwing spits, “where the murderer is the one who gets to come back to life, and not–” He exhales slowly, the fury losing its freezing fire. “Any of his victims.”
If Jason wasn’t already sitting, he probably would’ve fallen over. His head spins from his brother upending his deep-seated fury in a few quick sentences. But there’s one fact that his mind latches onto like a starving beast. “Who killed the Joker?”
Because if one of those ‘dozen times’ was Bruce–If it was his dad–
But Nightwing clams up. He may want to ally with the Red Hood, but he has no reason to share this with a stranger who bears the Joker’s old moniker. It makes sense, but it’s indescribably frustrating when Jason’s entire world has narrowed into finding out who has already killed the Joker, and why, and how to stop the Joker from coming back to life next time. Next time. Because the Joker has already died. What the fuck.
“Thanks for the assist,” Nightwing says, swinging his legs off the couch fluidly, then rising shakily to his feet. “I gotta bounce. But I’ll see you around.”
Jason follows him, unconsciously offering a hand when Nightwing shifts all his weight to his left foot. “Who killed the Joker?”
Nightwing ignores his hand and his question. “I’ll tell the others to stay out of your neighborhood.” He hobbles for the door.
Jason lunges and grabs what he believes to be Nightwing’s less injured arm. “Who killed the Joker?”
Finally, Nightwing’s wobbly flight comes to a halt. He looks back, a serious question hidden behind his mask. Are you really going to do this?
They both know that in his current state, Jason could easily break his wrist, or his other ankle, and force him to stay. Could even try to force answers from him if he wants to know that badly who killed the Joker. And God, Jason needs to know. If Nightwing won’t tell him, the question will eat him alive until there’s no rage left, and Jason is secretly, quietly terrified of who he is without the anger.
But not like this. Jason knows almost every method the League has of making people talk, yet assessing which ones are likely to make his brother break makes Jason want to puke.
He thought he was capable of using violence against his brother. Nightwing is a vigilante with over a decade of experience, he’s suffered much worse than a broken wrist, and he’s supposed to be Jason’s enemy. (Even if he wants to be allies. Even if the idea makes Jason…feel). In a fair fight, Jason could break bones. He would even shoot Nightwing in the arm, or somewhere else non-lethal.
But when push comes to shove, and he’s hobbling towards the door, still bitter and broken over Jason’s death, tilting his head a little to ask those damning questions– can I trust you? Are you going to hurt me?– Jason finds that he just can’t do it.
Jason lets go of Dick’s arm.
“You’re one of his victims, aren’t you?” Nightwing deduces with apologetic certainty. “You or a family member. That’s why you took his name. To reclaim it.”
He’s spot on. He’s so dead center that Jason is scrambling for a way to shut him up before he discovers anything else. Suddenly, Jason’s afraid he’ll recognize Jason’s face even under the mask, by his jawline or the precise contours of his ears or something.
“He killed my brother,” Dick confesses. “And it destroyed my family. Revenge didn’t help. It didn’t bring him back. It didn’t make me any happier. It didn’t fix anything. It didn’t matter.”
Jason has spent so long consumed by anger that his death didn’t matter that it never occurred to him that someone else might agree.
Dick slow-exhales again. “So whatever you’re planning. However it is you’re planning to get revenge. I just hope you don’t do something you’ll regret. That you can’t take back.”
And his older brother limps away, leaving Jason shellshocked and thunderstruck and rethinking his entire revenge plan.
Jason abandons his safehouse once he’s confident that Dick really is gone. His motorcycle is gone. Fucking dick. He doesn’t doubt that a replacement motorcycle will turn up in Red Hood territory sometime within the next week, but that’s not the problem. Jason’s concern is that his older brother is an entitled little shit with all of Bruce Wayne’s money to spend on ridiculous purchases like twenty-four iced mochas, or an antique straw, or on one memorable occasion, a bouncy castle.
The night air of Gotham stings and swells as Jason trudges to one of his main safehouses. He absentmindedly chews on his grilled cheese sandwich as he walks. If any passerby makes the connection between the masked man and the red helmet tucked under one arm, well, no one bothers him about it.
Smog rolls in heavy and dark gray, making it easy to avoid all cameras the last few blocks before his safehouse. Jason’s mind wanders, wonders and gets lost, but returns again and again to Dick’s confession.
The Joker’s died like a dozen times, he just doesn’t stay dead.
So. Someone has killed the Joker. Multiple people have killed the Joker, or one person killed him multiple times. Jason’s leaning towards the former. If one of those people is one of the Bats, maybe they’ll take him back. What’s the difference between one murderer and two murderers in the family? Not that Jason wants to go back.
Jason is nearly certain that one of them is Dick. But did he kill the Joker multiple times? Unlikely. Surely at least one of those ‘like a dozen times’ was someone else. Maybe one was–
Smog and soot and greasy old bricks. Jason breathes in the familiar scent of his city and shuts down that line of speculation before it goes somewhere that can hurt him.
Jason slips into his safehouse and dumps all his armor on the floor. This safehouse is one of the better-stocked ones, so Jason sets about making himself one of Alfred’s fancy teas. It’s just around midnight when he settles in an armchair, wearing a white shirt and warm gray sweatpants, steaming tea in hand.
Then he calls Talia.
“You lied to me. They killed the Joker.”
A pause. At least she’s caught off-guard, for whatever that’s worth. “The Joker is alive.”
“Don’t play word games with me,” Jason snarls into the phone. “They killed the Joker.” For Jason. Maybe. “And you didn’t think to mention it. You lied.”
“He still replaced you.”
Jason laughs bitterly. “Yeah. Maybe. But now I gotta rethink everything you told me, don’t I? Seeing as you lied about the fucking Joker dying.”
“You cannot possibly believe he’ll take you back after everything you’ve done,” Talia throws out, a sneer in her voice. “Or did you forget his one rule?” A non sequitur and a familiar line. She always encouraged his violent plans for Crime Alley. Said he was strong enough to do what needed to be done to actually make Crime Alley better and safer. Unlike Batman. That his actions would burn his bridges forever with the Bat clan was an unfortunate reality.
Just yesterday this comment would’ve sounded normal to Jason. Because he didn’t want to go home. Not to the father that was too late and the family that didn’t avenge him. That didn’t love him.
But now that there’s just a seed of doubt, a whole tree of suspicion is sprouting. Talia’s been subtly keeping Jason away from his family, and he didn’t even notice because he thought it was what he wanted. It is what he wants. But why doesn’t Talia want him to contact Bruce? Why does she want to keep him away from his–from that family?
“Fuck you, Talia,” Jason growls at the microphone. He’s one more condescending comment from shattering the phone. “If you won’t tell me the truth, I’ll find out for myself.”
-OoOoO-
He finds the replacement motorcycle on a roof. It is the exact same model, the same shade of red, but completely new. A note attached to one of the handlebars reads: To RH, sorry for the steal, From N in Dick’s scrawling letters. Jason rips the note off and thoroughly searches the motorcycle for trackers and bugs.
Normally, Jason would be curious and a little begrudgingly impressed that Dick managed to sneak it onto the roof. In reality, he’s far more concerned that Dick knew to put it on this specific roof.
A roaring air conditioning unit filtering out a soft pink sunset. 32 floors of industrial grade glass and crowded offices.
This is the rooftop where Jason eavesdropped on Robin’s heart-to-heart with that fifteen year old girl. Did he know Jason was eavesdropping? Did he find out later? Has Jason been seen?
Jason’s just about done searching the motorcycle when the rooftop door opens. A woman steps out, back-first, and it is not until she turns around that Jason recognizes her as the same fifteen year old girl from a month ago. Her footsteps slow when she spots Red Hood leaning on his new red motorcycle, and she stops about twenty feet from him.
“I hope you’re not here to do anything stupid,” Jason calls. It’s a little bit of a threat. If she so much as thinks of jumping, Jason is carrying her down to ground level himself, motorcycle be damned.
A lump travels down her neck as the girl visibly swallows. “You’re the one with a motorcycle on a roof.”
Fair enough.
The girl’s eyes dart to the edge of the roof and Jason is advancing before he knows it. He’s ten feet from the motorcycle when he realizes the girl has her hands out in front of her as if to ward him off.
“Don’t!” The girl cries. Her fingers tremble. She clenches them into fists and lowers her arms slowly. “You don’t want to do this,” she asserts, ignoring her own shaking voice. “Robin will be here any second.”
Jason’s common retort of I don’t hurt kids is washed away by an unexpected wave of rage. It’s the confidence with which she mentions Robin. The trust she puts in him to protect her from Jason.
Robin stopped being magic the day Jason died screaming and alone in a warehouse.
“Good,” Jason growls. “I’ve been meaning to teach him a lesson.”
The girl’s spine straightens like someone jammed a metal rod in it. “What do you have against Robin?”
Sure, Jason is pissed off beyond reason, but that doesn’t mean he’s going to hint that Red Hood is Jason Todd to a random kid. “Same thing I have against all that brood. They could be helping people, but instead they tie themselves into knots trying to look pure.”
Her dark eyes are flinty and the trembling of her fists speaks more of anger than fear. “I see. So I’m not worth jack shit to you. Good to know.”
That’s a bit of a non sequitur. Jason mentally rewinds the conversation, a sliver of rage draining away in favor of puzzlement.
They could be helping people. This, in light of Robin saying If all I ever accomplish in my run as Robin is saving you it will have been worth it. Ah. Oops.
“That’s not what I said,” Jason amends, careful to keep the growl out of his voice modifier. “I meant they could be doing more.”
Somehow, this just pisses her off even more. “Yeah, they could be going around murdering people like you, and then people like me would be too afraid to ask for help. Brilliant plan. Genius.”
Jason tamps down on the urge to shout commas are important! at her. But seriously, does she mean murdering people like you as in the Bats could be killing Red Hood, or murdering people, like you as in the Bats could be killing people the way Jason also has a habit of killing people?
“I think I missed the part where you’re scared,” Jason says dryly. He’s a little amused, honestly. Usually the people unafraid of him tend to be people he wants to hurt. The last time he spoke to someone who fit neither characteristic was when he let Dick crash on his couch.
The girl hisses at him like a feral cat. “I’m not afraid of dying.”
Jason suddenly remembers how he first saw her: on a rooftop ledge like she and gravity had called it off, staring down at the deadly 32-story drop like it was salvation. He swallows nothing to soothe his painfully dry throat. “You should be, sweetheart.”
“Don’t call me sweetheart, asshole,” the girl snaps back instantly.
It seems she’s still not afraid of dying. It’s a stupid thing to get mad about, but all Jason can ever seem to do these days is get mad in response to everything.
“And you should be afraid of me too,” Jason says, one degree above threatening. “If you know what’s good for you.”
To his surprise, the girl takes three steps closer. They’re three feet apart now, shouting over the air conditioning unit and the wind. “So you don’t beat kids unless they make you angry,” she sneers. “How original.”
“I don’t hurt–” Jason doesn’t bother to backtrack and find out what he said wrong this time. There’s too much anger caught up in his throat. “Fuck this, I’m not justifying my actions to a fucking child. Go home, kid.”
Of course, this only succeeds in further pissing her off rather than encouraging her to disappear down the rooftop door. “Ooh, I’m the big scary Red Hood and I wanna fuck up Robin, ‘cause I can,” she mimics crudely. “Give me a break. No one believes your rules bullshit. As if any kid would trust a guy that stuffs heads in duffle bags. You’re a fucking serial killer.”
Her second sentence provokes an odd defensiveness from Jason. He wants to be trusted by Crime Alley kids, by everyone who is a little too used to being kicked around. Everything about him is first and foremost designed to put the fear of God in criminals, but Jason likes to believe that he’s become someone that his twelve-year-old-self would have trusted.
And that defensiveness manifests as anger, because everything is an excuse for anger.
“I protect Crime Alley kids,” Jason sneers. “Not trust-fund brats like you.”
“Oh, so there’s a socio-economic threshold now,” the girl retorts acerbically, astronomically unimpressed. “What is it, for every additional ten thousand in annual income you break two more fingers? You gonna ask them for their W2s before you think of helping? Great job, asshole. Really proving your point. Robin is–”
At some point during her speech, Jason closed the remaining three feet of bare rooftop between them. He doesn’t recall what happens after that, because when the girl says Robin Jason’s entire world flashes lethally green.
When his vision clears, the girl is crumpled on the ground. And Jason realizes what he’s done.
This is what I wanted, he thinks dully as she struggles to her knees. This is what I wanted, runs on repeat when she starts begging. He wanted the girl to find some common sense and show some fear. Now she has.
“I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I’m sorry,” the girl chants. She’s still on her knees before Jason. He thinks he might puke in his helmet. “Please don’t. Please don’t.”
Please don’t hurt me again, she doesn’t say. Because Jason hurt her. Jason grabbed her by the face and slammed her to the ground because she said the wrong name at the wrong time. He really is going to throw up.
“I’m sorry,” Jason forces out. He grabs her arms, drags her to her feet, and then backs away. “I didn’t–I shouldn’t have done that.”
All of her previous acerbic wit has fled. Despite her insults, she wasn’t afraid of him until Jason proved that he couldn’t be trusted. She stares at him blankly, dark eyes spilling over with tears. “I’m so sorry,” she repeats brokenly.
I did this. I wanted this. Jason tastes bile in his mouth. He backs up even further when a familiar bright costume pops onto the roof and plants itself between Jason and the girl.
Robin falls into a fighting stance, bo staff held at the ready like he’s really planning on taking down the Red Hood by himself. He’ll at least try, Jason thinks bitterly. Basic Robin protocol. Protect the victim. They’re not supposed to protect victims at all costs, but he’s not a Robin if he doesn't put his life on the line like that. And right now the girl is the victim, and Jason is the person that kids need protecting from.
“Meena,” Robin says, gaze still trained on Jason. “Run. I’ll cover you.”
The girl stumbles backwards, terrified eyes bouncing from Robin to Jason. Neither move an inch. Finally, Meena runs, sprinting for the rooftop door while Robin crosses the rooftop to cover her path. In case Jason tries to shoot a fleeing child in the back or something.
Jason can’t even breathe right now.
The heavy metal rooftop door slams shut like a declaration of war. Robin creeps back closer to Jason, who still hasn’t moved an inch. The kid’s eyes flicker to the motorcycle and back. Maybe Dick told him about meeting Red Hood. Maybe the kid was expecting better.
“Tell her I’m sorry,” Jason rasps out with air he doesn’t have. He thanks and curses the voice modifier because the words come out cleanly but all the emotion is lost in the transfer. If Robin could hear Jason’s real voice, maybe he’d know that Jason really is sorry.
“Are you?” No quips from this Robin. He’s still ready for a fight. Doubtless intending to give Meena enough time to get away, even if Robin loses the fight.
“Yes,” Jason grits out. “I–”
Lost control. Lost his temper. You don’t beat kids unless they make you angry. How original.
How ironic.
Somewhere pounding in the back of his brain is a sobbing eight-year-old Jason, snot dribbling past a split lip into his mother’s arms. You can’t backtalk him when he’s like this, baby, she pleads. She’s got a red handprint on her cheek and a split lip of her own. Willis Todd hits hard when he’s angry. His better days see Jason skittering away with stinging shins and blurry vision. On his good days, he lounges in the antique armchair, amber drink in hand while watching TV, and though his blue eyes sometimes flick to Jason he does not lash out at all.
Now Jason is the man in the antique armchair. Sending kids into babbled apologies. Into worthless self-recriminations, because they never did anything wrong in the first place. It was all Jason, with his uncontrollable temper, the acidic green rage that haunts his nightmares.
“–Messed up,” Jason admits to Robin. To Robin. There’s a fifteen year old boy four feet from him, ready to take a beating in order to protect a fifteen year old girl, and Jason can’t breathe. “It won’t–happen again.”
Desperately, Jason tries to reach for the rivers of rage which usually accompany any mention of Robin. Anything to stem the flood of shame that’s currently drowning him. It’s nowhere to be found. Of course the Lazarus Pit abandons him when he needs it the most. He thinks of Talia, telling him that the Joker was still alive. A younger Jason, trusting the League of Assassins as if they had his best interests in mind. Trusting the League. What a joke. How stupid can Jason possibly get?
“Okay,” Robin says warily. He backs up, straightening out of his crouch with every step. The bo staff lowers incrementally as Robin backs up all the way to the edge of the roof.
Jason remains frozen, a tangled knot of shame squeezing his lungs. His leg jerks when Robin’s foot catches on the edge. Behind you, he almost shouts–and where did that desire to help come from?–but Robin throws himself backwards, and a moment later a little bird is soaring into Gotham’s smog-soaked sky on an invisible grapple line. The knot tightening around Jason’s lungs loosens at Robin’s safe escape.
He needs help. Jason knows this deep green rage is not sustainable in any way. Eventually he’ll lash out and regret it. (He already does). Eventually, the rage will consume him until he’s nothing but a dense bundle of anger constantly spiking whenever he’s set off and exploding outwards onto whoever happens to be nearby. He needs to get help. He can’t continue living this pathetic lie where he’s in total control of his actions. He has to get better before–
I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I’m sorry.
You can’t backtalk him when he’s like this.
I just hope you don’t do something you’ll regret.
Jason needs to get better before he becomes the sort of person that Red Hood murders.
-oOoOo-
The red motorcycle roars down Bristol’s pristine two-lane street, whizzing past the tall trees lining the sidewalks. Out here in Bristol the air is blue and clear. The mansions are half a football field away from the street, hidden behind lush front lawns and carefully-trimmed rows of hedges.
Near the end of the street, Drake Manor’s ugly white Victorian walls sprawl across the grass. Jason leaves his motorcycle near some bushes and circles around to the back of the manor. It’s a five-minute walk, because of course it is.
It is pathetically easy to sneak in through a back window. Jason finds himself on the kitchen counter, and silently clambers down. Even from the back of the manor he can hear the yelling, so it is easy to sneak closer to the source, unheard.
“…Disrespectful! I told you to stay away from Wayne’s circus freak–”
“Don’t call him that!”
Jason slips through the living room to find a larger but near identical living room, inside which the three members of the Drake family are arguing. The youngest stands with his palms flat on his sides and head bowed, but his eyes snap up when his mother insults Dick.
“Excuse me.” Janet Drake’s tone drips poisonous frost.
The kid visibly shrinks back, his gaze falling from Janet’s icy blue eyes to her chin. “I didn’t mean–”
“You interrupted your mother to tell her she needs to use a more politically correct term?” Jack Drake scoffs. “So Wayne’s allowed to take in a dirty little gypsy but we’re not allowed to call him what he is? Is that what you’re saying?”
Amazing. Jason has known the Drakes for about forty-five seconds and he already despises them.
He returned to Bristol for the first time since he ran away and died so that he could snoop on the Replacement’s home life. After what happened with Meena, Jason doesn’t want to run around making assumptions anymore. The next time he encounters Robin as Red Hood, he’s going to know exactly what sort of person Timothy Drake is.
At first, he just hacked the Drakes’ bank statements. When he saw enough plane tickets to keep them out of Gotham 11/12 months a year, he moved to in-person stalking. The Drakes could’ve hired a full-time babysitter that gets paid under the table, or have a relative live with the kid.
A week of stalking revealed no one but Tim, puttering around his ugly ass mansion, and a housekeeper who came twice a week.
Jason waited another week, because his investigation is not complete until he knows how the Drakes behave when face-to-face with their son. The plane tickets indicated that the Drakes were due to return on a Saturday, but Jason waited another two weeks because the Drakes canceled their return flight and stayed in Argentina another fifteen days. Today they are finally back in Gotham for the first time in four and a half months.
And they are unhappy with their son, because apparently, associating with Dick Grayson, adopted son of Bruce Wayne or not, isn’t something they want their little purebred boy doing. It’s nothing that Dick and Jason haven’t heard before, but it’s been a very long time since Jason’s felt this indignant outrage on his brother’s behalf.
“Political correctness is all the rage these days,” Janet sniffs. “We cannot feel safe in our own home because our own son will rat us out.”
“That’s not true,” Tim protests.
He doesn’t look afraid so much as he looks miserable, but Jason keeps a close eye on his parents’ body language anyways. Just in case they start thinking of raising a hand. Charging in will completely blow his cover, but he’s not going to stand and do nothing while a child gets hit by their parents. Plus his doorway joins three rooms together, providing Jason with a quick getaway should he need to sneak back unseen.
“Oh, so you’re calling your mother a liar now?”
“No, I–”
“So what is he?”
“What?” Tim’s gaze lifts a little. Jason can only see about half of the kid’s face, but something about his body language tells Jason that he’s not genuinely confused. Apprehensive, maybe. Like he already knows where is his mother is going with this and dreads it.
“Wayne’s circus freak,” Janet elaborates coldly. “You heard your father.”
“If you respect your parents, why can’t you say it?” Jack jumps in. “You too good for us? Too ashamed to use your father’s words?”
Tim’s gaze drops to the floor again and suddenly it clicks for Jason what they’re asking Tim to say. Those mother fuckers. Jason rests his helmet against the cream white wall and breathes through the surge of green. He promised himself he wouldn’t lose control again.
“No, I’m–he’s–” Tim’s voice cracks on the third word. Both hands clench the fabric of his pants. “A.” He swallows hard. “He’s a dirty little gypsy.”
It's what Jason expected, and it’s painfully clear Tim wants no part of this, but goddamn Jason could rip out tongues for those words. He runs through breathing exercises until his vision stops flashing neon green. Only when the rage cools enough for him to think does Jason realize that none of the rage was directed at Tim. Even though he said the words. Even though he’s the Replacement. All Jason pictured was ripping Janet Drake a new one until she stops moving.
“Good,” says Janet shortly. “Think of that the next time you see him. And stay away.”
With that pronouncement, she sweeps out of the living room like a swan on water. Her back is to Jason so he gestures colorfully in her direction.
Because that was so fucking evil. Jason can see in the shamed slump of Tim’s shoulders that Janet’s plan worked. The next time Tim sees Dick, he’s going to think about what he just said, and the guilt will eat him alive. Linger everytime Dick makes a bad pun. Grow everytime Dick gives him a patented octopus hug. If Dick and Tim weren’t vigilantes then Janet might have succeeded in shaming Tim away from Dick forever. It’s cruel. It’s so cruel.
And it’s still not over.
More lecturing. More recriminations. More misery. Jason is pretty sure he and Tim share the same thought when they realize that Jack still has not left the room. It’s still not over?
“Stand up straight when I’m talking to you.”
Tim’s back zings into a painfully straight line faster than a bullet. “Sorry, Dad,” he mumbles.
“What did you say?”
“I said, sorry, sir.”
“Better.” Jack is taller than his wife and he uses the extra height to loom over his son. “No son of mine mumbles like a common street thug. Understood?”
“Yes, sir,” Tim says crisply. Standing at attention like a good little soldier.
A good soldier. The comparison pops into Jason’s head without permission and refuses to leave, along with the extremely unwelcome thought: Bruce is ten times the man Jack Drake could ever hope to be. Because the best Jack can do is copy his wife’s tricks to feel a fraction of the power.
“I don’t like how much time you’re spending with the Waynes,” Jack warns.
“I’m…sorry, sir,” Tim says hesitantly.
“Are you? Because from everything I hear,” Jack says, completely missing how he only ever hears about his son because he spends so little time with the kid, “you’re all too happy to bend over for Wayne any chance you get.”
Jason pulls away from the doorway and sinks into a soft blue couch. A familiar, deep-seated wrench in his gut tells him exactly where this lecture is going. He fights to keep his breathing under control. If he looks at Jack Drake one more time he’s not sure he’ll be able to control himself, and he promised. He promised. No more men in antique armchairs, drink on the lips and rage in the fists. No more.
Jason returns to his doorway, green simmering in his gut.
“I am merely building connections to benefit Drake Industries–”
“Don’t give me that crap.” Jack slices a forearm through the air as if to physically cut Tim off. Tim does not flinch, but he tenses like a bowstring. Jason tenses too. If that man so much as touches the kid–
“Do you know how it looks to have your son whoring out to Brucie Wayne? Do you have any idea the questions your mother and I have gotten?”
And there it is. Jason grins humorlessly behind his helmet. These people are all the same.
“Dad.” Tim’s voice is watery and terribly small. “It’s not like that.”
“Isn’t it?” Jack glowers down at his son. “Do you think I’m stupid? You feel that we’re not giving you enough attention so you ran off to spread your legs for Wayne, isn’t that it?”
“Don’t say that!” Tim wails.
Jack Drake is unmoved by his son’s pleas. He crosses his arms over his chest and attempts to loom even further over his fifteen-year-old son, despite the two-inch height difference. It’s pathetic. “Then how do you explain all the comments your mother and I have had to deal with? What do you have to say for our reputations?”
Oh no, not the reputations. Jason would roll his eyes if he weren’t so incensed by everything Jake Drake is doing.
“I’m sorry.” Tim inhales sharply, disguising a sniffle.
“Sorry for what?”
Oh God, Jason realizes with disgust. He’s literally just copying Janet’s script. Poorly.
“I’m sorry for damaging your reputations,” Tim tries. “It was not my intention–”
“How?” Jack cuts across his son with another sharp movement of his arm.
Tim shuts up as surely as if Jack had physically struck him.
“Tell me what was wrong with your behavior and how you will fix it.”
The kid shakes like an autumn leaf on a windy day. “I…behaved inappropriately–”
“You’ve been behaving,” Jack cuts across once more, too impatient to wait for Tim to find the right words to poison himself with, “like a little whore. Do you think that sort of behavior is acceptable? Do you think it’s cute?”
Tim shakes his head mutely, eyes on the carpet. His chin wobbles minutely.
“Speak up, Timothy.”
“No, sir, my behavior is not cute, sir,” Tim chokes out.
“So tell me. What are you sorry for?”
Tim shakes his head violently. “It’s not true,” he cries. “B–Mr. Wayne has never–he would never–and Mr. Grayson–”
“Timothy. Stop sniveling. We are not leaving this room until you apologize for your behavior.”
Which would be the longest stretch of time spent with his son all year.
Jason watches Tim waver on the precipice of giving in. Confess to a horrible lie or drag this miserable show out for longer. He’d storm in now and punch Jack Drake through a wall if he thought it would help the kid, but the presence of Red Hood in their living room will only cause more problems for Tim. Jason has no doubt they’ll find a way to blame the kid somehow.
Don’t listen to him, Jason begs the kid mentally. You know it’s bullshit, I know it’s bullshit, he probably does to, just tell him to shut the fuck up and get out. He can’t stand here and watch Jack berate, verbally abuse, and emotionally, psychologically, and poorly manipulate his son for much longer before his self-control snaps. If it were Jason, he’d shout fuck you! and storm away. But despite his unspoken pleas, he suspects Tim is the type of kid to fight for his parents’ approval far past the point of reason.
Tears drip silently from Tim’s chin to the carpeted floor. Jason’s entire body is buzzing with manic, pent-up rage. Jack Drake folds his arms over his chest and glares down at his fifteen-year-old son, breathing like an angered bull.
“I’m sorry,” Tim says hoarsely, “for spreading my legs like a whore. It won’t happen again. Sir.”
Jack’s watery blue eyes narrow at the last word. “Are you being fresh with me?”
Who even says fresh anymore, Jason shouts in his head. You’re a fucking joke, Jack Drake.
“No, sir,” Tim says quickly and quietly. “I s-swear. I’m really sorry for behaving like a little whore, sir. I’ve learned my lesson. It won’t happen again, sir.”
“Hm. It better not.” Jack glares at his son for one moment longer. “Make sure to keep your grades up,” he tosses out, and saunters out of the room in the same direction as his wife, gross satisfaction in his relaxed walk.
Jason and Tim both hold their breath. In the distance, a door slams. Tim shakes like he’s the slammed door. He wipes both hands over his face and breathes in deeply. His chest stops moving to four seconds and Jason panics during those four seconds until Tim breathes out. He’s following Bruce’s breathing exercise pattern.
“Well that’s another four months down the drain,” Tim mutters into his hands. He sniffles, just once, and then visibly pulls himself together. “Gee, I wonder what it’ll be next time,” he says bitterly. “Timothy, we didn’t raise you to get a B in History. Clearly, you’re spending time too much time sucking dick. Sucking Dick.” He sobs, hiccups and laughs at the same time. The resulting sound reminds Jason of a dying animal. “Timothy, we didn’t raise you to have independent thoughts. Stop that. Timothy, we didn’t raise you–” The kid’s voice catches, and then he abruptly bursts into tears.
Jason lingers in the doorway. Technically, he’s accomplished what he came here for. He wanted to know whether Tim’s home life was truly what he alluded to on that rooftop to Meena. Now he knows it’s worse. He ought to be satisfied. He ought to sneak out the way he came and leave his replacement to cry in peace.
Tim sinks into an armchair. “It’s like he gets off on humiliating me. What the fuck is his problem.”
He probably does, Timmy. It’s obvious to Jason from just one argument that Jack Drake gets his power trips by humiliating his son, because Janet Drake does it better and Jack Drake is not the sort of man who can play second fiddle to his wife. What a lovely Molotov cocktail of parenting to grow up with.
Oh, he’s so not leaving this kid alone.
Jason waits for the kid to stop crying. He hides behind a couch when Tim pulls himself out of the armchair’s plush cushions and heads for the doorway Jason has been loitering in. He follows Tim at a distance all the way to the kitchen, where a coffee machine is whirring merrily. No less than five used mugs litter the counter near the sink. Jason had missed them on his way in, more concerned with eavesdropping on Tim’s argument with his parents.
What does he call the kid? Tim? Replacement is off the table because that might give away his identity, and he’s not calling the kid Robin because. Well. It’ll hurt. Just a little.
On second thought, Jason’s not supposed to know about the kid’s night life at all.
“Hey, kid.” With this brilliant opening line, Jason steps into the kitchen and leans against the wall, arms folded.
The kid’s head snaps up like a lightning strike. A little bit of redness rings his eyes. He frowns faintly. “Red…Hood?”
“The one and only. You know that was abuse, right?” Ah, fuck. Abort. Abort. Jason was supposed to pretend he didn’t hear the argument at all.
Tim’s mouth opens and closes like a fish out of water. A redness to match his eyes crawls up his cheeks. “You heard all of that?”
Jason lifts one shoulder, embarrassed by Tim’s embarrassment. He hadn't meant to humiliate the kid further, but it looks like he has. “Enough.”
“It wasn’t.” Tim exhales slowly through his nose and tries again. “They’re not. They’ve. Never hit me.”
“Kiddo, they don’t need to hit you to hurt you,” Jason says as gently as he can through the voice modifier. And you look like you’d kill for a hug, he doesn’t say, because he’s trying to be sensitive goddamnit.
There’s a thousand and one other arguments he could make. Throwing objects at or near you counts, except he doesn’t know if the Drakes have ever done that to Tim and the kid might just lie anyways. You don’t need to put yourself through this when Bruce is probably foaming at the mouth to adopt you. An ocean of bitterness lies behind that argument. Waterboarding couldn’t pull it out of his mouth. You’re not like them just because they made you say slurs about Dick.
Dick would forgive Tim in a heartbeat if he knew. He’d know to blame Tim’s shitty parents, not Tim. But of course Red Hood doesn’t know Dick Grayson, so Jason must remain silent. Forced unfamiliarity again, chafing until Jason is chomping at the bit.
Get used to it. This is the rest of your life.
“What are you doing here?” Tim deliberately turns away, and Jason accepts the change in conversation topic without complaint. He's well aware of the mental hoops kids jump through to justify their parents’ behavior, and he hadn’t even meant to bring it up in the first place. “Oh, is this about Meena?”
“How do you know Meena?” Jason asks, a little evilly. He’s curious as to how Tim will explain away their connection.
“She’s a friend from school,” Tim answers swiftly. He turns his mug around and around in his hands. “She said she wanted to say thank you to Red Hood for…you know. And also that she mostly regrets calling you an asshole.”
“Huh.” Jason is not sure how he feels at being forgiven so easily. All he did was threaten her mom with some light violence and send Meena a box of chocolates which he later learned she’s allergic to. Meena would be within her rights to stay mad for much longer. “I’ll take mostly.”
“Yeah.” Tim pads over to the coffee maker when it beeps and fills his mug to the brim. “Anyways, is that all?”
“Oh, right.” Jason pulls out a gun. “I’m kidnapping you.”
Tim eyes the gun. “You don’t hurt kids.”
Jason considers how badly he needs the kid to believe that he’s willing to shoot a child. Especially this kid, who is still jumping through mental hoops so he doesn’t have to acknowledge his parents’ abuse. “Good point.” He holsters the gun. “If you don’t let me kidnap you I’ll break your coffee machine.”
Now that’s a real threat. It’s immediate, it’s achievable, and it’s devastating.
The kid actually gasps out loud. “No.”
“Yep.” Jason pops the P. The voice modifier doesn’t catch the emphasis, which is an awful betrayal. “Come on. Chop chop, kiddo. Get your things. Let’s get going.”
“Wait, you’re serious?”
“Dead serious.” Jason chuckles at his own joke.
“Why?” The kid whines. Actually whines. At the crime lord. Unbelievable.
“Because your parents are shit and you shouldn’t have to be alone.”
“I can take care of myself,” Tim grumbles.
Jason peels himself off the kitchen wall and takes two slow steps towards Tim. “Tough luck, kiddo. Now am I gonna hafta bring you in hot or cold?”
Tim looks down mournfully at his coffee. “No one says that in real life,” he mutters rebelliously, despite obvious evidence to the contrary.
Well, Jason tried the stick and the kid mostly just shuffled his feet verbally. Time for a carrot. He glances around the kitchen and uses his astute observation skills to put together the five empty coffee mugs and the sixth steaming in Tim’s hands. “I’ll make you coffee. And coffee cake.”
The kid perks up. “Really? Coffee cake?”
It can’t be this easy to bribe the kid. You think his parents ever cooked for him? Jason shoves the thought away. It still shouldn’t be this easy.
“Yep. Homemade coffee cake. Promise.”
“Okay!” Tim abandons his mug amongst the others and bounds away. He brushes past Jason without a hint of caution, and Jason follows swiftly, not convinced Tim isn’t going to make a run for it.
But instead of doing something sensible like running away from the crime lord, Tim leads Jason to a large, airy and unused room that looks like a study. The kid kneels, back carelessly turned to Jason, by a little metal safe in the back. Jason hangs back, torn between wanting to give his future kidnapee a little space and wanting to make sure that Tim isn’t pulling out a gun.
Tim does not pull out a gun, or any other type of weapon, for that matter. He pulls out a roll of hundred dollar bills and tries to hand them to Jason.
“Are you robbing yourself?” Jason asks, because apparently his replacement possesses the ability to shock him into asking dumb questions.
“No! It’s just I know you take care of the kids in Crime Alley,” Tim explains, his little face earnest and so fucking stupid. “But I’m not–I have a lot of resources, and isn’t fair for you to spend time or money on me because they need it so much more than I do. And you said you’re making coffee cake, so.” Tim shrugs and thrusts the cash into Jason’s chest.
Holy shit. Holy shit. “You’re actually robbing yourself.” Jason resents the voice modifier in that moment because it cannot make his voice any flatter than it already is.
“No,” Tim protests again. “I’m compensating you for your time and resources.”
“I’m kidnapping you!”
Tim half-pouts and half-frowns at Jason. “You don’t have to say it like that.”
Jason is going to scream.
“Oh!” The kid continues, blissfully ignorant. “Also, if we’re going to Crime Alley, I’d like to help out.”
“Help out.” Somehow this kid has turned Jason into a parrot. Is he about to ask Red Hood to make him a vigilante?
“Yeah.” The kid nods seriously, steps past Jason again, then takes off down the hall.
Jason follows belatedly, trundling up a wide staircase and half-hoping that the kid is making a run for it. Instead, he ends up leaning in the doorway of Tim’s bedroom (as evidenced by its appearance as the only regularly-used room in the manor) as the kid throws things around.
Please pull out a weapon, Jason pleads silently. Make this make sense.
Tim grabs his laptop and shoves it in a book bag. He also grabs a panic button disguised as a cheap wristwatch, so perhaps he’s not completely hopeless. Jason finds his eyes darting around the room, gauging every object for its probability of being a tracker or panic button and whether he can sneak it onto the kid.
“I have a lot of ideas for community projects in Crime Alley,” Tim informs Jason as he slips on a fuzzy-looking sweater that better have a goddamn tracker or Jason is going to lose his mind. “We can go over them while you’re making coffee cake.”
Jason is not seeing red or green, but he sure as shit is seeing colors. He inhales slowly to clear his vision. “This isn’t a fucking playdate.”
“I know!” The kid nods eagerly while slipping the book bag over his shoulder. “It’s a kidnapping.”
“Yeah. A kidnapping. I’m kidnapping you.”
And yet Jason is the one following Tim to the front of the house. Tim bounds down the stairs, full of excitable energy, and Jason clunks along behind him, trying very hard not to feel upstaged. They weave through the maze of living rooms stuffed with archeological finds. Jason is tempted to break one, but Tim is the one who’ll get in trouble for it.
“That means forcibly taken,” Jason continues, somewhat aware he’s fighting a losing battle. “To my evil lair where I’m gonna do a whole lotta evil things to you.” He closes the front door behind them and spots his motorcycle across the lawn. Tim is already walking towards it, and sure, there are no other vehicles around, so maybe it’s obvious that the motorcycle is Jason’s, but that doesn’t mean Tim should just assume so.
“Like…torture. Ever had your fingers broken, Timmy?”
Considering how long he’s been Robin, probably. But Jason is not quite collected enough to throw out creative threats.
Tim frowns at him. “Please don’t do that. That’d be mean. And I haven’t even shown you my ideas yet.”
Jason exhales so loudly the voice modifier picks it up as static. “Oh my fucking God. Just get on the fucking motorcycle, shrimp.”
“I liked ‘kiddo’ better,” Tim informs him primly, but then he does, in fact, get on the fucking motorcycle.
Lack of self-preservation instincts, check. He’s a Robin all right.
Bristol’s street is bright and deserted, which isn’t surprising. It’s the end of summer, when cool breezes slice through the muggy sun-bright afternoons. Bristol’s residents probably all have nice summer homes, away from the simmering smog of Gotham. Jason sandwiches the kid between the handlebars and himself, and then they’re off.
“How badly do you want coffee cake?” Jason asks while they’re speeding out of Bristol.
Tim’s back stiffens as if Jason just asked him for a lap dance. “You promised,” he says in a small voice.
Jason recalls the Drakes’ postponed flight home and considers how often adult figures in Tim’s life might backtrack on their promises to him. “Calm your tits, kid, I’m asking ‘cause we need ta get groceries for it.”
“Oh.” A line of tension curls out of Tim’s spine. “And you don’t want to?”
“Kid, I can’t exactly walk into a grocery store like this.” Jason takes a sharp left, heading towards downtown Gotham, where his favorite grocery store is. “So you’ll have to do it.” Chances are if Tim’s come willingly thus far, he’s not going to take off in a crowded grocery store. “Can you do it?”
“Yes, I can go grocery shopping,” Tim bites out, mortally offended. Of course this is what gets his hackles raised, not the breaking and entry or the kidnapping. “I’m not a child.”
That’s such a child thing to say. “Whatever you say, shortstuff.” Jason takes another sharp turn while Tim splutters indignantly.
“I’m not gonna run,” Tim adds, once the indignation has died down.
Jason sighs. “Kid, it’s not your job to reassure your kidnapper that you’re not gonna try to escape.”
Honestly. He did not sign up for giving his replacement kidnapping etiquette lessons. Let Dick handle that. God knows he’s been kidnapped enough.
Tim sniffs. “Well. Just so you know.”
The motorcycle pulls to the side of the road about two blocks from the grocery store. Jason pauses to find a suitable coffee cake recipe using Tim’s phone, mentally cross-references the ingredients list with what he’s already got in his chosen safehouse, then sends the kid off with instructions to find vanilla extract and cinnamon.
Jason’s phone rings a few minutes later. It automatically connects to his helmet so he presses a button on his helmet to pick up.
“What type of cinnamon?”
Jason closes his eyes. He runs through breathing exercises. He focuses on the background noise but nothing helps disguise the fact that the young voice over the phone is definitely Tim. “How the fuck did you get this number?”
“Hood, it’s me, Tim. You just kidnapped me? From my house?”
“Yeah, I got that part!” Jason fights to reel in the shouting. He’s more concerned with 1) Tim announcing in the middle of a crowded grocery store that he’s been kidnapped, 2) Tim’s genuine concern that Jason completely forgot about him after being out of sight for all of seven minutes, and oh yeah, 3) that Tim somehow got Red Hood’s phone number without Jason noticing.
“‘Kay, well, what type of cinnamon? They have ground cinnamon but they also have sticks of cinnamon–”
“Who the FUCK puts whole cinnamon sticks in a CAKE!” Jason promptly loses the battle to not shout. “And how did you get this number?”
“What, like it’s hard?” Tim scoffs, and hangs up.
Brat.
Tim returns twelve minutes later with a small plastic bag on one arm and his book bag on the other. Belatedly, Jason realizes that he forgot about money. The kid probably used one of those hundred dollar bills he snuck into his book bag.
“Hey, Mr. Hood, I got the stuff!” Tim says cheerfully. “Also, uh. Why are there bodies on the ground?”
Civilians mostly fled when the fighting started. Tim is the first to ask. Jason takes the bag of groceries without looking at the four bodies strewn across the concrete. He’s already recognized one of them as the man who put his foot on Dick’s face and shoved him down, and two others as fellow traffickers from that warehouse.
“Human traffickers tryna get revenge ‘cause I blew up their base of operations a coupla weeks ago.” One day after he rescued Dick, to be precise. “Idiots thought they could target me in public. One sec.” Jason turns off the voice modifier with one hand and dials a number well-known for uselessness, hypocrisy and corruption with the other.
“911, what’s your emergency?”
“I’d like to report a murder,” Jason replies, drawing his gun.
“What is your location?” The dispatcher asks immediately.
Jason fires twice. “Three murders.”
He hangs up. When his voice modifier is reengaged, he looks up at Tim. The kid’s lips have drawn into a thin line. He wrenches his gaze away from the bleeding bodies surrounding Jason’s motorcycle and the gun in Jason’s hand.
“Please don’t do that,” the kid says softly.
Jason shoves the gun back in its holster, suddenly lightly self-conscious and running hot on defensiveness. “You scared?” He meant it to come out as a sneer, but the truth is that Jason is the one who’s scared. Because he doesn’t want Tim to be scared of him. He wants Tim to continue calling him to ask dumb questions about grocery shopping. He wants to hear Tim’s community project ideas and for the kid to explain how the hell he got Jason’s phone number.
Tim shakes his head quickly. “No.”
Jason moves to get on the motorcycle and therefore towards Tim. He freezes after one step, because Tim stepped back. Jason considers Tim for a moment. He could probably kidnap Tim right here if the kid actually does run. He has trackers, but absolutely no gear, while Jason is armed and armored to the teeth. It would be far more public than Drake Manor, but Red Hood’s reputation can take some child kidnapping.
It’s just that he doesn’t want to. He wants Tim to be as excitable as he was bounding down the stairs of Drake Manor. And isn’t that ironic. When Tim was in a good mood Jason wanted him to be afraid and run away. Now that Tim’s scared, Jason wants the old Tim back.
You’d think after all Jason’s scars, he would learn to be careful what he wishes for.
“I won’t kill anyone when you’re around,” Jason offers.
He doesn’t regret killing the traffickers. They’ve been selling human beings for months, and would’ve continued forever if they hadn’t bit off more than they could chew with Nightwing. There’s no reforming people like that. But Jason regrets that it has made Tim wary of him. He doesn’t regret the murders but he regrets the results. Basically, Jason doesn’t want his actions to have consequences. Ain’t that the kicker.
There is absolutely nothing but Jason’s dubiously trustworthy words for Tim to consider, but the kid nods anyways. He steps over the bodies and slides into his spot on the motorcycle. When he turns his back to Jason there’s a line of tension that wasn’t there before. It’s nothing less than what Jason deserves, but it still makes his throat uncomfortably dry.
“I don’t hurt kids,” Jason croaks. The voice modifier smooths it over into calm assurance.
You don’t beat kids unless they make you angry, how original.
Both of them know how untrue his claim is.
But Tim nods. “Right.”
That’s probably the best Jason is going to get. He makes sure the bag of groceries and Tim are both secure, and then they’re off again, tearing through the city on Dick’s apology motorcycle.
Jason pulls up outside of one of his better-stocked safehouses. He’s not happy about losing a second one so soon after losing the one he took Dick to, but it’s not like he has a shortage of safehouses. He considered blindfolding the kid, but he’s Robin so he’ll probably be able to recreate the route from memory. And Jason’s not keen on scaring the kid like that after murdering three people in front of him.
“Hey, this place is pretty nice,” Tim says as he walks in the door.
Jason grunts. There’s no reason for him to sound so surprised. Jason is a crime lord, not Dick “I like my kitchen stocked with 52 cereals and nothing else” Grayson.
Tim curls up in the red armchair and pulls out his laptop. “Okay, so I’ve got 127 ideas on my slideshow. Which one do you want to hear first?”
Jason takes off his helmet and leaves it on the coffee table. If Dick didn’t recognize him with the mask on, there’s no way Tim will. He dumps the groceries on the kitchen counter. Looks like Tim also bought fresh fruit; two peaches and two apples. Eh, his money. “Who’s the slideshow for?” There’s no way Tim prepared this thing on the off-chance that he’d meet Red Hood.
“My, uh. My boss. Bruce Wayne.” Tim’s cheeks are red when Jason turns back, and Jason briefly wonders why. Because he’s mentioning the richest man in Gotham to a crime lord? Because he’s remembering the argument with his parents that Jason overheard?
Jason scoffs. “That man does his level best to pretend that Crime Alley doesn’t exist. What’d he have to say about it?” Jason starts pulling ingredients out of the cabinets and pretends he doesn’t care about the answer.
Tim fidgets in the armchair, curling up even further until there’s nothing but a boney sack of boy squished in the middle. “I, uh. Haven’t shown it to him yet.”
Oh great, so Batman is scarier to Robin than Red Hood. That’s not worrying at all.
“But he’d definitely fund it!” Tim says hurriedly. “He doesn’t not care about Crime Alley, it’s just that. Well. It’s diff–it’s complicated. But he has a soft spot for Crime Alley kids.”
Probably looking for my replacement, Jason thinks sourly. Until he found a better model next door. He doesn’t even really believe it, but it feels good to be mad at Bruce.
(The truth is that even during the years in which Bruce visited Park Row only once a year on the anniversary of his parents’ murders, he still took in the homeless, orphaned street urchin who stole his tires and tried to bite him. Then he spent the next six months patiently reassuring Jason that he wasn’t a pedophile and that he wasn’t going to sell him to traffickers. Bruce was kind, even when he was so infuriating Jason could happily strangle the man. That is the truth, and God does Jason loathe it).
“We’re sort of like, um. Friends,” Tim continues, attempting to explain his relationship to Batman without saying he’s Batman and I’m Robin to Red Hood. “But there’s nothing! Um. Weird about it. He’s like my mentor. So. He’ll definitely fund it.”
Jason turns on the oven and starts greasing the baking dish, taking out his anger on the stick of butter until it caves to his superior will and smears thickly on the sides. “Why,” he demands furiously, “would you tell that to me! I could be a bad guy! I could ransom you to him for a hundred million dollars!”
“Oh, please, I’m not worth that much to him,” Tim scoffs.
Two eggs get cracked over a large mixing bowl, the shells thrown into the sink to deal with later. Jason recalls I calculated the exact amount of time it would take for someone to notice and suddenly worries that Tim knows (or thinks he knows) his exact worth in USD to his parents and to Bruce. Morbidly, he wonders whether the kid’s abusive parents rank higher or lower than his sort-of-friend, like-a-mentor boss. Jason is pretty sure that Bruce would shell out his entire fortune for the kid. But does Tim know that?
At least Jason can confidently put Bruce above his other three parents. Catherine for lack of funds, Willis for the lack of shits he gave about Jason, and finally Jason learned exactly how much he was worth to Shelia when she sold him out to the Joker. It’s less than Bruce would be willing to pay, to say the least. (Once, Bruce told Jason that no secret identity or billion-dollar fortune was worth his life. Once upon a time, when Jason was Robin, still worthy, still loved–)
“Plus, you just kidnapped me from my manor house. I think we’re a bit beyond that.”
“Well–!” Jason takes a break from mixing the eggs, vegetable oil, vanilla and milk together to point his whisk at Tim. “Don’t go around just getting kidnapped by anyone!”
Good God, he cannot believe the words coming out of his mouth. The new Robin is driving down his intelligence just by talking to him.
A smirk tugs at the corner of Tim’s mouth. He bends his head towards his laptop screen in order to hide it. “Don’t worry, Mr. Hood, I don’t let just anyone kidnap me. You’re special.”
Jason whisks the batter furiously. “You are so unbelievably fucked up.”
“Thanks, I try,” Tim says cheerfully, unknowingly mimicking his big brother Dick. “Can I give you my presentation now?”
(What Tim doesn’t say is: Nightwing trusts you. He came back with his broken ankle set and the certainty that Red Hood is a Joker victim misguidedly trying to do good. You hit a kid once, apologized repeatedly and tried to make up for it. What sort of Rogue apologizes? What sort of crime lord cares? There are kids in the most jaded neighborhood of Gotham that trust you, and what sort of street kid trusts a masked man with a gun? You’re violent and a serial murderer and you keep saying you’ll do horrible things to me, but instead you’re making me coffee cake. You may not be a hero but you’re still trying to do good. And isn’t that good enough?)
“Whatever,” Jason grumbles, and Tim takes that for the permission it is.
“Okay, so. My first initiative for Park Row Public High School…”
When the oven timer rings an hour later, Tim is mostly through his forty-third proposed program to improve Park Row schools. Jason has washed his hands and is sprawled on the couch across from Tim’s armchair, eyes on Tim’s laptop as the kid flicks through his slides. His voice is noticeably more hoarse than it was an hour ago, but he’s still talking at a hundred miles per hour.
“…Taking into account the lack of safe public transit–” Tim jumps a little when the oven starts beeping harshly.
“I’ll get it,” Jason says, reluctantly pulling himself off the couch. He rubs his jaw and then tosses back, “you have some good ideas, kid.” He’s about to add don’t let it get to your head when Tim lights up like a Fourth of July firework.
“Really?” Tim shouldn’t look that happy to be complimented by a crime lord. Seriously, who deprived him of praise so much as a child that he’s ecstatic to receive it from Jason?
Oh, wait. Jason has a feeling their names rhyme with fake.
Jason has yet to take off his armor so he uses his gloves as oven mitts to pull the coffee cake out of the oven. “You can use a knife, right, kid?” He calls back, saving his smirk for the oven. Can Robin use a knife, indeed.
“Yes?” Tim responds, far more hesitantly than Jason expected.
“Christ, kid, I’m not asking you to gut somebody. Come here and cut the fruit.”
Tim obediently squirms off his armchair, leaving his laptop on the coffee table next to Jason’s helmet. He joins Jason by the counter, accepts the offered knife and washed peaches, and starts slicing. Jason attempts to wrestle the coffee cake onto a large plate. It’s oddly domestic. It’s oddly…nice.
“Okay, next question,” Jason announces when Tim moves to the second peach. “How did you hack my phone?”
“I didn’t hack your phone.”
“Tim.”
“You need to upgrade your security,” Tim mutters, eyes on his peach.
Jason gets the cake on the plate and then presses his palms flat on the counter. He’s got half a foot of height on the kid, but he attempts to slouch a little. “You’re giving a crime lord security advice.”
Tim darts a quick look at Jason then nods timidly.
“Why?” Jason asks bluntly. Batman can’t approve of this sort of behavior from his Robin. There’s no way he’d want Tim here at all, making dessert with Gotham’s rapidly-rising crime lord. Right?
The kid shrugs a shoulder. “‘Cause I can.”
“And there’s nothing wrong with my security,” Jason adds as an afterthought.
“It took me like two seconds to hack your wifi,” Tim says flatly. His next word is fully under his breath: “Boomer.”
Jason blinks and straightens. “Did you just call me a boomer you little shit?”
Tim meets his glower, blue eyes wide and oh-so innocent. “You must be hearing things in your old age.”
“Ohhh, you’re gonna fucking regret that,” Jason growls, in a tone that makes gang leaders cower. He regrets it a moment later, worried Tim will take it seriously, but the kid just lets out a tiny little scoff.
Brat.
Now that Jason has actually spent time with the kid, he knows he can never carry out his original plan for the new Robin. In the span of one afternoon, Robin has gone from Red Hood’s enemy, to beat, threaten, intimidate, and humiliate, to a surrogate little brother. Everytime Jason thinks of hurting Tim, he pictures Dick instead, limping out of his safehouse, silently asking can I trust you? Are you going to hurt me? And Jason’s subsequent inability to take advantage of his brother’s injuries no matter how desperately he needs to know who killed the Joker.
Jason sneaks a glance at Tim as the kid cuts the coffee cake, hell-bent on dividing it exactly in half. (“You cut, I choose,” Jason had said, and not accepted feedback). Does he trust me? Jason wonders. Will I hurt him?
So the original plan is a bust. Not just because it’s Tim, and he just can’t pin his anger on Tim, but because Tim’s just a kid.
It suddenly occurs to Jason that Tim could be his little brother. Once the Drakes are out of the picture and Bruce adopts Tim. Once–if Jason goes home. If Jason returns to Wayne Manor, it will be as a middle child with a feral, caffeine-addicted raccoon for a little brother.
This sort of afternoon, where Tim bounces ideas off of Jason and they bicker and make fun of each other until someone ends up with cake batter in their hair, could be Jason’s normal. He and Tim could gang up on Dick like little siblings are morally obligated to do. He could have this. If only he just went home.
And Jason is so tired of being angry all the time. It’s just so draining. It sucks away his second life, day after grueling day. With the anger fading, his head is crowded instead by all the good memories. Bruce reading him bedtime stories even though he insisted he was too old for them. Dick teaching him how to ride a motorcycle behind Bruce’s back. Alfred patiently teaching him how to cook and politely looking the other way as Jason squirreled food into his room for years.
He misses Alfred’s cooking. Dick’s hugs. Bruce being gentle and kind. He’ll never get that from Batman as Red Hood, even if they do become allies of sorts like Dick wants. Only from Bruce, as his son.
By the time Jason drives Tim back to Drake Manor, he is one lonely night from just knocking on Wayne Manor’s front door.
Jason drops Tim off on the lawn, and waits for the kid to disappear inside the front door before he drives on. But he doesn’t turn around and head back into the city proper, to one of his empty safehouses with the remnants of a shared coffee cake in the sink. No, he continues down the road until he reaches the black gates of Wayne Manor.
And he thinks about it. Ringing Alfred. Calling Bruce. He takes off his helmet, tucks Red Hood under one arm while Jason Todd faces the gothic spires of the home he left behind. He runs through a dozen one-liners in his head. (“Not to worry you or anything, but I think there’s a zombie apocalypse going on outside.” “Turns out God didn’t want me.” “‘Sup, Dick? You look like you just seen a ghost.” “Hey, B. Long time no see.” “Yo, Bruce. I’m back.” “Hi Dad. It’s me.” “Dad. Can I come home?”)
Jason runs through every one-liner imaginable, but he doesn’t dare imagine his family’s responses. They’ll be glad, he’s sure. But will they still be glad when they find out he’s Red Hood? Tim and Dick are comfortable enough with the idea, but it’s one thing to accept a murderous crime lord as an ally and quite another to accept him as a brother. And what about Bruce? What if he didn’t kill the Joker? What if all Jason’s reveal does is expose himself as Batman’s biggest disappointment?
In the end, Jason outs himself as a massive fucking coward, because he runs away rather than find out. He slips his helmet back on with cold and clammy fingers, and turns his back on Wayne Manor. Blissfully unaware of how soon and how deeply he’ll regret it.
-OoOoO-
Summer nights in Gotham are Tim’s favorite. The weather is perfect light sweater weather, neither hot nor cold, and there’s a heavy taste of something earthy in the air. Quiet envelops the streets like a blanket, and despite it being Gotham at night, Tim feels safe. Warm and protected, at home in Gotham’s blackened back alleys and rusting fire escapes.
In the past, he also loved summer nights because Robin/Nightwing would patrol for longer, given the lack of school. Nowadays he loves it for the same reason. All across Gotham, schools are out for the summer, which is how Tim finds himself with a fellow fifteen-year-old, three stories above ground, admiring the sunset.
“You don’t have to tell me any details,” Meena wheedles. “It’s just fun to think that you also just finished ninth grade like me.”
It sucked because just ONE of my grades wasn’t an A and my parents flipped their shit, Tim thinks sourly. “You’ve got to stop sitting on roofs to get my attention,” he says instead.
He knows Meena would understand, but that doesn’t mean he wants to talk about it. Some combination of the words said and the knowledge that Red Hood, of all people, heard every single word, has made Tim shove the whole interaction into a box labeled Extremely Embarrassing: Do Not Touch in a dark corner of his brain. He hasn’t been able to look Dick in the eyes ever since. Dick will notice eventually, which means that Tim has to get over it soon because he is sure as hell not explaining to Dick what’s got him so embarrassed.
Pink and orange swirls in the sky. Tim’s got his eyes squinting against the setting sun, but he can still hear Meena’s scowl loud and clear.
“What, you don’t trust me? This is my roof. I can come up here any time I like. Also, this is partially your fault. You wouldn’t give me your number.”
Tim bites back a sigh. He’s explained his logic to Meena before, and he’s pretty sure that she understands it just as much as she doesn’t care. “It wouldn’t be safe. Red Hood knows who you are and where you live.”
Now Red Hood is a real mystery. Tim’s been puzzling over him ever since Dick updated their profile on the guy with “makes a killer grilled cheese sandwich.” He’s known for prowling through Crime Alley with guns, bombs, and a grappling line, and for protecting children, prostitutes, and some of Crime Alley’s most vulnerable people. He gave up one of his safehouses just to take care of Dick and made him a meal. He killed eight people in two hours. He took Tim grocery shopping and made him cake. While Tim was at the grocery store he murdered three people in broad daylight. He listened to all of Tim’s ideas and has since begun implementing a few. He broke into Tim’s house, watching his parents and doing nothing, and then kidnapped Tim.
What a weirdo.
Further complicating the Great Red Hood Debate is Tim’s strong suspicion that he knows Tim’s secret identity. Why else would he come after Tim Drake? It’s unlikely that he planned to ransom civilian Tim, then changed his mind after overhearing Tim’s parents in favor of pitying him or something else stupid. Tim is still a kid, for one, so that would contradict his rule of not hurting kids. Also, if he wanted to ransom someone for money he would’ve tried to kidnap Dick.
So he probably knows that Tim is Robin. But he didn’t do anything about it, and hasn’t admitted to knowing. Plus, Meena said that Red Hood told her he wanted to “teach Robin a lesson.” And that the final word that set him off was “Robin.” So he likely has some sort of grudge against Robin, but why? Tim’s never met him before. Maybe his grudge is actually against one of the previous Robins? Maybe he broke into Drake Manor intending to teach Robin a lesson, then changed his mind when he realizes that Tim is a kid and the wrong Robin. But that doesn’t explain how he learned Tim’s identity, or what he has against Robin in the first place.
In short: the guy is a mystery, and the situation is a mess.
“I should hope so,” Meena scoffs. “Or he’s just sending chocolates to all the girls.”
Tim resists the urge to squirm uncomfortably. Meena has a dark sense of humor, and even darker insults, as Red Hood can attest to. “Meena, those chocolates were some weird apology for throwing you on the ground.”
“Yeah, well.” Now it’s Meena’s turn to squirm uncomfortably. “My mom’s been doing better ever since, so it’s a net positive in the end.”
“That doesn’t change what he did.”
It’s a little weird how much Meena reminds Tim of himself. In so many of the arguments he has with her, he can easily imagine himself in her position. It wasn’t that bad, he’d argue. It didn’t really hurt, and he has apologized! It’s all good now. It’s like looking through a broken mirror.
“Oh, I’ll just ask him to un-hit me, then,” Meena says sarcastically. She pulls herself to her feet and paces around behind Tim, enacting some scene that he doesn’t bother to look at. “‘Hey, Mr. Hood, so you broke your rule about not hurting kids, any chance you could take that back? It’s just th–oh. Hey, Mr. Hood.”
Speaking of the devil.
Tim clambers to his feet, but doesn’t stand in front of Meena like before. He trusts more than before that Red Hood won’t attack a child, but Tim’s not in the business of entrusting civilian lives to crime lords. Only his own. And he hasn’t the faintest clue what brought Red Hood out to a middle-class residential neighborhood.
“Hey, Hood,” Tim says casually. “What brings you here?”
The man is still striding closer from the opposite end of the roof. Something about his aggressive, purposeful gait is setting off alarm bells. It screams here for a fight, which is not what Tim expected or wants.
In response to Tim’s casual question, Red Hood raises a gun.
It is only through pure instinct that Tim gets in front of the bullet in time. He throws himself in front of Meena, arms crossed over the exposed half of his face. He feels a bit like Wonder Woman in that moment. The bullet hits his left forearm and the force of it drives him backwards a few steps. By the impact he knows that it’s a real bullet, and it’s going to leave a killer bruise underneath his armor.
Tim’s boot steps on the toe of Meena’s sneakers. She makes a noise somewhere between a scream and a squeak, and doesn’t need to be told before she’s backing off the roof. Tim grits his teeth and keeps his arms up, eyes tracking Red Hood for another bullet. He can only hope that Meena can get down safely, because he cannot fight Red Hood and keep Meena safe from him at the same time.
Because Red Hood, does, apparently, shoot kids.
“What the hell was that?” Tim aims for calm and misses by a mile. “Thought you didn’t hurt kids.”
“Oh, but Replacement,” Red Hood says, sing-songing through the voice modifier, “you’re not a kid.”
Tim snaps open his bo staff. Replacement? What in the world did Tim replace? He can’t think of anything that Tim Drake could reasonably have stolen. It must be Robin, then, the one thievery Tim freely admits to. But why does Red Hood care about that? Is he a friend of Jason? It’s been two years since Jason died, why now? Tim mentally flies through a list of Jason’s known associates and their likelihood of trying to kill Robin for taking Jason’s place.
“You’re a solider,” Red Hood sneers. “A little tin boy for Batman to send off to fight his battles and discard the moment you’re not useful anymore.”
Definitely an associate of Jason. Tim crouches low and slides left, leading Red Hood away from the side of the house Meena disappeared down. Unfortunately, his mental list of Jason’s friends who would wait two years but also harbor a big enough grudge to kill Robin is coming up completely blank. And all of this is so contradictory with his previous behavior.
“Why don’t you quit the monologue and tell me what you’re actually here for?” Tim draws Red Hood towards the direction he came from. “No offense, I’m sure you worked very hard on it, I’m just, you know. Bored.”
Red Hood shoots at him twice. Tim dodges the first, but the second catches him on the side. Great, another monster bruise. Tim breathes through the blow and keeps his hands ready on the bo staff. Red Hood took off his helmet in the safehouse in order to eat the coffee cake, and Tim really wishes he’d do it again. Just so Tim can try and read some expressions behind the mask. Just so Tim can make sure they’re really the same person.
“I promised to teach you a lesson.” Red Hood draws another gun. “About what happens to little birds that fly too far from the–”
Tim lunges. Red Hood dodges the bo staff strike, but his monologue is finally over, and the fight is finally starting. Tim clears his mind of distractions and lets the fight flow.
It’s like fighting a battering ram. Red Hood moves like a League assassin, all sharp angles and underhanded moves–he tries to grapple Tim, which is so far from the grapple line’s intended use that Hood almost succeeds–with the additional strength and build of Batman. He’s nearly as large and tall as Bruce, and he throws an incredible amount of power behind each punch.
Tim dances across the roof, bo staff flying in his hands. With his long weapon he ought to be the battering ram, but it is all he can do to keep Red Hood away. He doesn’t dare reach for his utility belt. Red Hood strikes like a snake. So what resources does he have?
“You know, you’ve landed yourself on Batman’s shit list with this stunt,” Tim comments, far too out of breath to qualify as quippy. “He’s not fond of people attacking Robin.”
Harsh laughter is emitted from the voice modifier. “Batman is too much of a coward to do anything about it. When I kill you he’ll let me live. Tell me,” and he strikes before he finishes his sentence.
Tim springs back, staff lashing out. Red Hood dodges but Tim already has it swinging around for a backhand blow. This time Red Hood’s hand flies up and he catches the staff in his glove. Red Hood appears unarmed, but the roof is littered with his discarded guns and knives. They’re stalemated for one tense moment, both fighting for control of the bo staff.
When I kill you. It should’ve been obvious, but Tim’s heart still beats a little faster when Red Hood states his intention.
“How long,” Red Hood asks, no hint of exertion betrayed by the voice modifier, “before he replaces you too? Two months? Two days?”
With a sharp twist and a quick yank, the bo staff is flying towards Red Hood. Tim refuses to let go, instead letting the momentum carry him towards his opponent, and using Red Hood’s superior height to fly. He lets go of the bo staff and jumps at the last possible moment. Tim’s left foot lands on the bo staff; his boot slides on the smooth metal, but it’s alright, because the impact propels Tim higher. His right foot barely clears Red Hood’s shoulder. The moment it touches, Tim twists in the world’s sloppiest pirouette, modifying a move he learned from Dick.
When he spins around, his right foot is over Red Hood’s right arm, and he falls onto the man’s shoulders heavily. Immediately, his thighs start squeezing, while his hands slip into his utility belt. Given the helmet, Tim has no real hope of strangling him; he’s only buying time. Red Hood drops the bo staff so he can throw Tim off, but the strength of Tim’s legs wrapped around the underside of Red Hood’s helmet is no match for Red Hood’s arms reaching backwards and up to pull him off.
Red Hood lowers his arms and takes a step back. Tim realizes what he’s about to do just as his hands close around the right tools in his utility belt. Then three things happen in quick succession: first, Red Hood throws himself backwards, hoping to crush Tim between the roof and all six-feet-something of Red Hood’s bulk. Second, Tim throws himself away from Red Hood wildly. His left leg catches on Red Hood’s helmet, pitching him face-first to the ground but clear from Red Hood’s body. Third, Tim throws the smoke grenade behind him without looking.
For a brief moment, Tim is weightless. And then the world crashes back into motion. He bends his arms in front of his face and rolls like he was taught, letting his suit absorb the impact. He springs to his feet when the grenade explodes, scattering thick smoke across everything in their vicinity. Great. He’s lost sight of Red Hood.
The fading sunlight filtering through the smoke turns everything into yellow shadows. Tim strains his ears for the slightest sound from Red Hood. He stops breathing. Everything is silent.
Then something blunt sweeps Tim’s feet out from under him, and the next thing he knows, he’s flat on his back. His armor absorbs a lot of the impact, of course, but his spine still fizzes from the blow. His neck aches from a sudden crick he gave himself to keep his head from slamming into the roof.
Red Hood looms over him. Tim’s heart pounds in his throat. For someone so large, Red Hood can move like a ghost. And then to Tim’s surprise, Red Hood reaches for his own helmet.
“Hello, Replacement,” says Jason Todd. “Having fun?”
Tim stops breathing. No. Not him. It can’t be. But his mind, agile as always, moves on lightning-quick without him. Acid green eyes. Jason had blue eyes. Green eyes, a living dead boy, inexplicable rage. Lazarus Pit? It certainly explains the grudge against Robin. Jason is one of Jason’s associates. And the missing years. Lazarus Pit and League-like moves. Jason was with the League. That can’t be good for anyone’s mental state or moral compass, Lazarus Pit or not.
“I know a lot of people who’d have fun with you on your back like this.”
It can’t be Jason. It can’t. A face-stealer, or a clone, an identical copy made of magic and fed information on Jason by someone who knows who he is–
“Oh, don’t look so hurt, Replacement,” Jason–Red Hood–fake Jason soothes, in a laughable parody of concern. “You’re such a failure of a Robin, I’m just trying to find something you’re actually good at.”
If this is Jason, the family is going to be destroyed. They all broke in inverse directions when Jason died, pushing each other away instead of holding their remaining family close. Bruce spiraled downwards in a violent, self-loathing depression. Dick shattered into a billion tiny pieces of seething, freezing rage. So closed-off that a pre-teen knocking on his door and begging him to talk to Bruce couldn’t move him. Barbara, Alfred, hell, even Tim mourning his hero–if they find out that Jason came back to life and did the exact opposite of coming home; becoming a crime lord, trying to kill Tim, threatening to–
“Why don’t I give you your first lesson?” The sheer malice in Jason’s grin, directed fully at Tim, would make a younger Tim burst into tears.
But this Tim is Robin. Tim still has to protect Meena, has to inform Bruce and Dick of the information he’s learned about the Red Hood, and has to find a way to bring Jason back to the family. Because even though he’s broken Bruce’s one rule, even though he’s trying to kill Tim and almost killed Meena, he’s still a Wayne. And Tim decided a long time ago that the Waynes were worth his life.
Then Jason leans down, and Tim’s body and mind finally sync up again. His hand slips into the utility belt and flicks a batarang up. Jason catches that in his glove, and the second in his other hand, but the third and fourth slip past his arms and slice his face. Jason leans back, protecting his face with his arms, dropping the batarangs in his grip. All four batarangs fall harmlessly onto Tim’s stomach, and then his side as he twists away from Jason.
“Where do you think you’re going, Replacement?” A hand grabs Tim’s boot by the heel.
Instead of trying to kick the hand away, Tim twists again and rams his boot into the rooftop. Jason’s hand is caught beneath it, and Tim seizes the opportunity to launch himself at Jason. They collide indelicately and Tim throws himself away from Red Hood in the direction of his bo staff.
He’s already tucking his legs in for a backwards roll when he lands, but something about his angle must be off, because he just sort of flops over. His suit and his back take most of the impact. He’ll have to ask Dick to help him practice those.
Tim springs to his feet, bo staff back in hand. His back hates him. He’s suffering from bruises caused by multiple bullets all over his body. One of Jason’s knives was a League speciality that can slice through even Tim’s armor, and the blood is slowly covering his suit.
Red Hood has put his helmet back on, hiding the two new scars on his face. Tim consoles himself with the knowledge that he’s successfully injured Red Hood, but it’s hard to feel like he’s winning when all of Red Hood’s injuries and exertion are hidden behind his armor and his helmet. But the helmet also hides Jason’s face, so Tim’s not complaining.
“Away,” says Tim. He’s backing up as he speaks. Once he reaches the edge of the roof, he can grapple away. One hand subtly reaches for his panic button. He’s not stupid enough to think he’ll win this fight against Red Hood. He might, but he won’t bet his life on that.
“I’ll kill the girl.”
Tim’s boot freezes on the roof’s edge. “No.”
Red Hood fingers yet another gun. “If you really think I’m kidding, you’re more than welcome to test me.”
“She’s far away from here.” Tim trades his bo staff for his grapple gun. Can Red Hood shoot his line? Would that snap it? He’s only three stories up, perhaps it’s better if he grapples to the ground, that way if it snaps, the fall will be shorter.
“Willing to take that risk, Replacement?”
“Yes.” Tim is pretty certain of this. He’s gone over several contingencies with Meena ever since she met the Red Hood. Meena knows to run.
“Then I’ll find someone else the moment you leave,” Red Hood says uncaringly. “It’s a rich area. Plenty of families at home eating dinner right now.”
Tim’s comm crackles.
“Robin, where are you?” Oracle asks.
“You’d kill people just to get to me?” Tim asks. “This is the third-least violent neighborhood in Gotham. These people have done nothing to you.”
I’ve done nothing to you, Tim wants to scream. I didn’t take your place, you were dead, I saved your dad, and I wasn’t expecting a thank you but I sure as hell wasn’t expecting you to try to murder me over it either!
“Got it,” Oracle says. “Nightwing is on his way.”
“None of this would’ve happened if you hadn’t stolen a dead boy’s life,” Red Hood sneers. “But I suppose that wouldn’t occur to a rich brat like you. Everything you’ve ever wanted was handed to you on a silver platter. Even Robin.”
You know that was abuse, right?
Forget Jason, Tim’s not even sure this guy is the real Red Hood.
“Somehow, I don’t think the first Robin tried to kill you when you took his name,” Tim says, carefully avoiding names while simultaneously playing along with Red Hood’s asserted identity.
Red Hood snarls wordlessly. His gun swings up and Tim takes a few steps from the ledge so he has room to dodge the incoming bullets. When Red Hood lowers his gun, Tim has another bruise blooming on his right shoulder. But Tim actually managed to deflect one of the bullets with his bo staff, so he’s feeling pretty cool. Maybe this is what Wonder Woman feels like every day.
“I’ll leave everyone alone if you come back here. Your choice, Replacement.” Red Hood’s voice has leveled out, but Tim can’t tell if that’s just the voice modifier hiding Red Hood’s fury. “They die, or you get on your knees like a good little soldier.”
“ETA twenty minutes,” Dick says over the comm. “And B is sending the Batmobile.”
Tim nearly cries for two opposite reasons. Relief, because that’s the original Robin, his sort of mentor, pseudo friend that Tim calls big brother in the privacy of his own mind. Of course hearing his voice makes Tim feel a little safer. Fear, because twenty minutes is an impossibly long time when he’s injured and facing Red Hood across a rooftop.
“What will it be, Replacement?” Somehow the voice modifier filters the cruelty through for Tim to hear. Like Red Hood wants Tim to know just how fervently he wants to see Tim broken and begging at his feet.
Tim readies his bo staff. “At least take me to dinner first.”
“The hard way it is.” If anything, Red Hood sounds pleased.
Now am I gonna hafta bring you in hot or cold?
Tunnel vision narrows Tim’s world into his bo staff and Red Hood. But in the back of his mind he notes, it’s him. It’s really him. Tim resigns himself to fighting his childhood hero and the roof explodes with motion once more.
Nightwing arrives sixteen minutes and forty-three seconds later. He smashes into Red Hood without a single quip, joke, or announcement of his presence at all. The time for humor is not when his little brother’s life is at risk. And Red Hood is bruised, injured, and exhausted from the vicious, desperation-infused fight that Tim dragged him into.
Red Hood flees.
All that’s left for Nightwing to do is pick his bleeding and battered little brother off the rooftop and get him back to the Batcave. He could go after Red Hood, and in his state beat him easily. But he’ll never place revenge over the safety of his family, and right now, Tim needs his help.
The Batmobile arrives while Dick is cleaning up Tim's worst wounds. The gash in his side is probably the worst, and it's easily accessible given the damage done to Tim's suit. Dick gently slides his hands under Tim's shoulder blades and knees when he hears the Batmobile arrive. He shifts Tim into one arm while his other gets his grapple. Tim groggily gets one arm around Dick's neck while Dick lowers them to the ground.
“What happened to your suit, baby bird?” Dick asks as he settles Tim into the copilot seat of the Batmobile.
The Robin suit is cut in weird places, ones that don’t correlate with common injuries or dodges gone wrong.
“He wanted,” Tim gasps, fighting for each full breath he gets. Then he sobs: “He wanted.”
“You don’t have to talk now.” Dick casts a worried glance at his little brother, covered in blood, tears, and grime. “Let’s get you treatment first, and then cleaned up, and then we can talk about it.”
Nights like these are why he doesn’t approve of child vigilantes. He knows that it’s impossible to keep Tim off the streets, but he still can’t help wishing. He feels for Bruce during his own earlier years, when he did everything short of physically locking Dick in a prison to keep him from going out as Robin. He only succeeded in driving Dick away, and Jason too. Dick will not make the same mistake. But he can’t let Tim get hurt like this either.
No more dead Robins. The Batmobile is automated but Dick’s hands squeeze the life out of the steering wheel as they tear through the streets of Gotham. No more.
Tim’s head jostles from every sharp turn and from the million theories running around his head. He tries to get enough air in his lungs that he can actually speak, but all he can manage is a rattling death wheeze. Jason’s alive–Meena–clone–replacement–on your knees–stolen a dead boy’s life–
He looks at over at Dick, death-grip on the wheel and fury in the flat line of his mouth. He cares. He’s worried. Guilt comes slamming back in: he shouldn’t. Tim said horrible things about him because he was too scared to say no to his own parents. He doesn’t deserve Dick’s concern. Dick wouldn’t have crumpled like that. Jason wouldn’t have–
Dick glances over at Tim. “You okay? Hanging in there?”
“Yeah.” Tim looks away. Oh, God. Jason. How is he going to tell Dick? How is he going to tell Bruce?
“You sure?” Dick keeps his tone gentle but above condescension. Just checking in on his partner Robin, because he knows Tim hates being treated like a child, but not accepting Tim’s obviously bullshit yeah either. All while speeding through Gotham at 80 miles per hour, tense as a live wire.
Dick Grayson has one of the most beautiful souls of any human alive, Tim thinks dizzily, more than a little high on pain. It was Dick who first taught Tim that humans could fly. How to find joy in every empty soda can corner and crumbling stone building of Gotham. Gave him his first hug. He is just about the best person that Tim knows. He’s–
A dirty little gypsy–
Dick is amazing, and Tim is a disgusting parasite who is too much of a coward to stand up for his hero yet somehow thinks he deserves to be Robin. Who drags Dick’s attention away from people who actually need help so he can get ice cream with Tim because he’s just so good even though Tim is not worth it.
It’s not about deserving, Tim argues weakly. Bruce needed a Robin. And it’s only you because you blackmailed him into it.
Residential apartments blur into skyscrapers as the Batmobile tears through Gotham’s downtown like, well, a bat out of hell. Tim turns away from Dick, sick to his stomach from the constant lurching and his own unconquerable guilt. Everything you’ve ever wanted was handed to you–something you’re actually good at–You’ve been behaving like a little whore – won’t happen again–
“I’ll be fine.” Tim’s voice cracks on the last word. “Please don’t worry.” I’m not worth it.
“Too late,” Dick says, aiming for flippancy but landing on dead serious.
“Don’t,” Tim begs, because every explanation he could give is locked behind truths he will never tell. I didn’t want to say it. I shouldn’t have said it. I’m so sorry. I’m so, so sorry. Please don’t hate me. I know I deserve it but please. I don’t think I could live with myself if you and Jason both hated me.
Dick peels his right hand off the wheel so he can smooth Tim’s hair back. “Don’t even ask that, baby bird. It’s my duty as big brother to worry about you.”
Tim knows that Dick’s just saying big brother in jest, but he wishes he wouldn’t. He is greedy and selfish enough to take Dick at face value even when he secretly knows how little he deserves it.
He leans into Dick’s touch. He can’t help himself. He’s selfish. He’s so scummy, so unbelievably rotten for accepting this after what he’s said. But he’s so tired and hurt, and Dick’s comfort just feels so nice, that he ends up leaning into the hand and closing his eyes. He just can’t help it.
The Batmobile tears out of Gotham proper and into Bristol. Failure of a Robin–fun with you on your back–I’ll kill the girl–how long? Tim’s thoughts bounce out of his skull and splatter on the pristine pavement.
Only one emotion remains clear in the jumble of Tim’s mind: betrayal.
I can’t believe the Red Hood is Jason Todd. That I ever thought we could be friends or that he was one of the good guys, or at least an anti-hero. I can’t believe I ever trusted a monster like him.