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Something’s really wrong.
(He might be on fire.)
This isn’t just a run-of-the-mill sort of injury, the kind of injury that they chalk up to just the natural consequences of their line of work. Jason’s been cursed before, he’s been shot, he’s been— well. Killed. But no curse has ever felt like this.
(He’s definitely on fire.)
Fuck, I hate magic, he thinks, as all his bones go burnt-marshmallow soft. He doesn’t know where the fuck Tim went; he doesn’t know where the world went, actually.
Going under is practically a mercy at that point.
When he wakes up again— for what feels like the fourth or fifth time —all that marshmallow gooeyness is gone. His bones are too sharp. Too big. Too— Too. Too much.
“B,” he rasps, but all that rises to answer him is the sound of his own teeth clacking together; the sound bangs around in his skull, rattles around inside of him like a stray pinball. There’s no response to his call, to the agonized crackle that his cry tapers off into. He’s never known pain like this— it’s not the worst pain he’s ever felt, but it feels as if… it feels as if water welled up in the cracks of his bones and froze, splitting them apart. He had felt like he was burning at first, but now— now, he thinks he might freeze to death.
“B,” he says, and it comes out like a prayer.
It feels like an hour passes before he can pry his eyes open. Light hits harsh, too bright and white to be natural. He can kind of see the fuzzy shape of the streetlamp, which immediately has him hazily wondering where the hell he actually is.
“Finally awake?”
Jason hadn’t exactly been prepared for anyone to talk to him. First of all, he kind of thought he’d been languishing to death alone, and second of all, every word strikes his nerves like a hammer on a piano string. He wants to say shut up, but he also so desperately doesn’t want to be alone, so he instead tries to scrape himself back to life.
He grunts, dragging his elbows in toward himself to brace his weight. Nausea burns away at the inside of his throat, but he manages to keep it inside where it belongs, luckily. The voice, as far as he can tell, doesn’t belong to Bruce, but he honestly wouldn’t place any bets on his mental faculties at the moment.
“Dude, you got fucked up by a teenager.”
Jason’s brow furrows as he tries to process the words; it’s not like that’s a big deal. Shit, he mostly gets fucked up by adults, so it’s almost reassuring to get messed up by another teenager once in a while.
There’s a sharp, impatient sigh somewhere above him. “So… You wanna get up anytime soon, Hood?”
“Hood?” Jason mouths, letting his tongue rest on the unfamiliar name. Is this guy talking to him? Why is he calling him that? As far as Jason can tell, he isn’t even wearing a hood.
Actually, he realizes as he lets his gaze drift downward, what is he wearing?
Where he’d been expecting the familiar Robin colors, all he’s getting are shades of gray and black and brown and a smear of red, bright like blood, across his chest. It’s so much bulkier than his Robin costume, too; at first, he can’t figure out why he’s even wearing something like this, but then he realizes he has much bigger problems— much bigger problems.
Namely— him, and how big he is.
He first starts to piece together the wrongness of the situation when he uses an arm to prop himself up— and then actually gets a good look at his arm.
Now, Jason likes to think he’s real athletic. Robin training and all, it’s definitely bulked him up considerably more than how he’d been before. But even he doesn’t have delusions of grandeur crazy enough to believe that his arms are roughly the width and length of goddamn logs.
As far as he can tell, some crazy-ass teenager did something to him that gave him the physique of—
Well—
Bruce?
… Shit, did he get body-swapped with Bruce?
The costume still doesn’t fit the narrative — especially the red — but the physique, it makes more sense than any other running theory.
It’s not unheard of for weird shit like this to happen in a place like Gotham. As far as Jason’s heard, Dick had had his fair share of run-ins with magic and mayhem as well— especially after joining the Titans.
But this, this is insane.
Wait, he thinks. Does that mean Bruce is in my body?
That can’t be good news for Bruce. Jason tries to imagine Batman stuck in Robin’s bright colors, flapping around with the yellow cape and scaly green panties a la Dick Grayson, and the image is pure comedy fodder. He’d have Robin decked out in black and darker black within a day.
Lifting himself up fully, he finally gets a good look at the guy about an arm’s length away from him.
It’s definitely not Bruce in his body, that’s for sure; this guy looks… Younger than Bruce, but older than Jason. His costume is red, too, red and black with a yellow symbol that Jason doesn’t recognize, and he looks… Actually, Jason can’t tell. The guy’s face is set in such a straight line that Jason can’t glean anything from his expression. He could be feeling any emotion in the world as far as Jason can tell.
“Good. You’re still alive.”
Ah. Annoyance. Definitely annoyance.
“What happened?” he rasps. When the guy opens his mouth to answer, Jason immediately says, “y’know. Other than me getting f—”
It’s not like Jason’s afraid of saying the word fuck. It’s just that Alfred’s been riding his ass so hard lately, he kind of stumbles over it.
“Uh,” he says. “Y’know. Getting whaled on by a teenager. Did I get body-swapped with B or what?”
The guy stares blankly at him. It’s almost like looking at Bruce, really; Jason can’t make heads nor tails of his expression.
“What are you talking about.” the guy finally says, and now whatever annoyance is in his voice translates a little into his expression. “What do you mean, body-swapped? B isn’t even here, he’s on patrol with Robin. How hard did you hit your head, anyway?”
“On patrol with… Robin?” Jason asks, lost. “What— What do you mean, on patrol with Robin?”
“Okay,” the guy says, pinching the bridge of his nose and sighing. “Okay, so clearly, you have a concussion. Let’s go back, I doubt you’re going to be much use for the rest of the patrol. We can catch that kid later. She vanished into thin air, anyway, I don’t think she’ll pop up again tonight.” He straightens from his crouch, and Jason waits for him to offer a hand to help him up, but he doesn’t.
Honestly, this guy seems like … kind of the worst. Jason’s worked with people who don’t like him that much before; he knows what it feels like not to be liked. And the way this guy acts, it’s kind of obvious he doesn’t like Jason, that they aren’t friends. It’s fine. It’s whatever. But still, show a guy who just got body-swapped and possibly concussed some mercy, goddamn.
“Come on,” the guy says. There’s a long moment of stiff hesitation, and then he says, awkwardly, “What, do you need help getting up?”
Well, not from you, Jason thinks, annoyed, and struggles to his feet on his own, thank you very much.
“I’m good,” he says, waspishly.
The guy’s shoulders lower fractionally. “Where did you park your bike?”
“My bike? I haven’t ridden a bike in forever,” Jason says, bewildered. Bruce would never let him come all the way out here on his bike, anyway. “I mean, didn’t I come in the Batmobile with B?”
“Like I said,” the guy says flatly, “B is with—” And then he stops. His brow furrows slightly; Jason can see the crinkle in his domino.
“... Robin,” the guy says.
Jason, who’d been brushing dirt and pebbles off his unusually bulky armor, perks up. “What?” he asks.
The guy stares back at him, his mouth parted slightly.
“He’s with… Robin,” the guy says faintly. “He’s with Robin.”
“Yeah, you said that,” Jason says, and marvels at how gigantic his biceps are. Or how big Bruce’s biceps are. “I don’t get it, though. ‘Cause, if I got body-swapped with him, right, then he must be in my body, or whatever. So how can he be with me? I’m me.” He looks down at his chest. “Also, what’s with this weird-ass red bat? Isn’t the bat supposed to be— you know, black? Why the hell would he change the color to red? I feel like that kind of ruins the brand a little bit, don’tcha think?” He pauses to gulp in a breath of air, but only for a second. “Oh, and another thing. Who are you, exactly?”
The guy turns away from Jason to look in the direction of the skyline. “Oh, fuck,” he says, and Jason can hear a little shake in his breath— the slightest little thing, like he’s trying hard to hide it. “Oh, fuck.”
“What?” Jason asks a little nervously, because on one hand, it’s annoying when he can’t read someone’s expression, but on the other hand, it’s never good when he can finally read it and it’s fear. “What, what is it?”
“No,” the guy says, and shakes his head. “No, this can’t happen. Not now, this can’t happen now, not when I’m—”
He turns back to Jason. There’s something kind of wild in his voice, now, wild and sharp and— honestly, kind of intimidating. Before this, Jason hadn’t particularly thought much of the standoffish stranger, but the way this guy is suddenly stepping toward Jason offensively, like he might actually attack, Jason kind of gets the sense that this guy could kick his ass if he really wanted to. He seems trained, or at least like he’s gotten more training than Jason has.
“Snap out of it, Hood.” The guy’s voice drops to a whisper that Jason has to strain to hear, almost pleading. “Jason.”
“Why… Uh.” Jason rubs the back of his head with a hand that feels way too big to actually belong to him, defensiveness melting away into something much more timid. He’s starting to get this feeling that— maybe he hasn’t body-swapped with anyone. Maybe… Maybe there’s something else wrong with him, with the situation. “Why… Do you keep calling me Hood?”
The guy doesn’t look surprised at Jason’s question— or at least, if he is surprised, it doesn’t show on his face. But he does suck in this sharp, lurching breath, kind of like the gasp of a drowning man trying to get as much air into his lungs as humanly possible.
“Okay,” the guy says, and turns. He nods, like he’s trying to reassure himself. “Okay.” He taps at his ear, and holds, and Jason startles when he hears a crackle in his own ear.
“Red Robin here,” the guy says.
Red Robin, Jason thinks, his brow furrowing a little. Kind of on the nose, isn’t it? What, is one Robin not enough?
Or— Well, two, if you count Dick.
“Everyone needs to get back to the Cave right now,” Red Robin says, and the agitation sounds a hell of a lot clearer over the communication devices. They're way more advanced than anything Jason and Bruce have ever used; did they upgrade their tech or what?
“Is everything okay, Red Robin?” Now that’s Bruce’s voice for sure; Jason would be able to pick it out of a lineup anywhere. Despite himself, he’s kind of comforted to hear it. He knows Bruce isn’t the most affectionate person, but Jason could really use a firm hand on his shoulder to just ground him right now. Shit, maybe even Dick— someone, anyone familiar.
“Something’s happened with—” Red Robin’s gaze cuts to him, so quick and sharp that Jason almost feels it slice into his skin. “Something happened to Hood.”
“Tt.” Another voice on the line, this one vexed and unimpressed— but young. Much younger than Red Robin, and definitely younger than Jason. “Was one child with some frivolous magic too much of a challenge for the two of you?”
Red doesn’t rise to the bait, but he does scowl a little. “Hood got whammied. I didn’t know what was wrong at first, but I think I’ve figured it out.”
He turns to Jason. “Hold your finger to your earpiece and tell them who’s speaking.”
Jason lifts a trepidatious finger to his ear and holds. “Hi,” he says. His voice— it’s different, low and husky. He’d thought it was Bruce’s voice, but now he has no idea. “Uh— Robin here?”
He couldn’t sound less sure of himself. Honestly, he isn’t sure of himself.
You could’ve heard a damn pin drop. It’s so long that Jason thinks he must have touched the earpiece wrong or something, and Red Robin must think he’s a real idiot— well, more than he already seems to.
Then, Bruce’s voice again.
“Everyone back to the Cave. Now.”
So apparently, Jason owns a bike.
He learns this when Red Robin takes the both of them back, and honestly, it’s a pretty sick ride. Red tells him he knows how to ride the bike, even if he’s forgotten, but Jason has a hard time imagining it. He’s definitely built for it in this body he doesn’t recognize at all, but— But there’s something wrong. He doesn’t feel right sitting on it— like he’s an imposter, like he’s too young. He doesn’t understand how something this powerful, this strong, could belong to him— or how B would even let him ride something like this.
His arms wrap all the way around Red’s midsection and more when he holds on, and Red freezes. He goes so still that he almost feels like marble for a moment, unyielding and cold.
“Sorry,” Jason says, and pulls back sheepishly. Red’s head jerks sharply, his fingers flexing hard enough around the handlebars to make his gloves squeak, but he doesn’t say anything in response to Jason’s apology. Everything Red does, it’s sharp and jerky and stilted, somehow; though all of his previous annoyance is pretty much gone, Jason had almost preferred it, weirdly. The way Red had spoken to him before, it was much more… familiar, somehow. Maybe, before he lost his memory, that’s just how they were.
This version of Red— He seems so much more skittish, like he doesn’t know what to do with himself now that he knows Jason’s not who he used to be before he got hit by that spell or whatever it was.
When they get back to the Cave, the Batmobile is already parked inside. Jason’s glad to see it, glad to see Bruce, really. He just really needs to see the big guy, honestly. Bruce can fix it; he’ll know what to do; even if Jason butts heads with him, he can’t help but crave the familiarity, especially now that he feels unanchored and lost.
But when Jason actually does lay eyes on him— it’s. It isn’t what he was expecting, not really. Bruce isn’t what he was expecting.
Namely, the fact that he starts to look up, only to realize he’s eye level with Bruce. Eye level with Batman. And—
“Jeez, B,” he says, and thinks he feels Bruce metaphorically flinch. He doesn’t move, but— the way he seems to tense, it— “Uh— You really grayed a bit, huh?”
There’s a loud, loud silence. Red just stares at him, still masked, still unreadable. Next to Bruce, there’s another boy Jason doesn’t recognize; he’s unmasked, unlike Red, so Jason can feel the sharp, analyzing weight of his catlike gaze in full. He’s decked out in the most Robin-like costume of all of them, with the red and green and yellow, but it’s nothing like Jason and Dick’s costumes.
Jason shifts, uncomfortable under the scrutiny, and lets his eyes carefully drift back up to Bruce’s face.
“Tim,” Bruce says, but doesn’t stop looking at Jason. There’s something Jason can’t place in the gravity of Bruce’s gaze, something … Heavy. Bruce has never looked at him like this before; Jason isn’t sure why he’s looking at him like this now. “What exactly happened?”
“We were going for a frontal and rear assault on the magician,” Red— Tim —says flatly, and finally lifts a hand to peel his domino mask off his face. Underneath it, his pale blue gaze is just as glacial as Jason had imagined it would be. Jason doesn’t want to call anyone creepy or nothin’, but there’s something about Tim. Man, there’s just something about him. He knows something, and Jason isn’t sure he wants to find out what. “I was coming from the front, Jason from the rear. When she fired a spell, it ricocheted off a satellite and hit Jason. He was unconscious for seven minutes.”
It had felt like forever, Jason thinks. He hadn’t realized Tim had been counting the minutes. He does kind of seem like that guy, though.
“When he woke up, he thought he’d body-swapped with Bruce. I thought he was concussed,” Tim says, and folds his arms. Bruce never stops looking at Jason, just nods affirmatively. “He said something unusual about not having ridden a bike in a long time. Then, he responded when I said Robin.”
“Do you know how old you are, Jason?” Bruce asks him. It’s gentle, which Jason appreciates; given the mess he’s gotten himself into, he’d kind of been expecting brusque, or disappointed.
It’s an easy question— It should be an easy question. The answer is on the tip of Jason’s tongue, because who doesn’t know their own age?
But then, he gets tongue-tied. There’s a number swimming about vaguely in his mind, but he doesn’t know what it is.
“Uh— Shit— Er, shoot, I guess I don’t know, B.” Jason says, and feels like a loser when both Tim and the boy in the Robin costume — Robin, he supposes — just stare at him. “But I remember the last thing we were doing. It was, uh—”
He stops. “It was….”
No. Actually, he doesn’t remember the last thing he was doing. It’s just as fuzzy and vague as his age, locked behind a smokescreen that Jason can’t seem to reach through.
Jason twists his fingers together, suddenly feeling so much younger than however old he is.
“Um…” he says quietly. “Can someone tell me what’s going on?” He tries for a laugh as he glances over at Robin, but it comes out sharp and a little choked. “You got another Robin, B? Don’tcha already have me? Why do you need another one?” Glancing down at himself, he adds, “And… Uh, why do I look like this? Did I fall into mutating acid or… or get bitten by a radioactive bat or somethin’?”
There’s a little sound from his left. Tim, he figures. When he looks up, Bruce suddenly looks real pale; there’s white creeping up along his cheeks, rising up the sides of his face.
“Shoot,” Jason says nervously. “I— I was just jokin’ about the bats, really. Don’t tell me that’s really what— what happened. Or was it the magic or whatever, is that what made me look like this?”
“You were like this before the magic hit you, Todd.” Robin says— well, the other Robin. There’s a sort of dignified lilt to his voice, something almost regal. Even the way he stands, with his shoulders pulled back slightly and his stance proud, is completely different from Tim’s posture— slouched and avoidant, like he’s trying to disappear into the cave walls. Jason feels acutely disadvantaged, all of a sudden; this boy knows both his first and last name, and Jason knows literally nothing about him. “You have been like this for a long time. No doubt you will soon be reverted to your original state, so there is little point in worrying about how you became like this.”
“Damian,” Bruce says, as Jason tries to process everything the kid — Damian — just volleyed at him.
“Wh— What do you mean, original state,” Jason says, starting to panic. Even though his voice is much lower and gruffer now, it still breaks, still goes a little squeaky; good to know that hadn’t changed. “What do you mean, original state. This is my original state. I mean, what I am inside. All of this stuff— like, this suit, and— and my voice, and these gigantic frickin’ biceps! That’s the stuff that’s going to go back to normal, right? Right, B?”
Bruce opens his mouth. Closes it. Opens it again. “Jason—”
“How am I supposed to— to be Robin like this?” Jason asks frantically. “I’m— I’m too big to be Robin. I’m big enough to be— I’m big enough to be Batman. Big enough to be you. How am I supposed to get into the vents, B? Fit under the crates?”
He’s starting to sweat. Why is he wearing a jacket over all of this armor? He shrugs it off and it falls into a heavy heap beside his feet, and something inside makes a metallic clunk when it hits the ground. Jason glances down at it, at himself.
And that’s when he sees the guns.
Not just guns. Knives. A taser? Something that looks a hell of a lot like a grenade. Multiple grenades. He’d been so overwhelmed on the way back that he hadn’t even realized he had a thigh holster.
“Uh,” he says. “Uh? Why do I have guns?!” He pulls one of them out of his belt. “Why do I have multiple guns!”
Bruce makes a sound Jason’s really never heard before, harsh and cut off. He looks at Jason like he doesn’t know what to say to him, like Jason’s a stranger, and not his Robin.
“Bruce,” Tim says. The tone sounds oddly chastising. Now that Jason thinks about it, when did Bruce gather a flock, all of whom knew his identity? What happened to Batman and Robin, the dynamic duo?
He’s getting kind of sick of everyone just saying each other’s names. He wants answers, and he wants them right the hell now.
“Can someone please just tell me—” He says, and then….
And then Damian moves slightly, shifting his weight from one leg to another. When he does, Jason catches a flash of red behind him that he hadn’t seen earlier.
“What is that.” he says, hysteria burrowing deep into his rib cage and winding around his heart like a snake. Crushing, squeezing, strangling. “What. Is that. What— IS. THAT.”
Except, he definitely knows what it is. The question isn’t actually what it is— what it is is Jason’s costume. It’s Jason’s costume. His cape. His shoes. His mask. The question is why. Why is his costume floating in a glass case, like he’d never worn it, like he’d never scuffed the shoes, like he’d never torn his mask, like he’d never— like he’d never existed in it. The question is why does it say— Why does it say—
Bruce jerks back, swiveling in a semicircle long enough to look at whatever Jason’s looking at.
Jason’s vision starts to go spotty, black spreading in enormous patches like a fungus. He can hear his breath in his ears, now, strident, rattling, sharp enough to slice into his throat and tongue. Maybe— Maybe he’s… Dying? Is this what dying feels like? No, he’s— he’s too young to die. He can’t die yet.
There’s— a gap, where he loses time. He has to have, because when he opens his eyes, he’s sat on the ground with his knees tucked up under his chin, and there’s bright, beaming blue hovering somewhere above his eyeline. Someone’s back, someone’s shoulders. Wet black hair that curls at the ends, almost blue in the light of the Cave.
“— And take that costume down, right now, Bruce, he doesn’t need to see that,” the voice above him says, the halcyon island in the middle of what feels like a never-ending storm, and Jason just shudders, because.
Because that’s Dick. That’s Dick.
One of Dick’s black-clad arms is extended out behind him, toward Jason, and he’s still talking, calm and firm— “Dami, go change, would you?” (Damian huffs out a sharp, relenting sound of assent as he strides off toward the stairs), “Tim, give A an update, please.” (Tim doesn’t say anything, or make any sort of sound in response. He just sort of melts away, there one minute and gone the next), “B. He’s basically just a kid, now. He needs to hear something reassuring.” (Bruce doesn’t say anything either. Jason wouldn’t know for sure, though. At this point, he’s—)
Before he’s really aware that he’s moving, his fingers frantically scoot forward toward Dick’s ankle like a cold spider scrambling for an open doorway. To his credit, Dick barely reacts, just turning slightly to look down at Jason over his shoulder. “It’s okay, Jason,” Dick says, and Jason can see his face, he can see Dick’s expression written so clearly, so easy to read. Warm and clear, no ambiguity, no obscurity. “I’m here to help.”
“Okay,” Jason croaks.
It’s all the reassurance he needs to pass the hell out.
When he wakes up, he doesn’t lag. Everything is still weird; he can feel it. But he can also taste ash and smoke, as if his lungs had burned away while he slept.
He’s not in his bed, either. He figures, with a sort of lingering, lonely kind of feeling, that he’s too big for his bed in this body. Maybe he just won’t fit.
It’s a feeling that’s been quite persistent lately.
Dick’s sitting next to him, legs resting on the edge of the bed and crossed at the ankles. The Golden Boy looks— older, more tired. There’s still that pretty-boy charm in his face that Jason’s hardly ever seen him without, but he looks like… Like a real adult, like he’s been through it. Everyone’s gotten aged up, except… Well, Jason doesn’t know about Tim and Damian, because he hadn’t known them before, but…
“How are you feeling, Jason?” Dick asks, and Jason lifts tired eyes.
“Confused,” Jason says, and then hesitates. “Wrong.”
Dick doesn’t say anything immediately, but his brow furrows. He looks a little sad. “Yeah. Understandable.” He heaves a soft sigh and pulls his legs off the bed, instead leaning in to lace his fingers together against the comforter. “Do you want me to rip off the Band-aid or ease you into it?”
“Rip it off,” Jason blurts out immediately, like it’s an instinct. He’s never had the patience to be eased into anything, and honestly, he can’t bear the anticipation anymore. He just wants to know what the hell is going on. “Please, Dick. I can’t take it anymore.”
“Okay,” Dick says, and scrubs at his face. “You de-aged, but only mentally.”
Man, Jason thinks as the world lurches sideways, he really wishes he’d asked Dick to ease him into it.
“What.” he says. “What do you mean. I mean— I know what you mean, but— but that would mean that—”
“Whatever it means is true,” Dick says quietly, and reaches out to rest blue-streaked fingers against Jason’s ankle as if to ground him. It works, actually; some of the nausea settles a little. Jason manages not to hyperventilate, but only barely. “You’re … You’re not a kid anymore. You’re an adult, and— it’s been a long time past the timeline you’re mentally stuck in.”
Jason purses his lips together and lies back, staring down at the red bat emblazoned across the span of his chest until the image begins to swim. He supposes that … He knew, in a way, that that was the answer. He just hadn’t wanted to believe it, not really. That would mean accepting that he no longer knew his own time, his own life— or all these strangers, either.
“Okay,” he says, because he doesn’t know what else to say. He could call Dick a liar. He could leap out of bed, hopping mad, and try to fight him. He could pull the covers back over his head and try to sleep through this nightmare. But what would be the point? Dick wouldn’t lie to him about something like this or joke about it, not when it counts. He really isn’t the type. So if this is what Dick thinks is going on, then at the very least, Jason believes that Dick believes it. “So— uh—”
He doesn’t even know what to ask. How the hell is he supposed to get a summary of the last who-knows-how-many years? How does he ask Dick to make him feel less like a stranger in— his body, apparently? He wishes the Jason whose body he’s currently inhabiting had a manual or something, something with answers.
“When did I hit my growth spurt?” is all he thinks to ask, weak and shaped almost like a joke. He feels like it’s innocuous enough, probably the easiest question to answer, but Dick’s face just— falls. “Cause. I sure didn’t look like this, before. You know?”
“Band-aid or ease in?” Dick asks, but a lot quieter this time. What he’s about to say, Jason already knows it isn’t going to be the same level of seriousness as his current situation; it’s going to be worse. A lot worse.
And because Jason hasn’t learned his lesson, he anxiously says, “Band-aid, Dickie. Shit, just do it. Tell me.”
Dick opens his mouth, and then his gaze snaps to the door.
“He should hear it from me, Dick,” Bruce says, filling up the doorway, and Jason draws the comforter up to his chest as if it’ll protect him from what Bruce is about to say. The big guy looks even more worse for the wear than he had earlier, when Jason had first— shit, traumatized him, he guesses. He bets Bruce really didn’t have this on his bingo card, despite all the weird shit they go through.
Jason’s expecting pushback from Dick. Honestly, though Jason might never admit it to Dick’s face, Dick’s a much better communicator. Bruce comes off as elegantly loquacious when he’s in the right setting, but at home, as Batman, it’s basically just a crapshoot of trying to figure out the difference between twenty similarly-intonated hns.
But Dick doesn’t push back, not this time. He just slumps back against the chair wearily, burying his head into his hands.
“Okay,” he says in an unusually small voice. Bruce stands at the end of Jason’s bed, not sitting, just— looming.
He looks like an omen of death.
Which, in hindsight, is kind of ironic.
Bruce leaves pretty quickly after upending Jason's entire existence.
Jason numbly thinks this is probably for the best. He doesn’t know if he has it in him to— well— do anything, actually, least of all have a conversation. He doesn't know if Bruce actually said anything about leaving, either. He was just... There one minute, gone the next.
“I’ll give you some space too, if that’s what you need,” Dick says quietly, and Jason doesn’t trust himself to speak, doesn’t trust himself to breathe. Fuck, he barely trusts himself to even exist at this point. “I’m so sorry, Jason. I— I never thought we’d… I never thought you’d have to relive this, not ever.”
Jason nods. He feels like there’s an apple stuffed full of toothpicks in his throat. Every time he tries to speak, he thinks he tastes blood in his mouth. He wishes he could be the person he was twenty minutes ago, when his worst problem was that he might’ve been replaced, and not the person he is now, which is a boy who dies in a couple years at the hands of an evil clown with a crowbar.
He wonders what headspace he’d been in when he’d run off to find his mother. He wonders what he must have felt in those last moments with her, knowing she didn’t want him so badly, she didn’t want him so badly that she was willing to practically kill him for it.
Wouldn’t it have been kinder, he thinks to himself as he lowers his swimming eyes to his jacket, to just push me away? Pretend you never wanted anything to do with me? Wouldn’t that have been kinder?
Dick’s fingers rustle slightly through his messy hair, through the sharp white strands that hang in his eyes. When he leans in to press his chin against the top of Jason’s head, Jason doesn’t pull away. He’s afraid that if he moves, he’ll simply crumble.
“I wish it hadn’t ended like that,” Dick says. “More than anything, Jason, I wish your life hadn’t ended like that.”
Jason doesn’t know how to tell Dick how the betrayal of his own mother feels— how it twists and coils underneath his skin like living poison.
So he doesn’t tell him.
“Me too,” he says instead, and pulls back from Dick before he shambles apart. Dick squeezes his shoulder once and moves away; as soon as he does, Jason immediately misses how close he’d been. For a moment there, it had kind of felt as though Dick had been the only thing keeping him together.
Is this who I am? He thinks, pressing his chin further into his knees and wrapping his arms around them. Someone unworthy of affection?
Dick had always been the exception, but he isn’t really a good scale. He’d get along with a cactus if it were possible.
But…
“Dick,” he manages, his voice half-muffled into his jacket sleeves. “Why— um. Why does Tim not like me?”
He knows he sounds painfully juvenile when he says it, like a self-conscious child whining about not being liked; still, though, he’s afraid of the gaps. The big, empty chasms where he doesn’t know what happened to him— or what he did.
Dick’s expression twists, slightly. There’s a long, uneasy silence.
“....Jason, when—” Dick says haltingly, and then falters. “When you came back, you came back a little different, you know? There were a lot of complicated emotions because of your death, and … Complicated actions you took in reaction to those emotions.”
“You’re beating around the bush,” Jason says flatly. “Because I did something really bad, and you don’t think I can handle hearing it.”
Dick sighs. “No,” he says, after a beat, firmly. “No, I think you’re a kid who shouldn’t have to shoulder the responsibility and guilt of what your older self did. I don’t think that’s your responsibility. It wasn’t you who did it, after all, not exactly— and you aren’t the same person you became after your death. And…” He rubs the back of his neck wearily. “Tim’s in a difficult transition period right now, too. He’s dealing with things that aren’t really about you. Try not to take his behavior as an indictment of your character.”
Jason chews on the words mentally, his eyebrows knitting together as he peers at Dick above his sleeves. “Who is he, anyway? Another vigilante?”
Dick stares at him, long enough that it kind of feels like Jason’s being stared through instead of stared at.
“He’s Red Robin now,” Dick says eventually, “But before that, he was the third Robin. Your successor.”
It’s weird to think about having a successor when, mentally, Jason still feels like Robin. There’s been three since him, according to Dick— Tim, who was third, Stephanie, who was fourth (Dick mentions she’s abroad currently, with Cassandra Cain, another vigilante), and Damian, the fifth and current Robin… And Bruce’s son. Like, his actual son, and not just some kid he plucked up out of the street out of sheer adoptive instinct. Now that he knows, Jason kind of sees it in the kid.
There’s a sort of finality to it all that comes with that information. Like, who the hell do you pick to be Robin after that? Imagine being the literal son of Batman and then getting replaced by some kid off the street.
Jason twists over onto his back and stares at the ceiling.
But then, he thinks, maybe replacing the Robins is easy enough for Bruce.
The brief, sharp, red-hot burst of resentment that accompanies the thought honestly takes him by surprise.
He sits up, rubbing the heel of his palm against his chest as if that’ll somehow press the feeling out, and mostly feels miserable instead. So what if Bruce had found another Robin after him? It isn’t like he can’t have a companion if Jason dies. It’s not like Jason ever wanted him to be alone. Nobody should be alone. But—
But he also didn’t get rid of the Joker, either.
Everyone knows Bruce doesn’t kill. It’s like his whole thing. It’s what separates him from all those other vigilantes. Batman doesn’t kill. But there’s something that feels like— a wound that hasn’t happened yet, like Jason’s grieving for himself, in a way. Like he’s feeling sorry for the Jason whose body he’s occupying, the Jason who came back to life.
What must it have been like, he thinks, to come back and hurt like that?
Hot chocolate is like the only peace offering Jason can summon to mind right now.
And naturally, while he’s in the kitchen, he runs into Alfred.
It’s not— weird, to him at least, because even though he doesn’t really have much of a current working memory, he still feels like he was recently with Alfred. He usually is, given Alfred’s constant, almost omniscient presence in the Manor. Jason had hung out with him in some capacity pretty much every day, whether it was bothering him in the kitchen, badgering him with silly questions while Alfred cleaned, or explaining the plot of his current book to him during the drives to school.
But when Alfred walks in and sees him fiddling with a packet of hot cocoa powder, the look on his face reminds Jason of tragedy all over again.
“Master Jason,” Alfred says, like he’s not quite sure he knows which version of Jason he’s speaking to.
“Uh— Hiya, Alfie,” Jason says back, suddenly feeling a little timid. He doesn’t just feel young, now— he feels all of five years old, really, especially when Alfred moves in close to Jason to look right into his eyes. He really hopes that, in the future, when he takes complicated actions based on his complicated emotions, he doesn’t make Alfred upset. That would really suck. “I’m— I was just going to—” He gestures to the two mugs, and cringes when he notices how much of the cocoa powder he’s mistakenly spilled all over the countertop.
“Ah, I see,” Alfred says. “Hot chocolate. The ideal drink to feel most at home, isn’t it, Master Jason?” Jason shrugs, but nods. It’s just as bizarre to look into Alfred’s eyes as it had been to look into Bruce’s; being this tall, it’s honestly jarring. “Perhaps you’ll allow me to help you with this endeavor? It has been a long time, technically speaking— at least, on my end.”
His voice is reedy, just on the edge of outright emotional, and even though Jason doesn’t remember what it was like to miss Alfred, he can imagine what it would be like.
“Of course,” he says, and scoots over. “Jeez, Alfie, you don’t gotta— You don’t need to ask me that. It’s your kitchen.”
Alfred smiles, resting his hand briefly on Jason’s back before reaching up into the cabinet above their heads.
“Marshmallows, same place?” Jason asks as Alfred rests the bag on the counter.
“The very same,” Alfred says easily, and takes a box of instant coffee out of the cabinet as well. Jason watches quizzically as he adds a spoon of coffee to one of the mugs and stirs it neatly, but Alfred doesn’t say anything until he’s plopped a marshmallow on top and pushed it gently toward Jason.
“Master Timothy,” Alfred says, “Enjoys coffee in his hot chocolate.”
Jason purses his lips, swallowing almost audibly. “Right,” he says in a small voice, because he really doesn’t need to ask, and then clears his throat. “Isn’t it kind of late to be drinking coffee?”
Alfred snorts. It manages to be a dignified sound, somehow. “Believe me, dear boy, that is hardly an issue for him. I would wager that he plans to work quite late tonight.”
“Ah,” Jason says, and takes the mug. “Um…. Thank you, Alfie. And… I guess, wish me luck?” His voice tapers off into something small and uncertain at the end, but Alfred just pats his shoulder lightly. His hand looks so small and frail against Jason’s shoulder; Jason doesn’t think he’ll ever get used to it.
“Good luck, Master Jason,” Alfred says kindly. “And it’s a pleasure to have you back home, if only temporarily.”
Tim’s on his laptop in the Cave when Jason slinks downstairs quietly, but he can tell he notices him by the way his shoulders stiffen slightly. It’s kind of a given; they’re all Bats, after all, trained in the art of subtlety. Jason still hasn’t figured out this body of his, either— he’s not particularly graceful with it, definitely not enough to trick all of these people who have trained and fought much longer than he has. He doesn’t know how to be graceful in it. How does the Jason of the future leap and flip and fly?
Does he fly?
Honestly, he feels like if he even attempted a handstand or a flip right now, he’d slide headlong down the stairs and break every bone in his body, and the mugs.
Tim’s not in his costume anymore; he’s in sweats and a t-shirt, kind of crumpled up in his seat like a ball of aluminum foil. He’s sitting sort of weird, with one leg tucked all the way behind the back of the chair for some reason. It doesn’t look comfortable at all, but he doesn’t seem inconvenienced by it— at least, no more so than he normally seems.
He watches Jason practically unblinkingly, to the point where Jason feels vaguely like he’s a mouse being watched by an owl from afar; the weight of his gaze is oddly familiar, somehow, but impossible to read and piercing, and Jason’s glad when it shifts from him to the mug.
There’s a long silence. Jason kind of feels his skin shrinking with every second that it ticks by, especially with how intently Tim is analyzing him.
“So,” Jason says, because he is a fucking idiot and so nervous that he just blurts out the first thing on his mind. “Getting replaced, that sucks, huh?”
“What,” Tim says. The intensity abruptly melts away into pure shock.
“Yeah, and like— by the big guy’s kid, too,” Jason says, unsure if Tim’s shock is the kind of shock that’s going to get his ass kicked or the kind of shock where he’s so surprised that he just goes with it. “I mean, I guess that’s just how it goes.”
Tim blinks, which seems to shake him out of his stupor. His gaze flicks to his computer, and then back up to Jason.
“I don’t really want to talk about it,” Jason says. “And I get this feeling you really don’t want to talk about it either— or to me at all, but I dunno if it’s because of the replacing, or—” He stops, clears his throat. “Well, Dickie said, uh, that I did some complicated things when I came back, and I bet some of it totally pissed you the hell off, but that wasn’t me, me, you know. Me, I’m just— I didn’t even know you. I don’t even know you.”
“You did know me,” Tim mutters, but kind of to his computer screen more than Jason. It’s the first thing he’s said, but hell, Jason will take it. “I lived next door. We’ve met a handful of times at the charity galas Bruce put on.”
Jason narrows his eyes. Really looks at Tim. Tries to imagine him in a suit, with his hair combed down the way every kid’s hair gets combed down for galas, with too much gel.
“Holy shit,” he says, as realization hits him with all the grace of a car out of control. “Holy shit. You’re the neighbor kid. And now you’re here. Shit.”
For him, that was— a few days ago, probably, when he last saw the kid. There’s a world of difference between the Tim he knows and the Tim he’s sitting in front of now, but not all of it is lost. That same, slightly-alarmed, wide-eyed gaze with that perpetual, soul-searching sort of intensity. The same deliberate stillness, like Tim’s always in the mode of a camouflaged creature waiting for a predator to pass.
Or, Jason thinks, for prey to fall into his trap.
Tim’s expression relaxes, but very subtly. “That’s me,” he says flatly. “You never knew this version of me, though— only who I was when I was a child, before I was R—” He falters. “Before I was Robin.”
Right, Jason thinks.
“Well … I’m not him,” he says, quietly. “I don’t know what he knew, and I don’t really know why he did what he did.”
Yet, he thinks, and doesn’t know why it feels so ominous, like he’s counting himself down.
The bright light from the computer bathes most of Tim’s face as he stares down at the screen; in its glow, he looks almost like a specter of some sort.
“It’s tricky,” Tim says finally, after a pause that makes Jason’s teeth hurt. “It’s true you don’t know, but you’re still the kid that all of this stuff happens to. Who does all that stuff. You still become that person, maybe.” He rubs the inside of his wrist almost like it’s going to help him relax, but he doesn’t look much more relaxed. “But honestly, that happened a long time ago. I mean, we aren’t friends, I guess. But it’s fine. I don’t—”
He hesitates, but shrugs. “I don’t hate you.”
“So…” Jason says, pressing his fingers into the mug to try to absorb as much of its warmth as he can. “Why do you look so— I dunno, broody, then?”
Tim finally leans in to take a sip of hot cocoa, and its familiarity seems to surprise him.
“Alfred,” he says, and Jason doesn’t even really have to offer confirmation.
“If I’m going to do something, I might as well do it right,” Jason says lightly. “And that means doing it through Alfie.”
Tim nods, and traces the rim of the mug with one finger. He really enjoys his silences, Jason thinks. By this point, he’d be bouncing off the walls out of impatience. Bruce does this shit too, just goes silent for literally hours on end; sometimes he’ll be talking about a case and then just stop, only to finish puzzling it out in his head. Tim seems like he’d do the same thing.
“It’s weird to talk to you about it because you might remember,” Tim says eventually. “You might remember when you’re back to yourself, and I don’t — we don’t talk about stuff like that, you and me. Well. I guess everyone’s kind of bad at talking about stuff, but—”
(Jason thinks about how he’s not ready yet to turn back into this person that nobody seems to have a good relationship with, but pockets that crisis for later.)
“I probably won’t remember,” he says instead. “I mean, I don’t remember anything about him, so he probably won’t remember anything about me, either.”
“And,” Tim says, “it feels weird to talk about losing the Robin mantle to you, Jason.” He finally looks up from his mug, and his gaze is clear, almost liquid. “I replaced you. Damian replaced me. It feels like I should be moving on, moving past Robin, but I can’t let Robin go. It feels like I’m stuck in limbo, but like I put myself there. You wouldn’t understand, because you died.”
Jason startles at the bluntness, jerking back a little. Tim’s eyes widen.
“Sorry,” he says. “Sorry, that came out harsh. I just meant it in a— like, it’s a fact. You died, so you were forced to give it up. Nothing like that ever happened to me. I just … outgrew the mantle. I forced myself into it and now I’m— now I don’t fit anymore.” He looks down at his laced fingers, and sighs. “I don’t fit anymore. And everyone thinks I’m mad at Dick, which— I am hurt, and that’s going to take time to go away, but I guess— it’s really me I’m mad at, for not being able to let this go. Not being able to move on. Feeling like a child about it.”
There’s a moment of silence— heavy, contemplative. Jason can only take it for so long before he speaks.
“Dude,” Jason says, leaning back in his chair, “don’t you think you’re kinda fucking yourself over by calling yourself Red Robin then?”
Tim stares at him.
“I mean,” Jason continues hastily, “I know I just got here— technically —but I feel like that’s kinda just setting yourself up for disaster. Maybe a different name would’ve helped you, like, figure that out?” He scrubs the back of his head, and shrugs. “I mean, shit, maybe not. The name’s only part of it. But—”
He looks past Tim’s shoulder, at the now-empty glass case. A good soldier, that’s what the inscription had said. Jason wonders if they still felt that way when he came back. If Bruce had ever regretted that.
“I guess I’m still not ready to let it go,” Tim says quietly, turning slightly so he can follow Jason’s gaze. “I don’t know who I am without Robin.”
“You can die,” Jason suggests. “That helped me change my whole identity, apparently.”
He doesn’t know where it came from— maybe he has to joke about it or he’ll go crazy —but it actually elicits a short, sharp laugh out of Tim.
“I don’t think I need to go quite that far,” Tim says, and sighs. He’s starting to look a little broody again.
“So— um— me, in the future. I’m pretty violent, I guess?” Jason asks tentatively.
“You could say that.” The matter-of-fact way he talks, like he isn’t as concerned about sparing Jason’s emotions— Jason kind of appreciates it, in a way. He thinks it could probably get a little frustrating after a while, but… right now, it’s sort of welcome. “You came back and beat the shit out of me for replacing you.” he adds, so cavalier that Jason almost misses it. Like he’s talking about the damn weather.
“You— what?” Jason asks, startled. “I did that?” Now he’s kind of wondering if Tim shouldn’t be more mad at him.
“Sure did,” Tim says, and there’s almost this entertained gleam in his expression now. “It was kind of insane and really dramatic. Pathetically dramatic. You had like, remade the Robin costume— But with this physique, you know?”
Jason flushes, mortified and more than a little chagrined. Oh my god, he thinks, I would totally have clowned my older self. Am I actually super uncool?
“To be honest,” Tim continues archly, “You’ve fought most everyone here. You’re kind of a bastard. But it can be useful, you know? I mean, Dick and Bruce, their morals are pretty tight. Cass, too. She’s even more no-kill than Bruce is. But honestly, I’ve done some shit. I did some shit when looking for Bruce. So I guess I'm kind of a bastard too.” He shrugs. “If it’s going to serve us in the long run, it’s just a matter of cost and benefit for me.”
Jason just blinks at him. “So…. That’s why I have all those weapons? Because I’m a bastard that runs around killing people randomly?” He’s trying to sound cool and unaffected about it, but— he can tell by the way his voice goes small and uncertain that he’s not doing a good job. It’s enough that even Tim, who’s just been rattling off like a car engine, immediately backtracks.
“No, not randomly,” Tim says hastily. “You have a code and all for yourself, too. I mean, I don’t really know what it is, because you change your mind sometimes, but it’s not just indiscriminate or anything. I mean, you don’t just randomly kill whoever you see. That would be insane. And stupid. And also, Bruce would’ve thrown your ass in jail really fast.”
Jason slumps back miserably, not exactly reassured by Tim’s less-than-sparkling assessment. “I bet what I’m doing now isn’t exactly winning me any favorite kid prizes.”
“I think Dick’s pretty firmly in that position,” Tim says, so seriously that Jason can’t tell if he’s joking or not. He decides not to ask, mostly because he’s getting this feeling that Tim might actually pull out a pros and cons chart or something.
“...Why didn’t he?” Jason asks after a moment, blinking down at his hands. “Put me away, I mean. After I started killing people.”
This time, Tim goes silent for a lot longer than he had before. When Jason looks up at him, he’s lost in thought, like he’s remembering something. For some reason, this expression is much more disconcerting than Tim just staring blankly at him; Jason really doesn’t want to know what Tim is remembering.
“Well, I have theories,” Tim says, and traces the flowers on his mug. “Firstly, because you can get information in a way that he can’t. Secondly, because even though he doesn’t condone the killing, he won’t come for you unless you do something really insane. Thirdly, because even though you guys have your differences, he probably trusts you to get the job done most of the time. And fourthly….”
He stops.
“Yeah?” Jason coaxes, because he asked to hear this and thinks he kind of needs to hear it.
“... Fourthly, because you’re his kid,” Tim says finally, and shrugs. “And that just counts for more, sometimes.”
Jason’s sure there’s probably a rule out there that says something like, never look yourself up when you’re pseudo-time traveling because you’re going to be incredibly disappointed and possibly sad, but he does it anyway.
Bruce finds him holed up in his old room with one of the many laptops in the Cave, too-long legs dangling off the edge of the small bed. It used to be a bed too big for Jason, and now, the slightest wrong move from him could send the whole thing splintering apart into pieces.
“Find anything interesting?” Bruce asks, in the sort of way someone does when they’re trying to figure out if they’re going to get their head bitten off or not. Jason kind of wants to, but honestly, he’s so exhausted. He doesn’t know what the point would be. It’s clear that Bruce isn’t really over him dying yet; that had been obvious by the look on his face when he’d first realized how old Jason was.
“You all said I came back different,” Jason says, glad the pillow muffles the way his voice chokes slightly. “I thought I came back as a vigilante. But I came back as a crime lord.” He draws his shoulders back and sits up, pressing the laptop closer to his chest like a shield. “I was a hero. Robin. You know? And then you— I died. And then I came back and became a crime lord. The literal opposite of anything Robin was.”
By the look on Bruce’s face, it’s obvious he knows what Jason had been about to say when he’d stopped himself.
“It’s true,” Bruce says, and sits down in the chair next to Jason’s desk; it looks comically small under his bulk. “I let you die. I should have taken you with me— I should have done something. You were so— you are so headstrong. Once you get it in your head to do something, you can’t be dissuaded. That’s how you ended up in Ethiopia to begin with, looking for—” He stops, and Jason thinks, my mother, but neither of them say it. “Now, it’s been so many years, that all of the specifics just— don’t matter. You did what you did because you were a hero. Because you wanted to protect people.”
“Were,” Jason says, this close to a snap. All the stress and fear starts to press down on his brain, wringing him out; he can feel sharp heat prickle at his eyes relentlessly. “Were, past tense. But not anymore. Now I’m a crime lord and a killer because I came back wrong. Because I died and came back wrong.”
Bruce reaches out, like he wants to touch Jason. He doesn’t, though, and his arm just hovers between them in limbo, too far to be able to comfort.
“You didn’t come back wrong,” Bruce says, and lowers his arm. His fingers tighten into a fist against his thigh, so tight that his knuckles streak white. “You came back hurt. You came back wanting revenge. You came back to do what you thought I couldn’t.”
“Kill people,” Jason says, scrubbing at his watering eyes. “Kill the Joker.”
“Yes,” Bruce says, and sighs. “And part of that is always going to be my fault. Not just for leaving you unsupervised in the first place, but also for not knowing how to heal that hurt when you came back.”
Jason wants Bruce to hug him. He doesn’t want him to touch him. He wants him to cry. He wants him to tell Jason everything is going to be okay. He wants him to say, if you asked me, right now, I would go outside and kill the Joker. He doesn’t want him to say that, because who would Bruce be if he starts killing? What would happen if Bruce couldn’t stop, once he started? What would Gotham look like if he did?
Better, a voice says inside of him. It could be his own; Jason isn’t even sure anymore. No more Penguin. No more Bane. No more Joker.
Or worse, Jason thinks. Maybe it would be worse.
Maybe that’s what he needed to be, then, in the future. Maybe he needed to be the person who did pull the trigger, so Bruce didn’t have to. Or maybe, there is no real destiny or poetry to it; maybe, simply, the inclination was always in Jason to kill, and it just didn’t come out until after he died.
“You aren’t an inherently evil person, Jason,” Bruce says quietly. He scoots the chair a little closer, in a way that would’ve been comical if Jason hadn’t been on the verge of a breakdown. “You’re stubborn, and different, but you aren’t inherently evil. Remember, you still work with us. You’re still part of the team, when you want to be.”
“Bad people can do good things sometimes, B.”
Bruce cuts a sideways glance at him. “The inverse is true as well, Jason,” he says, and when he reaches out this time, he does rest a hand on Jason’s shoulder. Jason just about stops himself from flinching away— not because he’s scared, exactly, but— “Nobody would ever accuse me of being good at this kind of thing. Dick has always been— much better, obviously. But there were things I wanted to tell you then, that I couldn’t… that I can’t, anymore, after everything. And … now, it’s useless, because when you change back— this all would have already happened.”
“Do you want me to change back?” Jason blurts out. He doesn’t know where it comes from, but he regrets it the moment it’s out there; Bruce’s face shutters closed completely, as if he’s been memory-wiped or some shit. “Or— you don’t have to answer that, I guess.”
“If I could— do things over, in a different way,” Bruce says woodenly, “you would never have died, Jason.”
It’s not exactly an answer, but it’s what Jason gets, and it’s what he has to live with.
A sharp, purposeful rap at the door draws their attention. In the doorway is Damian, looking as dignified as ever despite the presence of a large, fluffy cat tucked into his arm.
“Father,” he says, and then glances at Jason. “Todd.”
For some reason, Jason gets the impression that Damian is deeply unimpressed by him. Which— Jason kind of gets, because all he’s done since he got mentally younger is fumble around in confusion. But also, Jason’s got like five years on the kid, if he had to guess; no one wants to be dunked on by a pipsqueak, but Jason’s got literally no leverage, so he lets it go.
He wonders why Damian addresses them all by their last names. Who’s his mother?
…Actually, Jason thinks, never mind. If he thinks about Damian’s mother, he has to think about Bruce actually having sex with someone, and that’s gross.
“Damian,” Bruce responds, still watching Jason carefully.
“Alfred has a lump,” Damian declares. “Surely, Todd’s crisis can wait until I am able to get it checked?”
Jason sits up, practically tossing the computer onto the nightstand. “Alfred has a lump? What, like— Like the kind that could be cancerous? Why didn’t he say anything?”
Bruce gives him a long, tired look. “Alfred is the cat.”
Jason stares at him blankly, his brain buffering for a moment as he looks from Bruce to Damian to the cat in his arms, who ekes out a very discontented little yowl. Now that Jason’s looking, the cat also kind of seems like he’s judging him.
“You… Named the cat. Alfred,” Jason says, slowly, because he doesn’t understand. Aren’t there plenty of Robins roaming around already? Why the hell do they need to have multiple Alfreds, too? Just to confuse the shit out of all of them?
Damian bristles. Jason thinks the cat bristles too, but he can’t be positive. “Yes, Todd, what of it? I’m sure you can understand the urgency of the present situation despite your age. You, after all, are stuck until Drake and Grayson manage to triangulate the position of the magician. I hardly doubt you are particularly constrained by time.” He draws the cat up higher into his arms. “Or by anything else, for that matter.”
Jason blinks, hung up on the first part of what Damian had said. “How are they going to do that?” he asks. “And also, what do you mean, my age? You’re younger than I am.”
Damian gives him a withering look. It’s so withering that for a moment Jason actually wonders if Damian might be a 30 year old in a child’s body or something and nobody ever mentioned it.
“They wrote a program,” Bruce cuts in with a sigh, crossing his arms. “It calculates concentrations of magical energy in the air, and then they extrapolate potential future targets from those calculations.”
“Uh— Wow. Huh,” Jason says, sort of at a loss of words. He didn’t even know you could do that. “We sure did a hell of a lot more fieldwork for shi— er, stuff like that, huh, B?”
Bruce smiles briefly at him, weary but genuine. “It was a different time, Jason. You’ll catch up… Or, you did catch up,” he corrects. “It saves us a lot of time, doing things like that.”
Jason shrugs. He can’t imagine being smart enough to do any of that. And right now, he’s mostly feeling pretty displaced again.
“Um— You can take care of the cat— Alfred, if you need to,” he says, trying not to create an issue where there isn’t one yet. “The kid’s right. I’m not going anywhere.”
“I am no kid, Todd,” Damian says reproachfully. “However, I must say your assessment of the situation is already much more preferable to your older version’s.”
“Oh no.” Jason looks back at Bruce in horror, his chest tightening. “Don’t tell me that he— that I hate animals, too. Dying didn’t make me hate animals, right? B, it didn’t, right?”
Bruce sighs, pinching the bridge of his nose. “Jason, you don’t hate animals. It’s just that— you, the you of the future, tended to think Damian could…” He pauses, apparently trying to be tasteful with his next words, “... Exaggerate about the health of his pets, sometimes.”
"Foolish," is all Damian has to say on the matter.
Honestly, Jason’s mostly just relieved he’s not even more of a terrible person, on top of all the other things. He’d seen a lot of shit when he’d looked himself up; people discussing hostile takeovers, mass decapitation (Jason still has no idea what that was about), and … drug deals? Jason’s not convinced of that last one, but people on conspiracy forums about him sure have a lot to say. Jason’s not sure how much of what they say is true, to be honest.
It has him thinking— is he violent now?
Does Bruce think he’s violent?
Irredeemable?
Maybe he was going to take Robin away from Jason, anyway. Maybe it was only a matter of time.
Jason knows he’s gotten the lecture a handful of times — you’re being too rough, you need to leave that kind of force to the police, you need to calm down — but… a few days ago, Jason wouldn’t have thought of himself as this bloodthirsty, uncontrollable, violent crime lord. He wouldn’t have thought he could ever do that.
Maybe, now that he knows, he could try again, he could—
But.
But…
But this isn’t his body. It’s borrowed, even if it’s himself he’s borrowing from. Even if— it’s unfair, that now, he has to die— again, just to give his body back to someone he doesn’t even know, someone he doesn’t even relate to.
(Or maybe, that same voice says, you just don’t relate to me yet. But you would, if you knew. You would.)
“Damian,” Bruce is saying when Jason tunes back in, “I’ll go get ready. Before we leave, I’ll need you to check in with Alfred, about— Alfred,” he says. “See what he thinks.”
Damian’s withering expression shifts from Jason to Bruce’s back, and then back to Jason. It very clearly says, I already asked, because I know exactly what I’m doing, thank you very much. He doesn’t immediately leave after his father, though, and instead stands there and examines Jason.
Much like Tim, Damian doesn’t exactly initiate conversation with Jason; Jason’s kind of getting used to it, though. Not everyone is like Dick, after all.
“So, uh— You’re Robin, now,” he says tentatively; as he says it, he feels Damian’s catlike gaze flick back up to his face. “Do you… Enjoy it?”
Damian scoffs. “It is my duty as my Father’s son, and I uphold it. One day, I will take over my Father’s mantle as well. I was trained for this from birth in the League of Assassins, Todd. Our experiences as Robin are incomparable.”
Damian kind of sounds like he’s insulting him, but— Jason honestly can’t tell.
“I mean— Don’t you ever have fun? When you feel the wind in your cape, or… Or when you…” Jason shrugs, tilting his head back. It gets tiring, having to look down at everyone all the time. “I don’t know. Isn’t it ever more than a duty? I wanted to go patrol because I liked it. I liked catching bad guys. I wanted to—” He stops, mostly because he realizes he sounds a little too wistful, too longing. And that’s… dangerous. “Yeah.”
Damian studies him for a long moment, analytical, as if he thinks Jason’s trying to trick information out of him or something. Eventually, though, he seems to decide this isn’t some twisted form of reconnaissance.
“Sometimes, with Grayson.” Damian says, haltingly. “He can be ridiculous,” he adds quickly, more like he’s trying to convince himself rather than Jason, “but he insists on showing me— normal childhood things, he says.”
“Huh,” Jason says. Actually, he keeps forgetting— Dickie’s a whole adult adult, now. Someone who’s been around the track a few times, someone who knows, by now, what he’s doing. He wonders … Maybe, if he and Dick had gotten to know each other more… Maybe, if Jason hadn’t been first, while Dick was still going through it…
Maybe…
As he watches Damian turn on his heel primly and leave the room, he wonders if having Dick may save his life, one day.
He doesn’t realize he’s dozed off until he wakes up, disoriented and sluggish, still in his old, too-small bed.
It’s dark inside the room; outside there’s a soft glow that seeps through the crack beneath the door. It’s late, Jason realizes as he glances at the clock.
He carefully slides off the bed, reaches for the blanket to wrap it around himself.
(It only falls to his chest, so Jason leaves it in the room.)
(He misses being small.)
He makes his way downstairs, but he still doesn’t see anyone— well, except for Alfred the cat, who crosses his path in the kitchen.
“Good to see you’re alright, then,” Jason tells him. Alfred just blinks at him sleepily, stretching out across the tile before strutting off with his head held suspiciously like his little master’s.
Following the hunch that the rest of them must be in the Cave, Jason makes his way to the entrance and starts down the stairs— only to hear shouting the second he crosses the threshold.
“It’s wrong, Bruce, that’s the issue! What about Jason? The other Jason? You can’t seriously be suggesting that—”
Dick.
Jason swallows, suddenly frozen in place, afraid to take even one further step. He doesn’t hear Bruce’s response— it’s too low, too soft a rumble —but he does hear Tim, whose sharp voice bounces along the walls harshly.
“You don’t know where he really is. What if he’s caught in limbo somewhere, still alive? What if he swapped places with this Jason?”
Half-slumped against the rocky walls lining the stairs, Jason rubs at his chest shakily. Actually, he hadn’t thought of that; somewhere out there, is there a Jason, older and harsher and angrier, trapped in his body?
Does he wish he could stay there?
“Perhaps this works.” Damian, now. “Todd — the older one — gets another chance to live as a child, knowing this time not to run off to his death, and Todd, the younger one, gets to —”
“What,” Tim interrupts, and Jason can almost see his eyes narrowing. “Live in the body of an adult, displaced from his time and struggling to adjust to our Jason’s reputation?”
“Listen,” Dick says. Jason makes his way a little further down, and now he’s able to actually see Dick— or at least his back. He’s facing Bruce, who’s leaning against the desk. His expression gives away exactly nothing to Jason as usual. “Please, just— everyone stop. We shouldn’t even be considering any of this, at least without Jason."
“Well, that shouldn’t be an issue,” Damian says dryly, and his gaze snaps to Jason’s with an almost terrifying alacrity. “Seeing as he’s here.”
Caught out, Jason tentatively trudges down the rest of the stairs to stand in front of them; right about now, he’s really wishing that he had actually brought his childhood blanket, even if it had been too small— if for nothing else than just because he’s never felt so unmoored.
“Jason,” Dick starts, already sounding apologetic; that’s never a good sign.
But Jason’s question isn’t for Dick.
“You think you can save me,” he says to Bruce, whose jaw clenches. Without his cowl, his mask, Jason can convince himself Bruce is just a man, a man who is fallible. A man who, once, didn’t arrive just in the nick of time to save Jason. A man who didn’t know how to reconcile with the Jason who came afterwards— older, harsher, angrier. “Because— it hasn’t happened to me yet. Right?”
Bruce’s shoulders tighten. “It would— be your decision, ultimately,” he says, a little stilted. “I know you’re displaced, out of your time, but I could— I could maybe give you back some of what was taken from you, when you died.”
Jason nods. “What about him?” he asks quietly. Dick looks stricken. Tim isn’t looking at Jason at all; he’s looking at the computer instead, jaw clenched and hands folded into loose fists against the desk. “‘Cause the way I see it. Isn’t that just kinda erasing him?”
Maybe that would be for the best, he thinks, and feels like he’s betraying himself. Maybe then I wouldn’t kill anyone, or—
“Yes,” Tim says, and Jason snaps his head up to look at him. “Yes, it would be. Well, or maybe not, but we don’t know that for sure. We could be erasing him. After everything that’s happened,” he says, now directing his words at Bruce, “we can’t just blip him out of existence and hope we can start over.”
“I know you want to give him another chance,” Dick says to Bruce, in that way he speaks to him— forgiving, firm. “But we have Jason. We owe it to him to bring him back.”
“I know,” Bruce says, his tone grim. “My intention was never to erase our Jason. Just to…” He pauses, and scrubs a hand through his hair. As it falls messily back into place, Jason sees so much silver.
Jason wraps himself into his arms. “Will it be like dying again,” he asks quietly, staring at the ground until everything starts to blur. “Because— I haven’t died yet, right, and. I’d really like not to. If I can avoid it.”
Dick exhales. Bruce kind of looks like—
Well. Jason doesn’t know how to describe this expression. It’d kind of be like if—
Maybe if my mother had looked at me like that, he thinks, then she never would have betrayed me.
“If this plays out as I expect it,” Dick says, “Older you will have remembered being you, but you’ll just age back up. You won’t die— not really. You’ll just become a part of his memory.”
“Aging up,” Jason says, and his voice breaks a little. “That’s not so bad.”
“No,” Dick says gently. “It’s not.”
“Are you sure, Jason?” Bruce asks, and there’s something there, something that feels an awful lot like hope. Jason doesn’t want Bruce’s hope. Jason doesn’t want Bruce’s hope because then he’ll have hope. And hope, that’s a dangerous thing. If Jason starts to hope, he’ll picture an entire life where he catches up with being Dick’s younger brother, where he has more hot chocolate in the Cave with Tim, where he drives Damian to the vet for Alfred (the cat), where he pesters Alfred (the human) while Alfred makes possibly the worst waffles known to mankind. Where Bruce makes space for another once-been-Robin.
“I’m sure,” he says, and stops hoping, because there’s an entire lifetime between himself and these people. They’re not his family— not really. His family is lost to the past.
So this is the right thing to do.
But, he thinks, it really, really sucks.
“Master Jason.”
Jason turns to see Alfred making his way down the stairs and into the Cave; clearly, he’d been a lot more stealthy than Jason had, because Jason hadn’t even heard him. When he gets close, he reaches out a gloved hand to fold something into Jason’s palm.
“When you are back to your age,” Alfred says, “I hope you will not forget that it’s perfectly alright to come home sometimes.”
Jason squeezes his fingers closed and slips his hand into his pocket.
“I’ll try, Alfie,” he says, because he doesn’t want to make promises. Then, he dares to look at Bruce again. “I’m ready to go when you guys are.”
Bruce presses his lips together, and his knuckles loosen where he has them pressed against his chin.
“Alright,” he says.
The others, they don’t say good-bye. Not exactly. They don’t say they’ll miss him, either, probably because it’s still going to be him. But still, there’s just sort of— this moment of quiet understanding.
Jason wouldn’t call it nice, exactly.
But also, it isn’t the worst thing in the world.
There’s a thump against his safehouse balcony, and a soft flutter.
“Hood,” Tim says by way of greeting.
“You scared off my birds, Red.” Jason says, stepping out through the glass door and onto the balcony. “Fuck you.”
Tim acts like he hasn’t said anything at all, which is just classic him. “We got a tip about a territory grab that might end up on your doorstep,” he says vaguely.
Jason waits for him to elaborate, and he just doesn’t. He stays perched on the railing, watching Jason like a government drone in the shape of a bird-boy.
“You got any details as a side for that nothing burger?” he coaxes, annoyed, and Tim just tilts his head.
“Aren’t you going to invite me in to talk about it?”
“Invite you i—” Jason stops.
Well—
He could.
“Fuck, whatever,” he says, and tromps back inside. Tim follows, a lot lighter on his feet— enough that Jason turns at least once to make sure he’s still there. “So now what? What’s this territory dispute about?”
“Aren’t you going to offer me a drink?” Tim asks blandly, and fuck, he must just be messing with Jason at this point. Damn domino mask, he can’t figure out what this kid is thinking at all.
“What is this?” Jason asks suspiciously.
“What’s what?”
“This,” Jason repeats, waving an incredulous hand around his safehouse. Despite himself, he still stomps toward the cabinets to get a mug out. “What, are we hanging out? Is this because of what happened a couple weeks ago?”
“Why?” Tim’s gaze locks onto his with all the intent of a homing pigeon with a vendetta. “Do you remember what happened?”
The truth is, Jason does remember. He actually remembers all of it. But he also doesn’t think he particularly gains anything from what Tim had told him in pseudo-confidence. Fuck, he wishes he could forget, sometimes; that had been harrowing to say the least. He still doesn’t know how to react to whatever Bruce had done at the end there, but fuck, his family is so— complicated. He doesn’t always want to figure everything out. Sometimes, it's honestly better to just leave everyone to their thoughts.
What he does know is that— for how they’ve been trained, they’re fucking sentimental. Dick’s hovering a little more, Bruce is brooding, Damian’s — well, being Damian, but Jason would only be concerned if he was acting differently.
And Tim… He’s doing whatever the fuck this is. Drop-ins with little bits of case information, like Jason’s a rat that needs to be coaxed through a maze with tiny pieces of cheese.
(Still, Jason thinks. It’s not the worst method he’s ever seen.)
“Nice try, ace detective,” he says flatly, and shoves the warm mug toward Tim. Maybe it’ll bite him in the ass later, not telling Tim he remembers all those Robin-related woes that Tim had shared. Who knows. For now, the memories — and that kid, himself — are Jason’s and Jason’s alone.
Tim takes a sip. Deliberates.
“Instant coffee,” he says thoughtfully.
(Well, maybe Jason isn’t trying too hard.)
“Yeah, well,” Jason says. In his pocket, he rubs the edge of a hot chocolate powder packet between his thumb and forefinger.
“I think I’m ready to talk about the case now,” Tim says.
Jason exhales, nods. He thinks, in this light, that Tim could almost be smiling.
Maybe just a little bit.
“Yeah,” he says, and leans back into his chair. “Tell me about these bastards on my lawn.”