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It starts at sunset, when Tim is getting ready to head over to Wayne Manor for Robin training with Bruce. At first, there’s nothing unordinary about the specks of dust weaving through the fading orange sunbeams, they’re just pretty flecks on the wind. The sort of thing that would make a beautiful photograph. It’s the only reason he even takes the time to look at them.
And then he notices.
The flecks of dust are moving against the wind.
Tim has always been a curious boy. Too curious by far, for his own good. He follows.
The dust is moving towards the Wayne Estate. Tim gathers his training gear into his gym bag and follows the hint of movement in the air, the sense of not quite right-ness that is more accurate than his eyes for spotting the slow and steady flow of microscopic specs of light in sunbeams. It's a feeling more than anything, something so subtle, an itch in his subconscious that Bruce has been teaching him for months how to hone into a detective’s instinct. Tim is a natural. It’s why he’s going to be Robin, after all.
He scales the stone wall that separates the Drake and Wayne estates and pauses to tap once more into that sense of direction, spotting the out-of-place glint in a fading sunbeam that shows him the path.
The dust in the air is thicker here. The sunlight is fading fast. Soon, he can see the swirling motes even under the shadowy canopy of the woods that ring the grounds for privacy. It leads him to a clear space between trees, a stone bench, clearly only recently installed. It’s still clean.
Here, the dust swirls like a slow-motion hurricane, like water going down the drain, drawing the eye down to it.
To him.
There’s something that was once a boy - or perhaps something that soon will be a boy - lying on the ground. Skin slowly crawls over exposed ribs that only partially cover a frantic, beating heart.
The thing that should be a corpse doesn’t move, and for a long, long, minute, Tim stands as still as the dead, frozen in breathless horror. He stares long enough to see the thing is growing incrementally, that the dust gathering in the air is coalescing into something nauseatingly human. He watches dust become bone, become sinew, a finger nail, scar tissue, even the dark fabric of a funerary suit. A cremation in reverse.
Like a phoenix, Tim thinks, distantly.
The eyes are wide and a glassy blue, but there's a hint of impossible awareness. All at once, Tim’s heart beats again, adrenaline shaking the ice from his limbs. There's enough of a face for him to recognise the boy being slowly put together, piece by atomic piece. The boy still doesn’t move, but his eyes meet Tim’s and they’re screaming.
Tim drops his gym bag and rushes forward. He nearly steps in Jason’s small intestines slowly un-burning into existence, and quickly darts to the side to avoid any accidents.
Jason only has one hand. It’s remarkably whole. Tim kneels in the dirt and dust and pine needles and clutches onto it, watching silently as a boy comes back to life.
It takes a long time for Jason to reform. Tim keeps his eyes on Jason’s fully-formed face and squeezes his hand. He doesn’t usually like eye-contact, but he can’t look away from Jason’s silent plea. Tim startles from his almost meditative state when Jason blinks, then closes his eyes and a single tear streaks from his eyes into his mostly-regrown hair.
‘Jason?’ Tim whispers, barely louder than a breath.
Jason answers in a wet, wordless sob. It would have been less gut-wrenching if he’d screamed.
‘Jason!’ Tim says louder when Jason doesn’t immediately open his eyes again.
With his eyes closed, he looks too much like a corpse, barely breathing as he is. Jason’s eyes flutter open again. He’s got eyelashes now. Tim doesn’t think Jason had eyelashes when Tim had found him.
Jason’s eyes find Tim’s again, more aware now than before. ‘Hhhh...’ it’s more breath than word, but Tim’s heart leaps - the boy is alive, or something close to it.
‘I-I’m here, Jason,’ Tim says, for lack of anything better. Once he starts, it feels wrong to stop. ‘I’m here and I’m not going anywhere, okay? My name is Tim. I live next door. You- you are Jason, right? Jason Todd? I’ve seen you around a few times. You’re Bruce’s kid-’
At the name, the hand in Tim’s suddenly grips like a vice. Tim flinches back violently and shrieks. Jason slams his eyes shut and another tear spills down his face.
‘Sorry!’ Tim says, frantically. ‘Sorry, I didn’t mean to hurt you, you just scared me. Jason? Jason!’
A gurgle from Jason’s throat becomes a word, ‘Hhhhhurtsss...’
‘I know,’ Tim says. ‘I’m sorry, I wish I could help.’
Jason’s chest heaves with effort to get out his next word. ‘Bruce?’
Of course, Tim thinks. Jason is Bruce’s son, the whole reason Tim became Robin in the first place. Of course, Jason wants his dad. He starts flexing his toes in his shoes to return feeling to them, ready to leap up and run for help. He should have done that right away, shouldn’t he? Of course, Jason would have wanted his dad here as soon as possible, or maybe Alfred? He can’t call for anyone here, his comm is with his Robin gear in the Batcave.
‘I- I could go get him?’ Tim suggests, moving to stand. ‘We’re on Wayne Manor grounds. He’s getting ready for patrol, I could run to the house-’
Jason grips his forearm with more strength than he’s possessed before, but Tim is more prepared this time and lands on his knees without toppling over. ‘Please-’ Jason chokes. ‘Don’t-’
Tim shakes his head, confused. ‘You don’t want me to get him?’
Jason manages the minutest, barely perceptible shake of his head. ‘Alone,’ he shudders out.
Tim glances down at the rest of the boy’s body. The sun has set, casting the whole scene in shadow. His guts have all disappeared behind skin now, and there’s barely any bone visible in his legs. Tim’s mind races.
‘Um, okay,’ he says. ‘I-I won’t leave you alone. I’ll stay. I tripped the motion sensors when I climbed the wall - Bruce usually knows when I’m coming, so he’ll probably have noticed by now that I haven’t reported in. He’ll come looking.’
Jason lets out another wordless sob, his whole upper body shaking with the force of it.
‘Bruce will- Bruce will come,’ Tim promises again. ‘He always comes. He always-’
And all at once, Tim remembers he’s talking to a dead boy.
‘Okay,’ Tim says, partially to himself, to fill the silence. ‘Do you- I know everything hurts right now, but can you, um, how much can you move? You’re almost- you’re almost healed- uh, whole? As soon as you can move, we can- we can walk to the Manor together. I’ll help you.’
Jason nods, a stronger movement than anything he’s managed so far.
‘Good,’ Tim says. ‘Can you move your toes?’
Jason and Tim both look down towards Jason’s feet. Under one partially reconstituted leather shoe, Jason’s big toe wiggles.
Tim smiles, the way he’s seen paramedics smile at a patient at a crime scene. ‘That’s great!’ He mimics. ‘You’re doing great!’
Jason lurches and Tim rocks with the movement. ‘Woah!’ Tim says. ‘Go slow, okay?’
Jason’s eyes unfocus and slowly refocus again. Tim watches as he gains his equilibrium, a determined expression Tim has never seen without the Robin mask on crossing his features.
‘Let me help,’ Tim says and places his free hand on Jason’s bicep, ready to help haul him into a sitting position. ‘Don’t rush it.’
Jason growls, in a startlingly familiar, bat-like sound, and something in Tim thrills.
The air is clear, the sky dark.
‘Wait a sec,’ Tim says and rummages through his gym bag for a flashlight.
He always carries one in case he has to walk back home in the dark. He hasn’t needed it until tonight. He flicks it on and lays it on the ground.
‘Ready to sit up?’ he asks. Jason nods. ‘Okay then,’ Tim says. ‘On three. One, two, three!’
Together, Tim and Jason manage to haul the undead boy into a sitting position. Jason sways at the sudden change and slumps sideways into Tim’s shoulder, but Tim’s ready to catch him.
‘I got you!’ Tim says.
He waits for Jason to take his own weight. Kneeling like this, Tim realises suddenly that Jason is a little taller than him.
‘Thanks,’ Jason rasps.
Tim nods. ‘You okay?’
Jason clears his throat. ‘Think so.’
Tim scans down Jason’s body with the flashlight - no holes, no missing pieces or exposed flesh. Not a stitch missing from his suit.
‘How do you feel?’ he asks.
Jason groans. ‘Bad.’
‘You sure you don’t want me to go find Bruce and bring him here?’ Tim checks.
Jason’s eyes go wide at the thought, and he lunges for Tim. ‘No! Please!’
Tim shrinks back involuntarily. ‘Okay! We’ll walk to the manor together. Can you stand?’
Jason thinks. Jason nods. ‘Let’s go. Please.’
‘Okay,’ Tim says. ‘We’ll go slowly, though.’
He picks up the flashlight and stands. A flash of panic shoots through Jason’s body. ‘I can pull you up, but I don’t think I could lift you from a kneeling position.’
He’s only thirteen. Jason’s fifteen. It’s not much of an age difference in the grand scheme of things, and Jason isn’t a big guy, but he’s still a lot bigger than Tim.
Tim puts the flashlight in his mouth and holds out his hands. Jason takes each of Tim’s hands in his own. They lock eyes. Tim bobs his head in lieu of a verbal countdown.
One, two, three.
On the third bob, Tim pulls, and Jason rises with a disturbingly zombie-like groan of effort. Tim almost stumbles under his weight, nearly sending them both crashing to the ground again, but manages to catch them just in time. Jason is almost hugging him. He doesn’t smell dead. Tim can feel his chest heaving with each impossible breath.
‘Bruce,’ Jason says.
They stumble over the uneven ground until they reach the lawns. Tim pauses to free one of his hands, hefts Jason, drooping and leaning heavily on his shoulder, more securely into a one-armed hold. He takes the flashlight out of his mouth with his free hand and yells as loudly as he can, ‘BRUCE! ALFRED!’
Jason doesn’t yell. He’s getting heavier. Together they stumble forward a few more steps and Tim keeps calling. They’re almost in the light of the Manor’s window’s when they hear Alfred’s voice.
‘Master Bruce! He’s over here!’
‘Tim!’ Bruce’s voice shouts.
Jason full-body flinches and Tim can’t stop it this time as they tumble over into the soft, dewy grass of the lawn. ‘Bruce!’ Tim screams as they go down. He tries to keep his weight off of Jason, unprepared to trust the structural integrity of an impossibility, and ends up half wedged under Jason instead.
More shouting. A pair of flashlights briefly find his eyes and Tim slams them shut.
‘Hey!’ Bruce roars. ‘Get off my-’
Jason groans and rolls off Tim and everything goes silent.
Tim sits up, heaving for breath. ‘It’s- I found-’
‘Jay?’ Bruce breathes.
Alfred crumples like paper.
‘It’s Jason,’ Tim says, rushing to explain. ‘I found him on my way over. He was- he just appeared! Down in the woods by the property line.’
‘“Appeared”?’ Bruce echoes. He’s statue-still, silhouetted against the lights coming through the Manor windows, a dark, brutalist shadow.
‘Yeah,’ Tim says. ‘Bit-by-bit, like- a- a puzzle or a- a star forming from a nebula. It took hours. I wanted to find you, but I couldn’t leave him-’
‘Jay,’ Bruce chokes, clearly no longer listening, and the shadow tumbles forward. Tim glimpses his mentor’s face, suddenly up close as he pulls Jason into his arms. The weak moonlight reflects the tear tracks on his cheeks.
‘Dad...’ Jason wheezes, muffled in the fabric of Bruce’s jacket.
‘My boy,’ Bruce rumbles, rocking them back and forth.
Tim watches the scene with something constricting his chest. He shifts back a little and hugs his knees.
Behind Bruce, Alfred collects himself and approaches father and son. ‘Oh, my boy,’ he whispers.
He rests a hand on Jason’s shoulder and the undead boy looks up. ‘Alfie,’ he murmurs, voice thick.
Alfred steps close and presses Jason’s head into his stomach, holding him and Bruce in place with one hand. ‘It’s a miracle,’ he says.
‘Didn’t look like a miracle,’ Tim mutters.
That seems to snap Bruce out whatever shocked stupor he’d been in. He pulls just far enough away from Jason to say, ‘Let’s get you inside.’
Bruce stands and lifts Jason in an effortless bridal carry. Alfred follows barely a step behind.
Tim watches them walk back towards the manor, something - a sob, or a scream - building in his chest.